One of the most interesting innovations for the mage in wrath of the lich king is the new spell frostfire bolt. Even though the name of the spell may confuse some players, the advantage of the spell becomes obvious very quickly: In the past mages have always had their problems against enemies immune to the element of choice of the mage. The frostfire bolt, however, does the damage against which the enemy has no resistance. That way mages no longer need to worry about immunities against fire or cold. And as icing for the cake, the spell can be buffed via skills from the frost tree as well as via skills from the fire tree. In this regard, the spells that increase the critical hit chance are of the highest interest: A frostfire bolt that hits home as a critical will do well over 300% damage, which is considerably more than the 200% damage caused by normal crits.

Apart from that, a WoW frostfire mage will specialize in the fire tree just like a fire mage. That way he can make use of the living bomb and fire his instant pyroblasts whenever he hit critically twice in a row with one of his other attack spells. Because of the big bonus to the spell's critical rating, gear with a plus to critical strike rating is most important to mages, only second to spellpower.