Sno’s Rogue Frost Resist Guide – Phase 6 (Naxxramas / Sapphiron)

Support Classic roguecraft: Want more guides? I add an extra rogue video guide for my twitch subscribers once per week! Subscribe at twitch.tv/snomie, help support all of my free content and you’ll get yourself extra rogue guides every week in our bonus discord sub channel <3

It’s time to start getting our frost resist gear for Naxxramas and the Sapphiron fight in particular, so let’s cover what you need to get.

Here’s the video version of this frost resist guide:

Why do I need frost resistance in phase 6?

You mainly need frost resistance because of the Sapphiron boss fight in Naxxramas. Sapphiron does a whole bunch of painful frost attacks including:

  • 600 frost damage aoe aura every 1 second
  • 3k-4k damage blizzard aoe
  • 2600-3400 damage ice bolts

Basically this fight can be pretty rough for healing without proper frost resist, especially during progression when everyone is still getting comfortable with the encounter.

How much frost resist do I need?

This depends on your raid comp, but for an average guild doing progression raiding, I’d assume 200-240 unbuffed frost resist would be fairly typical.

Keep in mind you can stack up a lot of extra frost resist from buffs:

  • 60 frost resist from pally aura/shaman totem (fyi this does not stack with motw or magic resistance potion)
  • 15 frost resist from Juju Chill
  • 10 frost resist from Crystal Basilisk Spine (mob drop in STV – 1 min duration/2 min cooldown though)
  • 15 frost resist from Bloodkelp Elixir of Resistance (if you picked this one time potion reward when doing your darkmantle quests)

This means at 230 to 240 frost resist you can hit the 315 resist cap with just frost resist buffs (+75 frost resist with just the first 2 buffs listed above or +65 if you have to use magic resistance potion due to no shaman/pally).

Just be aware that on your early clears you won’t have the ‘frozen rune’ pieces from Naxxramas in order to make your full crafted frost resist set. You may need some temporary non-crafted pieces initially if you intend to go for high frost resist at P6 start.

It’s also possible to get some extra healing to offset the frost damage via the Darkmoon Card: Heroism trinket which procs at a fairly high rate (2 ppm base proc rate).

There’s also going to be plenty of people double stacking up Greater Frost Protection Potions with Ice Deflectors to try survive with less frost resist (or just for safety).

Ice Deflector can be made by engineers and used by anyone. They do not seem to share a CD with other pots so you could potentially stack ice deflector with greater frost protection potions during early clears for extra survivability.

Part 1 – Gear: What frost resist gear should I get?

There’s a few options you can pick depending on your guild and how early it is in p6 + your preference. Here are a few options:

Option 1: Mixed bis resist/crafted frost resist gear (mid/late P6)

This set is great, but not possible on day 1 due to limited availability of frozen runes. The good news is once you do have the frozen runes, this set is easy to put together and you don’t actually need every single piece because crafted pieces give a massive amount of frost resist for each item.

Reaching 240 frost resist already puts you at the 315 cap with typical buffs so mix and match based on which pieces you have.

Option 2: Pre-p6 early clear frost resist gear

Tip: For an easy to get pre-bis set I’d go with bloodfang hood + frostsaber/brightcloth set + 2 green rings + icy cloak (with enchant) + 2x engy reflectors + frostbite girdle + chillhide bracers.

That temporary pre-epic set only requires you to farm 2 pieces of instanced gear and should give you enough FrR to survive until you can pick up some epic crafted FrR gear. I don’t recommend Temperstria’s necklace or Icy tomb spaulders as pickups due to the very poor value/time investment required.

If you want to get frost resist for your early clears, these are your best options. You will replace most of this later as you pick up the crafted P6 gear.

How much frost resist you pick here is ultimately partly personal preference and it will depend on your guilds kill times/comp. Stacking both greater frost protection potions with ice deflectors will likely be very common during early clears as well.

Note: Personally, I’d try not go too crazy on +frost resist gear that has no dps stats because you still need to kill Sapphiron in a reasonable time. That and most of this gear will be replaced by your crafted set after early clears.

There’s been some talk of also running 8/8 Bloodfang on top of the heroism trinket for extra healing during those early clears, but we’re unsure how effective or even needed that idea will turn out.

Okay now let’s go more in-depth explaining the item choices…

BiS quested and crafted frost resist gear

Firstly, there are some crafted/quested frost resist pieces that every rogue is going to look at picking up. These are all available at the start of phase 6 (although you do need someone to unlock the recipes by doing Naxxramas first).

A full set of just these crafted/quested pieces alone will give you 179 frost resist not including enchants:

Polar Tunic (crafted)

These can be crafted by a guildy with exalted Argent Dawn reputation or quested via the npc. I suggest crafting as it’s way cheaper.

Crafting mats:

  • 7 frozen rune
  • 16 enchanted leather
  • 2 essence of water
  • 4 cured rugged hide
  • 4 ironweb spider silk

Polar Leggings (quested)

These are quested only and requires revered faction with Argent Dawn.

Quest turn in mats:

  • 2 frozen runes
  • 2 essence of water
  • 2 blue sapphire
  • 30 gold

Only requires 2 frozen runes, so it’s the lowest cost out of the whole Polar set for rogues.

Polar Bracers (crafted)

These can be crafted by a guildy with revered Hydroxian Waterlords reputation or quested via an npc. I suggest crafting as it’s way cheaper.

Crafting mats:

  • 4 frozen runes
  • 12 enchanted leather
  • 2 essence of water
  • 2 cured rugged hide
  • 4 ironweb spider silk

Polar Gloves (crafted)

These can be crafted by a guildy with revered Argent Dawn reputation or quested via the npc. I suggest crafting as it’s way cheaper.

Crafting mats:

  • 5 frozen rune
  • 12 enchanted leather
  • 2 essence of water
  • 3 cured rugged hide
  • 4 ironweb spider silk

Glacial Cloak (crafted)

These can be crafted by a guildy with revered Argent Dawn reputation or quested via the npc. I suggest crafting as it’s way cheaper.

Crafting mats:

  • 5 frozen rune
  • 4 bolt of runecloth
  • 2 essence of water
  • 4 ironweb spider silk

Ramaladni’s Icy Grasp (quested)

This ring is quested at Hope’s Chapel in EPL via ‘The Fate of Ramaladni’ quest line.

Quest turn in mats:

  • 1 frozen rune
  • 1 blue sapphire
  • 1 arcanite bar

Great value at only 1 frozen rune required.

Total mats to prepare for a full set of everything above:

  • 24 frozen rune (only available in P6 Naxxramus)
  • 40 enchanted leather
  • 10 essence of water
  • 9 cured rugged hide
  • 16 ironweb spider silk
  • 3 blue sapphire
  • 4 bolt of runecloth (made from 20 runecloth)
  • 1 arcanite bar
  • 30 gold

note: I didn’t include engineering frost reflectors in the above list, as you can create those right now already in p5 (and they’re also listed below anyway)

General frost resist rogue gear

Here are some of the recommended options outside of the above crafted items (not every single frost resist gear option is listed, but I listed the ones that make sense for rogues).

Some hardcore raiders will be picking up a lot of this general frost resist gear pre phase 6 because they’ll want it for the early Sapphiron clears before they can make crafted gear. Once you do get your full crafted frost resist set, a lot of this general frost resistance gear becomes worthless.

Note: There are a ton of open world drops that end with <of Frost Resistance> that I didn’t list below. For example you might find a green world drop wrist with 25 frost resist. Keep an eye on the auction house regularly to see if you can snipe any cheap world drop frost resist items to fill awkward spots in your resist set.

I also didn’t list all of the 0.1% droprate type dungeon items that require perfect rng frost resist rolls because I feel those are too insane to realistically farm for most people.

Polar Helmet (44 frost resist)

Great frost resist pickup. Drops from Gothik the Harvester in Naxxramas.

Bloodfang Hood (10 frost resist)

Bloodfang Hood is the no brainer for your early progression weeks in P6 since you won’t have a Polar Helmet yet. Can’t go wrong with 10 frost resist plus great dps stats.

Touch of Frost (24 frost resist)

Drops from Anub’Rekhan in Naxxramas.

Tempestria’s Frozen Necklace (15 frost resist)

Drops from rare mob Princess Tempestria in Winterspring (only available during elemental invasion).

This is your only pre raid neck option besides random world dropped necklaces with frost resistance.

Polar Shoulder Pads (33 frost resist)

Drops from Grand Widow Faerlina in Naxxramas.

Icy Tomb Spaulders (10 frost resist)

These are a random drop from Scholomance. Realistically you can’t farm these efficiently due to having an insanely low droprate, but you might be able to pick these up in the auction house.

Fluctuating Cloak of Frost Resist (15 frost resist)

Drops from Prince Tortheldrin in Dire Maul: West.

Icy Cloak (11 frost resist)

Crafted gear. Easiest pickup if you just want pure frost resist on back slot, but lacking in stamina and atk stats.

Stormpike Soldier’s Cloak / Frostwolf Legionnaire’s Cloak (5 frost resist)

Comes from Alterac Valley at honoured reputation. Low frost resist, but decent cloak if you want to prioritise keeping some atk stats.

Coldtouch Phantom Wraps (20 frost resist)

Drops from Baroness Anastari in Stratholme.

Frostsaber Tunic (18 frost resist)

Crafted chest.

Polychromatic Visionwrap (20 frost resist)

Drops from Solakar Flamewreath in UBRS (the annoying egg event that everyone skips).

Cow King’s Hide (10 NR)

Open world drop.

Thick Silithid Chestguard (5 frost resist)

Dropped by ‘Moam’ in AQ20.

Cinderhide Armsplits of Frost Resistance (15 frost resistance)

Drops from Lord Incendius in BRD. Including these because they get brought up a lot, but generally would not recommend going for these as the drop rate for +frost resist roll is insanely low chance.

Chillhide Bracers (15 frost resist)

Drops from Baroness Anastari in Stratholme.

Dragonspur Wraps (4 frost resist)

Drop from the open world Green Dragon bosses.

Frostsaber Gloves (13 frost resist)

Crafted recipe.

Brightcloth Gloves (12 frost resist)

Crafted recipe.

Frostbite Girdle (10 frost resist)

Drops from Ras Frostwhisper in Scholomance. Great pickup for mix of frost resist and atk stats.

Stormpike Leather Girdle/Frostwolf Leather Belt (5 frost resist)

Alterac Valley honoured reputation belt. Decent choice for frost resist + atk stats, although the Scholomance belt is still better.

Frostsaber Leggings (17 frost resist)

Crafted recipe.

Brightcloth Pants (17 frost resist)

Crafted recipe.

Phasing Boots of Frost Resistance (18 frost resist)

Drops from Phase Lashers in Dire Maul East. Generally would not recommend trying to farm these as they are low droprate and only a 20% chance of rolling the correct +resist stat even if you get them to drop.

Frostsaber Boots (12 frost resistance)

Crafted recipe.

Band of Icy Depths (20 frost resist)

Great quested ring, part of the AQ gates quest series, but only problem is the quest requires some pricy mats, including 20 arcanite bars. Most people will not be going for this ring just because of the insane cost.

Hailstone Band (20 frost resist)

Drops from Noth the Plaguebringer in Naxxramas.

Dimly Opaslescent Ring of Frost Resistance (17 frost resist)

Low drop chance from bosses in Scholomance. Has a chance to roll frost resistance. Nice ring, but might be a bit of a pain to get this to both drop and roll frost resistance.

Charged Gear (13-14 frost resist)

Drops from Mekgineer Thermaplugg in Gnomeregan. You can RNG into Charged Gear of Frost Resistance enchantment, but it’s absurdly low droprate and I wouldn’t suggest trying for it.

Ring of Binding (10 frost resist)

Drops off Onyxia. Your guild has probably disenchanted 10 of them by now.

Seal of Ascension (10 frost resist)

Reward from UBRS key access quest ‘Seal of Ascension’

Multicolored Band of Frost Resistance (10 frost resist)

Possible drop inside ‘Bag of Spoils’ when turning in Abyssal crests in Silithus. Not great, but maybe you have one sitting in your band from doing Silithus faction farming.

Seal of the Archmagus (6 frost resist)

Drops off Baron in MC. Not great, but it’s probably free and rotting if your guild still does MC on their main raid.

‘X’ Bow of Frost Resistance (6 frost resist)

There are no real options for range frost resist items beyond green world drops.

Gyrofreeze Ice Reflector (15 frost resist)

Engineer only trinket, but great choice as most raiders tend to have engineering already. You can have 2 of these (one for each trinket slot).

Loatheb’s Reflection (13 frost resist + 40 frost resist clicky for 20 sec)

Drops from Loatheb in Naxxramas.

Stormpike Insignia Rank 6/Frostwolf Insignia Rank 6 (10 frost resist)

Alterac Valley exalted reputation trinket reward. Fairly decent option as the +health restore will add up over time.

Ward of the Elements (8 frost resist)

Reward from Alliance only quest ‘Jail Break!’

Smoking heart of the mountain (7 frost resist)

Enchanter only craftable item.

Petrified Scarab (100 frost resist on click for 1 min)

Drops from Lord Kri in AQ40. An interesting trinket. Not sure on the full viability of it since the duration is only 1 min, but it might have some interesting use cases.

Part 2: Frost resist enchants

There are 3 frost resist enchants available:

  • Ice Guard – 10 frost resist to head/legs
  • Frost Mantle/Chromatic Mantle of the Dawn – 5 frost resist to shoulders (minimum argent dawn revered reputation required)
  • Enchant Cloak – Greater Resistance – 5 frost resist to back

Some of these enchants are going to be a little personal preference as you might feel losing the ZG atk enchants may not be super worth the small frost resist increase (particularly once you get crafted frost resist set and have plenty of frost resist already).

If you do choose to get the ice guard enchants, they’re a little bit of work to get, so let’s cover it in more detail.

How to get your ice guard frost resist enchant

Ice Guard enchants comes from a npc at Light Hope’s Chapel in exchange for requires 10 Insignia of the Crusade and 30 gold. So if you want 2x Ice Guard enchants you’ll need 20 Insignia of the Crusade.

It looks fairly straightforward, but the tricky part is to get an ‘Insignia of the Crusade’ you need to complete a task from the NPCs at Light’s Hope Chapel. These tasks also require friendly reputation with the Argent Dawn.

When selecting tasks there are 2 main types you can pick:

  1. Kill and gather tasks
  2. Tradeskill/crafting tasks

The kill and gather tasks are simple. Go gather ‘x’ by killing certain mobs until you get enough of the requested drop.

These are the kill/gather repeatable insignia quests:

Starts: Rohan the Assassin at Light’s Hope Chapel

Requires: 30 ‘Bone Fragments’ that drop from skeletal creatures in EPL, WPL, Stratholme and Scholomance.

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9127/bone-fragments

Starts: Rayne at Light’s Hope Chapel

Requires: 30 ‘Savage Frond’ that drop from treants and lashers in Felwood, Un’goro, Dire Maul: East, and Dire Maul: West.

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9136/savage-flora

Starts: Huntsman Leopold at Light’s Hope Chapel

Requires: 30 ‘Crypt Fiend Parts’ from crypt fiends in EPL, Stratholme and Scholomance.

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9124/cryptstalker-armor-doesnt-make-itself

On the other hand, the tradeskill/crafting tasks are more annoying and function similar to the Earthstrike resource tasks quests in Silithus.

To receive a tradeskill task you need to turn in 1 ‘Argent dawn valor token’ for each task, so hopefully you saved some of these from your leveling/instancing days or you’ll need to go farm some if you intend to do crafting tasks.

‘Insignia of the Crusade’ Crafting/Tradeskill Tasks:

Below are all the possible tradeskill/crafting tasks. Some tasks are significantly cheaper than others to create, such as the Thorium Tubes. I’d suggest stockpiling mats now for the cheaper tasks if you intend to do these tasks in P6.

Note: The crafting task you receive is random. This means you will need to fish with repeated token turn-ins if you want to only do certain tasks.

Requires: 6x Brightcloth Pants

Materials:

  • 36 Bolts of Runecloth (9 stacks)
  • 6 Ironweb Spider Silk
  • 6 Rune Thread
  • 24 Gold Bars

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9188/craftsmans-writ-brightcloth-pants

Requires: 120 Dense Weightstone

Materials:

  • 120 Dense Stone
  • 120 Runecloth

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9178/craftsmans-writ-dense-weightstone

Requires: 1 Flask of Petrification

Materials:

  • 30 Stonescale Oil (30 stone scale eel, 30 leaded vial)
  • 10 Mountain Silversage
  • 1 Black Lotus
  • 1 Crystal Vial

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9203/craftsmans-writ-flask-of-petrification

Requires: 4 Gnomish Battle Chicken

Materials:

  • 4 mithril casing
  • 24 truesilver bar
  • 24 mithril bar
  • 8 inlaid mithril cylinder
  • 4 gold power core
  • 8 jade

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9197/craftsmans-writ-gnomish-battle-chicken

Requires: 20 Goblin Sapper Charge

Materials:

  • 40 Mageweave Cloth
  • 160 Solid Stone
  • 20 Mithril Bar

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9195/craftsmans-writ-goblin-sapper-charge

Requires: 15 Greater Arcane Protection Potion

Materials:

  • 15 Dreamfoil
  • 15 Dream Dust
  • 15 Crystal Vials

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9201/craftsmans-writ-greater-arcane-protection-potion

Requires: 3 Huge Thorium Battleaxe

Materials:

  • 120 Thorium Bar
  • 72 Dense Stone
  • 18 Rugged Leather

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9182/craftsmans-writ-huge-thorium-battleaxe

Requires: 3 Imperial Plate Chest

Materials:

  • 120 Thorium Bar
  • 6 Star Ruby

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9179/craftsmans-writ-imperial-plate-chest

Requires: 30 Lightning Eel

Materials:

  • 30 Lightning Eel

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9206/craftsmans-writ-lightning-eel

Requires: 20 Major Healing Potion

Materials:

  • 40 Golden Sansam
  • 20 Mountain Silversage
  • 20 Crystal Vial

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9202/craftsmans-writ-major-healing-potion

Requires: 20 Major Mana Potion

Materials:

  • 60 Dreamfoil
  • 40 Icecap
  • 20 Crystal Vial

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9200/craftsmans-writ-major-mana-potion

Requires: 30 Plated Armorfish

Materials:

  • 30 Plated Armorfish

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9205/craftsmans-writ-plated-armorfish

Requires: 3 Radiant Circlet

Materials:

  • 54 Thorium Bar
  • 12 Heart of Fire

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9183/craftsmans-writ-radiant-circlet

Requires: 25 Rugged Armor Kit

Materials:

  • 125 Rugged Leather

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9185/craftsmans-writ-rugg

Requires: 8 Runecloth Bag

Materials:

  • 40 Bolts of Runcloth (200 Runecloth)
  • 16 Rugged Leather
  • 8 Rune Thread

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9191/craftsmans-writ-runecloth-bag

Requires: 8 Runecloth Boots

Materials:

  • 160 Runecloth
  • 16 Ironweb Spider Silk
  • 32 Rugged Leather
  • 8 Rune Thread

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9190/craftsmans-writ-runecloth-boots

Requires: 8 Runecloth Robe

Materials:

  • 200 Runecloth
  • 8 Ironweb Spider Silk
  • 8 Rune Thread

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9194/craftsmans-writ-runecloth-robe

Requires: 4 Runic Leather Pants

Materials:

  • 72 Rugged Leather
  • 48 Runecloth
  • 8 Enchanted Leather (8 Rugged Leather, 8 Lesser Eternal Essence)
  • 4 Rune thread

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9187/craftsmans-writ-runic-leather-pants

Requires: 40 Stonescale Eel

Materials:

  • 40 Stonescale Eel

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9204/craftsmans-writ-stonescale-eel

Requires: 20 Thorium Grenade

Materials:

  • 42 Thorium Bars
  • 28 Runecloth
  • 42 Dense Stone

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9196/craftsmans-writ-thorium-grenade

Requires: 3 Volcanic Hammer

Materials:

  • 90 Thorium Bar
  • 12 Heart of Fire
  • 12 Star Ruby
  • 12 Rugged Leather

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9181/craftsmans-writ-volcanic-hammer

Requires: 9 Wicked Leather Belt

Materials:

  • 126 Rugged Leather
  • 18 Black Dye
  • 18 Rune Thread

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9186/craftsmans-writ-wicked-leather-belt

Requires: 9 Wicked Leather Belt

Materials:

  • 120 Rugged Leather
  • 10 Black Dye
  • 10 Rune Thread

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9184/craftsmans-writ-wicked-leather-headband

Requires: 14 Thorium Tubes

Materials:

  • 84 Thorium Bar

Full quest info: https://classic.wowhead.com/quest=9198/craftsmans-writ-thorium-tube

Help support Classic roguecraft: Want more guides? I add an extra rogue video guide for my twitch subscribers once per week! Subscribe at twitch.tv/snomie, help support all of my free content and you’ll get yourself extra rogue guides every week in our bonus discord sub channel <3