Frost Mage Talents Guide

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The Frost Mage talent tree is predominantly filled with AoE-empowering abilities — from making Blizzard reset Frozen Orb to turning Cone of Cold, which is by default a slowing spell, into one of your strongest AoE abilities. It also has some talents that are never picked in PvE content, such as Subzero or Splintering Ray.

The most important and impactful talents, which change your rotation and are worth noting, are:

Death’s Chill – Whenever you cast Frostbolt while Icy Veins is active, you gain a stacking 1% damage-increasing buff, up to 15%. This talent synergizes well with Fractured Frost, which makes your Frostbolt cleave to up to 2 nearby targets.

Coldest Snap – Cone of Cold’s cooldown is increased to 45 seconds, and if it hits 3 or more enemies, it resets the cooldown of Frozen Orb and Comet Storm. It also applies Winter’s Chill to every enemy hit. This ability is your major AoE burst cooldown. It can be challenging to use at times since Cone of Cold has a very short range, requiring you to play in melee range.

Ice Caller – Each time Blizzard deals damage, the cooldown of Frozen Orb is reduced by 0.5 seconds. This may seem simple at first, but it is crucial to monitor your Frozen Orb cooldown while Blizzard is active in AoE. On high target pulls, it can make Frozen Orb come off cooldown within 10 seconds.

Glacial Spike – Completely changes the rotation. It becomes castable whenever you have 5 Icicles, which you generate by casting Frostbolt, Flurry, and Ice Lance against frozen targets.

Frostfire

Frostfire, as the name suggests, uses both Fire and Frost spells to deal damage. This hero talent has a variety of procs that you need to utilize and track. Its main damage output comes from Comet Storm (which also summons a Meteor), Glacial Spike, Ice Lance and Pyroblast with the 4-piece set bonus.

Important Frostfire Hero talentsFrostfire Mastery: Your damaging Fire spells generate 1 stack of Fire Mastery, and Frost spells generate 1 stack of Frost Mastery.

Fire Mastery increases your Haste by 2%, and Frost Mastery increases your Mastery by 2% for 14 seconds, stacking up to 6 times each. Adding stacks does not refresh the duration. This is not important to track at all since it does not change your rotation in any way, just important to know that Frostfire gains a lot of Mastery and Haste.

Isothermic Core: Comet Storm now also calls down a Meteor at 150% effectiveness onto your target's location. Meteor now also calls down a Comet Storm at 300% effectiveness onto your target’s location. This makes Comet Storm a massive AoE cooldown, not only because of the damage but also because you can reset the cooldown of Comet Storm every 45 seconds with Cone of Cold if you are talented into Coldest Snap.

Frostfire Bolt: Replaces Frostbolt. The only important aspect of this talent is that Frostfire Bolt generates stacks for both Fire and Frost Mastery.

Frostfire Empowerment: Your Frost and Fire spells have a chance to activate Frostfire Empowerment, causing your next Frostfire Bolt to be instant cast, deal 60% increased damage, and explode for 80% of its damage to nearby enemies. A random proc which just causes your Frostfire Bolt to be instant, so you just have to keep an eye out for it so that you don’t get surprised by an instant Frostfire Bolt.

Flash Freezeburn: Frostfire Empowerment grants you the maximum benefit of Frostfire Mastery, refreshes its duration, and grants you Excess Frost and Excess Fire. Casting Combustion or Icy Veins grants you Frostfire Empowerment. This means that the first Frostfire Bolt that you do after you press Icy Veins is always going to be instant cast, but also that each instant Frostfire Bolt also grants you both of the Excess buffs, which are important to play around on AoE.

Defensive Frostfire Talents

Imbued Warding: Ice Barrier also casts a Blazing Barrier at 25% effectiveness.

Meltdown: You melt slightly out of your Ice Block and Ice Cold, allowing you to move slowly during Ice Block and gradually increase movement speed. Ice Block and Ice Cold trigger a Blazing Barrier when they end.

Both of these talents are in a choice node. Since Meltdown is tailored around Ice Block and isn’t particularly useful, you should pick Imbued Warding in every situation.

Spellslinger

This hero talent, as the name suggests, focuses on slinging as many spells as possible. The entire hero talent tree revolves around Frost Splinters, which make up a major portion of your damage, and nearly every talent contributes to their generation.

Important Spellslinger Hero Talents

Splintering Sorcery: Whenever Winter’s Chill or Fingers of Frost proc is consumed, you summon a Frost Splinter, which automatically flies to your enemy and deals damage.

Splintering Orbs: Whenever your Frozen Orb deals damage, you summon 1 Frost Splinter, up to 4. Additionally, your Frozen Orb damage is increased by 25%. This is one of the most important Spellslinger talents, making Frozen Orb your primary Frost Splinter generator.

Augury Abounds: Casting Icy Veins creates 8 Frost Splinters immediately. During Icy Veins, whenever you conjure a Frost Splinter by any means, you automatically conjure a second one. In simple terms, your Frost Splinter generation is doubled during Icy Veins.

Controlled Instincts: While a target is under the effect of Blizzard, 40% of the direct damage dealt by a Frost Splinter is also dealt to nearby enemies, with damage reduced beyond 5 targets. This means you want Blizzard active permanently in AoE situations to maximize Frost Splinter damage.

Spell Frost Teachings: Direct damage from Frost Splinters reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb by 0.5 seconds. This talent drastically changes your gameplay because you should constantly keep an eye out for when Frozen Orb comes off cooldown.

Shifting Shards: Shifting Power fires a barrage of 8 Frost Splinters at random enemies within 40 yards while you channel Shifting Power.

Signature Spell: Consuming Winter’s Chill with Glacial Spike conjures 2 additional Frost Splinters. Normally, without this talent, consuming Winter’s Chill with Glacial Spike would only conjure 1 Frost Splinter. This talent makes Glacial Spike a powerful Frost Splinter generator alongside Frozen Orb.

Splinter Storm: Whenever you have 8 or more active Frost Splinters, you automatically cast Splinter Storm at your target, shattering all embedded Frost Splinters and dealing their damage instantly rather than over time. Splinter Storm has a 10% chance to grant Brain Freeze. This talent is completely passive and does not change your gameplay.

Defensive Spellslinger talents

Reactive Barrier: Ice Barrier can absorb up to 50% more damage based on your missing health, reaching maximum effectiveness when you are below 50% health.

Phantasmal Image: Your Mirror Image summons one extra clone (two, due to a bug) and reduces all damage taken by an additional 5%. This makes Mirror Image reduce your damage taken by 25% instead of 20% while active.

Since this is a choice-node talent, most Frost Mages choose Phantasmal Image, as it is bugged and doesn’t require as much planning or health management as Reactive Barrier.