Utolsó módosítás programmer, ekkor: 2014.06.26.
In this article, we present you with various talent trees for Frost
Mages (WoW 4.3) that you can use in specific situations. We also explain in
detail what the talents do, how they work together, and how you can
customise your talent tree in order to adapt it to a particular boss.
The other articles of our Frost Mage guide can be accessed
from the table of contents on the left.
1. Common Talent Builds↑top
The following build is the default choice for Frost Mages.
- Prime Glyphs
- Major Glyphs
- Minor Glyphs
If a fight consists of a main target close to additional targets, then you
can spend two points in Piercing Chill for more frequent procs
of Fingers of Frost.
In such a situation, however, you might prefer using a
Fire specialisation and benefit from Living Bomb being up on multiple
targets.
- Prime Glyphs
- Major Glyphs
- Minor Glyphs
If a fight requires you to control adds that are close enough to be all
affected by a cast of Cone of Cold, then you can spend two points in
Improved Cone of Cold.
- Prime Glyphs
- Major Glyphs
- Minor Glyphs
If a fight requires you to slow down a large pack of adds, then you can
spend two points in Ice Shards.
- Prime Glyphs
- Major Glyphs
- Minor Glyphs
2. Customising Your Build↑top
First, we will present and explain the fixed talents that a Frost Mage should
always take. Then, we detail the optional talents with which you can customise
your talent build. Finally, we list the various mandatory and optional glyphs.
2.1. Talents
In the following image, the fixed talents have been hightlighted in green,
while the optional talents have been hightlighted in red:
2.1.1. Fixed Talents
- 2/2 Early Frost: every 15 seconds, you get a shorter Frostbolt
cast. When it is up, you will notice that the border of the Frostbolt spell
on your castbar changes.
- 3/3 Piercing Ice: this talent gives an additional
3% critical strike chance with all spells.
- 2/2 Shatter: this talent is one of the most important as almost
all your main nukes will be cast on frozen targets.
- 3/3 Ice Floes: this enables you to use Icy Veins more often.
- 1/3 Permafrost: your Summon Water Elemental will very scarcely take
damage during encounters and when it does (Magmaw, Nefarian, or Al'Akir), one
point is enough to ensure it survives throughout the fight.
- 1/1 Icy Veins: an important DPS boost that can be used regularly.
- 3/3 Fingers of Frost: this talent enables the main mechanic of the
Frost specialisation. Fingers of Frost is a proc that has two charges,
is consumed by your next spell cast (with the exception of Frostbolt) and makes
that next spell cast behave as if it were cast on a frozen target. This talent
is necessary as bosses are normally immune to root and snares.
- 3/3 Improved Freeze: this talent gives you some control over the procs
of Fingers of Frost. Your most powerful attacks are either on cooldown
( Deep Freeze) or proc randomly ( Frostfire Bolt), so it is important
to have a way to cast them as soon as they are up.
- 3/3 Enduring Winter: the buff provided by this talent is extremely
useful to your raid. Even if someone else in your raid group already provides
a raid-wise mana regeneration ability (Restoration Druids, Retribution Paladins, Shadow
Priests, and Destruction Warlocks), you should still take this talent for the mana
cost reduction.
- 1/1 Cold Snap: mainly, this allows you to cast your main nuke (Deep
Freeze) twice in a row. It also resets the cooldown of Icy Veins.
- 3/3 Brain Freeze: this important ability gives you a chance to get a
free Frostfire Bolt with an instant cast that benefits from Fingers of Frost.
- 1/1 Ice Barrier: choosing this talent is necessary to progress further
down the talent tree.
- 2/2 Frostfire Orb: Your Flame Orb is transformed into a
Frostfire Orb. Aside from the visual effect, the periodic damage the orb
deals has a chance to proc Fingers of Frost.
- 1/1 Deep Freeze: the main nuke of a Frost Mage. Do not be misled by
the tooltip: as bosses are immune to stuns, this spell deals damage to them
instead (and a lot of it, ofter over 100k damage).
- 2/2 Master of Elements: this talent is necessary to gain access to
Ignite. It also makes mana management easier.
- 3/3 Burning Soul: this talent is necessary to gain access to
Ignite. It also provides a useful pushback reduction.
- 3/3 Ignite: that particular talent, for which we spend 8 points in
the Fire tree, gives a nice boost to your Frostfire Bolt. Indeed, you will most
of the time cast it when Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost are up,
which means that your critical strike chance will be multiplied by 3 (thanks
to Shatter) and that almost all your casts of Frostfire Bolt will end
up triggering Ignite.
- 2/3 Netherwind Presence: the last two points remaining should be
spent on this haste improving talent as it is the best alternative left.
2.1.2. Optional Talents
The variations of the Frost specialisation stem from four two-point
talents you can choose: Reactive Barrier, Piercing Chill,
Improved Cone of Cold, and Ice Shards.
- 2/2 Reactive Barrier: if unsure or if you cannot find any use for the
three other optional talents, you should go for Reactive Barrier. It
provides some survivability.
- 2/2 Piercing Chill: this talent is most useful when you are fighting
a boss that summons adds that are tanked next to him. This gives you more
chances to proc Fingers of Frost, about 30% (up from 20%). Bear in
mind that in this sort of fights, you might want to play a Fire Mage and
benefit from Living Bomb.
- 2/2 Improved Cone of Cold: this talent is useful when you are required
to control a rather dense pack of adds during a fight. Thanks to
Ice Floes, the cooldown on Cone of Cold is only 8 seconds, which means
that spending two points in Improved Cone of Cold will enable you to keep the
adds frozen half the time, and slowed down by 64% ( Permafrost gives you
the additional 4%) the other half of the time.
- 2/2 Ice Shards: Cone of Cold works great against dense pack of adds.
If you have to slow down a rather spread out group of adds, Blizzard
can do a better job with its 8-yard radius.
In some extreme cases where you need absolute add control, you can even go as
far as dropping 2/3 Netherwind Presence in order to take both
2/2 Improved Cone of Cold and 2/2 Ice Shards.
2.2. Glyphs
Choosing the correct glyphs as a Frost Mage is very straightforward. The
only choices you have to make are more based on convenience than utility.
2.2.1. Prime Glyphs
Your prime glyphs should be chosen as follows (best damage upgrades):
Even if Ice Lance will usually contribute more to your damage
done than Frostfire Bolt, Glyph of Frostfire is a better
damage increase than Glyph of Ice Lance.
2.2.2. Major Glyphs
The only mandatory major glyph is Glyph of Evocation because it allows
you to relieve some stress from your healers while regenerating your mana.
The optional major glyphs should be chosen from among the following, either
because you like what they offer or because they can be of use to you during
an encounter on which you are are currently progressing:
- Glyph of Blink (recommended): this glyph increases the travel distance of Blink by
5 yards. In fights where you need to move out of stuff quickly, it can be
very useful.
- Glyph of Invisibility (recommended): this glyph allows you to cover a longer
distance during the 20 seconds that Invisibility lasts. It is very
useful for surviving a wipe.
- Glyph of Ice Barrier (situational): if your healers are really struggling in a fight
and you want to lend them a hand with Ice Barrier, you can always increase
the efficiency of that spell with the associate glyph. This glyph is widely
used while leveling up or questing, because of the increased survivability it
provides.
- Glyph of Icy Veins (very situational): this glyph should only be used
in encounters where removing slowing effects is mandatory for a kill.
2.2.3. Minor Glyphs
We recommand you the following minor glyphs:
- Glyph of Arcane Brilliance: the mana cost reduction is very useful
during an encounter, should you have to rebuff someone, or yourself, having
just been resurrected with little mana.
- Glyph of Conjuring: the mana cost reduction can prove useful if you
have just been resurrected with little mana after a wipe and need to
re-conjure mana food.
- Glyph of Slow Fall because always keeping reagents in your bags can
become quite annoying.