Cataclysm Classic Frost Mage Talent Builds

The Frost talent tree in Cataclysm provides Mages with potent burst damage potential, particularly with Icy Veins and Cold Snap, making them formidable burst damage dealers in both single-target and AoE situations.

If you intend to do some crowd-control in raids or are assigned to do so, you could take all points out of Netherwind Presence, Ignite, and take one point out of Master of Elements, in order to put them into the Improved Cone of Cold, Permafrost, and Ice Shards.

• Burning Soul — This talent is essential for unlocking Ignite and offers a beneficial reduction in pushback.
• Brain Freeze — This significant skill grants you an opportunity to cast a free Frostfire Bolt instantly, benefiting from Fingers of Frost.
• Deep Freeze — The primary damaging spell of a Frost Mage. Don't be deceived by the tooltip; since bosses are immune to stuns, this spell inflicts substantial damage on them instead.
• Early Frost — Every 15 seconds, your Frostbolt cast becomes shorter. You will notice the border of the Frostbolt spell on your cast bar changing when it is active.
• Enduring Winter — This talent offers a highly beneficial buff to your raid. Even if another member of your raid group already offers a raid-wide mana regeneration ability (such as Shadow Priests, Restoration Druids, Retribution Paladins, and Destruction Warlocks), it is still worthwhile to take this talent for its mana cost reduction.
• Fingers of Frost — This talent activates the primary mechanic of the Frost specialization. Fingers of Frost triggers a proc with two charges, consumed by your next spell cast (excluding Frostbolt), causing it to behave as if it were cast on a frozen target. It's essential because bosses are typically immune to root and snares.
• Frostfire Orb — Your Flame Orb becomes a Frostfire Orb. Besides the visual alteration, the orb's periodic damage has the potential to trigger Fingers of Frost.
• Ice Barrier — Selecting this talent is essential for advancing deeper into the talent tree, in order to reach Deep Freeze. It also provides a useful shielding ability.
• Ice Floes — This allows you to utilize Icy Veins more frequently.
• Ignite — This specific talent, for which we allocate 8 points in the Fire tree, significantly enhances your Frostfire Bolt. Typically, you will cast it when both Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost are active, tripling your critical strike chance (thanks to Shatter), ensuring that nearly all your Frostfire Bolt casts trigger Ignite.
• Icy Veins — A crucial increase in damage per second that you can regularly utilize.
• Improved Freeze — This talent grants you a degree of control over the activations of Fingers of Frost. Since your most potent attacks are either on cooldown ( Deep Freeze) or activate randomly ( Frostfire Bolt), it's crucial to have a method to cast them immediately when available.
• Master of Elements — Acquiring this talent is essential to unlock Ignite. Additionally, it simplifies mana management by returning mana on each crit.
• Netherwind Presence — This talent enhances haste.
• Permafrost — Your Summon Water Elemental will rarely sustain damage during battles, but even when it does, investing a single point in this talent guarantees its survival throughout the encounter.
• Piercing Ice — This talent increases critical strike chance by an additional 3% for all spells.
• Shatter — This talent holds significant importance as the majority of your primary damaging abilities will be directed at frozen targets because of Fingers of Frost.
• Cold Snap — Primarily, this enables you to consecutively cast your primary damage-dealing ability ( Deep Freeze) twice. Additionally, it resets the cooldown of Icy Veins.

The very best Prime Glyphs for Frosts are Glyph of Frostbolt, Glyph of Deep Freeze and Glyph of Frostfire.

Glyph of Evocation, Glyph of Invisibility and Glyph of Blink make great Major Glyphs.

As Minor Glyphs we recommend Glyph of Arcane Brilliance, Glyph of Conjuring and Glyph of Slow Fall.