WotLK Classic Frost Mage Spec, Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

Frost Mage talents aim to maximize single-target and AoE damage, as well as survivability.

If you were looking for a leveling-oriented build please refer to our Mage leveling guide.

For raiding, we recommended Frost Mages to focus on an Arcane Frost talent build. You will go deep enough into the Arcane tree to reach Focus Magic and Torment the Weak, so you get the 3% crit and 12% damage for Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt. The 3 points in Spell Impact could also be invested into Student of the Mind and Magic Attunement, as Spell Impact only affects Arcane Explosion (you Blizzard whenever possible) and the rarely-used spell Cone of Cold (it is rarely used because the frontal cone sometimes makes hitting all enemies hard). These changes would net more Spirit and therefore more Critical strike rating from Molten Armor, increased range on Counterspell, Remove Curse, and Polymorph, and boost the effect of the sometimes useful Amplify Magic buff.

In the Frost tree you will go for the main damage improving talents, some important general Frost talents, and the new interaction talents Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze. You can read a detailed breakdown of all these talents in the Frost Tree section below.

However, it needs to be said here, that going for 3 points in Improved Blizzard and Permafrost would definitely take away very important and impactful talent points, which would impact your DPS by a lot. If your raid leader asks you to go for these talents, try to have someone else slow, such as Hunters with Frost Trap, as the slow of Improved Blizzard in WotLK is also heavily nerfed in comparison to TBC.

As almost all Frost talents are very important, here is a brief explanation of what the most important talents do.

Improved Frostbolt makes your main nuke Frostbolt cast 0.5 seconds faster. While this does not sound like much, this cast time increase equals about 20% more damage for Frostbolt.

Ice Floes reduces the cooldown of Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block and Icy Veins by 20%.

Ice Shards makes your Frost Spell Critical Strikes deal 200% damage, or 209% with Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. Without this talent, Frost Spell Critical Strikes only do 150% normal damage.

Precision increases your chance to Hit with all spells by 3%.

Piercing Ice increases all Frost damage done by 6%.

Icy Veins increases your casting speed by 20% and gives you a 100% spell pushback protection for 20 seconds. Does not protect from interrupt effects or stuns.

Improved Blizzard gives your Blizzard a chilling effect that adds a 35% slow (25% from this talent and 10% from Chilled to the Bone) for 1.5 seconds. This slow is not important for actually slowing enemies, but to proc the Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze talents, which can proc from chilling effects.

Arctic Reach gives Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Deep Freeze, and Blizzard a 10% higher range and increases the radius of Blizzard and Cone of Cold by 10%. This allows you to outrange some enemies' abilities and to participate earlier in combat after movement phases. This talent gets only one point to allow one free point for Improved Blizzard.

Frost Channeling reduces all spells' Mana cost and the Frost spells' threat caused by 10%, so your Frost spells do only 90% threat. A 1,000 damage Frost spell would do 900 instead of 1,000 threat with this talent. This talent allows for 10% more damage to be done before becoming threat-capped.

Shatter is one of the mightiest of all Frost talents, as it increases the Critical Strike chance of all spells against frozen targets by 50%. Fingers of Frost treats targets (even bosses which are usually immune to freezing effects) as if they were frozen. This means that each time you proc Fingers of Frost, all 3 spells of your Frostbolt -> Frostbolt -> Deep Freeze combo gain a 50% higher Critical Strike chance, as Deep Freeze is cast in the same batch as your second Frostbolt finishes. Further, as Improved Blizzard also triggers Fingers of Frost, your Blizzard basically permanently has a 50% increased Critical Strike chance from Shatter, as long as there are enough enemies to proc it. While not only useful for bosses, this talent is also absurdly strong for farming and also allows for the so-called "Shatter Combo". A Shatter combo is if you cast a spell with a cast time, followed by an instant spell on a frozen target and both spells benefit from the 50% crit chance increase. Examples for this are casting Frostbolt followed by Ice Lance, or Flamestrike followed by Cone of Cold on targets frozen with Frost Nova.

Cold Snap resets the cooldown of all Frost abilities, allowing for using Icy Veins or absorbing damage with Ice Barrier twice in a row. This ability comes with a 8-minute (6.4 minutes when talented) cooldown.

Winter's Chill causes each Frost damage spell to apply a debuff on the target that increases the enemy's chance to take a Critical Strike from spells by 1%, for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times. That means after 5 successful Frost attacks, your target has a 5% higher chance to be crit by any spells. This effect can already be stacked or be refreshed with Ice Lance while positioning for an enemy. Blizzard will also trigger this spell and make your team's AoE stronger. Further, this talent also increases the Critical Strike chance of Frostbolt by 3%.

Ice Barrier absorbs all but falling damage for one minute and gives your protection against spell pushback. This is very useful if you take small but very frequent portions of damage, and even better if that damage is magical and can be reduced with Dampen Magic. This ability comes with a 30-second (24 when talented) cooldown.

Arctic Winds increases all your Frost damage by 5% and reduces the chance Physical attacks will hit you by 5%.

Empowered Frostbolt gives your Frostbolt a 10% higher Spell Power coefficient and a 0.2s faster cast time.

Fingers of Frost gives your chill effects a 15% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, treating your next 2 spells cast as if the targets were frozen. This means all 3 spells of your Frostbolt -> Frostbolt -> Deep Freeze combo gain a 50% higher Critical Strike chance, as Deep Freeze is cast in the same batch as your second Frostbolt finishes. Further, as Improved Blizzard also triggers Fingers of Frost, your Blizzard basically permanently has a 50% increased Critical Strike chance from Shatter, as long as there are enough enemies to proc it. While not only useful for bosses, this talent is also absurdly strong for farming and also allows for the so-called "Shatter Combo". A Shatter combo is if you cast a spell with a cast time, followed by an instant spell on a frozen target and both spells benefit from the 50% Crit Chance increase. Examples for this are casting Frostbolt followed by Ice Lance, or Flamestrike followed by Cone of Cold on targets frozen with Frost Nova.

Brain Freeze works similarly to Fingers of Frost but grants you an instant Frostfire Bolt or Fireball. Of course, you cast Frostfire Bolt, as it benefits from Frost talents while Fireball does not.

Summon Water Elemental summons a Water Elemental with the Waterbolt and Freeze abilities to fight for 45 seconds. With Glyph of Eternal Water, your pet loses its Freeze ability but stays summoned until it dies.

Enduring Winter makes your Water Elemental stay alive for 15 seconds longer and gives your Frostbolt a 100% chance to trigger the Replenishment buff on the lowest Mana raid members.

Chilled to the Bone increases the damage caused by Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt and Ice Lance by 5% and improves all slow effects of your Frost spells by 10%.

Deep Freeze stuns the target for 5 seconds, and deals massive damage to targets that are permanently immune to stuns. Mostly used while moving or at the end of a Fingers of Frost proc.

Arcane Subtlety decreases the threat you do with your Arcane spells by 40% and decreases the chance your helpful spells will be dispelled by 30%. This talent is key, as it will make it very hard for you to pull aggro, be it with Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, or Arcane Explosion.

Arcane Focus increases your chance to hit with Arcane spells by 3%.

Arcane Concentration gives you a 10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any attack goes off. This gives you an average of 10% reduced Mana cost on your damaging spells.

Spell Impact gives your main DPS spells a 6% damage bonus.

Student of the Mind increases your total Spirit by 4%, which gives you slightly more Critical Strike rating from Molten Armor.

Focus Magic is a powerful buff to be cast on a friendly target. It increases their Critical Strike chance with spells by 3%. If they score a Critical Strike, your Critical Strike chance is also increased by 3% for 10 seconds.

Torment the Weak gives your main DPS spells a 12% damage bonus if your target is slowed in any way (physical/spell/movement slow), which they usually are from a Death Knight's Icy Touch or a Warrior's Thunder Clap.

The best Frost Mage Glyphs are Glyph of Frostbolt, Glyph of Eternal Water, and Glyph of Molten Armor (Major), and Glyph of Arcane Intellect and Glyph of Slow Fall (Minor). The third glyph is your personal choice. Further, one could argue that Glyph of Fire Ward and Glyph of Frost Ward are better minor glyphs than any other, but the use of these is very, very niche, so this guide will stick to the quality of life glyphs. Below you will find a complete list of glyphs, in case you would like to experiment with them, e.g. for farming purposes.

Major Glyphs
Glyph of Arcane Barrage	Glyph of Fire Blast	Glyph of Living Bomb
Glyph of Arcane Blast	Glyph of Fireball	Glyph of Mage Armor
Glyph of Arcane Explosion	Glyph of Frost Nova	Glyph of Mana Gem
Glyph of Arcane Missiles	Glyph of Frostbolt	Glyph of Mirror Image
Glyph of Arcane Power	Glyph of Frostfire	Glyph of Molten Armor
Glyph of Blink	Glyph of Ice Barrier	Glyph of Polymorph
Glyph of Deep Freeze	Glyph of Ice Block	Glyph of Remove Curse
Glyph of Eternal Water	Glyph of Ice Lance	Glyph of Scorch
Glyph of Ice Armor	Glyph of Icy Veins	Glyph of Water Elemental
Glyph of Evocation	Glyph of Invisibility

Minor Glyphs:

• Glyph of Arcane Intellect
• Glyph of Blast Wave
• Glyph of Fire Ward
• Glyph of Frost Armor
• Glyph of Frost Ward
• Glyph of Slow Fall
• Glyph of the Penguin