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Frost Mage leveling guide

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Slow, freeze and keep your distance. How the Frost talents play from level 10 to 60.

On this page7 sections

At a glanceOur pickOpinion, not confirmed by BlizzardOur reading of the Frost talent text, not a tested rotation.

Build at level 60
0/0/51 (51 Frost)
16-point milestone
Ice Block, level 25
Last Frost talent
Ice Barrier, level 40
In a group
Damage
Our first choice for leveling a Mage
This tree
Open in the calculatorEvery point, level by level Share

How Frost plays

  • Frost wins by keeping enemies frozen or slowed and hitting them while they are. Frostbite gives your Chill effects a 15% chance to freeze the target for 5 sec.
  • Improved Frost Nova brings Frost Nova back 4 sec sooner.
  • A Frozen target is where the damage is: Ice Lance deals 300% increased damage to one, and Shatter adds 50% critical strike chance against it for all your spells.
  • Fingers of Frost gives your Chill effects a 30% chance to treat your next spell as if the target were Frozen, and Ice Shards raises the critical strike damage bonus of Frost spells by 100%.
  • And it is hard to kill. Ice Block protects you from all attacks and spells for 10 sec, Cold Snap finishes the cooldown of your other Frost spells, and Ice Barrier, the last talent, absorbs damage and keeps your casts from being interrupted while it holds.

What to press first

Most important first. Not a rotation.

  1. 1

    Cast Frostbolt as the default

    Improved Frostbolt takes 0.5 sec off its cast.

  2. 2

    Use Frost Nova when enemies reach you

    Improved Frost Nova takes 4 sec off its cooldown at two points.

  3. 3

    Use Ice Lance on Frozen targets

    Ice Lance deals 300% increased damage to them.

  4. 4

    Cast your hardest spell at anything frozen

    Shatter adds 50% critical strike chance against frozen targets at five points.

  5. 5

    Keep Ice Barrier up

    Ice Barrier lasts 1 min, and your casts are not interrupted while the shield holds.

  6. 6

    Keep Ice Block and Cold Snap for when a pull goes wrong

    Cold Snap finishes the cooldown of your other Frost spells, so each of them can be used twice.

Talents that change how you play · 11

From Improved Frostbolt at level 10 to Improved Blizzard at 57.

The level is when our build first takes the talent.

  1. Levels 10–14

    Improved Frostbolt

    Frostbolt casts faster.

  2. Levels 15–17

    Frostbite

    Enemies start freezing in place without Frost Nova.

  3. Level 20

    Ice Lance

    Frozen enemies are now worth far more.

  4. Level 25

    Ice Block16-point milestone

    An escape: while the ice holds, attacks and spells cannot reach you.

  5. Levels 26–30

    Shatter

    Spells crit far more often against frozen targets. This is where the build takes off.

  6. Level 31

    Cold Snap

    Your Frost cooldowns, twice.

  7. Levels 32–33

    Fingers of Frost

    Some spells count the target as Frozen when it is not.

  8. Levels 35–39

    Ice Shards

    Critical strikes with Frost spells hit much harder.

  9. Level 40

    Ice Barrier

    A shield that also protects your casts.

  10. Levels 41–45

    Winter's Chill

    Frost spells make the next ones likelier to crit, stacking up to 5 times.

  11. Levels 57–59

    Improved Blizzard

    Blizzard slows what it hits.

The whole Frost build, every point from 10 to 60

Gear to look for

What the talents reward on items.
  • Spell critical strike chance is worth more here than its number: Ice Shards raises the critical strike damage bonus of Frost spells by 100%.
  • Chance to hit with Frost spells gets Elemental Precision only from level 46, so until then it comes from gear.
  • No Frost talent names a stat or a weapon type.

Item database

Groups and dungeons

In a group: damage. New group talents before 5 dungeons.

In a group these talents support damage.

  • Frost Channeling reduces the threat of your Frost spells by 30% at three points, but this order does not finish it until level 51.
  • Winter's Chill raises the chance that a Frost spell crits the target, so another Frost caster in the group gains from yours.
  • Much of the damage depends on the target being Frozen. The data does not say which dungeon enemies can be, so expect less from Ice Lance and Shatter on anything that cannot.

New group talents by the time each dungeon opens

All 9 launch dungeons

Strengths and trade-offs

3 strengths, 2 trade-offs.

Strengths

  • Control: enemies are frozen or slowed for most of a fight.
  • Three ways to survive a mistake: Ice Block, Cold Snap and Ice Barrier.
  • Every point is in one tree, so nothing waits on a second one.

Trade-offs

  • The damage leans on frozen targets. Against an enemy that cannot be frozen, Shatter and Ice Lance lose their bonus.
  • Frost Channeling, the Mana talent, trickles in: one point at level 24 and the last at level 51.

Compare this build

With ArcaneWith Fire

Keep reading

Sources and what isn't confirmed

Not announced

  • Item names and stat weights
  • A leveling talent order from Blizzard

Sources

  • Beta 1.60.1 talent data: every claim on this page is read from the Frost talent text. Nothing here is a published guide or a tested rotation

Updated . Talent data: beta 1.60.1. Details can change in any later build or patch.