Season of Discovery Frost Mage DPS Talents and Runes

Last updated on Jul 10, 2024 at 03:00 by Seksixeny 7 comments

On this page, you will find out the best PvE talents for your Frost Mage in WoW Classic — Season of Discovery, as well as advised runes.

1.

Frost Mage AoE Talent Build

Frost AoE Talent Build

This build is intended for AoE grinding, but will also work just fine for single target damage, especially if there is a large health enemy alongside many weaker enemies due to the powerful Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost + Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt + Brain Freeze Icon Brain Freeze combo.

Improved Blizzard Icon Improved Blizzard will all but ensure you obtain both Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze Icon Brain Freeze procs after using Blizzard Icon Blizzard on multiple enemies. With both procs available, you can get an instant Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt critical strike and a follow up cast still benefiting from the Fingers of Frost effect, dealing large single target damage perfect against high health targets, enemy casters mixed in the pull, or to finish stragglers after a successful AoE pull.

Thus, this is a great build to make gold solo, and it should also work well on dungeon content, especially if your group is capable of large pulls.

2.
  • Gloves — Living Bomb Icon Living Bomb
  • Pants — Living Flame Icon Living Flame
  • Chest — Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost
  • Waist — Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt
  • Feet — Brain Freeze Icon Brain Freeze
  • Head — Deep Freeze Icon Deep Freeze
  • Wrist — Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt
  • Back — Frozen Orb Icon Frozen Orb
  • Ring — Frost Specialization Icon Frost Specialization
  • Ring — Arcane Specialization Icon Arcane Specialization

Living Bomb Icon Living Bomb and Living Flame Icon Living Flame are used for area damage purposes, while Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost, Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt / Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt, and Brain Freeze Icon Brain Freeze are the linchpin of the single target follow up and general single target capabilities of the build.

While you are unlikely to top the raid damage meters as Frost with any build, this approach provides all the comfort of a 75% Blizzard Icon Blizzard slow combined with the high single target burst potential of landing all Frost procs at once.

Deep Freeze Icon Deep Freeze can also be used to stun frozen targets or as a large nuke against unfreezable enemies with Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost procs.

3.

Frost Mage Single Target Talent Build

Frost Single Target Talent Build

This build has only one purpose; make Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt (and Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt once at 9 stacks) critically hit as often as possible. This is achieved by cherry picking double (triple with Spell Power Icon Spell Power Rune) critical strike damage talents, and ways to critical strike more often than it should be possible with Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost and Shatter Icon Shatter, making it a great casino build even if expected damage is lower than pure Fire builds.

Unfortunately Improved Fireball Icon Improved Fireball and Improved Frostbolt Icon Improved Frostbolt do not work for Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt, but we can still get strong talents such as Ice Block Icon Ice Block and Burning Soul Icon Burning Soul, as well as Winter's Chill Icon Winter's Chill which is a fantastic debuff to have in a Mage heavy raid. As Fire builds will be looking to use Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt and Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt in this Phase, your raid will have Winter's Chill and Improved Scorch Icon Improved Scorch at the same time, for a large Raid DPS increase!

4.
  • Gloves — Living Bomb Icon Living Bomb
  • Pants — Icy Veins Icon Icy Veins
  • Chest — Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost
  • Waist — Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt
  • Feet — Spell Power Icon Spell Power
  • Head — Deep Freeze Icon Deep Freeze
  • Wrist — Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt
  • Back — Frozen Orb Icon Frozen Orb
  • Ring — Frost Specialization Icon Frost Specialization
  • Ring — Arcane Specialization Icon Arcane Specialization

Other than the previously explained logic behind most Runes, in order to boost Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt and Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt as much as possible, Living Bomb Icon Living Bomb and Icy Veins Icon Icy Veins are picked as valuable spells to have that do not take much time to use on cooldown.

Deep Freeze Icon Deep Freeze, as in the AoE build, can be used to stun frozen enemies, or as a large nuke against unfreezable enemies with Fingers of Frost Icon Fingers of Frost procs.

Make sure to check our Mage Rune guide in order to learn where to get all the SoD runes!

5.

Notable Frost Mage Talents

The Frost tree is full of utility goodies for Mage, including powerful damage boosting talents at the end of the tree. While not all of them are reachable at Level 40, here's a preview of the best stuff the tree has to offer.

Permafrost Icon Permafrost increases the duration of your slowing effects by up to 3 seconds and makes them slow for 10% more. This allows lower duration slows, such as Improved Blizzard Icon Improved Blizzard to be much more annoying and impactful on opponents, and makes Cone of Cold Icon Cone of Cold have a longer slow duration than its cooldown.

Cold Snap Icon Cold Snap has a lengthy 10-minutes cooldown, but instantly resets all of your Frost spell cooldowns when used. This makes it an incredibly flexible tool, for damage in the form of back-to-back Cone of Cold Icon Cone of Colds, or for added control in the form of extra Frost Nova Icon Frost Novas and Ice Block Icon Ice Blocks.

Improved Blizzard Icon Improved Blizzard causes your Blizzard Icon Blizzard spell to slow hit targets by up to 65% for 2 seconds. When combined with Permafrost Icon Permafrost, the duration and slow effects are increased to 5, and 75%, respectively, which is extremely strong for controlling packs of enemies, or slowing single enemies with the Rank 1 version.

Ice Block Icon Ice Block literally turns you into an ice block, immune to all enemy attacks for 10 seconds, but also incapable of performing any action while it is active. It removes all debuffs on you, which makes it extremely useful against certain bosses, but its main use is to allow you to survive otherwise deadly damage.

Winter's Chill Icon Winter's Chill makes your Frost spells increase the likelihood further Frost spells will critically strike the target by up 10%, when at 5 stacks. This is a very powerful raid buff when there are several Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt / Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt Mages present, and should be applied as soon as possible.

Ice Barrier Icon Ice Barrier creates a barrier of ice around you, absorbing damage for 1 minute. This is very useful, for the extra survivability, and also for the immunity to spell interruption from damage while it lasts.

The Fire tree allows you to pick up some interesting complementary talents.

Ignite Icon Ignite allows your critical strikes to create a damage over time effect on the target for 40% extra damage over 4 seconds. This damage over time effect has its duration reset and grows for each additional critical strike landed while it is active.

Burning Soul Icon Burning Soul is a straightforward damage pushback resistance talent with a high threat reduction effect baked in.

Improved Scorch Icon Improved Scorch, while not picked in our recommended Frost builds, is a staple of most other Mage DPS builds and thus likely to be present in your raid group, where it will boost your Balefire Bolt Icon Balefire Bolt and Frostfire Bolt Icon Frostfire Bolt.

6.

Changelog

  • 10 Jul. 2024: Updated for Phase 4.
  • 02 Apr. 2024: Updated talents, runes and explanation text for Phase 4.
  • 13 Feb. 2024: Clarified how to tell if a talent applies to Frostfire Bolt.
  • 08 Feb. 2024: Updated talents, runes and explanation text for Phase 2.
  • 15 Dec. 2023: Removed explanation of currently unreachable talents.
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