WoW Classic Single-Target Frost Mage Leveling Talent Build from 1 to 60

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Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.

Your talents should roughly look like this, but keep in mind there are plenty of individual points that can be swapped around based on preference. For example, you can consider putting some points into Winter's Chill instead of going so deep into the Arcane tree.

1. Levels 10 to 12 — 3 points in Elemental Precision
2. Levels 13 & 14 — 2 points in Improved Frostbolt
3. Levels 15 to 17 — 3 points in Frostbite
4. Levels 18 & 19 — 2 points in Ice Shards

Elemental Precision allows you hit enemies much more reliably, which will increase your damage output and reduce your melee damage taken, as it is more likely enemies will get chilled by Frostbolt. Improved Frostbolt is a good damage increase with Frostbolt, although it comes at the cost of Mana. Frostbite will allow you to sometimes freeze enemies instead of rooting them, which has great synergy with Shatter later on. Ice Shards is also picked for its Shatter synergy later on.

1. Levels 20 to 22 — 3 points in Ice Shards
2. Levels 23 & 24 — 2 points in Improved Frost Nova
3. Levels 25 to 29 — 5 points in Shatter

Finish maximizing Ice Shards and get Improved Frost Nova in preparation for the big damage increase of Shatter!

1. Level 30 — 1 point in Ice Block
2. Level 31 — 1 point in Cold Snap
3. Levels 32 to 34 — 3 points in Improved Frostbolt
4. Levels 35 to 37 — 3 points in Frost Channeling
5. Levels 38 & 39 — 2 points in Piercing Ice

Ice Block allows you to easily survive deadly situations by standing in the block until Blink is available. Cold Snap allows you to reset Ice Block and other frost abilities, thus providing a second lease on life when needed. Finish maximizing Improved Frostbolt and get Frost Channeling for the Mana efficiency gain. Finally, get some points in Piercing Ice for a good damage increase.

1. Level 40 — 1 point in Ice Barrier
2. Level 41 — 1 point in Piercing Ice
3. Levels 42 & 43 — 2 points in Arctic Reach
4. Levels 44 & 45 — 2 points in Arcane Subtlety
5. Levels 46 to 48 — 3 points in Arcane Focus
6. Level 49 — 1 point in Arcane Concentration

Ice Barrier is a great way to prevent damage and you should aim to always have it up while fighting. Get the final point into Piercing Ice for even more damage, and some points into Arctic Reach for the added range on frost spells, which allows you to pull from far away. Arcane Subtlety reduces the (frost) resistances of any enemy that happens to have them, and Arcane Focus reduces the likelihood your Polymorph and other arcane spells will be resisted. Finally, get one point into Arcane Concentration for its Mana-saving properties.

1. Levels 50 to 53 — 4 points in Arcane Concentration
2. Level 54 — 1 point in Arcane Resilience
3. Levels 55 & 56 — 2 points in Wand Specialization
4. Levels 57 & 58 — 2 points in Improved Arcane Explosion
5. Levels 59 & 60 — 2 points in Arcane Meditation

Get the remaining points in Arcane Concentration to maximize its Mana gain, Arcane Resilience for whenever you are caught by physical attacks, Wand Specialization for when you are finishing enemies off with your Wand, Improved Arcane Explosion to improve Arcane Explosion as a finisher and, as your last two talents before 60, Arcane Meditation for the minor Mana regeneration.

1. Cast Arcane Intellect and Frost Armor if you miss their buffs.
2. Cast Arcane Intellect, Frost Armor and Mana Shield if you miss their buffs.
3. Cast Arcane Intellect, Ice Armor and Mana Shield if you miss their buffs.
4. Cast Arcane Intellect, Mage Armor and Mana Shield if you miss their buffs.
5. Cast Arcane Intellect, Mage Armor, Ice Barrier and Mana Shield if you miss their buffs.
6. Cast Fireball as your main attack.
7. Cast Frostbolt as your main attack. We will be skipping Fireball ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment, on a first character.

Shield skills, such as Mana Shield, should be kept up as much as possible during battle, in order to minimize the cast time lost to enemy attacks, thus allowing you to finish them faster.

Utility skills, such as Frost Nova, and AoE skills, such as Arcane Explosion should be used to keep enemies away from you or finish off packs of enemies, as required.

Since you can make your own food and water with Conjure Food and Conjure Water, you will be able to more than make up the gold spent on these skills, by saving on vendor food and water. It is also possible to gain some gold on the side by selling your conjured supplies to other players.

• At Level 1, as soon as you have the copper, buy Arcane Intellect. It provides a significant Intellect boost, that lasts for 30 minutes.
• At Level 4, buy Conjure Water and Frostbolt. Conjure Water allows you to create free water, to use while leveling up. Frostbolt deals strong single-target damage and slows the target by 40%.
• At Level 6, buy Conjure Food. Conjure Food allows you to create free food, to use while leveling up.
• At Level 8, buy Polymorph and Rank 2 Frostbolt. Polymorph allows you to take one enemy out of combat for 20 seconds, which is handy when dealing with multiple enemies. Keep in mind only one enemy can be polymorphed at a time.
• At Level 10, buy Rank 2 Conjure Water, Rank 2 Frost Armor and Frost Nova. Frost Nova freezes nearby enemies for 8 seconds, allowing you to regain distance on them, and to gain a damage bonus, through Shatter, when re-engaging.
• At Level 12, buy Rank 2 Conjure Food and Slow Fall. Slow Fall slows your falling speed, which is handy to avoid fall damage, enabling shortcuts that would lead to death, otherwise.
• At Level 14, buy Arcane Explosion, Rank 2 Arcane Intellect and Rank 3 Frostbolt. Arcane Explosion will be your main AoE spell with the single-target spec, since it is instant you can also use it to finish off weakened enemies, but beware its high Mana cost.
• At Level 18, buy Remove Lesser Curse. Remove Lesser Curse is a niche, yet sometimes invaluable spell that will allow you to remove curse effects.
• At Level 20, buy Blink, Rank 2 Frost Armor, Rank 3 Conjure Water, Evocation, Mana Shield and Rank 4 Frostbolt. At this level, you can also start to buy the teleport spells for each major city, such as Teleport: Stormwind (Alliance) or Teleport: Orgrimmar (Horde), at their respective portal trainers. Blink allows you to teleport forward every 15 seconds, which can be useful in a variety of situations. It also clears stun and root effects. Evocation rapidly regenerates your Mana over 8 seconds, with an 8-minute cooldown. Finally, Mana Shield prevents health loss and, more importantly, cast time pushback while it is up.
• At Level 22, buy Rank 2 Arcane Explosion and Rank 3 Conjure Food
• At Level 24, buy Counterspell. Counterspell instantly interrupts and prevents spells of the interrupted school from being cast for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown. Very useful to disable caster enemies or in the occasional PvP situation.
• At Level 26, buy Rank 5 Frostbolt.
• At Level 28, buy Rank 3 Arcane Intellect, Rank 2 Mana Shield and Conjure Mana Agate. Conjure Mana Agate is the first of four spells that create Mana Gems that you can use during combat to instantly replenish part of your Mana pool. These items share a 2-minute cooldown, and are consumed on use.
• At Level 30, buy Ice Armor, Rank 3 Arcane Explosion, Rank 4 Conjure Water and Teleport: Darnassus (Alliance) or Teleport: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at each respective city's portal trainers. Ice Armor is a slightly better version of Frost Armor and should be maintained on yourself until you get Mage Armor at Level 34.
• At Level 32, buy Rank 4 Conjure Food and Rank 6 Frostbolt.
• At Level 34, buy Mage Armor. Mage Armor allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting, and gives you some general magic resistance. Considering you should not be getting hit by enemy melee attacks, this will be more helpful than Frost Armor.
• At Level 36, buy Rank 3 Mana Shield.
• At Level 38, buy Rank 4 Arcane Explosion, Conjure Mana Jade and Rank 7 Frostbolt.
• At Level 40, buy Rank 5 Conjure Water. At this level, you can also start to buy the portal spells for each major city, such as Portal: Stormwind (Alliance) or Portal: Orgrimmar (Horde), at their respective portal trainers.
• At Level 42, buy Rank 4 Arcane Intellect, Rank 5 Conjure Food.
• At Level 44, buy Rank 8 Frostbolt and Rank 4 Mana Shield.
• At Level 46, buy Rank 5 Arcane Explosion and Rank 2 Ice Barrier.
• At Level 48, buy Conjure Mana Citrine.
• At Level 50, buy Rank 6 Conjure Water, Rank 9 Frostbolt and Portal: Darnassus (Alliance) or Portal: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at each respective city's portal trainers.
• At Level 52, buy Rank 6 Conjure Food, Rank 5 Mana Shield and Rank 3 Ice Barrier.
• At Level 54, buy Rank 6 Arcane Explosion.
• At Level 56, buy Rank 5 Arcane Intellect and Rank 10 Frostbolt.
• At Level 58, buy Conjure Mana Ruby and Rank 4 Ice Barrier.
• At Level 60, buy Rank 6 Mana Shield.

By setting yourself up with an upgraded user interface and macros from the get go, you will make your leveling process much easier. Check out our Single-Target Frost Mage Macros and Addons guide in the link below for the full list.

While leveling, you will find or procure many weapon upgrades. You will also have a few class specific quests to complete, mostly for new gear. In order to get you well on your way with both of those aspects of the game, we have prepared two dedicated guides.

Now that you arrived at Level 60, check out our DPS Mage Guide, which covers how to play at maximum level in detail.

We would especially recommend you to browse the following pages.

• The DPS Mage Talent builds guide, which contains the PvE oriented builds for DPS Mages. The best ones for Molten Core and Blackwing Lair rely heavily on Frost talents, as enemies are Fire resistant or immune;
• Our PvP Mage guide is where you can find the recommended PvP talents for Mages, as well as various tricks and tips to help you win against against other players;
• Goldmaking Guide for DPS Mages explains various techniques that you can employ to farm gold quickly at level 60, and even before! Mages are one of the very best classes for farming in the game, and can solo farm a lot of gold quickly in Dire Maul East. They are also great for solo farming Maraudon and Zul'Farrak;
• In DPS Mage Rotation guide you will find various tips and tricks on how to perform some of the more advanced Mage tricks, to compensate for the raiding rotation mostly being a one-button spam;
• Our DPS Mage Stats guide has a lot of information on WoW Classic Mage stats and their relative meaning towards your damage dealing potential;
• Finally, browse the Gear guide for DPS Mages to learn which are your best pieces of gear in WoW Classic (updated every phase), and where you can farm them in order to optimize your damage.