HotS: Jaina Build Guide

Jaina Proudmoore is everything you’d expect from a frost mage coming from the Warcraft universe. She’s a ranged assassin with tons of damage, devastating spell combos, and she excels at crowd control and AoE damage. What Jaina lacks in escape and defense she more than makes up for with burst damage, critical strikes, and the ability to chase and finish off her enemies.

Check out my Janna spells and talents guide below, and find out the best way to build her.

Skills

• (Trait) Frostbite: All abilities Chill targets, slowing Movement Speed by 25% and amplifying damage from your abilities by 50%. Lasts 4 seconds.
• (Q) Frostbolt: Skillshot dealing damage to a single enemy and applying chill effect.
• (W) Blizzard: Bombard an area with 2 waves of ice, dealing damage and chilling enemies.
• (E) Cone of Cold: cone-shaped area of effect spell dealing damage and slowing targets.
• (R) Ring of Frost: creates a Ring of Frost in an area dealing damage and rooting enemies. The ring persists for 3 seconds afterwards, Chilling any enemies who touch it.
• (R) Summon Water Elemental: Summons a Water Elemental for 20 seconds at a targeted location, dealing damage and Chilling nearby enemies. Water Elemental’s attacks do 25% splash damage and apply chill to targets.

Talents

Level 1 Talents

• Winter’s Reach – Increases the range of Frostbolt by 30%.
• Lingering Chill – Increases the duration of Chill from 4 seconds to 6 seconds.
• Deep Chill – Increases the slow of chill from 25% to 35%.
• Conjurer’s Pursuit – Increases Mana Regeneration by 0.5 per second, increasing by 0.25 per second for every 3 Regeneration Globes you gather.

Recommended Level 1 Talent:

Lingering Chill: your abilities deal extra damage if your target is chilled, the 6 second duration allows you to constantly have extra damage on all subsequent abilities and easily chase enemies.

Level 4 Talents

• Frost Shards – Frostbolt (Q) pierces the first enemy struck and damages an additional target behind them.
• Snowstorm – Increases the radius of Blizzard (W) by 30%.
• Arcane Intellect – Dealing damage to a Chilled  target returns Mana to Jaina. Basic attacks return 5 Mana and abilities return 25.
• Envenom – Active ability with a 60-second cooldown dealing damage to a single target over 5 seconds.

Recommended Level 4 Talent:

Depends on your playstyle, and sometimes your team’s composition. I usually prefer Arcane Intellect to make sure I have as little mana problems as possible. Increased radius from Snowstorm talent also allows you to easily hit enemies with both waves of Blizzard, which is especially important if you later on intend to take other Blizzard talents.

Level 7 Talents

• Ice Floes – Doubles the width of Cone of Cold and causes each target hit to reduce its cooldown by 0.5 seconds.
• Frostbitten – Increases the damage bonus of Frostbite (passive) from 50% to 65%.
• Frost Armor – Enemy Heroes that attack you are Chilled. Additionally, once every 8 seconds you can block the next basic attack from an enemy Hero reducing its damage by 75%.
• Ice Lance – The cooldown of Frostbolt (Q) is reduced by 2 seconds if it hits a Chilled target.

Recommended Level 7 Talents:

Ice Floes if you want extra fast wave clear, Ice Lance if you want to chase and pick off targets, or Frost Armor for all-around good synergy with other spells. I often prefer Frost Armor since it automatically slows anyone who attacks me possibly giving me some breathing room when trying to get away from them, and since it also applies Chill it means your abilities deal extra damage immediately.

Level 10 Heroic Ability

I always prefer Ring of Frost. It deals immense area damage and is capable of annihilating entire teams if used correctly, especially around map objectives like Tributes. Comboing this ultimate with your other spells can be truly devastating.

Level 13 Talents

• Storm Front – Increases cast range of your Blizzard (W) by 100%.
• Improved Ice Block – Active ability giving you invulnerability for 3 seconds, and Chilling any nearby enemies once the effect ends.
• Icy Veins – Active ability making your basic (non-heroic) ability cooldowns recharge three times as fast, and cost 50% less mana for 5 seconds.
• Sprint – Active ability giving you 75% extra movement speed for 3 seconds.

Recommended Level 13 Talents:

Lots of tough choices here, as all of these talents give you so much potential. Players often take Ice Block, though I prefer either Icy Veins for even more burst damage, or Storm Front just because you can practically cast it from a screen away.

Sprint is also a viable choice if you’re looking for more defensive and kiting utility.

Level 16 Talents

• Snow Crash – Increases the number of waves in Blizzard (W) from 2 to 3.
• Northern Exposure – Enemies damaged by Cone of Cold (E) are also afflicted with Vulnerable effect, increasing the damage they take by 25% for 2 seconds.
• Numbing Blast – Cone of Cold also roots Chilled targets for 1 second.
• Ice Barrier – 25% of increased damage dealt from Frostbite (passive) is given to Jaina as a shield, lasting for 3 seconds.

Recomended Level 16 Talents:

Once again a tough choice. I typically go for Northern Exposure or Numbing Blast. Snow Crash can be good, particularly if you took the Level 4 talent increasing Blizzard’s radius.

Level 20 Talents

• Cold Snap -Gives your Frost Ring heroic ability an additional frost explosion in the center of it.
• Wintermute – Increased cast range on Water Elemental, and he mimics your basic abilities (casting your QWE spells for 50% damage).
• Arcane Power – Active ability instantly restoring 400 Mana and giving you 15% increased Ability Power for 5 seconds.
• Bolt of the Storm – Active spell teleporting you to a nearby location on a 40-second cooldown.

Recommended Level 20 Talents:

Bolt of the Storm is a wonderful escape escape ability giving you some much needed breathing room from enemies, or when necessary you can even use it to chase other players and finish them off.

Recommended Talent Build

This is my recommended Jaina talent build:

• Level 1: Lingering Chill
• Level 4: Arcane Intellect
• Level 7: Frost Armor
• Level 10: Ring of Frost
• Level 13: Icy Veins
• Level 16: Numbing Blast
• Level 20: Bolt of the Storm

This is by no means the best build you can go for, as it’s always my advice you should adapt to the game you’re playing: take a look at your team’s composition and heroes and see what everyone brings to the table. Enemy team hero picks are very important as well, as certain team compositions may not require you to pick many defensive talents.

Once you get a good graps of Jaina’s play style I’m sure you’ll be able to understand her talent builds better and find the best choices which suit a given situation, but if you’re ever in doubt my recommended talents should work well in most games.

I hope you found my Heroes of the Storm Jaina build and guide helpful. If you have any recommendations or other ways to build your favorite frost mage be sure to cast your thoughts in the comments below.