Yet another new Beta Build is out, Build 8962, with some minor changes for Wrath of the Lich King. Some changes were new Mounts, new Achievements, and new Class changes. Thanks again to MMO-Champion.com for keeping me up to date. They have also updated their Talent Calculator to reflect on the new changes.

So what are the new changes for Mages? They haven’t seem to find any changes, but I found two big changes already to the Frost Tree. It will change the way I will spec for when the pre-release patch is out, and when I hit level 80.

Ice Shards:

Ice Shards is now only 3 talent points instead of 5 to, “Increase the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 33/66/100%.” This change frees up 2 talent points for Frost Mages to use elsewhere.

Shatter:

Shatter is now also only 3 talent points instead of 5 to, “Increase the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 17/34/50%.” This change also frees up another 2 talent points for Frost Mages.

Now that I have 4 extra talent points, where shall I put them? This now opens up a lot of different options for me. The Frost talent tree has many many useful talents that I want to pick up, but never could find enough talent points to grab them all.

For me, I will use those extra points and invest them into Brain Freeze. Before I didn’t think it was worth the points over some of the other Frost talents. Well now I can afford the points. When the pre-release patch comes out, I shall be using this talent build: Level 70 PvE/PvP Frost

When the WotLK expansion hits, as I level up, I will start filling in the Arcane tree until I get Focus Magic. When I hit 80 and start raiding again, the talent build that I will most likely be using is this: 80 PvE/PvP Frost