High Dmg Single Target

This build is easy to pick up and play. It works under pretty much any conditions as long as you are capable of landing your Q. With the decent mana return and high single target damage, you do surprisingly effective sustained single target damage which is great for maps like the Immortals.

Anti-dive

This build is aimed at keeping you alive and effective against heavy dive teams; Think butcher, genji, illidan, etc. The idea is to use your frost armor and cone of cold to root enemies frequently.


Legend: [Always A Good Choice] [Situational] [Probably Best Used in Another Build]

Single Target Build

Winter's Reach
Extra range gives Jaina great poke, however, Jaina is a much greater dive mage. With this build you're wanting to land every Q and trying to poke is going to limit your capability to do that. It's good just not as good as the others.

Lingering Chill
This talent makes Jaina frustrating to face. Once tapped, you're not going anywhere fast for 6 seconds. It also allows you to chain only your Qs and get the frostbite bonus on every hit. If you miss a Q it gives you more chance for an ability to come available before the chill expires.

Fingers of Frost
I haven't been able to test this since the change. 10% frostbite damage can't be wrong. Jaina well played can avoid mana issues by returning to the fountain before objectives and team fights. That being said, not having to worry about it is always a boon. The increased duration on chill however will help your damage be more consistent and give you greater control.

Anti-Dive

Winter's Reach
Extra range will help you keep your distance, but unfortunately you cannot avoid dive forever, and with them being in your face, your range will lose value. I do not think the extra range is necessary to poke with Jaina.

Lingering Chill
The same reason as the Single Target build. Keeping dive slowed longer is also a boon!

Fingers of Frost
The idea is to survive dive, and sometimes the best defense is the best offense. 10% extra damage could make the difference and this is a viable talent choice. That being said, the increased chill time will allow you more opportunities to root an enemy.

Single Target Build

Frost Shards
An absolutely fantastic talent. With a Q build like this, you'll find being able to pierce the enemies' tanks invaluable. It also multplies your damage during rings of frost allowing all of your damage to hit multiple targets. This choice will require excellent mana management or fingers of frost however. Jaina is perfectly capable of bi-passing both mana talents in Tier 1 and 2 if you time your recalls effectively.

Arcane Intellect
This talent helps alleviate the pains of having to return for mana. While not necessary, it raises the skill floor on Jaina. This build is all about chaining Qs, and with increased chill duration you'll benefit a lot from this talent. This talent gains value the longer fights draw out and thus is great for objective monsters like the Immortals.

Frost Armor
If you're facing a lot of dive, there are better builds. The auto apply chill is helpful but you shouldn't be having trouble keeping chill up. The block is one of the worst in the game and mostly negligible, particularly in the current state of the game with so many fast attackers.

Anti-Dive

Frost Shards
Not as useful against a team leaping all over you. However, can be useful for applying chill to multiple melee stacked up. That being said, they will likely be targeting you, the immobile mage, and so frost armor will apply chill much more efficiently.

Arcane Intellect
Similar to the single target build. Since you're running anti dive though you'll be wanting frost armor. Sustain isnt your goal here, since dive fights are usually decided very quickly and your goal is to survive and set your team up.

Frost Armor
Typically to chill multiple targets quickly you'll use cone of cold, but we want to save that for the root. Blizzard is too slow to apply the chill, that's where this talent comes in. Enemy jumps on you, is chilled, you can instantly cone of cold and root to make your escape.

Single Target Build

Ice Flows
Not a bad talent per se. This will boost your aoe damage output. Just not as ideal as Ice Lance.

Ice Lance
The bread and butter of the build, with the mana restore and cooldown reduction, you'll be pumping out consistent single target damage.

Ice Fury Wand
I haven't had a chance to try this out yet. It looks fairly decent during laning phases but in the midst of the short bursty team fights of this meta, you'll probably get more value out of Ice Lance.


Anti-dive


Ice Flows
You want peels? This is how you get peels. You'll be relying on cone of cold to root enemies later on, this allows you to do that much more frequently.

Ice Lance
Great damage boost with sustain. Combined with the piercing could be useful against dive. This will not help improve your survivability.

Ice Fury Wand
You wont be doing much auto attack damage when you're being dived on.

Same for both builds...

Ring of Frost
This skill is what makes Jaina terrifying, it locks enemies in place to suffer your full combo. Use it in places where your enemy has to decide to get hit by it or move out of position.

Water Elemental
It's very difficult to make great use of this talent against skilled enemies. It can be bursted down easily and only targets one enemy. It's useful for consistent damage on squishy ranged heroes like chromie or morales, but it's hard to compete with Ring of Frost which is an absolute game changing heroic.

Single Target Build

Storm Front
Uhhh yeah.. Not a bad talent, certainly will help zone enemies. I still stand by Jaina being a "dive mage" (Jumping into the fight, blowing cooldowns and securing kills) and this contradicts that idea. If you combine this talent with the increased shard range, you'll because a pokey mage. Unfortunately Jaina needs to combo to deal significant damage and the only reliable benefit you'll get from this talent is safe zoning capability.

Ice Barrier
Have I mentioned that Jaina is a dive mage? This talent just makes sense, and it's pretty mindless to use. Jaina does burst damage, meaning you'll have bursts of shields when you need them. You can also combo this with your Q spam to maintain and keep your shields up. Sorta like Kerrigan! Which can be cool but probably not very practical :P This is the no-brainer, choice that will always be good.

Icy Veins
Very powerful. Pop this as soon as your combo is out and start machine gunning your Qs. This will greatly improve Jainas burst potential. It is more difficult to capitalize on this ability, and it wont provide any room for poor positioning. Thus, this is the more risky choice, and as the cliche goes, more rewarding.


Anti-dive

Storm Front
Can help you poke the dive before it gets to you.. but you'll be wanting your blizzard ontop of your rooted victims, which more often than not will be in your face. See above.

Ice Barrier
This combos well for the anti-dive build, giving you shields to mitigate the damage you cant avoid. With the increased aoe on cone of cold you can also get a ton of shields if creeps are nearby.

Icy Veins
Always a good choice. This build being focused on surviving dive means Ice Barrier is strongly suggested however. See above.

Single Target Build

Snowstorm
Jaina doesn't really need the increased AoE on blizzard, this is more of a crutch talent. Can be useful for better zoning capability, but that isnt what we're look for in this tier.

Northern Exposure
This talent takes you from nearly killing an enemy in a combo, to obliterating them. You want to be sure you combo your abilities as swiftly as possible, starting with Blizzard as it is delayed.

Numbing Blast
If the enemy has a dive hero or something slippery like a Zeratul/Genji. This could be a good pick up, root the enemies and force them to take some of your combo. Can also give you room to breath.


Anti-dive

Snowstorm
See above.

Northern Exposure
This is a very strong talent offensively, unfortunately this tier is where your anti dive all comes together. If you are surviving well already then go ahead and pick this.

Numbing Blast
This puts everything we've been working for together. With this talent you'll be throwing out roots frequently, which will keep the dive in place and off of you. This gives you and your team the opporunity to shut them down before things get out of hand.

Both Builds

Coldsnap
This talent is great against enemies that tend to bunch up, more often than not they wont expect the second blast. Generally speaking though, the flow of the team fight should be decided by the end of the first root, making this more of a winmore talent.

Ice Blink
You suddenly lose your greatest weakness, lack of mobility. This gives you a get out of jail card. You can also use it to engage but the free chill effect is generally not worth throwing away your free escape.

Deep Chill
40% slow is a lot! This is great against heavy melee teams. I would say the blink will find more value in any other situation though, but this will never be a bad pick.