I don't want to get too into the basics of Jaina game play, threats, etc. since many other guides cover that. This guide is mainly to discuss her talent choices since she has so many great talents that I feel like a lot of thought needs to be put in to choosing the right talent build for each game. I've been very successful with this hero and tried a lot of different builds, this is guide outlines where I've found the most success.

Jaina can do a few things really well. She can clear waves and merc camps efficiently. She can roam and assassinate effectively in the early game. She can solo lane. However, when you pick this hero for your team composition you are picking her for what she does best: win Teamfights (TFs). Her TF damage output and control is second to none, it is simply insane. Winning TFs win games. There are other ways to win like split pushing and exp splitting and splitting objectives and spreading the map, but there are also better heroes for that type of play style such as Sylvanas or Falstad. There are better heroes to solo roam all game like Zeratul. You still should be doing all of these things with Jaina, however, Jaina can't match their mobility. She has the potential to outshine anyone's DPS in TFs.

So that's what this build focuses on. If you want to be a raw single-target assassin, or split pusher there are better heroes for that IMO and you're not playing this hero to her fullest potential. For that Solo-Que style just get sprint and bolt every game; don't get trashy talents but u can mess around with the rest and you'll be fine haha. This is not a Solo-Que guide :P

Red = Pls don't

Yellow = Situational

Green = Glorious

TIER 1

Winter's Reach - All I got when I first started playing Jaina. I'm marking it as yellow because I know a lot of people still stand by it and it's not a horrible talent. Again if you want to sit back, skill Qs for tier 1-3 then skill blizz range increase, and harass from afar constantly, I feel like there's better hereos to do that kind of thing; I'd honestly rather Sgt. Hammer do it. Jaina is a monster when she combos all of her skills together while taking full advantage of her trait and northern exposure. The initial range on this talent is sufficient enough in order to start/chain through a chill combo imo. WR has a place in certain builds.

Ligering Chill - I feel like there's some wonky build where this might work but I personally don't see the practicality of it. Be smart about your spell-casting order and you won't need this.

Deep Chill - This is the one that heavily influences TFs. One thing I really feel like Jaina players should be doing that I didn't mention earlier is seeing if they can make a play, taking out the opponent's tank(s). No good Valla/Tychus or w/e is in the back line is gonna let you just walk up to them (you're Jaina so this is your mobility option) and blow them up and then the enemy team subsequently lets you get away for free. You can blow up the tanks as they come to you and deeply slow anyone trying to come and take you out in a TF. Tanks have a hard time with 35% slow, this is a great talent for you and your whole team.

Conjurer's Pursuit - Not the worst thing in builds without Arcane talents. Is it worth getting or should you just get Arcane Intellect next tier instead? I feel like the arcane talents are more effective, and deep chill has too much utility to pass up. But I could be wrong, test er out! I haven't tested this one out.

TIER 2

Frost Shards - Again, works for the ranged-menace Q build, I just don't think Jaina lives up to her full potential with that play style. All about the Chill/Northern Exposure burst for me. Nay!

Snowstorm - Teamfight Jaina. Try it out! Arcane is great for unlimited mana and lane control, Envenom is great for roaming picks but this is the skill that will win you the crucial TFs that let you snowball into objectives/building kills. Let Jaina be Jaina rather than Sylvanas/Illidan.

Arcane Intellect - I love talents that aren't heroics at level 10 that immediately change the way the hero functions. BfBlood on Illidan does it and Sprint for NaZeebro, for example. This talent does it too. All of a sudden you are the probably the only mana-based hero in the game that can constantly spam her spells and never have to sip from a well or have Furion give her mana. It's a great talent, but I choose Snowstorm for the reasons explained above and in the intro.

Envenom - I feel like this is the talent that works great on other heroes so people get it on Jaina expecting the same effect. In practice however, it doesn't work vs good teams. Getting into envenom range is tricky, and even still it doesn't combo with chill, only 40% with northern exposure and only hits one target for a beastly AoE damage dealer. IMO, this isn't the hero for envenom.

TIER 3

Ice Floes and Frost Armour - Two talents that clearly don't stack up to the other two at this tier. They have maybe kinda situational stuff that might be good or not but honestly there are two beast talents at this tier, I can't ever see myself grabbing either of these. For those who say "Well you need Frost armour to stay alive, they just keep jumping me", just play safe for this stage of the game, dying at level 7 isn't that game-breaking and you can address that need much more effectively at level 13, when heroics are up and the TFs matter much more.

Frostbitten - If you are a die-hard frostbitten user and swear by it and have your calculator out and did all the combos and have to get it then please just get it, I'm not here to convert you. It still works in this build and the total damage at the end of the game will be close. This is a great talent and I will explain why I get Ice Lance instead in the Ice Lance section.

Ice Lance - With 35% slow and a 2 second CD on Frostbolt, this talent makes Jaina a terror. This is the talent that allows me to kill tanks and healers effectively as it creates a sustain damage stream with permachill. Not that frostbitten isn't but this talent is great for TFs. Say you skill frostbitten: Diablo charges in on your team. You do a 3 basic spell combo of your choice. In 4 seconds you get a chilled bolt, now your combo is over. Since they have shields/heals the Diablo gets away. For newer players: Chill lasts 4 seconds, Q has 4 second cooldown, W has 15 sec CD, E has 10 sec CD. So the next spell off of CD is E (Cone of Cold) Since you used 2 bolts, now there is a 2 second buffer where they are unchilled and E is your next spell off CD. You have a choice to make, do I use my highest damaging spell on an unchilled target? Even if you have Northern Exposure, your other spells are on CD, so you have to wait even longer. When people calculate all of the damage that Frostbitten gives you they don't take into account this downtime, they don't take into account spells being used on unchilled targets, 50% is not 65% but it's better than 0% which can happen so much more easily with the Frostbitten build than this one.

This is where most guides are a toss up I found, that's why the explanation is so long. In summary, both talents are great, both provide Jaina with even more damage. I chose Ice Lance because it provides more reliable and sustainable damage/CC and chill management. And for people who say "well Water Elemental just chills everyone anyways and keeps them chilled" just know that it's a 80 second cooldown. Good teams often can burst an Ele down or disengage from it, causing you to wait 80 seconds and lose your sustain chill that Ice Lance just provides on its own. Try not to miss Qs people!

TIER 4

Ring of Frost is still a good heroic, barring you have a reliable setup for it like Void Prison or Gravibomb or something. 3 Second root and if you have Apoc/Thunderbreath or something to follow it up after, this heroic can potentially provide damage that Water Elemental Cannot. Water Elemental is almost always the best heroic to get, newer players remember to use R and click to target heroes/micro the elemental.

TIER 5

This tier has no "Green Glorious" Talents. You must take the game you are in, both compositions and the map and game flow into account in order to select the best talent here.

Storm Front - The one talent I recommend strongly against, but as mentioned earlier maybe fits a play style of ranged pokey harassy Jaina that I am clearly not a fan of. In the right build maybe, but definitely not this build.

Improved Ice Block - I've seen guides take a steamy **** on this talent and while I don't recommend going for it most games, there are some games where this talent can completely turn a TF, and that's what we want to do as Jaina. Thing an Illidan/Tyrael composition on the enemy squad, Ty ults you or Illi jumps you and you Ice Block to help reset your CDs, shut down their initiation then come out burstin. This is a scenario where sprint wont save you. Another one is getting bubbled by Zeratul, as long as there isn't an already channeling ETC mosh pit or something waiting for you, you can iceblock whatever follows up after the bubble, whereas sprint does nothing. Great in the right situation, use your head and feel out the game flow.

Icy Veins - Sometimes your team is so great at CCing or the opposing team has no means of focusing/initiating on to you that you get free reign TFs. Well the burst that Icy Veins provides is terrifying, granted that you can stay alive during whole TFs with no mobility spells. This does happen once in awhile, when it does take advantage.

Sprint - The middle of the road, solid choice. If you have no use for Ice Block as mentioned before and Icy Veins feels to greedy of a choice, then Sprint is your choice. It just depends on the game this is probably the one I'd say "When in doubt, go for sprint!". But honestly that is just because it is the easiest out of the 3 to use. Just because it is the easiest doesn't mean it's the best choice. It really is situational.

TIER 6

Snow Crash - Even if we increased radius, do you really think people are just gonna stand there and take 3 blizzard shots? I don't like getting talents that benefit mainly due to my opponents being bad, if they're bad we'll win anyways :). If you have the RoFrost setup though, or somethin like that mayyybe it could be good, but even in that scenario so is Northern Exposure.

Northern Exposure - The only real no-brainer I find other than choosing a heroic. I've talked alot about teamfights well 25% bonus damage from all of your team members is ridiculous, and percentages help us scale and kill tanks as well as mentioned before. This talent is unbelievably good.

Numbing Blast - A lesser version of w/e you could have gotten @Tier 5 3 levels ago not to mention the blink option @20. Just stop it lol it's a 1 second root...

Ice Barrier - Again, there are better defensive options at Tier 5 and Tier 7, I find it really hard getting this over Northern Exposure. Jaina is not a tank, don't try and make her one. Kill before you are killed, this is something she is very good at. Let the tanks tank while you do the DPs.

TIER 7

Cold Snap - Even if you get RoF they have to be in the center after the ring expires? I really don't like this talent.

Wintermute - You need to ask yourself, these teamfights that I'm trying to win, how long are they lasting? This spell gives you the burst you need to kick off a teamfight with a bang, take out 1-2 heroes right off of the bat and snowball into the backline with your team.

Arcane Power - Are the teamfights lasting 20+seconds? (20 seconds you can do a second blizzard+cone combo, since Q has 2 second CD it's basically always available) Is the enemy team really good at CCing and disengaging with shields/Rehgar heroics and getting away without losing heroes? Sometimes these types of games happen where the fights are very long and drawn out for example trying to capture the 3rd tribute or trying to hold a sky temple or dancing around the dubloon return ship. In these scenarios I would actually take Arcane Power over Wintermute as I will inevitably run out of mana if I don't, and the second 15% burst isn't quite as punchy as the Wintermute Burst, but it is more reliable (see TIER 3 Ice Lance description at the end about the Water Elemental) and allows me to continue to cast spells/combos constantly for a long time.

Bolt of the Storm - At face value it's a great talent. However, If you already have enough survivability with either sprint/Ice Block at Tier 5, then it is unnecessary and you may as well take Wintermute/Arcane as discussed above. If you need more mobility take it. It's a very useful talent that depends greatly on specific match that you are in.


Sorry if I made any grammar mistakes or anything like that! I didn't see any Jaina guides quite like this so I decided to make it, I hope you all enjoy!