Blizzard has ruin the Frost spec.

[Dispirit]

Poly, can't be instant unless arcane, long cast time, haste reduced no reforging. Counterspell no longer has a blanket silence, has to be used as an interrupt. Ring of Frost has same cast time as poly, takes just enough time for people to see it and move out of it before it activates, that's implying the cast gets off in time or doesn't get interrupted. If playing with ice nova, yes, plenty of roots, roots for days, wtf good does a root do against a ranged dps. Roots use to be deadly because of deep freeze, now it breaks with a simple attack from the pet. So the issue is, almost every single thing a mage has to keep itself away from big bad classes with retarded damage was nerfed. Anything a mage had to mitigate damage to be able to get off a fucking cast, has been nerfed. Now it will take plenty to stay alive, and still do enough damage to kill someone, especially in a 1v1 environment. So yes, ruined is a valid word, the only melee our roots will do good against is a warrior, and even that's a stretch.

the class requires skill now. no more instant cast endless cc chains and using an interrupt to actually interrupt a spell what a concept <3 get used to it. with the exception of monks melee have had to actually interrupt casts forever, then you all got a billion instant casts so our interrupts were pretty much worthless.

[Roddock]

Frost got boring after being the only viable spec for a whole damn xpac at least PvE wise

[Azobank]

Frost got boring after being the only viable spec for a whole damn xpac at least PvE wise

In which expansion was frost the only viable PVE-spec?

[awildpidgeyappears]

In which expansion was frost the only viable PVE-spec?

Molten Core and Blackwing Lair? Just spitballing here.

[Azobank]

Molten Core and Blackwing Lair? Just spitballing here.

I don't think of MC and BWL as part of an expansion. Ofcourse asusming you meant the lvl 60 version of MC which isn't the whole expansion anyway if the orignal game would be considered an epxnansion. I still think it's an untrue statement that frost was the only viable spec in PVE in either TBC, WotLK, Catalcysm or MoP. I disslike untrue negative statements such as the one Roddock made. It's not constructive and doesn't take the discussion forward.

I might be wrong. Maybe frost was the only viable spec in a whole expansion. I didn't really play in vanilla and didn't play in cataclysm at all. So my experience from these periods is limited.

[Komman]

I might be wrong. Maybe frost was the only viable spec in a whole expansion. I didn't really play in vanilla and didn't play in cataclysm at all. So my experience from these periods is limited.

Using today's standards (ie. the acceptable margin between specs), Fire was the only viable spec for parts of vanilla (AQ40, AQ20, Naxx) and BC (Hyjal, BT, Sunwell). It was ahead of competition by more than 20%, if not more. On the other hand, Frost has never been "the only viable spec" for any expansion.

[Deleted]

IMO, mages have been broken the entire expansion, the whole 90 tier broke any kind of nice game play for me personally. I stuck with it, but that doesn't mean i enjoyed it as much as a should have.
I do understand that other classes have had their CC gutted too, but none of those classes had to rely on it so much in pvp as the frost mage had to.
As mentioned before, as long as blizzard keeps up this lazy design and not have spells function differently in pvp and pve this game will remain a mess. You can not balance pvp this way if you do not have the same HP pools that pve mobs have. The numbers are just to far and wide apart to "fix" this with their current philosophy. Gutting classes makes for an easier balance, but it leaves us with gutted classes. Most specs do not consist of more then 5 buttons that they need to spam, and all other flavor has been removed.

[Thelxi]

PvP frost mage got hit very hard. It is nothing like it used to be, might as well go arcane now for the knockup to make a mediocre situation slightly better.

In PvE though I am loving frost.

[Deleted]

When I farmed bones on isle of giants a few days ago my deep freeze was broken by my water elemental's multistriked waterbolt. Since it arrives after the real waterbolt it broke the stun. It was hilarious but I don't think it's good for any aspect of the game. With all the aoe mages have atm it's rly bad for PvP, and they are getting even more aoe spells for level 100. (Team stacks up --> mages can not get a single CC ever)

[durrtygoodz]

Frost got boring after being the only viable spec for a whole damn xpac at least PvE wise

When did this happen?

[SodiumChloride]

When I farmed bones on isle of giants a few days ago my deep freeze was broken by my water elemental's multistriked waterbolt. Since it arrives after the real waterbolt it broke the stun. It was hilarious but I don't think it's good for any aspect of the game. With all the aoe mages have atm it's rly bad for PvP, and they are getting even more aoe spells for level 100. (Team stacks up --> mages can not get a single CC ever)

Yupe, the class/spec has abilities that work against their other abilities ...

The developers are completely silence on the issue.

I wish GC was still here. At least he replies.

PS: I'm not sure if I will be here come WoD.

Sure the Aus servers might help my latency - in SEA so ...

But messed up class mechanics, as they give us halfassed compromise abilities because of raid/PVP balance. (Solo player who don't do any of those group activities? Tough luck. No one at Blizzard cares although we are probably the majority.)

Story is full of shit as usual. This hurts immersion so much. There are time I would rather play another laggier MMO that has decent storylines - and better artwork; so tired of Blizzard exaggerated "blocky" art style that kills any sense of scale - another immersion killer.

[Northem]

I still think the fact that [Deep Freeze] breaks on taking damage is a hoax.

I hope that at Blizzcon they confess that all has been a distasteful joke, because if not, speaking clearly, it's not worth that [Deep Freeze] continues to exist.

[Deleted]

We'll just have to wait and see what the first few weeks of the expansion feel like and what nerfs/buffs will they bring, because the first weeks always feel like playing some kind of beta and hotfixes are wildly thrown literally in every department.

Regarding Frost, I agree it has been severely hit and there are mechanics that just don't work together anymore. Deep Freeze might as well be pruned. If they want us to not be able to survive on our own for long when trained and they don't want us to control the field as we used to, then I want the damage to mow down targets like a boulder down the hill... Which probably won't happen as well

[durrtygoodz]

I still think the fact that [Deep Freeze] breaks on taking damage is a hoax.

I hope that at Blizzcon they confess that all has been a distasteful joke, because if not, speaking clearly, it's not worth that [Deep Freeze] continues to exist.

Blizz stated many times that they feel the fact mages do insane burst while their opponent is CC'd has been what's made frost so overpowered for PvP, and something they've wanted to break for a while.

[DrMcNinja]

I still think the fact that [Deep Freeze] breaks on taking damage is a hoax.

I hope that at Blizzcon they confess that all has been a distasteful joke, because if not, speaking clearly, it's not worth that [Deep Freeze] continues to exist.

This is a simple solution to a problem that has returned time and time again: People getting destroyed when in a Deep Freeze, have no defensives and their healer CC'd.

[KoolKidKaos]

the class requires skill now. no more instant cast endless cc chains and using an interrupt to actually interrupt a spell what a concept <3 get used to it. with the exception of monks melee have had to actually interrupt casts forever, then you all got a billion instant casts so our interrupts were pretty much worthless.

No, all casters are in the same ball park, as far as skill, mages have always had a high skill cap. You obvious need to read what I wrote one more time. Endless cc chains? WE HAVE NO CC, how is that justifiable regardless of what the past held. the only cc is root, and a stun that is actually a glorified interrupt. Our one actual CC, Poly, heals our targets, hello, before it wasn't so bad because we could kill u from 100% to 0 in little to no time, so healing didn't matter. But now..it's still doable, but increasingly more difficult than any other class by far. And are you really complaining about MELEE MONKS? The same monks that can run FOREVER? The same monks that can't be cc'd for more than a second or two? The same monks that heal for what 50% of their health while running? Ya k

[Terahertz]

This is a simple solution to a problem that has returned time and time again: People getting destroyed when in a Deep Freeze, have no defensives and their healer CC'd.

Except they worsened it with Ice Nova/Supernova/Fire Wave. The spells that you can not counter besides teleporting out of the radius literally a split second before they're used.

Deep Freeze was strong, idd, but it was also necessary and I feel like with them having already gotten rid of blanket CS and PoM poly that mages were fine, besides the stupid and insane nova talent. I'm genuinely annoyed by it because it's probably the most lazy talent out there. I mean, a 2 charge ability that does insane damage? Seems really lazy to me because it defines the same kind of playstyle for all 3 specs when specced into that stupid talent.

And are you really complaining about MELEE MONKS? The same monks that can run FOREVER? The same monks that can't be cc'd for more than a second or two? The same monks that heal for what 50% of their health while running? Ya k

I think you missed the memo where monks have to cast Surging Mist now, which replaced Healing Spheres and does 40-60% of the healing a flash heal does that ret paladins have. I do kind of agree the mobility is insane, but mages who are specced into Ice Ward still have just as many ways to run away as they had before, if not a bit more due to Blazing Speed being the go-to talent now as well as Ice Ward having 3 charges now instead of 1.

[SodiumChloride]

Except they worsened it with Ice Nova/Supernova/Fire Wave. The spells that you can not counter besides teleporting out of the radius literally a split second before they're used.

Well, Ice Nova in a freeze hits pretty hard indeed. I can see PVP mages timing it up with Incanter's Flow for max burst. It's highly unlikely you will be fast enough to trinket out of the Freeze if they do the "drop freeze just before Frostbolt goes off" trick, comboing it with Ice Nova - they will have a spare FoF after that combo too.

[gunner_recall]

I can't get over having Deep Freeze breaking on damage...

This. It hurts me deep in my brain's heart.