Permanent Water Elemental.

[Nevianx]

3. I would prefer no permanent pet.

Your edition of the third option caters to one side and one side only. The poll would've indeed been biased if the third option was strictly against the permanent pet. But it's not. My third option suggests an option that would make both parties happy. It's basically saying "I'm ok if the permanent pet stays, but I would like to have an option to play without it".

1. I like having a permanent water elemental.

I agree, this wording would've been better, but it wouldn't exactly change anything in substance though. We have seen posts (mine included) strictly against the permanent pet. Yet, we don't have that option in the poll because it's probably too late to ask for something like that (and we both agree on this issue).

[Deleted]

Don't worry about this poll's bias. They won't remove it. It's one of the only things that make frost distinguishable from fire.

[Clash the DK]

No where has the OP stated that the WE should be flat out removed from the game. And I do not believe anybody here truly thinks that the WE would ever be removed from the game. But, having the option to play without the WE would be a awesome change. Option is the key word here.

[Deleted]

The only thing the elemental needs is a better AI. Beside that i like it. Its something special and i like the way how they let you as player interact with it during waterjet.
So make the glyph baseline, fix all bugs and give it a better ai.

[Asiel]

I don't mind it but I think that the hard-coded minimum range needs to be the range of Water Jet rather than just the Water Bolt. I often find my Ele too far away to cast the Jet when I command it to, but it's been happily spamming Bolt for days. I have it bound so that I can use it on demand rather than the "I'd sort of like you to get around to this sometime. Whenever it's convenient for you" style that happens now without the glyph.

Edit:

This is mainly a concern for people who don't find they have room to use the glyph, though I understand that it's a choice that myself and others are making. I just think that the choice to use it shouldn't affect damage potential in any meaningful way assuming that you're sticking inside of a boss arena, for instance.

[Zelendria]

No where has the OP stated that the WE should be flat out removed from the game. And I do not believe anybody here truly thinks that the WE would ever be removed from the game. But, having the option to play without the WE would be a awesome change. Option is the key word here.

Elaborate on how doing less is awesome

[Wilderness]

Elaborate on how doing less is awesome

Casting RoP every 3 minutes is more awesome than casting it every 1 minute. Saying something is better just because you have more of it doesn’t always work. If they went back to WE as a CD, then perhaps it could gain more abilities and would completely change our rotation while it was up. That sort of change may not work if its permanent because it could be too much to juggle all the time. There are pros and cons to it being permanent as well as it being a CD. Perhaps you could elaborate on your opinion next time instead of asking irrelevant broad questions that don’t matter to the topic at hand.

[Deleted]

The theme of Frost spec even in Classic was getting Shatter combos and not a permanent pet. That is why mechanics like Fingers of Frost were introduced; a way to get Shatter to work on bosses. The Water Jet is a similar mechanic of generating procs, but let's be honest, it might as well be a DoT/debuff you place on the boss rather than a pet ability.

For the duration of BC and WotLK the elemental acted like a powerful temporary summon. However, around the time of late WotLK people wanted to have Frost more raid viable and an easy way to achieve that without breaking PvP was through a glyph that made the elemental permanent (I think it also lost the ability to cast Freeze). It was a cheap way to improve sustained damage, but it didn't make much of a difference.

Unfortunately, in Cataclysm they took the idea of permanent elemental where it didn't belong and started treating it as a core part of the spec for some reason (likely because Shatter still did make much of a difference PvE wise). The FoF generation of Freeze made the damn thing more involved than pets of actual pet classes, who just used them for utility.

I think it is about time to make the elemental a very powerful temporary summon like Xuen and the gargoyle (similar to how it is in HotS right now). The permanent elemental was just a gimmick to make early versions of Frost PvE viable that was taken too far. If Legion truly has spec identity as a priority, it is time let the pet go. Frost has enough other mechanics to make it work in raids. Still if a talent or glyph (like in WotLK) makes it a choice between a powerful summon or a better sustained DMG permanent pet at least both sides would have a choice. The baseline version should never have been a permanent pet, however.

[Zelendria]

Casting RoP every 3 minutes is more awesome than casting it every 1 minute. Saying something is better just because you have more of it doesn’t always work. If they went back to WE as a CD, then perhaps it could gain more abilities and would completely change our rotation while it was up. That sort of change may not work if its permanent because it could be too much to juggle all the time. There are pros and cons to it being permanent as well as it being a CD. Perhaps you could elaborate on your opinion next time instead of asking irrelevant broad questions that don’t matter to the topic at hand.

He said play without WE, not on CD or permanent but without so no idea why you're going on about giving it more abilities because his option is the total removal of it.
I'm asking why he thinks removing part of the rotation permanently is a good thing which is not exactly what I would call broad

[Nevianx]

An option to play without the WE doesn't necessarily imply removing or playing without its abilites.

[Zelendria]

So no WE but WE abilities.. K. Who is casting them?

[Deleted]

Water Jet could easily be renamed and made into a debuff/DoT you place yourself. The pet's auto attack can be attached to Frostbolt. The ranged Freeze can become it's own spell/talent.

[Feril]

I've grown used to it. I hope they snatch Jaina's Water Elemental's model from Heroes of the Storm and paste it shamelessly instead of the current dated model. Also, give it a directional "bottom" so that it can look good moving in any direction while pointing to whatever it's shooting at, so it's even cooler.

And give frost mages a glyph that turns their elemental into a "tanky" big water elemental with a taunt (removing control and dps abilities, so that it isn't really useful in dungeons and PvP). That would be awesome!

[Zelendria]

Water Jet could easily be renamed and made into a debuff/DoT you place yourself. The pet's auto attack can be attached to Frostbolt. The ranged Freeze can become it's own spell/talent.

What you've done is remove the drawbacks of the pet in the first place, such as it's own range issues, death etc and kept all the positives such as the DPS boost it gives you.
You also gave any Frost Mage speccing IN another instant ranged AOE root in PvP that can't be killed off for 60s.
And the DoT would have to be off the GCD, and would be instant unlike the current WJ. It would have to cast much the same way as Ice Floes does.

[badaku]

I really don't like the way pets work in WoW, and this thing can't tank nor interrupt

[Deleted]

What you've done is remove the drawbacks of the pet in the first place, such as it's own range issues, death etc and kept all the positives such as the DPS boost it gives you.

Exactly, that was the intention. To show how the spells of the elemental can easily become part of the mage kit. It's not like the pet death or aggro were issues at all in PvE. And losing the casting delay and range issues on Water Jet can only be a positive. All that is assuming you don't run the glyph that the Pet AI easy to manage.

When it comes to PvP, the new system could change things immensely anyway. Also, you wouldn't be able to root targets too far away or out of LoS. It's not like Ferals or Hunters would care at the slightest.

[Imnick]

Legion is stepping away from the idea of a "pet class". Warlocks are going to be the only class that uses pets over all of their specialisations.
Hunters are gaining a spec where you never use a pet. Death Knights have had one spec with a permanent pet since their introduction, and the ability to summon ghouls even temporarily was phased out of the other specs. Frost Mages have had a permanent pet for almost as long as Death Knights have existed.

Mages aren't a pet class? Frost is a pet spec. This has been true for longer than it has been not true (coming up to 6 years now), and Blizzard are not going to change this.
Your watery buddy is a permanent and iconic part of the spec's identity now, whether you like it or not, and we can see from Blizzard's design decisions on other classes that "has pet/does not have pet" is one of the things they believe is an important factor for differentiating different talent specialisations.

[Deleted]

I don't really mind. Back in Wrath when it was still a cooldown it only gimped you when you didn't have it up.

[Obelisk Kai]

Legion is stepping away from the idea of a "pet class". Warlocks are going to be the only class that uses pets over all of their specialisations.
Hunters are gaining a spec where you never use a pet. Death Knights have had one spec with a permanent pet since their introduction, and the ability to summon ghouls even temporarily was phased out of the other specs. Frost Mages have had a permanent pet for almost as long as Death Knights have existed.

Mages aren't a pet class? Frost is a pet spec. This has been true for longer than it has been not true (coming up to 6 years now), and Blizzard are not going to change this.
Your watery buddy is a permanent and iconic part of the spec's identity now, whether you like it or not, and we can see from Blizzard's design decisions on other classes that "has pet/does not have pet" is one of the things they believe is an important factor for differentiating different talent specialisations.

Pretty much this.

They are not going to offer pet and non pet options, especially given the evidence of how they are moving in relation to the other classes.

Besides, the option of having a pet or not having a pet is as big as going two handed or dual wield in current frost for Death Knights.
Blizzard would then be compelled to attempt to balance frost for mages around having a pet and not having a pet if they ever did give us this choice.

Now we know how the current issue with frost death knights is being resolved. They simply hate doing that!

The chances of Blizzard introducing a similar problem for us (and indeed for Unholy Death Knights, a group who also have people who wish to see the back of their pet) is very low.

The Water elemental is part of the frost spec fantasy. It is an ICONIC part of the identity. The choice for a Mage who doesn't wish to have pet, is the choice NOT to be frost.

[AvCloudy]

I agree. I think the current water ele is a reasonable balance. Its not our main focus like a hunter but provides interesting gameplay to our rotation. It could be a randomally spawned guardian or one summoned as a CD instead of a perm pet, but i'm OK with it as is. I just don't want it to become way too much to focus on or micromanage. Though it'd be nice if the glyph that lets it cast on the move and increased health was baseline.

Making a mage choose between self-managing WE and double blink is cruel. I just want them to fix whatever bug it is that causes the water elemental to stay at range instead of moving in when you tell it to attack.