New Frost Mage Is Just Depressing

[MostUnfabulous]

The new frost mage is just so sad. Gameplay has been absolutely gutted, all of the snappy gameplay and satisfying combat replaced with a worse version of festering wounds. Pretty much a 3-button spec outside of cooldowns single Target and aoe doesn’t fare much better.

Absolutely no thought has been put into how the gameplay actually feels and no consideration has been put into such a drastic change to such a beloved spec for many. Completely ignoring beta feedback, looks like the entire focus has been on how to make bosses work without combat addons rather than making sure the specs feel good to play.

What we’ve been left with is hollowed out and totally unsatisfying.

[czarek]

Sounds good to me. Im old and lazy. Perfect match.

[LordVargK]

Next Expansion it's back to classic: Only frostbolt and Blizzard!

[Foolicious]

Frost needed an overhaul for a very long time. The mechanics of the spec where unintuitive and outdated.
Not saying the new version is the best they could have come up with. I especially dislike ray of frost as main cooldown, but overall its a great step in the right direction in my opinion. It's 1 or 2 patches away from being great.

[charizma]

I'll probably be switching specs just because of ray of frost. I don't find being stuck in place, channeling a spell (as my main damage dealer) to be fun at all.

[czarek]

As shadow priest player since few expansions i really approve channeled spells as main cooldown damage spell.

[Azerox]

Yeah lol my spell bar looks very empty.

[ayrton2388]

I loved the combo building of 5 icicles for Glacial Spike.

To me, that was the bread and butter of this spec. Build combos, and use them to cast one bad ass spell. Oh, and the human female animation for it is one of the best combat animations in wow, it FEELS and looks so powerful.

Casting Glacial Spike only once every 20-25 seconds sucks. I hate it when they do stupid shit like this.
It's like back in Legion, where they had an awesome, awesome core for a melee hunter. That Survival spec was the best that melee hunters ever had, and then they had to go and fk it up, by changing the abilities and removing the coolest animations.

Everything in this game feels like a neutered version of how amazing things could've been.

[Tiga]

Blizzard gave some free game time this weekend, so I came back to see what frost mages will be like in Midnight. I've been playing since Vanilla and played a couple of months of TWW (S1 & 2) and Dragonflight (season 1). I think frost was really enjoyable to play these past two expansions. I did some PvP during Dragonflight, but almost entirely solo PvE (Delves) in TWW.

I think the designers seem to have completely forgotten the roots of the class. And I mean the frozen roots that increase your crit chance and that make certain combos so satisfying. It doesn't matter anymore if the target is frozen. Obviously, that's something that hasn't really affected group content directly, but it makes a huge impact in world content, delves and PvP. Obviously it has also been a major headache and the crit modifier from shatter has frequently been troublesome for frost scaling. Just like Icy Veins was troublesome for haste scaling.

Anyway, what's left probably works for mythic+ and raids and world content these days is easy enough so that it also works fine there, but it does feel like an insult to the spec to scrap the core features and just recycle some talent names and pretend that they are the same thing when the mechanics are so different. What's worse, in order to play well, you now have to look at freezing stacks, which are a tiny number next to a huge number for the buff time remaining. So, you need some addons to fix the cooldowns and nameplates (cooldown centered and plater) and spend some hours tweaking everything. Even then, you have to do the math based on a number displayed in a bar instead of paying attention to what you are doing to the target and what spells you cast.

To make it worse, they got rid of ice floes. I'm a huge fan of the talent and have been using it since at least Legion (I don't remember when it was introduced). I still try to activate it using one of my mouse buttons, but sadly it is gone.

And also a huge fan of blast wave, although I'll admit it was odd to have it as a frost mage. But it's such a fun spell and it's gone.

So, I don't currently have a subscription (so I can't whine on the Blizz forums). I might get one just to finish up the storylines on my mage and maybe try a void elf demon hunter. I had plans to come back for a few months ago during the winter like i did in 2023 and 2025, but frost mages are currently a disaster and frost mage has always been my main, so I don't know if I'll be back at all for Midnight unless they fix this mess somehow.

My top priorities to fix (starting with my highest priority):

- Bring Ice Floes back.
- Make freezing/rooting enemies matter. Doesn't have to be exactly like it was, but something...
- Blast wave.
- Figure out a way to not make the rotation depend entirely on a tiny little stack count number.
- Bring back some of the defensives that were taken.

P.S. The new icicles are an absolute joke. Actually...not even a funny joke.

[Kulbaen]

This is a straightforward breakdown of how I feel Frost Mage has become, but it feels like OLD rogue or any other class that has to build anytime they change targets. Having to build freezing stacks sucks, IMO. Sure, we get spells splitting on targets, but anytime I have to change targets, I hate it. Now you can tell me I'm wrong, and all that, but that's what it feels like to me.

::edit:: Just wanted to add that I've played every incarnation of Frost Mage since release, and this one is by far my least favorite. BORING!

[Blue42]

Frost was fine in TWW.

I do not understand why the horrobil ex-unholy-dk-wound system was implemented in Midnight.

It made nothing better, just worse.

On top: almost all good defensives were nerfed, no healingin iceblock/iceform anymore etc.

I quitted in prepatch and i am not sad about it. Next changes that are coming are even more worse. Blizzard has lost the touch of the classes. I bet they just use stupid AI to make changes. None of their people is playing a spec anymore.

[Calfredd]

I bet they just use stupid AI to make changes.

'Everything I don't like is A.I.' while ignoring what actual A.I. garbage looks like. Have we as a species just gave up on actually good and creative insults? Small indie company? 'X' is awful so it is obviously A.I.? Is this really where we peaked? This isn't a direct attack at you, you're just the most recent person I've seen use one of these lazy and uncreative insults.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

'Everything I don't like is A.I.' while ignoring what actual A.I. garbage looks like. Have we as a species just gave up on actually good and creative insults? Small indie company? 'X' is awful so it is obviously A.I.? Is this really where we peaked? This isn't a direct attack at you, you're just the most recent person I've seen use one of these lazy and uncreative insults.

Sort of like how everything is "slop" now. Sadly makes the term useless for actual slop, which is very real!

[Zodiark]

Sounds good to me. Im old and lazy. Perfect match.

Same here. I actually like it and I have been a on-again-off-again Frost mage main since TBC. I really like being able to have my Water Elemental again. I love having ray of frost in my rotation. Honestly. I felt like to ME that it was like the devs saw the cool things frost mages wanted to play with and gave it back to us.

[Osmeric]

Sort of like how everything is "slop" now. Sadly makes the term useless for actual slop, which is very real!

Or how everything is "late stage capitalism".

[xskarma]

Let's stay on the topic of Frost Mages and their new builds in Midnight.

[StrawberryZebra]

Same here. I actually like it and I have been a on-again-off-again Frost mage main since TBC. I really like being able to have my Water Elemental again. I love having ray of frost in my rotation. Honestly. I felt like to ME that it was like the devs saw the cool things frost mages wanted to play with and gave it back to us.

Those cool things have come at a cost of good gameplay. I'm someone who only picked up playing a Mage with Lemix but I'm very disappointed with the new Frost Mage.

This new version is a mess. The AoE feels extremely clunky compared to TWW where Blizzard was both instant after a Frozen Orb and reduced the cooldown of Frozen Orb. The constant FoF procs gave great priority damage and a solid damage profile in group content. It played into itself in a way that was clear, intuitive and fun. Now I find myself having to hard cast Blizzard a lot, which breaks the flow of the spec in dungeons, and having to tab target to Ice Lance the right targets to shatter the most stacks. It adds a lot of hard casting and micro management into a spec that never needed it. In a dungeon you can also very easily lose a lot of your damage if mobs with a lot of freezing stacks die before you can shatter them - Its a big feelsbadman moment.

The single target leaves me confused over when I should actually be using Ice Lance. The thermal void talent really throws off my math on things, should I keep a buffer for a Brain Freeze proc so I can get the full 10 shattered or do I keep it low in case of back to back Flurries? How does FoF work with Thermal Void? Don't get me started on Glacial Spike now, having it on a timer instead of tied to Icicles means I never know when it'll be happening and stops me from saving it for a few seconds when I might need it to burst a priority target.

The core design of building stacks and shattering them feels very outdated for WoW in 2026. There was a good reason Unholy DK was reworked away from it and why Rogues have had Combo Points tied to their character instead of the mob. The default nameplates not properly tracking Freezing stacks and showing you the timer is just adding insult to injury.

On paper, having Ray of Frost as nuke cooldown is fine, but in practice it's got a lot of usability issues that can leave it feeling very unsatisfying - Notably in group content, but also solo when it's overkill. What I'd have preferred is if the Water Elemental was the central cooldown of the spec. As things stand it's just passive damage really, it's core appeal of being able to freeze targets at range for the shatter bonus no longer applies due to the changes with Freezing and without the Brain Freeze proc on Waterjet anymore it doesn't do much except small amounts of extra damage - Which generally gets lost in all the noise. Changing it to be a hard hitting cooldown summon with it's own hard hitting nuke spells would at least bring it in line with the Arcane Phoenix, which lets face it is a much cooler and more interesting summon.

Frost was an easy spec, it was simple, flowed very well and had a lot of player agency. The new version adds a lot of mental overhead without really adding anything enjoyable in exchange for it. That's the core of my complaints with it - They've changed something that was its own fun, unique spec into an outdated spec from 2010's that doesn't really belong in modern WoW anymore.

[klaps_05]

The moment i saw that the Shatter stacking debuff is on the target i knew its over. Tried the spec, guess no Frost mage until next expansion.

[Bats]

I've made posts, given feedback. Nothing matters. New frost was redesigned for the sake of it, such a shame.

It wasn't even a difficult spec needing a remake, it was one of the easiest ones PvE wise, so sad actually. Didn't buy expac and haven't subbed since pre-patch

[Blue42]

Agree! @StrawberryZebra

Old Frostmage gameplay was easy but fun.
New gameplay is total worse and not fun anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

'Everything I don't like is A.I.' while ignoring what actual A.I. garbage looks like. Have we as a species just gave up on actually good and creative insults? Small indie company? 'X' is awful so it is obviously A.I.? Is this really where we peaked? This isn't a direct attack at you, you're just the most recent person I've seen use one of these lazy and uncreative insults.

Np but i still think they are more and more lazy. And AI can help with that.

Otherwise i would never understand who a person (i think they do not have class-persons anymore) could think the new Frostmage gameplay could be RLY better than the old gameplay.