The Midnight Frost Mage changes are just terrible, period

Classes Mage
1

I’m sorry, but, these changes to the Frost Mage are absolutely terrible. I don’t know who told the developers these were good ideas, but they lied, a lot. From the constant icicles over our heads to the merging of Glacial Spike with Frost Bolt and Comet Storm tied to Ray of Frost to making us choose between cold of cone or ice nova, these changes have made the Spec feel clunkly and awkward with no flow to it like it used to have.

TWW had a good system for Frost Mages, and even for the other Mage Specs as well. I think many other mage players will agree that rolling back Mages to TWW systems would be best as the changes coming with Midnight do nothing good for the class aside from weaken it and make it less fun to play.

73 Likes
2

The changes that were made to the Frost Mage are awful. They were fine the way they were. I have been playing my Frost Mage for years now, this is the first time I do not enjoy it. I am considering saying goodbye to WoW over this. It’s not worth having to be forced to change my spec in order to have a functioning character. When it stops being fun, the game is done. Housing is not enough to keep players engaged. We like to do more than that in game.

45 Likes
3

I’m personally fine with reinventing the wheel SOMETIMES in order to freshen things up. But yeah idk. They kind of sucked the soul out of frost mage.

The biggest offender to me was removing how shatter and its various interactions worked. The forced crits on frozen targets with old shatter was kind of the bread and butter of frost mage. Losing that seems really crazy. Putting a winter’s chill debuff on a target or ice/frost nova-ing them, then all your comet storm comets just BLASTING crits on them for example.

Glacial spike should never have been rolled into Frostbolt because now it feels like a filler spell. Glacial spike being an optional separate talent was perfectly fine and not bloated. You got to choose your number of buttons and playstyle when it was its own talent. Isn’t that the point of talent trees?? Not anymore!

Then icicles being a passive energy resource essentially now feels really awkward and makes glacial spike feel random. When icicles were actively generated by spell casts, and actively fired by ice lance (without glacial spike) and by glacial spike when you pooled enough icicles, it was a good feeling of control of your class. Now it’s like I’m just watching my class literally play itself.

I don’t necessarily despise the new freezing/shatter but I really find myself disliking having to watch a box with a small number in the corner and passively doing stacks division in my head every time I cast an ice lance lol. It just doesn’t feel that fun I guess.

If blizzard doesn’t go back on some of this stuff they really don’t understand what made frost mage so fun to play before. I feel like I’m having an identity crisis. It doesn’t really feel like frost anymore at all.

27 Likes
Time to hang up my wizard hat
5

Sorry everyone who might disagree but this early access has been a complete disaster imho. Even trying to do the outland endevor old quests are so buggy and unnecessarily gated. The squish is horrible in that yes players are squished but I can barely kill Outland trash. We should one shotting this trash at lvl 80
Comon, why bother having early access. Blizzard your staff should have this all figured out, subscribers paying large amounts of money should not be dealing with this snafu over and over again

8 Likes
6

I wish I could remember the mage on this forum who was essentially saying I was blowing it out of proportion and that it’ll be fine and frost mages needed these changes – something to that effect.

I was really vocal on the frostfire bolt changes merging into Glacial Spike and how that would kill the feel of frost mage in terms of priority shattering. I was vocal about Comet Storm being tied into Ray of Frost.

There are just so many fundamental changes to frost mage, fire and arcane mages that the entire identity of the class feels foreign. Strictly sticking to frost for now, but I can’t stand how I have a frostfire empowerment and I can’t use it because I am forced to use Glacial Spike. Then you get these weird moments where you somehow proc another frostfire empowerment after firing off Glacial Spike and your character just stands there, looking weird and dumb.

This auto-generation of icicles feels so dang dumb, that its baffling how it was even implemented, despite all the vocal feedback on the forums. Over 600 posts on how mage feels awful and only ONE like on the blue post.

The removal of Icy Floes also feels terrible, especially with Ray of Frost being our main nuke. Shatter combos are gone too, no more Frost Nova and Comet Storm shatters.

Its difficult to be positive when this has been my preferred class for nearly two decades. To see it gutted.

TLDR;

  • Remove the frostfire bolt into Glacial Spike talent, make them their own talent/choice node.
  • Remove Comet Storm being tied behind Ray of Frost use.
  • Bring back Icy Floes.
  • Bring back Fireblast for off-specs (for totems and spell reflects),
  • Bring back Blastwave.
27 Likes
7

I am honestly considering quitting even though I was super excited for Midnight because these changes have destroyed the soul of frost mage, by getting rid of the combo aspect and turning it into a debuff-based builder spender. Sucking out all of the nuance in other stuff also hurts but it is the change to the fundamental design philosophy of frost that has me wanting to quit. My partner begged me to at least try a m+ with it so I ran one and I just hated it. There is never any feeling of mastery or impact or satisfaction. I don’t understand why we took a spec that worked well and had its own identity that felt distinct among all the specs in this game, and just destroyed it. Why? After 21 years, why?

I have been through many prepatches and expansion launches before. I have seen changes I loved and changes I hated. Never have I felt so dismal about a series of changes though, and never has a class change ever made me consider quitting. I was worried about these ahead of time, I posted on the feedback thread expressing my concern. It was so much worse than I expected once it hit live.

22 Likes
8

Silly of us to think Blizzard would listen to class feedback. There never was even a single reply. Blizzard of Old is long-dead.

15 Likes
9

I was really excited about jumping back into WoW for Midnight! With that being said…

Time generation for icicles is terrible. The old system made more sense and the flow of spell rotation was much more manageable. Now it just feels like you are just sitting there WAITING, spamming one button. This is not how any class should be played. “Clunky” is not a harsh enough word to explain the state of Frost Mage rotation. I’ve played Frost Mage for years, not for the numbers that it could push, because they were utterly trash compared to the other specs, but because it was FUN. Now blizzard has turned it into a lame duck, worst, it’s now in the latter form of Khal Drogo. Whoever said that these were good ideas needs to be cut.

12 Likes
10

Theyt made frost feel SO BAD it was one of the most fun casters due to glacial spike and heavy CONTROLED crits making solo content with it super fun. What is up with midnight making so many things a passive RNG people LIKE control

Also the new shatter mechanic is wild considering how simple the old one was. Now I have to stare at a UI to see how many stacks the mob has

18 Likes
11

yeah after almost 20 years, about to hang up my mage and get a life.

12 Likes
12

So do we have a mage spec without stuff floating above our heads anymore? I only ever really played frost mage but if I have to stare at those dang icicles for more than 5 minutes I’m going to go insane

8 Likes
13

It feels great. It flows extremely well. Like insanely well. Hot take honestly.

Im having a blast. Can’t wait to get CE next tier using FF Frost. My only complaint is how often i’m having to stop casting RoF to avoid damage. Even then it doesn’t mess up my damage profile too much.

Damage priority shifts from ST to AoE very well. Matter of fact the rotation doesn’t really change at all you basically just implement Blizzard into the flow.

It has the perfect amount of instant and hard casts to plan around fight and avoid damage.

Only real interaction you need to pay attention to is Thermal Void.

As an Arcane main for all the TWW its a nice change of pace.

Visual changes and implementation of more fire into frostfire is awesome as well.

If you don’t think it “flows” well then.. youre not playing it correctly simple as that.

I love the changes and I pray they keep them.

6 Likes
14

Besides all the horrible things mentioned, is no one going to say anything about the ice block that DOESN’T HEAL?

27 Likes
15

At the very least in the newest beta update the icicles are now hidden outside of combat. That’s something - though I really think we need a hard return to glyphs.

10 Likes
16

You got every single like you deserve for that take.

If you want to play that sort of class, that’s perfectly fine with me, but the fact that they took one that I loved and nuked it to satisfy this when literally nobody asked for it - it’s just sad.

24 Likes
17

I changed specs this morning because they were annoying after just a few minutes. I couldn’t find a way around them talent wise unfortunately. Hopefully Ill see them disappear as well after a few updates or bug fixes. I just cant get into arcane but those icicles are just -ugh :fearful: .

7 Likes
18

They completely butchered Frost, my favorite mage spec. It’s a shambles of what it was. Glacial Spike overwriting FF bolt, and RoF merged with Comet Storm just feels horrible. Ray of Frost as a CD just feels bad, God forbid you have to move to avoid an ability or get hit with a forced movement effect.

What other dps spec has a channel for their main cd?

At least they’re doing away with the permanent icicles out of combat.

17 Likes
19

PLEASE Blizz take this feedback.

No fireblast is criminal. Why do we have AE but no Fire Blast? and no ability to choose when to use my Glacial Spike? so I’ve got a mob on 10% and I don’t have a lot of options to quickly finish it off, so I’m forced to spend my Glacial Spike or run around and ice lance it 3 or 4 times instead?

I used to love Frost Mage and it was just painful to even attempt a WQ for an Endeavour. It’s weak now.

Please take the feedback from this thread.

8 Likes
20

My tinfoil hat theory as to why glyphs seem like they were completely abandoned is that they are developing “class skins” for real. For one example, a night elf priest (or paladin eventually) would use silver or arcane-like Elune themed holy light abilities rather than the standard golden light.

3 Likes
21

I completely agree, I’ve mained Frost Mage since patch 3.3, and after playing the Midnight pre-patch, these changes feel terrible. The feel, agency, and class identity are all so bad.

The changes to Shatter are the biggest part of that. The old Shatter provided an immediate and satisfying feedback: landing big crits after setting up Winter’s Chill or Freeze windows felt both rewarding and intentional, especially when comboing AoE freezes into abilities like Comet Storm. Shatter has been a spec defining feature since vanilla, and these changes remove that sense of payoff and player agency.

Being forced to cast Glacial Spike via Frostbolt/Frostfire Bolt turning into it also feels extremely bad. I strongly prefer having control over when and where I cast Glacial Spike, rather than it replacing a core spell. It even feels especially awkward now that there is a talent built specifically for shattering the new Freezing stacks with Glacial Spike. Removing the root from Glacial Spike is also terrible and further reduces Frost’s ability to control enemies during chosen key moments. The Icicles mechanic in general also felt far more fluid in their previous implementation since they were generated by your actions.

On top of that, a lot of Frost’s mobility and survivability through control has been pruned. The removal of Ice Floes and Blast Wave heavily impacts how Frost repositions, creates space, and recovers from mistakes. Frost’s snares and slows have also been reduced, further undermining the spec’s traditional strength of controlling the battlefield via slowing, grouping, freezing, and repositioning, rather than standing still and hoping defensives are enough.

I ran a few Delves and while the content wasn’t any harder and damage felt more consistent, the experience was quite boring. I felt far less mobile and far less engaged. I really miss being able to corral enemies, freeze them, and then nuke packs with intentional Shatter combos. That playstyle was a huge part of what made Frost Mage fun and distinct for me.

I genuinely had a great time playing Frost Mage in The War Within, possibly the most fun I’ve ever had with the spec. After sticking with Frost through all its ups and downs across multiple expansions, this rework stands out as the worst the spec has ever felt to me. Not because of numbers, but because it removes the freedom, control, and satisfaction that defined the spec.

I haven’t missed an expansion since I originally started back in Wrath, and I’ve initially held off on purchasing Midnight due to concerns about this rework. After spending some time playing and finding the experience incredibly boring, I’ve decided to cancel my subscription and will play through my remaining time. I hope things change, but I’m not optimistic; at least not during this expansion.

14 Likes