Got back into playing after a long break, rolled a mage and noticed the water elemental is gone. Why was this taken out? Honestly without it I don’t want to touch the frost spec. Not that is was extremely usual but I liked having a pet as a mage.
I couldn’t tell you the reason but it does pop back up during Icy Veins.
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From a Wowhead interview with Ion Hazzikostas:
Water Elemental is a little different in that it’s not totally gone, just summoned now as part of using Icy Veins as opposed to a standalone pet. The standalone pet summon had a very low pick rate to begin with, and thinking through interactions - is this a class we’re trying to shoehorn into being a pet class, as opposed to just a pure ranged caster? Most players prefer to be the pure ranged caster, as we could see from the talent selection. Water Elemental is there as part of the original Warcraft III-era fantasy of what a Mage in Azeroth can bring to bear, and I think moving it to Icy Veins keeps it as part of that fantasy, makes it more impactful when it’s around, but crystalizes Mage as not a pet class in line with how players have largely been playing it.
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Blizz didn’t think it fit. Which mages usually only employ water elementals for short durations. It still comes up frequently enough that its not that bad a change. Frost is still extremely fun imo.
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A very small irrelevant number of players used it and so it was consolidated into a skill you use constantly.
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Because a mage isn’t a pet class.
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Seems they could’ve just reworked icy veins and kept the summon. By that logic they should get rid of the class specs that have a lower pick rate, cosmetics, hell even older dungeons and raids. (Obviously don’t want this but you get the idea)
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It was a pretty unfun cooldown to press. It was mostly useful for the pet nova, which you still get during your veins window.
Mage class design just doesnt meld well with pet class design, most of us were happier without it.
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It was pretty useless, I’ve really enjoyed it being gone. Mage has been my main since WoTLK.
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The same reason Hunters lost rain of arrows- Blizzard’s wow magic 
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I wish mages were a pet class. I love pet classes.
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well have i got news for you tovi, warlocks are spicy mages, warlocks are a pet class. there you go. mage pets.
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Creativity and fun is not allowed that is why.
Mage elemental provided an element of skill for players.
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Yes, yes I know what they are. I have three.
Doesn’t change my mind though. I like pet classes and I wish WoW had more.
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it works better now as a fire and forget pet. No one used the permanent one.
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I feel like it was another case of Raid Comps versus everyone else. I took the elemental on every one of my Frost mages, just like I always take the second pet on Beast Mastery. If people weren’t using it in endgame content, then it must not have been popular, according to the devs.
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They regularly swap out of talents for specs that have low pick rates.
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I rolled BM, Unholy and Frost on all those alts to be a pet class 
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For PVP it was clutch.
Now Mages are heavy reliant on pew pew pew.
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In PVP it was always only useful for a nova to setup a shatter or root around LOS though. Most of the time the pet was on passive to stop in from breaking roots with its almost 0 damage water bolt.
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