They’ve had pets longer than Hunters. They had summon water elemental in Warcraft 2 and 3. Some of their more useful spells. Get out of here with that “they aren’t a pet class”. Water Elemental only became a problem because someone decided to justify their employment by cutting the Elemental
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Because that’s SO relevant to wow. 
It’s unfortunate that WoW is similar to FFXIV in class design in that it doesn’t allow players to customize their class’s ability loadout.
There can only be one version of a class as there is no mechanism to provide choice to the players so they can do things like choose whether they want the Water Elemental around thus be able to play how they want.
So unfortunate.
/s
Next expansion patch notes:
- All less taken talents have been removed.
- Talent system removed as it’s now redundant
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Probably it was the less optimal dps option, can’t remember where it was on the tree. The mm pet it’s the same idea. I don’t miss my elemental too much, he shows up from time to time.
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And they’ve had Water Elemental all the way through WoW as well. Seriously what is that daft logic of yours? It’s only recently some idiot decided to fix something that wasn’t a problem and had been defined spell of the class all the way through out the series, not just in one game.
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Because Blizzard doesn’t allow fun unique spells for any classes even the poor mages still.
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(replied to wrong person, fixed)
Fun was detected.
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So unholy dk’s should lose their ghoul pet too then.
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Fun was detected with water ele, moonkin form, retr aura, etc.
Didn’t fit the philosophy of TWW.
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Because Blizzard is and was lazy!
Some little tuning and more people had taken it!
Hopefully one day it will come back! There are people who like it! 
Ignore the haters. They are everywhere and do NOT speak for all/majority of mages <3
Nice mages do not care if there are more options (they do not have to take). Only haters don t want any more options bec. they are egoistic.
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They like to remove things and have players cope with that.
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You should though. You should touch it a lot. Frost is amazingly good and fun. Frost/Frostfire even more so!
I was never sorry to see the permanent water elemental go. I never rolled a mage to be a pet class. But I do think Summon Water Elemental should be a spell in its own right. Not tacked on as an appendage of a stat boost. It’s iconic to the mage, and a far more interesting spell than Icy Veins. I do like them being combined though, so I think just have the haste boost be an extra effect of the summon spell.
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I am currently playing frost mage again and tbh. I am really enjoying the changes made.
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They did rework Icy Veins. They baked the elemental into it and removed it as a baseline spell.
Water Elemental was very much not a popular thing on Frost Mage. If it was, we would’ve seen the level of outcry about it that we’ve been seeing over Marksmanship Hunter almost losing all pet access. (Not that it keeping pets is necessarily the best option, but the response means Marksmanship is keeping its pet.)
Mage is not a pet class, and Frost Mage is better off without it as part of the baseline assumed kit.
Water Elemental didn’t have really any value. It didn’t taunt things for you, it didn’t do meaningful damage, and its individual nova ability was pretty much the extent of its usefulness, which you can now more than easily replicate with the adjusted baseline class talents.
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I think there just aren’t as many mages as hunters.
I think that was the best idea honestly, i agree with blizzard.
They made water elemental actually pretty cool by providing extra brain freeze procs.
One brain freeze proc every 2 mins. How exciting. Wow.
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Tell me you don’t play frost mage without telling me you don’t play frost mage.
Embarrassing.
OK 2 Brain Freeze procs if it’s on auto and the Water Elemental casts Water Jet (which provides the BF proc) immediately after appearing. Otherwise it’s usually one because Water Jet CD is 20 secs and Icy Veins last 25 secs.
Either way exciting stuff. Riveting.