In the context of the thread, there's nothing wrong with a glyph that gives me 5% extra damage "Raiding as frost" - how it affects me outside of the raiding environment is not relevant, or is it?

First time poster here, been playing as deep frost near exclusively since about v1.6. With the exception of a short stint early in TBC and the idiocy of the Blizzard damage cap in Mt Hyjal, I have never had a an issue with the makeup of frost, it has always been at least competitive if played right and often more importantly can bring an element of control to the raid. Now, it's broken. Deep frost IS no longer competitive. It will always be beaten by anyone who can Bash the Mole with their Power Aura's with FFB spec. The only way to make frost work is to not be deep frost, to take away the flavour of what frost is all about - control, and go deep into Arcane for TtW. This offends me. I'm a Frost mage, not some Frost-Arcane hybrid.

I find myself taking exception to the perception that frost is boring, that it is just frostbolt spam. In Molten Core it was, at that stage there were no cooldowns to juggle. Sure you can just spam frostbolt, use cooldowns when they're up but with the arrival of the Elemental, Cold Snap, Icey Veins, trinkets, Heroism (Alliance, no shamans in the early days) Frost became more about balancing fight duration against long and short term personal and group/raid cooldowns . Now that is being sabotaged by the influx of proc based abilities and trinkets. That's not necessarily all bad, it does add an element of interest to the coordination of things. But it means that the performance delta between a well played and a poorly played mage narrows dramatically.

If Blizzard do see fit to give us a PvE relevant 51 point talent, or some other way of letting us properly go "Raiding as frost" I just hope it demands some semblance of skill in order to utilise effectively and doesn't force us out of what frost is all about. In that sense I might agree that the Frostbolt Glyph is wrong. On the other hand I don't see that sacrificing control for damage output is at odds with the concept of Frost. A roof full of soft snow dropping on you might slow you down more than a three foot icicle impaling you, but it wouldn't hurt as much.

Before the thread derails too much into random wishlisting, let's step back and look at what things are useful to discuss.

It seems to me that everyone understands that, since frost spec is so well suited to pvp, that Blizzard are overly wary of making any coefficient changes to our main spells. I think everyone also understands Lhivera's points: that brain freeze won't scale very well, that FoF ghost lances don't add enough to our dps to risk using, and therefore our main rotation is still frostbolt spam.

Now forgive me if I missed some insightful post, but I still don't see that we've reached any concensus which we could bring to GC to help Blizzard make the right choices for fixing frost. For example: are we all happy to change Deep Freeze such that it becomes part of our rotation, won't the pvp mages be upset? Moreover, would such a change help our scaling at Icecrown level gear, or would it go the way of Brain Freeze?

One of the other things discussed recently is the frostbolt glyph. If a simple solution is to have it reduce the snare like with the mind flay glyph, then isn't that something we can push for?

I'm just not sold on the frost design ideas right now, even ignoring the fact that they fail in implementation. I am speaking for a raiding perspective, btw.

Frost DPS design seems centered on 3 things:

1. Fingers of Frost + Shatter Combos.
2. Brain Freeze Procs
3. Water elemental

Now, I am very aware that currently ignoring FoF in decision making is the correct move, and brain freeze may not even be worth talenting seeing as your not going to delve at all into the fire tree becuase your going arcane for TtW (Torment the Weak). But if blizzard manages to rebalance the current situation so you do benefit those things, would the frost DPS rotations/decisions be acceptable?

For comparison, other mage rotations (basic rotations, cooldowns not particularly delved into)
Deep Fire -
Keep DoT uptime as high as possible (living bomb)
Refresh scorch as rarely as possible but dont let it fall off
React to proc and use Pyro as often as possible when instant
Spam main nuke (fireball/frostfire bolt) when not doing something else

Arcane -
Build your damage multiplier with AB stacks
Unload your damage stack with a choice made depending on a random proc (if missle barrage proc'd, AM-ABarr, if not, Abarr)
Decision making required regarding mana management and size of your damage multiplier stack

The other specs rotations aren't overly simplistic, nor are they ridiculously complex. But they are both very interactive. Fire specs are weaving 2 different kinds of timers with a proc based mechanic. While arcane mages are ramping up or down their damage and mana usage while also reasting to a proc based mechanic.

The frost mechanics seem to be lacking in comparison (again, speaking in terms of design more than execution).

Water elemental has very little decision making involved, and can be characterized almost as a generic cooldown. Since the wet pet has only 1 spell that is used on bosses, theres little to no interaction with it. Use it as often as possible, obviously adjusting for expected dps down periods (if your about to stop dps, like any other cooldown, don't use it). The added, try to use it around expected avoidable aoe damage, may come into play from time to time, but doesnt add a whole lot of decision making to the issue.

Brain freeze is a simple proc that doesn't add alot. Buff lights up, use it? Sorta like Hot Streak, but with some subtle differences. Both of these procs become good options if you have to move (free movement for a GCD without a dps loss), but theres not alot of decision making involved. Hot streak at least changes decision making as you plan around your timers, not sure free Brain Freeze fireballs will influence any decision making.

Last is Fingers of Frost, the thing Frost mages were so excited about and the thing Blizz has most commented on recently, what with their desire to make us use shatter combos. Sure, shatter combo's lose some of the 'WOW!' factor when your focused on sustained DPS rather than shortterm burst DPS, but its still something. After all, the pvp created shatter combo of : freeze target, then frostbolt+ice lance is an interactive and skill testing mechanic. Of course, if your already spamming frostbolt (something thats unlikely in the PvP scenario), then doesnt that take away half of the combo?

If fingers remains at two charges, and its worth shatter combo-ing:
Spam Frostbolt <fingers procs>, finish casting your current FrB, then ice lance

Isn't that like reacting to a a hot streak or brain freeze proc, only you MUST use it immediately?

Isn't the frost sustained DPS reaction still going to be horribly boring even if Blizz manages to balance their talents in ways that make them worth using?

The only exception I can see is if a Brain Freeze fireball becomes by far and away the best choice for the instant shatter combo. If you want to hold a brain freeze proc for as long as possible in order to use it in a shatter combo, but use it before it runs out, AND dont care if the buff gets refreshed without using it, then you have some decision making and interaction. But still far less than the other mage specs.

I've been careful not to wishlist, and I certainly don't want to whine. But it seems to me to make frost anywhere near as interactive (for sustained raid boss fight DPS), Blizz needs to change alot more than what they said they plan on doing. They plan on making you react to Fingers Procs, presumably with ice lance. I'm even assuming they plan on making changes to make sure Brain Freeze is an attractive talent to spec and use. But all that still leaves frost as a spam Frostbolt with 2 whack-a-mole procs. Nothing against proc mechanics (personally, I love hotstreak, and I think Missile Barrage is rather cool), but there has to be something more than hit buttons on procs, right?

Or am I way off base with my analysis of the state of frost design?

I think your overly complicating your analogy and making the forst rotation seem far more complex than it actually would be. I don't really think that frosts rotation is going to overload anyone higher brain function.

Basically, your going to have to icons on your screen, one for fingers of frost, one for brain freeze. They light up if you get the buff, darken when you don't have it. Fingers lights up, your next cast is Ice lance. Brain freeze lights up, your next cast is Fireball. If both are lit, Ice lance takes priority. That's it. It's basically whack-a-mole, which is far more simplistic than the other specs DPS rotations, and whack-a-mole with a mere 2 holes wouldn't be too complex for even the smallest children.

That is basically the Frost rotation as the trees are currently designed, is it not? (again, failed numbers implementation rarely makes it worth bothering with anything other than Frostbolt spam)

Assuming blizz successfully rebalances their talents so its worth talenting for and reacting to the procs, isn't that rotation ridiculously lacking in skill/decisionmaking when compared with the other specs?

Theres a lot of cool ideas blizzard could implement to redesign the tree. I have plenty of my own. Discussing them isnt particularly relevant.

What we do know is this:
Blizz is looking at the frost tree in an effort to integrate more active choice in the frost play style, and their primary focus on that is shatter combos.

With that knowledge, making the assumption that they balance things correctly (a big assumption, but an important one), will the state of the frost mage be a good one? The ridiculously simplistic and boring rotation of 2 static chance procs amid bolt spam is far below the difficulty and skill of the other mage specs and seems problematic to me. Am I alone in that conclusion, or are other people seeing what I am?