Does the Frost Death Knight Need More Death?

Those who played Death Knights during Wrath of the Lich King might remember a lot of spells that used to be available to every DK that really emphasized the necromantic nature of the class. Some were talents, like Corpse Explosion (which was accessible to all three specs as it was only one tier two or so of the Unholy tree) or Raise Dead, which was a cooldown available to all specs but would yield a permanent ghoul for Unholy.

In Warlords, Raise Dead, arguably the most obvious necromancy spell for a Death Knight to use, was made Unholy-only.

Unholy really emphasizes the notion of the Death Knight as a platform for necromantic power, summoning all manner of undead minions or empowering your existing ones.

Blood's interaction with the death-flavor of the class is less about raising the dead and more about consuming life force from your opponents, with a strong vampiric motif (one gets the impression that, if WoW had more graphic violence, Blood Death Knights would look like a character out of Bloodborne after a battle - totally drenched in blood.)

Frost lacks a lot of this flavor, though. If you were to imagine a Battlemage character - a heavily armored wizard-like character who fought with a mix of physical melee attacks and spells - you could use just about every Frost DK ability without changing it. Obliterate? Simple melee strike that would be just as appropriate a name for a Warrior ability. Frost Strike? Very little flavor to that. Howling Blast? Ok, the Howling does give it a bit of a spooky vibe, but the idea of weaponizing cold wind does not seem that far out of the wheelhouse of Frost Mages or Windwalker Monks. Remorseless Winter? Ditto (well, less for WW Monks, but certainly works for Frost Mages.)

Only two elements in the Frost rotation really feel truly Death Knight-flavored: Frost Fever, applied by Howling Blast, and the artifact trait Sindragosa's Fury (oddly listed as simply "Frost Breath" in damage logs.)

Now, even though I think they could have easily just gone with "Frostwyrm's Fury" or something - it doesn't have to be Sindragosa every time - I think this ability does a great job of melding the Frost DK's focuses on necromancy and elemental coldness.

But I think the former of those focuses really gets short shrift. So where do we go?

Well, let's think about the undead. Undead come in many varieties. Zombies are probably one of the most ubiquitous types in genre fiction, but the idea of rotting, shuffling corpses is very well handled by Unholy. Another type is skeletons - essentially fleshless zombies. Frankly, I've always been more into the idea of skeletal armies as my undead threat of choice ever since seeing the old Jason and the Argonauts as a kid (look that up if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

Now, Blood clearly gets a lot out of another popular form of undead, namely the vampire, but they also have something of a skeletal sub-theme as well, with Bone Armor granted by Marrowrend a pretty huge part of the rotation, as well as the talent Bone Storm (or should I say BBOOOOONNNNNNEEEEEESSSSSTTTTTOOOOOORRRRRRMMMMM!)

I think Blood uses it little enough to maybe let Frost borrow some of the skeleton theme, but there's another obvious form of undead: ghosts.

Frost is obviously about the cold of death, the chill of the grave. And ghosts are often associated with the cold.

So I could easily imagine Frost taking on a more ghostly theme. I don't know exactly how this could be implemented - perhaps future talents could replace existing abilities. Changing Howling Blast so that you send out a wave of screaming ghosts? Maybe Remorseless Winter changes into something that haunts nearby enemies with some sort of effect in addition to Frost Fever?

I also think someone ought to be able to become a Lich.

Now, Unholy might feel they ought to be the ones turning into Liches, but our one example of a friendly Lich, Amal'thazad, is not only the Frost instructor but also a Frost champion. I've often found Pillar of Frost to be a somewhat underwhelming (flavor-wise, and kind of mechanic-wise, though I do really like the immunity to knockbacks) ability. What if that were replaced (either baseline or as a talent) with the ability to become a Lich? You could either get new abilities or have certain ones enhanced, a bit like Metamorphosis for Demon Hunters or Ascendence for Shamans.

Without access to Death and Decay or Raise Dead, Frost Death Knights really are missing something from their flavor toolkit, but I think it wouldn't take too much to up the spooky quality to the spec.

Also, when we move on to the next expansion I really really hope that we get to use two-handed weapons again. I'm still pissed I didn't get to reforge Frostmourne in its original form.