Seriously, how are the frost decks allowed to run rampant. Didn't you say somewhere that decks that aren't fun to play against need to addressed? Well, frost spells are a cancer on the enjoyment of this game. I'm a little too drunk to go into much detail now, but **** THAT ****!
Frost decks are tough, but there are a couple of ways to beat it. The best way is using lots of team moves. You can get team run on boosts (and attack skill with savvy attacker). Team pushes (most notably sprint, team) are available on helms and also human skills. If, once card draw is nerfed, everyone at the top runs triple dwarf control wizards (see scaredlittlegirl's post), I am definitely gonna run three humans with a high damage warrior or two to counter this. (I actually think this scenario is highly likely). Another good way is to use a wizard yourself and bring lots of winds of war. Then you can push your own encumbered guy with it as well as an enemy (you can close a distance of an impressive 6 spaces between your warrior and their mage with this - no matter how much frost your warrior has). If the frost decks are also bringing lots of control like whirlwinds and winds of war I highly recommend the immovable trait (available on boots) so you don't run into the "get frost jolted and blown around by winds" problem. An immovable combined with a team push = dead enemy frost wizard. Hard to pin down is also an option. Run up to near the wizard, they try to frost jolt you. Hard to pin down triggers and then you are right next to them and can start the killing. The frost is then useless since you are already next to them. Arrogant armor is also an option, but that of course is hard to get (people with the 3x arrogant armor legendary unfortunately have a large advantage here). Nimble strike is also an option. Run up to them, get hit with frost jolt, nimble strike them anyway since nimble strike is pretty OP. (Unfortunately the 6x nimble strike legendary gives the biggest advantage ever here. Don't know why this weapon is allowed to exist). Purge is also an option, but it unfortunately only shows up on two "decent" item, glinting eye hammer and that one tokenless priest trait, so they will definitely have more frost spells than you do purge. Naturally for these strategies to work you'll have to get relatively close to the mage while outside of line of sight (but that's doable with most of the multiplayer maps). Not saying that frost isn't OP or unfun (I think frost stacking in particular is a serious issue), but at least you have some options to deal with it.
On top of what has been said I suggest smoke bomb, I was playing double dwarf warriors with a human smoke bomb wizard which was tonnes of fun especially versus wizard and priest heavy parties which rely on targeting spells, although there are some cone based freezing spells. It works well, although not really a good high elo build in the long run.
I am aware of team moves, WoW, etc., thank you, I'm even running a few of those in my deck. What most people who just go "stop whining about frost and use team moves" seem to forget is that these all come at a token cost. The few cards to that effect that I can manage to fit into my deck are not enough to effectively counter frost wizards and if I start putting many more in my deck, I'll have to sacrifice too much damage. After all it does me no good actually being able to reach those pesky wizards if I then don't have the damage to kill them. And Arrogant Armor, the card that always gets quoted in these discussions is actually a terrible, terrible card to use if you are running a buffing priest in your deck because it discards YOUR own cards (Mass Frenzy, Impenetrable Nimbus, etc.) AS WELL. Very Bad Idea. Frost Wizards are actually very hard to counter effectively without sacrificing too much of your deck'as efficiency. It is the single most annoying deck in the middle bracket and totally unfun to play against. In most situations, I just resign as soon as I get hit with frost effects because it's just a lot less painful that way. Many frost cards are already quite OP by themselves and when you take into account how many of those you can fit into a deck, things just become insane. I feel that a lot of small nerfs need to be made to those cards to bring frost decks in line. For example no frost spell should have a range of more than 6. Also no frost spell should have an encumber/duration ratio of more than 4, i.e. if a card has encumber 3, it should not have a duration of more than 1. A card with encumber 1 could have a duration of 3. Freeze is just crazy OP. Same with Cone Of Cold, that card has a range of 6 in a cone! That should be cut to 3 at most. Another good step to take would be to make step moves unaffected by encumber. /soberposting
There are items that counter frost, but getting those items are fairly hard to come by. Once your warrior or priest get an arrogant armor, frost (and burning) will no longer be a threat. But getting one is unlikely.
One brain storm idea I got (but not likly work well in the current game), is to make frost be able to "crack" on damage. So each time you take a damage, your Encumber would decrease by 1 level (ex. Encumber 2 become Encumber 1). While there are counters to Frost, most still depend on luck (Purge, AA). So wish to see more anti-frost, but mulit-use cards into the mix. (say a Mass Purger, or a Breakthrough Chop (discard all attach, damage 3, step 2), etc)
Purge and Holy Presence are other ways to counter frost. I always keep a few Purge and Holy Presence cards in my deck, (and/or wearing Arrogant Armor,) just to counter frosty and burning attacks. If frost attacks are weaker, my characters would not need Purge, Holy Presence and/or Arrogant Armor. I really do NOT think frost is overpowered or needs to be nerf'd. You just need to plan and strategize your deck.
I think a simple way to "balance" frost is to adjust its range. Cards that apply Encumber 2 should be about 4-5 range, Encumber 1 about 6 range, and Encumber 3 be about 4-3 range.
Ah, you want to be able to abuse the powerful priest buffs but don't want anything to counter you. Right. There are decks which frost is all but useless against. A single Team Run or Arrogant Armor can completely ruin a frost wizard's day. But against a guy relying on buffed warriors who refuses to run any anti-encumbrance cards, yeah, frost is going to be the rock to your scissors. This is as it should be.
