First, for those who have not yet seen the new tree; http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents2.html

Secondly, I am aware of the length of my post, and have included a tl;dr for those who could care less.

I know it's a bit soon to pass judgment on the talent changes, but my current speculation over the Frost tree has lead me to believe that, while some of the smaller issues were fixed, the problem in the big picture may still remain, along with a few new shortcomings.

Currently as Frost your damage comes from crits and Shatter proc-type effects where Icy Touch, Howling Blast and Frost Strike deal double or triple damage to frozen targets. Well timed Obliterates and Howling Blasts can put out nice damage with some crafty Deathchill use, but in general I've found the average damage output of this spec to be minimal and lacking, along with several small issues;

--Freeze procs are few and inconsistent at best, unless you work in Chains of Ice (currently depriving you of one Unholy+Frost rune,) or Hungering Cold (the 51-point one minute cooldown talent.)
--Freeze procs seem to frequently break on auto-attacks and disease dot ticks. In the case of Chains of Ice or Hungering Cold, they always do.
--Howling Blast deals a good amount of damage, but runs on a 30 second cooldown. Not imbalanced, but you can't realistically count on using it more than maybe twice per combat.
--You almost never capitalize on the 100% damage increase Icy Touch deals to frozen targets as that's usually what you froze the target with in the first place. Five second freeze duration, six second cooldown.
--Frost Strike deals meager damage at the costly price of a Frost rune, and fails to deal the double damage to frozen targets as the tooltip suggests. Currently the 41-point talent.

All in all, for all the focus on your target being frozen the only real ability you can use is Howling Blast every 30 seconds. Most other freeze procs add up to nothing more than an awkward turn of events in combat. The amount of damage you wind up putting out is kind of weak, and if you for some reason can't hit that home run when you step up to bat with Howling Blast you're left a bit high and dry.

The coming change to the Frost talent tree mainly addresses the Death Knight's inept ability to manage freezes. Rather than benefiting from targets being frozen, Frost Knights now apply a disease Frost Fever that grants the same bonus effects that freeze previously did. This does wonders for the inconsistency issue, but the subsequent tweaking and fine tuning to other related abilities might still present a problem in damage output.

--First, Frozen Rune Weapon was flat out removed. FRW worked like a shaman weapon buff, causing the target to take 1% increased frost damage for 20 seconds and stacked up to ten applications. At best that was 10% frost damage no longer given to the Death Knight. Lichborne was moved to the Frost tree instead, which is a valid change due to tanking/lore reasons.
--Improved Icy Touch now grants 30% increased damage decreased from 50%, and no longer grants 100% increased damage to frozen (or now Frost Fevered) targets. Instead it slightly buffs the negative effects of your Icy Touch to enemies (1/2/3/4/5% decreased attack/casting speeds.)
--Frostbite was completely removed, and while this has close to no impact on the dynamics of the class now, it removed a good deal of synergy with Frost mages, which I admit was something I was looking forward to. It's one thing to fuel yourself, it's something completely different to fuel each other. Given Blizzards focus on the arena, this to me was big.
--Runic Power Mastery got buffed, now gives 4/8/12% more damage to frost spells. Neato. Does it affect abilities (Obliterate) as well? I don't know.
--Howling Blast now deals about 50 less base damage, and now only deals double damage to Frost Fevered targets (decreased from triple,) and now requires an Unholy rune in addition to the current Frost rune. Since the multiplier now goes off a disease and not a freeze, it should be usable whenever it cools, but I fail to see where the Death Knight makes up for all that lost damage.
--Frost Strike now requires 50 runic power rather than wasting a costly Frost rune, and now deals 100% weapon damage rather than 50%. It no longer deals double damage given the right debuff, however. 50 runic power seems a bit costly, especially when you work in Mind Freezes and are consciously trying to save runic power for that Hungering Cold.
--Guile of Gorefiend now only increases critical strike damage bonus of Obliterate and Frost Strike by 45% rather than the same 60% as Might of Mograine. Again, more lost damage.
--Hungering Cold no longer breaks on damage done by diseases. Awesome. This was kinda necessary.

These changes allow for more consistent damage output from a Frost Death Knight, but will the multiple nerfs to the amount of damage dealt cause reoccuring issues? I can't help but feel that despite these changes the Frost tree will bring little more than tanking utility to groups (which is more gear and threat generation than anything else,) and that Frost will pale in comparison to what could be gained with an Unholy or Blood Knight instead. Even the fun in the playability of the spec seems to have decreased a bit with the loss of mage synergy, and the fact that rather than timing and setting up my opponent I would now just apply Frost Fever and swing (lol Ret Paladins.) Ultimately it sounds lackluster, repetitive and boring.

This is all just speculation on my part though, hopefully once I get a chance to explore these changes thoroughly I might be convinced otherwise.

tl;dr BAWWWWWWWWW.

[ Post edited by Aziir ]

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It's a sad note for the state of the Arena when the best teams double as poker hands.

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Q u o t e:
4) The damage reduction and increase cost of Howling blast is because (I believe) with its damage proccing off of Frost fever it will be far easier to get the damage bonus consitently.

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This is fun: Frost Fever, Pestilence, Howling Blast. The problem with Howling Blast before was you either had one target with Chains of Ice or many targets with Hungering Cold, but more infrequently. Because Pestilence can now smear Frost Fever to 3 additional targets, you can Howling Blast a group for bonus damage virtually on demand. If you are facing one enemy, then you can Obliterate instead of Howling Blast for the same cost. If you are facing a lot of enemies or get freaked out for some reason, it's time for Hungering Cold.

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Q u o t e:
might of mograine no longer increases the damage of obliterate either, its now BS, HS and death strike, which is leading me to believe that many of our base abilities are getting some major changes.

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This.

Obliterate is a fun ability, but because of that talents to improve it were popping up everywhere. Since it is technically a Frost attack (by which I mean it's on your Frost spell page, not that it does Frost damage) we tried to put synergy with Obliterate into Frost. Because only Unholy can have more than 2 diseases, the Unholy DK really likes Oblit too. The Blood DK can still use it, but we tried to work in some more Death Strike synergy into Blood since it is a healing tool.

I posted this elsewhere, but Death Strike is 1U, 1F. It isn't a hard hitter (i.e. Oblit is always a better choice when you want big numbers), but you are healed by a percentage of the damage per disease. With two diseases, you can be healed for 100% or more of the strike's damage. It has no mechanic tied to killing an enemy or hitting them when wounded any longer. You use it when you are feeling a little hurt. Hint: Use it when you fall below Blood Gorged's threshold. Fun ensues.