2h Frost?

Q u o t e:
Just curious....are we ever going to see a viable 2h frost spec viable for raiding again. 2h frost was the spec i enjoyed the most, even more so than Unholy. I know there are other dks thinking the same thing? are we ever going to see a viable 2h frost spec for raid or is it going to forever remain the tree for DW?

It's not very likely you'll see a viable two-hand Frost raiding build any time soon. Each death knight tree already offers a good deal of versatility given that there are potential DPS, tanking and PvP avenues in each. They're designed so that players can choose their path based on play style and flavor, not because of role (in the way that a Holy priest who wants to DPS as Holy is out of luck). Trying to also have dual-wield versions from Blood and Unholy builds made the matrix of what we wanted to accomplish a little too large. If there does end up being a viable two-hand Frost build that works, we're not going to go out of our way to break it. That said, we aren't going to go out of our way to promote it either. The Frost tree is currently meant to be a dual-wield tree much in the same way the Fury tree is a dual-wield tree for warriors.

Q u o t e:
Are you guys at least aware or keeping notes on how large an effect turning frost into a dual wield-only tree has had on those that saw it as their favored spec, but will not use weaponry that they, and many others, feel goes against death knights, thematically?

And, just for some insight, what exactly spurned you to bend over backwards and strike one of the trees down as appeasement to the dual wielding crowd? It seemed for much of Wrath you were on the same boat as, what seemed to me, the huge majority of the death knight community. Maybe I missed the signs when I started playing my mage and kept up less with death knight news, but it makes absolutely no sense to have gone back on your original contention that dual wielding was to death knights as using a two-handed weapon is to shaman.

Edit: I guess the actual question of my last paragraph can be phrased as, "Why did you feel the need for death knights to have a dual wield-centric tree?"

Q u o t e:
When I started my DK, it wasn't at all like this. I played one because I want to play as 2H Frost, and I did, until it was demolished by dual-wielding when 3.2 came.

The death knight was always conceived as using both large two-handed weapons and dual-wielding one-handed weapons. The earliest notes we made on death knights had just a few requirements: wears plate, must have a tanking build, uses runes as a resource, controls undead minions, and has two-handed and dual-wielding trees. That has just always been our vision for the class.

Yes, Arthas uses Frostmourne, but there are also characters like Thassarian who dual-wield. Some players prefer the faster swings of dual-wielding; and from an itemization standpoint it's nice for someone to use one-handed swords besides rogues. There aren't exactly a great number of dual-wielding classes. The rogue class is dedicated to dual-wielding, as is one shaman specialization. That's really it. Hunters rarely use their melee weapons and pretty much go for whatever gives the best stats, which is often the two-handed weapons. Fury warriors use the same two-handed weapons that Arms warriors do.

We can't always make promises to those who defend a specific play style as their favorite that we'll make sacrifices to keep it viable. With as many players as we have there will always be someone who likes something a certain way and doesn't want to see it changed. There are still shamans out there who picked their class for its (now defunct) tanking niche. Some hunters liked Survival because it was the melee hunter.

We wanted death knights to dual-wield. Making every tree have a dual-wield build wasn't working. One tree had to become dedicated and we thought Frost made the most sense.