Something far more cheerful

The last blog post here was definitely the most bitter one I've posted.
I still have not found the logic the Blizz developers have for continously nerfing mages in PvP as a whole, and frost mages in particular.

So maybe I should offer some constructive feedback, yes? Rather than cursing them?

So.

We've already established Ice Block is absolutely necessary for a mage to survive in Arena combat. Ice Block allows for us to be healed without repurcussion (assuming there's a healer on our team). It wipes all negative effects on us, like warlock DoTs. It can be used retro-actively against incredibly powerful hits. (For example, if you see a mage fire a pyroblast at you, you can ice block and avoid damage).
Essentially, Ice Block lets you live through your opponents powerful cooldowns, makes any healers job easier, and wipes all hurtful things on you.
Nothing but win, right?

So, the problem here is that you need to put 21 points into frost to use this necessary talent. That's why any mage worth half his weight in gold is specced frost for PvP.
But what about those poor mages who aren't frost?
The ones who, when a Beastmaster hunter pops BigRed, can only go "Oh... crud" and try to run?
The ones who, when faced with a PoM + Pyro, can only hope it doesn't kill them in one shot?
The ones who are essentially eaten by warlock DoTs because there's nothing they can do about them?

Here's my asnwer, and plenty of mages think the same thing.

MAKE ICE BLOCK TRAINABLE.

Ice Block is a major survivability mechanism.
Paladins have? Bubble. Trainable.
Rogues have Vanish, CloS... all trainable.
Priests get a small scale bubble, which is also trainable. (So do mages, but again we have to spec for it)

Don't agree with what I'm saying? Paladins can heal themselves. Shamans can heal themselves. Priests can heal themselves. So can druids. Warlocks can heal themselves, at your expense. And they have a bubble too. (Trainable, but they lose the VW).
Which leaves only warriors and hunters unable to absorb damage or heal themselves.
Hunters have a whole set of problems of their own in arenas. They have some serious LoS issues that I do not envy. This keeps most hunters far, far away from arenas, so we really don't need to discuss them here. We're talking arenas.

Now. Who's seen a warrior with low armor and hitpoints in an arena? Anyone? Ever seen a warrior under 10k hp? Warriors have tons of hitpoints, and enough honor to make rogues cry in their sleep. Couple that with the fact that warriors can hit almost as hard as any class in the game. (I've taken white damage hits of 1k from 70 from warriors still in greens). The average warrior you meet in the arenas is going to be able to do TONS of damage in a very short period of time.
Personally, the highest I've run into was a 4.3k crit from Mortal Strike.*
So we can dismiss warriors as having problems in the surviving area.

So... that leaves us with mages. We mages have the lowest base stamina in the game (with the noteable exception of priests. We beat them by two!), have no way to heal ourselves, and our only survival methods come from frost.

So a mage needs to spec frost to gain access to any bubble abilities and survival methods.
Leaving us as the only class in the game that has to spec a certain way to gain access to any way to stay alive.
And don't say something stupid like "Flame Ward!" or "Mana shield, you moron!". Those are as close to useless as you can get. The wards are overspecialized to the point of only being on an action bar on the off-chance you fight another mage and have a GCD to spare to absorb some damage. Mana shield is counter-productive to the point that I want a refund for ever spending money on that ability.
Try this on for size: Absorb 500 damage for 1000 mana. Sound good to you? I thought not.

Anyways. I'm wandering again. Where was I?

Right. Mages have to spec just so to gain any worthwhile ways to stay alive, while every other class can train ways to stay alive, has a pet, or has such incredibly high stamina that they don't need it. And did we mention five of those classes can heal themselves?

At the risk of sounding cliche, how is this fair? How is it fair that mages have to spend 21 talent points to gain any method of surviving damage?
Aloow mages to train Ice Block at level 30, and it will solve at least a few problems. Maybe even let non-frost mages be moderately successful in arenas.

Then you can replace that empty talent slot in the frost tree with something that reduces/eliminates hypothermia.

Again I would like to point out that other classes have ways of reducing the "U CANT BUBBLE LOL" effects, they have to spec for them. (Priest can reduce the weakened spirit thing, warlocks can spec to summon a VW in seconds... blah blah...)

Why not do the same for mages?

Make Ice Block trainable, and replace that talent point with something that reduces the length of time hypothermia lasts.