Here's my problem, I read the article yesterday and I've now slept on it and I can't tell you which giant is at the top and which is
#2 . Outside of stone giants throw rocks and hill giants are big and dumb (and frost = cold and fire = fire) I know and remember very little about the article or indeed their new scope for the giants.
This problem isn't just with the new interpretation though, I've been playing for YEARS and I still don't know the difference between cloud and storm, or why I would use one more than another.
Are giants supposed to be elementally? If so shouldn't they all resemble their elements MORE closely?
Let me relate this to dragons, it is like they have the red dragon, the green dragon, the gold dragon, the purple dragon, a couple of 4e's drakes and a wyvern and they're giving me hierarchy information on them. It seems like they are missing the mark, at least in my opinion.
I wouldn't use any of these giants as the "fee-fi-fo-fum" type giants because they aren't big enough. 22 feet being the TALLEST. Where do I find ones that have hands as big as a person? Huge is the common size we're getting now, same as before IIRC but that is too homogeneous.
Yes I could have vikings killing frost giants again, if I had vikings or enough frost giants, but they really miss the point. Ever wonder if the viking tales talked of frost giants because they lived in a colder environment than other tales? Does cold environment now equate to cold immunity? Where did the summoning blizzards and avalanches come from. I like it but I don't get it. Are they supposed to be creatures of the elements or creatures who USE the elements to their favour? It seems like no matter their choice they're currently stuck in an odd middle ground.
My preference BTW would be to keep the elemental flavour but not have them be creatures of those elements. Just like I would make dragons who can spit fire but not necessarily dragons COMPOSED of fire.
EDIT: At least we with dragons we know there are the scholar dragons, the brooding dragons, the greedy dragons, the maniacally evil ones. With giants we have the warrior ones, the aloof warrior ones, the get off my grass warrior ones and the hungry ones.