Frost, Fire, or Arcane

[IvelynBH]

Hello all I am a ilvl 561 Frost Mage just getting in the swing of things as a range/mage. Sadly at my ilvl and my current exp with my mage I'm not pulling much more than 200k at best. Of course I feel it is probably due to my own mistakes but that also makes me feel more comfortable learning another spec since I obviously am not doing so hot as frost *no pun intended*. I have dabbled a bit in acrane but not enough to really know if it's better. With my current gear I have also noticed I have reforged a quite a bit of crit off of it so fire maybe actually be best with my current gear. What are your thoughts fellow mages? Do you think with my gear I would be best trying to learn Arcane, Fire, or continue with Frost? Also any criticism is appreciated!

Thanks all! <3
Since I am new I can not link my armory so please just look up Paiton from Bleeding Hollow
to check out my gear, please and thank you!

[Deleted]

use what you are most comfortable with - all 3 specs are pretty close

Arcane - big potential but very restrcited movement
Fire - you need 15k+ crit rating (+-) but you are rewarded with minimal dps lost while moving
Frost - easiest spec with no special demand for gear and with decent movement

enjoy your choise while you can becaus before SOO we had no choise

[Deleted]

High end raiding wise the best specs would be

Frost(With good RNG on procs) > Arcane > Frost (with bad rng on procs) = Fire(With good rng) > Fire(With bad RNG)

[Shanananana]

I wouldn't worry too much about how your gear is set up. Sure, you want to stack haste out the wazzoo in frost spec, but having crit on gear doesn't really hamstring you. There's a smaller difference between the stat weights than people would have you believe. What you should be looking at is how you play the character.

This may just be my experience, but I haven't seen anyone using Arcane and pulling really great numbers on many fights. The movement-restricting issues are a dealbreaker for most mages. Plus, there's the obsessive compulsiveness of properly optimizing your mana that has a little bit of a learning curve, in my experience....

Fire is just... so much fun to play. With the movement potential, the huge crit streaks, and combustion, it plays so very well. At 561, you should have plenty of crit enough to play the spec well, if you decided to.

I'm enjoying playing Frost myself, once you have the "flow" down, it feels great. No big demand on gear, to be honest - it scales really well. Plus, you've got that rediculous AoE CD in Frozen Orb, and with the Splitting Ice glyph, smaller groups feel great too.

I'm not going to give you a rundown of how you should play your mage, but a few tips I've found that I feel most guides don't put enough emphasis on are:
1. Alter Time - make sure you have at least one stack of FoF or Brain Freeze, it'll be worth more to you than pretty much any of your procs or on-uses.
2. Make sure you keybind Freeze. two stacks of FoF with Splitting Ice can beat out Arcane Explosion in the short term in a lot of cases
3. Don't interrupt your frostbolts to cast a BF or FoF proc. You really only need to cancel a Frostbolt when you're moving
4. Frozen Orb is just... awesome in AoE situations. Sit on the CD for 20 seconds on fights like Sha of Pride if you have to, it'll get you tons of damage on the adds *plus* those FoF procs come in like crazy.

Does any of this help? I'd love to hear others' feedback as well.

[Frost1129]

High end raiding wise the best specs would be

Frost(With good RNG on procs) > Arcane > Frost (with bad rng on procs) = Fire(With good rng) > Fire(With bad RNG)

This is so wrong I don't even know what to think.

There is no fight where arcane performs worse than Frost. At it's very worst on movement heavy fights they come out equal (I think there is like one fight where that occurs). On every other fight Arcane out performs it. Fire also generally out performs Frost.

[Akraen]

This is so wrong I don't even know what to think.

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This is so wrong I don't even know what to think.

There is no fight where arcane performs worse than Frost. At it's very worst on movement heavy fights they come out equal (I think there is like one fight where that occurs). On every other fight Arcane out performs it. Fire also generally out performs Frost.

Let it go, it doesn't matter. If they have to ask, they're within the relative margins of each of the 3 specs.

@OP: Play whatever is comfortable.

[Frost1129]

Let it go, it doesn't matter. If they have to ask, they're within the relative margins of each of the 3 specs.

@OP: Play whatever is comfortable.

I didn't say he couldn't play what is comfortable (I actually said in another thread that you can play whatever). But there is a difference between saying "the specs are all viable" and "Frost is the best spec over Arcane and Fire." The former is being honest, the latter is ignoring a ton of evidence to the contrary. Spreading blatantly wrong information isn't something we should "let go."

[Deleted]

Hihi
So you wanna hear feedback about people opinions about the three specs.
Here is mine. And i want to hard underline i don't want to offend anybody. However if you ... well im saying it again i dont mind to offend anyone.

Fire spec - easiest of the specs and this is the "inner warrior" in the mage. It basically revolve into 'mashing buttons and spamming Pyros. Best described as lunatic jumping around and mindlessly spamming in the style "BUUURRNNN! BURRNNN!!! MUAHAHAHA!!!". Not much thoughts involved into it, just reaction based spec, maybe only when the time to use Combustion come and you want to use it to its potential you have to use your brain better. :}

Frost spec - to me this is the spec for the "average Joe". It requer a bit higher skill cap than fire.

Arcane spec (this is the place where i promote my favorite spec ) - to me this is the spec that yells "I am mage!". It requer a bit higher IQ and skill cap to be used to its potential. Also you have to manage a lot of things - your precious mana, positioning, your cooldowns(all of them) and very very deep knowledge of the fight so you can predict to higher degree the RNG during the fight so you can optimase the damage you can potentially do during the encounter.
It is the most hardest to learn and mistakes are punished severely.

[hatchetman240]

High end raiding wise the best specs would be

Frost(With good RNG on procs) > Arcane > Frost (with bad rng on procs) = Fire(With good rng) > Fire(With bad RNG)

Unless you look at the data, which shows Arcane > Fire > Frost for the top performers (25H), though specific fights are different. Also arcane is doing a full 127% of frosts DPS, so encouraging frost at endgame without regard for the best DPS you can achieve in each spec is misleading.

Source: http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D...00000000000000

I checked into the average DPS for heroic 25 also, and arcane is doing a mere 125% of frost

Source: http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D...00000000000000

Even average players are squeezing more out of fire/arcane than frost at end game.

Frost is just well laid out, it's got a lot of procs but very few confusing priority conflicts and almost no mechanically difficult bits to it. It's a great all purpose spec. I like it a lot. I feel like, inevitably, I'd need to swap to arcane eventually if we hit heroics and thus I've chosen arcane.

The answer to OPs question is to get more involved in your class. Read the "fix my DPS" thread(s) on here, all of the posts. You can educate yourself on your spec and common problems with it better that way. Hours of investment now will pay off in a big way. Whatever spec you choose just be sure you know everything there is to know about it. It's really the same problems over and over for most specs. Low bomb uptime, bad opener rotation, poor use of CDs and low activity time where people just aren't casting often enough. Once you're fully educated and made some changes yourself, come back and post your logs, people will be happy to discuss what you're doing that needs improvement. Being a good player is incredibly easy when you've got vast resources out there and you're willing to use them.

[Akraen]

I didn't say he couldn't play what is comfortable (I actually said in another thread that you can play whatever). But there is a difference between saying "the specs are all viable" and "Frost is the best spec over Arcane and Fire." The former is being honest, the latter is ignoring a ton of evidence to the contrary. Spreading blatantly wrong information isn't something we should "let go."

Yeah what he said didn't make sense to me either, but at the same time I can't even assemble an order because it's not the same on every fight.

This is what I posted on Icy Veins:

Fire:
Lower Limit...|----------|Avg DPS|--------------------|Upper Limit (best RNG+skill)

Arcane:
Lower Limit..............|--------|Avg DPS|-------------|Upper Limit (best RNG+skill)

Frost:
Lower Limit...................|-----|Avg DPS|----------|Upper Limit (best RNG+skill)

ignore the periods, just for spacing

- - - Updated - - -

Unless you look at the data, which shows Arcane > Fire > Frost for the overall, though specific fights are different. Also arcane is doing a full 127% of frosts DPS, so encouraging frost at endgame without regard for the best DPS you can achieve in each spec is misleading.

Source: http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D...00000000000000

I checked into the average DPS for heroic 25 also, and arcane is doing a mere 125% of frost

Source: http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D...00000000000000

Even average players are squeezing more out of fire/arcane than frost at end game.

Frost is just well laid out, it's got a lot of procs but very few confusing priority conflicts and almost no mechanically difficult bits to it. It's a great all purpose spec. I like it a lot. I feel like, inevitably, I'd need to swap to arcane eventually if we hit heroics and thus I've chosen arcane.

The answer to OPs question is to get more involved in your class. Read the "fix my DPS" thread(s) on here, all of the posts. You can educate yourself on your spec and common problems with it better that way. Hours of investment now will pay off in a big way. Whatever spec you choose just be sure you know everything there is to know about it.

stoooooooooooooooooooooooooop the raidbots

-they include asia
-they don't include WCL, which almost 3000 frost mages now use
-they include bogus encounters (< 1 min kills)

just refer to my chart, that's the most accurate way to represent how the 3 specs compare

[Alroxas]

Hello all I am a ilvl 561 Frost Mage just getting in the swing of things as a range/mage. Sadly at my ilvl and my current exp with my mage I'm not pulling much more than 200k at best. Of course I feel it is probably due to my own mistakes but that also makes me feel more comfortable learning another spec since I obviously am not doing so hot as frost *no pun intended*...

The best way to evaluate and improve performance is to log your fights and upload them to a parser like warcraftlogs or worldoflogs. From there you can view important things such as DoT uptime, Buff uptime, etc. to see where you need to improve.

As for specs, as other posters have comment, technically all three are fairly close to each other. You really should play the spec you enjoy unless you're in some sort of progression race.

In which case, at high levels of skill & gear, arcane does very well. Frost and Fire seem do close to each other but IME Frost seems to edge Fire out just by a hair.

[Frost1129]

Yeah what he said didn't make sense to me either, but at the same time I can't even assemble an order because it's not the same on every fight.

This is what I posted on Icy Veins:

Fire:
Lower Limit...|----------|Avg DPS|--------------------|Upper Limit (best RNG+skill)

Arcane:
Lower Limit..............|--------|Avg DPS|-------------|Upper Limit (best RNG+skill)

Frost:
Lower Limit...................|-----|Avg DPS|----------|Upper Limit (best RNG+skill)

ignore the periods, just for spacing

That is actually wrong though. I'm not sure where your data is coming from, but it's wrong. I literally just looked at the numbers for every fight, 25man, all parses, heroic, average and median numbers.

If you look at all the parses (not just the top 100) and look at median or average DPS in a 25man environment, frost is only as close to fire and arcane on one fight (spoils). On every other fire the gap between frost -> fire is at least 40k DPS (I'm talking average here. not top end or 99% percentile), and then arcane is variable amounts ahead of fire but usually by a good amount (I didn't look at the numbers for fire -> arcane specifically. was less interested).

I'm all for people playing the spec they want - it's not like Frost is bad, it's fine. I played Frost for a huge amount of Heroic progression and we slayed bosses fast as fuck. I'd actually argue that subpar DPS is preferable in a non-world first scenario if i comes with superior mechanical play. However, if we are talking objectively about which spec is performing the best in a high end raid environment, it's is arcane. And not by a small margin, but a massive margin. And then fire, and the another gap where frost finally comes in. There is no favoritism here and no attempts at attacking people or specs, it's just the data.

[hatchetman240]

stoooooooooooooooooooooooooop the raidbots

-they include asia
-they don't include WCL, which almost 3000 frost mages now use
-they include bogus encounters (< 1 min kills)

just refer to my chart, that's the most accurate way to represent how the 3 specs compare

1) What's wrong with Asia, other than their wierd ilvl+7 thing?
2) This doesn't invalidate the data, unless you can show me that all top frost mages left WOL in some sort of strike.
3) I agree, they include bogus data, but unless the bogus data trends to a specific class it should even out.

Do no insist people to do something without providing data to back it up. Your frost guide was nice, it was well thought out, intelligent and exquisitely constructed, this request from you isn't. Your chart is literally something you just made up now. I stopped going to church for lack of proof, and church had better proof than this chart you whipped up.

[Shanananana]

Hihi
So you wanna hear feedback about people opinions about the three specs.
Here is mine. And i want to hard underline i don't want to offend anybody. However if you ... well im saying it again i dont mind to offend anyone.

Fire spec - easiest of the specs and this is the "inner warrior" in the mage. It basically revolve into 'mashing buttons and spamming Pyros. Best described as lunatic jumping around and mindlessly spamming in the style "BUUURRNNN! BURRNNN!!! MUAHAHAHA!!!". Not much thoughts involved into it, just reaction based spec, maybe only when the time to use Combustion come and you want to use it to its potential you have to use your brain better. :}

Frost spec - to me this is the spec for the "average Joe". It requer a bit higher skill cap than fire.

Arcane spec (this is the place where i promote my favorite spec ) - to me this is the spec that yells "I am mage!". It requer a bit higher IQ and skill cap to be used to its potential. Also you have to manage a lot of things - your precious mana, positioning, your cooldowns(all of them) and very very deep knowledge of the fight so you can predict to higher degree the RNG during the fight so you can optimase the damage you can potentially do during the encounter.
It is the most hardest to learn and mistakes are punished severely.

I am so happy with this post.

[Frost1129]

stoooooooooooooooooooooooooop the raidbots

-they include asia
-they don't include WCL, which almost 3000 frost mages now use
-they include bogus encounters (< 1 min kills)

just refer to my chart, that's the most accurate way to represent how the 3 specs compare

1) ilvl +7 is a problem
2) Who cares? Are you saying EVERY good frost mage left for WCL and that is why frost is so low? That's not very plausable.
3) A problem.

So lets look at the 60th percentile, ok? The +7 ilvl will not be there, since those players are high end raiders and are far above this. There are going to be no 1min kills with this range of players. They don't have the DPS to do it. You can't weed out your WoL/WCL issue, but I don't believe every frost mage that is decent has migrated over. I think the 60th percentile is going to be a representative population of decent raiders, especially considering they are in heroics. I've got the numbers written down, i'll put them into a little graph to display the number itself, and then another to show the delta between frost/fire, frost/arcane on a fight by fight basis.

Spoilers: Nothing changes. But I'll do it anyways

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That's for the 60th percentile. Even one of my coworkers remarked how there is an obvious trend, and the guy doesn't even play WoW. I'm not sure what data set I need to do this on to prove this point to you, but I think this should do.

[Aoeina]

I am going to assume you are raiding 25man but if you are raiding 10man beware that on 10man heroic arcane can be a bit of a pita.

[durrtygoodz]

Who cares about 60th percentile dps rofl

[Akraen]

First off, yeah who would care about 60th percentile DPS? Or any of your statistics? It's all bad data, all of it. It's just the only data you have so you're scrambling to draw conclusions.

I'm not saying that frost is best. It's definitely in 3rd place still.

My argument is on the margins and the apparent difference at the skill level 99% of players are at. Each time someone makes a thread like this I grit my teeth, because it's absolutely pointless.

Until you can sort and filter based off categories of boss strats, uncheck raid-comp exclusive buffs like tricks, stormlash, banner, and normalize all the kill times then I will not accept any of your raidbots data and I don't think anyone else should either.

But you won't, these threads will keep happening-- they'll never be productive, and they'll always result in arguments like these.

[Styxz]

High end raiding wise the best specs would be

Frost(With good RNG on procs) > Arcane > Frost (with bad rng on procs) = Fire(With good rng) > Fire(With bad RNG)

No offence but what's your deal bro? I've been seeing you in a lot of threads posting false, outlandish things. Why are you trolling mmo-c?

[Frost1129]

Who cares about 60th percentile dps rofl

I said why I used the 60th percentile, I'm sorry you can't read. I'd try to help you with that, but as I can only type to communicate here it'll just be a waste since you wouldn't be able to read that either.