Go fire or stay frost?

[Deleted]

Hello fellow mages, I've been wanting to go fire for quite a while on my mage but I don't really have the gold at the moment to switch gems, enchants and reforges and then switch back if I don't end up liking the result. So I decided to ask here; should I be able to go fire with my current gear or should I stay frost (Please don't suggest arcane though, not a fun spec imo). I'm not really sure as to what kind of crit I need to be able to rely on RNG to give me streaks of Pyroblast. I really like fire as I was a fire mage during Cataclysm but I don't want to be sub optimal as a fire mage since I still enjoy frost, albeit not as much as fire.

My character: eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/ravencrest/%C3%8Dcepaw/simple

[Deleted]

with 5k crit ? No.

Also please tell me you're not using presence of mind as frost

[Deleted]

Not on most fights, no. In the open world? Yes. Obviously i would not keep current gems and reforges if i were to switch to fire, that's the reason i'm asking, so i don't waste any gold.

[Deleted]

Frost usually performs better than fire all the way up to ilvl 560+. You also only have 6 pieces with crit on them, I highly doubt you'll be able to pull higher results as Fire, unless you play Fire a lot better. I'd wait until I had more crit gear.

[MoanaLisa]

At this point I wouldn't do anything at all unless you absolutely have to. WoD will switch things up and stuff you do now you may regret very soon once the class changes are announced and then balancing done on beta.

That said, if you absolutely want to play fire because you want to then go ahead. No way right now to really know what is and isn't going to be optimal in WoD or what may or may not happen to Pyroblast. I seem to remember reading that they had changes in store for that specifically.

[Deleted]

Frost usually performs better than fire all the way up to ilvl 560+. You also only have 6 pieces with crit on them, I highly doubt you'll be able to pull higher results as Fire, unless you play Fire a lot better. I'd wait until I had more crit gear.

What kind of crit chance would i be needing to go for fire?

[Boricha]

at least 35%, 40+ would be better though

[Deleted]

What kind of crit chance would i be needing to go for fire?

Don't really remember how high my crit was when I felt the rotation was getting a bit more fluent. I think I had 40% when I felt I was starting to chain proc a bit more.

At this point I wouldn't do anything at all unless you absolutely have to. WoD will switch things up and stuff you do now you may regret very soon once the class changes are announced and then balancing done on beta.

That said, if you absolutely want to play fire because you want to then go ahead. No way right now to really know what is and isn't going to be optimal in WoD or what may or may not happen to Pyroblast. I seem to remember reading that they had changes in store for that specifically.

Regret now? WoD isn't next week.

[Deleted]

Looked at the price of gems, wasn't too expensive. So i bought a few gems and what can i say? Bad RNG is bad RNG indeed, will probably try to get a bit more crit gear. Ty for the help.

[Deleted]

Stay frost. Frost is by far the best spec at high gear levels ~575. Even with terrible RNG with procs, it can still outperform fire with good rng on procs.

The bad thing about frost and fire is the insane amount of rng that comes with it which can completely drop your dps. But luckily frost has much less rng than fire does which allows it to perform generally better on fights. Even with decent rng, you may still see yourself under performing with fire. Arcane is okay but it still isn't as good as frost is with good rng and it isn't that far ahead of frost with bad rng.

It also depends how well you gem with fire as once you gain a certain critpoint, then int will be far the most valuable stat. Finding your comfortable level is key to mastering the spec but even then, it still probably won't be anywhere close to an average rng frost spec.

[Frost1129]

Stay frost. Frost is by far the best spec at high gear levels ~575. Even with terrible RNG with procs, it can still outperform fire with good rng on procs.

This is completely wrong.

Please stop posting these types of responses. Frost is a viable spec, it's fun, people can play it. I've played it bunches; but it is not the best.

[durrtygoodz]

Stay frost. Frost is by far the best spec at high gear levels ~575. Even with terrible RNG with procs, it can still outperform fire with good rng on procs.

The bad thing about frost and fire is the insane amount of rng that comes with it which can completely drop your dps. But luckily frost has much less rng than fire does which allows it to perform generally better on fights. Even with decent rng, you may still see yourself under performing with fire. Arcane is okay but it still isn't as good as frost is with good rng and it isn't that far ahead of frost with bad rng.

It also depends how well you gem with fire as once you gain a certain critpoint, then int will be far the most valuable stat. Finding your comfortable level is key to mastering the spec but even then, it still probably won't be anywhere close to an average rng frost spec.

Are you sure you play a mage?

[Pretzul]

Stay frost. Frost is by far the best spec at high gear levels ~575. Even with terrible RNG with procs, it can still outperform fire with good rng on procs.

The bad thing about frost and fire is the insane amount of rng that comes with it which can completely drop your dps. But luckily frost has much less rng than fire does which allows it to perform generally better on fights. Even with decent rng, you may still see yourself under performing with fire. Arcane is okay but it still isn't as good as frost is with good rng and it isn't that far ahead of frost with bad rng.

It also depends how well you gem with fire as once you gain a certain critpoint, then int will be far the most valuable stat. Finding your comfortable level is key to mastering the spec but even then, it still probably won't be anywhere close to an average rng frost spec.

10/10 Would read again
Thanks for the laugh

[Kapadons]

Hello fellow mages, I've been wanting to go fire for quite a while on my mage but I don't really have the gold at the moment to switch gems, enchants and reforges and then switch back if I don't end up liking the result. So I decided to ask here; should I be able to go fire with my current gear or should I stay frost (Please don't suggest arcane though, not a fun spec imo). I'm not really sure as to what kind of crit I need to be able to rely on RNG to give me streaks of Pyroblast. I really like fire as I was a fire mage during Cataclysm but I don't want to be sub optimal as a fire mage since I still enjoy frost, albeit not as much as fire.

My character: eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/ravencrest/%C3%8Dcepaw/simple

With your current gear, fully optimized, you will be at around 34-35% crit after raid boss crit suppression. This will more than likely be too low for you to see better results as fire than you would frost. If it were me, I would stay Frost until I got more Crit pieces.

[Deleted]

but it is not the best.

Source?

And please don't link top 0.000001% mage ranks. I'm asking for mathematical data, not top meter padder ranks.

[durrtygoodz]

Source?

And please don't link top 0.000001% mage ranks. I'm asking for mathematical data, not top meter padder ranks.

Please don't get him started again..........

[Neoxx]

Stay frost. Frost is by far the best spec at high gear levels ~575. Even with terrible RNG with procs, it can still outperform fire with good rng on procs.

haha good one

[Frost1129]

Source?

And please don't link top 0.000001% mage ranks. I'm asking for mathematical data, not top meter padder ranks.

I'm so glad you asked for this! As it so happens, Akraen and I were discussing this exact thing in another thread and it prompted me to collect data and do some analysis.

With a sample size of 40 for each case, Frost is below both fire and arcane by a highly statistically significant (p value MUCH less than 0.05. it's at like 0.008, which is fucking ridiculously low) margin! This is visible when you chart the averages of all three specs with their standard error, after normalizing the data for fight length and tossing out obvious cheesing ranks.

I haven't posted it yet because there still is some pruning of the data I need to do (getting rid of people who used less obvious cheese strats and what not) and I still need to incorporate WCL parses into it. And then preferably I'd like someone to act as an editor for it if it ends up being a longer post, since I almost always come off a blush/harsh and people get offended >.<

I did the math, you're wrong. if you want to know the test I did and the parameters I used in it, I can post them. I'll also post all of the raw data that I used once everything is done so people can make sure I made no mistakes.

I guess I should be open about it being fairly preliminary right now, there will be a lot of data added and some currently included parses removed. But still, for now, the trend is there.

- - - Updated - - -

Source?

I'm asking for mathematical data

Every parse is data. lol.

[Deleted]

Okay Frost, you aren't averaging out the rng located in the data, let me give you a nearly accurate simplified mathematically evaluated picture of what I am trying to say.







As you see given average luck on RNG frost is still relatively high. Fire and frost are really flexible in their total numbers given the amount good/bad luck rng it can get. Arcane is really good if you want steady numbers that won't change much based on rng but since the OP doesn't want arcane and only wants frost/fire data, he can take a look at this.

[zephid]

Stay frost. Frost is by far the best spec at high gear levels ~575. Even with terrible RNG with procs, it can still outperform fire with good rng on procs.

This is just plain wrong. Frost is not even close to Fire and Arcane in higher gear levels.
There is a reason why pretty much every mage out there who does HC raiding are playing either Arcane or Fire.