Mage specs, Pro's Con's and What should you pick

[Deleted]

I agree 100%.
People who say that arcane is boring / easy / does less dps than the other 2 specs either don't understand how arcane works or being too lazy to play everything properly. For example I see so many arcane mages without Ice Floes and I don't understand why anyone should not take this talent as arcane ever. Ice Floes and Blink are the 2 spells that make arcane viable on movement encounter, but people don't get it and believe arcane is garbage ...
IMO there are only 2-3 bosses in SoO where playing arcane is a pain sometimes, but that's where you just go frost an be fine with your mastery gear.

edit:
I forgot to say that I agree with 90% of what you said in your post Berlinia.
Good job.

Can't hope for more
The reason people don't take icy floes is because in comparison to Blazing Speed it's on equal par. Also mostly as SoO has some really fast paced moments when you need to move your arse 2000yards in 2 seconds that's why people don't take IF. If they take PoM then they can go jump into Sarlac's pit (from Star Wars) so I can laugh.

[ChristopherD87]

IMO, my thought process on taking BS of IF is...most of the moving I do in SoO fights (haven't done any heroic), isn't a WHOLE lot of movement, and I can get there fastest with 2 blinks and BS, thus less time not casting (and one les thing to master with IF)...IF may be a min dps increase for me, and if we start doing heroics I will try it out. But that's my reasoning for taking BS and not using IF

[Polarthief]

No it certainly doesn't. I can't think of anyone who plays/played the spec perfectly.

I'd also like to add in that Haste-build is actually the highest DPS, but also has the highest skillcap, and is virtually impossible to play 100% perfectly, especially when things get hectic with IV and Time Warp up.

If anything, Frost probably has the highest skillcap overall, with the exception of Mastery, where Arcane tops it.

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Of the 3 specs yes Frost does have the lowest skill cap in my opinion

It really doesn't. Frost is much harder to play optimally than Fire or Arcane due to retarded haste levels and losing procs.

Fire is by far the lowest skillcap. There's little to no challenge to it, and is even easier than the super-slow Mastery-build of Frost. Sling things that light up, and spam Pyroblast during Pre-Combustion.

[Coldvibes]

I'd also like to add in that Haste-build is actually the highest DPS, but also has the highest skillcap, and is virtually impossible to play 100% perfectly, especially when things get hectic with IV and Time Warp up.

If anything, Frost probably has the highest skillcap overall, with the exception of Mastery, where Arcane tops it.

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It really doesn't. Frost is much harder to play optimally than Fire or Arcane due to retarded haste levels and losing procs.

Fire is by far the lowest skillcap. There's little to no challenge to it, and is even easier than the super-slow Mastery-build of Frost. Sling things that light up, and spam Pyroblast during Pre-Combustion.

This is pretty hard to agree with.. even though there is a lot of things that you can have go wrong the fact is, the DPS loss will be minor compared to making a mistake as Arcane, not to mention with Frost there's not even the concept of planned movement. If you miss an FFB or two its not going to change as much as fucking up your stack refresh cycle, or stopping a cast as frost vs stopping a cast as arcane.

Edit: There's also something very important that Akraen never talks about regarding the high haste Frost build, and that is past a certain amount of latency it is literally suboptimal to play due to being able to not keep up with the procs and snapshotting not because you can't humanly keep up with it but because your lag is too high.

[Kenbud]

It really doesn't. Frost is much harder to play optimally than Fire or Arcane due to retarded haste levels and losing procs.

Fire is by far the lowest skillcap. There's little to no challenge to it, and is even easier than the super-slow Mastery-build of Frost. Sling things that light up, and spam Pyroblast during Pre-Combustion.

Good thing that was my opinion and you don't really have any authority on the matter to tell me otherwise. In BiS even playing full mastery build you are sitting around 13,500 haste give or take. Absolutely no reason to go to "retarded" haste levels where it just becomes a spam fest where even the players with amazing lat and frame rate will miss a good portion of their BF procs. Unless that is your thing. I will how ever concede I was wrong in saying frost is lower then fire due to its reliance on bomb snapshotting, I would put them equal to each other with Arcane a decent amount above them.

[Hasufer]

I would put them equal to each other with Arcane a decent amount above them.

Amen to that - for both frost and fire, there are actual playstyles/set rotations and priorities to go by + some dot snapshotting to optimise etc. Arcane's rotation is a lot more dynamic atm (partly due to setbonus), and you yet have to react and play by dots(for which they are the strongest ingame due to mastery, so u wanna max these) and procs etc. On top of that, u need to master IF movement dps, movement in general (rop uptime etc) and mana management (tho there aint much to this atm) but cast a wrong spell, and u will feel it regardless. U wont be punished the same way, by throwing a IL where u were supposed to FB/FFB.

Btw, welcome to the forums Berlinia! Good constructive posts thus far, tho lots are up for debate! (like the choises of talent in this threat etc) :P

[evoker]

Nice writeup and a nice starting point for new mages everywhere!

Regarding the whole 25/10man Arcane debate, I sadly have to say that it's there. Combine that with raid leading and your DPS can go to the crapper really fast. Take Malkorok for example. Comparing fights where I had to soak pools and fights where I didn't have to there's a 100k DPS difference. That could be due to the fact that I'm bad at Arcane though...

I really love Arcane and Frost equally but I played Frost through most of the expansion and I wanted to try Arcane. It really sucks that I have to face difficulties that mages raiding 25man don't. Yeah sure I can dump all responsibilities to my team mates and just stand there and nuke but being a RL in a guild that just killed HC Spoils so late in the expansion means that I probably have the highest awareness

My motto is play whatever spec you like as long as you're effective! If you do the same DPS in Frost with ease and struggle to meet the same numbers in Arcane - just stay Frost. Although if you practise Arcane, you might surpass your Frost DPS... I hate wow some times!

[Squidwerd]

I'm just a normal raider (565 ilvl) with several normal Garrosh kills...as such, I play what I enjoy. Each time I've tried Arcane, and I've tried it many times, I go back to frost. Arcane feels too slow and I really hate the lack of movement I perceive when I play it. Fire I just can't get my head around it I guess....always waiting for that streak. =) Frost...fast and mobile. I went for the crazy haste build (~21k) and love it. I've always been a fan of frost though, from early leveling back in the day to now. I play what I enjoy and luckily, the numbers are good...can pop 1mil on that opener with a few adds up. =D

[Akraen]

Berlinia I just wanted to say welcome to the forums your heart seems to be in the right place and I hope you plan to continue posting and helping people here. There are never enough people who want to be active in the community and you seem to understand the specs to a fair degree.

Have to echo Shangalar here. Berlinia you have a great, positive attitude. You'll get worn down around here, try not to let it get to you.

I'm happy I've helped open minds to frost mage, just always remember we are a mage first and a spec second. Your write-up is pretty good.

I find the skillcap of frost is actually quite high, it's just you can do 90% of your optimal damage by ignoring all of it

[Deleted]

Have to echo Shangalar here. Berlinia you have a great, positive attitude. You'll get worn down around here, try not to let it get to you.

I'm happy I've helped open minds to frost mage, just always remember we are a mage first and a spec second. Your write-up is pretty good.

I find the skillcap of frost is actually quite high, it's just you can do 90% of your optimal damage by ignoring all of it

I am ready to get drowned in the shit that us mages are <3
Of course we are mage first and spec second but you can always love one spec

[Deleted]

Arcane is not boring but most of the time annoying but that is RoP problem - if we could use Ivocation for arcane i would be one happy goblin

all three speces are easy to play but hard to master - same as all other classes (maybe assa rogue is exception )

[Deleted]

Fire as main spec, and Frost as off spec. Never have been a fan of Arcane.

[sjsctt]

I am deeply confused on how a two button spec can be considered "As difficult to master as feral." Mana management takes a higher priority, but virtually every spec in the game has to worry and manage resources. With just two buttons to push, it shouldn't be hard to pay attention to.

Pardon my ignorance.

EDIT: I am no expert in mages. I have an alt mage that I enjoy doing LFRs, so I am literally ignorant on high end magery. I like fire and frost, but cannot stand arcane, or at least what I know of them.

[Akraen]

Feral is about the easiest spec in the game now.

People really need to stop comparing it to how it was in Ulduar, when it was the hardest spec in the game.

[Terahertz]

Feral is about the easiest spec in the game now.

People really need to stop comparing it to how it was in Ulduar, when it was the hardest spec in the game.

I fail to see how feral is the easiest spec. Then again I haven't PvEd on my feral since like 5.1.

I actually wanted to comment though on how every class should have a thread like this that explains the specs a bit. Help a lot for newcomers.

[kzn]

Feral is about the easiest spec in the game now.

People really need to stop comparing it to how it was in Ulduar, when it was the hardest spec in the game.

I miss my ulduar priority list of 4 things, one of which was to yell at someone else to put up scorch.

[Akraen]

Feral has the longest inactive time of any spec. You put up rake, rip, keep up savage roar-- then you just sit there, generating energy.

The only time Feral is remotely challenging is with soul swap on multi-target fights. Even then it's not as complicated as any other spec I can think of.

[Mastamage]

Feral is about the easiest spec in the game now.

People really need to stop comparing it to how it was in Ulduar, when it was the hardest spec in the game.

It used to be a bitch of a spec to master but now it's just blah as far as challenges go. Making buffs easier to keep up kind of ruined it.

[Deleted]

I am deeply confused on how a two button spec can be considered "As difficult to master as feral." Mana management takes a higher priority, but virtually every spec in the game has to worry and manage resources. With just two buttons to push, it shouldn't be hard to pay attention to.

Pardon my ignorance.

EDIT: I am no expert in mages. I have an alt mage that I enjoy doing LFRs, so I am literally ignorant on high end magery. I like fire and frost, but cannot stand arcane, or at least what I know of them.

It's actually 5 main rotation buttons(RoP, AB,AM,ABarrage,Bomb) for Single Target (no cooldowns involved) with care for Dot-Clipping and where one mistake just impairs you quite alot. It most certainly isn't a 2 button rotation (tha mana management for Arcane is more difficult/important than the mana management of certain Healer specs).

[nickseng]

I am deeply confused on how a two button spec can be considered "As difficult to master as feral."

So ... that's Arcane Blast and Arcane Missile. Think you forgot about Barrage and Bombs.