Honest Opinions on Which Spec for ToS

[antelope591]

Well with the latest hotfixes we can safely say that fire is the worst dps spec in the game....by a lot. Good thing frost is so fun to play with the double IL and TV nerf. Not.

[halfawake]

Well with the latest hotfixes we can safely say that fire is the worst dps spec in the game....by a lot. Good thing frost is so fun to play with the double IL and TV nerf. Not.

There's no reason to be balanced around those things. Especially double ice lance was stupid. Now the problem is they probably won't buff us back to compensate because we won't be dead last with this nerf. I dunno what it looks like though to be honest after these changes.

edit, I guess youre only commenting on the mechanics of frost but again I don't understand how double ice lance was a fun mechanic. Subjective I guess, TV change I can understand.

[Zenfoldor]

Start buildin' your frost sets. RIP fire mage.

[Elboba]

Lol

Held my breath, expecting some fire buffs (not huge)
Opened it up, Zero

Lmfao

- - - Updated - - -

First boss kill of the week
Shattered Fragments of Sindragosa

Yay, my first frost lego.

I have
Shard
Pydaz
Sephuz
KBWish
Fire Gloves
Fire Bracers
Fire Helm
Fire Belt
cats while move Boots

And now comet storm lego!

[Xinder]

Lol

Held my breath, expecting some fire buffs (not huge)
Opened it up, Zero

Lmfao

- - - Updated - - -

First boss kill of the week
Shattered Fragments of Sindragosa

Yay, my first frost lego.

I have
Shard
Pydaz
Sephuz
KBWish
Fire Gloves
Fire Bracers
Fire Helm
Fire Belt
cats while move Boots

And now comet storm lego!

The helm and Shard are BIS for GS Frost if it matters. Also pretty good for TV Frost.

[antelope591]

There's no reason to be balanced around those things. Especially double ice lance was stupid. Now the problem is they probably won't buff us back to compensate because we won't be dead last with this nerf. I dunno what it looks like though to be honest after these changes.

edit, I guess youre only commenting on the mechanics of frost but again I don't understand how double ice lance was a fun mechanic. Subjective I guess, TV change I can understand.

Because it was a mechanic that added fun to the class if done right and a ton of dps....now my dps is still decent but the spec is completely braindead to play. I would go back fire in a second if it did anywhere close to respectable dps.

[Deleted]

There will be a second tuning pass with buffs/nerfs at the end of the week. Just wait for it and pray.

[Alvito]

Start buildin' your frost sets. RIP fire mage.

A few months late on that post.

[D3athsting]

I wonder if blizzard will have a sufficient sample of fire mages raiding tos to do tuning, guess not

[mrgreenthump]

Frost got it's first nerf though with the T20 2pc only being 20% on Live.

[Deleted]

i find it funny that literally no1 is seeing the big picture here, it should be quite obvious, there are reasons why the dps difference is the way it is atm, frost is balanced around being good at ST and 2-4 target cleave, so obviously its aoe is very weak, fire is balanced around being good at sustained 4+ target aoe, so ofc its ST is weak where as arcane is balanced around burst, so its ST, cleave and aoe capabilities are a mix frost and fire, being worse for ST and cleave than frost but better at aoe than frost, while being better for ST and cleave than fire but worse at sustained aoe than fire, if fire or arcane would get a ST dps buff to make then equal with frost then their other abilities would need to get a significant nerf, and i mean fire's and arcane's ability to aoe would be reduced to the lvl of frost.

what ppl forget is the actual reasons why frost was as good as it was in NH, we essentially had an instance perfectly tailored for frost, so ofc frost would reign supreme in that instance, it was the same reason why melee did so well, it was an instance perfectly tailored for them, with each boss essentially being a boss dummy, and then with the fact that frost is arguably the mobile ranged dps in the game atm, it suffered significantly less than other ranged classes even when they had to do mechanics.

Honestly i think your picture isn't big enough either. Since your view only looks at mages in sim situation itself, not actual raid or other classes.

1. Balance is based on current raidcontent, it's not based on a class has a strenghts and weaknesses so it's okey if it sucks for an entire raidtier.
2. Sure their can be niches that on occasion give a unique strenght for one encounter. Think of the old combustion that on some encounter could spread insanely. Or shamans chain lightning (although this is a bit too broad niche).
3. Otherclasses have strong ST and AoE. Marksman for example is a strong AoE spec during nighthold it suffered on ST though.

4. A huge issue is the value of archetype DPS. Frost spec has for example Strong ST and cleave as strenght. While fire has a ST weakness and a narrow AoE strenght.
Don't see how Frost 2 strenghts vs Fires 1 strenght, 1 weakness can be justified. Not only does frost have more usefull strenghts, Fire isn't even strong in all types of AoE. AoE scales badly in raids aswell, it's value decreases rapidly with gear and ST is always a great asset.

5. Even in past expansions it showed that it's a terrible idea to have a spec with strong AoE but weaker ST. During Emerald nightmare however their was some hope as their was a higher than avarage aoe encounters. During NH it became obvious however it didn't work.

Solution:
Unless the developers want to be forced in certain raid encounter design to make each archetype equally valuable. It's better to have all dps specs being equal in ST but they can differ in strenght on the remaining Archetypes.

Now maybe it's a nice design idea for pures to have more defined strenghts and weaknesses. But than I expect a lower barrier to spec switching compared to hybrids. Allow me to have all the crit I have in firespec to change in a different stat when i go Arcane for example.

and then with the fact that frost is arguably the mobile ranged dps in the game atm, it suffered significantly less than other ranged classes even when they had to do mechanics.

Uhm, I found frost one of the least mobile specs because it had to absolutely tunnel the boss to make great use of Thermal Void.
To my knowledge of the ranged dps: Beastmasters > Marksman = Firemage > .....
Firemage can move more consistantly faster than beastmaster thanks the added Frenetic Speed talent.

Frost AoE isn't as bad anymore. But most of its AoE boosts ST dmg. Aluriel for example Frost is really good maybe prefered over Fire.

[Celestraza]

The main reason frost did so well in Nighthold is because of the unintentional double ice lancing paired with achieving 100% IV uptime. Not because fights are tailored to frost (which they aren't).

Frost only got strong later on in Nighthold progression (around Star Augur) when players were finally getting their BiS gear/legendaries and meeting requirements as staying in melee range with almost 100% uptime of IV and Bloodlust to go ham on rankings. But during progression this was nowhere near reality and frost, fire and arcane were all mediocre specs in a raid that is fully designed to cater to melee classes.

Frost/Fire generally don't have any specificly tailored fights. Without double icelance frost is just average-mediocre like fire on single target dmg. Don't believe me? Swap the statistics over from 7.2 and 7.0-7.1.5 on each boss. You will see frost mages were mediocre during progress (below the middle of the pack) on fights like Trilliax but then in 7.2. explode to rank 1. All bosses show this trend. Fire had no bug to take advantage of so was incapable of making this climb.

I can only think of arcane mages having actually fights in NH being tailored to them. Hence they were strong during Anamoly progression and situationally on Aluriel (if they could get in melee range). Is also reflected in the statistics.

EDIT:
Back on topic.
I think frost/arcane are going to be safe bets in NH with fire being a bit in the danger zone.

[D3athsting]

There will be a second tuning pass with buffs/nerfs at the end of the week. Just wait for it and pray.

There was another tuning after 1st week of nh, fire got buffed but remained sh*t

[Deleted]

The main reason frost did so well in Nighthold is because of the unintentional double ice lancing paired with achieving 100% IV uptime. Not because fights are tailored to frost (which they aren't).

I can only think of arcane mages having actually fights in NH being tailored to them. Hence they were strong during Anamoly progression and situationally on Aluriel (if they could get in melee range). Is also reflected in the statistics.

Wait,what are u even talking about. 8 of 10 fights were favouring ST / Cleave.

Skorp - meh add padding
Anomaly - Speed buff that was perfect for DIL Frost mages + short add phase that further boost their dps
Triliax - pure st with a bit of cleave at the end
Spellblade - It was frost / arcane fight
Tich - more ST fight
Krosus - ST fight
Botanist - ST fight
Elisande - ST fight with cleave + speed boost excelent for DIL frost mage
Gul'dan - ST fight with occasionally cleave + speed boost

Clearly NH was designed for Arcane (burst AoE).

[Zenny]

With all the buffs to the specs that were under/around Fire's level, I think it is safe to say Fire is the worst spec in the game right now.

[Zenfoldor]

With all the buffs to the specs that were under/around Fire's level, I think it is safe to say Fire is the worst spec in the game right now.

It already was, but now it is hard to even argue about it.

[Celestraza]

Wait,what are u even talking about. 8 of 10 fights were favouring ST / Cleave.

Skorp - meh add padding
Anomaly - Speed buff that was perfect for DIL Frost mages + short add phase that further boost their dps
Triliax - pure st with a bit of cleave at the end
Spellblade - It was frost / arcane fight
Tich - more ST fight
Krosus - ST fight
Botanist - ST fight
Elisande - ST fight with cleave + speed boost excelent for DIL frost mage
Gul'dan - ST fight with occasionally cleave + speed boost

Clearly NH was designed for Arcane (burst AoE).

You are looking at it from a farm point of view. Many of those fights are not pure ST/Cleave and had add dps checks that were actually hard to get during progress.

During progression frost mages had mediocre ST/Cleave, just like fire mages. You can disagree with me here but my argument is that frost started out with mediocre ST/cleave which is reflected in the rankings/statistics before 7.2. Take a fight like Trilliax where frost is even below feral druids: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...n=1&dataset=80
Frost mages still had to farm the AP, gear and legendaries to make double IL work properly because we all had to roll out of fire. Looking back during progress, all mage specs were underperforming and none of the fights in NH greatly favored us over other classes. Take away double ice lance and frost mages would have remained mediocre on ST/cleave even in 7.2.

Frost mages only got out of control once we roughly reached Star Augur and in 7.2. Then most mages got their BiS frost legendaries/gear/AP to abuse double icelance fully and paired with double bloodlust on even shorter fights. Which you can see in rankings in 7.2. where frost is ridiculously ahead: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...867&dataset=80.

I personally don't care about padding ranks during farm. During progression when content was relevant the mere fact remains that all mage specs were underperforming in NH. Perhaps best visible on Krosus where bringing ranged in general was just painfull. The only encounter in NH I found a mage to be memorable during progression was the odd-ball arcane mage on Aluriel, which does happen to be a fight perfectly tailored for arcane (AP lines up with each AoEable adds phase at a time that AoEing adds actually was actually a dps check). Also strongly tailored for elemental shaman at the time which is also a spec that during progress was very mediocre (except on that niche fight).

[Deleted]

It took a while before frost mages geared up and mastered double IL so it is obviously that in 7.1.5 they were not so high. What dps check on adds do you mean? There is not a single fight that requires big AoE dps. NH fights are perfect for Frost that is why it was top dps spec and it is very strong going in ToS.

[Sariengrey]

So glad I unsubbed 2 months ago, after 13 years maining a mage . Blizz has done an atrocious job with class balance and swing this xpac ,factor in legos and AP and Wow has become a bunch of nonsense you can't invest into anymore. Moved on and played so many awesome games the last 2 months- both console, pc and an mmo or 2 .Had forgotten how many other amazing games are out there, just took blizz devs being at their worst in a decade to nudge me there. Thanks ! not getting my money anymore, keep your World of Diablocraft.........

[Lulbalance]

Start buildin' your frost sets. RIP fire mage.

"Start"..lol.