Which Mage spec for Antorus?

[fiestatastic]

Instead of arguing with most people, and telling people their advise isn't what you want how about you delete this thread and just do the research on your own. Sim yourself, and research the 3 specs. You are wasting your own time, and everyone else who's tried to apply.

The thread seems like a legitimate attempt to procure useful information. What actually seems like the derailing problem is people typing opinions to the effect of "play what you want / feel like" when that's clearly not where the op's intentions are.

It's honestly laughable that people (not you Afflik btw, I'm on a tangent) even waste time typing responses to the effect of "so what if you do less dps than the best, just enjoy what you play".

In regard to the op question, you've probably already been given the best answer you'll find. Start out as fire and see what you get as your first two (all the while, praying to rngcifer that you don't get norgannon's or the blink chest and screw your luck for all 3 specs). If you get bracers, plus belt or hat, you could probably just stay fire and focus on that. If not, switch to frost.

- - - Updated - - -

I am one such arcane mage. I pulled 1.8m dps on heroic sezzanine with shoulders/sephuz. I feel awful though because that dps means nothing since the boss is the real target - the rest is meter padding on the murlocs/abyss worms; that fight is essentially padding: the fight.

Sephuz is outstanding for the fight, the best, since you can reliably proc it on adds.

- - - Updated - - -

Something I thought of to add is that if you do get shit on by rng and Norgannon's plus the blink chest end up being your first two, it's a significant time saver to forget about that character for the rest of this xpac and just level up a new mage.

[music49]

Each spec is very good at certain fights

Frost: sustained and two target fights
Arcane: burst
Fire: AoE burst, cleave, (single target very dependent on leggo bracers)

Based on teir fire is looking very strong overall but from what I've seen so far on the PTR raid test frost might be looking at the top spot again.

Personally I enjoy Fire gameplay, so I'll be maining fire, but maintaining Frost spec when absolutely needed

[Vorrum]

Each spec is very good at certain fights

Frost: sustained and two target fights
Arcane: burst
Fire: AoE burst, cleave, (single target very dependent on leggo bracers)

Based on teir fire is looking very strong overall but from what I've seen so far on the PTR raid test frost might be looking at the top spot again.

Personally I enjoy Fire gameplay, so I'll be maining fire, but maintaining Frost spec when absolutely needed

Arcane isn't just burst. You can pull sustained damage even without the kilt. Also past two targets arcane > fire for aoe.

[Alanar]

I dunno, I much prefer Frost. I tried fire for a bit... felt too dependent on crit RNG. Some RNG is fine, I main Assassination Rogue (which loves crit mutilates for fast CP generation), but not that much. Frost also has the benefit of slowing enemies and such.

Frost is rng to.. true on the slowing part yeey.

Leveling Arcane now here, I likeit alot more.

[Deleted]

What every intellectual plays,

Arcane of course, the master spec.

[Lulbalance]

Based on what I've seen of the fights and assuming that you manage the legendaries and play-style / no significant balance changes due to tuning - fire imo will perform best in there.

[HuxNeva]

Cool story. You still want to go frost. You don't have time to get the needed legendaries to play fire unless you have god like RNG.

I have the cold suspicion they at going to creep up the drop-rate on legendaries from ToS raids as the patch draws nearer, or at least 'bias' towards the BiS DPS ones for sensitive specs. The whole idea of catch-up is to get everyone on a more equal footing, and they know the legos are the final piece in the puzzle. The rest is handled through AK, Netherlight traits, upped WF/TF rates, Argus gear etc. We have several re-rollers going from lvl100 - ilvl930 in under two weeks for proof. Keeping the 'needed' legos rare would totally nix the strategy.

- - - Updated - - -

Fire: AoE burst, cleave, (single target very dependent on leggo bracers)

I would love to trade a slight overall buff for a bracer nerf. It is just too RNG now with the exact same execution outcome varying up to 20% depending on lucky timed proc/crit streaks.

[Talvindius]

What every intellectual plays,

Arcane of course, the master spec.

The only correct opinion when it comes to mages.

[Deleted]

Arcane isn't just burst. You can pull sustained damage even without the kilt. Also past two targets arcane > fire for aoe.

That's a nice avatar you got there

[DubsEdition]

There are so many situations that you need too look at for which spec you should play during a fight and sometimes it might come down to your team comp and which spec brings.

Solo Target 100% Uptime with low movement:
Frost. This is simple to pull off especially with double/triple lust and bracers. Fire and arcane played optimally are not too far off though. So you can play what is comfortable.

Sub 100% Uptime or movement:
Fire. This really is starting to shine as of lately because of running mastery build, meaning a lot of your damage is ignite which still runs while you are moving or completely off of the boss. So unless you have FoF procs or AM as the other specs you wont get much damage off while moving. Example being Mythic KJ, you are not going to always be able to focus up and get procs off.

Burst AoE:
Arcane. If you haven't tried it, god is it fun to just come out of no where. This is also assuming your guild needs this. Though rare occasions can help you look nice on the meters or especially fortified for M+

Passive AoE:

Fire. Once again back to mastery, you will be doing a ton of single target while getting that ignite onto multiple targets. Avatar is an example of how well the ignite can work on just two targets.(Sadly frost cant cleave because splitting ice doesnt work on maiden)

Cleave:

Preference. Frost is amazing at 2 targets with splitting ice, fire starts to out scale on 3+ targets and arcane is great up as well up to 3 anymore might as well go more AoE unless you want to focus more single target.

Take all you want with a grain of salt, but as a mage you are extremely versatile. If you want to be competitive you will be no matter what spec you chose. Don't be afraid to lock into one spec and perfect it. There are a few occasions, like beginning of the expansion, where arcane and frost were just not viable at all, but as it stands, you can play whatever you like. I have tried all 3 spec in Mythic Tomb of Soakgares for different reasons. If you are concerned about where to dumping AP, dont even worry. If you look at scaling on the last 3AK, the jump is so huge. I have 68/64/64 by just doing my AP world quests everyday and i'm no where near the top % of total AP. I plan to get all 75 before I go hard into one.

[Ambereldus]

-snip-

Its just unfortunate that legendaries are significant enough to be noticeable with the specs, and limiting if you don't have them. TBH, it might be nice to be able to "unspec" for loot to be able to get legendaries for ANY spec, potentially increasing your drop rates.

Your analysis is spot on, and I've been lucky enough to get several of the key legendaries for all specs so I've got the freedom to choose. I'm debating between Frost/Fire and Frost/Arcane, since both Fire and Arcane tend to overlap on their niches, and i'm just really comfortable with Frost.

[Konteil]

personally i think the spec you play most is the best one to take. as you have it built as well as the muscle memory to play it on the fly. ivebeen arcane for 10 years so thats my go to. fire is nice but it feels clunky to me

[D3athsting]

Haven't even unlocked crucible traits for arcane, tried once with tw and archmage rings in tos and was oomfest lulz

[texhex]

Sub 100% Uptime or movement:
Fire. This really is starting to shine as of lately because of running mastery build, meaning a lot of your damage is ignite which still runs while you are moving or completely off of the boss. So unless you have FoF procs or AM as the other specs you wont get much damage off while moving. Example being Mythic KJ, you are not going to always be able to focus up and get procs off.

there is a flaw in your thinking process. you may think ignite is beneficial for movement. no its not. you need to think about ignite being part of the fireball/pyro damage, just timeshifted. when you are moving you arent casting fireball/pyro (except the hotstreak procs, but thats about scorch/fireblast/PF)
fire istn better for movement because of ignite still doing damage while moving. yes it does damage while you move, but when you are not casting anything the ignite afterwards will be weaker, resulting in just the same dps loss frost has but just shifted timewise.

What makes fire better for movement is, that you arent dependent on procs to have instants. you can plan them abit with phoenix flames and fireblast.
also your movement filler scorch is stronger than normal IL. not the damage itself (which is quite equal) but the chance of gaining hot streaks/pyros. Casting IL gives you nothing except the blunt damage

[Zenfoldor]

there is a flaw in your thinking process. you may think ignite is beneficial for movement. no its not. you need to think about ignite being part of the fireball/pyro damage, just timeshifted. when you are moving you arent casting fireball/pyro (except the hotstreak procs, but thats about scorch/fireblast/PF)
fire istn better for movement because of ignite still doing damage while moving. yes it does damage while you move, but when you are not casting anything the ignite afterwards will be weaker, resulting in just the same dps loss frost has but just shifted timewise.

What makes fire better for movement is, that you arent dependent on procs to have instants. you can plan them abit with phoenix flames and fireblast.
also your movement filler scorch is stronger than normal IL. not the damage itself (which is quite equal) but the chance of gaining hot streaks/pyros. Casting IL gives you nothing except the blunt damage

Also, don't forget the scorch belt, which makes movement 100% as effective as standing still during execute.

Your point about scorch is spot on. It also makes movement vs non-movement 100% as effective during combustion for fire.

There is a small but usually overlooked benefit to fire movement of being able to move between instants. Particularly with frost, you can move during IL chains, but not if that chain is going into a FB. The most ideal time to move is during a BF proc right after the FB. With fire, you can move during every pyro proc and you can proc those usually as needed if necessary for movement without having to rely on rng procs. So with fire you can actually create the movement you need to casting spells(such as PF) out of optimal order causing a small but not really noticeable dps loss, but being able to move at will(creating a huge dps gain). This often negates the need for our filler spell(scorch).

Also, scorch can raise the speed at which we run, allowing us to do movement mechanics better while dpsing, such as the ball on KJ, which I wouldn't want to do as frost.

Movement isn't that big a deal for either spec with shimmer, but usually during Goroth I find myself spamming at least 1 non-crit IL or having to move an an inopportune time, when that problem wouldn't necessarily exist if I played fire on that boss.

Frost is definitely gimp vs fire when it comes to movement, and that is another reason I feel fire can solo/kite/survive better in general.

[Xires]

I have the cold suspicion they at going to creep up the drop-rate on legendaries from ToS raids as the patch draws nearer, or at least 'bias' towards the BiS DPS ones for sensitive specs. The whole idea of catch-up is to get everyone on a more equal footing, and they know the legos are the final piece in the puzzle. The rest is handled through AK, Netherlight traits, upped WF/TF rates, Argus gear etc. We have several re-rollers going from lvl100 - ilvl930 in under two weeks for proof. Keeping the 'needed' legos rare would totally nix the strategy.

- - - Updated - - -



I would love to trade a slight overall buff for a bracer nerf. It is just too RNG now with the exact same execution outcome varying up to 20% depending on lucky timed proc/crit streaks.

They have already nerfed the proc rate on the bracers. They tried nerfing the dmg on it before and it made it worthless. The bracers should be left alone, and blizz needs to bake in these procs into talents rather then using up a gear slot for a legendary you may or may not get for months...or ever.

- - - Updated - - -

Weird thinking, to be honest.
I mean, you can never know what will be better even in case of leggos.

Why dont you think of a scenario where you get lucky and roll bracers and belt for fire as the first two.
And based on everything else written up there, you go fire ready to kick some ass in Antorus.
When suddenly Blizz wakes up on a morning 2 days before patch day and decide to nerf the bracers from 300% to 150%.

The ass-kicking will end even before starting, and the forum will be the one who gave a bad advice?
If leggos are the most concern - go frost.

I am playing fire simply because I like the upcoming set bonus.

That would literally make the bracers useless. You may have been asleep this x-pac, but Blizzard tried nerfing them to 200%, then I think it was 250%, and then back up to 300% but with a lower proc rate. That 4 second cast...has to actually be worth casting. And even then...other classes still hit just as hard if not harder then a fire Mage with them.

[Soulwell]

That would literally make the bracers useless. You may have been asleep this x-pac, but Blizzard tried nerfing them to 200%, then I think it was 250%, and then back up to 300% but with a lower proc rate. That 4 second cast...has to actually be worth casting. And even then...other classes still hit just as hard if not harder then a fire Mage with them.

I hope you don't think the bracers are the only reason fire is good. If fire didn't even have the bracers it still would have been the best Mage spec this tier.

[D3athsting]

I hope you don't think the bracers are the only reason fire is good. If fire didn't even have the bracers it still would have been the best Mage spec this tier.

Fire barrier is crap and needs rework and blazing barrier talent is even more crap, totally useless since the barrier is gone in 1 hit and absolutely not worth picking over shimmer, thank god there's cauterize

[HuxNeva]

They have already nerfed the proc rate on the bracers. They tried nerfing the dmg on it before and it made it worthless. The bracers should be left alone

Because it is such fun being absolute top vs. rock bottom of the dps on the same fight pull to pull depending on some lucky RNG timed procs?

[Charge me Doctor]

Because it is such fun being absolute top vs. rock bottom of the dps on the same fight pull to pull depending on some lucky RNG timed procs?

The difference between abundance of used procs between not using procs is usually #1-#6, fire is nowhere near "rock bottom" in current and upcoming raid