I need a blunt answer on my decision for fire and frost

[Kiry]

It depends on your playstyle and your gear. I was frost for early MV, switched to fire when I hit 25%. Only spent a few weeks like this before the nerf. So i'm not in a bad place to be either arcane or frost. Fire has wide swings, if you are ok with that, go fire. I find it a bit boring since the crit mass nerf.
Depending on the fight, I'm either frost or arcane. I do not do hard modes at this time though.

[Keyblader]

I still have not switched, I wonder if I can stay fire though with the fire buff hotfix that fixed critical mass.

[zephid]

You should really switch to Arcane.

[reflection]

I swapped over to frost because I really like the spec and I don't think my damage has suffered at all. Obviously I'm not doing as much as pre nerf fire but still doing well on the meters. A big problem for me atm is lack of haste gear and most of my hc pieces are Hit+Crit because I was playing fire, so cant quite push the perfect numbers I want to be seeing yet.

Exactly this. Same here (though I don't have any heroic gear right now )

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 09:09 AM ----------

I still have not switched, I wonder if I can stay fire though with the fire buff hotfix that fixed critical mass.

Actually this is about 1,5% crit. May not be THAT much of an improvement.

[Deleted]

Switch to Arcane unless you do not have any trouble with enrage mechanics.

Simply reforge your fire-gear... even in subpar gear you will see better numbers. And you are ranked without any real effort

[Deleted]

It’s a shame that the different spec’s require such completely different gem/reforging as it makes it very difficult to duel spec without a complete offspec set.

Duel spec is ideal as some fights are still better suited for one spec than another but in my own experience unless you have two sets of gear it’s not not particularly practical.

I am one of those players that probably takes a bit longer than most to get good/adequate at a new spec so in the past I have been reluctant to rush into any changes unless necessary – although having said that I do want to be the best I can (as I am sure we all do).

My own advice re-changing is to take everything into consideration then try for yourself. By this I mean include factors such as “do you actually like playing the spec”, and if that isn’t an issue, then run through an lfr as the new spec – no reforges or gems and see how close you are to your current main spec (I assume you already have logs for previous runs? If not then run the same lfr as your main spec as well.)

The chances are that if you were fire, and let us say you tried arcane, then you would still be doing more damage as fire, but if you get close you can assume that by the time you reforge/regem/change gear you will be that much better, especially taking into account that you will need a bit of time to perfect the changed spec anyway (well I would).

The second alternative is to create a seim-offsepc set of gear. Whenever I get an upgrade I tend to keep the item I replaced so that it can be used as an offspec item that can be reforged/regemmed to that second spec. I am never in the situation to use old gear for all items but it does at least allow for a few bits of reforging/regemming that will give a feel for the second spec. Once armed with this slightly lower ilvl offspec I would then try the new spec again in an lfr.

Having two specs is always useful anyway. One it keeps your hand in at both specs and two it allows more flexibility (such as not having to rely on fire for elegon ftl!).

The bottom line is if you are thinking of changing – have a go in lfr first and create your own figures and get a feel for how you like the new spec before making a decision. Lfr isn’t good for much, but it is good for testing out specs.

[Deleted]

You can use LFR for making you familiar with a spec. My first Arcane attempts were horrible. Last evening I was ranked in almost all trys as arcane.

Just takes some time to become competitve again.

Fire is bit too dead at the moment, although Blizzrd started recognizing that that the nerfs went too far.

[KoolKidKaos]

Don't switch, fire is not in a bad place, most mages, they just look at what top guilds are switching to. Not thinking, that those people are actually 504 item level, and are ranking on fights because no one has played those specs the entire expansion let alone have all content cleared. Is the damage great with better gear, of course, is the dps higher ofc, arcane has always had high dps with lower damage. Damage always matters more though, in this fire "usually" pulls ahead. With this slight buff, the rng factor for people with 33%+ crit self buffed will decrease exponentially.

[Kiry]

Using LFR and dummies, I found that fire was pretty...boring to play for me with wide swings of damage possibilities. Arcane and frost were both much more stable, both have their very bursty cooldowns. It really does depend on your comfort level, the fight and your gear.

good luck.