[5.2] Relative DPS between specs and when to switch

[Deleted]

Title says it all really. Would be nice to get some info/discussion on this because I can't see a dedicated thread for it and any other information is put around the other threads.

I was Arcane in 5.1 (obviously) and came into 5.2 with an iLvl of 496 so went Frost and I'm now currently at 505. My armoury is here. I'd basically love to know when I should start to pick up Fire, I have not played Fire since ICC so there's a bit of legwork in picking up the changes which is why I'm resistant to just trying it in our raids (and I am fairly poor, can't afford frequent gem switching).

I was doing LFR HoF today to try get my 4 set back on the chest and noticed that an Arcane Mage was doing pretty good, but I guess it is LFR and you rarely have to move.

Any thoughts/insight? I'm sure I'm not the only one :>

[Deleted]

I rolled Fire just as 5.2 hit. With 508 ilvl then. I did fairly good in the beginning, but after the buffs and my gear now (513 ilvl) I´m back to the top.
So In my opinion, play frost until you are atleast 505+. Not 505 with heavy mastery/haste gear, but with much Crit. If not, wait until 510 and go for Fire.

---------- Post added 2013-03-15 at 08:01 AM ----------

Title says it all really. Would be nice to get some info/discussion on this because I can't see a dedicated thread for it and any other information is put around the other threads.

I was Arcane in 5.1 (obviously) and came into 5.2 with an iLvl of 496 so went Frost and I'm now currently at 505. My armoury is here. I'd basically love to know when I should start to pick up Fire, I have not played Fire since ICC so there's a bit of legwork in picking up the changes which is why I'm resistant to just trying it in our raids (and I am fairly poor, can't afford frequent gem switching).

I was doing LFR HoF today to try get my 4 set back on the chest and noticed that an Arcane Mage was doing pretty good, but I guess it is LFR and you rarely have to move.

Any thoughts/insight? I'm sure I'm not the only one :>

Just as you said. Arcane will do well, if you get to stand still in your rune, and nuke. But as there ain´t even one boss without any movement on normal, Arcane will probably not make it this patch.

[MihaiKrieger]

I switched Arcane exactly when 5,2 hit, with aprox. 20,80% unbuffed crit (with necessary reforges, gemming, etc). As I reached about 25% crit, fire started to shine again. My exact unbuffed crit rating (as seen on armory) is 24,31%. With this roughly 4% increase I started to feel the difference. With even more crit, I assume about 28% is enough, fire will be ready for action.

[Bemlikanz]

So, we cant reach 28% crit in 495, 490 ilvl gear?

[Ichijou]

I stayed frost until I picked up enough crit pieces to break 10k crit rating. I am now doing much more dps than I was as frost and am loving it. Fire has always been my all time favourite since tier 4.

32% is a good number to shoot for self buffed with molten armor and int. Currently in raids I proc up to about 39% on average.

[DirewolfX]

Just as you said. Arcane will do well, if you get to stand still in your rune, and nuke. But as there ain´t even one boss without any movement on normal, Arcane will probably not make it this patch.

I haven't tested this since Frost is doing well for me and 5.2 Arcane is just bleh... but now that the Rune is only 75% mana regen and the passive of IW is 65% mana regen... does it make sense to even bother with the Rune? 10% mana regen and "9%" damage at the cost of a second or more cast time every minute and no mobility for just using the IW passive and not even popping it intelligently (which should put the damage and regen even closer).

[Akraen]

All 3 specs are fine. Switch if and when you want to, that is all.

There's no answer to this question, but if you gear up for fire and try to be frost, you'll be let down-- the opposite is also true. If you have all loot open to you and can have absolutely anything you want (particularly trinkets), you might be better off as fire at the end of the heroic tier.

I'm calling it now, a repeat of last tier is going to happen and Arcane will top all specs of all classes by the end of this tier. The spec sucks and feels awful, but the numbers are there.

Moral of the story here is, all 3 specs are plenty viable, play the one you're best at.

[Malfecto]

I have tried Fire and Frost on Jin'rokh, Fire and Frost on Horridon, Fire and Frost on Council and Fire only on Tortos. This is all 10 man.

I think for Jin'rokh, I liked fire for having scorch to cast while moving the spark out of the raid. Really though, if RNG hates me for that attempt, I can actually pull more consistent numbers with Frost.

For Horridon, I like frost, but mainly because we burn the first elite add that spawns, and I find that targets don't tend to be clumped well enough or live long enough for either me to set up a proper combustion or when I do get a good ignite, the seed target is already dead. Frost wins for me on this fight simply for frozen orb. It is awesome.

For Council, I tried Fire, and I can see a lot of potential, but I was the best with Frost. There are two reasons for this. One, I was put in charge with one other dps to down the Loa. This was just easier to do with a range freeze with the pet plus a DF with FoF always at my disposal. Two, I felt, again, when I would finally get a good ignite going, trinkets up, etc for fire, that is when the cleave target, like Mallak, would tank swap. Or a loa would spawn and I'd need to swap, or whatever. I know part of it is how we do our strat, but again, frost is more consistent and technically has more utility so far for me.

On Tortos, I did Fire for the few attempts we had. I was put on turtle killing/shell kicking duty with our lock. I really really like when I can seed a combustion off Tortos onto the turtle spawns. However, again, the things that can go wrong include not building a significant ignite before turtles call - about half our attempts went this way - or I would "miss" with inferno blast and even though they were right under his head, they come out with no combustion dot. I guess I just need more practice. I have read though, again, that frost dominates the bats, so I will probably swap and try that.

Long story short, I don't care for arcane, so opinions for that spec will have to be sought from someone other than me. I WANT to be back in love with fire again, but it is like pulling teeth sometimes still even with 507 ilvl. Frost let's me have consistent damage and a wide toolset at my disposal for utility roles and every day questing, rare mob killing, and the occasional smack down of a guildie in a duel.

[KoolKidKaos]

I wouldn't go off Item level, when deciding when to go. I'm currently fire and there is a frost mage in my guild and he does just as good as me as frost at 509, I'm 513. I still feel like I don't crit as much as I'd like, but I still do pretty well. So I'd say more like when you can get 25% crit unbuffed, and still roll 5k haste go fire. I should note with the bomb changes, on Horridon and Council, rolling NT on all mobs is manditory, especially Horridon, rolling on him the whole fight is magic.

[Saegno]

The big thing to consider when swapping specs is that coming from 5.1, where most mages were arcane, you are going to have a lot of haste/mastery gear, which is sub par for both frost and fire. Even though your ilvl might be around that of other players who are pulling solid numbers as fire/frost, the difference in secondary stats can mean a whole lot.

I think that once you can get around 32-33% crit, with molten armor and no raid buffs, fire should beat out frost. Until that point I expect frost to show much better than fire.

[Titan]

The big thing to consider when swapping specs is that coming from 5.1, where most mages were arcane, you are going to have a lot of haste/mastery gear, which is sub par for both frost and fire. Even though your ilvl might be around that of other players who are pulling solid numbers as fire/frost, the difference in secondary stats can mean a whole lot.

I think that once you can get around 32-33% crit, with molten armor and no raid buffs, fire should beat out frost. Until that point I expect frost to show much better than fire.

Having lots of haste is exactly what frost mages want. You don't stack crit as Frost.

[Saegno]

Having lots of haste is exactly what frost mages want. You don't stack crit as Frost.

You also don't stack mastery, which was my point. Crit is still better than mastery until crit cap for frost, just not something you stack.

[Deleted]

I play fire with an ilvl of 488, pretty low I know, but I just hate arcane/frost. Atleast in LFR I'm fine (not at the bottom, but not at the top either)

[Deleted]

I play fire with an ilvl of 488, pretty low I know, but I just hate arcane/frost. Atleast in LFR I'm fine (not at the bottom, but not at the top either)

Yeah but its not like LFR is raiding. In LFR you can just ignore most of the boss mechanics and just tunnel le boss like a madman .

[Deleted]

Yeah but its not like LFR is raiding. In LFR you can just ignore most of the boss mechanics and just tunnel le boss like a madman .

boss mecha... what?? :P

well, you're right ^^

[Rethys]

I'm frost right now, but only because I'm not comfortable with the amount of crit I have yet (30%). I really hate RNG and as soon as I can reach 35% I'll be making the switch. Just seems odd gearing for Fire as a Frost mage.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't go off Item level, when deciding when to go. I'm currently fire and there is a frost mage in my guild and he does just as good as me as frost at 509, I'm 513. I still feel like I don't crit as much as I'd like, but I still do pretty well. So I'd say more like when you can get 25% crit unbuffed, and still roll 5k haste go fire. I should note with the bomb changes, on Horridon and Council, rolling NT on all mobs is manditory, especially Horridon, rolling on him the whole fight is magic.

I disagree with this. You don't need 5K haste at all. I'm rolling 36.18% crit fully buffed (flasked + fed as well), yet only 13.78% Haste fully buffed (1.98s Fireball), it's not hindering me greatly.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-2sx307r128bkgrg6/

I did Durumu and Primordius with currently Armory; beforehand was 502 iLvl with T14 2 set and some crit off-pieces. Screwed up majorly on Council; ended up dying due to being bad and didn't even have a flask on it, Megaera/Ji-Kun was personal bad play. Megaera couldn't be bothered to swap out Combust glyph and Ji-Kun kept letting myself fall off platform during downfall.

Honestly if you are able to play decently I'd say you'd be able to go Fire with ~500 iLvl, provided you can hit ~31-32% crit fully buffed, that's what I did.

[kif]

If you are more comfortable with a spec, your likely going to play it better as well. I am way undergeared(~494), but I switched back to fire. I am more comfortable with the spec, while I remember it doing a lot more damage and being more OP at the beginning of MoP...I knew that wasn't going to last. In our casual guild, I still am one of the tp DPS on most fights, because I make it a point to know what is happening, and when to make best use of CDs. Save that one time where I blew the raid up with the Wind Bomb/Alter Time "combo.

[Bullarkie]

Forced to go frost until I get the crit for Fire.

Still ranking on quite a few fights though.

[schwarzkopf]

Forced to go frost until I get the crit for Fire.

I've spend days and days on Frost, but I completely suck at it in PvE. I'm forced to not raid until I get higher gear, and of course higher gear isn't going to come without raiding.

So for me ... I'm playing Arcane to do my dailies, and old content ... and waiting for May 20th, hoping something gets done for Arcane before my sub runs out.