Difference between Fire & Frost?

[Kendeura]

I have done every fight on HC as arcane and there's not a single issue with it.

Klaxxi doesn't really involve that much movement, especially if you get lucky.
Siegecrafter is completely fine, you can invis the sawblade and you're not gonna be hittng the boss as fire either (not to mention your bomb does double dmg as arcane so that'll do more while you're running around). And you can stay within the same rune during magnetic phase easily. The fight is extremely doable as arcane.
With frost armour Thok isn't an issue.
Garrosh is really not problematic since the tactic now is to stack constantly, and a rune of power covers the Malice crap.

[saucyboy]

For me, the important factor is that fire is more fun

[Dalrian]

For me, the important factor is that fire is more fun

And that REALLY is what it is all about, right? For my part i have gone back and forth from fire to frost and back again now that I'm 563 ilevel. Both are fairly close on dps and the aoe on frost is nice but nothing beats the excitement of a long string of Pyros! and hitting 7 digits on the dps meters during an opener. Play what you enjoy and I'm sure you will be more than fine.

[MoanaLisa]

Frost is often overlooked or waved away as "a joke". There are some prominent fire mages who think that fire beats frost after 535 item level and that frost is absolutely not viable.

This is quite true. And there is--to this day--people who still think that frost is a PVP spec and not viable at all for PVE. Some tanks believed for years after it wasn't true that Power Word: Shield will still make it so they couldn't generate rage. Once a spec gets a reputation as one thing or another it takes forever for that to go away. My advice, as always, play the one you like the best because it's more likely that you'll play it the best.

[Saegno]

Interesting. Only problem is OP is asking about fire or frost, not whether arcane is viable.

How very short-sighted of you.

[Pyromelter]

I have been playing frost most of this tier, I was fire during ToT, took a break and came back when SoO was released.
Now, currently I am doing fine, but I'm trying to find ways to increase my dps / damage as my guild progresses further into heroic content.

(1) I just have a quick question; is fire really that much better then frost?


(2)I played fire in cata, ToT, and I recently switched back to it, but now I hate it. My personal opinions aside, is it "wrong" to just stay frost? (3) Is it worth me attempted to master fire and weigh down my guild while I do so?

I've checked around and I haven't found any direct answers other then "fire is the best". (4) I'd like to know by how much, if possible. (any sort of details or reasoning would be appreciated) I realize its based primarily on gear. So lets assume I have all the proper gear for both specs at 570 ilvl, (5) would fire be so far ahead that frost is just utter crap?

Let me do my best to specifically answer the questions you asked:

1. Fire is really not that much better. It's better by a statistically significant difference, around 3-5%, on average, which can make a difference if you are wiping at 1% boss health, but at high gear levels, that extra 3-5% probably won't matter as much as just overall raid performance. Plus frost does really well in certain AoE situations, and there's certainly some AoE as you progress into heroics.

2. It is not "wrong" to stay frost. In cata, and wrath, by the end of those expansions, frost was anywhere from 20-50% worse than fire. A 3-5% difference significantly lowers that gap. Also, fire there tends to be a high variance, where you may do 30% more dps on one pull versus the next based on RNG, whereas frost will be consistently decent

3. If your guild raids a limited number of hours per week, and you don't have time to do flex, LFR, and dungeons (and even pvp) as fire to master it, I feel you would probably be best off staying with frost if you have really mastered the spec.

4. How much better is a bit of an art, because parsing dps specs can involve some factors like fire being much more top-heavy on dps charts due to RNG factors. I prefer using the 10H spec score on raidbots with "all parses" selected, as this will give you the clearest indication of large numbers of parses, filtering out a lot of the outlier noise. Many people will say this is not a good use of raidbots. I wouldn't argue, but then again I'm not going to look at the top 200 for every SoO fight and compare frost and fire. http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Scor...14/60/default/ shows fire to be ~ 3% better than frost. Take that for what it's worth, but that feels right to me. For further reference, arcane is about another 1% higher than fire.

5. If you feel like an average of 3% dps for fire is "so far ahead" that "frost is just utter crap," then you have your answer. If you are okay with a potential 3% loss of dps as a worst-case scenario of staying frost, then I would definitely stick with it. Especially since you seem to really hate fire (this confuses me and causes pain in my gonads, that anyone can hate fire, like seriously what's wrong with you, it's like you're saying you hate ice cream) - I'd just stick with frost.

[Akraen]

I hate fire. Like honestly hate it. I can't stand the long cast times, the RNG, or orange/red colors.

Even in real life, I have an intense aversion to red, orange, yellow, fire. Going back to my childhood, I always hated it. I hate energy and excitement. I've always gone after things like Frost Wyrms, ice mages, Sub Zero in MK, and so on.

I want to see the world freeze.

Psychoanalyze that.

[Kendeura]

I hate fire. Like honestly hate it. I can't stand the long cast times, the RNG, or orange/red colors.

Even in real life, I have an intense aversion to red, orange, yellow, fire. Going back to my childhood, I always hated it. I hate energy and excitement. I've always gone after things like Frost Wyrms, ice mages, Sub Zero in MK, and so on.

I want to see the world freeze.

Psychoanalyze that.

Pretty sure anyone could have a field day with that.

[Madruga]

I hate fire. Like honestly hate it. I can't stand the long cast times, the RNG, or orange/red colors.

Even in real life, I have an intense aversion to red, orange, yellow, fire. Going back to my childhood, I always hated it. I hate energy and excitement. I've always gone after things like Frost Wyrms, ice mages, Sub Zero in MK, and so on.

I want to see the world freeze.

Psychoanalyze that.

You are an Ice Queen!

[Akraen]

Yeah, since I'm German-American, and German men are rated the worst lovers in the world, it's an easy conclusion to draw.

Frost mages make bad lovers.

[Fahrenheit451]

Yeah, since I'm German-American, and German men are rated the worst lovers in the world, it's an easy conclusion to draw.

Frost mages make bad lovers.

There might be something to this. I am also of German descent, and hate fire.

[Saegno]

I hate fire. Like honestly hate it. I can't stand the long cast times, the RNG, or orange/red colors.

Even in real life, I have an intense aversion to red, orange, yellow, fire. Going back to my childhood, I always hated it. I hate energy and excitement. I've always gone after things like Frost Wyrms, ice mages, Sub Zero in MK, and so on.

I want to see the world freeze.

Psychoanalyze that.

Down, Forward, Low Punch!

[Deleted]

There might be something to this. I am also of German descent, and hate fire.

What about Dutch(Frisian actually) people? Might there be something to Germanic roots and being cool?

[mrgreenthump]

Please don't take threads off-topic.

[Akraen]

I don't know how to answer the OP because there isn't an answer. Just like every other thread like this, someone comes here wanting someone to spell out how they should be playing.

There are so many ways to find the answers to his other question. The community was pretty helpful I think. Could probably just lock the thread at this point, aside from the derail, there's nothing left to discuss.


PS: I timed my derail to avoid that arcane debate from starting, I saved you potential post reports!
PPS: Sorry

[mrgreenthump]

As you wish then, Thread Closed.