Arcane>Frost post buff?

[Deleted]

As the title says, did arcane just get better dps than frost?

[Deleted]

On patchwerk, yes.

In raiding environment? I doubt it.

[Armbre]

On low movement fights it is and fire is actually better on cleave fights than the other two so im gonna roll fire/arc since they gear very simillary after the tier 4 piece they both gear mastery heavy

[Herrenos]

Yeah I'm looking at frost/fire for raiding right now. Arcane will probably be ahead on butcher and *maybe* kargath but when I sim even light movement arcane drops below frost. And if you have to cleave or aoe, or interrupt a burn or an evocative to move forget it. Plus mastery is far and away the best for arcane and worst for frost, and it's not exactly great for fire either which means gearing woes.

[prestilence]

Yeah I'm looking at frost/fire for raiding right now. Arcane will probably be ahead on butcher and *maybe* kargath but when I sim even light movement arcane drops below frost. And if you have to cleave or aoe, or interrupt a burn or an evocative to move forget it. Plus mastery is far and away the best for arcane and worst for frost, and it's not exactly great for fire either which means gearing woes.

Where did you read that mastery is so bad for frost? It's not actually. Just because it's not as good as multi doesn't mean it isn't as good. With a decent amount of frostbolts per minute, that mastery really starts to add up if you're strict on your rotation, and not just spamming ice lance as your filler. Just because Arcane was buffed doesn't mean it's better than frost. I mean technically a 660 mage frost vs arcance is Frost for sure especially with IN-MI-PC

[Deleted]

On patchwerk, yes.

In raiding environment? I doubt it.

Don't be fooled by the sims. The sims are using blackrock foundry gear, and even with the tier bonuses turned off, that doesn't make it correct in highmaul.

Highmaul has a lot of multistrike gear and very little mastery gear, which helps frost more than arcane,

I'm going to say that frost and arcane are pretty much equal, even on a patchwerk fight, in HIGHMAUL.

In BRF, arcane will beat frost on patchwerk.

[Janir]

Imo they are about the same with current gear. I was pulling 23-24k dps on dummy self buffed in 4min fight with both specs with 650ilvl. I also managed to get one 26k dps 4min pull with fire spec but I had probably the best possible rng on my starter combustion on crystal and over 75k burst x).

[CombatJack]

Yeah I'm looking at frost/fire for raiding right now. Arcane will probably be ahead on butcher and *maybe* kargath but when I sim even light movement arcane drops below frost. And if you have to cleave or aoe, or interrupt a burn or an evocative to move forget it. Plus mastery is far and away the best for arcane and worst for frost, and it's not exactly great for fire either which means gearing woes.

For Fire and Arcane multistrike, mastery, and crit have similar value. Personally I will be playing whatever spec I enjoy the most.

[zomgDPS]

I'm going to say that frost and arcane are pretty much equal, even on a patchwerk fight, in HIGHMAUL.

Which subsequently means, that Arcane will suck relative to Frost in actual raids.


To answer the OP, no.

All signs are currently pointing to Frost still very much being > Arcane in actual play.

[Weezner]

Where did you read that mastery is so bad for frost? It's not actually. Just because it's not as good as multi doesn't mean it isn't as good. With a decent amount of frostbolts per minute, that mastery really starts to add up if you're strict on your rotation, and not just spamming ice lance as your filler. Just because Arcane was buffed doesn't mean it's better than frost. I mean technically a 660 mage frost vs arcance is Frost for sure especially with IN-MI-PC

Wait what!? Mastery is poor for Frost until you have a decent Haste and Crit is near shatter cap. Until then it is a poor secondary stat unless I am really missing something.

[Herrenos]

Where did you read that mastery is so bad for frost? It's not actually. Just because it's not as good as multi doesn't mean it isn't as good. With a decent amount of frostbolts per minute, that mastery really starts to add up if you're strict on your rotation, and not just spamming ice lance as your filler. Just because Arcane was buffed doesn't mean it's better than frost. I mean technically a 660 mage frost vs arcance is Frost for sure especially with IN-MI-PC

It's not awful but it's still the worst stat for frost. The FB buff will bring it's value up some but it's stat weight is still lower than everything else. The reason this is relevant is gearing. if I'm gemming, enchanting, and rolling for multistrike gear and avoiding mastery because other stats are better, then when I swap specs I'll be much less effective. Unless I'm able to get two sets of gear. Fire stat weights are much closer to frost than arcane is, making a spec swap much easier.

[Falisa]

I'm honestly sick of all the posts in every single thread of people telling everyone "play what you want to play". Okay... what if what I want to play is the one that is performing the best? Its like people are trying to brush off discussion of what performs better.

[nextt03]

I'm honestly sick of all the posts in every single thread of people telling everyone "play what you want to play". Okay... what if what I want to play is the one that is performing the best? Its like people are trying to brush off discussion of what performs better.

It's not exactly that simple anymore. I think Mages are getting really close to the point where YOU choose the spec you play best and that will be highest performing. Some people play fire better than frost and vice versa. If frost is parsing 100 dps and you can do it with 90% efficiency thats 90dps. If Fire is parsing at 95 dps and you do it with 95%+ efficiency then it out performs frost.

Specs are within 2% of each other depending on your gear. That 2% can be made up by lack of ability to play certain specs, or being exceptional at playing others.

[tatriK]

It's not awful but it's still the worst stat for frost. The FB buff will bring it's value up some but it's stat weight is still lower than everything else. The reason this is relevant is gearing. if I'm gemming, enchanting, and rolling for multistrike gear and avoiding mastery because other stats are better, then when I swap specs I'll be much less effective. Unless I'm able to get two sets of gear. Fire stat weights are much closer to frost than arcane is, making a spec swap much easier.

Im sorry, But I dont know where you get your info from, But Mastery is by far the best Secondary stat as of right now. I know you will say nah man Ver is but. Mastery, and Versatility are all incredibly close to eachother in value; they will shuffle around depending on gear and talent selection. But Mast is by far the best secondary stat we have. other then MS.

[kaelleria]

Or secondaries could vary wildly on a per player, per situation, or per talent basis... Sim yourself before speaking in absolutes and spreading silliness.

[fearist]

Im sorry, But I dont know where you get your info from, But Mastery is by far the best Secondary stat as of right now. I know you will say nah man Ver is but. Mastery, and Versatility are all incredibly close to eachother in value; they will shuffle around depending on gear and talent selection. But Mast is by far the best secondary stat we have. other then MS.

You should probably stop using noxxic as your source for stat weights lmao.

[Rizendragon]

Wait what!? Mastery is poor for Frost until you have a decent Haste and Crit is near shatter cap. Until then it is a poor secondary stat unless I am really missing something.

Multi -> Haste to about 9% -> Versitility = Crit to 33% -> Mastery. So once you hit your caps it's Muti -> Vers -> Mastery unless I'm getting bad info. This will also change once the 2p tier set is obtained...

Edit: I'd suggest people download SimC and just sim yourself because stat weights are character specific...

[rhandric]

Im sorry, But I dont know where you get your info from, But Mastery is by far the best Secondary stat as of right now. I know you will say nah man Ver is but. Mastery, and Versatility are all incredibly close to eachother in value; they will shuffle around depending on gear and talent selection. But Mast is by far the best secondary stat we have. other then MS.

According to? When I simmed myself last night (frost, pre-hotfixes), I was getting (and to be honest, have been getting since hitting 100) MS>Haste>Crit~=Vers>Mastery (for IN/MI/PC).

[Tobedeleted123]

On movement heavy fights you just pick MI instead of RoP and problem solved. Use floes smart and you're set. IMO it's better than frost now.

[gallamann]

Seems pretty simple to me *currently*, each spec has a "preferred secondary" in that they get that as a 5% passive;

Frost - Multistrike
Arcane - Mastery
Fire - Crit

After that you are looking to maximize another secondary, since gear typically has two secondaries. However this is where it all starts to fall apart currently, pretty damn easy to get Multistrike on every slot, not so easy to get Multistrike and your preferred secondary on every slot.

Let's look at Frost for example... and let's assume Billy Bob wants Crit as #2 secondary, after Multistrike... he is just not going to find every slot with Multistrike/Crit...

So vast majority of us are looking at a 630 piece being upgraded to 655 or 670, most of us aren't going to care if said piece doesn't even have our preferred "primary" secondary because the iLvL jump is so significant that we are going to replace that 630 piece, regardless.