Fire seems to be the top spec right now?

[Deleted]

I dont know why everyone is freaking out which specc they need to play.
For me I can say, I swapped Talents and specc for each and every boss !

probably It depends on what you have to do for the encounter !

my tipp : test it our by yourself for yourself.

For me : first and 2nd boss frost, but on 2nd boss I swapped the talent for 40% more icelance proccs I guess. Splitting ice could be stacking you up very fast.
I guess its Harjatan with the small adds that are spawning all the time I played frost with splitting ice and GS. Fire could work here too
Mistress Sassz'ine I did go fire to burn the adds
the rest I did frost

[LimunFTW]

I don't really agree that fire is more mobile. Frost can bank some charges of bf or fof, fire has some instant casts and a proc but they have to be used at specific times and unless you have belt I would do my best to never scorch. I would say they are equal mobility minus fire having belt and under 35% on a target.

Right now I'm frost main spec and deciding on my second spec as I just came back to the game one week ago. Got concordance from under 35 in a week so at least that won't be a problem. Now it's just a matter of seeing which is truly a better second spec. Arcane is showing some good numbers as well. I think this may be a two spec tier. Right now it looks like fire and frost are the way to go but arcane is definitely viable. We'll have to see in a week with tier what it looks like.

They are both mobile when compared to arcane. Your casting spells as fire are fireball and rune and cinders which are I GCD cast, and you don't spec them on all fights, but the important thing is that if you need to move for 5 sec you can blast+phoenix->pyro and not lose DPS, where in frost you cast frostbolt and ebonbolt which is quite long cast and if you need to move and not happen to have stacks of FoF or BF, you lose DPS. Of course one can say that you should save stacks and such, but it is just easier to move in fire and not be affected by it since you are not reliant on procs but CDs which you are incentivized to save for those situations anyway. Both specs are quite mobile compared to some other RDPS, and they both have shimmer so getting away with a long cast is quite easy, I just feel that being fire allowed me to be more active when it was more important during progress, and that is in the execute phase. You have no stand-cast spells (scorch also gives you speed), so you can make mechanics easier for the team and also shine on DPS. And as I said, I feel this is more important now, since in my guild, I am someone who they can rely on to do some mechanics that require single person commitment, so being fire helped me more than I think frost would, and things will change a lot when people get gear (T20 will also make frost even more mobile) and tactics become easier. I'm not saying that this is by default and that fire is better for progress than frost, I just said that it helped me quite a lot because of my situation. Also, I have only recently started playing frost and I get the feeling that it is harder to play well than fire (when I started playing fire I got used to it much faster), so for people who are more casual and not top-notch performance based it could be the better(easier) spec to play, while frost is probably better for high level play.

[Deleted]

Frost becomes faceroll spec with no deep after double IL was removed so it is not really true that frost is harder than fire

[Kluian05]

Frost just seems severely gimped since 7.2.5 changes. I don't even enjoy playing it now because the damage seems very lacking. They need ToS T20 to become viable again.

[antelope591]

Frost becomes faceroll spec with no deep after double IL was removed so it is not really true that frost is harder than fire

Not even debatable, frost is one of the most braindead ez specs in the game since the patch. Its almost havoc DH level at this point. Its much, much harder to do optimal DPS as fire especially with RoP.

[SFBayGamer]

This has already changed in merely 24 hours as fire is moving towards the middle of the pack as groups down more of the later heroic bosses and start equipping 2-pieces of T20. We need to see where this settles in a few weeks rather than a few days into the raid.

[Biomega]

Apparently flavor of the month has become flavor of the week, now.

I'm surprised people don't go "but today at 10am spex X had 3 more logs that were higher than the other specs! OMG BLIZZARD WHEN WILL YOU NERF! IT'S LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY ANY OTHER SPEC NOW!!!!11111oneoneone"

[MV Kaa]

Frost just seems severely gimped since 7.2.5 changes. I don't even enjoy playing it now because the damage seems very lacking. They need ToS T20 to become viable again.

Thats because classes are balanced around having ToS 4 piece, something 99% of the people who raided this week dont have.

[pies1]

They are both mobile when compared to arcane. Your casting spells as fire are fireball and rune and cinders which are I GCD cast, and you don't spec them on all fights, but the important thing is that if you need to move for 5 sec you can blast+phoenix->pyro and not lose DPS, where in frost you cast frostbolt and ebonbolt which is quite long cast and if you need to move and not happen to have stacks of FoF or BF, you lose DPS. Of course one can say that you should save stacks and such, but it is just easier to move in fire and not be affected by it since you are not reliant on procs but CDs which you are incentivized to save for those situations anyway. Both specs are quite mobile compared to some other RDPS, and they both have shimmer so getting away with a long cast is quite easy, I just feel that being fire allowed me to be more active when it was more important during progress, and that is in the execute phase. You have no stand-cast spells (scorch also gives you speed), so you can make mechanics easier for the team and also shine on DPS. And as I said, I feel this is more important now, since in my guild, I am someone who they can rely on to do some mechanics that require single person commitment, so being fire helped me more than I think frost would, and things will change a lot when people get gear (T20 will also make frost even more mobile) and tactics become easier. I'm not saying that this is by default and that fire is better for progress than frost, I just said that it helped me quite a lot because of my situation. Also, I have only recently started playing frost and I get the feeling that it is harder to play well than fire (when I started playing fire I got used to it much faster), so for people who are more casual and not top-notch performance based it could be the better(easier) spec to play, while frost is probably better for high level play.

Personally I've never felt any issue with movement as GS frost. Between procs, shimmer, ice block and frozen orb (plus resultant procs and instant blizz) even full movement phases like trillax beam or GD storm are fine.

[stomination]

If you look at max most of the logs are cheeseing (like logs where only 1 person is aoeing to get max ranks) or fights where the whole raid massivly over gears it so the info you can glean is only so useful.

Actually one person aoeing isn't cheesing. It just means the guild knows they can do the aoe and the rest of the group can focus on getting the primary target down.

Its actually how it should be. But then ppl care more about their padding rankings then actually killing bosses.

[Deleted]

From what I've seen so far Frost is the go to spec in ToS HC, but it's still way too early to tell.

[Deleted]

From what I've seen so far Frost is the go to spec in ToS HC, but it's still way too early to tell.

There are about 4 till 5 times more frost parses of frost mages at the moment and frost is still worse overall at all ilvls. Either Frost wins with its set or fire is better overall in ToS. We will see... but I cannot see any hints over Frost beeing op compared to the other 2 specs like it was in NH.

Unless you think shining when everything is outgeard while ignoring mechanics is the best way of measuring... in this case yeah frost shines without any movement while tunelling and the rest of the raids plays the meachnics.

[Deleted]

There are about 4 till 5 times more frost parses of frost mages at the moment and frost is still worse overall at all ilvls. Either Frost wins with its set or fire is better overall in ToS. We will see... but I cannot see any hints over Frost beeing op compared to the other 2 specs like it was in NH.

Unless you think shining when everything is outgeard while ignoring mechanics is the best way of measuring... in this case yeah frost shines without any movement while tunelling and the rest of the raids plays the meachnics.

Fix your first sentence ;D

At the moment all specs are perfectly fine. Even Arcane is very high for 95+ percentiles.

[Bamsillo]

There are about 4 till 5 times more frost parses of frost mages at the moment and frost is still worse overall at all ilvls. Either Frost wins with its set or fire is better overall in ToS. We will see... but I cannot see any hints over Frost beeing op compared to the other 2 specs like it was in NH.

Unless you think shining when everything is outgeard while ignoring mechanics is the best way of measuring... in this case yeah frost shines without any movement while tunelling and the rest of the raids plays the meachnics.

exactly this, ive seen the fights, and frost movement is ALOT worse than fire, and all those parses are patchwreck, meaning that in reality you have to be a fucking turret to be top spec as frost...

[Deleted]

exactly this, ive seen the fights, and frost movement is ALOT worse than fire, and all those parses are patchwreck, meaning that in reality you have to be a fucking turret to be top spec as frost...

What, Frost is just as mobile or even more than Fire Oo

[davesignal]

Fix your first sentence ;D

At the moment all specs are perfectly fine. Even Arcane is very high for 95+ percentiles.

This is such a misleading statistic. By the very definition of it, the vast majority of players aren't 95th percentile players, and the highest parses are always going to come with a healthy dose of RNG..

[trm90]

Even if you drop down to the 75th percentile they're not far off. It is very possible we have reached the best balance between all 3 specs since launch (I don't believe tier pieces or Sentinel will significantly alter the charts either).

I'm very happy and surprised with how things have turned out. Originally I thought ToS was going to be a sham for Arcane/Fire, because I didn't understand the importance of AoE - but compared to NH, AoE actually matters and isn't a gimmicky niche any more.

[Zenfoldor]

What, Frost is just as mobile or even more than Fire Oo

Not with the belt, imho. However, both specs are quite mobile, and pretty close when belt not considered. Scorch vs unbuffed ice lance spam would be the comparison for required movement, but of course icy floes vs scorch movement increase is also a factor. Scorch procs heating up. Apples and oranges. Both specs are solid for movement, but with the belt and fire at sub 30 percent you become a god.

[mage21]

"Bursty" reasoning is not real, imho, doesn't make sense except on a very conceptual level where you don't account for frost having the same timeframes, same gear levels, and an equivalent beginning of the rotation burst, along with double hero and short cds.

I've read this several times and I'm still not sure what you're saying.

Bursty fire on short fights is conceptual and not a real factor because frost is also bursty? Is that it?

[Trumpcat]

If Fire's viability depends on one particular legendary (or two actually), I can't see why would any reasonable raider call it "fine". It is not and it won't be until that dependence is removed and the spec itself adjusted to perform.
And even with the two magical legos, it's still just an aoe meter inflation spec.