Best spec for new 110 Mage?

[Deleted]

Hey I just got my Mage to 110 and was not sure which spec to go. I enjoy doing Mythic+ and some casual PVP, Arcane looks fun but from what I am reading it needs a specific legendary to work well, and same goes for fire apparently. So is frost the least legendary dependant? Is it the best spec for low ilvls? Or do I have this all wrong?

[deathvisard]

frost or arcane will be best. dont waste your time on fire.

[Deleted]

Personally I find fire to be the most fun spec

[sjuk]

Frost is one of the most overrated speccs in the game.

[Deathquoi]

Frost is one of the most overrated speccs in the game.

I don't understand how frost is "overrated". Maybe you're not using the right word? Please explain how it's "overrated".

[Sergio]

Fire is most leggo dependent, arcane probably second most, frost the least. They are all pretty good in m+ if played right. I like fire most for world pvp and WQ's, it has tons of instant casts, a self heal, and it's in general more fun imo.

[Dayyou]

Fire and arcane are super gear dependent, frost is the best spec for a fresh 110 to complete pve content with. Fire is better in M+ though because living bomb + combustion is crazy for large trash pulls.

[fiestatastic]

For what you want, mythic+ and casual pvp, fire is great and arcane seems to be viable as well. I wouldn't be able to tell you since I don't play arcane at all, and you don't see many arcane mages in ladders, but since you're just going for casual pvp I've heard from a few ppl that arcane is really fun, probably worth a try to see how you like it.

For pvp, legendaries don't matter at all, they don't work in pvp, so you don't need to worry about them. Fire is really fun and very viable for all levels of pvp currently, and it's outstanding for mythic+

[The Archmage]

Frost is the jack of all trades, less gear and legendaries dependant, with a good single target, the best 2 target cleave but lacking mass AoE (at least compared to the other 2 specs). PvP wise, it is very set up based: most of your damage comes from the stacking of your cds, and you are are gonna hit like a wet noodle without them.

Fire is based upon crits. It has decent single target damage and decent cleave, and is a monster on sustained mass AoE. In PvP, it shines in constant pressure, thanks to ignite, but it is not quite able to land a kill on his own due to the nature of instant casts damage in this expansion.

Arcane is the wierdest of specs. It is very gear dependant and its legendaries greatly impact what you can do with it, but once you are ready to go, it shines brightly. Single target is good, however 2 target cleave is non existant, mass AoE is very good on average but becomes MONSTROUS with the new legendary shoulders, even outshining Fire. I firmly believe that, for casual PvP, it is the best spec. In random bgs you are often left alone to free cast, meaning you simply melt anyone that stands in your way, since it is currently one of the highest damage dealing casters in the game when it comes to PvP.

[Holovik]

I started legion as fire because it was really good in EN. Once you get used to the flow of the spec it's really fun to play. It has a lot of mobility because a big portion of the spec is weaving your instant cast spells to cause Hotstreak procs so you can cast Instant pyros. The Combustion rotation is really fun as well.

For NH I switched to frost which is similar to fire in that you are situationally reacting with instant cast spells but you will find yourself standing and hardcasting frostbolts more. The nerf to Thermal Void was a pretty big bummer since keeping IV up literally until it was off CD again made the spec really fast paced and fun.

I notice a lot of top tier mages are going back to fire for TOS but both specs seem really similar at the moment in terms of performance. Obviously fire is better on packs of mobs whereas Frost is really solid on 2 target cleave with Splitting Ice (Like sisters in p2 when Moontalon spawns)

I will probably be going back to fire in the near future because I have a lot of crit gear sitting in my bags that you don't use as frost once you hit the crit softcap. Also the hidden artifact appearance for fire is just awesome.

I have not touched arcane this expansion other than to get to concordance for the mount color, so i cannot offer any real advice on gameplay for that spec.

[Zenfoldor]

Fresh with 0 legos, definitely frost.

Your end goal should be to have a viable Frost and Fire spec, so you can take advantage of the massive apples to oranges difference between the two specs.

Frost - Solid but not amazing single target and amazing 2 target cleave. Mediocre(note this doesn't mean bad) movement, mediocre survivability which requires more active monitoring. Amazingly easy/simple rotation. No lego dependance(and 2 shit legos will do and be competitive). Really mediocre overall until you get set bonuses, imho, but skyrockets with t20 and scales great with haste.

Fire - Much higher passive survivability, much better movement spell(shimmer negates frosts big "advantage" from icy floes, and pyro weaving means lots of time to move, you are also required to move during combustion or execute w/belt at ssj12 speed to prevent hardcasting pyro, so you move a lot) which is crazy once you get the belt, much higher legendary requirement for any kind of solid play, really crappy single target(one of the lowest), really good burst aoe and even better(best in game perhaps) sustained AOE. Relatively flat stat weights, so you can easily fire in frost gear. Funner playstyle, tier set kinda sucks, so for fire you are going mostly ilvl > setup.

IMHO, both setups rely heavily on good trinkets, and both are relatively rng dependent on single target(assuming you have bracers for fire).

The killer of ever recommending fire is 2 fold.

1. You need belt, helm, and bracers(or hero ring) to make it work. Period. If you don't have that, you are gonna be grinding for a long time wishing you did.
2. Fire has not so great single target dps, and you have to move heaven and earth to even get that(I will swap talents, keybindings, trinkets, legos before and after nearly each boss in NH, so I can do trash effectively and I've developed an infrastructure in my UI to do that efficient, frost is just the same, on all pulls and doesn't change rotation with legos). The competition(frost) is basically a very simple rotation due to most of the passive talents being bis talents w/ current gear(and usually great results from said simple rotation)

Stat weights can work fine between the two, and also it should be noted that if you somehow can't hit the crit cap as frost, it is gonna suck until you can.

So frost, but get concordance in both, and you should probably play both for optimal dps across the whole game, once legos are no longer an issue. Non-relevant content, I find, heavily favors fire(ie timewalking, trash mobs, world pvp, lower difficulty dungeons and lower difficulty mythic+ and higher difficulty non-tyrannical mythic+,). Particularly, single target raid bosses favor frost in pure dps testing, heavily, which is why its considered the go to spec for pve(which historically has been weighed around that type of patchwerk content).

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Fire and Ice BY ROBERT FROST

[davesignal]

Arcane is the wierdest of specs. It is very gear dependant and its legendaries greatly impact what you can do with it, but once you are ready to go, it shines brightly. Single target is good, however 2 target cleave is non existant, mass AoE is very good on average but becomes MONSTROUS with the new legendary shoulders, even outshining Fire. I firmly believe that, for casual PvP, it is the best spec. In random bgs you are often left alone to free cast, meaning you simply melt anyone that stands in your way, since it is currently one of the highest damage dealing casters in the game when it comes to PvP.

It also helps that Arcane Blast is functionally invisible.