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  1. #1

    PVE Mage: Arcane or Fire for best DPS?

    Is there any data on whether fire or arcane pushes out better dps? I know that when Cata came out, fire was apparently highest but is it still?

    Thanks!
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  2. #2
    Fire is a dps spec?

  3. #3
    Arcane > Frost > Fire for single target DPS. Frost can exceed Arcane depending on gear.

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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Heilige View Post
    Arcane > Frost > Fire for single target DPS. Frost can exceed Arcane depending on gear.
    What he said. Frost is highest by a decent margin at top gear levels

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Heilige View Post
    Arcane > Frost > Fire for single target DPS. Frost can exceed Arcane depending on gear.
    I agree as well, but if you are looking for a multi target spec fire is obviously the way to go.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by planrawsto View Post
    Wait, wait, what? When did frost start being good?
    With 4 set bonus. Arcane is still best though with sinestra trinket, but frost have superior movement.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Fire is one of the weakest dps specs in game at the moment. Arcane is generally the best with frost not far behind it until top gear levels where perfectly played frost comes close to arcane, but it is much more complex to play. Fire is only best on one firelands fight, Alysrazor, and its only when you are flying so your haste is increased and you can push your crit to near 100%. Other than that it sucks
    Last edited by mmoc85ffc31ecb; 2011-07-25 at 09:28 PM.

  8. #8
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wotch View Post
    What he said. Frost is highest by a decent margin at top gear levels
    No it isn't, Arcane is the highest DPS spec we have at BiS levels, and it scales best with Int. Frost pulls higher for people who never had SoW, though I'm not sold on that even being the case anymore since Frost is the only spec we have that doesn't interact with VPLC in any way.

  9. #9
    In my gear level arcane>>>>>>>>>>fire. With even higher gear level and moving into heroic Firelands I'm sure frost will be par with arcane without shard of woe. I'm going to test it after I get my 4th piece.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Wotch View Post
    What he said. Frost is highest by a decent margin at top gear levels
    It's quite the opposite, higher gear levels arcane is slightly ahead of frost; or w/ a Shard of Woe Arcane is head by a decent margin.

    EDIT: Damnit Swizz beat me to the correction. ,,|,,
    Last edited by Heilige; 2011-07-25 at 10:31 PM.

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  11. #11
    Warchief DirewolfX's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Swizzle View Post
    No it isn't, Arcane is the highest DPS spec we have at BiS levels, and it scales best with Int. Frost pulls higher for people who never had SoW, though I'm not sold on that even being the case anymore since Frost is the only spec we have that doesn't interact with VPLC in any way.
    Wait... how does frost not interact with VPLC? O.o

  12. #12
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    Arcane...
    For Alysrazor go fire with special gear setup if your flying.

  13. #13
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DirewolfX View Post
    Wait... how does frost not interact with VPLC? O.o
    Mana Adept, Arcane Power, and Molten Fury all increase the damage of the proc since it actually counts as spell damage that you cast. Since the Frost Mastery requires the target to be frozen, Frost cannot increase the damage from VPLC in a raid setting.

  14. #14
    Warchief Shawaam's Avatar
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    Fire is good on fights with sustained AoE, such as Maloriak, Heroic Rhyolith and so on. Otherwise, Arcane is the way to go, or frost even I guess.
    Vol'jin fanboy

  15. #15
    i agree frost does very nice dps in simulations, i just dont understand why i cant see any decent real world logs proving what simulations say. actually from the logs arcane crushes frost pretty hard on many fights.

    argument about top players playing arcane is valid of course, but we should see at least some top frost mages too no?

    why cant we see frost potential in real world environments?

  16. #16
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dagolar View Post
    i agree frost does very nice dps in simulations, i just dont understand why i cant see any decent real world logs proving what simulations say. actually from the logs arcane crushes frost pretty hard on many fights.

    argument about top players playing arcane is valid of course, but we should see at least some top frost mages too no?

    why cant we see frost potential in real world environments?
    You answered your own question. The people who have the gear to support Frost choose to play Arcane instead.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Shawaam View Post
    Fire is good on fights with sustained AoE, such as Maloriak, Heroic Rhyolith and so on. Otherwise, Arcane is the way to go, or frost even I guess.
    Fires direct damage aoe is <censored>
    You can only aoe properly with a good combustion and impact spread, which is: 1. RNG, 2. long cooldown.

    Your better off going arcane on that fight tbh.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Not all raidcomps have retri-palas or BMs. So Arcane is the only way to go in thios case because of arcane tactics. In this case arcane beats frost not only by a small margin.

  19. #19
    Ugh, and here I was about to make a post asking for help with my fire mage... I much prefer frost's mechanics and I do better dps with a frost spec, but when people see the water elemental they just assume it's a PvP only spec and tell me I should play fire or arcane.

    Arcane seems dull. When I switched my mage's OS to arcane I had like 5 empty buttons on my bars.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Badma View Post
    but when people see the water elemental they just assume it's a PvP only spec and tell me I should play fire or arcane.
    I personally love that point, because I then proceed to destroy them on meters. They usually shut up or ask in awe how I did that.

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