Frost vs. Arcane

[Vynestra]

For me, this was a tough decision, I felt arcane was underpreforming for me, maybe it was I wasn't playing it right, even though I knew how it isn't just a 2 button spec, I defended how arcane actually can be more complicated then just smashing AB. Now it wasn't that I was doing 5k dps, it's just that everyone in my guild out-geared me, and they still do slightly. It's just i'd end up at like #11 by the end of a fight, and I don't like that. Regardless if people out-gear me or not, there is no patchwerk style fight in firelands, there is movement, somewhere there is movement. No matter what you will end up moving, except maybe beth'tilac where my dmg/dps was #3. Most fights have some movement.

So I looked at the BiS dps.
Fire (33,655 DPS)
Arcane (39,480 DPS)
Frost (37,743 DPS)

Now you see frost behind arcane by a little less than 2k, yes, we know, we've seen. But how many people are going to have SoW to start, or get the legendary. Right now I have neither and am on a course to have neither since I am new to my guild. I took my gear, and adjusted it frost vs. arcane, in rawr formats, with changing one peice aswell, my chest from t11 to t12, as of now I am going to get my 4 set next week, I am choosing the chest because I could use the hit so I have plenty of room for new gear without hit on it. I compared the dps gain on rawr between the peices, now it's not 100% accurate, but I went with it and still chose the chest thats t11 heroic over tier 11 regular legs, I know, but it's for the hit.

So I ran simcrafts and in a patchwerk style fight, in my gear as best as it could be as arcane, and then as my gear as best as it could be frost, I compared results with and without the tier 12 4 set, this was to decide if I was going to go frost right away or wait (arcane will still be my offspec) And the dps in a patchwerk style encounter, frost was slightly ahead. Like I said there is a clear lack of these patchwerk style encounters. So I did helterskelter, the results were much different. Helterskelter obviously has a lot of movement, some fights you may not even move as much as it simulates. Arcane lost 11k dps (it was 27k for patchwerk)for me, on a helterskelter compared to a patchwerk. Frost only lost about 6k. (From about 27k) Oh and the difference between having tier 12 4set and not was minimal, since I lose tier 11 2 set, which is 5% icelance crit for frost, and crap for arcane, and the t12 4set is good for frost but also kinda crappy for arcane. So you lose good and gain good for frost, but lose crap and gain crap for arcane. So the difference was minimal.

This is my conclusion, once you start gearing up with tier 12, and get a good chunk of gear thats i378, frost starts to catch up a lot more to arcane especially with tier 11 4 set broken. I'm sure there are others out there that want to go frost but think arcane is the only way to do high dps, it's not. It's your gear. And unless you have SoW or the legendary staff, frost may be better for you for movement based fights. And thats what I found, I have to test it in raid yet, but I think it will definitely be useful on a few fights where arcane does not always pull ahead. (Shannox im forced arcane for the raid, I'd prob be frost every other fight except maybe beth'tilac, aly I am not flying, and frost mages have ice barrier, say hello to a lot less dmg taken, get reactive barrier and drop 2 useless points, it could really make a difference in you becoming the person that takes the least dmg, helping your healers mana too.) My last finding also was, 10m, arcane does better, frost relies heavily on raid buffs, so in 25m frost may excell and 10m arcane has always blown everyone out of the water for me.

TL;DR If you lack SoW, the legendary, you have some firelands gear, and t12 4set or close to it, frost may be a best bet. Using simcraft can always help, it did me, so now I have dropped arcane as my mainspec to frost, I'm just hoping it does well.

Also hoping people who are also confused about frost or arcane look at some points i've hit here so you see arcane isn't always 100% best.

[TyrianFC]

All the good Arcane Mages already know that Frost is actually in pretty good shape. Its just that Arcane is a little better, so they all stay Arcane still.

There is sometimes this misbelief that the best Arcane players don't realise Frost is in good shape. That's untrue, they know it. They've all seen how SimCraft rates it.

I enjoyed the read you put forward still, though.

There are some other encounter specific reasons why Arcane will pull ahead of Frost. Heroic Majordomo is one, because when you get the Concentration buff - Arcane has the ability to dump lots more burst damage in the timeframe it's available (which will vary depending on strat from occasionally - to the entire fight. On Heroic Domo, if you are the designated 'keep concentration guy', you wont be frost while you do it. If you tried to go frost, they'd give this job to someone else who can pull better numbers).

[Deleted]

Scrap what I said, you mentioned it in your post..

I should L2 Read

[Vynestra]

All the good Arcane Mages already know that Frost is actually in pretty good shape. Its just that Arcane is a little better, so they all stay Arcane still.

There is sometimes this misbelief that the best Arcane players don't realise Frost is in good shape. That's untrue, they all know it.

I enjoyed the read though.

There are some other encounter specific reasons why Arcane will pull ahead of Frost. Heroic Majordomo is one, because when you get the Concentration buff - Arcane has the ability to dump lots more burst damage in the timeframe it's available (which will vary depending on strat from occasionally - to the entire fight. On Heroic Domo, if you are the designated 'keep concentration guy', you wont be frost while you do it. If you tried to go frost, they'd give this job to someone else who can pull better numbers).

I have nothing against arcane personally, for H shannox I am the guy who is incharge of rageface. So if I need to go arcane for a heroic encounter i'd do it for progression. On rag I do the most dmg on sons of flames, I saved my cd's for that phase and blow them up, the first kill I was like 7.2% this past week I was 8.2%, even though I got rid of my soul casket.

On another note, using frost gear for arcane, lowers the dps, but not by that much, sure you lose a good chunk of mastery, but it's note a 10k dps loss, it's a like 800-1k dps loss since the stat scaling is so close to each other. We are close to killing H shannox 25m, but haven't done it yet, so majordomo is a while off, but if I am designated I will do it.

And yeah arcane is better in certain cases, frost is universally good, but arcane does beat it on some reg and heroic fights, which like you said can make arcane pull ahead. But the gear can also make frost pull ahead like I had stated on other fights. So if you don't mind switching when needed, it's really nice to get a break from arcane and have dmg sources that aren't 90% from one thing. I won't ever give up arcane aslong as it stays where it is, which is burst dmg that no other class can do, and you can give that burst dmg when it is most needed, such as ragnaros add's. In 10m, you pop all your cd's if you don't crit 2-3 AB's and they are below 50% if at a 4 stack, if you crit, go to the next add to get it below 50% for super slow. In 25m arcane can solo an add basically. If a dps'er is doing the traps its great to pair them up with an arcane mage so they don't NEED to be on the add.

Arcane does definitely bring a lot to the table, so does frost. And if I couldn't have an offspec I would stay arcane for it being needed mechanic-wise on certain fights. But that isn't every single fight. I definitely agree with you 100% about why arcane can pull ahead of frost.

You have to remember, this data is done as patchwerk style fight, As soon as movement is included Arcane gets hit hard, the only fight where are wont be moving much seems to be Baleroc, the rest seem to have a fair amount of movement

Im just saying

Yes, that is why I calculated helterskelter in my sim's, arcane loses a LOT of dps on movement fights, in my long initial paragraph I do state that arcane lost 11k dps in my sim. Whereas frost had lost 6k. Putting frost ahead about 5k on a heavy movement fight, since my sim's showed them almost equal on patchwerk.

[TyrianFC]

As soon as movement is included Arcane gets hit hard, the only fight where are wont be moving much seems to be Baleroc, the rest seem to have a fair amount of movement

H Shannox: Mages are going Arcane. DPS doesn't really matter. This job is all about controlling Rageface while other ppl kill the boss
H Rhyolith: Depends on your raid comp. I went Arcane and just let other people handle killing any adds. I could inflate the meter by going Fire, but its unnecessary for our raid comp (which had AOE covered already by others)
H Alysrazor: Fire, everyone knows why
H Baleroc: Arcane, everyone knows why
H Beth'tilac: Interesting one, will depend a little on strat/raidcomp/format
H Domo: Arcane. Once people do the fight they'll understand why (Concentration + Arcanes ability to burst on demand)
H Rag: Not sure yet.

Heroic Beth'tilac is the one im most interested in currently, with regards to what specs people are using. It's interesting because theres room in the encounter, depending on your role/raidcomp, for all mage specs to shine.

If you're going up top in P1, Arcane has superior burst to make the most of the ~90 seconds it's up there. If you're down the btm in P1 and you have a weak AOE raidcomp, Fire can shine and make use of its mobility. Frost, if you're down the bottom, has good survivability and decent single target DPS to bring to the table. To be fair, however, I still suspect that if you're down the bottom and someone else (hunter, warrior) handles AOE/soaking, there's no reason not to go Arcane. If you can safely/reliably get into p2, Frost might have an edge on survivability but Arcane has the (again, all important) Burst and patchwerk DPS zerg won - which is all beth p2 is.

I have 3/3 Prismatic Cloak in my raiding Arcane spec anyway. I love the instant invis after a OP burnphase, just so happens the -6% is tacked onto that. =)

[Vynestra]

H Shannox: Mages are going Arcane. DPS doesn't really matter. This job is all about controlling Rageface while other ppl kill the boss
H Rhyolith: Depends on your raid comp. I went Arcane and just let other people handle killing any adds. I could inflate the meter by going Fire, but its unnecessary for our raid comp (which had AOE covered already by others)
H Alysrazor: Fire, everyone knows why
H Baleroc: Arcane, everyone knows why
H Beth'tilac: Interesting one, will depend a little on strat/raidcomp/format
H Domo: Arcane. Once people do the fight they'll understand why (Concentration + Arcanes ability to burst on demand)
H Rag: Not sure yet.

Heroic Beth'tilac is the one im most interested in currently, with regards to what specs people are using. It's interesting because theres room in the encounter, depending on your role/raidcomp, for all mage specs to shine.

If you're going up top in P1, Arcane has superior burst to make the most of the ~90 seconds it's up there. If you're down the btm in P1 and you have a weak AOE raidcomp, Fire can shine and make use of its mobility. Frost, if you're down the bottom, has good survivability and decent single target DPS to bring to the table. To be fair, however, I still suspect that if you're down the bottom and someone else (hunter, warrior) handles AOE/soaking, there's no reason not to go Arcane. If you can safely/reliably get into p2, Frost might have an edge on survivability but Arcane has the (again, all important) Burst and patchwerk DPS zerg won - which is all beth p2 is.

I have 3/3 Prismatic Cloak in my raiding Arcane spec anyway. I love the instant invis after a mean burnphase =)

I have pulled threat a few times b/c I didn't invis intime lol, ill still need to use it as frost, with it's deep freeze burst dps at the start of a fight depending the fight. I don't fly on alys b/c I failed at it, and some of our fliers still fail at it, so after a few tries I stopped..I felt like a noob, but it's okay other people handle it..And sometimes die still. Although, baleroc is almost patchwerk-ish, there is still some movement, and right now for me, my gear has frost and arcane equal on a patchwerk style encounter, it's all about the gear I feel, frost can allow some movement with FoF and brain freeze, with blink, it's great. Frost also saves healers mana, especially on a fight like baleroc where it's very healing intensive, if you sacrifice peircing chill for say reactive barrier, it can help a ton, peircing chill is really only good for like...... beth'tilac maybe? It's not really something you should cry about losing imo. But frost can definitely reduce your dmg intake by a TON. So if your looking to save healers mana, frost can help too, while still doing good dps on a patchwerk fight (DEPENDING on gear).

It all depends on two things, the fight, heroic or non-heroic and your gear. If you have SoW or the legendary don't bother going frost. But if your guild is progression but lets say you aren't 100% hardcore, frost can get you far.