Fire Frost or Arcane?

[Lastblow]

so guys i just hit lvl 90 and was wondering which spec is doing the best atm i am frost and seem to be doing fine but am curious as to what is on top?

[Elegiac]

As I understand it Fire and Frost are neck to neck damage wise, followed by Arcane.

But really, you should play whichever spec feels the most fun to you since the differences are marginal for the average raider. I personally enjoy Arcane primarily for its visual appeal, but also for the resource management which is lacking in Fire and Frost.

[Deleted]

If you want to press over 10 buttons in raids, then yeah go Frost. If you want to press less buttons and still pay attention and have awareness then go Fire. I have no opinion for Arcane, unless it's desperately needed on some boss-progression for some specific mechanic, I'm never ever gonna play it again with the new mechanic.

[reflection]

I play Fire and I love it, though it has some disadvantates on Fights like Elegon. If you don't crit you have a problem killing the stuff that shouldn't reach the pillars. Otherwise Fire is really a great spec.
Imho each spec is viable and nearly all talents are viable too

[LocNess]

I always work on dummies till 10mil damage done overall. Did fire and got 50k DPS, and did Frost and got 50k DPS. Never will try Arcane, but yeah choose what you want.

[Kiry]

I play frost. If I have all my CDs ready, I wreck it. I feel like I am able to be a little more mobile and adaptive then the other specs. That's me though.

[Rorschachs]

Did you guys try all at every fight? I am doing pretty good with fire and I am not sure If I should switch to frost. I enjoy frost more but logs show fire as better in dps.

[Racthoh]

I believe frost may have more free movement globals without losing damage.

[mrgreenthump]

I believe frost may have more free movement globals without losing damage.

well yes and no. fire has pretty darn good movement atm, Inferno blast is on 8 second cooldown, so as long as you crit once bethween inferno blast cd's, you basicly get 2 gcd's worth of movement, plus you have scorch which has synergy with hotstreak while for frost it does near nothing. So in the end if you got a fight that has a lot of adjustments just like Stone guards HC for instance, fire is far better movement wise. Not that frost is bad, just more rng when it comes to instants..

[Zoros]

I'm really surprised about the amount of mages playing fire, for me cast to cast Inferno Blast everytime you get a crit is a really stupid gameplay. Fire has no strategy, no mana management, no decisions involved, and a really empty spellbook. Arcane is the most fun by far.

[semaphore]

Dropped my Arcane primary spec for the first time since '08. And redoing the macros is such a pain
Damage is about equal across the board, but that means Arcane doesn't seem to have much going for it at this stage.

I'm really surprised about the amount of mages playing fire, for me cast to cast Inferno Blast everytime you get a crit is a really stupid gameplay.

Except you shouldn't be doing that... cancelling the next fireball cast for anything is a DPS loss. Not precasting fireball is also a DPS loss. I don't like Fire's playstyle much at low crit levels (ICC were the days) when procs are few and far in between, but this isn't how it's played.

[fujima]

so guys i just hit lvl 90 and was wondering which spec is doing the best atm i am frost and seem to be doing fine but am curious as to what is on top?

Presonally, frost and fire are on par with one another, however the main difference between them is the play style.

For me, frost is more bursty when you need it (provided that you have the cd's available). Frost also, has a lot more skills that need to be used to play well. I came back to playing WoW after 1.5 years break and it's at times hard to keep up with all the buttons you need to press to maximise the dps output. Frost has a lot more cooldowns to keep track of than fire, which can be annoying at times.

Fire is a pain in the rear if you are just starting to gear up, which means you have low crit, sometimes you can cast more than 6 fireballs without a single crit. However, i find it quite a lot of fun as the mechanics are in my opinion much better than they previously were. Also, fire doesn't really have cd's for reliable burst when you need it.

For me, both are very fun, whilst fire is more gear dependent, it is still a lot of fun to play. I play both specs, depending on which one i feel like playing more

[Deleted]

Frost is pretty epic right now, I love it both PvP and PvE. It's just as good as fire if not better due to less global cooldowns.

[Araun]

Except you shouldn't be doing that... cancelling the next fireball cast for anything is a DPS loss. Not precasting fireball is also a DPS loss. I don't like Fire's playstyle much at low crit levels (ICC were the days) when procs are few and far in between, but this isn't how it's played.

you're doing it wrong if you cancel your fireball, you just keep casting since infernoblast has no traveltime you can get it in before the 2nd fireball hits the target.

anyway, I've switched to fire with arcane as my second spec and I'm really loving all of them, it's nice to be able to swap around somewhat freely.

[Summer]

I got so sick of fire in DS... the "stack ignite to pop sick combustion" mechanic is just not for me. Frost now, I can burst when I want and not when crits decide to line up and especially with AoE I get that "omg" feeling that fire AoE certainly doesn't have at all now. Dps -wise I don't think there's much difference either but frost can bring nice add control to some fights.

I'd try arcane but don't want to be so hampered in movement, frost it is for me for now. Gear scaling might not be that great for frost tho?

[fujima]

I got so sick of fire in DS... the "stack ignite to pop sick combustion" mechanic is just not for me. Frost now, I can burst when I want and not when crits decide to line up and especially with AoE I get that "omg" feeling that fire AoE certainly doesn't have at all now. Dps -wise I don't think there's much difference either but frost can bring nice add control to some fights.

I'd try arcane but don't want to be so hampered in movement, frost it is for me for now. Gear scaling might not be that great for frost tho?

On the AOE i totally agree

as frost you just Frost orb one mob, and cast Frozen Orb and enjoy spamming endless FoF ice lances (even better with ice lance glyph). The damage is just insane and best of all you don't have to stand there chaneling some crappy aoe spell

As fire, i haven't got the Fire Blast glyph, but i doubt it matches frost aoe output (even if it does, for me the fun factor is in frost aoe)

Most likely fire is going to scale a lot better than frost at higher tier levels.

p.s. i'm not a big fan on Combustion mechanics either, for me it seems a very clunky mechanic.

[n1]

I would love to see pyroblast! Be put on a 12 sec CD instant cast... add in the 25 percent damage so its the same. make 2 crits reset the cooldown and have inferno blast spread the pyro Dot to everything and living bomb to 2 additional targets. make scorch deal its damage and an additional 20 to 30 percent to all targets within ten yards or max it at 5 or something to balance. Make the initial damage the only thing that can proc pryo. This way u could put up small ignites on everything.

Or they could change flame strike and leave scorch alone since it already has the movement mechanic. Make it do 30 percent of the damage of scorch to everything within 10 yards of your target. Get rid of the targeted location and no cool down.

This would make our aoe much more consistent and a lot more fun to play imo. It could be living bomb... pyro!... inferno blast... Flamestrike... repeat...

[Nigawatts]

My favorite at the end of Cata was Fire. Getting Heating Up and Pyroblast! to go felt a lot easier and there was a lot more rhythm. I play Frost right now because I like that rhythm and Fire doesn't have it anymore. When I get better gear I'm definitely going to go back to Fire, but until then, I like being able to control when my procs happen.

I tried to give Arcane a chance. If you looked at me on Armory right now it is my second spec because I switched Fire out to have a look at it. It has some good damage, and I really like the Rune of Power graphic (do not us Invocation if you value your sanity with Arcane). Problem is that it's pretty boring. Throw you bomb, spam AB until AM procs and then use Barrage at 6 stacks or when your mana get's too low. It's very boring, and the damage takes forever to start racking up. With Fire or Frost I'll be at the top of the charts very quickly, but with Arcane it will take forever.

My choice right now is Frost because less RNG.

My choice later will probably be Fire when I get enough Hit to start forging into Crit more aggressively.

Also I find that Frost is easier to gear up for. Might just be me, but everything I got in Heroics or World Bosses has had Haste on it. Just seems easier to get right now than Crit.

[mrgreenthump]

I'm really surprised about the amount of mages playing fire, for me cast to cast Inferno Blast everytime you get a crit is a really stupid gameplay. Fire has no strategy, no mana management, no decisions involved, and a really empty spellbook. Arcane is the most fun by far.

Ye sure play arcane,but as long as its 20% behind fire on fights, you just cant spec arcane in a guild thats focused on progression, so far the only fights i could really use arcane atm are elegon and spirit kings..

[Racthoh]

well yes and no. fire has pretty darn good movement atm, Inferno blast is on 8 second cooldown, so as long as you crit once bethween inferno blast cd's, you basicly get 2 gcd's worth of movement, plus you have scorch which has synergy with hotstreak while for frost it does near nothing. So in the end if you got a fight that has a lot of adjustments just like Stone guards HC for instance, fire is far better movement wise. Not that frost is bad, just more rng when it comes to instants..

fire can move more often without being punished, yeah. frost can move a much greater distance at once without being punished.