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  1. #1

    [FROST MAGE] Need advice on changing to FIRE - ilvl533

    I have been trying to switch to fire to get higher dps for the past few weeks from ilvl520 -> now.
    I am very comfortable with frost and have not mastered fire at all yet. Every time i switched I cannot not even match my frost performance.

    My question is with comparable gear, any one care to chime in on how much more dps are they are doing on these boss or am I going to see a significant dps boost switching (and should i wait for 4piece)? Any pointers on what im doing wrong would be appreciated as well.

    http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/us/Suramar/pietree/
    239k dps on JinRokh
    250k dps on Horridon
    208k dps on Council
    181k dps on Tortos
    141k dps on Megaera
    161k dps on Ji-Kun
    142k dps on Durumu

  2. #2
    Your DPS seems fine as frost for your ilevel. I was in the same boat 3 months ago when I decided to change for fire. The only good tip I can give you, is that you will need patience more than anything from now on. Your gear is fine for fire, but I doubt your execution is there.

    As frost, you have the luxury of not having to care much about procs. You could play without weak auras, and it won't matter much (relatively to fire). If you try the same thing with fire, your DPS will be below frost for sure. The spec is unforgiving if you don't optimize your execution. You will have to mold the raid encounters to benefit from combustion in 2 ways.

    The first has to do with procs (weakauras will help you here). Configure : Bloodlust, both Trinkets, Jade spirit, Tailoring proc, Potions procs, Legendary meta gem procs. On the Bloodlust combustion, make sure Potion proc is up, with AT LEAST your best trinket (Wush 8 secs remaining is a good window), the rest of the procs could be considered bonus. Sometimes 2nd best trinket + Meta gem + Jade spirit could = your best trinket, and thus is a good replacement for Trinket 1. But you cannot just wait forever for procs, which leads to the 2nd part.

    The second part has to do with the mechanics. On Tortos you cannot wait indefinitely. Your combustion needs to be timed with the turtles underneath his neck. On Horridon, Combust on stacked ignite (300k+) when he is at 30%-25% HP. You will need to study the fights here. I run with a grid covering 5 important points per boss. I know exactly when I will blow my cooldowns and combust. You cannot fail if the encounter is properly calculated.

    Executing those 2 things properly generated a good net +25% DPS increase, if not more, on my final DPS. Frost will at best generate a +10% from those 2 tips.

  3. #3
    I am currently 547 ilvl and still raid Frost. I run with 3 fire mages all 545-547 ilvl and consistently come out on top. Kenbud @ Kil'Jaeden if you would like to look at my logs. Of course fire has the ability to be the best dps in the game but frost is constantly better (properly itemized of course) until you are able to reach around the 45-50% crit mark, then fire will consistently beat frost. My advice is that if you are as comfortable with frost as you say and not so much with fire then stay frost, you will do better. But do practice fire in LFRs and try to pick up fire gear as you go and once you start beating your frost numbers as fire consistently, that's the key, then make the switch. I don't really know where this whole "you have to be fire or your bad" mentality came from and the whole 40% crit magic number people are throwing around. Frost is viable into your high 540 ilvls if played correctly. Don't look at top parses on WoL because any decent raider know those huge number you see and fire being top by such a huge margin are just outliers. Progression is about consistency.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Kenbud View Post
    I am currently 547 ilvl and still raid Frost. I run with 3 fire mages all 545-547 ilvl and consistently come out on top. Kenbud @ Kil'Jaeden if you would like to look at my logs. Of course fire has the ability to be the best dps in the game but frost is constantly better (properly itemized of course) until you are able to reach around the 45-50% crit mark, then fire will consistently beat frost. My advice is that if you are as comfortable with frost as you say and not so much with fire then stay frost, you will do better. But do practice fire in LFRs and try to pick up fire gear as you go and once you start beating your frost numbers as fire consistently, that's the key, then make the switch. I don't really know where this whole "you have to be fire or your bad" mentality came from and the whole 40% crit magic number people are throwing around. Frost is viable into your high 540 ilvls if played correctly. Don't look at top parses on WoL because any decent raider know those huge number you see and fire being top by such a huge margin are just outliers. Progression is about consistency.
    you "frost" guys amaze me. even with 520 you will see a difference between fire and frost if you have 2 rppm trinkets. on most tot fights fire just destroys frost. on some it just comes close. so if your fire mates consistently do less dps than you, they are playing very bad. i dont see how you can even play bad, because fire consists of like 3 basic things. but apparently there are people that can manage to do that.
    now pls stop saying frost is viable until 530 or 540, what is the purpose? its always viable because you can kill a boss with it. but is it optimal? no. not even at 520. (maybe only a few bosses. but not overall)

    as for the first poster. if you are doing worse with fire, read the fire guides. i wouldnt recommend the one on mmo-c, because last time i looked it wasnt very good. as far as i remember icyveins or the method guides are good. get weakauras or whatever addon you like to display buffs and cooldowns +ignite. then just test it on dummys a bit. the rest depends on you.
    Last edited by mmoc8d035151f1; 2013-07-12 at 08:19 PM.

  5. #5
    Warchief Akraen's Avatar
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    If the advice is for changing to fire, then why do you have [FROST MAGE] as the header?

    My advice to you as a frost mage is to remain frost if you enjoy it, and only go fire if you also enjoy fire.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by ralikonik View Post
    you "frost" guys amaze me. even with 520 you will see a difference between fire and frost if you have 2 rppm trinkets. on most tot fights fire just destroys frost. on some it just comes close. so if your fire mates consistently do less dps than you, they are playing very bad. i dont see how you can even play bad, because fire consists of like 3 basic things. but apparently there are people that can manage to do that.
    now pls stop saying frost is viable until 530 or 540, what is the purpose? its always viable because you can kill a boss with it. but is it optimal? no. not even at 520. (maybe only a few bosses. but not overall)

    as for the first poster. if you are doing worse with fire, read the fire guides. i wouldnt recommend the one on mmo-c, because last time i looked it wasnt very good. as far as i remember icyveins or the method guides are good. get weakauras or whatever addon you like to display buffs and cooldowns +ignite. then just test it on dummys a bit. the rest depends on you.
    I have to agree I had bad Rng and did 332k on H Jin and went and looked Frost parses and would have been #2 lol. Please stop saying Frost is just as good as Fire, especially with Fire the scaling spec in the game. I know some on here value playing Frost over progression because of their Ego but at least be honest with your posts and refer them to Wol or raidbots, then they can judge and see the truth.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by ralikonik View Post
    you "frost" guys amaze me. even with 520 you will see a difference between fire and frost if you have 2 rppm trinkets. on most tot fights fire just destroys frost. on some it just comes close. so if your fire mates consistently do less dps than you, they are playing very bad. i dont see how you can even play bad, because fire consists of like 3 basic things. but apparently there are people that can manage to do that.
    now pls stop saying frost is viable until 530 or 540, what is the purpose? its always viable because you can kill a boss with it. but is it optimal? no. not even at 520. (maybe only a few bosses. but not overall)

    as for the first poster. if you are doing worse with fire, read the fire guides. i wouldnt recommend the one on mmo-c, because last time i looked it wasnt very good. as far as i remember icyveins or the method guides are good. get weakauras or whatever addon you like to display buffs and cooldowns +ignite. then just test it on dummys a bit. the rest depends on you.
    First of all drop the condescending tone, not only are you wrong but now you just look like a douche. Based on your post you either 1. Have played frost and not done it well or 2. Basing this off of beating frost mages as fire. Top 5 mages parses, which I consistently post, are yes bottom 100-200 on fire Mage parses but if you would get your head out of your ass, drop your ego and read what I said you would get it. Fire has the ability to be top dps but in heavy RNG with possible swings of 30k or more. Frost on the other hand is not so RNG, swings of maybe 8-10k. I also stated you have to play it well and be correctly itemized for it, all the factors add up to frost being a good choice into your 540s. I am one of the best frost mages that is why I beat equally geared fire mages and considering the fact that my guild is 11/13 currently said fire mages are not unskilled.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Back on topic for the OP. like I said, being consistent on progression is very important and if your better at frost then fire and below 540 ilvl then 9 times out of 10 you will put up better numbers.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Kenbud View Post
    First of all drop the condescending tone, not only are you wrong but now you just look like a douche. Based on your post you either 1. Have played frost and not done it well or 2. Basing this off of beating frost mages as fire. Top 5 mages parses, which I consistently post, are yes bottom 100-200 on fire Mage parses but if you would get your head out of your ass, drop your ego and read what I said you would get it. Fire has the ability to be top dps but in heavy RNG with possible swings of 30k or more. Frost on the other hand is not so RNG, swings of maybe 8-10k. I also stated you have to play it well and be correctly itemized for it, all the factors add up to frost being a good choice into your 540s. I am one of the best frost mages that is why I beat equally geared fire mages and considering the fact that my guild is 11/13 currently said fire mages are not unskilled.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Back on topic for the OP. like I said, being consistent on progression is very important and if your better at frost then fire and below 540 ilvl then 9 times out of 10 you will put up better numbers.
    Fire doesn't have the ability to be top dps with this gear it just simply is on almost every fight quite frankly. The RNG is not very big with these gear levels it's the same RNG as for all other classes which mainly is RPPM trinkets and getting them to proc on good times. I don't think being 11/13 H is a guaruantee of being skilled I've seen alot of bad players that have 13/13 so if you can beat your fellow fire mages with equally gear then yes they are actually plainly bad.

    And yes ofcourse if you are better at one specc than the other you are going to be performing better but you are not doing what's optimal for your guild. If you really would care you would learn fire in a day by just doing LFR's and reading trough & browsing top logs to understand what they are doing and WHY. I can't understand why people defend frost at this high itemlevels instead of just switching to fire I just think most of them are lazy and like getting easy rank #1 parses because almost noone at that ilvl is playing frost.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by unholyness View Post
    I have to agree I had bad Rng and did 332k on H Jin and went and looked Frost parses and would have been #2 lol. Please stop saying Frost is just as good as Fire, especially with Fire the scaling spec in the game. I know some on here value playing Frost over progression because of their Ego but at least be honest with your posts and refer them to Wol or raidbots, then they can judge and see the truth.
    Frost was and is still better than fire with low gear. With 5.4 we nearly all will and have to spec fire for serious progression. You join the forum and provoke here with your superficial knowledge and stating you would placed 2nd? Go spec frost and we will see where you end up! Progression is over. Most of us progressed in ilvl range 510 - 525 months ago. Where have you been there? Where have all the fire mage been? We frost mages knew one thing: We will be pretty decent during progression (first kills) and clowns as soon as we are on farm. Never saw any fire mage ahead a frost mage (council and maybe durumu the only exception) during the beginning of progression (assuming nearly same gear lvls).

    Now progression is over (last time I killed jin rokh with frost was nearly 3 months ago with ilvl 525 and without meta gem), most of us messing around with another spec or playing just for fun. But we enjoyed the ride as frost and we will fight for another one!!! *Raising fist to the sky*

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by citizenpete View Post
    (council and maybe durumu the only exception)
    and tortos and iron qon and twins and lei shen. yes that should be it. (6/13 where fire is way more useful) i pm'ed Kenbud because i didnt want to derail the thread. but now it gets ridiculous again.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by ralikonik View Post
    and tortos and iron qon and twins and lei shen. yes that should be it. (6/13 where fire is way more useful) i pm'ed Kenbud because i didnt want to derail the thread. but now it gets ridiculous again.
    Hm, I killed tortos with ilvl 512. You just listed the bosses where fire is NOW more useful/better. But before this is getting out of hand, lets stop it right here. I had very much fun during progression, pulled pretty decent numbers and that´s it.

  12. #12
    Let me black and white this for the more dense among us. 1. I have no illusions that frost is better at high ilvl, fire is. I actually went arcane for my second week of LS attempts because it wasn't performing. 2. Frost is better at low ilvl and into the mid 530s. If you argue this you are a bad Mage or just in denial. Pete is one of the best in the game, regardless of spec, so if you don't want to take it from me then take it from him. 3. OP has a 533 ilvl. This falls in the range where frost is most likely flat out better. OP also stated he is not good at fire, therefore my advice was to stay frost until he can consistently put up better number as fire which may or may not be for a while. My personal info was to add perspective but I am far from the norm. So now if you continue to misunderstand and misrepresent what I am saying then there is no hope for you.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Frost is no way better at mid 530s please just stop this. It's better MAYBE up until 530 but after that point fire will simply surpass it on most fights. I wasn't accounting for personal skill level as it takes only a day to get good enough with a specc to be able to play it in a raid otherwise you are a "dense" person, there is no coincidence that EVERY SINGLE top mage was fire for progression and not frost, don't you think everyone would play frost if it was better than fire? Most top mages was progressing trough HC content with an ilvl of perhaps 520 or close to that and still playing fire.

    As for Pete being a good player I have no doubt although there are alot of good players and I have never played with pete or see him play and truthfully I don't analyze alot of frost logs. Just because he is a good player doesn't make everything he says true.

  14. #14

  15. #15
    Deleted
    funny how the "frost is way better until ilvl 5xx" developed. first it was like 500 or 510 then 520 mid tier. now its suddenly 530 or even 540.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kenbud View Post
    Pete is one of the best in the game, regardless of spec, so if you don't want to take it from me then take it from him.
    i didnt see him say its best until 530. also why exactly is he one of the best? obviously gear cannot be a factor if you read my pm about your 3 fire mates. i dont say hes bad, so no offense.

    Quote Originally Posted by citizenpete View Post
    Hm, I killed tortos with ilvl 512. You just listed the bosses where fire is NOW more useful/better.
    yeah i also killed him in the first id. ilvl was like 520. anyways combustion was way better than frozen orb back then. why is fire only NOW more useful?

    i feel sorry for the guy seeking help because of all the people defending frost. with 533 fire is a clear winner. not saying you have to play any spec, but he asked if it will be a significant dps boost. on 6 of the bosses it will be a huge dps increase and on the others its a medium to small gain. if played correctly obviously.

  16. #16
    Thread lock? Don't be a little bitch Akraen, we were just having a friendly argument. No matter though because I'm done, at least you will be able to make the same argument come 5.4 because then you will actually be right.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by ralikonik View Post
    i didnt see him say its best until 530.
    One post for old times sake. He said best at low ilvl I am the one that said best till 530s. I swear you people don't read anything. You jump so soon your "reply with quote" button. IT'S RIGHT FUCKING THERE! Read. Comprehend. Then make your argument. Can fire beat frost at 533? Yes. Can it do it consistently? No. For the lady fucking time I am telling the OP to stay frost because its consistent and he is better with it. You are the one I feel sorry for sir.

  17. #17
    Even if he were to practice fire more it might not even help him. I know that while my ilvl is 534 my gearing strat is to avoid crit at all times. While I have started to build a second set of gear aimed towards fire if i were to just regem and reforge my current set I would not be able to keep up with my frost spec even if i was as comfortable with fire as I am with frost. What it comes down to is playing the spec you enjoy the most or perform the best at (at least until 5.4). Try to work on your offspec so that you can switch whenever you feel that one will out perform the other.

    On a side note. I would also consider myself a much better than average player. I may not be in a top end raiding guild but I consistently outperform no matter who I play with. I have only met one player who I had a hard time keeping up with. He happened to be in a top 100 guild and fire spec about 20+ ilvls higher than myself at the time. At the end of the day he was only pulling 10-20k more dps than I was. For a 20 ilvl difference and fire being the "superior" spec I was very pleased with the results.

    Basically I agree with what most everyone says. Frost is better at lower ilvls mostly for consistency reasons. Fire has the potential to be amazing but as your gear gets better the rng factor starts to go away. Also scaling is a huge issue. Frost is already hitting the haste hardcap and crit cap with our current gear which only leaves mastery. Fire on the other hand can still use a combination of all 3 secondary stats and each of them will have its benefits whether it be more crit, the next haste breakpoint, or more mastery for bigger ignites.

    We all know that fire has the most potential. We are just saying that frost is going to be far more consistent than fire until a certain point... and even then if you mess up a combustion it will hurt. Having such a strong cd is both a blessing and a curse. If done right you will see great results.

  18. #18
    Warchief Akraen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ralikonik View Post
    ...
    yeah i also killed him in the first id. ilvl was like 520. anyways combustion was way better than frozen orb back then. why is fire only NOW more useful?

    i feel sorry for the guy seeking help because of all the people defending frost. with 533 fire is a clear winner. not saying you have to play any spec, but he asked if it will be a significant dps boost. on 6 of the bosses it will be a huge dps increase and on the others its a medium to small gain. if played correctly obviously.
    This is why it should be locked.

    Combustion doesn't spread to all targets anymore. Making a claim that your combustion is better than frozen orb is absurd. Also, there are 3 perfectly viable and widespread strategies for Heroic Tortos. Frost AoE has been and still is better than fire AoE. Pete is never going to say anything unreasonable and it's clear you're just picking fights.

    People aren't defending frost here, they're responding to ridiculous claims made by posters like you.

    Fire vs. Frost is an old argument, an old, pointless argument. If the mage community doesn't understand the dynamics of the competitive DPS scale now and what it means for current raiding at each level, then they never will.

    If I were a mod here I'd stop every one of these posts. Nothing productive comes from spec in-fighting. Frost mages that try to convince the world to all be frost are just as bad to the community as the fire mages that continue to act as though they are the only viable spec. As long as mages keep fighting each other, we'll never address the real issues facing the entire class. Fire, Frost, and Arcane all have problems.

  19. #19
    Hey Pie! I used to be on Suramar too! (Though Alliance side >.>)

    Anyways, you'll generally find better help over at http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-my-DPS-thread as that's the sticky that was made for these kinds of threads (as posts not put in the thread tends to get a bit... off-topic. We've all been pretty pissed as of late >_>)

    If you'd like some (fairly similar iLevel) logs, http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/...s/Pewpewblast/ check my newest few as I just joined a H 25m team and have some fresh Fire logs.

    Best of luck!
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by nedla View Post
    I have been trying to switch to fire to get higher dps for the past few weeks from ilvl520 -> now.
    I am very comfortable with frost and have not mastered fire at all yet. Every time i switched I cannot not even match my frost performance.

    My question is with comparable gear, any one care to chime in on how much more dps are they are doing on these boss or am I going to see a significant dps boost switching (and should i wait for 4piece)? Any pointers on what im doing wrong would be appreciated as well.

    http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/us/Suramar/pietree/
    239k dps on JinRokh
    250k dps on Horridon
    208k dps on Council
    181k dps on Tortos
    141k dps on Megaera
    161k dps on Ji-Kun
    142k dps on Durumu
    I'm assuming these are your frost parses, and you are wondering whether fire will be better. Jin'Rokh DPS is highly dependent on how fast your raid kills him (shorter time = higher dps). That said, getting a 200k combustion will absolutely annihilate any frost dps assuming you are killing it fast.

    Horridon, frost mages are always going to be viable no matter what for excellent sustained AoE, much better than fire.

    On Council, Fire mages are absolutely amazing, and you would see a dps increase.

    On Tortos, I would stick with frost, assuming you are on turtle duty, frost works better. If you are just sticking to the boss, either arcane or fire work well.

    Fire will do better on Ji-Kun assuming you are doing either the 2 nest team or no nests.

    Fire will give you more dps on Durumu than frost

    You didn't ask about this, but Fire is also amazing on Primordius, the buffs you get from the blood pools make you borderline overpowered, frost doesn't gain anywhere near as much scaling as fire does on that fight.

    _____________________

    One of the things that's hard to tell about just a dps list is that we don't know how fast you are killing a boss. Generally speaking faster kills = more dps simply due to uptime on bloodlust. For a longer fight, frost will have more sustained, even damage. For shorter fights, or fights that have +damage bonus mechanics (like primordius), fire will tend to scale better. I don't think fire is necessary for you to switch to for your guild to clear all heroics, but it would help on certain fights like a primordius, or a council of elders.

    _____________________

    And to the frost haters, frost is definitely viable and at least close to fire at ilevel 530 on most fights. There are a few fights this is not the case, Primordius and Council being 2 strong examples where frost just can't really compete with fire, but for the most part frost can stay competitive with fire at mid-upper gear levels. Once you start hitting the 540 gear level then yeah, frost is going to have a really hard time keeping up with fire - but you can certainly still play frost for most ToT fights.

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