[Mage] Hey Akraen... (Why Frost is good)

[Polarthief]

Akraen (and other Frosties!), I'd like to ask you something (and via public forum, not PM so others with the same problem can tell their officers/GMs). Why is frost competitive and as good as Arcane on many fights?

I personally know why, but since I'm apparently terrible with words and since posting logs does NOTHING to my "higher-ups", I'd like to see it in your words so I can also direct them to this thread and can see for themselves to stop pushing me (and the other Mages) to go Arcane.

How/Why I personally feel Frost is better/as good as Arcane:
- Way better AoE, especially 2-target cleave
- More mobile; able to do mechanics and have some level of DPS than being dead weight
- The slows and freezes, as well as having access to Deep Freeze significantly easier (stuns help immensely in this tier on a few fights)
- Able to build multiple ways stat-wise rather than being hard-locked to a specific BiS list
-- The one I have chosen (Mixture, leaning on Haste-heavy) is extremely flexible in how I gear
*- I personally do way better as Frost than Arcane on all fights (except Norushen and Iron Juggernaut), and have the logs to back this up [Moot point for others, but like I said, these are my personal thoughts]

So yeah, that's just my personal problem that I've been fighting since Siege even began. The last few months I've been telling them (and again, have LOGS AS PROOF) as to why Frost is as good as/better than Arcane (for me), and yet they continue to ignore and tell me that Arcane is just flat out better. Any idea how I (and others having the same issue) can fix this problem? I still feel that any Mage spec (Fire too!) is perfectly viable and competitive, and atm, all 3 are balanced the best they have been in a long time and you will simply do best with your favorite spec, except for a select few fights where one is just flat out better.

[Not Againnn]

this thread is ridiculous. your higher ups need to look at the logs. all three specializations are pretty much neck and neck with fire obviously being STUPID op with full bis gear just cuz of scaling.

they need to wake up lol

frost performs better this patch than previous patches. icicles are awesome.

[Polarthief]

this thread is ridiculous.

I agree, because:

your higher ups need to look at the logs.

Which I've linked one in specific, our Sha of Pride Heroic kill which I was #4 on DPS, #1 on Rifts taken, and yet they bitched that I was "doing too much and not letting the guild do it". I kid you not, they said that. I also have logs from last Sunday where I was #3 overall and Frost every fight, outright beating our #12 Arcane Mage (who was also present on every fight). This was all Normal kills from Shamans to (including) Garrosh.

all three specializations are pretty much neck and neck with fire obviously being STUPID op with full bis gear just cuz of scaling.

they need to wake up lol

Thank you. That's exactly what I was going for.

frost performs better this patch than previous patches. icicles are awesome.

I agree with Frost being better, but I disagree with "icicles are awesome". It's essentially the same mastery, put on Frostbolt instead of Ice Lance (SLIGHT buff) and they shoot out slow and can even miss/be deflected and lose them (nerf). Still though, Frost has never felt so fluid (pun slightly intended) especially with Frostbolt debuff being GONE AND ABOLISHED FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRR <3

[insen]

You are in a top 1500 guild. Thats absolutely average and nothing special. "Officers" in that kind of guilds tend to be narrow-minded and control freaks. You could probably do the content in any spec. Frost is better to a certain point and definitely not worse than the other specs and as you said all 3 specs have potential. There is no way to persuade these people regardless of your arguments. They feel like they are the ones who are responsible for everything and dont care if they are wrong. Simply join another guild. There are hundreds of other ones with the same progress.
I'm not raiding anymore but I can tell you that it's time to move on if there are these kind of problems.

[Polarthief]

You are in a top 1500 guild. Thats absolutely average and nothing special. "Officers" in that kind of guilds tend to be narrow-minded and control freaks. You could probably do the content in any spec. Frost is better at your ilvl imo and definitely not worse than the other specs and as you said all 3 specs have potential. There is no way to persuade these people regardless of your arguments. They feel like they are the ones who are responsible for everything and dont care if they are wrong. Simply join another guild. There are hundreds of other ones with the same progress.
I'm not raiding anymore but I can tell you that it's time to move on if there these kind of problems.

Thank you and while I appreciate that you too agree, I can't simply leave for, well, personal reasons.

Plus at this current state of the game, I'd sooner quit the game than find another guild, unfortunately.

[insen]

Well thats a pity. I guess you should simply stay frost regardless of their requests. You should not bother yourself with this nonsense. I dont know what your personal reasons are but I doubt that they will kick you out of the raid/guild if you perform good. Either that or my advise if all else fails.

[pyrostorm9001]

Perhaps try the angle of tier 15 4p being nerfed into the ground. With many arcane mages are asking for a 4p buff on current tier (that wont happen) leaving arcane to be on par with Frost, that only needs a 2p t16 to be competitive with warforged off set (that no one else really wants).
Your officers should see value in loot distribution and overall raid dps gains when gearing a frost mage.

[Polarthief]

Well thats a pity. I guess you should simply stay frost regardless of their requests. You should not bother yourself with this nonsense. I dont know what your personal reasons are but I doubt that they will kick you out of the raid/guild if you perform good. Either that or my advise if all else fails.

Basically what I'm doing.

They aren't going to kick me over this, at least, if they're fucking sensible. We're struggling for players atm, so it wouldn't help their case to do so.

Perhaps try the angle of tier 15 4p being nerfed into the ground.

I did and their Hunter friend continues to say Arcane is better regardless. He even said everyone stays Arcane on THOK. What a croc XD

[Not Againnn]

He even said everyone stays Arcane on THOK. What a croc XD

tell him that is a load of bs lmao.

[Akraen]

Sorry for the late reply.

Basically, it comes down to encounter design. Unfortunately the greatest mage problem this entire expansion has been Quality of Life (QoL). It's been a long, annoying road since the start of the expansion with the horrible Level 90 talents, movement issues, target switching/ramp-up, and so forth. All three specs were pretty frustrating to begin with but Arcane had Scorchweaving (which could be used while moving), but at the time Fire had gearing issues.

Tier 15 was a nice midpoint where Frost was just beginning to shine but had worse QoL issues for the encounter designs that had target switching because at the time we still had our 3-frostbolt per target requirement to do anything respectable outside of bombs. People will claim scaling was our problem, but this was the key issue.

By the time we got to Siege of Orgrimmar, Frost had its QoL issues removed. The more haste you get, the better heroic encounters are as frost not from a damage output (leave my theory out of this for now), but from a QoL standpoint. Frost is as good as or better than arcane on most heroic encounters for most people because of the high proc rates, lightning fast target switching, significant bomb damage in haste builds, and overall versatility without RNG ever being such a problem. We don't have movement issues like Arcane and we don't have bad streaks like Fire. We also interface with every one of the caster trinkets in an incredible way. Further, without a dependence on the 4pc bonus, we're able to take full advantage of the bizarre caster-stacked loot tables in the first 8 easy heroics, giving us inflated item levels for future progression.

I mean, here's my little 8/14H guild and I'm already ilvl 570.

Basically, Pewpew, frost is so strong because of its capability to adapt within these specific encounters to the mechanics, target switching, cleave, and AoE. Our frozen orb is an MVP and so is our elemental. Do you do the Iron Juggernaut strat where you run away during Siege Mode? Well, guess which spec gets to leave an elemental on the boss! There are so many neat little parts of strategies that help us. Our elemental gets away with hitting Nazgrim in defensive stance, Thok during frenzies, and many other encounters. If stacking haste, you get to stutter cast on Blackfuse and avoid everything while having a variety of types of slows on crawler mines, turning you into the allstar for the encounter.

Frost is also versatile for the player. You can work with whichever gear drops. You can experiment and have fun without becoming a detriment (I'm using Windsong on my weapon now for finely tuned NT snapshots). It's a spec for outside-the-box thinkers that can stack haste if they're twitchy madmen or stack mastery if they like big bursty numbers and a slower pace. Then if you don't know which to stack it doesn't even matter-- because you can roll with what you have, keep your basics in order, and just add your own flavor and choices to the spec.

Frost now is great, better than it's ever been. To give you some numbers, here's my weekly analysis I do for my raid. These are numbers from last Tuesday. See how well I did on adds and overall?



To wrap this up for you-- anyone who says frost is weak right now is wrong. We aren't dependent on a 4pc, we're flexible, we're easy to learn, and have a variety of playstyles. It's viable and effective on every encounter. Some encounters, it's flat out the best. On those it isn't technically the best, it probably still will be if you're comfortable with it. And above all else, the only QoL issue we still have is the stupid L90 talents, but with enough haste even that's not so bad.

/endsalespitch

[Gvstoned]

Stay Frost, and if they gkick you for this, be thankful because clearly you were in a guild with a bunch of idiot officers.

I'm Frost, my guild doesn't mind, of course they joke about it "lol frost in raids blabla" but that's just for laughs, I pull my own weight, easily ending top 3 DPS on most fights, even single target ones like Iron Juggernaut. Keeping up with Arcane/Fire mages and every other class.

So yeah, as long as you're not ending way below everyone on recount for every kill and keeping up with everyone else I don't see why your officers wouldn't let you play Frost.

I really want more mages to raid as Frost, I don't know if it's because of their guilds or because they themself think the spec is bad (which it isn't). but it's not fun (imo, i'm very competitive) to rank top 3 on WoL out of ~20 Frost mages.

[Polarthief]

Sorry for the late reply.

Naaw meng, you busy as fuck, it's fine XD

Basically, it comes down to encounter design. Unfortunately the greater mage problem this entire expansion have been Quality of Life (QoL). It's been a long, annoying road since the start of the expansion with the horrible Level 90 talents, movement issues, target switching/ramp-up, and so forth. All three specs were pretty frustrating to begin with but Arcane had Scorchweaving (which could be used while moving), but at the time Fire had gearing issues.

Which I agree completely. I personally feel that Frost has the best QoL, with Fire being slightly ahead only in terms of Mobility (and NOTHING ELSE for me personally)

Tier 15 was a nice midpoint where Frost was just beginning to shine but had worse QoL issues for the encounter designs that had target switching because at the time we still had our 3-frostbolt per target requirement to do anything respectable outside of bombs. People will claim scaling was our problem, but this was the key issue.

I'd say scaling is still a bit of an issue. Crit is completely ignored at this point, and while you love your mega-high Haste levels (which I won't deny aren't bad!), I personally go nuts if my Haste exceed 16k purely when I have 2+ Haste buffs and I can't control my fingers to stop spamming IL/FFB keys when I get tons of procs XD

By the time we got to Siege of Orgrimmar, Frost had its QoL issues removed. The more haste you get, the better heroic encounters are as frost not from a damage output (leave my theory out of this for now), but from a QoL standpoint. Frost is as good as or better than arcane on most heroic encounters for most people because of the high proc rates, lightning fast target switching, significant bomb damage in haste builds, and overall versatility without RNG ever being such a problem. We don't have movement issues like Arcane and we don't have bad streaks like Fire. We also interface with every one of the caster trinkets in an incredible way. Further, without a dependence on the 4pc bonus, we're able to take full advantage of the bizarre caster-stacked loot tables in the first 8 easy heroics, giving us inflated item levels for future progression.

I mean, here's my little 8/14H guild and I'm already ilvl 570.

Which is what I basically love about the whole thing. The gear flexibility being one of my personal favorites. I've been loosely using your BiS list while still keeping the gear I've collected. For instance: I got Norushen's heroic bracers, and while it's Hit Mastery instead of Haste Mastery, overall, it's still just as good because of reforging, and I still am able to hit the Hit cap of 15% and the Haste cap I have set for myself (the 15.8k breakpoint; I forgot the exact number but I'm too lazy to go dig for it XD It's saved on my ReforgeLite, lol).

Also, what the fuck was blizzard thinking with this Icy Boulder? I finally got my 4P (for Arcane, mind you; need to swap a few pieces) and dear lord is it terrible! D: It's like a 10k DPS increase AT BEST.

Basically, Pewpew, frost is so strong because of its capability to adapt within these specific encounters to the mechanics, target switching, cleave, and AoE. Our frozen orb is an MVP and so is our elemental. Do you do the Iron Juggernaut strat where you run away during Siege Mode? Well, guess which spec gets to leave an elemental on the boss! There are so many neat little parts of strategies that help us. Our elemental gets away with hitting Nazgrim in defensive stance, Thok during frenzies, and many other encounters. If stacking haste, you get to stutter cast on Blackfuse and avoid everything while having a variety of types of slows on crawler mines, turning you into the allstar for the encounter.

My guild tends to ignore how helpful my slows are. They also won't acknowledge I'm the ONLY one who stunned (and almost solo-killed) the giant add on one of the sides on Heroic Sha. I also take it upon myself to grab the 5 Pride he gives at the end because I know I won't fuck up Projections (while we've wiped MANY times to it). I'll even use GI for it if I have to!

Frost is also versatile for the player. You can work with whichever gear drops. You can experiment and have fun without becoming a detriment (I'm using Windsong on my weapon now for finely tuned NT snapshots). It's a spec for outside-the-box thinkers that can stack haste if they're twitchy madmen or stack mastery if they like big bursty numbers and a slower pace. Then if you don't know which to stack it doesn't even matter-- because you can roll with what you have, keep your basics in order, and just add your own flavor and choices to the spec.

By far the best part of Frost outside of being the only non-boring spec of Mage (to me at least XD). Like I said, I've been going with almost 16k Haste and the rest Mastery and I don't feel pressured nor forced to go for every piece of Haste gear I see. I can get some Mastery, some Haste, or even Haste Mastery and be completely fine and where I need to be

My only personal problem still are trinkets as I'm still contemplating BB and Totem, though Bindings are obviously BiS (even though the stupid proc procs 99% of the time during my AT because I refuse to wait for the bastard...)

To wrap this up for you-- anyone who says frost is weak right now is wrong. We aren't dependent on a 4pc, we're flexible, we're easy to learn, and have a variety of playstyles. It's viable and effective on every encounter. Some encounters, it's flat out the best. On those it isn't technically the best, it probably still will be if you're comfortable with it. And above all else, the only QoL issue we still have is the stupid L90 talents, but with enough haste even that's not so bad.

Thank you. I'll be sure to post this to the guild, and if they continue to refuse the facts, I'll just ignore them til the end of time or the kick me. *shrug*

/endsalespitch

You should go into retail. You'd make amazing commission XD

[Mastamage]

a friend app'd to a guild and had a meeting with their Officers. They berated him for playing Frost so he just left the interview while they were mid-sentence.

In short: tell them to go fuck themselves.

[Firebert]

a friend app'd to a guild and had a meeting with their Officers. They berated him for playing Frost so he just left the interview while they were mid-sentence.

In short: tell them to go fuck themselves.

Lesson here: play whatever you're best at, and tell the officers you'd deal less damage as other specs. If they want an Arc Mage they can go recruit one.

[Polarthief]

Lesson here: play whatever you're best at, and tell the officers you'd deal less damage as other specs. If they want an Arc Mage they can go recruit one.

Funny story about that: Our Mage officer (or rather, co-GM) played Fire, was also forced into Arcane, and then they went and recruited a Fire Mage just last week...

[Firebert]

Funny story about that: Our Mage officer (or rather, co-GM) played Fire, was also forced into Arcane, and then they went and recruited a Fire Mage just last week...

....you say above that your superiors cannot be reasoned with. Ask them where they found their information that Arc > Fire/Frost if you can.

- - - Updated - - -

You are in a top 1500 guild. Thats absolutely average and nothing special.

Disagree. Only 1600 guilds have killed Heroic Iron Juggernaught, which is just over 8% of the guilds that have killed the first boss.

The average guild is currently stuck on Thok Normal (52% clear rate on Spoils but only 43% on Thok, as of writing this post, source).

[Polarthief]

Disagree. Only 1600 guilds have killed Heroic Iron Juggernaught, which is just over 8% of the guilds that have killed the first boss.

The average guild is currently stuck on Thok Normal (52% clear rate on Spoils but only 43% on Thok, as of writing this post, source).

Which is all irrelevant anyways :3

[Firebert]

Which is all irrelevant anyways :3

I'm effectively praising your guild for being above-average is all, Polar. :3

[Polarthief]

I'm effectively praising your guild for being above-average is all, Polar. :3

I appreciate it, though we should be much further ahead :X

[Akraen]

Community mindset is the only factor that pushes me away from the game. It's why I appear to be so bullheaded about frost. I feel like I have spent years fighting against a tidal wave.