523 Ilvl Mage just came back, which spec?

[Deleted]

So I just recently started playing with my mage again, and started gearing him in LFR/Flex. I was wondering which spec I should play atm for the most dps. So far I have tried fire with not so much success (100-150k Single) and I was wondering if Arcane or Frost would be better, I know how to play both of them pretty well.

[Deleted]

Frost is currently on top DPS for mages

[Marco89]

Frost is currently on top DPS for mages

Wat...

It's really not. The highest DPS is Arcane, followed every so closely by fire if you take pure sim data into consideration.

Frost is the lowest of all 3 in overall damage, although burst can be quite high. I've been fire from ToT and I'm seeing my DPS between 250-450k depending on the encounter.

For your ilvl I would say frost, but once you reach 40%+ crit self buffed and can hit the 5k haste mark and/or 4 set - Go fire.

[Scraper21]

frost, hands down

[Deleted]

Well.. with that gear frost for sure.

However, with better gear you can choose between Fire & Arcane.. not too much difference there (In my opinion Fire slightly better for progress but need 2 good trinkets and 4set; Arcane may pull higher numbers on farm bosses)

[Deleted]

with that ilvl probably frost..... if oyu get better gear with mastery arcane is good... fire with crit gear and frost still stays at good dps with haste......
You will probably do best dps with the spec you can handle the best!
most people say frost is the most easiest.... bust good snapshoting your bombs make a difference...
You can really play every specc in SoO as long as you don't want to max your dmg the most.... in this case you would need to respecc/forge/gem every fight.... In most cases you'll be doing faily goo with frost/arca dual as both speccs profit from haste/mastery the most.... I think it is fun to use a 2nd specc every few bosses...

[Marco89]

Had to come back to concede - Switched from fire, to Frost (560ilvl) and the damage increase is rather immense....

Frost, hands down indeed.