Arcane mage vs Frost Mage

not sure why you’re insulting me if you’re referring to me with the “can’t complete a double digit key”. i agree with you on the issue of frost being competent but i was just being silly because you technically did say fire was the best. :woman_shrugging:

as for the topic, i haven’t raided this expansion but i was a mythic raider in legion and stuck with frost even when everyone was telling me fire was the best spec (iirc it was the best in antorus and m+ at least.) my raid team didn’t really have a lack of dps issue even with me not playing what was considered the “best” spec. you can quite literally play whatever you feel comfortable with and still be competitive in the higher level content.

No Wilmage, frost is very close to fire and will surpass many fire mages since many can’t play fire correctly. Look at the top frost mage raid logs and you will see they are very close to their fellow fire mages and even out perform some. I’m so sick of hearing how fire is great. Once the rumor got out that fire was the only spec to play for damage, it spread like a normal rumor, not entirely true. Get off the band wagon.

Also I’ve kept a running tally since Oct 2018 and only two fire mages have beat me in mythics out of 38 so far, hummmm i wonder why that is? My io is right at 2000 so I don’t play low level mythics.

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Arcane works best if you can stack damage multipliers. It actually multiplies that damage into the meatiest hits which is great in raids. Same thing works even better in most pvp albeit cane is handicapped (pun intended) by being only able to use two schools of cc same as frost. In dungeons Arcane is fairly terrible. This is coming from a player who tried every possible build to make it work in dungeons as my io page should show I think. It’s just a lot of low damage from a cleave standpoint which isn’t able to be carried by some decently strong ST (only boomkins approach or exceed that level of pure spell hitting burst). Even a build with arcane pressure, blood of the enemy major just doesn’t hack it. What makes it worse is that how frontloaded the damage is for arcane makes it too easy to rip threat off tanks before you’ve even started to pop off. The mana management aspect of it however arguably makes it the most interesting of the 3 specs before considering gear or builds that make others as or more interesting.

What makes fire the top spec? Two builds that take advantage of what is a too strong mastery that require specific pieces to use. Every expansion has had a class and spec like fire mages are currently in endgame. In legion it was affi locks. In wod it was arcane mages. A spec that has a mastery that combines with other things to make the spec ridiculous. For current fire it’s that mastery:ignite that does so much passive cleave damage and only requires doing big damage into one target. In combination with the blaster master trait and the way lucid dreams lets you cycle through fireblasts it is extremely fluid to play and every two minutes you get to pop off for big ST damage that cleaves off onto anything close to the target you’re hitting. Even my meager set has me able to hit 118% mastery at full stacks of BM during combustion. That effectively means if you crit with a pyro (which has a 100% chance of happening during combustion) you will be doing even more damage as a ticking dot for 6 seconds that will spread to any nearby targets and also tick on them. It is ridiculous and has caused tanks to pull around it for the sheer damage it produces. It is also very braindead to do once you have the appropriate gear for it and once the tank has set up your pull. Add to this the fact that fire is amazing in pvp and able to use 3 schools of cc while having one of the most insane damage casts for pvp in the form of greater pyroblast (for the times it doesn’t feel enough to execute your large ignite from combust pyros), and it’s hard nit to see why fire is that spec that is the toast of the end of the expansion. (Rip the spec in shadowlands tho)

Frost on the other hand is easier to set up gear for and is very rewarding from a progression standpoint. Where fire revolves around the specificity of its two builds and getting very specific elements to fuel that build, frost gear progression is far more fluid and doesn’t cause large variance as you gear up. It makes it feel like a more player skill friendly spec which does ok in average hands but can really be pushed to the top by a skilled pilot. It isn’t able to be as top heavy as fire because its mastery while also very strong isn’t broken like ignite is. It is however much less dependent on others and a great spec for a player to shine in in content that isn’t set up like say pugs for keys or raids. A good frost mage will look good in almost any pull whereas a good fire mage can look awful if the group is awful.

As others have said though: play the spec that you feel you enjoy playing most or if you enjoy certain content, play the spec that suits the content you enjoy. From what I gathered from your OP, you want a spec that has some consistency and that you don’t want to swap out of too much with a consistent learning curve to it. Frost seems like the way you should go in my eyes

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2k is low homie, sorry to break it to you. Also sorry to break it to you again but fire is far superior in high keys but don’t beat yourself up because you really wouldn’t know that. I play No IL in Mythics and I love it, it’s fun, easier to play in pugs and those are the only reasons. With proper coordination and play fire will absolutely dumpster frost. I get close but can rarely break the 100k overall mark in non JY runs but go watch streams and see Fire boys pulling 120+. Stop with the delusions.

Based on all your posts you have to be a troll at this point. Like I’m pretty sure I got got but I’m not positive which I guess is the point of a good troll so…bravo I think? Unless you’re just a homeschool kid. That would explain a lot.

2k is low but there’s no need for the other insults. I was surprised too when 2k and doing 15s was mentioned as a high point. I’m stuck doing that myself but in no way do I consider that a point of pride. It’s embarrassing really but no one im my group even wants to push that high. They groan at the prospect of 17s even…while I’m sitting there being like “is it really fun to kill these trash packs in 5-10 seconds…” in the 15s we end up doing.

Never a need for insults tho. Just memes. Also I will say most streams are a poor point of reference if only because people tend to pull bigger in streams but your point stands. In any dungeon where the tank does pull around combustion the fire mage will absolutely dumpster almost anyone for dps for overall. Ignite is that strong. And it does scale better, as you pointed out, the higher you go in key level. Makes me wish I was doing 20s :<

Generally I agree with the insult part but iv had recent interactions with this guy and he’s just a troll. Trolls should be treated as such.

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It’s sad how true this is. You can play Frost perfectly with excellent RNG, both from your spells giving you procs you need and the fight mechanics not screwing you over and a passive Fire mage with the correct gear will just bury your DPS into the ground.

I’m guessing this assumes titanforge which doesn’t exist anymore.