Why are you refusing to buff Fire mage …
The world race is over.
Not to mention arcane … you completely destroyed the spec to nonsence
Someone plz tell me
8 Likes
Right now I am in a weird spot where the characters I am playing (Holy Paladin, Fire Mage, Marksman Hunter) 2/3 are considered terrible.
I hope they do something soon.
Why are you saying that when they left frost in the dumpster for a long time.
This kind of mentality here is the problem…
3 Likes
Blizzard refuse to buff fire mage because they simp for Frost 
So that means fire and arcane should suffer? 
Plus lol, Frost wasn’t even non-OP “for a long time” — They’re destroying the other two mage specs 9/10 throughout most of the expansion on almost every expansion. lol
1 Like
Indeed. While frost has rarely been top DPS spec in mythic or raid content it has been pretty solidly the preferred solo spec in most expansions because of it’s superior control and defensives.
The notion that the specs should have a ‘rotation’ where each expansion one gets top billing over the others is daft
1 Like
I’ve seen that frost comment a several times, went and did some digging in the warcraft logs from Dragonflight up untill now.
Across Normal, Heroic, and Mythic raiding Frost has been the most played spec every patch outside of Heroic and Mythic Undermine and Normal, Heroic and Mythic Manaforge Omega
Across Normal, Heroic and Mythic Arcane has been top spec 11 times, Frost 7 times and Fire 3 times and it being the only raid at Undermine
And from what it looks like even if Arcane or Fire is top dps for that patch still there is more people still playing Frost
So this whole thing I’ve seen where Fire is always top spec is not really true.
And here are my findings
Vault of the incarnates
Normal Score Max Parses
1.Frost 58.93 133.89 15,353
2.Fire 54.15 128.56 6,242
3.Arcane 51.13 108.42 2,896
Heroic
1.Arcane 73.95 114.63 7,297
2.Frost 73.03 118.98 44,244
3.Fire 69.21 119.90 16,225
Mythic
1.Frost 78.82 106.54 17,948
2.Fire 78.74 109.32 7,954
3.Arcane 76.85 102.23 2,789
Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible
Normal Score Max Parses
1.Arcane 70.09 105.12 485
2.Frost 54.25 90.90 1,736
3.Fire 46.69 91.55 802
Heroic
1.Arcane 86.69 111.97 1,874
2.Frost 69.58 100.96 3,555
3.Fire 62.29 95.03 1,867
Mythic
1.Arcane 83.46 94.23 313
2.Frost 79.44 92.05 371
3.Fire 76.06 82.40 84
Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope
Normal Score Max Parses
1.Arcane 61.53 137.11 25,197
2.Frost 57.49 127.48 108,890
3.Fire 57.06 124.04 50,618
Heroic
1.Arcane 80.00 118.53 58,632
2.Fire 68.23 110.07 103,220
3.Frost 66.94 114.57 183,016
Mythic
1.Arcane 81.15 100.95 14,676
2.Fire 79.03 97.81 15,350
3.Frost 78.92 102.11 20,962
Nerub-ar Palace
Normal Score Max Parses
1.Frost 58.93 133.89 15,353
2.Fire 54.15 128.26 6,242
3.Arcane 51.13 108.42 2,896
Heroic
1.Arcane 73.95 114.63 7,297
2.Frost 73.03 118.98 44,244
3.Fire 69.21 119.90 16,225
Mythic
1.Frost 78.82 106.54 17,948
2.Fire 78.74 109.32 7,954
3.Arcane 76.85 102.23 2,789
Liberation of Undermine
Normal Score Max Parses
1.Fire 71.27 122.97 71,736
2.Arcane 68.31 126.02 34,419
3.Frost 63.51 118.85 92,402
Heroic
1.Fire 75.49 115.06 163,438
2.Arcane 73.26 110.31 51,526
3.Frost 69.75 109.64 156,661
Mythic
1.Fire 81.23 105.25 44,748
2.Arcane 80.58 101.39 5,541
3.Frost 80.32 98.06 19,468
Manaforge Omega
Normal Score Max Parses
1.Arcane 75.75 143.18 66,632
2.Fire 62.46 113.01 9,301
3.Frost 61.88 118.21 42,799
Heroic
1.Arcane 84.82 133.34 279,742
2.Fire 76.32 113.66 24,306
3.Frost 70.39 114.41 120,513
Mythic
1.Arcane 85.66 111.22 98,779
2.Fire 82.30 101.70 6,170
3.Frost 78.75 100.73 19,206
Midnight
Normal Score Max Parses
1.Frost 74.40 134.52 371,020
2.Fire 62.29 110.31 16,877
3.Arcane 60.55 112.27 31,489
Heroic
1.Frost 80.24 120.02 568,628
2.Fire 70.98 102.32 15,498
3.Arcane 68.12 100.67 27,014
Mythic
1.Frost 82.84 101.25 64,190
2.Fire 81.19 97.25 725
3.Arcane 76.39 93.55 767
And the amount of people that play frost even when Fire or Arcane is doing better shows the two specs are not fun for people and it really shows in midnight.
4 Likes
Frost has been perfectly fine for at least the last five seasons prior to this one. I was playing it the whole time.
At the bare minimum, Fire and Arcane need a copy of the Glacial Bulwark talent that Frost has. Having x2 Barrier and X2 Ice Cold is essential for higher keys with Mage being as squishy as they are. It is far too much of a struggle to combat the targetted abilities as a Mage in the other 2 specs.
Frost already has great control for defensive purposes. Just share the love around a bit.
1 Like
I think it’d be cooler to see arcane do something that makes alter time stronger, though I dont have any ideas as to how. Remove the self damage from cauterize and rename it “rise from the ashes” or something more magey.
You do realize this game has existed for more than 20 years right? And you just looked at 2 expansions. 
Nothing is stopping you from doing it.. thats already 4 years of data…
1 Like
I don’t need to, I’ve played through it. Arcane has performed really well on only 2 occasions in 20+ years: during the latter half of SL when the Radiant Spark build was discovered and in TWW for a very brief period at the very start and again towards the end of the expansion. That’s it.
Meanwhile Fire has been the meta spec for group content since before the term “meta” was ever used and Frost has always been the go to for solo play and leveling. Arcane on the other hand has been perpetually the odd one out and always a niche spec with a needlessly convoluted and unintuitive playstyle (aside from the last season of TWW).
This isn’t even something you need to pour over old data for, it’s common knowledge for anyone who has mained mage for a long time.
1 Like
okay and? i’ve played mage since bc and been through pretty much all the changes through fire and midnight is the worst changes that has happend to fire, took us back to warlords fire mage game play minus combustion being a dot… and showing this “data” was for the people who say oh its always fire that is meta when it comes to raiding when it isn’t.. for the last 4 years its been arcane with frost in second.
1 Like
I really want Mastery to be something else entirely, all our fire spells get their DoT components back, and Combustion to be reverted back into a snapshot super-DoT of everything we had up on the target.
I don’t know what a proposed new Mastery could be but I’d happily take something even as boring as “critical strikes from Fire spells you cast deal X% more damage”.
Maybe I’m totally crazy for this opinion but I feel if Fire was simplified in some capacity, it would make balancing it SO much easier. Let me go back to stacking Crit and Haste, dag-nabbit!
2 Likes
And for the previous 16 it’s been Fire. Arcane had one really good season at the end of TWW and then a meteoric fall from grace after the Midnight changes gutted it completely and get you’re contorting like a pretzel to make it seem like it’s been meta for years.
XD I don’t even have to check logs to know that statement is false saying fire was top spec in all raid difficulties for 16 years.
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I love arguments that are “I don’t need data” or don’t actually present facts 
Blizzard uses data to make decisions, until now at least. But blizzard has also been very open about deliberately causing spec imbalances to try and encourage players to swap classes and prevent spec fatigue. Unfortunately that’s not how people work. I have like 3-4 specs I strictly play, and don’t really enjoy anything else. And I don’t play them for mechanics, I play them for flavor. I’m just lucky that one of them is currently functional tbh.
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Frost has also been the go-to solo/open world spec for a very long time, not sure it really needed to be so heavily encouraged that literally 80% of the mages are running that spec now
At any rate, no changes for Fire on the horizon… maybe next expansion.
1 Like
Not encouraged. The other two were just inadvertently discouraged 
