Oh man, not you too. Someone’s got to stay subbed to buff people with int! 
But for real though, most guilds are progressing with just a single mage for the Arcane Intellect buff. 
Watch Blizzard’s fix to be bringing back inscription scroll buffs rather than fixing Mages. Whatever happened to “bring the player not the class/buff” philosophy? 
I might be the the odd one out but I’m okay with being where we are (tear me apart if you want), I just like seeing how far I can push my characters. Yeah, the overall performance is an issue, and I’m very well aware of it among a group of people in a variety of other classes pushing their specs the farthest they can, but something like won’t really push me to be upset. Besides, Blizzard will never leave their favorite class at the bottom like this for long anyway.
Painsmith is a super unfriendly frost fight.
I am still playing lol.
We currently have two. Myself and a frost mage.
Oh yeah I hear you, the performance issues aren’t what drove me away. I’ve been Arcane only for years so I’ve long since become inured to that. I was just unhappy with the expansion as a whole. The location, the story (or lack there of) the entire underlying premise really. But also the systems, they really went overboard with them the the covenant fiasco was the cherry on top. So when the allegations came out it was the final straw.
Bottom line I just wasn’t having fun and everything came together in a perfect storm (including timing wise and the fact that I am going on vacation next week and will be away for a month anyway) so I just decided to pull the plug.
But if you’re enjoying yourself go for it! Who knows, maybe with everything that’s happened they will feel pressure to do better come 9.2 and finally fix this mess. It would come too late for me but I am still rooting for it to happen for y’all! 
God bless! Is the Frosty Focus Magicking you? He should! Those empowered Barrages are a lot more fun when they crit. 
Nah sadly. I actually stack crit.
Lol this is some Stockholm syndrome stuff right here. Yes while it’s fun to push a class to its limit, it feels terrible when the ceiling is terribly low.
Oh wells I’m just tired of constantly waiting for blizzard to balance classes.
Oh, I thoroughly love min/maxing my character. I normally brainstorm with every other mage in my guild (when there is more than just me…) about how to improve things and share little tips. I quite enjoy that component.
But yes, when the ceiling is lower than the floor of most… Feels very, very bad. Particularly because frost mage has one of the highest APM in the game. Last night I had IV up for the entirety of most pulls on P1 on mythic Painsmith. I finished damage around 10-11 most pulls. A few I was just above the tank. Granted I normally got slapped with mechanics (think I had chains at least once a pull), but still.
I genuinely think they need to do something with IV. Make it increase flurry or ice lance damage on top of what it already does. Right now, it’s just hella boring and not overly impactful.
#bringglaciakspikeback
Honestly frost mage dps will only get worse as ppl get more geared. Less cleave and aoe time bc burst classes will really shine. Frost mage just has no burst and takes too long to get set up.
It’s more so frost needs to stand still as long as possible to maintain IV due to TV.
If they buff GS it means that you have a bigger damage hit you can plan around.
Another week another no response from blizzard in terms of balance. At a time where they’re hemorrhaging players, you’d think they would do more to keep their game healthy. Nope.
Is that gap between the top performing classes and worst performing classes bigger than it was at the start of other tiers? Honestly curious, first time raiding here.
I will be honest here and say that, this is the first time I have not seen a mage spec in at least the top five to six (we normally do have representation in the top three). Which makes us sound spoiled(?). But as a pure DPS class we typically have one competitive spec, to the point that it is not a literal hindrance bringing more than one mage to a mythic raid group. Whereas, right now… I don’t know if ‘hindrance’ is the proper term, but it certainly is far from beneficial to bring more than one mage. Quite honestly, if we did not have intellect, competitive guilds likely would not even look at us right now.
But hey! They finally added in a feature that will favor your spec for conduit upgrades instead of randomly upgrading any conduit to 252. This after I got all 252s.
Also this after players suggested this 7 months ago and they said they couldn’t implement such a thing and all they did was give more conduit drops via CN.
Frost’s DPS profile has poor synergy with most fights this tier. As fight times get shorter and players get more geared, the lack of a burst will put it further down on rankings (it’s already like dead last or near the bottom). It also suffers disproportionately when there’s any downtime from mechanics or a group’s strat.
I’m actually curious as to which direction the devs want to take the spec, because even in PvP it’s apparently not as favored as Fire, based on what I’ve seen in AWC Season 2 Circuit plays.
It’s no wonder I’m enjoying FFXIV a tad more these days, it’s like the devs are so oblivious to some of the specs in the game. I mean, they still haven’t even fixed the typo on the Slick Ice lego or patched up GF on dungeons where it doesn’t work at all… shows you how much they’ve cared lol.
^ exactly this.
It is like they cannot figure out what they want the spec to be. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it agian. Icy veins is just a crap cooldown. Having to try for 100% uptime and then either getting a mechanic that ruins your momentum or just having downtime in a fight like PS spike dance… Just feels bad.
I used to love frost, LOVE frost. But that was before flurry became a thing. I was excited to play frost this expansion, but it has been nothing but a negative experience so far. My hands hurt after raid and when I parse 80-90 I am still on the bottom spectrum of my raid’s DPS.
I know I can go arcane, but I already leveled renown with Venthyr and Night Fae, I am not doing Kyrian now as well, strictly because Blizzard’s math skills are rivalled by a chimp that can’t figure out how to open a banana.
I was going to say Venthyr is still good for arcane, but then I remembered how boring it was 
I’ve still haven’t figured out night fae arcane,tbh. I see videos and streams with people using it, but it just seems like somethings missing.
Idk. With me I tend to try and experiment with lots of things at my disposal. I have seen that frost and fire, in my experience doesn’t feel right with radiant spark on any soulbind (kleia seems fine for frost, though) HOWEVER glacial spike with frost seems okay, but we all know the situation there 
The thing is, I am a competitive player. So if I do not like the ‘meta’ spec I will still play it because I do not want to hinder my guild / raid group. That said, I also do not want to spend an eternity farming crap just to have blizzard change one value in their calculations and make all my efforts literally moot.
I would be okay with arcane being ‘the’ mage spec to be this expansion (even though I honestly hate it) but just MAKE IT THE SPEC. Stop the damn flip flop. I am SICK of the flip flop. PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT. If you are trying to make all three specs equally competitive then A) you are horrible at it, and B) please just resign your commission.