Frost vs Fire mages

[Garm]

Hey gang, got a quick lil question for your consideration:

Part of my army is a 4xgroup of 37-38 mages, 3 fire and 1 frost. The mana efficiency of frost is tempting me to go 4xfrost, though I know the burst dmg would suffer. My main focus is leveling (of course) and would like to hear your opinions on the matter :D !!!

[xum]

if you can get the controls down... you could do some serious AoE farming :)

[opt]

Set 1 to imp scortch set 3 to fireball and spam away, whats not effecient in that?
Although frost with that imba talent where you get +10% crit stacked 3 times would be fat

[Zseth]

All I am going to say is look at my signature



NUFF SAID

[opt]

ohh my goodness i cant remember the following sentence to that lyric im having a simpson blank..very rare for me :(

[opt]

and throw the can away!
nvm me :S

[Ughmahedhurtz]

On PVE servers, frost can be a fascinating tool. I leveled my first 4-mage team to 50ish as frost, then switched to fire. What I noticed was that frost is fine but it doesn't help you when you're up against things that can't be frozen/slowed. In those cases, fire is better to burn it down before it can kill you. I found more cases where the slowing/freezing effects of frost were useless than I did where the uber DPS of fire was a problem. I ended up going split arcane/fire at 70 and never regretted the switch.

[laeelin]

My group is Paladin + Mage + Mage + Mage + Priest

At first I was frost for AEing... Pulling 2 rooms in Stockades at a time and AEing them down was a lot of fun.... Then I tried Arcane....

40% aggro reduction from talents is just sick... Add in Salvation and keeping aggro on the paladin when AEing is simple...

Now I'm doing the GY in SM...

Standard run is like this... (level 32 btw)

Buff + Summon Food/Water.

1) Shield Paladin, Run till shield wears off, duck arround a corner to break LOS.
2) Consecration + Start First heal.
3) Wait 1.5 seconds, then Chain cast Arcane Explosion.
4) Add Holy Nova to the Arcane Explosion spam after first heal lands.
5) Add in Frost Nova just before they start running.
6) When all mobs are dead, Hit the eat/drink hotkey for mages + priest , Loot with Paladin.


Repeat 1 - 6 till you reach a boss, Kill boss then back to repeating 1 - 6 till all mobs are dead.

Zone out, reset, zone in, start over.

My normal pull is 2 - 4 groups (depending on how safe i want to be [not very normally - when doing 4 groups I die a good bit, 2 groups I almost never die])

Edit: I dont care about mana efficency because they are back to full mana by the time I finish looting anyway.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

For a bit of frame of reference, when you're doing quest mobs such as Gorefiend's armor or the Forge Camp:Hate/Fear boss elites, the extra damage mitigation you gain from frost barrier will pale beside the extra DPS output of fire/arcane. Frost is awesome DPS for soloers that can freeze the target and make use of the Shatter talent. Fire/arcane just dumps the DPS on 'em regardless. Also, fire/arcane DPS will be MUCH more likely to keep aggro on the mages when you start having to spam heals on them than a frost build would.

[xum]

i was thinking about this last night... how does scorch stack?

I mean, if you have 3 mages, and each cast scorch one time, is that full debuff or three 1/3rd debuffs?
In either case, you either have full benefit (25% more damage with Fire Power) in 3 seconds, or you will have 75% more damage in 7.5 seconds.

Either way it's a win.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Fire Power doesn't alter the flat 3% debuff per scorch. The first cast (x3) will stack for 9% extra dmg. The second cast (x3) will stack another 2 on top of that for 15% total +dmg to fire spells. You won't ever see 25%+ just from scorch. It isn't additive.

[warcrime]

Set 1 to imp scortch set 3 to fireball and spam away, whats not effecient in that?
Although frost with that imba talent where you get +10% crit stacked 3 times would be fatthis debuff, and the imp scorch stack debuf, are only 1 stack per mob. so you'd build it faster, but it'd be the same strength.

[Suribusi]

I leveled my first mage crew to 70 when the expansion came out as Arcane/frost (Arcane till PoM, Frost until right before ice barrier). Overall for PvE leveling it outweighs fire with a multimage setup based on how the mechanics of shatter work. Once you get Ice lance at 65, its game over. Spending 600 mana between 4 mages for 8k damage is unmatched. With rotating frost novas you can keep just about any player/mob frost locked while spamming them with crit ice lances to death. On elite mobs for group quests your mana efficient go through the roof. You will run into more quests/mobs that shatter works on then ones that don't. I was able to do any quest in outlands from hellfire all the way to near the end of netherstorm (I hit 70 before doing shadow moon quests).

Either way, I would suggest you experiment. I would go AP/PoM/Pyro for PvE fire (ignore dragons breath) or my arcane/frost (or maybe try full frost, never did try the 4 water elemental thing) for PvE frost. Give them a try and see what you like. I would get dragons breath unless you're ready for a PvP setting.

-S

[Slats]

What works best for PvP?



Frost or Fire?

[Suribusi]

What works best for PvP?



Frost or Fire?On my 2nd crew I'm doing AVs at level 60, and I'm rolling with a full fire spec. This has been the most fun to play in AVs, and is the most powerful multi-target burst damage that a mage can get.

The problem is that "What works best for PvP" for a multiboxing mage crew cannot be defined (in my opinion). Depending on what types of PvP you want to focus on, your spec choice may change with it:
AVs -> Full fire, everything is chaotic. You don't have to worry too much about survivability depending on how you want to play it. Also horde has an additional benefit with small flag rooms in their towers. So the alliance all stand inside the little room, while you just run in and pop Dragons Breath and Blast Wave, if anyone else is standing spam Arcane Explosion.
All BGs -> Arcane/fire (PoM/pyro) or Arcane/Frost, Either of these would be well rounded. I would probably go with arcane/frost
WSG -> Arcane/Frost. It might actually be beneficial here to have 1 mage get Slow (41 point arcane talent) for keeping runners inside your insta-spell range so you can spam them with ice lance/fire blast
World PvP -> Arcane/Frost
Arenas -> ??? I have no experience here. I would guess Arcane/Fire (pom/pyro) so hopefully you can make it a 4v5 fight really quickly.

Of course YMMV with your playstyle and skill. I am very seasoned with a mage/priest setup and I do it rather effectively in World PvP and BGs. I would imagine I would get nothing but raped in the arenas 8o

-S

[Fortis]

Instant Pyroblast FTW!

[Quix]

I personally Mix it up,
Main Arcane Frost with POM > Frostbolt. Traded the pet for POM. I like having the one as frost for the slowing effects. & before they gave all mages Iceblock it was useful to have that on my "Main".

3 alts 40arc/21 Fire through blastwave.

Trinket>AP>POM>Pyroblast = dead somebody.

Timing differences between Frostbolt & Fireball are a non issue IMO as I don't stand around long enough to cast Fireballs anyway.

Instant arcane explosion melts unprepared groups, but is not so effective in arena's against experianced teams. Great for BG's though.

[Suvega]

Ok,

If you are leveling 4 mages (which you are). Go frost

FROST

FROST

FROST



Why? Its way more efficient, cast times are quicker, and things DIE when you have multiple frost mages. Get frostbite and shatter on all 4, and just watch you own things.

Later, 4 water elementals is amazing, shatter combos are sick. Wind up 4 frost bolts, and lay a ranged frost nova right before they go off... thats 4 critting frostbolts...

Lastly when you get higher spec some in to the top of the arcane tree and get imp arcane explosion. That combined with a frost nova rotation, pretty much owns ANYTHING in your path.

If you want more reasons I can explain fully... but for lvling, FROST is by far better then fire.



Endgame? PVP? Either are viable. I'm currently playing pom pyro (duh), but I'm considering frost again.

[kadaan]

Ok,

If you are leveling 4 mages (which you are). Go frost

FROST

FROST

FROST



Why? Its way more efficient, cast times are quicker, and things DIE when you have multiple frost mages. Get frostbite and shatter on all 4, and just watch you own things.

Later, 4 water elementals is amazing, shatter combos are sick. Wind up 4 frost bolts, and lay a ranged frost nova right before they go off... thats 4 critting frostbolts...

Lastly when you get higher spec some in to the top of the arcane tree and get imp arcane explosion. That combined with a frost nova rotation, pretty much owns ANYTHING in your path.

If you want more reasons I can explain fully... but for lvling, FROST is by far better then fire.



Endgame? PVP? Either are viable. I'm currently playing pom pyro (duh), but I'm considering frost again.What he said. 4x frostbite + shatter is insane damage. You can also afford to stack on more "of frost power" gear, as you'll be getting hit far less than you would as fire. People have their personal opinions, and mine is hands-down frost. (My experience with mages is solo only, did fire from 1-40 on a troll mage, frost 1-70 on a human mage.)

For normal non-boxing pvp, frost >>> fire for survivability. For a boxer, I think the 4x burst damage from PoM+Pyro, fire blast, and dragon's breath probably outweight the survivability of frost. Ice barrier/iceblock/elemental's nova/etc would be quite difficult to micromanage for pvp boxing.