Hello there!
So here’s the case: I changed my main to mage a month ago, because the gameplay i experienced was like never before with any other class and it can teleport to anywhere.
I started 120 with gearing as frost but i always wanted to play fire as well, so i changed to it. Been gearing as fire and the dps was getting much better but it’s so gear dependent and takes lots of time to get everything for fire.
So now playing frost and i like it so much bc of the aoe it provides but i’m thinking if it’s worth gearing as fire for more dps, or frost is good enough with the proper gear as well.
(I like both playstyles)
Right at the moment its fire all the way if you want to be optimal.
Frost is not that great at raids at the moment. Fire is one of the best specs for raids, and better than frost for mythic+ as well. But as you’ve discovered, fire is a little gear dependent, and it can be worth playing as frost while gearing. Frost is also easier to understand and to play.
In the end, you’d always want to go with fire. Summa summarum, frost is easier to play and to gear, but fire is one of the best dps specs in the game when played correctly with the right gear, and at that point frost doesn’t even compare. Although frost is better in pvp.
I actually think that fire mages are terrible in uncoordinated pug m+
Speaking from experience with all the bad fire mages that pull negative dps
I guess fire pulls largely away in big pulls around their combust cd which usually doesn’t happen in pugs
Frost pulls very good numbers in m+ and is very consistent and not cd reliant at all.
Raid, no idea
Damage aside, frost slows everything significantly without even trying to, which is very welcome whenever I want to kite in M+.
Thanks for sharing your opinions!
What do you think would take less time, if i started a new one and start gearing as mage from the beginning, or just do keys with m±s while loot spec is on fire? 
PS: This is my armory link to make it easier.
I think this is just the fact that it’s not easy to play fire mage on a decent level, especially in m+. Good fire mages should still pull big numbers in an uncoordinated pug group. The ones not doing that well in random pugs wouldn’t do amazing in a coordinated environment either.
To the OP: doesn’t matter what your loot spec is. All mage specs get the same gear. You want to focus on getting good trinkets, the mechagon wrists, and blaster master azerite gear. Also masterful corruptions, but those are hard to come by. The best trinket combo currently is azsharas font of power which is hard to come by and a pvp trinket, so I’m not sure how you’d go about obtaining those. I think there still are some decent alternatives.
What do you mean by decent alternatives exactly if i may ask?
You can use this as reference: https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#mage_fire. Just be sure that you don’t get two on-use trinkets unless it’s both font and dread gladiator’s badge.
Remember that that is just a rough sim of what is the best. If you want real results for you specifically, use raidbots.com to sim your gear. That being said, bloodmallet is good enough for you to get an idea about what trinkets you should focus on getting.
Oh, i thought you meant other specs or classes as alternatives… 
Thanks for the advices!
Mhm, well, you can have orange logs, but if the tank neglects to pull some packs extra when Combustion is ready - you won’t utilize the power that Fire has. So ofc it matters how coordinated your group is.
In that way Frost is much safer. Lower peaks but less dependant on specific pulls.
Every dungeon has naturally big pulls. Fire only really loses damage if the group has too much damage (meaning people are over gearing it). As long as there is a need for damage inside the dungeon, fire will do great PROVIDED the mage knows the pulls and correct combustion usage.
I think fire gets a bad rep in “uncoordinated” dungeons only because people are just bad at fire. Especially if you get a random fire mage pug, the quality will wary greatly. And most of the people you’re getting are not that great.
That’s the thing though, when you’re in a pug you can never be sure whether next pull is going to be big or not, and because you want to be using font of power as fire, you often have to just pop it and hope next pull is going to be big. If it’s not, you either have to combust on a small pack, or if you save it, you’re not going to have font for your next combust, neither of which is good for you.
You can very easily identify the route the tank is taking. If they’re being unpredictable, there must still be packs that you will kill. That’s all the information you need. Yes, it’s not easy, so that’s why fire mages struggle. But it’s not the specs fault. That’s my point.
They could also reduce the problem greatly by playing minute mage/Kindling build, which as the name implies allows you to Combust about every minute instead of every two minutes, meaning you’ll have Combust for nearly every single pull.
No, it’s not. For fire to be effective, the tank has to be pulling with combustion in mind, meaning several packs when it’s up, which is not something you will typically get in pugs, regardless of whether you know the route or not.
Not nearly as effective in m+ since kindling requires you to fireball more than you typically do in m+ for things to line up properly, and even with this build, every second combust is much stronger since that’s the one you get to line up with trinkets and bracers, meaning the pulls would still have to accomodate for that, even if you manage to consistently combust every minute.
What you’re looking for is the word “optimal” not “effective”. Or would you argue that doing over 80k dps as fire in random pug groups can be called ineffective? It’s not an optimal situation, but you can make the best of it. I don’t know what else to tell you.
You can do that, sometimes. Thing is though, it varies A LOT depending on the pulls. You could end up doing 55k dps, or you could end up doing 100k dps, in the same instance, purely depending on the pulls.
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