Why did you pick yours, and what are the pros and cons of each? All three are DPS, so they’re comparable.
1 Like
Because of lore, aesthetics, and entertainment I play an Arcane mage.
Thus it is pretty hard, hard in terms of the acceptance by the comnunity. I like it a lot, at the end it is not about numbers on dps meters, but about how much entertained you are.
Once you are entertained, you can do decent dps.
7 Likes
Should probably put this in the mage section of the forum, but anyway for me
-
Frost = fun + easy
-
Fire = alot of damage with crazy burst and uncapped AOE
-
Arcane = never interested me but very flashy
I picked fire because I fell into the meta trap 
(My opinion)
You can switch and play all if you want, if your pretty casual. I like all specs in different content. But i say Arcane is my favourite!
2 Likes
I played in a WoTLK private server back then, levelling my first mage / char and I reached around level 60, when I watched a YT vid where an arcane mage 1-shotted everyone on a WSG. (Music during the vid was “Dope-I’m back”, I even remember that as well). I loved how flashy it was, the arcane barrage looked cool hitting really hard, etc… So I tried it and found it way worse for levelling than frost, but anyway somehow I got attached to the spec… 10 yrs passed, still playing it
3 Likes
I chose Arcane because I like the spec fantasy and the way of playing it. I don’t care if it’s unpopular (I play Kul Tiran so…).
3 Likes
Kul Tiran Mage. Thats very rare and i like it!
2 Likes
Elemental mages are a lame concept, especially the single element type we have as 2/3 specs.
Frost kind of makes it more interesting with the pet, but not by much.
Fire is lame as can be.
Arcane mages is where the true wizardry lies.
3 Likes
Fire and arcane mage go BRRRRRRRRRRRR
I picked Arcane because it’s the only one that has this classic sorcerer/wizard vibe. I don’t want to be elemental mage, I want to use pure magical energy. I also think it’s the most unique and fun to play spec and I like playing underrepresented classes.
1 Like
Always been Frost (apart from some odd tries).
Pros: Control, overall very reliable (not too spiky) damage and I like the frost theme/style.
Cons: Can get boring quickly and currently too reliant on procs to do decent damage while FB tickles the target (apart from the Ice Form PvP build).
Fire I never liked. Esp not the latest iterations where all your potential is put into one CD window.
Arcane, well, it has its charms. But it’s too much of an Arcane Blast machine. But arguably it’s the magest mage-spec.
Me playing all 3 specs across different alts: “Yes, I did”.
I went frost for the survivability but ended up enjoying it so much I just stayed Frost… never even tried Fire or Arcane 
1 Like
TL;DR My all time favorite is Arcane, I think it’s often the underdog.
If I played Mage today I’d go Fire because the game is revolving around M+ and Fire fits more naturally into M+ than Frost or Arcane.
Originally I went Fire because who doesn’t want to burn their enemies to death. But as a new player the old combustion + ignite mechanic was too much for me to want to do.
Then I went Frost for the entirety of MoP up until HFC came out, because it was a strong PVP spec and I loved my water elemental. Shattering people in a Deep Freeze (rip) was incredibly satisfying.
Frost has always been the PVP spec for me, lately Fire has the numbers but I still see Frost as PVP orientated.
Arcane in 6.2 because HFC had an insane trinket.
7.0 I went Fire like literally every other Mage (I have screen shots of the Mage class hall filled to the brim with those fire orbs)
7.1+ I went back to Arcane because I did a ton of damage and didn’t want to be another Fire mage, I felt like Arcane was very strong but over shadowed in Legion.
8.0 I put my Mage to rest.
I would like to play arcane because of lore however I play frost because it is easy and super effective.
And this is my mage who should be arcane but I don’t like letting people down who invite me into groups.
Love the name
Originally, when I first thought of trying out mage was during WOTLK time I wanted to be Frost, the spec that wasn’t really viable due to no way to proc the shatter mechanic. Arcane I did not want to try because at that time it was a two button spec, and it sounded too dull for me. In the end I did not roll one because I was a main tank so there was no replacement for my spot, and neither of the mage options appealed to me on either Horde or Alliance side.
I ended up rolling fire in the last tier of BFA because out of all the three Fire looked flashy and who doesn’t like making crispies of their enemies. Vulpera was introduced about the same time, a perfect timing to get on the “firefox” meme train.
I like fire because its burst is more compact, and the most important play you need to learn is to manage your combustion well. It also helped me learn caster gameplay a bit easier since this character was my first proper transition from melee to ranged. Of course this leaves at 1-1:30 minutes between combustions incredibly dull, but that I can thankfully complement by doing raid mechanics.
Frost I also like visually, but I do not like its RNG dependency. Arcane is the one I like the least because compared to the other two I find it visually bland.
My personal favorite is Frost due to its soloing ability ever since Vanilla (looking at the AoE grinders there), and you do not have to track mana like Arcane, nor you are gear-reliant like a Fire mage. Damage is acceptable, rotation is simple for ST and 2 target cleave (basically Icyveins on CD, spend procs, fill with frostbolt), and AoE too with the Glacial fragments becomes king for M+. Tank is quite thankful for the full-uptime slows, as no one needs to manually slow on Necro/Bolster/Spiteful.
Only thing I don’t like is that I cannot quickly replace Blizzard to someplace else if enemies move out, so constant kiting is very bad for AoE unless I get external roots like a Binding shot.
TL;DR: Frost is easy to learn and play, has strong slows, doesn’t like kiting 24/7 in keys, very fun, has good dmg.
1 Like
I play frost because it had Blizzard spell so when I started the game I thought it would be OP.
During my first mage leveling in cata I killed two alliances at once one of them was dk and other was druid.
I picked Fire, because once I started hitting keys 10+ people didn’t want to group with Frost.