Once again at the absolute bottom. Why not delete frost mage?

[Fáz-tarren-mill]

This guy gets it.

[Coldsháde-argent-dawn (Coldsháde)]

@Marmaga-ragnaros

In the end of the day they only difficult thing about fire is to not mess up your burn phase.

You also need how to time the combustion properly depending on encounter design and the rotation outside of it, while not a significant portion of your damage, still needs to be executed properly so that you make the best possible use of kindling. Hunting for execute opportunities with scorch to get more hotstreaks out when you’re not combusting can also be game-changing, particularly so on any form of AoE.

Then there’s also the SKB-pyroclasm build. That’s a whole other layer of complexity and the “you do your burn phase well you do damage, between that you just charge up combust” idea goes right out of the window.

[Postheet-draenor]

Frost just doesn’t scale…

The nerfs in beta killed the spec, plus the raid favored fire (Kael, sludgefist, great combust timings for most bosses).

We usually play frost at the beginning of the xpac.

Frost was decent in this raid when no one was geared, but now…

Mage is in a good play style spot right now, very varied ( venth frost, harmony, SKB fire)and will be even more when you can change covenants at will, but the numbers are abysmal.

[Furra-tarren-mill]

@Fáz-tarren-mill

This guy gets it.

He gets what? He literally admitted that frost is more forgiving. Why in the world is that not easier to play.

[Furra-tarren-mill]

@Lidlmage-outland

@Moistblink-frostmane

@Furra-tarren-mill

frost is the easiest to play followed by fire followed by arcane (when mechanics are spammed on the ground at least).

Fire is easier, even more so when there’s mechanics involved because of the simple fact that fire can deal damage with instant casts+on the move while frost need to hard cast frost bolts.

The frost rotation is simple but so is fire.

I’d say that this is probably somewhat accurate for more advanced players, but for newer players frost is infinitely easier, since the rotation can be summed down to “press shiny button”. Fire on the other hand is incredibly easy to mess up bad, which is why you might see horrendous fire mages when pugging. Frost is a very safe choice in that it’s incredibly difficult to majorly screw up. When it comes down to the fine tuning the specs are similar in “difficulty”.

PS: frost is still performing decently even in mythic raids. I’m not at the bottom of the meters despite what the statistics might suggest. On pure single target you’ll obviously lose to stuff like rogues though, my 95 mythic guardian parse was beaten by a green rogue parse.

Arcane is similarly dangerous to mess up. If you have arcane power and potion and bloodlust and you fail to complete that burn: you ruined the entire log with a probably of 99% (you might pull it off in the 15minute sylvanas only).

This is especially easy to see on bosses of 5mans; they last for ~3 minutes so failing the first big burn: ruin; frost is just a baby spec compared to that; fire has big cds but it’s probably still better at movement.

[Condoriano-antonidas]

isnt that obvious ? arcane is a hardcaster. get a mechanic at the wrong time and your damage is done.