Can frost mages do PvE and raids?Follow

Not at all. I was frost mage up until a few weeks ago. Did all of Kara and Gruuls as frost and did very well on the dmg meter. If you want to progress to the t5/t6 instances you may want to eventually switch to fire, the damage output is significantly higher in my experience.

But to the original question frost mages to fine in PVE and raids, but not as much damage as fire mages.

Frost mages can do some sic damage too, the primary reason they do so well in Raids is fire stacks much better, say you have two fire mages, throwing up scorch and then spamming fire, the damage is exponentially increased. Most everyone already said everything; however, a quick note, I begin stacking +frost damage in my 50s in lieu of intel, then outlands offered +dmg to all spells as well as stam/intel crit rating etc. After a few levels my spell dmg and spell crit were pretty insane, compared to pre outlands, so on the PTR for patch 2.4, I had to see fire, as I was fire til 50 and LOVED it, usually two shot sometimes 3 before they hit me. I didnt realize how much I missed my elemental and how much I missed slowing everything around me down. On top of that, my winter chill, frostbite, frost nova shatter crits, even without shatter crits as my crit rating is getting over 20% so I crit VERY often, the FB crits go about 2300 (at around level 64 or so) give or take, when I tried fire with the same +dmg and +crit it was just a tad higher and didnt offer all of the nice features of frost. Add in Ice lance where it does triple damage to a frozen target, well...

My method is a double shot method when they are frozen, as you finish casting FB do a fireblast, almost like doing two shots at once and youll see a bunch of big numbers explode before your eyes :)

I actually like and recommend leveling fire, then switching early 50s (WE FTW)and continuing on to 70. For me, once I craft most of my T5 gear, I will prob respec fire, but the control of elites, in dungeons, and solo play, plus the pure damage that frost is actually capable of, its def PVE and raid viable. And if you like PVP, well thats open to you as well.

Isn't this about raiding? I mean, it doesn't really matter what spec you are outside of situations where you need to perform at your best (IE: arena and raids).

I'll give you a short answer because I'm too lazy to type a full explanation:
Yes, but fire is (most likely) going to be better.

PVE: I guess you are saying 5 mans and leveling through quests and grinding - Frost is the most common spec. I was fire to mid 50s because as a beginner, I saw fire as doing more damage. Honestly - the abilities in frost allow the best solo game play. They are also very viable for 5 man PVE. Dropping the Water Ele. prior to a boss fight, combined with Icy Veins, and the mana efficiency - very good.

Could you do more DPS with fire or arcane - yeah, probably, but both of those specs are not as great in solo play. They are not bad (I took fire into the 50s)... Next, I would say that I consider 5 mans and other instances - 2 - 3 runs.... So --- Level for a while, need new gear, run BRD 2 to 3 times, get the quests, move on... So spec'ing fire or arcane for the few/far between doesn't seem so great --- this is me looking back at things.

Note - last night i was out DPS by a full arcane mage in RAMPS. He beat me by 40%. I was spaming - just couldn't touch the DPS. Then again - he went OOM a lot more.

As far as raids - I've heard it done, but never did it...


Edited, Feb 25th 2008 1:56pm by Borsuk