Hesitating on the switch from Frost to Fire..help pwease?Follow

I've been Frost since around the mid-40s, when I was having trouble as Fire to the point of quitting, and decided to switch. Loved, and still love it. Well, i've hit 70, have my Spellfire set made, just got my Gladiator's War Staff (Our BGs have been going terrible lately..so hard to get the honor now), and now i'm hesitant to switch Fire again for raiding.
Problem is, i'm afraid i'm so used to Frost that i'll suck at Fire... Our guild just got enough 70s to start Kara raiding up, and every time i've gone, i've been #1 on Damage Meters (even though I seem to die like every 10 minutes lol, but that was from acting stupid most of the time, lol >_<). I think I heard that when I get two pieces of T5, Arcane is supposed to be best, and T6 is Fire. What SHOULD I be atm, though? I was thinking I should go fire and all, since it has been said as best for raiding, and that's why I made the Spellfire set; however, I didn't like what I saw stat-wise when I put it on (I put it on 'cause I had been working forever making it..and wanted to see how it was..all the time I put into it y'know..).
Here's what I saw:

Stats With My Old Gear:
Health: 7668
Mana: 8246
Stamina: 443
Intellect: 419
Spirit: 168
Armor: 1112
Spell Damage: 679(to all schools)
Spell Hit: 41
Spell Penetration: 15
Spell Crit %: 14.57%
Haste: 0
MP5: 11

Stats With Spellfire:
Health: 6703
Mana: 7811
Stamina: 349
Intellect: 390
Spirit: 156
Armor: 1161
Spell Damage: 821(To Fire and Arcane)
Spell Hit: 48
Spell Penetration: 15
Spell Crit %: 16.70%
Haste: 0
MP5: 0

Differences Between Stats(From Old to New Gear):
My Health drops by 965 points.
My Mana drops by 435 points.
My Stamina drops by 94 points.
My intellect drops by 29 points.
My Spirit drops by 12 points.
My Armor increases by 49 points.
My Spell Damage increases (for Fire and Arcane) by 142 points.
My Spell Hit increases by 7 points.
My Spell Penetration doesn't change.
My Spell Crit % increases by 2.13%
My Spell Haste doesn't change.
My MP5 drops by 11.

(All of that's unbuffed)(You can see I didn't really try for much MP5, penetration, spirit; I don't think I need the MP5 & Spirit unless I was maybe Arcane, and penetration..dunno lol)(Side note: All 6 of the gem slots on my spellfire set have the Veiled Noble Topaz[+4 Spell Hit & +5 Spell Damage]. The reason I did that is bcause I didn't think the slot bonus was that important, and knew I needed SH and SD, so since this particular gem gave both, I thought it'd be ok to put it in all 6..bad move? Dunno..just thought that'd be nice to mention, might help you help me.)

The above stats are without respecing, but I don't think that affects it that much anyway. What really discourages me the most is seeing my health and mana drop by THAT MUCH...and seeing so many Mages running around with 10k+ Mana and probably around 8k+ health..(Overgeared compared to me probably, but still...) just makes me feel like I'm not good enough or something..which makes me constantly trying to get better stuff, not feeling like i've done good enough yet...I didn't believe people when they told me that at 70, it's like a whole other game to get geared for everything. I've spent a while trying to get better stuff, and I just keep meeting Mages with way better gear than mine...
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Undermine&n=Teremitus
That's the URL for my armory profile I think..hoping that can help decided what I should do.

Let's see...in case it might have been hard to find what all I was asking in all that text (lol), here are my questions:

1) With all the stats I lose from putting on the Spellfire set, SHOULD I go Fire and use it (10/48/3, or 2/48/11?)? It really seems to hurt me more than help..Spell dmg and crit don't go up by TOO much and I lose ALOT of other stats (with what I heard about Spellfire being so awesome and all, I was expecting like HUGE (good) changes from my old gear, but...then I tried it on and...lol). However, if you do think I should use it, I plan to enchant everything (which brings me to Question #2 in a sec).
Having my gear epiced-out is a goal i'd like to meet, and upon meeting that, I can feel like I'm able to take some time away from it (my Mage), and play an alt maybe, knowing that if I randomly get invited to raid or want to raid, I can (if you understand what I mean).

2) What should I enchant my gear with(Wasn't in the text above, but a question I need to ask anyway), or like, can you list some REALLY AWESOME enchants every Mage should have? I want, and plan to have, all my epics enchanted (spellfire and others), so that would be great advice to have :).

3) How's my gear and all? Anything fairly easily dropped in some instance that blows some piece of gear I have away? If so, I'd love to know it. I plan to start running Heroics regularly and get some of the badge vendor stuff...

4) Like I said, havn't been Fire since mid-40s. I don't know what the best attack rotations are, when the best time to use trinkets is, when it's ok to use pyroblast, and so on. It'd be cool if someone could tell me or link me to somewhere that can.

5) If you think I should stay Frost for some reason, can you tell me at which point I should switch or something? And what will I do with all the time and money I wasted on the Spellfire set?!?!? Vendor it!?!? *cries*

Alright, thank you for taking the time to read all this!! By now, your eyes must be hurting from squinting at the text, sorry!! :(
Thanks for any advice you can give me, appreciate it all!

At Kara level frost and fire actually arent too far apart but if you have the spellfire set made and not the frozenweave then fire should probably at least be given a try. 150+ spell damage is a big jump, but the main problem i see with both specs is hit rating. Therefore gemming should be veiled noble topaz, great dawnstone, and glowing nightseye(when you need a blue socket) until hit capped.
If you have the gold for it also make the spellstrike set. It will last a very long time and gives a lot of hit rating also. The health with spellfire set is normal, as a t5 geared mage (with a few t6 instance nonset pieces) I only have in the mid 700s.The 41 badge trinket would be a huge upgrade, and most of the rest of the pieces would come in kara. Even though spellfire is going drop most of your stats it is going to greatly increase one of the most important stats which is spell damage. As a pve gear set for now dont worry about the armor, resilience and spell penetration stats at all until t6 dungeons for supremus. As for the crit when you spec into fire you will pick up about 9percent more crit on fire spells.
Another option you might consider is going to an arcane fire spec until you get more spell damage but you are near the change point now with spellfire on so that would be a personal choice on your part.

enchants if the gear is worth putting in on...
Gloves, spell hit or spell damage
Bracer, spell damage
weapon, +40 damage until you get one worth sunfire/soulfrost
chest, few options but i use +6 stats
cloak, sublety or spell penetration because blizzard wont give casters anything
better for cloak
boots, boars speed, stam, or vitality
head and shoulders come from rep vendors, legs thread comes from scryer tailor

badge gear would all be upgrades, and if you can get enough badges some of the new badge gear will make up some hit rating too.

rotation for fire is stack to 5 scorches and bang your head 6-7 times on fireball then refresh scorch, make sure it doesnt drop off but dont refresh too early or its a dps loss.

If you have spellfire now would be a good time to change since fire gear is much better than frost gear, although at kara either is viable. Your health should be fine in kara, not too much aoe damage there and take your pvp gear if needed to stack some stam on fights like aran.

You will also notice as you play that the more spell damage you get the more fire will pull ahead of frost, as it should scale much better.

Sorry so long tried to answer all the questions best i could, hope it helps=)


Edited, May 19th 2008 11:38pm by Toxicityoh

Cool, thanks for the replies! ^_^ And this late at night too! (12:47 AM here atm lol)

*sigh* Wish I had started making the spellcloth for spellstrike a while ago, could have had it by now >_< oh well..I guess I'll try for that then, even though I have that Gladiator's Helm (Hate buying something, especially epics, and then replacing them so soon :( but since y'all say it's that good, I guess I'll go for it :P *groans when thinks of the mat farming*)

Alright, all 3 of ya have suggests 40/21/0 (or a 3 put in frost), what's the exact build for that? Like a link to the build or somethin'. I had thought about Arcane Fire, but I thought that'd be mana inefficient, or maybe I'm confusing that with the arcane build that spams AB and AM or something..dunno lol. Sounds nice, I'll give that a go when I get the Spellstrike set :P.

Thanks for the spell rotations too, so I REALLY don't ever use Pyro?? Should I even get it? If I won't use it, would the point be spent better else? Or would I have it for a PoM Pyro(if the 40/21 includes PoM)?

Thanks for the enchant advise as well, that helps a lot too!

@Toxicityoh, nah, your post wasn't too long; I was worried people might see the length of the original post and go OMG NOT READING ALL THAT!!!

Thanks again to those who posted :)




Edited, May 20th 2008 12:55am by IXInfinity

kk, ty Poldaran :) and again to the rest of ya that posted :P

It is around 800ish spell damage without the arcane mind talent that you should start thinking about switching, as that is when the +dmg scale on fireball with empowered and improved will start to shine a little. What the 10/48/3 or 2/47/11+1 also does is give the 3 elemental precisions which drops hit cap from 202 to 164.
If the mana pool is a concern try 10/47/3+1 for now as it is much more mana efficient than icy veins, one gives freecast, the other gives a usable haste which uses even more mana. Other than that with the improved mana gems and some pots you shouldnt have a problem with the mana pool.

Even at 800 spelldmg to fire school, you probably will not feel the love from 10/48/3 as much till the 900s start to kick in. There is a reason for this too, crit rate. See if you squeeze 800 spell dmg then you would probably end up with around 17-18% crit (without molten armor, and I like mage armor though most mages in my guild dun). Count in incineration and other fire talents give or take +4-5% on fire crit. Fireball spamming is a different art, you want your spells to crit HARD, you want them to chain crit, you want ignite to tick and you smile when you see it tick for 1500 fire damage. As you upgrade your gear, you will realise a need to balance out your gemming so that you lose some damage but gain a couple % of crit which is way more dps than damage alone. conversion of crit for fire is around 1% crit = +1% dps.

Critical hits is what stirs the mojo of fire mages, without it a fire mage does lacklustre damage as your DPS is slow compared to frosties and arcane mages. Frost will not need as much crit rate (I once swapped to 10/0/51 with all my fire gear swapping out the spellfire set, which I have replaced and once winter chill stacks up the crits just keep coming I nearly pull aggro) as they want big hits and not spikes.

good luck have fun setting things on fire. I like to ask my GM sometimes, "crispy or extra crispy?" He normally says "Ashes"

Cancerous is right in that you wont really feel the burn at 800, that is just the point at which it pulls even and starts to pass arcane spec. Fire talents will put just about 9 points to crit though for fire. so if you have 18%, +9 in fire talents =27, + molten fury=30% crit to fire. I personally use molten armor, in fire the crit is much bigger, mage armor is for mana regen and that should not be a problem, if it is go 10/48/3 instead of 2/48/11.
Fire scales better so the higher you do go with +dmg it is going too get much better. Personally i run 2/48/11 with 1145 unbuffed +dmg and 9% haste. Had a little more spell dmg but dropped back about 35 dmg on base to pick up t5 4pc bonus. The haste wont do you as much good as +dmg though until you are over 1000 at least.

Yep, I think that'll help out when I come to that point robertlofthouse :). Just started working on making the spellcloth now, farming mats, farming rep, doin' more dailies for money (incase I feel too lazy to farm on a particular day that my cloth CDs were up, and the Mights and Nethers I'm going to need to buy too probably), and running instances a bit more for rep (to get stuff like the Sha'tar glyph y'all mentioned) and badges.

Oh, kk, thanks! I just wasn't sure if that was much of a buff or not..compared to some of the stuff I lose. And I'll keep the ghost hit thing in mind :)

Thank y'all for the help again, appreciate it :P