Spec viablity for Tomb (new mage)

[Insonia 1]

Hey so as the title suggests I'm looking for a bit of information on the state of the specs for tomb as I have been asked to reroll to fill in some of the empty ranged spaces we have now found ourselves with in our mythic team and I'm curious as to which is going to be the overall "stronger" spec I know that is completely subjective 
but a general guide line as I am presently working on my frost weapon but I feel as though I should be working mainly on my arcane one due to changes that are coming but both of the specs are being "buffed" and fire seems to be trailing behind still 
I was just hoping someone with more experience as mage could run me through this so I can better decide for myself what I am going to do :)

[Rann 0]

I don't raid Mythic, but I main Frost Mage. My personal opinion is that if you're new to the class, Frost is generally more forgiving and gives you the shorter learning curve for getting up to the DPS levels your teammates will need. As you pointed out, the "stronger" spec is subjective and frankly, just depends on the player.

 

One thing that has helped my DPS immensely as Frost (haven't seen this in guides, but definitely noticed it occurring) is casting Ice Lance immediately after a Brain Freeze Flurry, even if you have no Fingers of Frost procs. For some reason, immediately after a Brain Freeze Flurry, Ice Lance will usually crit even without FoF procs. 

 

Other thing to note that isn't on guides or tooltips: if an enemy (boss or add, any NPC) targets you and you need to get away or mage-tank for a bit, Mirror Image becomes situationally useful there. NPCs will always target the mirror images over you, regardless of threat. This, combined with Ice Barrier, Shimmer, and the Legendary Robe effect, often gives me a way to buy time and lite tank for a little bit if things go sideways. 

 

One last thing that's not in the tooltips: Glacial Spike cleaves. :)

 

Hope this helps.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Rann

[rent52 0]

6 hours ago, Rann said:

One thing that has helped my DPS immensely as Frost (haven't seen this in guides, but definitely noticed it occurring) is casting Ice Lance immediately after a Brain Freeze Flurry, even if you have no Fingers of Frost procs. For some reason, immediately after a Brain Freeze Flurry, Ice Lance will usually crit even without FoF procs. 

Actually this is in basically every guide throughout the internet, including in the guide here, as it says:

Quote

Cast  Frostbolt and immediately  Flurry if  Brain Freeze is active.

• Cast  Ice Lance immediately after  Flurry.
• You should dump your  Fingers of Frost procs before casting  Flurry, as  Ice Lance does not need  Fingers of Frost to benefit from Winter's Chill.

But answering OP's question, it all depends on your playstyle... but speaking of numbers it will probably be between frost and arcane, just try to see what you feel more comfortable with.

[Eniram 0]

13 hours ago, Rann said:

One thing that has helped my DPS immensely as Frost (haven't seen this in guides, but definitely noticed it occurring) is casting Ice Lance immediately after a Brain Freeze Flurry, even if you have no Fingers of Frost procs. For some reason, immediately after a Brain Freeze Flurry, Ice Lance will usually crit even without FoF procs.

The Brain freeze proc applies winters chill to the target when you cast flurry, that makes it so the target is "Frozen" for the 2 second window or whatever it is haha. I had to read the Brain Freeze and noticed that after playing frost for a little bit. I would suggest sticking to frost, seems to be pulling good numbers for each fight as far as I know. Fire has it's fights and arcane seems to be the spec for kj lol

[Vayra 12]

Pro tip: don't look at top DPS parse lists because they don't tell you shit about individual quality AND how well a spec fits you. The better it fits, the more DPS you will push with it in the end.

Big data never applies to the individual - this is a big lesson people apparently need to learn.