Although generally true, Frost is not as defensive as one might think any more. True, it used to be defensive in the beta, all the way up to their first overhaul, but now a frost make can deal out sick crits, and is probably one of the best farming classes out there (a mage can kill 5-10 non-elite mobs at a time as long as they can be frozen using blizzard and frost nova). I played a fire mage to level 49. Throwing out sick ammounts of damage is their game, plain and simple. Arcane is the utility class, it has all kinds of niffty tricks. Most mages spec partially arcane, so the most common classes are Frost/arcane, Fire/Arcane, Arcane/fire (pyroblast+pom). Rarely will you see the Fire/Froswt combo, simply because it doesn't combine as well.
In my opinion, Frost is better for grinding multiple targets at once. Fire is single-target obliteration. Most standard mobs of your own level won't even be able to walk over to you to land a hit before they're dead using a fire mage. Frost can level faster due to grinding 5-10 mobs at once as soon as they have improved blizzard.
from the PVP perspective, fire is not as good, partially due to resist, but mainly due to fireball being a quite slow spell. Most mages I see in pvp use a lot of arcane and stick to the instant cast spells while running/blinking, etc).
It may also be worthy to note that 1.11 will be the Major Mage overhaul patch, so who knows what the future will bring?
Edit: regarding hunters: they are the top ranged DPS class along with mages. Melee hunters are just plain silly or just suicidal.
In my opinion, Frost is better for grinding multiple targets at once. Fire is single-target obliteration. Most standard mobs of your own level won't even be able to walk over to you to land a hit before they're dead using a fire mage. Frost can level faster due to grinding 5-10 mobs at once as soon as they have improved blizzard.
from the PVP perspective, fire is not as good, partially due to resist, but mainly due to fireball being a quite slow spell. Most mages I see in pvp use a lot of arcane and stick to the instant cast spells while running/blinking, etc).
It may also be worthy to note that 1.11 will be the Major Mage overhaul patch, so who knows what the future will bring?
Edit: regarding hunters: they are the top ranged DPS class along with mages. Melee hunters are just plain silly or just suicidal.
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When in deadly danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
When in deadly danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.