Blizzards & criticals

[playingtokrush]

You make this statement but then go on to describe ideal conditions, not perfect but ideal.  Perfect would be the monster standing in place and letting you kill it from range.  Ideal is what you have set up.  Only on the slower approach monsters will you get 3-4 unstuttered casts of frostbolt if the monster is not frozen (approaches are often made without having a freeze proc).  The faster ones, even with reach, will be on you somewhere in the third cast.  At that point you can choose to make the next cast or pause to frost nova at its reach and cast frostbolts again.  If the bad guy does get to you before you frost nova, with the time it takes to back a couple steps so you're out of melee range, it will break in time for it to stutter you at the end of the second cast.  You are now in melee until frost nova cools down so arcane missiles start flying and fireblasts and coc's are popped when available.

Just so you know, the terms "ideal" and "perfect" tend to be synonyms, but that's not particularly important.

The situations I describe are simply average, not ideal.

Initiating combat: With appropriate frost talents, I almost never have a problem getting 3 frostbolts off before a melee mob lands a hit on me. With no crits or freeze procs, I would still be achieving similar damage to arcane missiles spamming.

After frost nova: I use mouselook and strafing to be able to quickly escape to about 15 yards away from the frozen mob. I will end up initiating my next frostbolt cast only 2-4 seconds after the nova went off. Even if the freeze breaks from the first frostbolt, my second frostbolt will fire off uninterrupted before the mob is in melee range.

It is not until this point (at least five frostbolts cast unless frost nova was resisted), that I am forced into melee with the mob. When factoring in that cone of cold, and most especially ice armor, can also proc a freeze, along with the relatively likely connecting of frost nova, it is expected that I would have had about one frostbolt crit. That one crit is enough to push my DPS above that of arcane missiles, being that the baseline DPS of frostbolt is only slightly less than that of arcane missiles.

Describing a situation where the initial frostbolt connects and frost nova is not resisted is hardly "ideal." It's more a description of the expected combat scenario.

It is much easier to achieve ideal fights if you are out hunting random bad guys lower in level.  However, if you are questing, you tend to be fighting monsters close to your level and in busier areas.  Linked pulls often happen.  Adds frequently mess with your fights.  While true of fire and arcane as well, frost seems to be the most reliant on things going right and all talents working in sync.

Of course. Frost talents are built the most around synergy, which is why frost spells aren't worth casting for damage purposes without a heavy investment in the frost tree. I never said that I don't cast arcane missiles with a frost built. I just reserve them solely for when I am forced into melee. As long as I am not taking hits, the sustained DPS of frostbolt is better than arcane missiles.

If some bad resists crop up (on the initial frostbolt or on the frost nova), I'll just have to switch to arcane missiles earlier than usual. The point is that my general frostbolt routine tends to drop things more quickly and effectively/safely than arcane missiles spamming.

Linked pulls for me tend to result in one or zero fewer casts of frostbolt, as I cast a polymorph after the second frostbolt. Sometimes I still have time for another frostbolt afterward; sometimes I don't.

Of course, this all comes from me playing my frost/arcane setup to cap and a lower level fire mage as well as observing other fire and arcane mages.  It could just be that I suck but that's OK because I still have fun playing with my frost mage when I can find good solo content I haven't already done or the rare good group for questing or instances.

I don't know whether or not you suck, but I do find it odd that you have difficulty casting three frostbolts before taking a melee hit. Does your build pick up Winter's Chill?

Maybe your combat positioning or timing just isn't as effective. I definitely think playing a frost build takes more skill than playing a fire build. Frost specialization is much more deserving of a "YMMV" disclaimer than fire.

And no one is disputing that fire mages outdamage frost mages. That's why some form of fire/arcane build tends to be the cookie cutter standard.