Blizzards & criticals

[playingtokrush]

Under what conditions and build?  There are parts of the arcane tree that I consider essential to any mage.  Uninterruptible arcane missiles, instant cast arcane explosion, clearcasting and evocation are must haves.  One on one, under ideal conditions, frostbolt can do better than arcane missiles.  Ideal conditions are freeze and crit on each cast.  As someone once said, things go wrong.  When the baddie gets in your face, uninterrupted arcane missiles do more dps than a stuttered frostbolt cast or cone of cold with its cooldown.  For aoe, improved arcane explosion does better than blizzard due to the fact that blizzard does not crit.  In real Azeroth use, I just don't see frost doing more dps.  I still love playing my frost mage, if for no other reason than a preference for the visual and sound effects of the spells.  :)
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Ideal conditions are not required for Frostbolt to outclass Arcane Missiles. With Improved Frostbolt alone, the DPS of Frostbolt is only marginally lower than Arcane Missiles (about 186 vs 192), when you factor in the other frost talents (6% extra frost damage is typical, 200% damage critical strikes instead of 100%, frequent critical strikes on targets after a Frost Nova), the sustained DPS of Frostbolt spamming on non-melee range targets exceeds that of Arcane Missiles (the damage of which can only be pumped by Arcane Instability, and somewhat indirectly by Arcane Focus).

I don't think any frost mage is going to be without Improved Arcane Missiles for when melee is the only option. However, as long as a frost mage isn't taking damage, frostbolt spamming will ensure greater damage over time. A good mage is almost guaranteed three Frostbolts on a target before it gets to melee range as long as the first one isn't resisted (four is possible in some situations with Arctic Reach). At that point he can fire blast and/or cone of cold, followed by a frost nova, back away, and get at least two more frost bolt casts before being forced into unavoidable melee. If the mob still has a significant amount of life, now would be the time for the mage's first Arcane Missiles.

Granted, fighting with Frostbolt over Arcane Missiles relies on procs, and will thus be prone to an occasional unlucky battle with no crits, on the whole Frostbolt will end things more quickly and/or with less health lost. Fighting with high latency would also lend more to casting Arcane Missiles instead of Frostbolt, since it requires fewer recasts, but hopefully that situation isn't a consideration for the player.