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Warcraft Logs tracks overall raid statistics for damage dealers, based on the highest performing logs in
Manaforge Omega. Position in this chart is based on average spec performance for each encounter with a large enough sample size. How each spec is graded depends on the specifics of what Warcraft Logs determines is eligible damage. In recent weeks Fire Mage has trending upwards. Since Mage has an essential raid buff (
Arcane Intellect), the performance of Fire is tied mostly to how it performs vs the dominant Mage spec (Arcane). Lets take a moment to discuss some the reasons why:
First off, the raid is easier and faster than ever. As guilds enter farm, the requirements to play completely optimally to secure a good rank are lessened. Trying out a spec that might not be completely optimal is normal as weeks go on, and sometimes the difference between spec performance is less than the meta makes it out to be. To add to this, we have also seen recent nerfs to Arcane. Passive damage increases via the Turbo boost item-level increase, percentage damage increases with
Manaforge Vandals renown levels, and changes to "push times" that guilds shoot for also factor in.
When you are no longer holding damage to hit certain encounter transitions (
Dimensius Phase 1 and 2,
Forgeweaver Araz damage amps), some of the the timings that Arcane enjoyed are less optimal. Warcraft Logs eligible damage is also a factor. Some of these adds that are excluded are targets that Arcane does collateral damage to while funneling damage onto the priority target. Typically Arcane does a lot of damage to adds like this. One example is the
Shielded Attendant on Forgeweaver Araz.
Fire was already dominant on The Soul Hunters week one. On encounters like Plexus Sentinel and Loom'ithar it was close, but these changes have pushed it ahead of Arcane. Arcane is still dominant on Dimensius and Nexus-King Salhadaar due to encounter design and very strong overall. It is unlikely that Arcane is dethroned without nerfs, but it will have to share some of the spotlight with Fire now.
Khazakdk
Frost is riding high in the Manaforge Omega rankings thanks to two things: good tuning and easy execution. Frost is no exception to the rule that freshly reworked specs get favorable tuning. One of Blizzard's goals with the rework was to enable better ways to tune Frost independently for different target counts. Frost's previous design had no distinction between single-target and AoE abilities, leaving Frost unable to bring compelling single-target without its AoE profile being completely busted. Blizzard fixed the issue by removing cleave effects from
Obliterate, and then buffed it to the moon (landing at ~40% stronger than in 11.1). Frost is now tuned to do strong single-target damage, while retaining many of its passive cleave effects with
Remorseless Winter. With some help from good tuning, Frost easily excels in raid content.
Frost players are living in the future, playing a spec already adapted to the class design that will come with Midnight. Active abilities were pruned, and buff tracking was pulled back to make the spec more intuitive to pick up and play. The simpler design focuses on a few key rotational abilities and pressing cooldowns as often as possible rather than forcing players to solve how the cooldowns need to align with the fight. The smooth execution makes it easier to play the spec to its full potential, propelling Frost to a nice spot in the rankings.
