This isn’t a problem specific to mages. As new patches hit, abilities, damage and specs are tweaked. Gear scales, and different encounters favour different classes or types of damage or roles. Shadow priest DPS is the new hotness. Shadowpriest DPS is too low. Mages are too low, buff mages (yes, always!) And it’s true – the game isn’t always perfectly balanced. We have so many tools to track this in-game and out-of-game. Damage meters let us know where we are. Things like Spec Score analyze all available World of Logs parses, and they can paint a grim picture. But there’s also a story they aren’t telling.
Imagine this.
1. Joe plays a mage! He enjoys playing his mage. He hits 85 and runs dungeons as a frost mage to get some gear from heroics and have fun. Joe’s friends tell him that Frost is “no good,” and he should spec Fire or Arcane instead. Joe takes his friends’ advice and becomes an Arcane mage. He begins to raid with his friends and does well! Everyone tells him, “See, we told you, frost mages are no good.”(He had really poor gear when he first started out anyway, so who is to say how he would have done as a frost mage in 5-mans?)
2. Joe plays a mage! He leveled up as Frost and he really enjoys it, but when he wants to get into raiding he starts reading some different sources. Elitist Jerks and all mage sources he can find say that Arcane is the top spec, so reluctantly he gives up on Frost. After all, Frost mages don’t even appear on the list of ranked DPS specs! Joe wants to do well.
The problem with both of these scenarios is that they keep Frost mages out of the pool of Mage specs being considered for evaluation at all. It’s not even a question of “Is Frost good relative to the other specs,” or “Is Frost viable?” because all of the info is peer pressure, hearsay, or purely anecdotal. Fewer (or no) raiding frost mages lowers the sample size. Let’s say in a fictional world, there are one hundred mages. 90 of the mages play Arcane, 9 play Fire, and only one plays Frost. The “highest ranked” DPS spec is always going to be the Arcane mages, simply because there’s a greater chance that more skilled players will be playing Arcane. The lone Frost mage could be an average player, or he could be awesome, but his representation is so low that nobody even considers him. (I’m ignoring the fire mages for the moment).
This isn’t to say that some specs don’t do better than others. Simcraft and other tools are able to math out these things to ‘prove’ superiority of one spec over another (in an ideal situation with the best buffs, gear, and choosing to ignore movement or player error). I haven’t done theorycraft for mages in awhile, so take this with a grain of salt. In those ideal conditions, given equally skilled players, Arcane is probably ahead. It scales so incredibly well with gear. But by how much of a percentage is it ahead of an equally geared Frost mage? Basically, you have a playerbase that looks and says, “Well, arcane is whatever percentage ahead, so I guess Fire and Frost are bad.” No! Blizzard has said themselves that PvE Frost is much more viable than we give it credit for. The real struggle here is against player stigma and popularity.
The fact is, Arcane is an easier spec to play than Frost. It is. It has a much higher margin for error. I’m going to avoid the “two-button” joke because that’s not what I’m saying. The nuances of Arcane aren’t necessarily easy, mana and Mastery management takes forethought, planning and understanding, but by and large – an average Arcane mage can still do pretty well for him or herself without knowing all the nuances of the spec. Not so the Frost mage, who needs to carefully manage a series of procs and buffs to maximize damage. Is one “easier” or “harder?” It’s not really my place to say, but they require different things. More importantly, playing Frost requires a willingness to overcome a massive and pervasive prejudice that I’ve been hearing pretty much since I started playing this game.
Frost mages are for PvP and are bad for PvE.
The problem with this statement is that it’s completely false. Yes, at one time it was true. Deep Freeze didn’t used to be usable on immune targets (read: bosses). Many Frost changes have been rolled out over the years with intent to make them completely PvE viable. Blizzard themselves has said that through their own internal testing, they are absolutely viable in PvE.
I didn’t need Blizzard’s internal testing, because I raid with an amazing Frost mage. He could frost any mage up one side and down the other, any time, any day. I am confident in saying that he is the best mage I have ever played with, and he plays Frost. Back in Wrath, he raided for the last part of Wrath entirely as Arcane because it was clearly superior at the time. (He also hated it, which is neither here nor there). He relegated his love for Frost to a secondary mage alt that would come on ICC runs with us (and I’m pretty sure he still did top DPS in those alt runs). With the changes to Frost that came with Cataclysm, he went Frost full-time. As I’ve said, he is consistently our highest DPS. Some might say, “lol get better DPS noobs if ur Frost mage is highest you are all BADS!”
Well, he’s too polite to say it, so I’m going to say it for him: Everyone who knocks on someone for playing a spec that they are too myopic to recognize is a strong spec can go to hell. This includes all the “hurr hurr” types that you meet in 5-mans who start ribbing on you before they’ve even seen you play, just because you have a water elemental by your side. It especially includes the mages who happened to be in an ICC 25 run the other week along with our mage.
It’s actually a pretty ludicrous scenario, when you think about it. Five mages were there – four of whom were Arcane, naturally – and the mage ‘in charge’ starts handing out Focus Magic assignments, which I imagine is something like a self-congratulatory circle. “You FM her, she’ll FM you, I’ll FM him and he’ll FM me,” he said, “And Fsob, you need to learn how to spec your mage.”
I wasn’t here for this personally, which is probably good because my head would’ve exploded on the spot. Again, because he’s classy, he didn’t say anything beyond a simple sad faced emoticon. I would’ve had a lot more to say to this guy, especially after Fsob beat ALL of their DPS on the heroic Lich King fight. This is what I wish I could have said.
Just because someone chooses to play an “unpopular” spec doesn’t make them wrong. It doesn’t make them bad. It’s bad enough that other people like to shit on individuals playing an uncommon spec without mages jumping on board to do it too. You’re not in Vodka. The day that we wipe because Fsob’s DPS is too low is a day I will eat my hat, and he could out DPS you any day of the week.
And he did! (Colour me unsurprised). Being someone who thinks for yourself isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Being someone who refuses to bow to the spec of the month, or play something because that’s what everyone says they should do is someone you should admire, not give a hard time. If Frost were truly not viable in PvE content, I’m confident that Fsob wouldn’t play it. He, too, wants what is best for the team as well as himself. But I’m happy that he does, because I know it’s his favourite spec.
You can take this and apply it to any of the “unpopular” DPS specs, or any class or spec at all that people say “isn’t worth playing.” Right now, for me that’s Fire. I went to the Fire EJ page and it basically says “Nobody is interested in this spec right now.” Fire is receiving massive buffs on the PTR so I know that Blizzard is aware that Fire mages are behind. They don’t usually leave something unbalanced for too long, and I have faith in them. I have the good fortune to be playing a class that usually has three viable PvE specs, which is not something every class can say. It makes me happy. I’m playing Arcane right now because we don’t need two Frost mages, Fire is a bit hurting, and I don’t actually mind Arcane. I am not knocking on Arcane mages, either. If you love playing Arcane, more power to you! Keep on keeping on. Just please don’t be the kind of Arcane mage who is going to put on some kind of superiority dance because you happen to run into someone who has their Squirtle by their side and is freezing things in place. Worry about your own game. More importantly, play what you want to play unless it truly matters. I said Fire is “a bit behind,” which for my purposes (heroic raiding) is a bit too far. That doesn’t mean you “can’t” be a Fire mage either. It’s up to you to judge the requirements of your group. Buffs for Fire are coming soon. Meantime, remember: we turn people into sheep, we don’t seek to emulate them. Millions of Arcane mages CAN be wrong, if they take their spec’s numerical superiority as an excuse to try and bring other people down. The “best” spec is all relative, and I think the best spec for a mage to be is whatever he or she wants.
p.s. There are resources out there for those of you who’d like to take a walk on the Frosty side. You can also always ask a question here; if I don’t know the answer I have access to a Frost mage who definitely will, for either PvE or PvP.
Manalicious 
Comments on: "Mages, Don’t Let Your Brethren Grow Up To Be Sheep" (27)
Hear, hear.
As a gamelong BM hunter who was only the “right” spec for one expansion, I salute all of my “bastard spec” brethren!
It’s a game, folks, have _fun_.
Ah, the “lol L2 spec, noob” annoyance. I have always felt a special kinship with Frost Mages, what with my diehard loyalty to BM. And honestly, I enjoy it when people deride the spec upon first sight without seeing you play. It really, really makes it that much sweeter when you shove it down their throats and destroy them on the meters. After all, if you’re playing a terrible spec and you beat them, what does it say about them?
As someone who regularly beat out cookie-cutter MM/SV specs back in ToC, when I wasn’t even on a raiding team, there is nothing more annoying – and yet, more satisfying – than this.
Fsob, after murdering the other Mages on the meters: “I’ll learn how to spec my Mage after you learn how to play yours.”
Our Mage, who loves Frost, but also loves Fire, tried Arcane for a bit lately. So far he’s not really enjoying it, and I think he’s going to push back to Fire soon, his true preferred spec. 🙂
It’s funny, because I’ve been doing some random PuGs lately…and I actually haven’t gotten any flak for being a Frost mage. I saw it plenty in Wrath and eventually did many things as Arcane…but not so much in Cata.
I may not be doing 20k dps like some warriors [cheaters], but I hold my own and the extra utility (slows on adds) seems to be more appreciated than it used to be.
Just wanted to toss some support in for this post as a hunter who loves playing survival and is constantly getting similar reactions and responses to all three of my survival hunters when raiding.
I leveled a sub rogue back in wrath exactly because they weren’t “viable”. So I went to ICC and ranked on lots of fights mostly because I understood the spec and how it worked and somewhat because few people bothered to attempt it. Theoretical top dps really only matters when dps is the bottleneck.
When it comes to mages, I’ve tried them all and fire is what I enjoy most. Arcane is a little more interesting once you get into conservation/burn phasing but then I don’t really enjoy boomkin either. Crits and procs are tons of fun.
Demo locks helped meet the H.Maloriak dps requirements. Fire mages helped break MC on Cho’gal. Sub rogues made H.Council of Wind and H. V&T much easier. Holy priests have been weaker than Disc for most Cata fights. Hunter specs vary greatly when it comes to AoE. You can’t always wait for Summon Doomguard to be ready for an attempt. The list goes on and on.
I believe people should be allowed to play what they want. However, the decision to not have a full mastery of your role comes at a price.
If you’re a holy priest and hate disc, or a demo lock and hate affliction, that’s fine, but you may not be able to fit the raid’s needs if you are unwilling or unable to use all the tools available to you. And you should expect to be sat out if you are not meeting the needs for a specific fight.
I feel like you should be willing to give alternative specs a try, and do your best to know how to play them for when there is a large difference in performance between them. If you have a warlock who tries Demo, and can’t master it, that’s fine. If you have one who refuses to try, and are short dps on H. Rag molten elementals, or the p3 burn, don’t be surprised when some of your guildmates get frustrated. They should give you the chance to do the fight in your preferred spec, to see if it works out, but you should give the alternatives a chance if it doesn’t.
I don’t want to steer Rhyolith, but when our regular driver was not there a few weeks ago, I was asked to do it. That fight is a very small portion of our raid, and I think it would be wrong of me to refuse without trying it first. I mentioned that I was not confident in guaranteeing success, but that I would do my best. There are many roles that people generally dislike doing, but someone has to, and everyone should be willing to do their fair share. If I dislike the Ragnaros fight, I shouldn’t expect to be brought in for the first 6, and then swap out on the last, when they need you most.
I don’t care about achievements, and would be very frustrated if someone wiped us because they were trying to get one. But I also know that many of my fellow players do care about them, and if we dedicate an attempt, or fight, or raid night, to getting them done, I will do my part to help out.
I am not trying to argue that you should have to play a different spec for an entire tier because it does 3% more damage than the alternative. But it’s not unfair for your guild to ask you to occasionally leave your comfort zone when it really matters.
Again, no one should feel forced to play something they don’t want to. But raiding is a team sport, and when you refuse to try something that may make a large difference for everyone, you are not being a team player. There is nothing wrong with playing on your own terms, but you don’t have the right to demand everyone else play on your terms either. While you may have been recruited with the understanding that you would only play a specific spec, guild needs change, and your inflexibility may end up costing you.
This is largely from the perspective of high end raiding, and it’s not even universally applicable there, but I don’t think my point of view above is unreasonable.
All that being said, the random person who mocks you for being frost, BM, destro, subtlety, holy, whatever, is an idiot. Until your spec has proven itself to be a problem, there IS no problem.
I agree with your opinion that playing a mathematically-inferior spec can be unfair to your teammates, because you’re not technically being as optimal as you can. However, I think many players who are the “one spec forever” types end up extremely proficient in that spec, and – from a pure DPS perspective, not thinking about utility – usually make up for this shortcoming.
For example, I only play BM, but if I ever felt like my insistence to play only that one spec was actually a hindrance, I would probably relent. To avoid this situation, and to make up for my stubbornness (because let’s be honest, one-spec players are aware of it), I work my ass off to make sure my performance is up to par. Because really, if the BM Hunter/Subtlety Rogue/Frost Mage – the “bad” specs – are topping your DPS meters, and your raid is falling short on DPS…the problem is not with those players.
Yep, and I don’t necessarily see a dichotomy here between what you are saying and what I’m saying, either. It’s all down to your group’s specific situation, the classes in question, and skill of the player generally. As I mentioned above, Fsob DID play Arcane for a significant portion of several raiding tiers. He also went Fire for Maloriak (I was already Fire). He also made an awesome replacement for a hunter on Nefarian and assumed responsibility for kiting the big bone guys around (I don’t remember their names, don’t judge me).
Likewise, I went Frost for H Al’akir because nothing shattered Rohash’s shield like a huge Deep Freeze crit! It was simply the best spec for that fight. Neither of us is rigid in our prescribed roles and I’d wager to say we each have a fairly fluent understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the three specs. I think it’s important to have a familiarity with all of the specs before you declare anything about them. I used to go Arcane for Magmaw and Chimaeron as well (pew pew turrets!) I think the opposite is true, though, and it’s dangerous to be so rigid as to refuse to believe that another spec could perform as well in specific fights or any given fight. When your goal is fast progression you ought to be willing to do whatever it takes. That said, I’m not convinced that what it takes is for every single mage to go Arcane.
I wasn’t trying to say that I disagreed with you, but rather to flesh out the discussion a bit more. If someone truly is holding their own, it doesn’t really matter on what terms they are doing it, provided it doesn’t have hidden costs (ex: if you get 2 PIs, tricks, DI, etc, to do the same damage as other people, you’re not really matching their performance).
My main points boil down to:
1) Everyone should try all specs for their role. You never know what may be needed for a specific fight, so it’s in your best interest to be versatile. You don’t have to be good, but you do have to try.
2) You should be willing to take one for the team sometimes. If it means doing a job you dislike, playing a spec that isn’t your favorite, or sitting out on occasion, these are all parts of being a raider.
3) You should be open to criticism, and able to support your views with evidence. You deserve a chance to play as you want, but you need to support your view that it isn’t detrimental.
4) Guilds should not ask people do play in opposition to their preferred way of playing, provided it is not at odds with the guild policies (written or unwritten), unless it is of major importance.
If any of the above requirements aren’t met, you should be willing to suffer the consequences. You haven’t been wronged if you didn’t give due diligence. Defend your performance, not your spec choice.
I suppose in a way the spec thing is a red herring, primarily because I advocate all of your points above (and you don’t need to be an spec of mage to do those things). It does bother me when people act as if there IS only one spec that exists/is worth playing. For a good part of T11, Arcane wasn’t really strong enough to justify the buffs it brings (Focus Magic, Arcane Tactics, etc) which we were lacking due to the makeup of our tens group. I will happily play any spec of mage every day of the week! Just don’t ask me about playing retribution…
As a raiding ret (no offense taken), I’m just glad that we’re being buffed so that my claim to fame in 4.3 won’t be that I bring the 3% damage buff that all our mages will be abandoning as they respec to fire.
I think my reply to Vuuk below covers a big part of why Frost mages (and other uncommon specs) get unwarranted hate. The top 1% of players dictate the spec of 99% of the raiding population. #OccupyElitistJerks.
The vast majority of people know which spec is the best, but they don’t know why, or by how much. Saying “you know, in the majority of situations, there is a non-negligible dps advantage to playing arcane, though the difference is largely eroded in heavy movement fights, and neither spec is very good at AoE. You may benefit from spending some time as arcane instead, to make sure you are doing your absolute best” takes a lot more effort, and a lot more knowledge, than just saying “lol, look at the stupid frost mage, everyone knows arcane is the best spec.” The more “lolfrost” comments given out, the fewer people who are going to even give it a look. It’s a self-perpetuating spec preference.
I’m kind of spec-deaf when people try to tell me what spec to play. If you’re shooting the bull while in Stonehearth Bunker with another Mage*, that’s one thing, but if people are saying “You should play…” then I go deaf.
However, there is one thing I will pipe up about in these situations, and that’s when someone is running with the wrong gear. No, I don’t mean PvP vs. PvE gear, but Prot gear while specced as Holy. Odds are good that in that situation, the Pally in question just hadn’t swapped specs, but you never know.
*Or sitting around at Tower Point discussing Affliction vs. Destro with a few people who play Lock alts.
Honestly .. I know Frost can hold it’s own as “decent” DPS, but for that frost mage to out-DPS all four Arcane mages, they must’ve been doing something seriously wrong.
No offense to them – but like you said, even an average skilled and/or geared arcane mage has the potential to do more damage than a well-played frost mage.
That said I do agree that it’s fun to be one of the few classes that can choose between three (sometimes) viable DPS specs, each with their own playstyle.
I haven’t really done much PvE on my mage, but I wouldn’t really like it if Arcane suddenly became the go-to spec for PvP for example.
Love the fact that they’re buffing Fire too, might give me a change of scenery if I happen to stumble into PvE content somehow. There’s just something about blowing stuff up with fire, right ?
The mages in question are all from the top guilds on our server. I believe more than one of them had Dragonwrath (Fsob’s Dragonwrath is not quite complete). So is it that they were doing something wrong, or is it that Frost is better than you, I, and others may think? 😉
Let’s say a spec is estimated as being 2% better than its alternatives.
Players at the top, including most of the people who post on EJ, get top WoL parses, and kill bosses quickly, will generally choose the spec that has the best possible result. Every dps matters, every minute counts, and the players are talented enough to swap specs and perform.
This has consequences:
With a large portion of top players ignoring a spec, the resulting data for that spec will be from worse players. This makes the less popular specs seem even worse than they are, because the results are now showing a much larger difference than there would be on equal footing.
Other players will flock to those specs. They will mimic specs, talents, gear choices, etc., because the people at the top, who know what they are doing, have decided it is a superior choice.
With less information, performance will be worse. The fewer people in a spec, the worse it will perform, because the data is more likely to be flawed or incomplete, and there will be fewer tips and tricks available.
It is a huge error to say that just because the data shows a spec being inferior, it must be inferior, and it is ridiculous to assume that someone playing one of those specs could only outperform the dominant spec by being a vastly superior player.
You could be right, but your argument is almost certainly flawed.
I stand corrected.
Thanks for dispelling the Polymorph I was in …
I always say that you can’t ignore the person playing the spec. When the numbers are close enough then you will usually do better in a lesser spec you are more comfortable with. A players comfort level is not a number you can add to the equation but if it were it would be one of the most important factors.
Seeing the hunter above I will share what I say to all my hunters.
Play what you are most comfortable in playing but if you want to go for top DPS you should choose MM or SV depending on your latency and frame rate. If you have a top connection MM is best, if you have any issues what so ever SV is best but usually, whatever you know like the back of your hand will be best, no matter what.
I had one hunter go from doing 15K to doing 23K just from letting him go back to SV. He thought he needed to stay MM to get a raid spot and I told him to play what he is more comfortable with.
Comfort… latency… individual skill levels… all factors that no simulator will take in.
The best spec isn’t always the best spec “they” say it is. That is just the spec with the most potential. Doesn’t mean it is the best one for you.
My Rogue and my Lock both have the best spec in the game and I still suck at them. lol Spec does not make the player, the player does.
My Mage is still main spec frost too… shhh, don’t tell anyone. 😉
I’m not going to weigh in on the whole frost vs arcane aspect, I agree with what Vidyala and Pliers have already said and they said it much better then I could.
As to the why of me doing better then the arcane mages: I’m gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it was because of their unfamiliarity with the fight. Arcane mages are all about burn/conserve rotations and it normally takes a while to figure them out for a new fight, or an old one that takes one-quarter of the time that it used to. There are also a multitude of other factors (defile, val’kyr, frosty balls of doom, etc) that have a say in dps. I don’t even care if I did better or some other mage did (I do believe that the arcane mage with dragonwrath outdamaged me). What bothered me was the fact that one of the “best” mages on the realm was openly perpetrating the erroneous belief that frost can’t perform well in pve. We have other classes kicking us out of pugs for being frost before giving us a chance on the first pull, we don’t need our arcane brethren helping them out.
Thank you very much for posting this, it’s a topic that’s been on my mind for a long time now, and I’ve never found a good way to talk about it without foaming at the mouth.
There’s a cultural phenomenon at work here, which isn’t limited to WoW or even games in general, and that is the perniciousness of received wisdom. Once players hear a strong view about a particular class or spec, whether it comes from a well-known raider, a trusted friend, or just chatter in Trade, it tends to cement itself in their minds, and can be very difficult to dislodge, even in the face of contradicting facts.
For example, when I started playing during the Burning Crusade, Paladins were incredibly powerful tanks. At the time, however, many serious raid groups wouldn’t let Paladin tank anything but the undead trash waves in Mt. Hyjal, where the combination of Holy Wrath and Consecration (it wasn’t just a mana dump at the time) made them unbeatable. In vanilla WoW, Warriors were tanks, and that was that.
By the time Wrath of the Lich King came out, the “conventional wisdom” was that Paladins were the best AoE tanks around, and that nobody else came close. Even though gave amazing AoE threat to Warriors, Druids, and Death Knights as well (if anything, the others maybe surpassed Paladins at first, given the powerful nerf to Consecration at level 80), you would see raid leaders pushing their non-Paladin tanks into secondary roles because of lingering perceptions.
I’m not trying to make any claims about which classes are better for tanking, but to point out that this kind of inertia is what makes class- and spec-bias propagate through the player base, and persist despite evidence to the contrary. When Paragon does the world-first kill of some hard-mode raid boss with Arcane mages, the call goes out, “Arcane is clearly the best!” After all, a guild that raids six days a week and runs shadow groups to get extra lockouts must know what’s good, right? Well, maybe: But that’s not necessarily a good guide for the rest of us.
To put it in perhaps less-contentious terms, suppose we read that the best artists in the world are using the Cintiq 24HD pen display. Should I rush out and get one too, so I can do art like them? Of course not: My ability to draw and paint has very little to do with what tools I use. An artist like Vidyala could do better drawings while stone-drunk and using half a broken pencil held between her toes, than I would do on a Cintiq 24HD.
For almost everyone but the best and the worst among us, which tools we choose—or which spec, if you like—will make no measurable difference in the outcome.
Really, though, all of this is just a very long-winded way to say that I agree with you completely, Vid, and I’m happy you took the time away from your own Cintiq to put it all down. 🙂
“Vidyala could do better drawings while stone-drunk and using half a broken pencil held between her toes”
This needs to happen.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Frost Mage is completely viable as a PvE raiding spec and theoretically has the highest DPS out of any of the three mage specs according to things like simcraft (you can even find admission of this on MMO Champion and EJ). The problem is, to reach those numbers you have to play an almost totally perfect rotation, one that sadly most mages (and I’d probably include myself in this) just do not have the required skill to play. That’s not me saying that most mages are bad, I’m saying that the bar for good frost mage raiding is set very high beyond the reach of most players. Therefore, to mitigate the risk of human error and fluctuating DPS most mages (again myself included) plonk for the next best thing, Arcane which has a simple rotation, tons of advice and guides available and less prone to failing because of lag, missed procs or low skill ability. Therefore most Frost Mages end up doing about 10% less DPS than their Fire and Arcane brethren. On top of that, Arcane Mages have far better raid buffs (Arcane Tactics and Focus Magic) against Frost’s lowly mana restoration(Replenishment).
The net result is exactly what you get described here; under representation in things like World of Logs and the uneducated who don’t really know their class and got their spec from whichever guide site they choose giving someone who is clearly an extremely skill mage a hard time “for not knowing how to spec”. It’s a problem not just endemic to mages, I’ve seen many awesome players get berated or kicked out of raids because they hadn’t selected their talents according to mob consensus of whats best. Most critics tend to shut the f*ck up when they get embarassed by the supposed ‘noob’ handed their butts on a plate but it shouldn’t have to come to that. If nothing else it saps the fun out of the game when everyone is compelled to take the same spec just to be raid worthy.
I love your post title. 🙂
As a holy priest who does PvP, I support this attitude 100%. 😉
Try being a Frost spec DK and running in Blood spec in PvP BGs. I like the extra armour in blood and the slowing effects of Frost. When I get talked to I just ignore them and help the team as much as I can.
Fsob is my hero!
And yeah, this kind of mentality bums me out. It’s something that I think about a lot. While there may be empirical data that shows one spec can deal more damage than another, I think it really comes down to the player’s style in the end. I honestly pull more damage in Frost and Fire than I do in Arcane. Granted, this might be my unfamiliarity with the spec, but in the end, is it really more beneficial to my guild to play Arcane? Or, is it more beneficial to play specs with better survivability/AoE, both of which I’m doing higher damage with?