Piercing Ice, Frost Channeling, or Imp. Blizzard?

[Morgenstern]

I'm a raider / mild PVPer, but with my recent experiences in Warsong Gulch I've decided to spec to 21 arcane / 30 frost. Here is what I was thinking:

5/5 missiles
5/5 concentration
1/1 evocation
5/5 IAE
2/2 mana shield
2/2 ICS
1/1 PoM

5/5 FB
5/5 ice shards
3/3 winter's chill
2/2 FN
1/1 cold snap
2/2 arctic reach
5/5 shatter
3/3 CoC
1/1 Ice Block

I can't decide between imp. blizzard, frost channeling, or piercing ice. Opinions?

[voodoochile78]

My opinion is that piercing ice is the least valuable of the 3 you listed.

I further believe that Presence of Mind is better for fire builds than frost builds. Fire mages are going to want PoM for pyroblasts/fireballs. Frost mages probably rely more on their instacasts (frost nova + CoC). So..... I guess my point is that if you feel constrained for points, consider losing PoM. You lose the ability to instantly cast polymorph, so weigh that in your decision.

If you decide you don't need PoM, you can perhaps drop improved mana shield as well. That gets you 6 points to put in improved blizzard and frost channeling, because I'm not sure I could decide between them.

[hazz]

drop winters chill, get imp blizz and frost channeling.
imp blizz is nice for group pvp, channeling is awesome for pve.
winters chill without imp blizz is only half-useful (frostboltkite u reapply frostbolt anyway).
1 point in permafrost 2 in winterchill would be better than 3 in winterchill, too.
if u really like imp blizz move 1p from channeling to permafrost.


pom-frostbolts vs frozen targets hurts. pom-fireball is still decent. pom-sheep is handy and pom-flamestrike is situational.
ice-barrier is purgeable and gets overwritten by priest-shield.

i really enjoy my 21 arc 30 frost spec in ctf. thinking about dropping imp-coc for frostbite just to annoy flagcarriers.
i really miss ap+trinket+pom-pyros and dmg in duells.. but.. 0 kills 3 caps helped is fine for me.