Are arcane mages better than fire mages for lich king ?

[holyhammer]

my guild did a failed LK raid on sunday and the reason we failed is because healer went out of mana and we didnt slow down the valkyrie enough

after intense debate our conclusion is healer need to gear up better and dps need to use defensive spells more and react to valkyrie faster

i am a fire mage and i am probably guilty for not helping for both cause since fire mages dont have any defensive cooldowns other than iceblock which is a one off you dont use until really necessary, and mana shield that wont really absorb a lot but will drain **** ton of your mana till you dont have enough for dps. frost ward and fire ward are useless as LK does shadow damage.

Neither can fire mage use snaring effect that is within the arsenal of fire spells. The only thing i have is rank 1 frost bolt but it costs 1 second to cast given that firemages dont stack haste and frost nova. but frost nova breaks instantly upon damage.... so not much use.

i was thinking if arcane mage could do better? improved mana shield will certainly give a little bit more survivability and arcane mage has a slow spell.

but what i am concern is am i giving up my dps if i turn to arcane instead of fire? how does arcane dps compare to fire?

[Crystalleia]

Firstly, to get it out of the way: Arcane mages do good damage stationary (meaning not much movement required), but fall off quite a bit otherwise. This is why TTW-Fire mages are preferable for LK, since it's a very movement-intensive fight.

Now, your duty as a mage on LK is to deal damage, period. (and ofc not making things harder for your mates, which will be explained below)

CCing Val'kyrs are traditionally assigned to Paladins, as they have easy stuns through Holy Wrath.
If your paladins have used their stuns properly AND the Val'kyr still gets away, the problem lies in raid DPS, not snares. So instead of trying to go for snare spells, you can try maximizing your DPS on the Valks instead.

As for survivability, your job is to avoid easily avoidable, heavy damage (e.g. Remorseless Winter, Raging Spirit AoE) whenever you can. The rest of the damage you are taking should be non-lethal, so if you still die without these blunders, it's likely the healers' fault. The best you can do for an extra line of safety is to have the raid's Warlock create you a Healthstone, and have Runic Healing Potions ready, and that's about it. (Even as Arcane, you do NOT want to use Mana Shield except as a final, desperate last resort, as it wastes your mana, and in extension, damage).

Of course, there's no way for me to offer more concrete advice for your guild without knowing stuff like the raid's gear etc., but as far as mages go, the above should cover most of it.

P.S. As Fire (with the range talent) you CAN hit LK during transition without getting hit by Remorseless Winter, but if your raid needs help with Raging Spirits then just focus those instead.