As a Mage/Sorc do I entirely avoid all the Ice/Cold skills when levelling if I want a lightning/fire build?

[sealthatisgolden]

If anyone's every played as a mage they will have the option to spend skill points to convert their fire spells into ice. I am basically wondering if ice is just better than fire and if I should convert immediately, or is it OK to entirely avoid all the conversion skills and level up (my preferred) lightning and fire skills.

Would I be wasting skill points by not converting to ice sooner? As I imagine there's only a set number of points you can put into things such as fire nova augments and static augments as well as passives, so in my head there might be a point where my fire and light is maxed out and all that's left after hours of building light/fire is to convert to ice.

At level 30 it seems that the conversion to ice is what the game wants? I don't want this, I love fire and lightning and have skilled up augments in fire/light in respect of that.

My mastery is Sorcerer by the way.

Do I cut my losses and convert to ice/cold spells now?

I would REALLY appreciate any feedback on this, thanks in advance

[bandit]

As always it depends on what you want. After having alot of fun with Fireball and Disintegrate I really Had a short Moment of regret when going Spellblade :-)

Fire imho is better for Bosses as I haven't yet managed to freeze them. Fire however offers alot of Ignite and Ignite synergies in the trees (read more damage per Stack of ignited and so on).

Fire is fine imho and FB/Orb etc manage the map clear quite OK.

Edit: Respeccing later is really not a Problem If you have alot of Cold Equipment and want to try that.