I have always thought that +34 Frost damage is better for your frost bolt than +34 generic spell damage. Like the frost bolt got a greater increase from the 34 frost than just 34 damage and healing. I dont know where i heard this, and would just like to confirm if true or not.

If it is true, at what point does generic = specific. Like does 100 Frost = 133 generic (1/3 more benifical)? Thank you

It is never 'better'.

The 'better' might stem from this: For two items of the same ilevel, you can get more +bonus for your budget if you pick the item with only one school of +damage. That is, if you had two same-level greens, and one was +30 damage/heal, the other will be like +40 frost.

I expect its more like a 5:6 ratio in the budget, because the items that tend to have +frost, +fire or +shadow tend to have ONLY that damage, and nothing decent like crit or hit and a minimal amount of stamina and intellect.

Personally, I /roflwaffle at Destruction Warlocks who only take +fire gear.

The ratio is actually even lower than that, which is why +all tends to be the most commonly used gear for casters. For some reason, even though +school should provide more efficient itemization, it's rare that a +school piece is well-itemized enough to overcome the gap and be more worth wearing than other gear (Ringo's, Ring of the Eternal Flame).

It's near 34 to 40; look at the AV offhands.

Leggings of the Festering Swarm > all other pants for Fire Mages (until Leggings of Polarity).

I prefer Black Blizzard as a fire mage myself but hey, pick the pants you like.

+specific school would be a very powerful stats to put on items but it is generally overloaded and not paired with other useful things. +fire with a point of crit or +fire with +general would be very nice indeed but they are quite rare. Of course even as a fire mage I do spend a considerable amount of time using non-fire spells also on trash at least and I can't just discount that out of hand. Plus I hate to be even more gimped when I am facing a fire-immune/reflective target, even if the content is farm stuff.

I wish there were more items that min-maxed schools.

Tome of the Ice Lord Optimized(actually about 1 Ilvl less)
9 Intellect
+26 Frost Damage
+14 Magical Damage