Shock Frost or Fire

Well, it really depends on the situation.

Example: If you fighting an enemy (or dragon) using fire magic, then use frost. If your fighting someone using Frost magic, use fire. If you fighting someone using purely magic, then use Shock, as it drains their magicka as well as their health.

All of them are great in my opinion, just use them accordingly.

Posted a thread about this earlier today. The poll placed fire as first, shock as second, and frost as third last I checked.

Fire:
+ Costs the least Magicka (Minus Fire Storm spell)
+ Most damage, because of its DoT (Though not much more)
+ 50% more damage to Vampires
+ 50% more damage against Trolls
+ 30% more damage against Spriggans
+ 25% more damage against Dragons who breathe Frost
+ ?% more damage against Frost Atronachs
+ ?% more damage against Wispmothers
+ ?% more damage against Dwarven Centurions
+ ?% more damage against Ice Wraiths
+ ?% more damage against Sabre Cats
+/- Average spell projectile speed, faster than Frost but slower than Shock
- 50% less damage against dragons who breathe Fire
- 50% less damage against Dark Elves
- 25% less damage against Dwarven Spheres and Spiders
- Deals no damage against Fire Atronachs

Frost:
+ Best Against Foes who Melee, Drains their Stamina
+ 25% more damage to dragons that breath Fire
+ ?% more damage against Fire Atronachs
+/- Costs less Magicka than Shock, but more Magicka than Fire (Minus Blizzard spell)
- Slowest spell projectile speed
- 50% less damage against Vampires
- 50% less damage against dragons who breathe Frost
- 50% less damage against a Draugr
- 50% less damage to Nords
- ?% less damage to Ice Wraiths
- Deals no damage to Dwarven Spheres, Spiders, and Centurions
- Deals no damage against Frost Atronachs

Shock:
+ Best Against foes with Magic, Drains their Magicka
+ Fastest spell projectile Speed
+ 25% more damage against a Chaurus
+ No dragons have resistance to Shock
- Costs the most Magicka (Minus Lighting Storm spell)
- 30% less damage against Spriggans
- 25% less damage against Dwarven Spheres, Spiders, and Centurions
- Deals no damage against Storm Atronachs

On my pure mage I use all 3.

"Kill it with fire!" works with my enchanted weapons.

Updated my list. If anyone can add to it please do.

Shock is best because it has the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFR9Fb6e2Us.
And the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5_NFMWFbY8 thing is pretty cool too.

I used fire and shock on my mage play.
I didn't touch frost. The spears of ice sticking in people looked cool though.

Updated list again.

I was under the impression that fire did MORE damage to Dwarven machines, not less...

Also, you can get a boost to fire damage from Paarthurnax if you choose the Yol enhancement.

Is this being confirmed by in-game testing? Just curious.
-Loth

Enemy weaknesses aside, it depends on how you want to play.

Fire has lingering damage.

Shock damages magicka and therefore is good when fighting mages. Also has highest projectile speed.

Frost damages stamina. This might seem useless, but this is great for slowing enemies (even mammoths) to a crawl if you do enough damage.

The one opposite the mobs resistance, that is all.

Given the additional damage from the burning DoT, Fire is optimum if raw DPS is all you're after. Shock has accuracy on it's side (Which is why I use shock with my artificer's staves, since i only use destruction for shooting down airborne dragons). Frost... I love frost; but this is skyrim, everything here is hairy and furry and sued to the cold. Too many things are frost resistant...

I was under the impression that only applied to the Fire Breath shout

Draugr are weaker to fire also, not sure by how much though.

I would say, if you can only choose one, shock is the best simply because it's projectile speed is the only one capable of hitting dragons mid flight and fewer creatures are ever outright immune to it. It also has the only workable master spell. The other two just sets you up for a beat down if you attempt to use them to their full potential, ie, in the middle of an enemy cluster.

if you use magic, you should use all three.

Only because someone uses fire, doesn't mean he's weak to frost and vice versa, only because someone uses frost, it doesn't mean he's weak to fire.
This is not Pokemon, you know. >_>

OT:
Frost - Best against warriors.
Shock - Best against mages.
Fire - For everything else.