You are playing against unseasoned Torchbearers. Experienced players will switch between fire and ice frequently. That's especially important in the early game to take advantage of the damage and mana regen bonuses.

I'd say there's a simple way to tell if you're playing an experienced TB player. If he's chasing after you in 'Fire' mode, he's not that experienced.

I love ice when teamed up with Regulus or Erebus. It's great for getting assists and the stun is pretty good. 

ice is my fav but is kinda nnouying earily game when it is more dg based then creep

Yeah, id have to say ive tried to play a lot but obviously havent gotten into to many matches with high level TB players apparently, most that ive played with just try to spam the fire TB's spells to get the most kills.  Can't wait to try out some of the skill combinations i've read from these responses 

/Agree

The TB Experience Guide (nub to good):

1. Always fire

2. Always frost

3. Constantly switching

Another thing to note is that TB should be tailored for the game mode.  If you play pantheon, you probably know what I am talking about.  If fort mode comes up, I usually work the ring of fire spell into my build because it does the most total damage and you can drop it on their buildings and back out.  Its great for pushing down tower clusters too.  If I am playing conquest mode or DG kills mode, I usually go for the Ice+Fireball build discussed above for max utility/safe damage delivery.  Unless you have a really good support sedna (non-pantheon) or QoT, its hard to stay close enough to the battle to be effective with the fire aoe spells, you become a magnet for enemy UBs (non-pantheon), Rooks, Reguluses, and Oaks.

Switching stances for the bonuses is key to playing TB correctly. The mana regen and weapon damage are both significant. With a Fire & Ice build, I will typically travel in fire form if I expect to encounter an enemy DG. Open with Fireball, switch, Frost Nova, Rain of Ice, Deep Freeze. At this point, they are either running or continuing to attack. If they run, you're chasing them with Ice attacks, slow aura and +weapon damage. If they stay, extend them, switch back to fire and Fireball again. You also have the mana regen helping with the mana you spent already.

It takes some experience to get a feel for when to switch and why. You have to be able to predict what your opponent is going to do. Sometimes it's better to chase as fire to get off a final Fireball if they have under 1350 health.

Question... how do you get Rain of Ice, Deep Freeze, Frost Nova, Fireball *and* the Frost aura? You need to give up the aura to get FB, no? ><

You only switch to fire long enough to cast fireball and start the regen buff.  Then you switch back to get the attack bonuses (attack on move/dmg buff) and aura.  Also you switch to fire between battles for the regen buff.

I like to open with fireball then go to frost for the main battle (immediately frost rain to debuff then try to time the stun and the interrupt when needed).  If it looks like they are about to run, immediately switch for fire for the finisher Fball as its probably cooled down by then.

No, I meant you don't have enough points to skill them all up.

Unless you're level 20 or something, but if you're level 20 then you're winning anyway.

well i usually only get deep and frost aura lvl 1  and get  fb

I tend to mix both, as if you go pure fire all you are is burst'ish damage. Throw a fireball every CD and thats about it, and CoF every creep wave. You offer less help than a half-decent reg sniper with absolutely nothing else to offer (like mines and slowing attacks).

Going pure frost you're not very useful, but more useful IMO than pure fire. Chances are you survive a lot better as pure frost than fire.

Mixing both I tend to max fireball/deep freeze w/ synergy, frost nova, rain of fire, and an aura (usually depending on team makeups). Switching constantly to maintain the regen to stay on my lane for a long time. Its more of a mid-late game build but you offer a lot more utility AND damage to your team by getting both complete with burst damage, aoe farming, a fairly big aoe stun, and the CD interrupt.

F/F mix TB imo is very good early game to farm and help with cit upgrades, and mid game he starts to shine when he can rain/fireball somebody for a hefty amount of damage out of nowhere, and still be completely out of harms way. At the same time because he is mostly just spell damage he can be very useless late game as gear doesnt scale with spells as well (exception maybe -cd timers) compared to an UB or EB