Hello there fellow mages. I thought it would be a good time to talk about the different specs. There are three different specs that I know about. We have Arcane, Fire, and Frost. Hopefully after reading this, you will be able to decide what spec best suits your needs.

First off is the Arcane spec. Right now, this is one of the best specs to use for raiding. You get a massive amount of dps and the rotation is very simple. Just build a proper talent tree and you will do just fine. You will want to have 57 points in the Arcane tree, 3 points in the Fire tree, and 11 points in the Frost tree. You are more than welcome to take a look at my spec on the WoW Armory to take a look.

Next is the Fire spec. This to can be a viable raid spec. It isn't as big as the arcane build, but it can still work just as well. I have learned to use this spec for leveling. It is fairly easy and simple. You want to have 18 points in the Arcane tree and 53 points in Fire tree. I also have that spec on the armory, so feel free to take a glance.

Last is the Frost spec. Right now I have seen this spec used mostly for PvP use. It will become more viable in the next patch. You can use this spec for pretty much anything, because it works so well with questing, and leveling. You will want to have 20 points in the Arcane tree and 51 points in thet Frost tree.

That is the simplicity of the specs. There is not to much to know, other than these few pointers:
-Make sure to have the proper glyphs. With proper glyphing, you can get the most out of your spec.
-Make sure to nail your rotation.
-When you raid or go into another instance with another mage, it is really good to have Focus Magic. It helps a great deal.
-Always keep your DOTS on, if it is in your spec.
Follow these simple guidelines and you will have built yourself a good caster.

Happy questing and raiding!!!!!

As I am one of the few (only?) mages who still believes in the fire spec - I will plead my case here.

Although a more complicated rotation, and less dps, the fire spec will typically net out at more total damage when played correctly. It depends on a utilizing your procs efficiently and keeping Living Bomb active as much as possible.

My main glyphs are Living Bomb, Improved Scorch, and Fireball. However, I can change the Improved Scorch to Molten Armor if I know a desctruction Lock with Improved Shadowbolt or another mage with Improved Scorch is in the raid. However, with most TOC raids, you change target so much that I find it easier to stick with Imp Scorch.

As for rotation - I start off with one Scorch. With Improved Scorch, this is equivelent to 5 Scorches and begins your fire debuff. The fire debuff will increase your crit with fire spells by 15% I then will throw a Living Bomb. This begins to tick off before I begin my rotation. Sometimes I will swap these two since you can start with a Living Bomb on the initial pull and not gain aggro.

I then jump into my regular rotation of Fireballs. When scorch is low, I recharge. When LB explodes, I restart it. Lastly, I fire off my pyro as soon as it procs without interupting my current spell cast. The use of the pyro efficiently is a very important piece to maximizing the damage and dps. You can actually begin your pyro cast before your fireball completes thereby firing two spells simaltaneously.

Pros and Cons about running this spec:

Pros

• Fire mages will be near the top of the damage meter in nearly any raid and should be higher than a comparably geared arcane mage
• Fire mages have better AOE options with LB than an arcane mage - but less than frost
• Takes more advantage of the crit heavy tier pieces than arcane (pyro procs)
• Fire mages are a bit more mana efficient than arcane mages

Cons

• Fire mages need over 200 more hit than arcane mages
• Fire mages have a more complex rotation than arcane
• Fire mages have considerably more aggro problems than arcane mages

The other slight difference is in the value of statistics for each class. A typical mage will see the following:

Hit (until cap) > spellpower > haste > crit > int > spirit

A fire mage will see crit as equally important to haste until about 45% base fire.

I welcome discussion! I could use another fire mage to join me. More DOTS!

So I have been racking my brain (and the message boards) to find out the discrepency for arcane and fire. Arcane is more dps, but fire is higher total damage. Intuitively, higher DPS should equal higher damage. But it is not the case.

I have narrowed it to two main areas

1) Fire dots. DPS is a calculation of damage/activity. Since dots are always damaging, a fire mage is always 'active'. An arcane mage is not always active. This may be through evocation or cooldowns (between each AB). So the denominator for a fire mage is always larger. Fire mages do not have cooldowns between spells either.

2) Mana. Because arcane mage spells have heavy mana costs, they need to evoc more often. In these situations, they are not casting and thereby not damaging. DPS does not record because they are inactive. So the DPS stays high but the damage is lost during these times.

We are leaning on recount for accurate DPS calculations. It should calculate damage correctly but DPS seems to be a little more subjective to the calculations of the programmer.

I think (1) and (2) answers why long fights - fire mages reign supreme in damage. Shorter fights where mana is not an issue - lean towards an arcane mage.

I am not sure if anyone cared - but it sure bothered me!

Pretty much in a nutshell. I had made a new post on the Glyphs and a small on Deathbringer Saurfang. I hope it comes to good use to those that start off on raiding in ICC and those glyphs will come in handy for which ever spec they decide. I will post a new thread on what spec you should use for raiding, boss fights and farming, etc.