Originally Posted by Kulehan
I'm curious, as someone who's been away from the game for a while (~8 months), how some effective some specs are now compared to back then.
When I quit, Deep Arcane was just getting to the point where it wasn't worth speccing over deep fire with T6 content and the buff to Imp Fireball/Frostbolt (or the removal of the -5% nerf, however you want to look at it). It seems that 2/48/11 is pretty much the most consistent build, as deep fire has been for ages. However, a mage just joined my guild yesterday, and was commenting on how he was out-DPSing the fire mages in his old guild as 40/0/21. The mage in question is in some of the best possible T6 level gear, and I got the impression that so was his competition.
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Play skill also factors into any type of mage damage comparison. A common mistake arcane mages make is justifying the spec by saying they are #1 on the damage meters. Being #1 on your guild doesn't mean you'd be #1 against, say, Manly. Most of the time, it just means the other mages aren't playing to their full potential or getting support they need.
[Mage] Raiding as Arcane mage post 2.4 would be a good quick overview of the new style of arcane raiding. Yes, you are shackled to 2T5 because the set bonus is
that good. Filler rotations are out the door, replaced by spamming as much arcane blast as you can get away with. The new int/spirit mana regen change means you can arcane blast for a lot longer than you used to be able to. With COE now combined with COS, you can always expect a damage curse up, unless your guild only has one warlock, no spriests, and ten warglaive rogues.