I'm just curious what type of equipment mages are wearing mostly in BWL. I've been loaded up on +damage for a long time and am continuing to but lately have gotten in quite a lot of discussions about the crap that is Arcanist. My guild assumes that it will help a lot more in BWL than a ton of +damage gear and I honestly don't have the experience in BWL to disagree at this point. Anyone want to shed some light on this? Stat gear or +damage for most of the encounters? If it helps any I am alliance and have BoS as a crutch ;)

They go naked so they don't have to pay repair costs.

Ugh, BoS. Yeah, without BoS the 8-piece Arcanist bonus is quite useful in many settings, simply because you aren't really able to go all-out as a mage since you can't drop your aggro. In any situation where your damage is capped not by your gear but by the tank's aggro, anything that reduces threat is huge. With BoS, and since they changed the drakes to be tauntable, I'm not sure when such situations might arise, however.

So, yes, +damage gear is generally superior. Several Netherwind pieces are excellent. Robe of Volatile Power, Mana Igniting Cord, etc. Choker from Ragnaros. Briarwood Reed. Mageblade+spell power and a Fire Runed Grimoire (or AV reward, ideally), offhand. And so forth.

Most BWL fights do tend to be fairly protracted and often put casters at risk, so I'm not sure you want to layer on lots of +damage greens at the expense of hp, mana pool, mana regen, and so forth, but mages are a DPS class, and gear that improves their DPS is always going to be favored.

I appreciate the response, pretty much what I've been arguing. Its nice to hear I am sane and know my class.