EDIT: OK I realized I forgot about the debuff. So it needs to be reapplied once every 30 sec, but that doesn't change the main point, which is that without better scaling, Scorch will cease to be our most efficient spell in TBC.

The way the talent trees stand now, I'm pretty sure that scorch will only be used rarely if ever in TBC.

Consider the present: after about 525 +damage, Fireball (Rank 9) does both more DPM *and* more DPS than Scorch (Rank 7):

Assume a mage has imp FB, and let "d" be the amount of plus damage a mage has, and calculate when FB9 has equal DPM and DPS to Scorch7. We get:
DPM: (449+d)/305 = (254+1.5d/3.5)/150 => d=525
DPS: (449+d)/3 = (254+1.5d/3.5)/1.5 => d=413

Granted, I haven't included the +4% crit bonus that scorch receives. But I haven't factored in the x2 greater lag penalty that scorch receives either. Obviously, Scorch is still the spell of choice for attempting to keep up an ignite, but outside of that situation, there is no reason to cast Scorch over downrank FB, once you have a sufficient amount of +damage gear. Of course, things won't even be close when the empowered FB talent comes into play. Which leads me to believe that unless the higher ranks of Scorch do way more damage when compared to the equivalent FB ranks than they do now, the only time you would ever see anyone casting Scorch is to try and keep up an ignite.

With reduced raid sizes, you'll be lucky to have 3 fire mages on a raid, and since crit rates (thanks to the rating system) are going to remain largely where they are, you'll only be seeing Scorch in any given PvE fight for 10-20 seconds once every 3 minutes (after combustion is up and you can start an ignite). Seems that Scorch will be relegated to be an extremely situational spell.

In PvP, the situation is less clear, but it seems that if you want a quick nuke, your needs should be covered by Arcane Blast/Ice Lance/Fire Blast, since you generally care less about efficiency than about DPS in PvP. Time will tell, I guess.

The way I see it, scorch's functions are:

Rolling Ignites
Mana Efficiency. I don't think mages can spam fireball forever. Could be wrong there.

Imp scorch gives 15% more fire damage, that sounds useful to me.

Now the debuff lasts for 15 seconds so you don't need to always use scorch, but it will still be useful.


Ice Lance isn't that great for a fire mage, it only shines after you use a frost nova (or some frost mage freezes your target).

scorch is the most mana efficient fire spell when talented out fully. Downside is how many fire mages will you take for rolling ignites in TBC, although i think most raids will have 2.

Scorch will never be useless.

I get double impact and ignite chances to proc.

I get more manefficeny when raiding.

I dont get a huge fireball fly across the sky and then the mobs aggro resets and them im fucked when the fireball finally hits him.

I get to piss the heck outta casters who try to cast long spells on me during pvp. Scorch is really good against healers.

You also have to consider there should be an IMP scorch on the target for maximum raiding dmg efficency.

Improved scorch debuff for PVE, also rank 1 scorch is even more efficient than rank 9 fireball even at that level of damage i believe, finally yes, rolling ignites.

In pvp you want it for a fast cast, and for the much underrated reason that it has no trail to follow (bushes ftw), ice lance may stay instant cast, and without nova up, scorch will still be the quick cast of choice. Arcane burst as it is described seems pretty useless as a fast cast (2.5 sec cast starting anyway?) vs scorch if you're heavily specced into fire, you want to take advantage of all the modifiers in fire talents, not to mention procs like impact.

Queue 100 posts saying the same thing >_>

that's true, but in an environment with any lag at all it is very difficult to take advantage of that without compromising your DPS significantly.

That may be true for DPM (although since Scorch1 is learned before level 20 it won't work), but if you downrank Scorch your DPS will be awful. The point is that FB9 has better DPM *and at the same time* better DPS than Scorch7.

I'm (obviously) not a very experienced pvper so I will defer to your expertise there.

Pay attention people.

With the introduction of empowered fireball this is no longer the case, and that's one of the things the original poster is pointing out.

scorch rank1 hits for 500+ in raids atm. It's nice when you're oom :p

This is the reason I can't ever....EVER...EVARR fathom wanding in a raid.

In my math Scorch is still vastly more mana-effecient than Fireball. Mostly because of Judgement of Wisdom. I think for the +dmg and crit% I was using I got 8 DPM off of Fireball enhanced with Fire Vulnerability and 10 DPM off of Scorch. The DPS was signifigantly lower though. Scorch would also benefit more from any on-hit effects, like the CC rep ring.

The formula for downranking is probably going to change, so don't rely on rank 1 being super-mana effecient anymore.