After coming to the realization that mage armour and arcane meditation do stack I'm debating a respec, currently in naxx I'm chugging mana potions like no tomorrow and still scraping the bottom of my mana pool, and while I doubt that arcane meditation will make any huge difference it might just help a tiny bit

Currently I'm specced 10/38/3 (impact for fun) and strongly considering changing over to this spec... I've dropped one point in both flame throwing and MOE in order to keep combustion and grabbed magic attunement for raid buffing, thus only allowing me 3/5 in magic absorption (getting it for the resists and the talent points for arcane meditation)

I don't pvp that much (and while I miss improved CS, it doesn't bother me that much, missing POM is more of the pain but I've come to prefer combustion for raiding) We're farming aq40 and pushing hard into naxx

Anything I missed?

Keep in mind Arcane Meditation is only as valuable as your spirit. +15% of that regen likely won't net you much. You'd have to do the math based on your own spirit pool but the formulas are on wowwiki (search for spirit) if you don't know them.

I would drop magic attunement. It used to be a highly underrated talent that trivialized some encounters but unfortunately the nerf to dampen magic hit the talent hard because improved dampen magic is now often times worse than the regular version.

Arcane meditation is not a bad talent actually if all you do is raid. If you PvP at all get imp CS instead. 2/3 elemental precision is heresy for a raid build in my view so get that third point there before getting meditation.

Another thing to consider is that instead of 18/31/2, you could go 17/32/2 and max out MoE and go with 2/3 arcane meditation depending on what your spirit and crit rates are.

For raiding purposes one should remember to factor in DS buff, GoTW and BoK (if alliance) into the spirit regen and crit calculations.

yeah I'll admit i really do like my current spec - I probably should swap impact for improved fireblast (how is improved magic attunement worse than unimproved, it can't reduce more than 50% of incoming dmg so thats that bigger window unless something is hitting you for less than its total amount dampened)

Anyhow I played around on the spreadsheet by Irontygress it shows that I would gain roughly 4 seconds extra of pure fireball spam, 14 secs of pure scorch spam with meditation

Unless there is a pally judgement up for the entire fight in which case fireball gains another two seconds but pure scorch spam gains another 30 seconds... Basically arcane meditation isn't worth it unless your pure scorch spamming with a judgement up on the target - MOE is only slightly less efficent

Improved dampen magic is worse in any situation where you run heavily into the "max of 50%" rule added last patch, because heals still get the full reduction while damage gets less than the full reduction.

Example (with made up numbers for easier math).

Assume DM reduces damage by 50 and healing by 100. Now assume you have something that does 100 damage.

With regular DM, the damage of this attack is reduced by 50 and healing is reduced by 100. With "improved" DM, the damage of this attack is still reduced by 50 due to the 50% rule but healing is reduced by 150. Thus you are worse off. And since DM is mostly used on small, frequent damage sources this applies on many fights where the spell shines.

Basically you're proposed spec aint that good. Your current spec, which is the one i use, seems way better for raiding. Impact only has minor use in naxx, but somehow i think our melee like it when cleaving mobs like anub adds are stunned :P
Consider that on most fights, using roughly 90%fireball and 10% scorch MoE makes 1spell crit worth 2mana/5sec.
So you'll want full MoE with any fire spec.
If you really think the roughly 5mana/2sec (assuming 180spirit, tick = 2sec, spirit/4 + 12.5 formula) is worth losing the points in fire then go ahead, generally i'd say you simply lack crit and mana tick gear if you have mana problems.

I'd also advice you to work on your pot and gem cooldown rotations.

But maybe you really have an other problem, seeing i really can't figure any fight in naxx where i run oom and i only use mana pots on Patchwork.

What fights are you running out of mana?

Putting one more point into MoE and take it from arcane meditation.
MoE will give more mana back then arcane meditation. And your +crit will increase a lot faster then your spirit and double as a +damage modifier.
All mana regen helps though and have been using 17 31 3 now for a while and happy with it (just lack the range talent).

-MoE:
25% crit chance on scorch:
1 point in MoE = 5 mana/tick.
-Arcane Meditation
250 spirit:
1 point in AM = 3.75 mana/tick.

---

Maths:
MoE:
One out of 4 spells will crit: 150 * 0.1 = 15 mana back every 6 seconds = 5 mana / tick.

AM:
( Mana gained per tick = Spirit/4 + 12.5)
250/4 + 12.5 = 75
0.05% = 3.75 mana / tick

Presumably Master of Elements is much less valuable for a newly-minted 60 mage who is unlikely to have much access to endgame loot beyond Zul'Gurub? 25% crit on Scorch is quite high, and pretty definitely out of my reach for now.

Ok, recalc (again):

ok, even more generally for elemental spells, when comparing AM to MoE:

If your spirit satisfies
(spirit/4 + 12.5) > (4*spellcost*crit/100)/casttime

With Scorch:
If your
Spirit + 50 / crit > 16, stick with AM ( 25% crit as 25 etc.)

I would suggest a 17/31/3 spec for maximum DPS as well as other PVE benefits in a Naxx guild environment. It also partially depends on how many firemages you run with for ignites, but we generally run with 6-8 firemages in the raid.

Such a spec would be like this spec, http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

As others have stated, magic attunement is pretty much useless, and I consider 2/3 arcane meditation with 3/3 elemental precision to be better than 3/3 arcane meditation and 2/3 elemental percision. With this spec you can really pump out massive damage, and you have close to the best mana efficiency a firemage can get. It is a serious PVE only spec, however I've performed just fine in PVP with it over the last 4 months or so. Once you get used to not having ICS it helps a lot =).

Don't sacrifice talent points on MOE and flamethrowing though, for DPS purposes they are really useful over long term fights for mana conservation such sa patchwerk, and movement oriented fights such as Faerlina where the extra range can save you some time.

Is there a reason why you can use a lower ranked Dampen Magic on fights where you are taking less than double the damage reduction amount? We downrank spells all the time to suit out needs, why not that one, too?

I have never used dampen magic on any fight ever unless i thought i wasnt going to get healed. Its beasically all or nothing. Amplify magic is always used for fights with no magic damage so theres no point to have a lower rank cast.

Imp Amp = Win @ Maexxna / Patchwerk.

AND Saph