He's already almost capped with 40/18/3, not to mention I calculated hit rating to be slightly inferior to spell damage point per point for a 40/18/3 build using the rotation, and if you mix in any amount of AB spamming hit only gets lower in value. For exmample if you AB spam 25% of the time hit rating becomes 0.66 spell damage with crit rating dropping from 0.88 dmg to 0.82 dmg, using my stats and calculations. Of course those are gear dependant etc but as I've already mentioned many times the level in which your stat values change when you adjust your gear are rather minimal unless you make extreme gear changes.

Putting aside SSC/TK, there is only archimonde where you might find the talent useful. Its nice to have, but you're trying to make a big argument out of a nice, but small, perk. Its like pretending that fire spec beats arcane spec because burning soul is a great talent on a given fight. Its a nice perk. Nothing more. Both talents *can improve DPS, but its situational.

Typically fights that require you to decurse are fights where you have lots of downtime regardless (archimonde springs to mind). Same for sheeping, as is in kaelthas. Spealsteal is used solely on reliquary of souls (possibly) and illidari council. In both of those fights, I doubt you would care a great deal about mana regen (well, maybe for illidari council, but theres lots of mana regen there regardless). Oh and please, lets not talk of Maulgar, ok.
Again, this is just a minor detail. It can be nice to have, but for the specific example you gave it doesnt really apply.

Wow. Ok, lets be honest here. As a fire mage, Master of elements is nice to have, but thats pretty much it. It amount to like 20-25% of the mana a shadow priest will give me, if not less (and probably less, I haven't checked the numbers exactly). The one time master of elements is nice is in mana starved aoe situations, because thats where the talent shines. But regardless, as a fire mage i don't really have much use out of master of elements in almost every fight (save morogrim, but we don't do ssc anymore anyway). My shadow priest gives me much more mana than I am able to use.

If you want to say that fire 'looses from downranking', I will politely reply to you that downranking as fire mage will never happen, for the simple reason that you never go oom. If you wanted to make a strong argument, I would have rather said that fire spec sucks ass on shahraz, illidari council and illidan. I would not have anything to say beyond 'well thats true'.

With that kind of quote, you lose a lot of credibility. You admitted that arcane spec works because it can make use of excessive mana, whereas fire cannot. Then you move on to say that arcane spec wins because you can cut your arcane missiles in half and you still dealt 50% of the damage for 100% of the mana cost ? C'mon! I don't want piss-poor argument. If you have something important to say, say it, if its not, please don't. If you do a fight with arcane spec, and you know you might have to move, you will *probably avoid doing arcane missiles specifically because you want to avoid having to cut it in half. Fireball will have incurred 0 mana cost for 0 damage. A fire mage would move, fireblast on the way, then keep nuking. Whereas the arcane mage would probably do the same, with the exception that he will not be happy to have just lost a ton of mana on doing essentially piss-poor dpm (50% damage for 100% of the AM mana cost if you prefer). You would rather save that mana for the AB-spam.

Ok. What's your point? Arcane spec deals more damage than fire spec if it can unload its mana. Yeah, we got that. Thats what the entire thread was saying.

I hope you won't mind, but i'll skip that part. It seems like a pure troll. Particularly the section about leotheras. If you have aggro issues as fire, get better tanks. Thats all I have to say. I heard hunters have a quite nice talent to that effect too. It happens to be particularly good on fights where there are aggro resets.

Actually, scratch that. I'll do it, its just too terrible.
Ok so you're trying to say arcane does better, but you can't prove it really because the comparisons arent immediate. Fire mages will have the easiest time on vashj due to range; we literally never ever move from the center, and we are always in range of striders. You assumption that 'you can do better than fire' does not takes into account when there is multiple fire mages. If you have just one fire mage, then yes, I readily agree, stacking scorch sucks. If you have 2, its a non issue. Again, you try to prove that arcane is better, but you failed to mention a good example since there are intangibles in play.

Ok. Well, hunters can do misdirection. If a hunter does misdirection I can start casting my fireball as soon as leotheras is on the tank. By the time it hits, even if it crits with trinkets up, I won't pull aggro. If misdirection is not used, then I wait 2 seconds before I start my fireball. I can also point out that I have an easier time nuking leotheras while hes whirlwinding, thanks to my 41 yards range. Again, I don't think we will get to any conclusion while comparing intangibles.

If you truly have aggro problems, I am sad for you. Some people don't have to deal with that.
It is true that scorch isnt stacked on adds. Yes, fire mages do lose 15% dps on the 2 adds phases. Please, if you want to make a strong argument, you should have pointed out that our ignites dont deal damage to adds because they die before it even gets here. Not that it matters anyway, if you kill lurker any kind of fast, 75%+ of your dps will be on lurker alone, with very few on adds. You make a point that we lose some on the adds phase, but in the grand scheme of things it does not represents a lot of damage. If you have problems with stacking scorch up on lurker; as I said, with 2 mages its a non-issue. If you have problems with pushbacks, then do the entire fight in the water, you know, with shadow priests healing you ? You dont even need to duck while hes spouting.

Another arguably senseless statement. My answer to that: it depends. If you have a lot of aoers, combustion/blastwave/dragonsbreath will be able to push more damage than arcane explosion from an arcane mage. Bonus points if the mage saves his blastwave/dragonsbreath on adds at 20%- life. The less you have aoers (and we did with 3 aoers in the past), the more arcane explosion (and/or arcane mages) will win out. Yes, dealing with the adds is important, but after a while I'm sure your guild will start not caring at all about morogrim, or ssc for that matter. Once your players are used to the fight, the major major part of your dps will be on morogrim, since your aoers will know how to properly aoe, and thus, the aoe damage will be spread out. The more the damage is evenly spread out, the more your damage will be dealt towards morogrim. A quick quick estimate I would say 60-70% of your damage will be to morogrim, the rest to adds.

Not to sound like a troll, but maybe your post would be taken more seriously if you at least remembered the names of the boss youre referring to would help.

Ok, but you haven't given a single example of diversity/versatility in your post....I am clueless here. The only thing I can think of was that you say that arcane is great because you can cut your arcane missiles in half, and still do 50% of the damage for 100% the cost. If that's your notion of diversity/versatility, then I guess were far from agreeing on anything.

I could point many many differences between the 2 specs. If you want people to take you seriously, theres this principle that is used in politics where you basically begin by your strong points out, then going with the lesser ones. If you give just one poor example, then you can know the opposing party will use that to discredit you. Thats how it works in politics. I haven't listed the differences in the thread because I believe it does not belongs in this thread. I also haven't because I think that in the end its a matter of personal preference. I know I can get better dps on some fights with arcane, and I also know I can get better on other fights with fire. But I doubt anyone would be interested in a long elaborated post that explains the limits of every build (both arcane and fire), and where it fails to function properly, because in the end its nothing more than just plain boring to read (and write). Its a long long debate for the simple reason that there are many intangibles in play, all of which can be worked around (ex: I say range is nice to have, you say your raid have adapted to that lack of range). If you point out arcane can do better aoe dps, then I can point out it depends on the case at hand. If you point out that stacking scorch sucks then I could point out that arcane spec suffers more from lag for the simple reason that it casts more spells. Its like a dance really. For each point I can bring a counterpoint. We will never see the end of it. If you want to do something productive, instead, stay in topic, and post how to deal arcane damage properly, what kind of arcane spec will give better results over another arcane spec on an x given fight (or a more general case).

In the end, what do you want this thread to become, a useless pile of random info, or a clear and concise thread?

This is exactly the kind of quote I hate. It begins with a wide reaching statement that more or less makes sense ("stand-and-cast" fights favor fire, since they can sit there and nuke their hearts out), and finishes with a comparison between 2 players, one of which admits he has better experience.

First thing first. Fire or arcane will never win out 100% of the time. If it did, everyone would spec the spec that wins 100% of the time, talent tress would be pointless. "stand and cast" fights will favor one spec over the other depending on so many factors that I don't even want to start listing them. It depends on your group composition (since fire mages will gain more from elemental shamans than arcane mages will), whether jow will be up, what mechanics affect your cast cycle (for example, in hyjal, theres is a "stand and cast" fight, but if your mana goes below 3k, you explode. He also casts a binary resistable 3k mana drain periodically). The fight duration will play a major factor (as will anything that that involves an arcane mage dpsing). It depends on whether or not there are stop times, times to regen mana. It depends on whether or not you can use your mana gems, or mana potions (ex: naj'entus). There are TONS of factors. Even doing the simpliest of comparison is extremely hard to do accurately. In a theorycraft world, you can easily calculate sustained DPS, but what you cannot calculate easily is intangibles such as spell pushbacks (ex: naj'entus again). You could plug an average amount of spell pushback, but the model would be hard to prove. Then there are the random things, like that single-targetted stun naj'entus does. Or when naj'entus bubbles, a fire mage has a small advantage since his fireballs are longer cast than arcane blast, so I can begin casting my fireballs before we break the bubble, and 'gain more dps time' this way. I hope maybe I got some people to understand why comparing specs is almost a futile exercise.

If your fire mage is having mana issues, or speaking about mana regen in any way, or even referring to anything that could be attributed to mana consumption, then I fear the voracity of his claims. If you truly believe you won out a gruul meter due to mana reason, then I hearthily hope your raid will do an honest attempt at boosting your shadow priest dps. If you are specced arcane, you have much to gain in the process. Make sure your shadow priests get their shaman, make sure you get a destro lock in your raid, so that this way he can keep ISB up. Make sure your destro lock has an elemental shaman, so that he gets 3% more chance to keep isb up every shadowbolt he casts. Yes, that makes a big difference. I don't mean this in a bad way, but if your fire mage has mana issues, something is very wrong.

Well yes. If you have more experience than the other mages odds are you stand a good chance at beating him. I don't think anyone using 'the other mage in my raids' is a good basis for an argument of comparison, unless you have a solid faith in one's skills. Even then, I can assure you there is a lot of more in play than just skills (and gear). Latency, fps, human reaction time, amongst other things.

The problem is that if everyone starts using 'other people they know' as a point of reference, is that its impossible to reproduce the results. Go ask another guild. Results will vary. We cannot use such bold claims for comparison basis.