If I had to make a wishlist for firespec gear, it would be such:
I am surprised you did not take into account ring of captured storms anywhere. I am also surprised about cuffs of devastation. I do agree that belt of blasting->anetheron's noose is minor at best, but the stats gain is still nice to have.

EDIT: also: hatefury mantle is missing in the arcane set list :/

It looks largely related to raid make-up to me.

If you're the only fire mage, it's going to be inferior to arcane. You won't be getting CoE, and you'll be doing all the scorch work.

I find it very hard to spread the scorch work around anyway. Anyone actually doing 1 scorch every 60 seconds instead of 30 when there is another fire mage? hadn't heard of anyone that actually claims to have such a thing coordinated.

As for removing CoE, just replacing it with CoD is something in the area of 10% of a warlock's DPS based on what I've seen on calculators and a few parses. The difference in DPS between using immolate and not using immolate for a warlock is already very small, so at worst you lose that difference. Anyway some say you shouldn't immolate anyway as the imp shadowbolt procs are worth the small DPS loss. Also the DPS loss is much smaller when you're wearing frozen shadoweave (but still a dps loss).

How can you chose Hatefury Mantle over Mantle of the Tempest for arcane spec? its ,4 dmg and 3 crit rating better but at a loss of 12 stamina 9 intellect and 21 spirit.

I was merely interested in knowing the dps difference between spellhaste mantle and hatefury, nothing more.

the big fireball spam number at the top of ronwyn's post is assuming no scorches. need at least a second fire mage to make them your scorch b!+(#.

and CoE vs. amp'd Doom & CoA...takes 2 fire mages (or destro lock i guess) to even make it a discussion. even then, it's debatable as dps curses can be around 20% of the lock's dps.

what's more, CoE is probably 3rd behind CoR and CoS anyway. So you'll probably need 3 locks to see CoE at all.

It's funny that when being fire is most viable (3+ locks, 2+ fire mages), the debuff slots fire eats up are also the most valuable.

CoR is not affected by malediction, the debuff thing is a valid point though. Also it's worth noting that unless you have more than 1 firemage keeping up scorch is going to suck.

The difference is quite small between Fire and Arcane. I'd suggest staying Deep Arcane because it is easier to not screwup. If you miss a scorch renew, Flamecap, pot, trinket, CoE 13% and so on, you can seriously mess up your DPS.

I'm not up to speed regarding the 'rules' governing the 1/3 dmg from +healing in 2.3, but doesn't Memento of Tyrande become a situationally attractive trinket for an am-spamming Arcane mage?

118/3 = 39.3~dmg
Chance on cast 76mp5 for 15 seconds

My real question is (and somewhat off topic) is the +dmg bonus to healing applied at the item level (meaning any class in possession of a +healing item receives 1/3 of it's +healing in damage) or whether or not being a specific class (a healing class) is a prerequisite for the +dmg bonus.

Nah, ignore me if you read that.

Took 5 seconds to check thottbot for an answer to that.

That's too funny, so that 2.3 change may have just turned what is probably the best healing trinket in the game into an amazing trinket for Arcane Specced mages as well.

Is there a hidden cooldown on that trinket? If there is then it's not that good but if there is no cooldown then that trinket is basically a constant 76 mp5 along with 39.3damage which is 1824 mana every 2 minutes. Which actually makes it pretty amazing.

If a dev reads this - or someone blabs - I'm sure they'll change Memento of Tyrande to proc only off of healing spells.

There is a cooldown on the memento. But it's short. I can't remember what it is right offhand.

Not to mention Wrath of Cenarius. (not off healing spells obviously, but the proc mechanics in general)

What are you basing that on? According to wowhead its a 10% chance, and given the nature of all items with internal cooldown it would be 3 times it's duration so a 45 second cooldown as with all other trinkets/procs unless I'm mistaken?

I found that arcane gave me more latitude. My guild always has a shadow priest amongst the mages. It was never an issue. Arcane seems to allow massive damage output when time is truncated, and steady solid dps when things are long winded.

Threat is rarely an issue, I always found myself standing around as a fire mage during the first 5k or so of threat to give myself a nice cushion because if I didn't I would have to break much earlier to invis to get out of stand still land. When I gave a large enough bumper I used invis to give my tank a huge lead so I could just go all out.

Arcane seems more upfront and constant with dps. I can slow things down and AB-AB-AM to conserve mana, or AB all out to gain traction in oportune times, or just use AM spam with a JOW up and get solid DPS.

Leothoras is great for down time/uptime dps. On human phases I would get little DPS time and more run time for the 5 sec rule to kick in. On demon phases I would pop AP and go nutz once the lock established a lead. Then regen on human phases. Its always a measurement game though. You can over do and under do fights.

I like it but I will be giving frost a try again once 2.3 rolls around. I haven't raided frost in a long year.

Fire is still solid, just not as adaptive. Fire is an on/off switch.

='(

It was worth a shot.

This could be bad. On the standard rule for internal cooldowns, MSD would have a 30 second CD.

2.3 Patch notes;
- Mystical Skyfire Diamond: A cooldown has been added to this item’s
effect, but the chance for it to trigger has been increased.

Not surprised.

of course they don't mention how long the CD is

probably 30 seconds or so :'<

I'm currently in raid... has anybody tried the PTR yet with the results?