This, considered against other aspects such as the improved benefits of BoW/JoW (and better viability of ret pala) and generally more abundant amouts of spirit leads me to beleive that mana is going to be about the same place in WotLK as it is in BC, just with less dependance on a Spriest.

I think the AoE changes have more to do with balancing 10-man instances. For example, in KZ there are a few AE pulls before the second boss. Up until WotLK, only mages and warlocks were able to do any worthwhile AoE damage, but not it seems as though Druids and Shadow Priests will be able to fill this roll as well so that you no longer need to take that mage or warlock in addition to the Druid or Priest. They're probably just looking to add more flexibility to the classes that are brought so that no class is absolutely required in the 5 or 10-man instances.

I don't know how Shadow Priest or Balance Druid AoE will eventually turn out or how the damage will compare to what mages and warlocks do now, but it's not necessarily a bad thing for those classes to actually be able to fill some rolls outside of being DPS enhancers in 25-man raids. Letting a Balance Druid root indoors probably means that he can fill in for a mage in a 5-man pretty easily.

I like where they're going, but they do need to make sure it balances well and scales properly.

Above argument is in my opinion wrong. You never needed an aoe class for KZ as example. Even for illhoof you don't need. So i doubt it will matter in 10 mans. You can always run a heavy melee 10 man raid or a caster one and be succesfull in karazhan or any other place. I can understand people generally overgear KZ level but even back than year ago it was perfectly fine.

Giving aoe skills to 'others' will limit spots for mages/locks as long this classes don't provide better DPS and/or utility and so fourth.

I would like to see a new thing though for mages and probably other classes. I noticed lately how many skills i have to actually use on my mage and clicks compared to other classes especially in arena. I know it has other side making some classes dull but after you have spent ~300d/played on a mage alone and a lot on other classes it's making me feel like im trying to play 3 classes at once on my mage.

Those are designed solely as 10-mans. We have a very different situation now with 25-man raids having a 10-man mode. In order to preserve as much of the fight design as possible between the two modes, not to mention increasing the challenge for 10-man mode, it would be useful for Blizzard to have required AOE as one of the tools in its design toolbox; this would require that more classes have AOE capabilities to ensure a 10-man raid is equipped for the encounter.

Took everyones advice, did some research, corrected my mistakes, and added new features, heres...

WotLK Mage Spec Comparison Chart: WotLK Spec Comparison Chart.xls

Version 2.0, Last Updated: 6/7/08

Changes:
Changed page organization to make it easier to read.
Added Information at the top.
Added New Input Stats which include:
-Spell Hit
-Spell Haste
-Number of Mages
-Travel Time + Latency
Added Calculations for Winter's Grasp using a simple formula of:
-Uptime = WGDur/(WGProcRate^-1*CastTime)
-TotalUptime = 1-(1-Uptime)^NumMages
-NumBolts = ROUNDUP(TotalUptime*WGProcRate^-1)
-TotalNumBolts = NumBolts+IF(EmptyWGTime<TravelLatency,1,0)
-WGCrit = TotalNumBolts/WGProcRate^-1*.5
Added rough calculations for Combustion
-If someone could post the algebraic formula for how much crit Combustion gives, I will add it as soon as I can.
Corrected how Critical Bonus was calculated.
Corrected how Multiplicative Damage Increase was calculated.
Corrected how Multiplicative Mana Decrease was calculated.
Haste now effects mana cost of spells
-Since time is not calculated in to reflect the effect of haste of mana spent.

If you find any more errors please tell me and I will fix them as soon as I can.
If you have any suggestions to make it better, please tell me, I would be happy to make it better.
If anyone knows more about excel then I do, could you please help me make graphs that use a variable spell damage or variable crit as the X axis, and the dps of the 5 specs as the Y axis?
The calculations are a lot more perfect then they were before, so don't expect any large changes in the results at this point forward.

Thank you and enjoy.

Very nice. There is one thing I'd like you to calculate though for verification. In your 34/37 WG/Ffb build would you mind switching the points from pyromaniac to playing with fire and the points from winter's chill to arctic winds and assume that winter's chill is being stacked by another mage?

This is a link to a build I'm currently looking at War Pirate :: Talent tree Mage

Ah, well I tried out 4 different specs according to what you said. First of all, Arctic Winds only effects Ffb when its doing frost damage, so if I changed the spec to that, you would be doing 5% more damage with Arctic Winds instead of the 15% more damage from Imp Scorch. But I experimented with a combination of PWF, Pyromaniac, and Combustion and this is what I found:

1 PWF 2 PYRO
1859.510998
15.37892525
5.471514369
1487.608799

3 PWF
1845.699822
15.12319362
5.380530164
1476.559858

2 PWF Combust
1858.868194
15.31913942
5.450243767
1487.094555

1 PWF 1 PYRO Combust
1865.468999
15.44554322
5.495215715
1492.375199

So the best spec is actually this: War Pirate :: Talent tree Mage

Also, by testing this I realized that 1% crit is better than 1% more damage for Ffb, just goes to show how powerful critting is in this spec.

Thanks for the feedback too man, I'll reupload the spreadsheet again after a little bit and some more updates.

Anyone else disappointed with the talents concerning pve buffs? Winters grasp is the only real buff added in regards to this and thats deep in the frost tree. Many classes now have talents in all trees that offer good group buffs or target debuffs that all classes benefit from. I was really hoping for something like an improved scorch talent that helps all dps classes or an icy veins type spell that helps the entire party, to give raiders more incentive to bring mages to raids.

I used to want something like that Joink, but in the end we're not a hybrid class. It's not really our job to buff others, but rather to do enough damage to warrant being buffed by them.

As for a good reason to bring mages to raids, beyond what we have now? Call me crazy but the Death Knight is Blizzard's new baby. They are going to make PvE content to help them shine. As it stands now mages appear to have better synergy with them than most.

I still dont understand whole idea behind hybrid classes having utility while pure dps classes can't have some of it. Hybrids will always have more of it.
It's time to stop following the 'old' class and game design and make it equal and fair for all. Whatever was 3 years ago is totally outdated, this games changed insanly from the early BC beta.

It would be best idea to stop the crap behind factions being hostile also, i still dont get it why blizzard don't plan to shaft whole idea behind them? Ok, lore, seriously couldn't care less like probably very big % of players. I want to group up with alliance as horde etc. World pvp doesnt exist anyway, but this thing is for totally new topic.

For myself, I want more damage. And it looks like we are getting it. Not just in absolute terms, but I think also in relative ones. I don't play a mage for utility and find a lot of the utility we do bring irksome in practice as it tends to interfere with our dps. (Does anybody like, say, decurse spam on Kalecgos, for example?)

Utility be damned. Give me a group version of amp magic and call it a day so far as utility is concerned. If our nukes can put in the hurt, then all is well.