Are the different specs similar enough that a Pawn string could be configured? My mage is starting to get "upgrades" (i.e. items that seem to be about equal to the ones I currently have, just with a different mix of stats). It'd be nice to know in a quick way, such as reading a tooltip, which of the two items would be the most beneficial for me.

Unfortunately the only quick thing you can do is go to a spreadsheet or make your own and figure out your crit->spell damage and int-> spell damage (and hit->spell damage if applicible), and write those down, then when you have an item in-game to compare you just put them in the calculator and see how much damage it's worth.

I(lvl 70 mage) tested a little bit and shot a lot of frostbolts against lvl 1-3 animals around northshire.
My dmg range was from 1518 to 1568.
927 Spell dmg and full frost specced.

Expected dmg would be from
(597+(927*3/3,5*0,95))*1,11 = 1500 to
(643+(927*3/3,5*0,95))*1,11 = 1551.6
(base dmg is 597-643 according to http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=27072)
but actual dmg is 18 points higher.

Tooltip of Frostbolt shows 636-686 dmg wich would mean 1543-1599 dmg and is to high.
I also don't see where the tooltip values come from, it's not 597*1,06 nor 597*1,05 nor 597*1,11?
Can somebody find the error in my calculation?

PS: I tested the Relentless Earthstorm Diamond and with this(reequipped to have 927 spell dmg again) and got crits from 3173 to 3275 wich is clearly 209% crit dmg.

Afaik the tooltip shows the base value modified by talents but not spell damage, meaning it's a quite meaningless number.
Either wowhead numbers are wrong (which I doubt, you can check next time you respec or ask a fire mage that is actually online ;p).
The damage bonus is probably additive, meaning the coefficient for frostbolt is 3/3.5-0.05 and not 0.95*3/3.5. It's not verified but after you check if you were taking the right values also check if this "fixes" your numbers. Other things that affect coefficient I've already seen tested and shown to be additive and not multiplied.

Afaik it's widely accepted that the frostbolt coefficient is 81,4% (3/3,5*0,95) instead of 80,7% (3/3,5-0,05). However this doesn't fixes my numbers.

I already asked firemage about his tooltiptext fobo dmg and he shows 600 - ~650(don't remember exact max value). He skilled playing with fire (+3% spell dmg) wich brings even more confusion how the tooltip dmg is calculated.

I agree that my tooltip values must include talent but I don't get the maths how blizzard gets to these values. Assuming the tooltip includes the taltnes would result in this calcuulation:
636+(927*3/3,5*0,95*1,11) = 1473 wich is too low.

EDIT:

Heureka!

I've got a reasonable calculation:
Let's assume the tooltip shows the correct base dmg including talents and let's assume there is NO -5% extra coeffcient nerf for frostbolt then we would have:
636+(927*3/3,5*1,11)=1517,97 min and 1567,97 as max. This would exactly fit with my results (1518-1568).
If this is not luck with numbers, there are 2 Qustions:
1. Was the 5% extra coefficient nerf for frostbolt removed? (hidden buff) - Please test and math this mages around there.
2. What is the real base dmg (without talents) of frostbolt 13 at lvl70 and how are the tooltip values calculated.

Copied my mage to the PTR, which reset my talent points. Frostbolt damage is shown as 600-647 with no talent points spent (0/0/0).

The problem is that your spells improve for a few levels after you learn them. You learn that Frostbolt at 69 with 597-643 damage (wowhead listed value), and its damage increases a bit (to 600-647) when you reach 70.
Also, the +5% and +6% damage talents might be multiplicative? This might give you another couple of damage points, but still not the 18 damage you're missing.

Ok so we have an explanation of the tooltip now:
Frostbolt Rank 13 base dmg @lvl69 = 597 - 643
Frostbolt Rank 13 base dmg @lvl70 = 600 - 647

Talents:
Playing with fire ("increases all spell damage caused by 3%") and
Arctic winds ("Increases all frost damage you cause by 5%") both
do NOT affect tooltip.

Piercing Ice ("Increases the damage done by your frost spells by 6%") affects the tooltip:
600 - 647 * 1,06 = 636 - 686 (685,82).

@galzohar: What talents have you specced? arcane instability?

10/48/3. My AB shows the same damage as a guildie 0/0/61, even though I have 3/3 playing with fire. My fireballs show 10% more than the 725 base I'm supposed to have instead of 13% it would've shown if playing with fire was taken into account. The 725 base is from the frost mage again since he has nothing that increases fireball nor AB damage.

Does Spirit affect dmg? I've noticed that with a spirit buff on or off my dmg on my Char screen is changing.

So I went into Vontre's Spreadsheet and tested out adding 1 spi to see how it impacted dmg. I expected to see no dmg change, but only a change to the length of time I could dmg (by a miniscule amount). But actually both changed (albeit by a miniscule amount).

I was just wondering what the impact of Spirit is on dmg...ie: is it a straightforward ratio, or is there something about spirit that, say, increases crit chance overall, or what?

I assume you are seeing the results of that.

You had Improved Divine Spirit from a priest , +damage buff equal to 10% spirit of your spirit.

e: beat.

Can full frost mages keep up respectable damage nowaday's vs fire? I used to always be fire but I've taken a liking to frost and don't want to respec ever other day.

My theoretical fireball spam DPS: 1215
My theoretical 8Xfireball+scorch DPS: 1207
DPS lost: 0.66%
And if you let scorch wear off mid fight, in most fights in the game, you seriously messed it up and need to think what you did wrong ;p

Moving? Seriously the difference between different spells when you have to move is almost the same. As in most spells lose almost the same relative amount of DPS when you're forced to move. Scorch might be on the far end only losing 1/2 of what fireball loses on average when moving distance is ->0, but in reality most of the DPS lost due to moving is because while you're moving you're not DPSing, and not because you interrupted a spell mid-cast. It's hard to prove or test, but rarely do I say "damn I should've scorched now I had to interrupt my fireball"...

For trash that dies fast, learn when your fireball will not get to fire off and target the next target in advance and/or finish off with a firebalst if you're in range.

Can anyone give me some idea of how currently crit/ spelldamage/hit relate to eachother? I've read a lot of different opinions and types of math on this, but nowhere does it seem to give something conclusive. For instance, is 32 crit rating generally better then 32 spelldamage?

Reading around on the subject would've revealed that it depends on the values you already have in those slots. Obviously if you're hit capped you gain nothing from more hit rating. Having 1k crit rating and 100 spell damage would also be a silly state of affairs where spell damage would provide a much higher dps increase then more crit rating.

Download one of the many spreadsheets around, plug your own numbers in and find the value of each stat specifically as it relates to you.

You need insanely high +damage and insanely low crit chance (really unrealistic amounts) for 1 crit rating to actually reach 1 spell damage. Unless you're 33/28 fireball spammer, but there's really little point speccing 33/28 over 10/48/3 if you're going to spam fireballs, and if you spec 33/28 for AB/fireball rotation the value of crit is about the same as it is for a 10/48/3, as fireballs get more out of crit with that spec but ABs get less, averaging to about the same crit->damage conversion value as 10/48/3. So no, as a rule 32 crit rating isn't better than 32 damage.

I hope this is the most appropriate place to ask this question.

Has anyone modeled spell pushback and stopcasting macros for real raid use? The standard reccomendation lately is to use stopcast macros and Quartz to up DPS in raids. When I was soloing and practicing my timing with my Icehud bar, I would sometimes get spell pushback and lose the spell from the stopcast. Also as I use this method of casting, it seems like my field awareness goes down since I am now bar watching. For 10 minutes of solo with and without stopcast macros during primal mana farming in Netherstorm, I had my 10 minute average dps drop from around 630 to 580 due to lost casts from interruption (scorch spam in a 46/15/0 build). How do you handle pushback with stopcasting in a raid enviroment?

What about field awareness? When I bar watch, I miss stuff going on in the field. I used to play a priest, and it was only when I came back through the instance a 2nd time as a warrior that I actually saw instances. Is it just my Icehud bar which is so small I must focus upon it? Is the quartz bar so large you can stopcast with peripheral vision? For battles like Shade in Kara I have to see that blizzard etc, and I just don't really know how you guys stopcast there. Without a stopcast macro I can watch the changing field and just spam punch that bar, and react to the field better. Also it seems like I can either run Quartz or Icehud, because I get no Quartz bar with Icehud.

Well, first, dealing with spell pushbacks depends upon your build. If you had 2pt into burning soul, then you would have 70% resistance to pushbacks. In fights with a lot of pushback, you *could use 2pc t4 set bonus. I am thinking of a fight like teron gorefiend, maybe the 100% prevention from pushback would pay itselff off quickly compared to 0% pushback prevention.

Under almost *every fight in TBC (yes, up to illidan), almost every single fight where spell pushback comes into play you are stationary (teron), and thus, you are looking at your casting bar regardless. There is very very few fights I can think of that will be severely impeded by wrong stopcasting timings due to pushbacks. Usually you have to deal with things such as raid-wide fear (archimonde), which will stop your cast regardless, or something like being flung mid-air (archimonde again). There is also lurker from below, which can do his conical pushback ability. To further prove my point, naj'entus does several pushbacks, but again, you do not move in that fight, and as such, all you do is watch your castbar.

The short version is that pushbacks that are not stopping entirely your casts are rare. If there are those on a boss fight, you typically don't have to move at all. Needless to say, burning soul is still a key talent for fire-based damage.

EDIT: wtf, it doesnt matter what you do for shade of akama. im pretty sure you could do the fight with 15 players, casually screwing things up.
RE-EDIT: you can make quartz bigger to help your stopcasting, as well as make it transparent if it cuts on your viewing space.

It's not easy stuff, but it's well worth the effort. You get used to it after some time. If you expect spell interruption just wait for the spell to complete and lose the /stopcasting effect in that case, or gamble that your burning soul is gonna work ;p in raids you really don't have spell pushbacks happening as if it did it would've made mages quite useless as a DPS class regardless of /stopcasting (anyone for vaelstraz with 10 rogues? ).

While unrelated, I assure you that doing vaelastrasz was pure joy at 70 with perma spamming AB, even despise the constant spell pushback. (also: screw fire immune bosses)

When the encounter is really demanding in terms of field awareness or if you are learning a new encounter, I don't worry too much about maximizing the effect of stopcasting. You can still trim off small amounts of lag without paying too close attention, and then just continue to refine that based on your experience with the fight. Its definitely not worth interrupting your cast or even dying in order to trim off 50ms from some of your fireballs. The stopcasting isn't going to completely eliminate your lag in every situation.

That's some good stuff there mate, I wasn't looking for exact numbers but rather a rule of thumb

I've recently been stacking crit because it makes the lightning capacitator even more overpowered then it already was, with me being an arcane mage and using short cast spells all the time, but I may need to rethink this a bit it seems.