Well, it's really a question of what you need in your raid. Really, all that spec is, is a FFB variant that sacrifices single target for AoE dps.

Personally, I would ask: are you wiping because there's not enough AoE dps? If so, then sure, I can see this as being a viable spec.

However, if you don't then it's probably not worth it ("If it ain't broke...").

What is sacrificed for the extra AoE of this spec is:

* extra hit needed from gear - (probably not a big deal with high hit Ulduar gear)

* higher cost of frost spells - 2/3 frost channeling instead of 3/3 isn't a big deal, but on fights like Vezaxx, you'll probably want to reduce casting cost as much as possible.

* Less range on your main nukes - This is probably the biggest disadvantage, although you might want to refer to the debate about this talent on the previous page. Personally, I wouldn't skip flame throwing since more range means more flexibility in fights (less need to move, but more room to do so when necessary).

If it were me considering going FFB, I'd stick with the current accepted variant rather than this one.

To be honest, there is nothing new discussed in that thread. It's not rocket science to arrange talent points for better AoE or single target dps depending on your particular gear setup. You can always "devote", so-to-speak, one of your specs for better AoE and the other for better single target dps (such as Fire/TTW). However, for the fights in Ulduar, better AoE doesn't provide a whole lot besides the obvious faster trash clear = more boss attempts. But I would probably think twice before I plan my talent builds around that.

I was wondering if gear was a factor in how effective relevant Mage specs are.

I have attempted using this very build but with considerably poorer results than with a pure arcane build.

On unbuffed dummy tests I get 1500 DPS with FFB and 2000 DPS with Arcane (with evocation factored into the Arcane DPS)

The disadvantage of the pure arcane build is that it consumes mana very fast, relying on the "debuff" from arcane barrage to boost the DPS into respectable figures, but requireing much more frequent uses of evocation during boss fights

Will this change if my gear improves? I currently only have 2 Tier (7.1) items , and a handfull of Naxx25 drops (Gemmed with 3 runed dragonseye and 2 runed scarlet rubys), but my Head, Chest and Wrist are taylor-crafted items.

My personal experience was that Arcane gave the highest dps until I was replacing my 4pT7 with T8 gear and was gearing up with Ulduar gear, where I switched to TTW Fire. I found this to be the case, not only for my theoretical dps with Rawr, but also in practice from actual raids.

Also, if you do go arcane, make sure you run with 57/3/11 for raids. Check out the arcane thread for more info on that.

There is nothing really new in this FFB spec (with 2/3 ice floes, 3/3 in precision, 1/3 in frost channeling, it was used during Naxx by many mages) . Only an alternative spec which is great when you have no mana issue and you need better aoe. In Ulduar, better than a Classic FFB spec for... Freya only (but certainly not as good as deep ice).

Short answer: Yes, it will change as gear improves.

Arcane can help make up for low level gear DPS wise, but you'll be hard pressed to sustain your damage output (since arcane is so mana intensive.) The 6% hit from talents helps compensate for low hit rating so you can focus on spell power more. When I started raiding I picked arcane just for that reason, but with only around 18k mana I was bound by mana gems, pots, and evocating constantly.

So bottom line, your gear needs to support your spec.

For arcane your DPS will improve with haste and your sustained output will improve with as much int/mana as you can get. you also get +spell through int, making intelligence more important than in any other spec.

For FFB your DPS will scale with +crit, but you need 3% more +hit gear than arcane needs. On most fights I only mana gem for the 2PT7 bonus, and I don't think I've ever run out of mana as FFB. FFB has no problem sustaining damage.

For FB/TTW your DPS will scale with +spell the best out of the specs, and then crit/haste are very nice. But unless you're in Ulduar gear, or the better naxx gear, you'll be hard pressed to maintain the high +hit cap. You'll need to watch your mana more than FFB but less than arcane, and 3.2 will make sustaining damage in long fights easier. This is probably the most gear reliant spec out there.

for frost... you need resilience ;-p see what i did there?

Obviously every spec needs +spell, and increasing haste/crit will improve DPS, but certain specs work better with certain gearing.

So bottom bottom line ;-p.... if you're just starting out to raid Arcane might be a good idea if you can't get enough +hit. FFB won't start to produce good numbers until you can get your FFB crit rate to 35-40%. My usual FFB crit rate is 50-60% now (except on Loetheb, where I had a nice 95% crit rate last night, that was fun).

Hope that helped.

edit: I just looked at your gear. 71/0/0 is definitely... interesting... way to go... I dual-spec the pretty standard Arcane and FFB specs, so you may want to try out a standard 57/3/11 build. you'll get more crit, mana reduction, more hit (which you don't need, but it'll give you some leeway to gem more +haste for arcane or +crit for ffb) , icy veins haste (and more improtantly knockback prevention for evocate), and some more goodies.

And you do have a ton of +hit gear, which is mostly wasted on arcane. I think you'd be able to see good DPS with a FFB, or even Fireball/TTW spec with all the hit you got.

I wasn't bashing you, i was simply commenting that it's curious that you would choose a random proc run speed talent over putting a hit gem in your gear and getting run speed to boots instead of icewalker.

Personally, i normally save blink to get myself out of a tight situation where i might die, and let's remember that blink also costs a decent amount of mana and on top of that has quite a long cooldown (meaning that if you burned blink on something like getting yourself into position, you might not have it when the fire shows up under your toes).

Also, using a gcd on blink where you could be running 8% faster while fireblasting to both keep ignite going and keep up an illustration stack is certainly a dps loss. I have no bias here, like i said i only have 1/2 flame throwing, as i prefer to move a bit further down the arcane tree for some passive mana regen.

I honestly can't think of any situation where unglyphed blast wave is optimal either, but if that's your personal choice i have no problem with that, what works for you works for you.

First of all I just want to say that I am sorry for interrupting any ongoing conversation that this 7 page paper is about to. I made a forum on mmo-champion.com which now has over 12,000 hits in under 1 week, with the same title as the one listed above on the public mage forums, because I didn't want to write such a long post on the 50th page of this forum, but I think this thread is solid enough now in explaining my personal opinions that I would like to bring it here for further digestion because I am not getting much of a constructive conversation on that site. Only children that want to talk about how they don't like the way I deal with deconstructive criticism. In either case here is my original post. I hope you enjoy the all be it long read.

Hello my name is Jared and as you can see I play a mage named Ishwar on the Area 52 server. First a little information about me, I raided in the second best guild on the alliance side of my server for over a year as the mage officer in War Nerve. We did manage to clear Sunwell, so I have a fairly significant amount of raid experience. Unfortunately my guild broke up mostly into Symbolic Logic who left Area 52 and went onto being in the top 100 U.S. a week into Ulduar (since then they have broken up as well because there GM got into Premonition). I have been unable to raid for the most part over the last 6 months due to computer issues which will explain my current gear status being in as much high end Nax as Uldaur gear, but I have a great new computer and have found a fun guild that is progressing nicely. Ok, enough about me and onto the good stuff.

Currently there are 3 viable raid specs for mages that I would like to show some quick RAWR statistics for before we begin. For those not familiar with RAWR it works off of a 300 second encounter (which of course you can change in its options), full raid buffs, and 0 lag or mobility time. It basically shows what damage is attainable standing still with a flawless rotation, complete raid buffs, and no lag whatsoever. I will show what RAWR damage charts show with my current gear setup. Note that RAWR deals with averages. As all raiding mages know there is always going to be a large amount of RNG (random number generator) factor when dealing with procs like Missile Barrage, Hot Streak, and the self procing trinkets most of us have. You can download this mod yourself form Elitistjerks.com on the mage forums to help you optimize not only your specs, but what gear you should be looking for.

Arcane Spec – 57/3/11 RAWR: 6266.32 dps

This spec is all about burst damage, so for fights like Malygos, zurg 10 man 3 drake Sartharion, and basically any Heroic fight due to how short most of them are this spec will out damage both FFB and TTW Fireball spec on these fights. The downside of this spec is that it has the highest mana consumption of any mage spec and relies on a reduced cooldown on Evocate (down to two minutes) to recharges the player’s mana. If during the 7 seconds you evocate you are hit by anything it seriously reduces the mana returned by evocate thereby gimping your overall damage due to the fact that you will be unable to use your maximum dps rotation. This spec also has the shortest range of, 5 yards less then FFB or TTW Fireball, at 30 yards. This spec does however have a significantly lower hit cap requirement due to the 6% hit it gains from talents. With full hit raid buffs (heroic presence and a shadow priest) your hit cap drops to 184. Alone your hit cap is 289.

TTW Fireball Spec – 20/51/0 RAWR: 6737.25 dps

As you can see this is the pure single target dps spec. Since I do not PVP in WOW I am fortunate enough to be able to run this spec along with my new FFB spec and use it often in Ulduar. This spec is not as mana efficient as FFB and loses significant AOE power, but it does have a 5% (average) increase in single target dps as long as the target is being slowed or snared in some way (thunderclap for instance) to allow Torment of the Weak to apply (12% increase in damage).

When WOTLK came out raid bosses could not be affected by slow affects for all but Arcanes Slow, but from what I have read it would have taken 14 TTW Fireball mages to 1 Arcane mage to utilize this buff for an actual dps raid damage increase. Now that they have changed this since 3.1 the TTW Fireball spec is used by a number of mages that previously were using FFB. One thing to note about this spec is that it provides no hit talents to fire which makes your hit cap raid buffed 342 and alone 446. Since being soft hit capped (hit capped with raid buffs) is a requirement of all mages TTW Fireball was not used by many mages until they had nearly all the best in slot items in Nax. The fact that it is less mana efficient will not be an issue once the next patch hits do to the mana returns we will be getting from our ignites, but currently mana is an issue and is why Most mages have to evocate during long lasting fights and or use mana pots which is in fact a dps loss. Evocating is time spent not casting, and using a mana pot means you cannot use Potions of Speed or Potions of Wild Magic. This spec has a 35 yard range, 5 yards above the Arcane spec listed above. Personally I love this spec and it puts up great single target dps numbers. I recommend this spec for a few fights in Ulduar.

The Improved FFB Spec – 0/51/20 RAWR: 6409.33 dps
The World of Warcraft Armory
(As I said before I run both the 20/51/0 TTW Fireball Spec and the 0/51/20 FFB Spec so if that link pulls up the Fireball one just click over to the FFB side)

As you can plainly see this spec is in fact 5% less in single target dps then TTW Fireball(as long as TTW can apply to the Fireball), but it is far more mana efficient and, with my new changes, almost double the AOE power. First of all I just want to give some statistics on our new Ulduar Tier 8.5 gear. Our helm has 69 hit on it, our gloves 60 (64 with socket bonus), and our pants have 66. Together that is 199 hit rating just from our tier set. Many of our caster drops in Ulduar have even more hit on them as well like the trinket that drops off of 10 man Ulduar that has 108 hit and a 10 second 522 haste proc which I am currently using on bosses. With such large amounts of hit on these drops many mages are going TTW Fireball spec because they are finding hit is no longer an issue unlike it was in middle, and even for some like myself, to late Nax.

One downside to this spec is the low base damage given to FFB itself, but due to Ice Shards (100% increased critical damage), Piercing Ice (6% increase frost damage), and the buffs that TTW Fireball also utilizes in the fire tree FFB has the most powerful critical bonus damage in the game, over 330%. Here is some information posted on wowwiki.com about the FFB Spec.

"This build is PVE-competitive because of the early Frost DPS talents and the powerful crit modifier it gives to Frostfire Bolt. This build is based on Frostfire Bolt, and is classified as Fire rather than Elementalist for its steep expenditure into the Fire tree, while the Frost investment is puny in comparison, making it in reality a Deep Fire build. The rotation in this tree is exactly like the one in the above Fireball build, except replacing Fireball with Frostfire Bolt and using Living Bomb at all times. Frostfire Bolt is highly mana-efficient and has been shown to compete excellently with the Fireball build above in terms of DPS. Although Frostfire Bolt normally hits for less than Fireball, it crits hit much harder due to the number of modifiers and talents which activate on a critical hit: Burnout, Ice Shards and Ignite, all of which are absolutely mandatory. Note that unlike Fireball/TTW, Combustion is absolutely mandatory because of this. “

One thing to note about this spec in relation to the TTW Fireball spec is that due to the nature of FFB, lower base hits and higher crits, you are going to see more of an RNG factor. An upside to FFB, aside from a much more powerful AOE, is that it has much more burst damage due to specing into Icy Veins. TTW Fireball has great constant damage, but there are many fights in Nax and Ulduar that benefit from having strong burst damage and that also provide momentary damage buffs that Icy Veins can increase even further.

I would like to update this part of the forum by posting what has been discussed now on page 7 in my fight per fight Ulduar breakdown for which ones best suits FFB and what fights best suit TTW Fireball and why.

Yogg-Saron
The Tentacles which must be taken down will not have the benefit of TTW making FFB a far better choice on that fight in my opinion.

General Vezax
Not just for the added mana efficiency which is crutial on General, but also for the crit multiplier that FFB (over 330%) has utilizing the damage buff far greater then TTW, but also in that Icy Veins buffs the pools even further.
(This fight might be the one exception where Flamethrowing becomes a very useful talent to spec into and the added mana efficiency that 3 of 3 in Frost Channeling which the original 0/53/18 FFB spec provides)

Mimiron
Pretty much a pure single target fight for all but phase 3 and due to the nerf you can just wait till the end of that phase to AOE the adds, so this fight is TTW Fireball all the way.

Freya
There is a decent amount of AOE in this fight, but this is either or for me. If your guild is having trouble burning the adds fast enough then FFB is the best choice for this fight, if not then TTW Fireball. For the hardmode there is no question that FFB comes on top over TTW Fireball, but I have heard of allot of mages going Frost for this encounter as well so that one is still undecided for me as my guild is not there yet.

Thorum
If you are in the Arena AOE damage is vital in reaching phase 2 which is then just a tank and spank with some sparks flying around the place. If you are in the Arena pre phase 2 FFB and even if you are in the gauntlet I like FFB because that mechanics of that fight are when you reach the second boss in the gauntlet that is when the adds are pouring down on the Arena team which is why the burst damage of FFB comes more into play. You want to be able to get that second Boss in the gauntlet down as quickly as possible once you get to him.

Hodir
When dealing with damage amplifying fights I like FFB because its higher burst damage allows me to utilize these buffs even more aside from FFB having a greater crit muliplier than TTW Fireball making it stack better with the damage buff the boss provides. On Hodir hardmode you have 3 minutes to down him. This also suits FFB more in that when you engage the boss you pop Icy Veins, 20 seconds into the fight it falls off and 2 minutes later you have the next one perfectly timing your second Icy Veins for this hardmode which will put it again over TTW Fireball even without the damage buff.

Auriaya
Just like Freya this fight has minimal AOE, so if your guild is having trouble with getting the tigers and adds down quickly enough then I would suggest FFB, but if not stick with TTW Fireball.

Kologarn
TTW only applies to tanked (slowed or snared targets). The arms on this fight will not benefit from TTW so this fight goes hands down, just like Yogg, to FFB. TTW is the only thing that makes TTW Fireball viable.

The Iron Council
This is a pure single target fight, so TTW Fireball is the better choice. I have heard mages making the argument for FFB on hardmode for extra mana efficiency, but I will leave this alone for now because my guild is not yet there.

XT-002 Deconstructor
The slow affect that Blizzard provides on the adds might be useful if that is the duty you are on, but if you are single target dpsing the boss and heart itself then TTW Fireball is the better choice for this fight. I have heard FFB mages making the argument that for hardmode FFB is the better choice due to its mana efficiency, but as I said on the Iron Council, my guild is not there yet so I will leave that one alone as well.

Razorscale
This fight is a FFB fight. Aside from the added benefit that extra AOE power grants, the entire first phase is AOEing then waiting for the boss to drop down and Burst damaging her with everything you got to get her to phase 2 as quickly as possible. FFB has more AOE and burst damage power suiting it much better for this fight.

Ignis
A pure single target fight. TTW Fireball is a better choice for this encounter.

That is a total of 6 fights in Ulduar that suit FFB in my opinion with 3 that are either or and 3 to TTW Fireball not to mention all trash for extra bust damage and AOE power goes hands down to FFB as well.
I believe that in Nax due to the far greater amount of trash the AOE factor comes into play much more, but there are many bosses in that instance that benefit from FFB just as much as Ulduar even from a pure single target damage perspective in my opinion.

Now, onto the changes I have made to the current cookie cutter FFB spec. Your old FFB spec was 0/53/18 which put 3 points in Precision for 3% hit and on down to 3 points in Frost channeling for added mana efficiency and threat reduction. 3 points in Ice Shards and Piercing Ice, both an absolute must for FFB. 2 points in Frostbite which is not utilized by this spec and are only placed to reach the second tier of talents, and of course Icy Veins. Now that most of us are in Ulduar gear the people still using this spec are finding that mana is not an issue whatsoever. I have downed bosses using this spec and never gone below 15k mana for this reason. You can literally cast FFB forever and not go out of mana with full raid buffs and evocation in decent Ulduar gear. This is why I argue one point can be removed from Frost channeling increasing the cost of our spells by 3% and raising our threat for FFB and Blizzard by 3%. Remember we still have Burring Soul which gives us 10% threat reduction that does not stack for our Fire spells including FFB.

One thing to note about Flame Throwing for FFB is that it doesn’t affect FFB itself; it affects all other fire spells. FFB’s rotation is (as long as you don’t have to scorch), Living Bomb, FFB…. Until hot streak procs then cast instant Pyroblast and back to FFB until Living Bomb falls off, always reapplying it when it does since it is by far your highest dps cast. TTW Fireball spec is basically the same only in that Fireball replaces FFB. Most of the mages already know this, but I am covering it due to a comment that was made on the third page of this post on how important the Flame Throwing talents are in that it provides added mobility by making your Pyroblast and living bombs range 42 yards while still leaving FFB at 40. The reason I argue otherwise is because, especially with the amount of extra mana the FFB spec has, we are able to blink around left and right instead of actually having to run where we need to be like everyone else does. You run at 6 yards per second and 7 yards with the run speed boot enchant. This means it takes every other class well over 2 seconds to move the 15 yards we can in about a 1.2 GCD with the haste. We also have Living Bomb and Hotstreak instant Pyroblasts that allow us about 2.5-3 seconds of mobility time during every rotation which means we are able to move about 15 yards in any direction while maintaining full dps. This is why I also argue that Icewalker is always a better choice for Mages instead of the run speed boot enchant (something that was contested later on in this forum).

Dpsing at 35 yards is plenty of room to work with in my opinion and remember, FFB is your main nuke so if you are standing at 35 yards and the tank moves the boss away you will still get that cast off even if he moves to about 45 yards and then just blinking where you need move to. So, though Flame Throwing is a nice, it is not at all a dps increase and is why I suggest dropping it like I and many others have also done with the TTW Fireball spec (Student of the Mind>Flamethrowing) for added spirit which does equal more Crit-Mana-DPS over a theoretical one.

The last and most controversial point of the change I have made to my new FFB Spec is that I have removed 2 points from Precision. (Can be avoided by dropping 2 more points in Frost Channeling, but I choose to take 2 out of Precision instead because like many mages in Ulduar now I have 342 hit on my optimal dps gear, which is perfectly soft hit capped for TTW Fireball, so I go for the added mana efficiency Frost Channeling provides above the hit I currently cannot utilize) This also increases the mana cost of all our spells by an additional 2% (5% combined with one removed from Frost channeling) and raising our hit cap from 263 fully raid buffed and 368 alone to 315 fully raid buffed and 420 alone. The reason I am able to do this is for the same reason I and so many others have changed to TTW Fireball specs which have no hit talents whatsoever. Because with Ulduar gear hit is no longer an issue. I have only been raiding in Ulduar for a two weeks (due to computer issues over the last few months) and I don’t even have the best in slot items from Nax on a few of my pieces and I still run with 342 hit without gemming for it at all (26 above soft hit cap for FFB humorously enough making even the one point spent in Precision a complete filler talent as well).

So, what have we lost? Flame Throwing. Added range on our off casts that we didn’t need for the reasons listed above, a slight increase on mana consumption that will not even be noticed with this spec, a 3% increase on threat from Blizzard which is completely mitigated by the slow and freezing effects it provides (the threat reduction from Frost Channeling does not affect your Living Bombs, Pyroblasts, or FFBs. Only frost spells), and 2% hit that most of us don’t need (which can still be speced for by losing an extra 5% mana efficiency if you can utilize the hit gained from Precision by letting go the remaining 2 points in Frost Channeling).

Even specing for 3 of 3 in Precision and leaving out Frost Channeling all together might be the best choice period when 3.2 hits and the changes in the mana returned from Ignite take full effect. If the current cookie cutter FFB spec has to much mana as it is literally able to cast FFB forever with raid buffs, with the added mana gain that Empowered Fire is about to give us why should we then spec for even more mana in Frost Channeling instead of putting it in places that add to our overall damage?

Empowered Fire: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also grants a 33/67/100% chance to regain 2% of base mana each time the Ignite talent deals damage.

What we are able to gain with these points for our New FFB Spec is 3 of 3 in Frostbite (the old FFB spec was 2 of 3 and was not utilized whatsoever because it takes one point in Improved Blizzard for this affect to work which 0/53/18 wasn’t able to apply without losing single target dps which was and is always a mistake), one point in Improved Blizzard which allows Frostbite to be proced (a 15% chance to freeze a target in place, with any spell that applies a slow, affect for 5 seconds), and 3 of 3 in Shatter (a 50% increase in critical strike chance on frozen targets which is also notable in that FFB can proc Frostbite on adds and trash itself making it a significant single target dps increase as well).

With this new change we find that even alone you will have over a 10%-15% increase in critical strike chance with your main AOE Blizzard, but when stacked with other mages it can raise as high as 30%-40% increase because you are all applying Frostbite. Blizzard hits every second for 8 seconds of cast time (a 7 second cast with average haste). If 3 mages are hitting a target less then every second with a 15% chance to freeze them for 5 seconds that is every target being frozen period. This provides mages the most powerful AOE in the game which can be utilized on all trash and some bosses that I have listed above. It also helps other AOE heavy classes with threat spike issues when they are AOEing by not only slowing targets, but also freezing them in place making it easier for the tank to reacquire aggro before they are pulled into the raid. An all be it small, but necessary note in the added benefit of this spec.

One person comments later on in this forum that Frostbite is not always welcome if the tank has to move targets around constantly in that freezing them in place will result in some of the adds being pulled out of the AOE group. I reply to that by saying it is up to the mage himself to decide when to use his talents and when not to. You can't just run up the boss and blow all your cooldowns less than 1 second in to the encounter. You have to know when to push it and when not to. This is in fact a higher AOE damage spec in that you really don't have to use Flamestrike as your main AOE, but if the tank is moving the targets from one place to another (which he should be calling out) then maybe for that instance you can use the lower of your two AOE spells (Flamestrike) to maintain a steady stream of damage while things are on the move. Raid awareness is key, know when things are happening and whats coming next and you will have a much better chance of deciding the correct course of action. Another small, but I think necessary comment.

Personally I love having a duel spec for PVE because I am able to switch from the FFB and TTW Fireball specs at will in between fights. So, on all trash (which is in fact important in the sense that the quicker you get through trash the more bosses you are able to down) and some bosses I stick with FFB, but on others I am able to change to the higher single target dps spec of TTW Fireball. If PVP wasn’t a factor I would suggest all mages do the same, but since so many people PVP even more than they PVE this is in fact impossible for most.

If you find that you have to much hit (over 315), like most of us are now that Ulduar gear is falling left and right, I would suggest this new FFB spec over the old one because while losing no single target dps (confirmed by RAWR with any hit capped mage) we are able to buff our AOE damage to that of surpassing every other classes AOE in the game.

I just want to repeat this so no one is confused, one alternative for this spec if you are not hit capped like I am and Need Precision to be hit capped, would be to take 2 points out of Frost Channeling and put them in for 3 of 3 in Precision. You would then lose 10% overall mana efficiency (FFB specs have too much mana so this is not an issue) and have a bit more threat on Blizzard, but you would remain hit capped through talents with a Much stronger AOE.

Lastly I would like to cover something that Scorage has commented on in his replies below that I have gone into detail covering also on page 7. Some people are under the misconception that FFB does not scale well.

"The more sellpower you get, (As in, new tiers) the worse FFB spec will become. Scaling is the key for the DPS, and is one of the main problems for Arcane aswell. Arcane Missiles scaling is excellent, while Arcane Barrage, thanks to Arena fix, is terrible. The spell will see little use once we are into 3.3 and beyond, and FFB will be forgotten by then."

If conjecture is true then that means, because I have far from the best in slot gear, that if I did have the best in slot gear the damage output between FFB and TTW Fireball will spread so far apart that by T9 as he just stated, "FFB will be forgotten".

My gear currently sits at the following outputs.

TTW Fireball - 20/51/0 - 6737.25 DPS
My FFB Spec - 0/51/20 - 6412.38 DPS

Divid these two numbers and you get a 5% differential as I listed before. These specs are very similar in single target dps with TTW Fireball slightly ahead on single target encounters as long as TTW is able to apply.

Now what happens when I put the best in slot gear on? Shouldn't that differential fall farther and farther down the more sp we get as Scorage said until FFB is gone forever? Let’s look.

Best in slot gear damage outputs for TTW Fireball and FFB in a pure single target dps race.

TTW Fireball - 20/51/0 - 7572.47
My FFB Spec - 0/51/20 - 7333.87
(Now taking Precision over Frost Channeling because I am able to utilize the Hit with all the best in slot gear)

Dived these numbers and you get 3.3% differential, but wait, I thought as our gear got better with rising spellpower due to the coefficient of FFB that it would be forever forgotten? This theory of Scorages is completely disproven once again thanks to RAWR (thank you again elitistjerks.com). As it would seem the more Spellpower, Crit, and Haste we get the closer and closer FFB gets to being on par with TTW Fireball on pure single target fights. With the T9 set bonuses giving us even more Crit (which favors FFB more than TTW Fireball) I would not be surprised if the best in slot for T9 puts FFB ahead in the only thing that TTW Fireball is supposed to be better at, pure single target dps.

I know this was a long post, but I wanted to be as thorough in my explanations as possible. So, thank you for your time and Happy Hunting mages.

This isn't actually true anymore, sad to say. If you take a look at your own numbers(and they are generally true) Arcane is around 7-8% behind Fire/TTW at least. What's the difference between a standard 3xAB->AM rotation and the highest possible damage rotation(spamming AB until MBAM)? Yeah, it's about 7-8%. Arcane's omfg burst rotation actually just gives you the same as Fire/TTW's regular dps.

You do get Arcane Power and Icy Veins for 15-20s of good(+40% or so) burst, but sustained ABspam->MBAM will almost require you to evocate after less than a minute(Lust+IV is about 600 mana per second) this is why Arcane is actually pretty weak for most of the Ulduar "burst" fights, like Steelbreaker for example. Arcane's burst is good for around 30 seconds, as you approach 60-90 seconds, Fire is better, and if you are trying to burst for a 60+ second period, you also have to pay for that burst with lowered damage/mana problems on the rest of that fight if you are playing Arcane, which you don't as Fire.

That's why I wouldn't recommend Arcane for 25-man level burst fights. Now, what Arcane is actually quite good for is 10 man fights, especially if you have a bad group comp. Why? Well, there's a reason Fire/TTW is so much better in 25-man -- it scales better with every single raid buff. It gets more benefit from spellpower and haste, and around double the benefit from crit%/rating. So that +8 or 9% crit you see from raid buffs is a big deal to Fire, but much less so for Arcane. Same with demolock/ele shaman spellpower increases. 10 man fights are also significantly shorter, so that helps too.

It's unfortunate, but this disparity between Arcane and Fire will just get bigger, when Colliseum comes out and people in normal mode ilvl245 gear have higher dps than people do in Ulduar bis now, Arcane will just get worse and worse and by Icecrown it's likely that it'll be as dead as Frost barring some significant improvements to its overall scaling and particularly crit.

I just don't see anything groundbreaking about the 'new' frostfire spec. It's simply shuffling a few points around for obvious reasons, tailoring to encounters or situations you might be in. A touch more AOE power? Dropping precision for something else to shed excess hit? These changes just aren't as interesting or important as, say, a Resto shaman going Healing Wave Spec on Hardmode Vezax and speccing Enhancement.

Freya hardmode will benefit greatly from a full frost mage, with superior snares and control. Theres really no need to try and beef up FFB spec to try and compensate for what a frost spec can do better, for that particular hardmode. FFB with boosted AOE is acceptable for TIC Medium mode. However, again most guilds would simply prefer one mage to respec full frost for the superior control.

FFB can have variants where you gain added aoe and control, and sacrifice Precision/Frost Channeling to gain it. However on the fights where these changes could be more useful (Freya hardmode the best example) your likely to just have a Frost Mage do it instead.

The spec you give is nice for aoe and gives a lot of the functionality of Frost, especially with the use of Shatter. However for single target dps, Shatter is not as useful, especially against boss fights. Bosses cannot be frozen, so that extra chance to be critically hit is wasted. Sure on mobs such as the Snap Lasher during Freya's fight, it's useful, but on Freya herself, it's not as useful.

Another comment is that if you read up on the http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t42476-o...em_discussion/, you will find out that Combustion is currently not that useful. Living bomb eats up the charges and the buff lasts for so little time. You might as well move that point to Flame Throwing to help with Living bomb, Pyroblasts, and/or Flame Blasts (for movement usage) just by a little bit.

They already discussed your new build. Since there's really not much "new" to it there's not much to say.

I opted for a standard FFB and with my 2 "flex" points took blast wave and dragon breath (glyped so no knock back). Dragon's breath has been useful for "oh shit" ae aggro and blast waves been a bit of AE burst if I've had to move while AEing (like if a sentinel or something runs by, or ice cloud, whatever). I prefer tools over procs, that's just me. (it also helps me farm easier)

but I might remove blast wave for a point in Flame Throwing, I really don't feel those 2 points are going to make or break anything, that's why they're flex points and not dedicated to any specific talent. I'll try new things as I think they may help, but you could leave them untalented and probably not notice the effects much...

I also wouldn't want my blizzard's randomly rooting things, often tanks have to move to aggro new groups of adds (like razorscale) and if he's leaving behind mobs randomly becasue of me it can hurt him holding threat. Standard argument, you may agree or disagree.

I do not believe this to be a groundbreaking discovery by any stretch. I just have not seen it listed on EJ.com or mmo.com which is why I wanted to bring it up as a viable alternative. I agree that for most boss fights shatter will not apply on anything but a few adds that may or may not even be there. I just wanted to show a way to buff our overall damage without sacrificing our single target viability which in my past few raids has proven itself to be true. FFB damage on bosses remains the same with a buff in AOE damage and even some single target add damage increases in that Frostbite/Shatter can also be utilized by FFB on lower level targets.

As far as combustion not being that useful. I agree. It is significantly less of a damage buff then it was without our new glyph, but RAWR is still showing it as a 32 dps increase. Maybe this information is wrong, but I always take talents that up my dps, minimal as they may be. I paid 8000g two days ago for the BOE Ulduar caster boots that was only a 40 dps increase, so I will take a free one along with it any day of the week.

I did change the title even though like I said, its new to me and I haven't seen it discussed on this or any other forum, to the Improved FFB Spec instead of the New FFB Spec because I am not arrogant enough to think that out of the over 10,000,000 people who play this game I am the first who has said hey look at this.
As far as your Frostbite comment I did discuss that in my post as follows.

"One person comments later on in this forum that Frostbite is not always welcome if the tank has to move targets around constantly in that freezing them in place will result in some of the adds being pulled out of the AOE group. I reply to that by saying it is up to the mage himself to decide when to use his talents and when not to. You can't just run up the boss and blow all your cooldowns less than 1 second in to the encounter" (well you can with Mirror Image, but I think you get what I am trying to say)". You have to know when to push it and when not to. This is in fact a higher AOE damage spec in that you really don't have to use Flamestrike as your main AOE, but if the tank is moving the targets from one place to another (which he should be calling out) then maybe for that instance you can use the lower of your two AOE spells (Flamestrike) to maintain a steady stream of damage while things are on the move. Raid awareness is key, know when things are happening and whats coming next and you will have a much better chance of deciding the correct course of action. Another small, but I think necessary comment."

Just my opinion. I think it does far more good than evil and even the evil can be mitigated by a mage who knows what to do and when to do it.

The problem is that if your specc'd into Frostbite/Imp Blizzzard, and your using Blizzard...you cannot control when a target gets frozen.

I know. I'm just saying there's really not that much to discuss with it since there's really no huge changes. If you feel those points will help you and it works for you then go for it. Shatter on imp blizz will definitely help your AE DPS, no doubt about that.

FFB specs have some points to shuffle around as you see fit. There's very few points of argument over boss DPS (mostly about combustion, flamethrowing etc..) but nothing that will swing your DPS more than the standard deviation of a fight.

I personally wouldn't go with imp blizzard just because if I ever, even one time, caused a threat issue because i separated a mob from my tanks I would curse ever taking the talent. That's just me. If I ever feel I contributed to a wipe in any way at all I get mad at myself for it. So taking a talent with any margin of risk whatsoever is against my general philosophy.

And not only that, often times the group of mobs will get moved, even a little bit, because someone pulled aggro and the tank shifts to reengage. If you have half the mobs rooted and the other half move 10 yards you could be creating a gap where people can't AE the entire pack. That'll hurt you and your raid's DPS. Naxx was a huge AE orgy and that scenario was very commonplace.

Again I am sorry to interrupting the conversation, but I was getting flack from some people that I was to afraid to post this on EJ.com. As you can plainly see I am not. I don't take offense though. It is in fact a 7 page paper on my personal opinions. If you care to read them then thank you for your time. If you don't then trust me I do not take offense.

I completely understand not wanting to take any talent with a risk factor, but I have yet to see it negatively effect my raid synergy. If it does become an issue then I agree that the AOE dps and even a single target dps gain on lower level targets is not worth getting people killed. I think that if you know what to do and when to do it though that this can in fact be completely mitigated and be a very useful talent in not just buffing mage damage, but also in saving peoples lives. For instance a lock who already used his shard threat spikes and pulls aggro from one or two targets. If these targets are slowed or even frozen for a second or two then it could greatly increase the chance of the locks survival in that the mob may be reacquired by the tank before he ever even moves out the actual AOE group. Again though, just my opinion. There are two sides to every coin.

The problem with the MMO message board was more that there wasn't any real arguments against the spec or my conclusions on what fights suit each boss in Ulduar, it just turned into a general bashing of me being to afraid to bring it here and believe me I hate to see it too. It has been dominated by unproductive conversation to say the least. I was hoping more for someone here I tell me something I didn't already know about boss encounters and or why FFB isn't suited for the fight's I have argued it is then anything else, and also to squelch the misconception that FFB does not scale well with gear which I think I have effectively done utilizing the tools this site has provided me. Lastly I wanted to basically provide a general informational thread (the "and More" part of the forum) for people that are interested in learning. Not everyone is as seasoned as the people in this forum and if me sharing what knowledge I have helps someone play there class even a marginal bit better then in my opinion it was a worthwhile endeavor.

Fireblasting on the run is a good idea, but I'm unsure as to why you'd ever want to keep your ignite rolling? All keeping ignite rolling does is delay your damage (not really a problem as long as it gets applied before the mob dies) and increase the amount of damage you have to lose if ignite bugs out.

I've definitely seen similar variations of the FFB build discussed here on EJ before. Perhaps you should go back and read through the thread again? Your spec isn't new or improved, it's simply a variation that sacrifices some range, boss DPS (via higher hit requirement), and efficiency for better AoE. It has it's advantages and disadvantages, and though I'm inclined to agree with those pointing out a frost spec will work better for the fights where you actually need the extra control, it's certainly a workable spec.

There have been a few discussions about which hard mode fights favor which specs, e.g. check out page 48 of the thread we're in. Searching for "hard mode" will spit a lot of results at you, but the which-spec-which-fight discussions are in there. Having an aoe-tuned FFB spec makes sense since FFB specs in general are basically aoe-tuned FB/ttw specs (what else could you spend the extra mana on?). The problem is that's sort of the end of the discussion. No amount cleverness can change how much single target dps you lose by making the swap. If your position is "I can improve my dps by removing points from precision," then you're playing a shell game with us. There is no boss dps talent that can absorb this extra floating point in a FFB spec, and no amount of gear can change that. You can gain more aoe and that may make the tradeoff from FB/ttw more attractive, but it doesn't make FFB do more single target dps. Your own numbers bear this out.

This is not mentioned past the first post because there isn't much to say about it. These are 4 good options for improving your aoe spec's aoe abilities, depending on personal preference and maybe mana. No one needs to be told that you can peel a point out of precision if you're already hit capped without it.

If you spec into Frostbite for Freya, every time you kite the Snaplasher through melee you risk getting one of them killed. Kyth and I have dropped it entirely from our Freya builds (FFB and Frost), it just isn't worth it. For AE DPS - it's a minuscule issue. Random Frostbite procs that only last for a split second in the middle of an AE pack have little effect on overall AE DPS.

In either case it's a random proc, and arguing about the added control/reliability offered by a random proc is silly.

And seriously, why on earth are we pretending that shuffling around a few points in Frost for Imp Blizzard is some groundbreaking change to the FFB spec? It's like arguing that a Fire build with Magic Absorption should be treated as a separate build from a normal Fireball spec.

I honestly had not seen them linked or posted, but if you have would you please tell me what page. I have read dozens pages on EJ and MMO and not seen this variation, it is completely possible that I just missed it though. I believe this to be an improvement over the cookiecutter FFB spec that over 90% of the FFB mages out there are using for the added overall damage it provides me while sacrificing , in my opinion, unneccisary talents.

"it's certainly a workable spec."

Thank you.

To Tizzlewump

The only argument I make for my current gear as it applies to Precision is that I am unable to utilize the hit it provides not having alternate gear to drop below 342 hit, so it becomes a matter of 2 points in Frost Channeling for 7% mana and 7% threat reduction - Putting 2 Points in Precision regardless and just being over hit capped only being able to utilize the extra 2% mana it provides unless say the Shadow Priest or Heroic Pressence buff is lost which can happen - Or taking 2 of 2 In flame Throwing for added range and mobility.

I choose Frost Channeling, right now, for the reasons I listed in my original post.

As you pointed out having an AOE-tuned FFB spec has its advantages while I unlike most have the added benefit of being able to duel spec pve, because pvp in wow does not appeal to me, leaving me the opertunity to spec for both this and TTW Fireball that most do not.

I never once said this was anything groundbreaking Jarlyn, I just believe it to be an improvement for the reasons I listed and like I said and Tizzle quoted. The benefit of a 3/3 Frostbite 1 Imp Blizzard 3/3 Shatter alone is not a groundbreaking AOE increase, but when even 2 mages stack this affect it can work out as he quoted, excilently.