On Loathebm yes the totally abnormal high crit rate makes straight FFb spam better than any rotation (maybe add scorch to the mix).

On any other fight, no. How many IDs have you cleared 3 maybe 4? Anecdotal as it can get, the maths says something else .

My thoughts are that this other mage isn't playing optimally?

Scorch doesn't scale as well as FFB with crit%, since it only crits for ~200%, and does less base damage to begin with. While FFB hits for 330%~ on crits, and has a higher base damage, and gets better stat gains from spell power because its coefficient isn't as bad.

But you'll do a lot more scorches during that time and thus get a lot more Pyroblasts.
Back in the beginning of TBC I used scorch spam unitl ClearCast and then shoot off Arcane missiles - was a very manaefficient build.

Even on Loatheb it's better to use LB albeit not by much, the dps increase of using LB is around .5% (at least for my gear, assuming 100% crit chance), however using LB means you need to click one more button and worse still it's an instant sepll that suffers from your lag so on loatheb you might be better of not using it.

I don't see a reason not to use LB on Thadius though, the damage buff applies to LB as much as it applies to Ffb so if it's worth using without the buff it's worth using with it.

Hmm, yes, true. FFB by maths is better.
Though, during 6FFB and 3 Pyro, you still have to scorch once also, to keep the buff up.
And i doubd scorch+pyro mage would be frostfire spec, seems fire/arcane most likely,
Anyway, i'd like a mage like that in my raid - the scorch buff is always up and i don't have to worry about anything

good mages keep the scorch debuff up always anyway..doesnt matter if you refresh it 20 times or once...

Also remember that scorch scales way worse with about every stat as frostfire bolt does (damage, crit and haste) so as you increase your stats more it will fall behind more.

While not strictly Mage-news, after the patch you'll be able to buy the Flow of Knowledge trinket for only 25 [Wintergrasp Mark of Honor], which is identical to [Sundial of the Exiled]. So if you don't have much luck with drops start doing Wintergrasp a bit.

Under the category of "Tips and Tricks", It's been brought to my attention that combining and reforming Eternals (and presumably primals) is instant, has no global cooldown, and, most importantly, counts as a spell cast. This means it can be macroed as a way to instantly and quickly *Force* "on spell cast" trinkets like [Embrace of the Spider] to proc (assuming their not on GCD). Furthermore, I'm fairly sure (though I have no way to test) that this could also be used to *instantly* stack your [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] to 10 stacks.

The downside to this approach is that the macro must be spammed, because there's a momentary delay before the Eternal or component parts are "created" and thus you can't simply combine and recombine the same eternal all in one macro press.

The following macro works if spammed:
/use Eternal water
/use Crystallized Water

You can of course just do the whole Slowfall thing, but that costs mana and GCD's. This is something you can do as you're actually running in for the pull.

Forgive me if im not asking the question the right way or whatever, but I was reading somewhere that in LK as a mage we shouldn't gem for spell damage past 1400, afterwards just let gear boost our SD.

After 1400 from gear we should gem for crit/haste till haste is 220 then solely for crit (assuming hit capped)

Can anyone help me with that and tell me if its correct or how incorrect it is.

If I'm not mistaken, this was fixed, as it no longer worked for me. It didn't add trinket charges, and it didn't proc my other trinket either. I tried it with Earth, Air, and Water, for what it's worth.

You should'nt take your info from MMO Champion forum...

It takes ~4000 spell power before gemming for crit becomes better than spell power. You should use spellpower gem unless you are aiming for a socket bonus (and then you should use either hit/spell or crit/spell gems depending on your crit rating).