Fire as THE raiding spec?

I hear Fire is the post-patch raiding spec?

Discuss nao.

I'd like to try it out. I still have used fire as my primary raiding spec. Damage is kind of shitty single target wise, but you are able to sustain high damage that ramps up as the fight continues, generally due to the lack of mana problems.

i always thought fire had big mana problems but other than that its damage output is amazing

Apparently (according to EJ) after 3.3.3 BiS Fire DPS is ahead of BiS Arcane DPS by over 600 (dps).

I'm curious to see if any of the mages in the guild have tried it out. (But it might not work out since the gear is slightly different?)

did they address the mana ineffeciency and how to overcome it?

I've switched my offspec to Fireball/TTW and it hasnt been very effective when i've used it, mainly because my gear is arcane gear. mana efficiency is still not where it needs to be, unfortunately, because its a fun spec to play. the rotation is more involved than just two buttons, which is nice. It'll be interesting to see what happens as we get closer to Cata.

My mage has been arcane just about forever, and although my gear isn't strictly geared towards arcane, I was in ICC 10 today and pulled amazing deeps as fire, with no mana problems what-so-ever (I had a 22k buffed mana pool). Playing an arcane mage though is all about utilizing what mana regen abilities we have. I have always been an aggressive evocation user / mana gem user. There was not one fight that I said "Fuck, I have no way to get mana." I will continue to gear for fire as I was really impressed.

I guess I'll have to see it be better than arcane to believe it. I DO know, though, that even in fully geared heroic BiS equipment, fire spec only beats my dps (with my current gear) by 200 points on paper. To me, that doesn't scream amazing. But, like i said in my last post, we'll see what happens in Cata.

I think in a 25man heroic LK attempt though, where you are fighting for 20 minutes, that an arcane mage's mana would become a problem. All I am saying is if I can do Saurfang and never drop below 15k of my 22k mana pool, and still be 2nd-3rd with 4.7k GS, than mana management MIGHT be a little better overall than arcane.

However, my mage was my main for three years, and I havent touched her since my priest dinged, so I COULD (I say COULD), be off here

haha.. yeah, a 20 min fight would be kinda rough :p that's why we need to get him down in 10!