Mage Specs

[Jaxartes]

I strapped on a FFb alternative build and did some time on a target dummy.  Frost build did about 1600-1800 DPS.  FFB did between 2200-2300, with the rotation being scorch, living bomb, FFB with pyroblast whenever it procced.  Repeat scorch and LB whenever needed.  With the scorch glyph I only needed to cast it the one time.  The gear on that mage is mostly blue with a bit of purple.  I'm thinking with a little more itemization (crit especially) that might get a lot more boomie.

There was a guy next to me in similar build trying out an arcane spec, alternating between arcane blast and missile barrages.  He did higher damage-nearly 2700dps, but his mana bar hit dry in about half the time mine did.  Arcane doesn't look too raid friendly until gear is a bit better.

[Ishmamdar]

My spec as it is for PvE can actually get close to 3200 dps avarage if I crit nicely (mid/end fight) and spike over 4k (the old recount chart, the new one shows nothing).

Basically, I get on average over 4k per fireball, my living bomb gylph allows it's periodics to crit and that then makes it easier to proc an instant pyroblast.  Given that I think I found my PvE spec for max damage in somewhat alignment with my play style.  Of course, I lose all good AoE abilities and there's a couple tradeoffs with fire talent damge to get TTW.  This does though rely on TTW being available most/all of the time on a boss.

On average with the boss dummy, Opep and I actually stayed equal on DPS.  Before he'd always have me beat by a large margin.  It all depends on how much I crit and how much of a fight I have to mitigate mana.  Though, one gem gives me over 6k now with my gear and the new glyph, so I think mana issues for me are gone.