Just as a reminder: We're all friends here and we love to debate. Taking it personally is like believing we really  do have sex with Turth's mom, or believing that Ewiges mom really does deliver pizza for Domino's.  It's all banter that needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

I have "magic numbers" for Brutallus that I know our raiders can hit.  It kind of goes like this in my head:

• 2200+ for rogues, locks, BM hunters
• 1900+ for mages, enh shammies, dps warriors
• 1700+ for hybrids like ret pallies, ferals, survival hunters, boomchickens
• 1500+ for spriests 

Group layouts for Brut are going to look roughly like this for :

• Orky/Pk
• Nuit
• Shihli
• Mnor
• Lumi

• Nhia
• Garreth
• Katibug
• Cisper
• Keisjaa

• Jorence
• Vulk
• Closer
• POSSIBLY THE ONE ARCANE MAGE
• Antiquite

• Caliroll
• Lock
• Lock
• Lock
• Fire/frost mage

• Saedo
• Shin
• Wiges
• Turth
• Ky

There MIGHT be a shadow priest for ONE arcane mage.  I know Cali can handle being out by himself without a spriest.  This is an 8 healer strat.  With seven healers, we have the potential to stick a fire mage in a shammy/spriet group as well.

Disrupter, I never meant to attack you or anything   To be honest, I enjoy debates.   I like talking about theorycrafting as well.  

I do have a 70 mage, but haven't truely played for a while.  I would say I'd know the basics but not up to speed on current theory/mechanics.   A part of me is very curious about current end game mages and was looking more for the logic and explainations.   Sorry, not just "i top dps", "i save raids from wipes" responses.  

I was more solely interested in possibilities to increase raid dps as a whole.   I don't care if you're top dps or last dps.  Increasing anyone's dps is increasing raid dps.    We want every ounce of dps we can get for Brutallus.   

Sure we can go ahead and wipe a bit and experiment and what not.  But I'd still like to discuss possibilities.   Prepare a bit beforehand.

So if frost is the way you are.  The way you're going to be.  The way it has to be for raid dps to be at its peak.  So be it. 

Thus far all I've seen from the raid officers/leaders is general questioning about the merits of Frost/Arcane vs. Fire, which appears to be the prevalent spec for most guilds downing Brutallus.

I haven't read anyone directly say "You need to be fire."   If they implied it, then I missed it as well.  All I've read from most of us is "You need to be the spec that, given your gear and skills, will give you the highest dps."  In this case it looks to be frost, so have at it.

Furthermore, this has been a (mostly) civil discussion about the merits of each spec and it has been informative for many of us that don't play mages.  Don't stomp your feet because people are questioning your gear and your choices.  Clarify to them why you do something, and if they don't get it ... that's their loss.

Lastly, if anyone has been giving anyone else in raid for any reason, shit for their spec ... they need to pound sand.  Yes, it's one thing for someone to have a sub-optimal or experimental raid spec, and by all means people sometimes need to be talked with to clarify what they're doing.  But to blame boss wipes, "wipe nights", or anything else on account of a player's spec - that's bullshit, and it needs to stop.

Sorry for derailing your blog a bit there on the last paragraph, but it's been a semi-prevalent problem that I've heard second-hand from a few people, and it needs to be put to bed. 

Yep Saedo, that is exactly what I'm saying.  Once again the theorycraft is out there but let me break it down into conceptual terms.

You can look at parses and see something pretty clearly.  Rupter has slightly better gear than me overall, and when he is arcane he does slightly more dps than me.  When I am arcane and he is frost, I do considerably more damage than him.  

Arcane is powerful for one simple reason:  two piece T5 set bonus.  20% more dmg of arcane blast, but at the expense of 20% more mana cost, is still a pretty powerful buff.  And as gear gets better, mana becomes more manageable allowing you to spam Arcane Blast even more.  Int and Spirit help a lot here.  I'm not really a fan of haste for arcane because mana is the one biggest obstacle to overcome for an Arcane mage, and I'd rather hit harder (crit) than faster (haste) and spend more mana.  It also doesn't hurt that the hit cap for Arcane is less than half of what it is for fire or frost.

There comes a point, though, when the 4 piece T6 set bonus surpasses the arcane set bonus.  Four pieces of T6 make your fireballs do 5% more damage.  Fireball is your primary spell, and unlike arcane, it's much more sustainable.  Arcane usually needs a bit of "filler" spell to help with mana regen, whereas mana is not nearly the issue it is with arcane.  If you give a fire mage a shadow priest, they can start stacking other goods that further increase dps; whereas an arcane mage a spriest just maintains status quo.  A fire mage w/ a spriest can use destro pots and flame caps since they aren't having to use mana gems or pots which share a cooldown.  Thus leading to the lethal combo you're seeing on all the top level fire mages.

I gave up all the crit I could for haste.

just gonna jump in here  &ask is there a target haste number you're looking for or are you just trying to amass as much as possible?

i know the shadowpriest.com forums have all this debate about a "sweet spot" & when to actually gem for haste vs other stuff.

you also gain 100% benefit from haste as your cast times(or at least a shit ton of them) can be lowered a lot (as opposed to instant casts that really only gain GCD reduction)

just wondering how it affects your sustainability over say a 6 minute fight. more DPS at a higher cost of mana & skill management?

Curiosity, I like to know how a "less complex" damage model functions 

I think what Rupter is trying to say is move this conversation to somewhere besides his blog.  It's a good discussion, just misplaced.

Another question. How close is "close" by your definitions?

By rogue standards, we'll say swords is top, but in equivalent gear:

• Fists ~ 1% behind
• Combat Daggers ~ 3% behind
• Mutilate ~ 2-4% behind
• Shadowstep ~ 8-10% behind

This is if I completely regem for stuff like mutilate. Is 2% considered "close" enough? Hell with mutilate, can probably find a situation to top combat, a short fight (2 mins or less) with a lot of burst required, and no adds to deal with. Or fights with a lot of interruptions will also do.

I digress. But the question stands. How much of a difference is really between the specs? I suppose mainly between fire and frost since that's basically been insisted as being "close enough".

While we're not outright saying that you NEED to be fire, you should consider the idea as a possible course for the future.  As a pure dps class, your sole role (like mine, and like Saedo's) in a raid is to dps.  If I came as a retarded hybrid spec, or Saedo came as PvP shadowstep spec, we would not be fulfilling our PvE raiding role.

Not saying that you aren't fulfilling your role (you're doing it quite well in fact), but don't be abject to the idea of speccing to maximize your damage, particularly in the face of Brutallus.