My experiences with 18/53/0Follow

For anyone that's been following the way mage builds are being utilized, you already know that there are three raid builds being used pretty heavily right now(thanks to changes brought to us by 3.0.8).

Arcane
Frostfire
and Fire.

Until now, we had discussed Arcane and Frostfire, but we really haven't talked much about Fire. And that's a shame. It's supposed to have some really good DPS now. Not Arcane type numbers, which I believe WILL be nerfed in the future, but good numbers, and hey, someone's gotta be the scorch *****, right? Well, I decided to try it out tonight, re-specced and re-glyphed and jumped into a raid.

Let me first say that I have the gear for it in ways that many do not. I'm in some amazing epics and have hit to spare(no seriously, I really need to drop some as a Frostfire mage), which makes me a perfect candidate to try it out.

My Observations
The playstyle:
Anyone who has played Frostfire back when it was the only really viable build will immediately recognize the 18/53/0 playstyle. It's almost exactly the same as Frostfire, except for two small differences. The first is that when you pop cooldowns, you'll have one less, since you no longer have Icy Veins. The other is that any time the person you have given Focus Magic to dies, you have to click your macro to tell them how awful a person they are and that they should kill themselves IRL. Or maybe that second part is just me since I had used FM on my roommate(Wrath Boomkin).

The Good:
My single target DPS shot up by about 100 or so. My hits were bigger, my crits were smaller but more frequent and Focus Magic was up about 85% of the time.

The Bad:
I found myself actually having to manage my mana. At one point, I even had to evocate or risk going OOM. Definitely not something I'm used to.

The Ugly:
Where my single target DPS shot up, my AoE DPS actually went down by a significant number. This was troubling as there are a couple fights where AoE DPS can be important. Sartharion + 3 comes to mind.


My thoughts:
I loved seeing the DPS increase on single target fights. I'm that kind of guy who loves maximizing DPS, so I enjoy any little tweak that yields just a bit more. The mana issues weren't bad by any means(ooh, I had to evocate once, ZOMG), but I feel that they may just become noticeable on some fights to come(as well as any long fights now like Sarth + 3). In the end, though, I like the stronger AoE DPS of Frostfire. I feel it makes me more well rounded.


In conclusion(the TL;DR):
18/53/0 a great option for those of you who are stuck as the scorcher for your raid if you have the gear for it. It'll yield you more single target DPS and can be quite fun to play. If you've been looking for a slight change, try it out. Just be a little more careful on your mana in those long fights and prepare to have to AoE a little longer.

And be careful who you pick as your FM target.