Scorch spec and how viable it is?

[Wizie]

Okay.. So last night i decided i finally wanted to try out the new Scorch spec for mages.. Expecting it to kinda suck, i was amazed that i was able to pull off and maintain about 7.5 - 8.5k dps on a dummy single target while having way too much haste for the spec..

My question would be: How viable is Scorch spec really? I havent tested it out in an actual raid (Yet, i might add) but it seems to be on-par with Fire or arcane so far..


-Wizie

[takolin]

It's not better than fire even if you FB during bloodlust to prevent hastecapping.

[Anobix]

scorch doesn't scale like fireball does, and I doubt that it beats out arcane unless you get some crazy ignite stacking.

[Caeldeth]

scorch doesn't scale like fireball does, and I doubt that it beats out arcane unless you get some crazy ignite stacking.

scorch spec isnt really about scorch's damage but its crit chance. Pyroblast is the point of scorch spec and pyro's scaling is actually good. BUT, yes stadard fireball spec is better and gear is more defined for it, a scorch spec would want minimal haste and max crit.

[Radak]

I had a scorch spec for a couple of months until yesterday (took a spec to solo MC).
And I have been able to pull 11-13.5k dps with it and topping dps meters.
Here is a combatlog from last month http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/i...ne/?enc=bosses my mage is Radak.
Only switched to a normal fire spec there for blood queen but still can't remember why. Also for some reason my dps really sucked on lady deathwhisper and saurfang for no apparent reason.
You should not that this was done with my normal fire gear except I used Nibelung because my casts are very fast. The effect of this was that my scorch cast was 0.9sec with the haste from T10x2 bonus which is a loss in damage.

So if you look at that log you could say yes it very viable.

And if you have access to full icc25hc gear it is possible to gain 100% crit chance on scorch and pyroblast however this will mean stacking full crit gear and full +20crit rating gems but you are able to maintain hit cap.

edit: This was the spec I used http://www.wowhead.com/talent#of0ick0cZfVc0RhIhVubhct if you want you can change the SotM to Flame Throwing but it isn't really necessary in icc if you ask me.

[Jept]

At certain haste levels it's only like 300 dps behind the standard fireball spec (did some quick rawr'ing with a mage asking about scorch a while ago); for an optimal performance on long living targets, fire wins - but a scorch spec works better than frost. With a lot of target switching, scorch can come out on top, but optimizing target switching with fireball would yield the same if not better results.
disclaimer: assuming rawr is accurate with regards to unconventional specs >.>;