Fire mages in WOTLK

[Rowdysattva]

I did a quick search and didn't find any threads giving some love to fire mages in WOTLK. Is anyone really impressed with the burst potential it looks like they will have? Not only burst potential but it looks like they will have all their own knock back effects (their knockback has a slow built into it). They got a nice bonus to crit damage buff. They get an instant cast of flamestrike on two spells one with 30 sec CD and one with a 20 sec CD... but for just bursting both can be done right after the other and thats two free flamestrikes on two instant casts.

Am i missing something or will they really burn stuff down in sort order. I know that with the multi-shammy lol-groundtotem effect they are still sitting pretty good. But a few mages would knock them all down fast anyway.

Anyone thinking of building a team of fire mages with healer and tank... or anyone have one already and really excited for the new changes?

[Naysayer]

Nah, fire mage doesn't impress me at all. It looks pretty bad compared to most new specs in WotLK tbqh. Blastwave will be good for defense against melee and people who are chasing you, but you'll get sploded if you try and get in range of a 5boxer shammy. Firemages still won't be able to cast through groundings, and shaman now have Thunderstorm to deal with melee range mage aoe's.

I'm just not seeing it. From a mages point of view I don't know how I'd deal with a shaman boxer as fire unless you got some lucky molten fire procs or living bomb ignored grounding totems. Fire mages are too fragile and require a lot of finesse. I don't know how someone would be able to effectively play more than 1 at a time when there's a lot of jump-turn-casting and such that is required to do well.

[Skuggomann]

I know my solo mage will be full fire :)