Fireball is a long cast. Is it possible the druid is simply just casting more spells in the same time frame? Short fights result in low dps for a fire mage IME, unless you use fire blast and scorch or other instant/short casts. Fireball just takes too long even with the cast time reduction talent. When I used to solo play a mage I rarely even used it in instances, only on bosses. Mobs simply died before it finished casting.

I currently run a fire mage in my mixed 5-man group...maybe I should actually look at the numbers and redo my macros or respec if necessary. Often my Fireball spell lands after the mob is dead or never actually ends up casting. Personally this has never bothered me [read - I am lazy] since I am still levelling up my team, things die very fast and I rarely have to drink. Of course, I probably should make things as efficient as I can =)



Cheers.