I think with the 8 mages I think I'm may be envisioning unrealistically that I'm going to blink into a giant zerg force of 100 people and turn the tide of the battle by wiping out 50% of their raid force in a few GCD"s with Arcane Explosion spam. Maybe it would not be that hard for them to prevent me from doing it.

The shaman or lock teams sound dominant in smaller battles, but just as effective in the large scale fights because of how long it takes to apply dots and the target limitations and cool down on chain lightning.