Raiding as a mage

The DPS rotations have been done to death by other sites, so I wanted to do something a little different and talk about other spells you may be called upon to use while taking down a boss.
First off let's talk about damage absorption. All mages get Mana Shield, Frost Ward, and Fire Ward. If you're a frost mage, you can also take Ice Barrier. These damage shields are extremely useful on a lot of fights because they can take some load off of your healers. I will put the shield that I'm going to use for a particular fight on my bar so I can just hit a key to throw up the shield. Here are some fights that they are extremely useful: Heigan (Ice Barrier or Mana Shield during the dance), Sapphiron (Frost Ward), Sartharion (Fire Ward), Ignis (Fire Ward when you're in the pot). You should always be looking where you can take some healing pressure off of the healers, first because it will same them from going oom, and second because it might just save your ass in case the healers don't get to you in time.
Next up there's Ice Block, this can save your ass in a wide variety of situations. Can't make it behind Sapphiron's ice block in time? Throw up your own. Can't make it out of a lava wave on Sartharion, Ice Block through it. Pull aggro on some trash? Ice Block will send them right back at the tank.
Blink is probably an underused spell in raiding. There are a ton of situations where I find it helpful. During the dance with Heigan you may find yourself a little behind, you can use Blink to get where you want to be. Lava waves on Sartharion. Any situation where there is an AoE from the boss, such as Loken, Blink will give you a little more time to react. It will also free you from being rooted.
Invisibility has saved me so much money on repair bills I can't even count it all. Once a tank or off-tank goes down and you know it's a wipe, hit that invisibility button early because it will drop you out of combat. Stay away from random trash, such at Patchwerk in Naxx, if you run too far back you will pull the slimes and wipe the raid when you drop out of invisibility.
AoE: Blizzard is the king of AoE, use it responsibly. If you have a warrior tank be very wary of Blizzard. Be aware of your mana pool when using Blizzard as it takes quite a large chunk of mana, so use it sparingly.

Back on Track

After my transfer to the new server, my raiding has gotten back on track, and we have downed new bosses. Last night Circle of Dark Scholars on Aggramar downed Ignis the first time, completing the achievement The Siege of Ulduar. We are also now raiding Naxx 25 with the Dread Pirates, which so far has been going quite well. Overall I'm very happy with the raids what we're now doing, and we are pushing forward making progress and downing new bosses. Our next attempt is tonight and we are taking on the Iron Council.

Guild Collapse

So in what I consider a hostile take-over, the guild that I was an officer of for almost a year has completely collapsed. There were to several factors that built up the pressure that led to this take-over. First our guild master was absent for weeks, relying solely upon his co-gm and girlfriend to manage day to day guild things, including our guild website, guild applications, scheduling raids, and recruiting. Second the co-gm lost computer access, and was absent for several weeks from the guild. Third one of the raid leaders who was also an officer and our best geared tank took a hiatus from WoW because he couldn't afford to pay his monthly subscription. (I'm not sure there aren't other reasons behind this, but I don't know.) The other fact here is that a month or two back we merged with a guild called Crimson Legion, gave anyone from this guild an open invite, no application required, to join, and promoted their officers to officers in our guild, including bank access, but more importantly access to setting officer notes, which is used to store the EP/GP rankings for our guild.
That sets the stage for what unfolded on Tuesday when I logged in to send out invites for our regularly scheduled Ulduar run at 4pm server time. I log in expecting to see about a dozen or so guildies ready and prepped, and no-one is on. Our guild messages says that we are to transfer our mains to Crimson Legion. I check my friends list and several of my friends from the guild are on, and I do a who for Crimson Legion and see that they are all in fact part of that guild now. So I contact one of their officers and ask what's up. (This officer has been a regular raider with our guild) She explains that because no-one was posting raids a lot of members were talking about leaving and some had already left. Ok, so I ask what's the deal with all the the EPGP scores being screwed up. Well the officer from Crimson Legion who was promoted happened to have a mishap with his addon, and bjorked up the ratings. I don't believe that for a second. That was pure vandalism. So what is to be the new system for loot distribution? Well a lot of new 80s feel that the EPGP system is unfair because they don't get a shot at loot, so we're going to go with open rolls.
That was previously discussed among the officers of Sinners Paradise, and the loot system was put in place to prevent guild hoppers from getting lucky on rolls and yanking very sought after loot from regular raiders. (Which happened to me personally on 3 occasions) I was offered an officer position in the guild with guild bank access, but ultimately I decided that I didn't want to stay. Considering that there was no attempt to contact me at all before all this went down, and that I was the second most senior officer in the guild. I don't want to be a part of what has been done, and I consider it all a coup against the current guild leadership by the 'new 80s' and the officer that they complained to.
I would like to offer some advice to guild masters left in a situation like the above for whatever reason. If you are not going to be there for the guild, leave someone who is active with the ability to maintain the day-to-day activities if you want to have a guild left when you come back. In fact it would probably be best to just make them GM and step down. Had I been given access to our website, and been able to promote/demote and invite and kick people from the guild, this whole thing could have been avoided. So I have moved on and am now a member of Circle of Dark Scholars on Aggramar. I have several past co-workers and friends that I know in this guild, and so far all has been well. They have a very simple loot system, but I am comfortable with the people in this guild to know when they should roll, unlike a lot of the players on Ursin, who seem to roll for just about anything they can use even if it's a downgrade to their current gear.