Torment the Weak needs to be changed. It seems clear to me that it was intended more as a PvP burst talent than a mandatory raid talent, where you would hit your opponent with the otherwise useless 41 point talent and proceed to do an extra 12% damage while it was on them so you could blow them up during a healer CC. They should simply retune mage damage across the board and make TtW only function as a PvP/non-boss talent where it would specifically require the Slow spell to be on the target, not just any random slowing effect. This change would bring all 4 specs back in line with each other and you can simply readjust the scaling on the four main nukes to compensate for lost DPS.

Completely agreed, although if FFB was buffed along with the brain freeze change, the pvp factor is going to override it... frost mages will become OP in pvp (and they are pretty darn good right now).

Let's hope cataclysm makes it viable again, but I really don't think it will be possible to change a FFB to be viable until then.

as a main dps spec perhaps
i play arcane as main
i LIKE arcane as main
i played ttw/fire as offspec untill recently (5% raidcrit on all casters vs personal dps)

i recently went offspec FFB - guildmaster and raidleader were VERY happy:

5% crit if missing
extra slow when needed
extra survival if needed
extra burst if needed

for those last 2 - living bomb is a AoE spell - its a trash spell mostly
go 50/21 - all FFB fire + all frost needed + COLD SNAP

raid buffing flexible survival mage spec - amazing for newer bosses
it might be situational but its very viable
(extra slowdown/blizz slow for extra flexability)