raiding professions.

jw what are the best professions for a pve mage. I am currently alch and herb and i dont feel a whole lot of use seeing as we have 2 other alchs on my team to make cauldrons. help me out here
If you are looking at it for straight intellect bonuses, leatherworking and inscription would net you the most I believe. 80 intellect over the bracer enchant and and 80 intellect over Therazane shoulder enchant. Just taking a guess here.
Eng, then all other profs give flat 80int except JC which gives 81
Double flask duration rules not sure why you're speakin' down about alchemy. It also adds 80 int on top of the regular flask buff though only if you have the flask of draconic mind trained.

You will most likely never notice a difference, but if you pick up any crafting profession you'll at least be slightly better on a spreadsheet than with herbalism:

LW/Inscrip/JC/Enchanting all give ~80 int
Blacksmithing gives 80 with rare gems or 100 with 2 epic gems.
Tailoring 580 int proc every now and again, and spellthreads for legs are basically free.
Engineering on use +int on gloves with a 1 min CD i believe.
If cost is not an issue, I believe Tailoring gives the best DPS boost.

Enchanting also gives 2x +40 Int to rings, which is nice.

The Tailoring/Enchanting combo is VERY popular with Mages. But, the prospect of levelling both of those from 1 to 525 is pretty daunting.
I believe right now Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting together give the best bonuses. With BS you get three sockets you can put the JC gems into.
I dont like the tailoring proc, the only reason why if it proc's during a movement phase its wasted. I would say BS because the 2 extra sockets now give +100 intell, thats how mine are atm. JC kinda got screwed with the +50 gems, the 3 JC gems that are +67 can possibly only give you +51 of your main stat, it used to be +81. After BS go with any other +80 bonus.
I have Eng + Tailoring. I like having different the different procs to boost my combustion.