Level 40 mage, frost-fire-arcane?

[The Handsome Stranger]

Ok guys and gals, Im leveling my mage and while everyone says frost is the leveling spec for mages, Im enjoying the shit out of fire. From a raw dps standpoint, Im pulling 500 dps in SM, Im wearing all heirloom gear btw, but is fire just made for instances or can you quest with it?


I also tried arcane, and was no where near the fire dps Im pulling.


Also, is fire viable for endgame raiding?

[Autodidact]

Fire is great for instancing.
Frost gives you control for soloing.
Arcane isn't worth it until at least 60.

[thunderchunk]

Also, is fire viable for endgame raiding?

Not at all. The standard mage spec in ICC is 30/30/11.

[Lefeng]

"Leveling spec" refers to the spec you ought to use for solo play. Frost is still probably the best for that. If you're leveling via random dungeons, go ahead and do what you like.

[allforone]

Frost is great for soloing, has the lowest cost spells and has the best AoE of the bunch at that level. Whereas Fire has the best DPS.
(side note: Dps really doesn't matter in vanilla, as I've been told by a friend that most of those instances were tuned to people in mostly whites and a few greens as opposed to what our levelling toons have now(mostly blues with a few greens.)

Arcane isn't worth doing until you get arcane blast at 62 really, and a lot of it's killer talents that make it so deadly are at the end of the tree.

However, if you and any groups you are with are having fun, who cares what spec you all are. At the end of the day, this is a game.

[The Handsome Stranger]

Thanks everyone for the advice!