Way to fire of Frost.

[Deleted]

Hello fellow mages,

I have a question regarding the spec I'm going to choose to gear myself up in the best way I can.
Now I know most of you mages already gave some really good information and guides regarding the different specs.
The thing is I readed all and maybe cause of that I'm a bit confused by the many information that's being gifted tome.

Right, I reached my Ilevel 329 today and planning on doing some heroics tomorrow.
My first question is what spec would be most viable to start with?
I know fire will probably give the best dps but is it possible to handle with some lower gear and gearing up or should I starting with the Frost spec?

The second question is regarding the stats eventually needed for the fire spec if it is the spec to go for.
I saw a very handy table for the frost spec simply saying "Int > hit cap > crit cap (shattering) > mastery > more crit > Haste.

Is there something equal for a fire mage?
I saw the scaling and BiS gear, but just wondering if there are some caps/numbers I can focus on getting regardless of what Item I wanna loot.
In other words, after Intellect focus on getting the hit cap, build up some decent crit (number to aim for), haste etc?
Thanks for the information so far, hope you mages can help me out a bit.

[zephid]

Intellect > Hit (till cap) > Crit > Mastery > Haste is the correct order for Fire mages according to the theorycrafting and simulations that has been done.

I started out as frost and then later switched to Fire when I had gotten hold on some heroic loot with more crit on them.