Arcane, try it out.

[MrExcelion]

I stick with Mastery reforging on Halfus and Maloriak, but I will reforge for Council and Cho'gall, and then back for Sinestra. If I'm not mistaken, there's a couple reforger addons out there. I might have to look into those so those 3 minutes of downtime can be reduced to 1 minute (including summon).

[Deleted]

Since not everyone would HS, you only need to use the addon reforger for saved crit or mastery specs and you can reforge your gear in 10 seconds. Have a friend standing outside to use their guild summon and your gone for 2 minutes at most.

[Nachopie]

fire looks better graphically
fire has a more interesting rotation (more than 2 or 3 buttons)
fire has very similar dps that can compete in raids.

I was arcane in wotlk because it was much better than the other specs. Until it is much better, no thanks.

Of course, I am not interested in being on a world list, I am not interested on being the best. I am just interested in doing what it takes to get bosses down. Not a real hardcore player.

[Bigslick]

I've been an arcane mage since the start of cata. It was really hard to compete with all my guildies at first but got alot easier when 4.0.6 came and the mana cost reduction of arcane blast. All that happened in 4.1 really is dps skyrocket. I am now the top dps in my guild on nearly every fight. Check me out on WoL 25 man VT i should be around 20th for arcane mages. (meleemage US-Kargath, No Quarter)

Your position on the Arcane DPS ladder on a fight is completely irrelevant to your performance value versus other specs / classes. I currently have the top WoL parse for Arcane on Halfus 10N at 53k DPS(e), but that would only put me at 74th across all three specs (the top 73 being fire), and lagging nearly 15k DPS(e) behind the top parse. Arcane is unquestionably viable, but only situationally optimal, with fight mechanics and raid makeup (do you have a ret or BM for 3% elsewhere) playing a key role.