Quote Originally Posted by 'David',index.php?page=Thread&postID=60482#post604 82
Isn`t arcane terrible mana inefficient? Personally I would go for fire. Since when your questing (not instances) youw ill mostlikey nearly oneshot mobs so big damage is usefull. I think fire helps in that.
I`m pretty convinced that frost isn`t a way to go tho. No need to slow things.

But personally I allways say people should spec the way they like to play. Eventually you can make it work.
Yeah it is, thus my main mage casts are fireball, fireblast and icebolt for fire immune mobs. The benefit to going deep in the arcane tree is essentially for PoM, arcane mind (+15% int), arcane power (+30% damage for 15 seconds at +30% mana cost) and the big one, mind mastery (increase spell damage by 25% of int). Yeah you miss out on some of the higher fire talents, and I may respec once I get into heroic gear, but the increase in damage output from arcane mind + mind mastery certainly adds enough +sd to my bread and butter fire spells to make it worth it at this stage.

As an example, your mage has 400int and +600 SD so a cast of fireball could hit for say 1000. Add those two talents and your int goes up to 460, your SD goes up to +715 and your fireball is now upped by an average of 11.5% damage per cast for no extra mana or gear upgrades. That too me is pretty mana efficient