I first started off with two mages, when I hit 38 I think, I realized I wanted much more, and opted to choose another two mages to complete my four mage team on my Duo-Core system. I recommend actually going Frost until a later level. In fact, before I switched Specs, I found myself actually using more Frost specced attacks even with most of my points in fire - and this is on a PVP server in which PVP tends to get in the way of questing and grinding..

I'm only saying this because I went the questing route with them, and I noticed it was generally easier to kill things due to speed (frost casts faster but does less dmg, I believe) and over all made leveling my mages easier, more fun, and pretty quick. On my new group, I chose to go the Instance Boosting route, using one of my earlier mages (which is now 70) or my lvl 65 Paladin to run my new group through instances. Leveling is Super Quick. I went from 19-28 in Stocks so damn fast with such minimal effort I actually got whispers from guildies asking if I started cheating or something, lol. However, I had more PvE experience with using my new group, and much less PVP skill and would often stumble or die due to bad tactics which probably wouldn't have happened if I had leveled my new group of Shaman in a non-instance setting, like quests.