[Mage] Just coming back, some general(but pointed)questionsFollow

I'm hoping not to make this too long and drawn out but chances are, I will :(

Back after a looooooong hiatus (about 2 yrs give or take) and have a level 85 (as of a few days ago) mage that I'm playing, and was hoping to get some 'expert' advice if I could. Some of this may sound trivial but one other thing I'll mention is, prior to my break I had a few higher level characters, but my mage was not one of them. A friend convinced me to come back via scroll of rez so I basically had a free 'level to 80' to use so I chose the mage.

I've gotten a few conflicting answers about this but I'm curious, is there a 'majority' opinion on how to spec after 85? I'm figuring mostly for raiding at this point once I get my equipment up high enough (its crap right now, like 40 pts shy of the required minimum).. one guy on my server who seemed to know his stuff, recommended sticking w Arcane (which I am at present) and then going fire once I reached a certain T# gear wise. Now I'm still learning about all that too so I just sort of said 'ok sure that makes sense' lol.. I'm assuming that means tiers of equipment? That being said, whats the fastest way, once at 85, to upgrade said gear? Just do randoms? I apologize for my ignorance but i'm still learning even about just the points system(justice, valor, etc)...

So I guess I'm looking for some insight on a)what if any the preferred spec is and b) the best way to level up my equipment(pve, raids,etc)..Again I apologize if these sound like 'you should know this already' but hey, a week ago my mage was level 21 lol, and 24 hours later was 80 so it didnt give me much of a learning curve between 80-85.

Lastly(this goes for both fire and arcane as I have dual spec I just havent used fire really yet)..is there anywhere I can get some examples for recommendation on how to set up my spell bar? Right now, I'm going between 3 spells and not much else for damage and I know for a fact I'm underutilizing... its just hard to know what to use and what not to as I recall when I left there was a bunch of spells that were basically worthless so I dont want to cripple myself during set up. Any examples(especially fire since I will be learning that anew) would be welcome. I realize I have to tailor it to my needs/preference but some examples would be awesome.

Really glad to be back, forgot how much fun it is to be honest.. so maybe the break was a good thing =) Thanks in advance!! (and sorry for the long post!)

Try here:
Arcane
Fire

Its a link to some raid specs / rotation and gem guides. e.t.c. The rest is available on the side bars.

~Flub

This is very very true.

I found that Fire wasn't as hard to grab as Shadow, but more about watching for a nice string of crits. Shadow feels like more of a rotation, there wasn't much randomness in it - Fire is all about the opportune moment.

Can't comment on Boomkin, though.