80-85

so what do you think i should use to level from 80-85? i cant decide between fire or frost
Arcane. In 5 mans people shouldn't come close to touching you in terms of damage.

but if you want more fun, I say fire. Spreading your dots around in instances is a lot of fun.
If you plan to play a lot of PvP, frost, if you plan to do serious raiding, fire.

But ultimately, just play whatever you like best. Your spec choice isn't really that important until you are raiding.
Arcane is ridiculous at 80 but drops off in effectiveness sharply after 81.

I would say frost for questing or get used to fire for dungeons.

Arcane is ridiculous at 80 but drops off in effectiveness sharply after 81.

I would say frost for questing or get used to fire for dungeons.

I quested 80-85 as arcane, and my damage output fine. You just need a few upgrades from either AH or Quests for all classes/specs before Cata is no longer "hard".

Although I did enter cata at an iLevel between 232 and 245 and not 180s
Questing is pretty easy from 80-85 as frost.
All three are fine. Just pick one you like.
Until 80 I was always frost, and I do still like the control of frost, but then I switched to arcane (as my other spec) and found that with the talent for auto-applied Slow I can almost always kill stuff before it gets to me anyway. I also liked the higher DPS of arcane, and much of my XP from around 82 until 85 was running instances.
arcane until 83, then your mana pool disappears