Mage specialization (with a twist)
 

Mage just hit 20, debating between Evocation or Conjuration spec.
I probably won't be taking him past 51 or 52 and just parking him at some cash camp
like Lguk or Droga which means using 49 fire pet and my last nukes being:

Evocation Single target 810 DD @ 300 mana
Evocation PBAE 608 DD @ 361 mana
Conjuration Single Target DD 600 @ 250 mana

I'll probably never cast a CoH in his life or summon a rod outside of leveling to that point. Would I still be chaining pets in Lguk to warrant going Conj or should I just go Evo for better leveling / AE? Would his farming efficiency go up at 60 (without elemental staffs) to be worth the time investment? What level would I be able to take Frenzy or Droga content with little difficulty?

Is Dyzil's Deafening Decoy any good at 56 assuming never getting ele staffs? I might push him to 56 if so... or 60 IDK.

TL;DR
optimal farm bot level and spec?

Thanks.

If you are soloing most of the time (pet chaining) than conjuration is right i guess. If you do more grouping i would suggest evocation. You will cast mostly nukes in those situations and there are more evo nukes.

The conjugation nuke is 2.4 while evocation is 2.7 damage per mana. Honestly you will probably get more umph out of conj spec. At that level pet and pet DS will be doing most of your damage anyways.

Evocation is probably more grouped friendly high 50s with more powerful evocation nukes and holding on to your one high summon pet, but conjuration (I'm guessing) is more raid friendly for summoning rods.

I'd tentatively vote conjuration, but my mage is only 25.

Specialize in divination and you won't need to ask questions like this

Once you're 46 you can use a http://wiki.project1999.com/Burnt_Wood_Staff to finish stuff off anyways, if you're really concerned about mana efficiency. All the more reason to spec conj for savings when you do need to chain pets.

The correct answer is evocation so when they ask for rods you can say oom and afk.

1-60 primarily soloing: Conjuration
1-60 primarily grouping: Evocation
60/Raiding: Conjuration

Practical answer: Doesn't really matter. Easiest is to just go Conj and not worry about it.

I'd go with Conjuration as the others have mentioned for the reasons they gave. In regards to taking the character further up in level and what you'd get out of it... I'd say go for it if you took the character to 50 in the first place. 52 is very simple to get and you could visit a number of locations to get good cash while doing so. At that stage, leveling does take longer but with a bit of persistence you could set a goal of using the Water voceration pets and getting a Water staff from Phinny.

The staff is fairly simple to get, requiring some guild mates and a few trips down to kill Phinny when he's available, or failing that, paying an established guild to assist you with it. The staff and water pet are very formidable and are a good '2nd prize' for skipping the Epic. Shaman and other players probably wish they had an alternative as good as this for their class probably.

Dyzil's Deafening Decoy isn't affected by Fire staff. However, it is a really good fire pet with a strong DS. So yeah, definitely worth it imo.

Regarding Frenzy and Droga difficulties, I doubt you would be able to solo Frenzy at 52 as a magician, mainly due to having to manage multiple mobs at once unless you have a good stock of root nets to break the camp.
For Droga, it all depends on which camp you are aiming at. Here again, having a lot of adds will make it difficult to solo.