Arcane Mage

[Xame]

I agree with you Brista that the Arcane line as a damage line is great. I've always had a problem going to it just because of mana consumption in instance raids. The "mage is down drinking again", line bugs people enough that I've really just gone to fire except when things are going really bad or a boss fight.

I would suggest that if you go 31 in Arcane that you also consider the Frost line. Critical Mass is the real killer in the fire line and you cann't get it with only 20 pts left. Since you mentioned PvP you can get the "area sheep" with Improved Blizzard. Also most of the frost line at the lower points play very well together and have low mana costs to compenstate for the high output arcane line.

Consider:

Permafrost rank 5/5 +3secs to chill
Ice Shards rank 3/5 +60% dmg bonus to crits in frost
Winter's Chill rank 1/3 -4% to mob movement from chill
Improved Frost Nova rank 2/2 PvP talent for Shatter
Cold Snap rank 1/1 Reset all of your frost timers
Improved Blizzard rank 3/3 -65% to mob movement on Blizzard (see winter's chill above)
Shatter rank 5/5 PvP talent, 50% crit chance to frozen target

Thus you get a PvP -69% to enemy speed with a 4.5sec duration and a faster Frost Nova (who cares)
with 50% chance to crit with +60% dmg bonus to the frost crit when they get close.

Really just basic Mage stuff. Mow them down at a distance and don't let them touch you. My personal fire build is a crit/proc'ing build going for Critical Mass in fire w/ Arcane Instability (2pts) to up the critical chances while picking up many fun fire talents:

Impact rank 5/5 10% chance to stun
Ignite rank 5/5 crits burn the target for +40%/4sec damage
Incinerate rank 2/2 +4% to crit on scorch and fireblast
Improved Flamestrike rank 3/3 Needed for Blast Wave (not a bad AoE opener if you don't have
Improved Blizzard)
Blast Wave rank 1/1 AoE with 6sec daze (Flamestrike -> Blast Wave -> AE)

Note that the first 12pts in my fire build are really good fire points but you really get a lot of junk for the next 8pts compared to frost. The 6 second cast time on PyroBlast makes it nearly useless in group play/PvP and makes it only interesting in combination with Presence of Mind and Arcane Power for a super nuke (if you remember to pull it out when it is needed).

As with all these decisions, play style dictates what really works best.