Post by Eliel
Well, let's work on some of these opinions.
Firstly, Arcane is the _best_ DPS spec, bar none, once you have 2 piece T5, and remains the best until 4 piece T6 or equivalent. It has been proven over and over again. Yes, they do have more mana constraints than Fire or Frost, but with the new mana gems, changes to Spirit recently (Arcane Meditation benefits), Evocation and Mana Pots, you will be fine as long as you use your abilities/consumables well. Get a Shadow Priest in your group, you can even spam a bit of AB for a while (not indefinately, of course), which ups DPS.
As for Arcane talent builds, 40/0/21 is garbage compared to pretty much anything else out there, and still inferior when you have other mages stacking Winters Chill for you. I struggle to build an arcane build that doesn't have at least 48 points (
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oixVc0fzxIui ). Arcane Missiles is an important part of Arcane rotations (3x AB, AM, Scorch, repeat), and pushback on that because of raid damage throws your rotation out.
For a fire build, there are really 47 key talent points (44 in Fire, 3 in Frost
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZxgM0fcI0eRx0h ) that I'd never drop. From there, you extrapolate out to the two main raiding builds (the amount of arcane points in 4/46/11 varies depending on the person, that is my preference).
10/48/3
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0VZxgRzfcIoeRt0h4/46/11
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=orZxgMzfcI0eRtMhG0oLastly, you really want to work on Spell Hit. Spell Hit is the MOST important mage DPS stat up until you're hit capped, as many people have said. However, don't be stupid. I wouldn't give up 20 spelldam for 10 extra spell hit, but I would give up 12 for 10 spell hit, if I needed that 10 spell hit.