The WoW arcane mage has a very different playing style than the other elemental mages and is even totally different from the arcane mage of the last WoW addon "The Burning Crusade".

While, during burning crusade times, simply spamming arcane strike, especially in connection with the powerful double bonus from the T5 set, would yield very high damage results, Blizzard has made things more interesting by introducing a more reaction-based and thus more diversified rotation for arcane mages. One cause for this change is, of course, the new final talent "arcane barrage". This is a very powerful instant attack spell that deals much damage but has a cool down time of 3 seconds. Especially in pvp this spell is very notorious since high damage spells that can be cast instantly are very powerful and effective here.

The arcane strike has laso undergone a very interesting change: Having reduced the casting times of additional arcane spell before, it now empowers the damage of the following arcance spells by 15% or even 20% when used with the right glyph. This effect can be stacked up to three times which makes 60% damage bonus possible. But simultaneously, the mana cost increases as well which is why a combination of arcane strike and arcane barrage is interesting. Additionally, all those spells can trigger a special buff that will half the casting time of the next arcane missiles, which breathed new life into this dusty spell.

All that can be further enhanced by combining it with arcane power. The whopping mana cost can be neutralized by an evocation whose cool down time can be tuned down to 2 minutes by choosing the right talents.