Arcane Mages represent massive and continued burst DPS so far as mages go, even surpassing that of the much vaunted heavy fire mage once you obtain the proper gear. However, that's just it, without the amount of mana required to sustain Arcane's massive DPS you fall far short of par.

Additionally Arcane Mages see much less light in the Arena as opposed to cookie cutter 17/0/44 Frost Mages or 17/44/0 Fire mage PvP specs, often due to the simple fact that either of those will be a direct improvement over arcane. However, see the video in the PvP section (below) for 61/0/0 Arcane pwnage.

All is not lost, with proper control, skills, and of course gear, Arcane can still succeed quite nicely at brining the pain in PvP, earlier raid instances, and much more so on into the later end raiding game EX: Mount Hyjal & Black Temple

Talent Builds

* 61/0/0 Pure Arcane (see video, below)

2.1 - Spell Rotation

Arcane Blast - Arcane Blast - Arcane Blast - Arcane Missiles - Scorch

2.2 - Leveling Arcane Build

40/21/0 Arcane/Fire Leveling Build

10 – 14 Improve Arcane Missiles
15 – 19 Arcane Concentration
20 – 24 Improved Fireball
25 – 29 Ignite
30 – Pyroblast
31 – 33 Arcane Impact
34 – 35 Magic attunement
36 – 38 Arcane Meditation
39 – 40 Improved Counterspell
41 – 45 Arcane Mind
46 – Presence of Mind
47 – 49 Arcane Instability
50 – Arcane Potency (1/3)
51 – Arcane Power
52 – 53 Spell Power
54 – 55 Arcane Potency (3/3)
56 - 70 Expand more into the fire tree picking up flame throwing and blast wave as well as finishing the arcane tree's useful talents

Arcane PvP Build

* 48/13/0 Arcane/Fire Arena Build
* 36/0/25 Arcane/Frost Arena Build

Arcane Mage 61/0/0 - PVP Dominance, by Kilobyte

NOTE: The below section is nearly identical for all three specializations of mage, this is due to the usage of almost entirely the same stats for any mage no matter the talent build/elemental specialization.
4.0 - Number Crunching

Spell Hit - 12.6 = 1%
Spell Critical - 22.1 = 1%
Spell Penetration - 1 = 1 Lost point of Resistance
Spell Haste - 15.7 = 1%/0.025 seconds off of Global Cooldown & Spell Cast Time

Spell Damage Coefficients:

Arcane Missiles = 142.9%(or 28.57% per wave of missiles)
Arcane Explosion = 21.4%
Arcane Blast = 71.4%
Scorch = 42.8%

Spell Hit Cap:

Spell Hit Cap W/ (3/3) Elemental Precision = 164 For Fire & Frost/126 (Frostbolt Only)
Spell Hit Cap W/ (5/5) Arcane Focus = 76 for Arcane
Spell Hit Cap W/ (3/3) Elemental Precision & (3/5) Arcane Focus = 126 for Fire, Frost & Arcane

4.1 - Spell Hit, Crit, etc.

The Numbers above detail the percentage to which each point of +Spell Damage actually effects any given spell. For instance, 1 point of spell damage does not automatically equal an increase of one damage, rather it will increase it to a percentage as listed above.

If the spell you're looking for isn't listed above then simply take the base casting time(without talents) and divide it by 3.5. However, a different formula will apply to AoE spells.

Defacto Priority:

Spell Hit(Until Capped) - Spell Damage OR Haste - Spell Critical

What to shoot for when entering Karazhan & Heroics:

If you simply want to make certain you're good to begin attempting karazhan and heroics try aiming for the stats below as an absolute minimum, surpassing them however is recommended to make things overall quite easier.

Additionally, you can downgrade these stats somewhat for the easier heroic dungeons as Karazhan is definitely more challenging than most if not all of them.

Spell Hit: 90
Spell Damage: 600
Spell Critical: 20%
Health: 6,000
Mana: 7,000

What to shoot for when heading into 25-Raids:

These numbers should cover you for passing Karazhan into the 25-man raiding content, statistics such as spell hit will be notably harder to achieve prior to gearing up in Karazhan & Heroics quie a bit. Otherwise if you have this or higher by the time you eclipse Karazhan you'll be fine.

Spell Hit: 16% (With Talents)
Spell Damage: 800+
Spell Critical: 23%
Health: 7,000+
Mana: 9,000