It's here, at last.  Finally done, now I can enjoy a guilt free cup of tea without perpetually thinking that I should be doing something important :P

The aim of this guide isn't just to suggest to you the talents, enchants and gems you should be taking but also hopefully impart a little bit of knowledge so that you know why you are taking them.  I certainly know that in my guild it's not just expected for you to take a good spec and gear appropriately, you will be expected to demonstrate that you know why you have picked those enchants as it shows you have an understanding of your class and spec mechanics.  It's all too easy to say "I chose this cos teh interwebz told me to" but in most progression guilds they're going to see an understanding of your class mechanics as a sign of a competent and reliable playing who is going to be able to progress with the raid content and new patches/tier sets.

Next up will probably be Fire Mage PvE and Vidyala from the awesome Manalicious has kindly granted me permission to use her rotation flowchart and other pearls of wisdom that she has.  Manalicious is always on my read list and if you guys haven't seen Vid's awesome stuff then I suggest you go look, she's one of the coolest bloggers I know.

Introduction: Why Go Arcane?

The Arcane Mage is unique amongst all other DPS classes, and that includes other mages.  It is the only DPS'er where the amount of damage you do is directly related to how much of a ability resource (mana) you have, rather than just being limited by it (ie. you can't deal damage when you run out of it).

 Arcane mages are very very good single target DPS'ers and are currently the top mage spec for DPS in Firelands according to World of Logs.  However, despite an early very strong showing in Firelands they have been overtaken somewhat by a number of other classes in particular Moonkin Druids. I would hasten to add that World of Logs is entirely representative of the people who choose to upload and therefore only represent a sample portion of the total number of people playing certain specs and what their results are.  Arcane Mages remain a very strong DPS spec and, with all things such as gear being equal, you can usually expect to be among the top DPS'ers in your raid group.

Arcane Mages excel at stationary fights which allow them the opportunity to complete their rotations which have relatively long cast times compared to other Mage specs, they lack the same ability of Frost and Fire Mages to maintain a consistent level (or high level in the case of Fire Mages) of DPS when forced to move.  They are also weak in fights involving significant AoE and should not be used to deal with groups of adds in boss fights.  However, they're very effective at dealing with single adds that must be burnt down quickly.

Arcane Mages bring a good variety of utility to Raid Groups when talented correctly.  Obviously they have Arcane Brilliance, Mage Tables and Time Warp which all mages can bring but in addition talents allow them the Arcane Tactics passive buff which increases the damage of all nearby raid members by 3% and the Focus Magic active buff which will increase a single raid member's crit by 3% and periodically granting a proc which also increases your crit by 3%.

Arcane Mages are also relatively simple to play but allow for much greater complexity once you understand the spec more through experience.  The basic Arcane Mage rotation requires as little as three buttons allowing for relatively simple play with good DPS results.  However, this belies the actual complicated nature of an Arcane Mage.  Instead of viewing the Arcane Mage as having abilities that deal damage, they are better understood as having a resource they are constantly manipulating in order to do damage.

Every other DPS class/spec in the game is more or less a sprinter that is going to blow everything they can as fast as they can as often as they can. The Arcane Mage is a marathon runner who wouldn't last past the first minute of a raid encounter if it was fought with the mentality of every other DPS class.

Additionally, at higher end play you can significantly improve your damage output through careful theorycrafting (or by reading other peoples' theorycrafting), gear, enchant and reforging selections and by refining your rotation specific to individual boss fights.

The ongoing joke is that Arcane Mages have only one button to be pressed in every boss fight, but don't be fooled by others' misconceptions!  There is a great deal of depth to the Arcane Mage IF you bother to look into it and research.  The rotation is not hard at all but the finer points of mana management and gear optimisation can be extremely challenging.  However, even if you don't want to go through the extra effort or you're a beginner looking to start out in the PvE scene you can still perform reasonably well with the basics (and one button lol).

To see the rest of the guide, clicky clicky the title or the Read More button

I'm back with the second installment of Runzy's Battlegrounds. This time I'm in idyllic Warsong Gulch where I get to view all the sites including: flag carriers that sit around in midfield, warriors that seemingly won't die and rogues. So many rogues. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ROGUES????

Now I appreciate I did say I would post the Arcane guide today and didn't, which 'technically means I lied to you guys' but seriously I was up at like 5am in work this morning and was too completely knackered to finish off the bits that I need to on that article, namely the pwetty flowcharts etc that will hopefully distract you from awful spelling spelling caused by my terrible terrible typing skills (that's right, look at the sparkly flowchart.  Words are overrated, everything you need to know is in the flowchart.  Look at how the flowchart shines.  Why this flowchart must have been created by using unicorn tears to draw it, it's that beautiful.  Why with a flowchart that goodlooking, everything else in the guide must be perfect - yes dance my puppets dance mwahahahahaha.  OK I make be slightly out of it from an horrendous lack of sleep and an ill conceived attempt to overcompensate for this with an excessive number of energy drinks.  Also I believe this is the longest parentheses in history.  Maybe.)  Rest assured I'm not just cruelly toying with your emotions and the guide will be released very soon, I just wanna make sure everything is right in it and that there's no stupid errors that make me look at complete buffoon.  I can already achieve that pretty well :P

As always, please please do rate and comment on the video page here and subscribe to my channel which you can do on the channel page here - it let's me know you care :)

What's this Runz?  An actual blog article involving words? Syntax?  And, dare I hope to dream?  PARAGRAPHS?!?! Yes, yes I know, it's kinda been a while since I did a proper blog post rather than like a video post or something else that meant I didn't have to actually sit down and fail miserably at stringing a basic sentence together.  In fact it was in early Julember sometime around half past quarter to from that I popped my last couple of actual posts ups; the Introductory Guide to mages and the Basics of Glyphs.  Then I had my break with my family, then I went back to work and it was all like "awwww sooo much stuff to catch up on and my sleep pattern is screwed and all I want to do is watch amusing youtube videos" but now, now I am back my friends.  And, as I have deliberately steered away from looking at the blog for the past two months beyond posting videos up, I was pleasantly surprised (you can take that as a euphemism for having a complete and total nerdgasm) to see that nearly 3,000 of my happy little magelings have been clicking on the the past two articles in the two months that I've been largely absent.

THREE THOUSAND OF YOU (almost) !!!!!!!!!

Now compared to some blogs that's not a huge number for that timeframe but to me that's absolutely gargantuan (word of the day) and I just kinda wanted to say thanks guys, I'm a very happy little troll.

So what have I been up to in the two months past?

HAI GUYZ!!!!

I know it's been a little while since I posted, that's because I was at home enjoying my holidays and as usual my beloved Mrs Runz made me pay for my work absence by giving me a large list of jobs to do when I got home.  However, between, emptying my garage, feeding the kids, cleaning the lounge, hall and kitchen and sorting out my garden I did get some time to do some battlegrounds... quite a lot of battklegrounds actually because I was trying to fraps them and wanted a decent one to post up online.  So here it is, Runzy's Battlegrounds.  Listen out at the end for special guest star... MRS RUNZ!!!!!

As always you can comment and like (or dislike if you're inclined to do so) on the video's youtube page located here and you can subscribe to my youtube channel here.  Please do comment, rate and subscribe even if it's negative because at least then I know the type of content that you guys want to see (just try to make it constructive if it's negative thankyouplease).

Well that's all from me, I am back travelling with work, which means that ironically I have more free time than I do during my holidays to get posting articles again and yes those 4.2 mage spec guides are coming as well as another video with news on Patch 4.3 (I know I'm behind the curve on this but blah I have my own views I shall share with you guys).

Have a great day and hope you enjoy the video.