How strong is the new arcane mage build?

[The Last Sasquatch]

I've started picking up pieces of the arcane power set (cloth) dropped by bosses in the arcane rift. If anyone has made a build around that set, how powerful is it? Is it better than elemental mage?

[Desperado]

I've tried it a bit. It's noticeably more damage than elemental mage with elemental beam, but everything else is worse. You're very dependent on the cooldown for elemental beam. Arcane barrage is never worth the risk of being forced to stand still while casting it, and it doesn't do great damage. Those are the only two attacks for a pure arcane mage.

The only way to surpass elementalist mage and be consistent with arcane mage is to use runic forge to effectively eliminate the cooldown on elemental beam and still use trinket of elemental mastery with alternating elements. Meanwhile an elementalist mage can use runic forge to effectively eliminate the cooldown of focus the element to spam focus element with lightning for vastly higher damage and larger area attacks.