Fire Mage

Overview

Talents and builds

Level 60 build

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Raid build

The raid build moves 2 points from Magic Absorption (1) and Improved Fire Blast (1) to Arcane Resilience (1) and Accelerant (1).

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Key talents

• Accelerant1/5Up to 0.5 seconds off Fireball's, Frostfire Bolt's and Arcane Wrath's cast time at rank 5. It is Improved Fireball renamed, with Arcane Wrath added, in the same slot. Fireball is the filler only until you train Scorch: from then on Scorch is the filler, so Accelerant speeds up nothing the level-60 rotation casts. The leveling build keeps one point, to open the tree's second row, and the raid build two
• Incineration5/5Up to 10% more critical strike chance on Fire Blast and Scorch at rank 5. The client gave it two more ranks when it took two from Critical Mass, and the build moves its two points with them: 5/5
• Ignite5/5Fire critical strikes burn the target for a further 40% of the spell's damage over 4 seconds at rank 5, turning every crit into extra sustained damage
• Improved Scorch3/3Up to a guaranteed chance for Scorch to stack a 3%-per-stack Fire vulnerability debuff, up to 5 stacks, on the target
• Critical Mass3/3More Fire critical strike chance, feeding both Ignite and Combustion. The current client gives it three ranks and makes all three the prerequisite for Combustion, so the build takes it at 3/3
• Fire Power3/3A flat Fire damage bonus, the tree's biggest raw damage talent, now capped at three ranks
• Pyroblast1/1Heating Up1/1A pair of points in the middle of the tree. Heating Up is the renamed Hot Streak: every non-periodic critical strike with Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Fire Blast, or Scorch cuts the cast time of your next Pyroblast by 25% for 20 seconds, stacking up to three times, so a Pyroblast cast on three stacks takes a quarter of its usual 6 seconds. Casting Pyroblast spends every stack
• Combustion1/1The capstone: each Fire spell hit adds 10% Fire crit chance, lasting until you land three non-periodic Fire crits

Both builds reach Combustion at the bottom, and two of their Fire points are Pyroblast and Heating Up. They were bought with the points of Master of Elements (2/3 → 0/3), which refunded 20% of the base mana cost on your Fire and Frost critical strikes: the sim measured the swap, with the Pyroblast line added to the rotation, as about 3.5% more damage than the previous spend and rotation. The client has since trimmed Precision (then Elemental Precision) to 3 ranks, and the two points that freed went back into Master of Elements, so the mana refund is back and Pyroblast and Heating Up stay; both builds now take it at 3/3. Taking Pyroblast and Heating Up’s points from Wake of Fire or Incineration instead measured the same within the sim’s error, so that is a matter of taste.

The leveling build takes four points out of Accelerant, since Scorch is the filler from the moment you train it. One goes to the third rank of Master of Elements. The other three go to Arcane: two ranks of Arcane Meditation (a third of your mana regeneration keeps running while you cast), plus a second rank of Arcane Resilience, which brings Arcane to the 15 points that row needs. Without raid buffs, a long fight runs a Fire Mage short of mana, and this spend measures about +5% in our level-60 search run, with every talent the engine cannot model still in it. That leaves Fire at 31 points, exactly the path to Combustion. The raid build makes the same move, taking its points from Accelerant, Magic Absorption and one rank of Improved Fire Blast: a raid fight runs a Fire Mage dry too, and Arcane Meditation measures about +5% in our raid search run.

Outside Fire, both builds spend 17 points in Arcane, with the Arcane Meditation above, neither taking Arcane Subtlety, which registered no damage in the sim’s model for this rotation, and both take 3 points in Frost, all into Precision (3/3, 6% more hit chance with all your spells; the client renamed Elemental Precision and widened it from Frost and Fire to every school), a real damage gain for this rotation since Fireball, Scorch and Fire Blast all benefit directly. Open the planner at /planner?class=mage to build this out.

Rotation and priority

Open by stacking Improved Scorch’s vulnerability debuff with a few Scorch casts before your main damage window, then hold Combustion until the debuff is fully stacked so every Fire spell hit during Combustion lands as a guaranteed crit. Heating Up decides when Pyroblast is worth a global: cast it only once Heating Up has reached three stacks, which cuts it to a 1.5 second cast, and never at the full 6 seconds. In the sim a three-stack Pyroblast is worth roughly 3.5% more damage over the whole fight than leaving it out, while casting it on two stacks measured no better than not casting it and casting it on one stack lost damage. Fire Blast slots in on cooldown as a free extra hit that doesn’t compete with your Scorch casts for a global cooldown, and its crits feed Heating Up like the rest. Scorch is the filler for every global that isn’t spent on a three-stack Pyroblast, Fire Blast, or Combustion: it costs 150 mana for a 1.5 second cast against Fireball’s 395 for 3 seconds, a Fire mage runs short of mana long before a fight ends, and every Scorch also renews the debuff, so it never falls off. In the sim, Scorch as the filler beat Fireball by about 10 percent on a level 60 character over a three to five minute fight, and by 5 to 8 percent over one minute, at levels 40, 50 and 60 alike; a mix that casts Fireball while mana is high and Scorch when it is low measured below Scorch alone. Fireball is only the filler before you train Scorch at level 22. When your mana runs out, Evocate: it is the one mana cooldown you have, and a Fire Mage needs it in every long fight. Frostfire Bolt (trained at levels 40, 50 and 60) feeds Heating Up and Ignite like Fireball and measured within error of it, so it is no upgrade on Scorch either. Pyroblast’s own damage-over-time is minor next to the hit; the point of the buff is the fast cast. This site’s simulator only models the Combustion-stacking loop when Improved Scorch is actually talented, and without Heating Up it skips the Pyroblast line, so take Improved Scorch if you want the Combustion-stacking loop above to matter.

Stat priority

1. 1Hit
2. 2Spell power
3. 3Fire power
4. 4Critical strike
5. 5Intellect
6. 6Spell haste
7. 7Spell penetration

Best in slot

Enchants and consumables

Races

• Human
• Orc (Recommended)
• Undead
• Gnome (Recommended)
• Troll
• High Order Skyborne

Orc is the Horde pick: Blood Fury. Gnome is the Alliance pick: Escape Artist and Expansive Mind.

Professions

Tailoring and Enchanting is the standard caster pairing in Classic-era play: Tailoring’s crafted spellcaster gear fills early slots, and Enchanting lets you apply your own weapon and gear enchants instead of paying for them.

Leveling

Outlined: points added in this level range.

Frost is the spec most players lean on for leveling, since Frostbolt’s slow and Frost Nova’s root make it safer to solo than Fire’s more contact-heavy kit. Fire can still level well once Improved Scorch and Combustion are both online.