Let’s take a closer look at the weakest and the strongest aspects of this specialization:
Advantages:
An extremely potent burst;
Great AoE;
Nice switch to priority targets.
Disadvantages:
No opportunity to deal effective damage to disassociated targets;
In case some of the enemies in the pack do not need to be damaged, there’s no opportunity to eliminate cleave.
Basic information on the spec:
All Mage specializations have one key resource – Mana. In the Fire specialization, it does not play a crucial role as it regenerates quite quickly. Only frequent utilization of Spellsteal might cause problems with this resource.
(Area of Effect) is basically the area where this of that effect is actuated regardless of whether its damage or healing. This command is usually used to act in a team/raid on several targets. It is also used to describe any ability of a Boss with the aforementioned effect.
Buff stands for any positive effect. Always reflected to the left of the mini-map, by its upper edge.
Burst is an ability to do – in multiple ways – massive damage within a short period of time.
Gear is what it is.
GCD (Global Cooldown) is the overall ability recovery time.
Debuff stands for negative effect. By default, it’ reflected to the left of the mini-map by its lower edge.
DoT stands for Damage over Time.
DPS (Damage per Second) is a measure that reflects the damage done within one second.
Cleave is an ability to damage secondary targets through damaging the main one with no (or minor) loss in the damage done to the main target.
Cooldown (often CD) primarily refers to the ability recovery time. Can be often applied to bursts and various protective abilities.
Melee and Range. Melee is the close-range combat zone, also used in the titles of all the classes and specs that do effective damage in this zone. Range usually refers to a zone that is not a close-range one and is used, respectfully, in the titles of all classes and specs that do effective damage remotely.
Trait is a name for the ‘talents’ your artifact has.
Dragon’s Breath deals medium Fire damage to the enemies within a small cone in front of you disorienting then for 4 secs. Any other damage received by those enemies cancels the disorientation effect. CD 20 secs.
Pyroblast is a 4.5 sec cast spell dealing major Fire damage. Can be cast instantly due to the proc Hot Streak.
Fire Blast is an instant spell dealing medium Fire damage that is always critical. Can be cast simultaneously with a different spell. 2 charges; CD 12 secs.
Flamestrike deals nice Fire damage to all the enemies within a selected area, also slowig them down by 50% for 8 secs. Has a 4-sec cast.
Fireball has a 2.5-sec cast and deals medium Fire damage. Enhanced Pyrotechnics makes each non-critical strike buff off it with a 10% increase in Crit change. The effect stacks up, and is completely absorbed in case of a critical strike.
Scorch is a 1.5-sec cast spell that can be used on the go. Deals minor Fire damage to the selected enemy.
The trait Scorched Earth allows you to increase your moving speed by 5% after casting Scorch. The effect stacks up to 5 times.
Phoenix’s Flame is your artifact’s active ability. Deals nice Fire damage to a selected enemy and minor Fire damage to all the enemies in close vicinity of the main target. The damage is always critical. 3 charges, 45 secs to restore.
The trait Warmth of the Phoenix has a 50% probability of raising your Crit by 800 for 12 secs. The effect also acts on 4 your allies.
The trait Strafing Run allows your Phoenix’s Flame transfer onto 2 additional targets losing 75% of damage upon each transfer.
Bursts, important CDs and passive effects
Combustion – Critical strike increases your Crit by 100% for 10 secs, and your Mastery – by 50% of your Crit. Can be used simultaneously with a cast of a different spell. CD 2 min
Time Warp CD 5 min; but those receiving Time Warp get a 10-min debuff which prevents them from triggering similar effects over the debuff’s action time.
Mastery: Ignite makes your Fireball, Scorch, Pyroblast and Flamestrike as well as your talents Meteor and Cinderstorm leave a 9-sec DoT on the target. The DoT deals 6% (the figure is increased with the Mastery rate). When the DoT is renewed, the whole remaining damage is added to the new one. Once every 2 secs, Mastery: Ignite can spread over to the closest enemy.
The trait Phoenix Reborn. The targets tagged with your Ignite may light up thus receiving minor Fire damage. This flash may cut you 10 secs off the restoring time of your Phoenix’s Flame.
Critical Mass is a passive aura that increases your chance of delivering a critical strike with your spells by 15%. The Crit bonuses raise by 10%.
Hot Streak can be triggered if you deliver a critical strike with a single target spell twice in a row (the first critical strike gives you the buff Heating Up, the second consecutive one makes the buff transform into Hot Streak). Once activated, Hot Streak gives your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike an instant cast, and doubles their damage delivery.
Enhanced Pyrotechnics grants you a buff increasing the chance of delivering a critical strike by Fireball by 10% after each non-critical strike delivered by that spell. The effect stacks up and gets absorbed by the first successful crit delivered due to the ability.
Deffensive abilities
Ice Block makes you immune to damage of any type for 10 secs, but it also prevents you from taking any actions over that period. It also touches you with the effect Hypothermia which keeps you from entering Ice Block again for the next 30 secs. CD 4 min.
Invisibility makes you gradually disappear within the 3 secs after you cast the spell. After that time, you become invisible for your enemies. The Invisibility effect stays on for 20 secs. Any action on your side, apart from moving, cancels the effect of Invisibility. If you receive any damage within the 3 secs of spell activation period, you won’t enter the state of Invisibility.
Blazing Barrier allows you to absorb a certain quantity of damage. If you’re being attacked from your Melee zone, your enemies will receive minor Fire damage. The shield itself exists for 1 min. CD 25 secs.
The trait Molten Skin, provided 4/4, reduces all the incoming physical damage by 20% while Blazing Barrier is active.
Cauterize restores you 35% of your max HP upon receiving mortal damage. You will, however, lose 28% of your max Health over the next 5 secs. During Health loss you are immune to any movement-impairing effects, and your moving speed grows by 150%. This effect can be triggered as often as once every 5 min.
Utility abilities
Counterspell interrupts spell casting by your enemy and prevents them from using a spell of the same school for 6 more secs. CD 24 secs.
Slow Fall helps you reduce an ally’s falling speed for 30 secs.
Frost Nova makes your enemies within the 12-m range freeze for 8 secs and dealtiny Frost damage. Any damage received by the enemies can cancel the effect.
Blink moves you 20 m forward or to the nearest barrier and cancels any stunning or movement impairing-effects on you. CD 15 secs.
The trait Cauterizing Blink, provided 4/4, restores you 20% of your max Health within 6 secs after you cast Blink.
Portal allows you to open a portal for your group/raid-mates leading into one of your fraction’s major cities or big-scale general Sanctums.
Polymorph turns your enemy into a sheep that wanders near its initial location for 50 secs. In this shape, you enemy can take no actions but does restore Health rapidly. Any received damage cancels the effect on the target. This transformation can only be applied to one enemy at a time. Applicable to humanoids and beasts only.
Conjure Refreshment creates food that restores Health and Mana. The generated items disappear from your inventory if you leave the game for over 15 min.
Teleport allows you to teleport into your fraction’s major cities as well as to other key locations.
Spellsteal costs quite a lot Mana, and allows you to steal one positive magic effect off your enemy. The effect’s max duration is 2 min.
General information. On achieving several new levels you’ll get access to new talent ‘Tiers’. Talents may have different effect on abilities: add new features, replace old ones, modify passively different effects and spells. Talents can be changed in Sanctuaries or any recreational zones. However, if you don’t have any of those places nearby you can use the Codex of the Tranquil Mind which allows you to switch channels within a minute. You can’t change talents in combat. You can’t change a talent if the talent you’ve picked in the last Tier is on Cooldown. You’ll have to wait until it’s restored first.
Conflagration. Fireball rags the target with the effect Conflagrate dealing additional minor Fire damage for 8 secs. Enemies under Conflagration and Ignite have 10% probability of delivering minor Fire damage to all enemies close to them.
* Firestarter is best for single target. Pyromaniac average talent, but it becomes stronger with 4t21. Even with tier pieces it is worse than Firestarter. Conflagration is your general pick if you have 2+ targets close to each other.
Tier 2. Lvl 30.
Shimmer. Replaces the ability Blink. Can be cast during the casting of a different spell, and has no effect on GCD. 2 charges, CD 15 secs.
Blast Wave. The ability deals minor Fire damage to all the enemies within the 8-m range and reduces their moving speed by 70% for 4 secs. CD 25 secs.
Blazing Soul. When dealing damage to the enemies within the 8-m range of you, your Blazing Barrier restores its absorption value as equal to 40% of the dealt damage.
* Shimmer is the most efficient talent on this Tier as it significantly increases your mobility and keeps you from interrupting another cast. Blast Wave is occasional, for cases when you need control. Blazing Soul may only be good for upgrading, in case you’re going to stand up face to face to your enemy.
Tier 3. Lvl 45.
Mirror Image. Summons 3 copies of yours which attack your enemies. Copies live for 40 secs. CD 2 min
Rune of Power. Within 1.5 secs, you generate a rune of power in the selected area. The rune lives for 10 secs. As long as you’re within an 8-m range of your Rune, your spells deliver 40% more damage. At least 2 charges. CD 40 secs.
Incanter’s Flow. During combat the damage dealt by you grow by 4 to 20%. The factor increases or decreases in cycles. The duration of a cycle is 10 secs.
* Incanter’s Flow is your best choice at the moment. Rune of Power may step up on stage when you need max burst in a short AoE. In general, over a combat, however, it does lose to Incanter’s Flow by a lot. Mirror Image is not used.
* Flame on is your best option for single target or for raid bosses in general as it allows you to benefit from Hot Streak more often. Alexstrasza’s Fury is great for AoE or cleave encounters which is typical of Mythic+ realia. If you own Darckli’s Dragonfire Diadem, you should use this talent combined with the Legendary on 2 targets and more. Controlled Burn is not that controlled, after all. It’s far too unstable and loses it to the other two by all means.
Tier 5. Lvl 75.
Frenetic Speed. After casting Scorch, your moving speed grows by 30% for 3 secs.
Ring of Frost. Select an area and generate a Ring of Frost there for 10 secs. Enemies to enter its action area get paralyzed for 10 secs. Max target count: 10. CD 45 secs.
* Frenetic Speed is the only talent on the Tier that is good for any situation. Ring of Frost and Ice Ward are really occasional. Just keep in mind that you have control abilities like those in case one day you need something of the kind.
Tier 6. Lvl 90.
Living Bomb. You turn your enemy into a walking bomb which receives minor Fire damage over the next 4 secs, after which it explodes and hits all the enemies within the range of 10 m. All the targets hit also become bombs, but the effect does not spread upon further explosions. CD 12 secs.
Unstable Magic. Fireball has a 25% change of causing the target to explode thus delivering additional damage to the target and all the enemies within the 8-m range of it equal to 50% of the damage delivered by Fireball.
Flame Patch. After acting, Flamestrike leaves an area that deals minor Fire damage for 8 more secs.
* Unstable Magic is your best single target choice. Flame Patch is extremely potent for AoE when all the targets in the pack are worth its full action, and there are no priority targets that need more damage. If your situation complies with all the conditions, this is your 2-10 target choice.
For 10 or more targets, pick Living Bomb. When picking this talent, though, remember that it is not recommended for single target use.
Cinderstorm. Allows you to throw 6 red hot pieces of coal in an arc trajectory. All enemies that happen to be within their active range receive minor Fire damage. This damage grows by 30% if the target is tagged with your Ignite.
Meteor. Select an area in which in 3 secs a meteorite falls and deals major Fire damage. The damage is split evenly between all the enemies hit. Besides that, on the landing site, the ground catches fire for 8 secs. In this area, additional Fire damage is delivered.
* Meteor is the best single target pick without 4T21 as well as for combats with very short-living adds – which do not frequent combats. Kindling is perfect for cleave combats where adds are often near your main target. Default choise with 4T21. Cinderstorm is a lifesaver for continuous AoE cleave for young Mages with low ilvl. Not used in raid realia, though.
So, we can boil it all down to the following builds:
Unlike talents, in the weapons branch there is no choice of what you can and what you can’t take. With the current Artifact Knowledge, the order of artifact acquisition is insignificant as to open all the traits, you only need to earn 2.23 billion artifact power which is extremely easy to do just over the first few minutes after you’ve reached level 110.
Relics:
A Fire Mage uses 2 Fire and 1 Arcane relics.
In most cases, the relic ilvl – which, in its turn, increases the weapon ilvl – would have more value than the traits. Here is the list of traits with their weapon ilvl equivalents, based on single target simulations:
* The only trait worth mentioning here is Blue Flame Special. On continuous AoE, it’s equivalent to about 4 ilvl, while on single target, this trait is absolutely useless.
If you face situations where you’re not sure, we recommend you use the raidbots.com web-site which has a convenient interface for figuring out if it’s worth replacing Relic A with Relic B.
Tier 1 of any relic allows you to increase your weapon’s ilvl by 5 points.
Tier 2. This is where you face the first important choice between Light and Darkness which deprives you of access to one of three traits on Tier 3. Most traits on Tier 2 are more powerful than those on Tier 3. That’s why quite often the choice you make here defines it all. Your objective is to pick a way of the highest ilvl equivalent sum on both Tiers to provide max efficiency.
* The only trait worth mentioning here is Blue Flame Special. On continuous AoE, it’s equivalent to about 4 ilvl, while on single target, this trait is absolutely useless.
Other traits are defensive and provide no dps that’s why they are not accounted for here. Hence their value is considered equal to 0.
If you are using CrucibleWeight you can import this string into the game:
A Fire Mage has access to the total of 14 Legendaries.
The best are:
Marquee Bindings of the Sun King. Once you absorb the effect Hot Streak, you get 15% probability of a 15-sec buff empowering your Pyroblast by 300% if it has a hard cast (meaning, it doesn’t get an instant cast off Hot Streak proc). The best Legendary on a single target.
Darckli’s Dragonfire Diadem increases the action range of your Dragon’s Breath by 25 m and its damage dealing – by 100%. The best AoE Legendary for AoE and cleave on 4 and more targets. It’s recommended you use it together with Alexstrasza’s Fury.
Koralon’s Burning Touch makes your Scorch deal 350% more damage and guarantees a critical strike delivered to the enemies below 30% Health. Second best single target and minor cleave Legendary.
Shard of the Exodar. Your Time Warp does not apply the debuff Temporal Displacement to you and allows you to use your Time Warp even when you’re under somebody esle’s Heroism / Bloodlust / Time Warp debuff. A great universal Legendary for any combat type.
Others:
Prydaz, Xavaric’s Magnum Opus is a damage absorbing shield covering 25% of your max HP once every 30 secs. Also has a bunch of secondary stats. Goes well for exploring new bosses due to its nice survival bonus. The number of stats on its own gives you a nice DPS kick-up.
Celumbra, the Night’s Dichotomy is a pass-by Legendary only good for Mages who have just upgraded their skills. As soon as 2 more Legendaries come up, they replace Celumbra.
Belo’vir’s Final Stand. Blink or Shimmer now gives you a shield that absorbs damage equal to 20% of your max Health for the next 15 secs. A defensive Legendary, extremely occasional.
Norgannon’s Foresight grants you an opportunity to cast spells while moving for 4 secs, provided the previous 6 secs you haven’t moved.
Sephuz’s Secret gives you, passively, 2% Haste and 10% moving speed. The proc that is activated with your dispels, stuns and paralysis increases Haste by additional 25%, and the moving speed – by 70%. Average legendary.
If you’ve got different Legendaries out of the first list, and want to figure out which one of them would be better for you, we recommend you use Simcraft.
A Fire Mage’s key goal is to create double crits as often as possible to activate Hot Streak. This would help you maintain and pump up Ignite.
How to efficiently utilize crits and how to get Hot Streak more often
As you already know, Hot Streak is a 2-step thing: the first critical strike by your spell grants you the proc Heating Up. If you crit again right away during this buff, you get Hot Streak. Should the next spell cast during Heating Up be non-critical, the effect is cancelled. So, here you have 2 lifesaving abilities: Fire Blast and Phoenix’s Flame. Meaning as soon as you get Heating Up, your goal is to turn it into Hot Streak as soon as possible, and to do that, you need to utilize one of these two spells. The rotation would be as follows:
Since your Fireball takes time to fly, you are most likely to start casting your next Fireball. During that time, you have the chance of getting Heating Up off the previous one.
Thus, your latest Fireball and your Pyroblast hit the target simultaneously which gives you a good opportunity to get new Heating Up or even Hot Streak which altogether lands you on Ignite at its finest. In case only one of the spells is critical, you have a chance to use another Fire Blast. It would give you one more Hot Streak which you can spend on the following Pyroblast.
Now, let’s take a look at the spells that don’t affect Heating Up in any way:
Phoenix’s Flame is a potent spell on its own, and it deals cleave damage, too. Also, keep in mind that it takes time to fly, and you can’t cast it during the casting of a different spell. Considering those facts, the working spell to activate Hot Streak would be Fire Blast. Basically, Phoenix’s Flame is your insurance policy in case you are out of Fire Blast charges. Both spells play an important role during Combustion.
Combustion
This is the only – and extremely potent – cooldown that needs to be discarded as often as possible. You should also try intersecting it with various damage enhancers on the encounter – Rune of Power, Meteor, trinket procs.
* This is the general guideline for utilizing Fire Blast and Phoenix’s Flame. The succession may differ depending on the charge quantity for these spells.
* In case you’re out of Fire Blast and Phoenix’s Flame charges, use Scorch to get Hot Streak as soon as possible (Scorch has a shorter cast than Fireball, and it doesn’t take time to fly which makes is possible to activate the proc instantly once the cast is over).
* If you’re talented with Pyromaniac, once it’s activated just keep discarding the Hot Streak proc.
* Firestarter should make things easier, as it makes your firs Fireball critical.
With this belt, once the target reaches 30% HP, Fireball should be completely replaced by Scorch. This would help you get regular Hot Streaks, hence use Pyroblast more often. Even though the talent Kindling is not triggered by Scorch, the amount of Pyroblasts starts compensating the loss that comes with Fireball replacement.
Once the bonus is on, dispose of the 300% proc right away. In most cases, if the proc acts during Combustion, it makes sense to hardcast as a cast like that basically equals three Pyroblasts. During various Haste bonuses (Bloodlust , Trollish Berserker etc.) there is no place for doubt. If you have low Haste and there are no Haste enhancers, a good idea would be to keep discarding Pyroblasts through Hot Streak.
Mobility:
A Fire Mage is extremely mobile and can move around without any DPS losses over short-distance relocations while casting instant spells or Scorch, as well as making long distances via Blink or Shimmer, without even interrupting the current cast. Try to minimize various unnecessary relocations and to utilize your instant spells at their max efficiency during your run spans. Also keep in mind that relocation is a good reason to use Blazing Barrier.
The basic priority rating for the characteristics is as follows:
Mastery > Haste >= Versatility > Intellect > Crit
The current specialization’s Mastery gives you Ignite – the DoT your spells leave on a target, one that deals a % of the spell’s damage to the target for 9 secs.
Haste reduces the casting time for all your spells, reduces the CD for your Inferno Blast, and reduces the time of your Living Bomb going off.
This stat value is universal for various combat types and implies that you play talented with Firestarter. This is the reason for Crit being so low. If not talented, Crit has the value approximately equal to that of Versatility. In general, all the stats are quite close to each other in terms of value which is why they are going to move around a lot. That’s why is recommended, once you receive new equipment, you use Simcraft or Raidbots.com. There is no way to get a more precise answer to which stat to focus on first, but through a simulation.
Based on the aforementioned characteristics and results of your character’s own simulation results, you can draw conclusions on Gems, Chants and Raid Chemicals.
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