This thread is a consolidated resource for Cataclysm Fire Mages. It will address all key points Fire Mages need to understand or be aware of.

Patch 4.0.6 Fire Mage Changes:

This is a quick summary of what to expect as a fire mage in WoW Cataclysm.

- New Fire spell Flame Orb: Tooltip reads “Launches a Flame Orb forward from the Mage’s position, dealing X Fire damage every second to the closest enemy target for 15 secs.” The Flame Orb does not AOE as it travels, instead it attacks the closest target. At the end of its travel path, however, it can explode in an AOE via the Fire Power talent. This spell is more accurately described as a single target DPS cooldown which can provide a single AOE explosion upon expiry.)
- Fire Mastery: Flashburn – Increases the damage done by all your periodic fire damage effects by 20%. Each point of Mastery increases periodic damage done by an additional 2.5%.
- Fire Specialization is a perk mages get for being Fire. It increases the damage of your Fire spells by 25%.
- Spirit is useless for mages
- Molten Armor no longer scales with spirit. Selfish Crit bonus reduced to 3%.
- Mage Armor allows the Mage to regenerate 3% of maximum mana per 5 seconds
- The Hot Streak talent has been split into two talents: “Hot streak” and “Improved Hot Streak”. For details on how “Hot Streak” scales with Crit chances, check out the above section which goes into further detail.
- Combustion was heavily reworked
- Impact and Improved Fire Blast talents allow Fire mages to spread DOTs
- Firestarter allows Scorch to be cast while moving
- Critical Mass was given a selfish benefit, in addition to providing the +5% crit debuff. Pyroblast can apply the crit debuff in addition to Scorch.
- Hot Streak (and Improved Hot Streak) can proc from Pyroblast
- Frostfire Bolt can be used as a primary nuke in the Fire tree, but you must use the FFB Glyph
- Frostfire Bolt only leaves a DOT if you’re using “Glyph of Frostfire Bolt”. The base spell has no DOT.
- Living Bomb can only be applied to 3 targets
- The explosion from Living Bomb can only hit 3 nearby targets
- Living Bomb can be refreshed before the timer expires, but doing so will not cause the current Living Bomb to explode
- Fireball Dot component removed
- Pyroblast has a 3.5 second cast time
- Blast Wave redesigned to be a targettable, range casted AOE. It no longer knocks back.
- Mage Ward now absorbs Fire, frost and Arcane damage.
- Flamestrike radius increased to match that of Blizzard
- Focus Magic and Torment the Weak are no longer available to Fire Mages.

Firstly, why play a Fire Mage? Lets answer that by taking a quick look at the strengths and weaknesses of the spec itself:

What

Notes

Strengths

Excellent DPS Mobility. You can cast Scorch, Living Bomb, Pyroblast!, Blastwave and Flamestrike all on the run. Make sure you take maximum advantage of this, it’s a key strength of a Fire Mage on movement heavy encounters. Always cast something while moving: while moving to position, while grouping up or spreading out, while avoiding boss mechanics, while kiting – even while mid-air after being knocked back. Just don’t stop casting something!

Strong AOE Power. Impact, Impact-Combustion, Blastwave, Improved Flamestrike, Pyromaniac: They all work together to make you a powerful AOE caster. Even while nuking a single target, Impact will allow you to splash your DOTs to nearby targets. Take advantage of this whenever possible.

Ability to cast even while OOM. Improved Scorch makes the spell totally free, so you can always cast it regardless of your mana level. A Scorch rotation isn’t optimal DPS, but it’s much better DPS than an OOM caster who can’t cast anything.

Weaknesses

Crit Dependancy: Crit is the heart of the Fire spec: Hot Streak Pyroblasts are the result of crits, Master of Elements restores mana after Crits, Flashburn mastery is more useful when spells Crit and leave an Ignite, Combustion is a more powerful/easily used cooldown when you crit. Crits make Fire Mages strong, but it’s also our Achilles Heel. Without many Crits, especially in Cataclysm when Combat Ratings are much lower across the board, the Fire spec suffers.

Vulernable to RNG and a higher DPS Variance: Due to the aforementioned notes regarding Crit Dependancy, Fire can have a high DPS variance. It can be greatly affected by strings of bad RNG, especially when getting unlucky with Crits.

Playing a Fire Mage: The Basics

Action	Notes
Fire Armor Choice	Fire Mages should use Molten Armor at all times.
Single Target Fire DPS	Use Hot Streak whenever possible, recast Living Bomb after every explosion, use Flame Orb whenever possible, and spam your filler nuke in between. Filler nuke can be Scorch, Fireball, or Frostfire Bolt. Fireball is the highest dps. Scorch is used during periods of movement or knockbacks. Frostfire Bolt is an alternative to Fireball, but is lower DPS.
Debuffs	Make sure the Critical Mass debuff is always present on your target (Unless another Mage/Warlock is applying an equivalent buff).
Mana Management	After Patch 4.06 – there isn’t much ‘Mana Management’ required to playing the Fire spec anymore. However, make sure you have enough mana to cast Fireball during Molten Fury range (-35% Health), Boss weakened phases and during powerful trinket on-use or passive proc periods.
Combustion	Recognise that “Ignite” is by far the most important contributor to a strong Combustion. Don’t use Combustion without Ignite present. Ideally, use Combustion when Ignite, Pyroblast (Dot), and Living Bomb are on your target. The biggest Ignites will stem from Pyroblast and Fireball crits, resulting in bigger Combustions. You can, however, fish for Ignites via Scorch if you have no time to wait. Download CombustionHelper to assist you in managing this cooldown more easily
Multiple Target Fire DPS	Put Living Bomb on 3 targets, use Blastwave on cooldown and spam Flamestrike. Mana management is also an essential part of multi-target dps. You will not have enough mana to continually spam AoE for an extended period. Fortunately Fire specs have easy ways to dramatically improve efficiency. Use Blast Wave whenever possible as this is a very mana efficient spell. Even if you are in maximum efficiency mode Blast Wave is still good. Only using Flamestrike only when its dot is expired will greatly increase its dpm. You can further increase dpm by skipping Flamestrike and spamming Scorch with Living Bomb on a single target to fish for Impact procs. Impact procs are unreliable, but do MASSIVE AoE damage with very high efficiency.
Fire Mobility	Fire can use every spell in its arsenal while moving except for Fireball. While moving continue casting as normal, but use Scorch in place of any Fireball casts. Never stop casting!

Gearing a Fire Mage

The most important initial step to correctly gearing a Fire Mage is to understand how we value various Combat Ratings. Our understanding of Combat Ratings will influence the gear we choose to wear, enchants, gems, meta-gems… everything. This is why the “Combat Ratings” sub-section is introduced first in this Gearing Section – ahead of Gemming, Enchanting – and even listing the actual Gear we wear.

Combat Ratings: Relative Values

Rank	Name	Relative Value	Notes
Important			Please note that Combat Rating relative values shuffle depending on a given character’s current stats and gear. Therefore, the most accurate relative values applicable to YOU can be found by using Simulationcraft and Rawr – and importing YOUR character.
Important			The Relative values below may be subject to change. Treat the values below as a general guide for highly geared ilvl 372 geared players. They may or may not be applicable to you in your current gear.
			Last Table Update: 8th February. Simulationcraft is source, to view more detailed information: Click here

1	Intellect	3.2296	Intellect is the strongest stat by far. Much stronger than even Hit. Intellect is a Primary Stat. It increases our Spell Power, Critical Strike Chance and our Mana. Due to the strength of Intellect: we aggressively Gem, Enchant and Gear towards maximising the amount present on our gear.

2	Hit	2.4597	Hit is a very strong stat, but still weaker than intellect. You’ll need 17% hit (1742 rating) for Tier 11 boss mobs. The value of Hit falls off once Hit capped.
3	Spell Power	2.3709	Spell Power can still be found on weapons and trinket effects. Spell Power is a very strong stat.
4	Haste	1.4677	Haste now has a higher relative value compared to Crit/Mastery. Ignite Munching devalues Crit and Mastery considerably. Please remember that the relative values listed here are for very geared 372 players. Haste might be slightly weaker than crit with lower levels of gear. You need to run Rawr / Simulationcraft with YOUR character – to find out whether Haste is slightly better or worse than crit for YOU.
5	Crit	1.3896	Surprised how Crit has dropped in relative value? The biggest factor is Ignite Munching. In a bug-free world without Ignite Munching, Crit would be considered a much stronger stat. But in practise, Crit loses considerable value when Ignite Munching is factored in and accounted for. Various tools (SimulationCraft, Rawr) now account for Ignite Munching, and as a result, Crit has been devalued to levels that more accurately reflect ingame results.
6	Mastery	1.2287	Mastery is our weakest stat. It is also devalued by Ignite Munching. Mastery is the first candidate to reforge into Hit Rating.

Notes: Hit Cap, Meta-Gem, Enchants

While gearing, you’ll need to be aware of the following situations outlined below.

Action	Notes
Reaching the Hit Cap	Reaching the 17% hit cap with Cataclysm level combat ratings is difficult to achieve without consciously trying. Here’s a good strategy: 1: Pick gear with Hit Rating. 2: Only use hybrid Purple Hit Gems (20 Int + 20 Hit) if the socket bonus is strong enough to do so. Read the Gemming section for more details (Gemming for INT is still your top priority) 3: Enchant your gear for Hit: IF you’ll get the full value out of the enchant AND there’s no Intellect equivilant enchant available for that slot. (Enchanting for INT is still your top priority) 4: Reforge the weakest combat ratings into Hit rating, starting with Mastery.

Choosing a Meta-Gem	Use a Burning Shadowspirit Diamond. newly introduced in Patch 4.06. The activation requirement is simply to have a minimum of 3 Red gems in gear. In the meantime, you can temporarily use the Ember Shadowspirit Diamond Metagem instead. If that is too rare/expensive currently on your server, the WOTLK version may suffice: Ember Skyflare Diamond

Enchants	Enchant for INT where possible. If there’s no intellect enchant available, then follow the order of: Hit (If you’ll get the full value out of it) -> Crit / Mastery / Haste (Use Rawr/SimC to find out what the correct stat order is for your level of gear). Special Note: Boot Enchants are an exception, see below.
Runspeed Enchant	Time spent moving is effectively lost or lower DPS. Although you can still cast Scorch while moving, it’s still lower DPS then a Burn rotation. Runspeed enchants therefore can be considered a DPS enchant for many encounters, and a strong one at that, with the actual value varying depending on the unique movement requirements of each encounter. In a Patchwerk style fight, however, where there’s no movement at all – there are 50 Hit / Mastery enchants available which would strictly be superior for DPS. Generally speaking however, the vast majority of encounters require sufficient movement to make Runspeed the best enchant for boots by far.

Enchants and Item Enhancements

Slot	Enhancement	Notes
Source: Cataclysm Mage Resources
Head	[Arcanum of Hyjal]	Guardians of Hyjal: Revered
Neck
Shoulders	[Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone]	Therazane: Exalted
Back	50 Int
Chest	20 All Stats
Wrists	50 Int
Hands	50 Haste OR 65 Mastery
Waist	1 Socket	Made by Blacksmithing
Legs	95 Int & 80 Stamina	Made by Tailoring
Feet	Runspeed & 35 Mastery	Non-Runspeed options are: 50 Mastery OR 50 Haste OR 50 Hit
Rings
Trinkets
Mainhand Weapon	Power Torrent
Offhand Weapon	40 Int
Wand

Gemming

Intellect is always at the forefront of our mind when it comes to Gemming: Fire Mages aggressively prioritise gemming for Intellect on gear. The following gems are at our disposal:

Stats	Name
40 Intellect	[Brilliant Inferno Ruby]
20 Intellect + 20 Haste	[Reckless Ember Topaz]
20 Intellect + 20 Crit	[Potent Ember Topaz]
20 Intellect + 20 Hit	[Veiled Demonseye]

So, should we always just gem for pure +40 Intellect? Not necessarily. Sometimes the socket bonus will indeed be strong enough such that +20/20 gem combinations will be superior. Lets look at three examples:

1 x Red Socket, 1 x Blue Socket, +20 Intellect socket bonus

We have two options:

Option A: 2 x Brilliant Inferno Ruby = 80 Int

Option B: 1 x Brilliant Inferno Ruby + 1 x Veiled Demonseye + Socket Bonus = 80 Int + 20 Hit

Conclusion: 80 Int + 20 Hit >>> 80 Int. For this item, we want the socket bonus and gem accordingly.

[Firelord's Gloves]

1 x Yellow socket, +10 Mastery socket bonus

We have two options:

Option A: 1 x Brilliant Inferno Ruby = 40 Int

Option B: 1 x Potent Ember Topaz + Socket Bonus = 20 Int + 20 Crit + 10 Mastery

Conclusion: 40 Int >>> 20 Int + 20 Crit + 10 Mastery. For this item, we skip the socket bonus and gem for pure Int.

[Firelord's Hood]

1 x Blue Socket, +30 Crit Socket Bonus

We have two options:

Option A: 1 x Brilliant Inferno Ruby = 40 Int

Option B: 1 x Veiled Demonseye + Socket Bonus = 20 Int + 20 Hit + 30 Crit

Conclusion: 20 Int + 20 Hit + 30 Crit >> 40 Int. For this item, we want the socket bonus and use a blue gem.

In every example above, notice how Intellect is always present. Intellect is always at the forefront of a Fire Mage’s mind when it comes to Gemming. No non-intellect gems are even considered. Hit and Crit are the two other stats used for Hybrid Gems, given that Mastery and Haste (After soft cap) are the weakest stats. The “Relative Stat Values” table above will help players ascertain whether any given combinations of X stats will beat Y Intellect. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. There is one exception for Engineering Helms, which use Cogwheels. Given that there is no Intellect Cogwheel, you can use a Hit Cogwheel instead. (Or Crit / Haste / Mastery if the Hit is unnecessary).

Speccing a Fire Mage

Here’s a good starting build for a Level 85 Fire Mage: Starting Level 85 Fire Build: 3 / 35 / 3

Improved Scorch was picked up, though be mindful that the talent is now classified as “Situationally Recommended” instead of “Essential”. The value of this talent now largely depends on the type of content you’re doing: Longer heroic encounters, encounters with heavy AOE-mana demands, or encounters where Evocation can’t be used or is difficult to use – will render Improved Scorch still desirable. For other encounters or content, this talent could be safely skipped.
Arcane Concentration was skipped. While this talent was a minor DPS gain (at best) prepatch, it’s arguably not worth any points at all now – after recent mana spell cost reductions.
No points in Improved Fire Blast were taken. This means you’ll need to be within 30 yards to use Impact, which is the base Fire Blast range. Whether players deem this range to be unacceptably low for AOE fights is highly subjective.
Blazing Speed is skipped. PvP talent.
Molten Shields is skipped, but you may wish to allocate spare points to it. Situational, minor talent. Might seem some very limited use in specific encounters, but nothing of note.
Cauterize is picked up. During new Heroic and Progression content, this talent is extremely useful. Cauterize is not only passive, but on a 1 minute cooldown. Remember that Cauterize can also situaionally be used for DPS, in addition to its survival passive.
Pyromaniac is picked up, but be mindful that it’s still a very situational talent.

Cataclysm: Key Mage Changes

Name	Notes
Flashburn	New Fire Mage mastery. Increases the damage done by all your periodic fire damage effects by 20%. Each point of Mastery increases periodic damage done by an additional 2.5%.
Fire Specialization	Special bonus all Fire Mages receive. Increases the damage of your Fire spells by 25%
Flame Orb	New Fire spell all mages learn at level 81. Discussed in more detail above.
Spirit	Now a healer stat only. No longer provides Mages with Mana regeneration in Combat.
Mastery	New Cataclysm stat found on high level gear. Fire Mage mastery is called Flashburn.
Molten Armor	No longer scales with Spirit. Crit bonus reduced to 3%. Glyph of Molten Armor provides an additional 2% crit.
Mage Armor	Now regenerates 3% of maximum mana per 5 seconds. Glyph of Mage Armor boosts this by an additional 20%.
Hot Streak	Has been split into two talents: Hot Streak and Improved Hot Streak. This is discussed in detail in the Additional Talent Notes section.
Impact	Allows Fire Blast to spread all DOT’s on your current target to nearby enemies.
Firestarter	Scorch can now be cast while moving via the Firestarter talent. Note that Molten Armor must be used for this talent to take effect.
Critical Mass	Given a selfish benefit. The Pyroblast spell can now also apply the Critical Strike debuff.
Frostfire Bolt	Can now be used as an alternative to Fireball as the Primary nuke for the Fire rotation. You must use Glyph of Frostfire when doing this. The base spell no longer leaves a DOT on the target, but Glyph of Frostfire will modify the spell to leave a +3% additional damage over 12 seconds DOT (stacks 3 times)
Living Bomb	Living Bomb can only be applied to 3 targets. The explosion from Living Bomb will only hit 3 targets. Living Bomb can be refreshed before the timer expires, but doing so will cause the current Living Bomb to be removed with no explosion. When using Impact with Living Bomb when 4 or more targets are close, Living Bomb will be removed from your current target completely (with no explosion) and spread to another 3.
Fireball	No longer has a DOT component at all.
Pyroblast	Has a 3.5 second base cast time. Spell is now only available to Fire Mages.
Pyroblast!	Notice the “!” at the end. Pyroblast! is a different version of the spell with the same name. Hot Streak and Improved Hot Streak allow you to cast Pyroblast! It’s instant cast and has 0 base mana cost.
Blast Wave	Is now a targettable, range casted AOE. No longer knocks back, instead snares targets for a short duration. Can be improved via the Improved Flamestrike talent to provide an additional, free Flamestrike when cast on 2 targets.
Mage Ward	Now absorbs Fire, Frost and Arcane Damage.
Flamestrike	Radius increased to 8 yards. (Same as Blizzard). Can be talented to be instant cast via Improved Flamestrike
Focus Magic	No longer available to Fire Mages.
Torment the Weak	Bonus now applies to Arcane spells only.
Mana Shield	Absorbs damage at the expense of mana on a 1:1 ratio. Has a 12 second cooldown on use.
Arcane Brilliance	Increases mana by a specific amount. Also gives +6% spellpower to all targets.
Time Warp	Mage version of the Heroism spell. Learnt at level 85.
Ring of Frost	New Frost spell learnt at level 83. Deals no damage, but offers excellent crowd control and Area of effect denial. Check the Frost Spec thread for more information.

Current Fire Problems and Concerns

Problem	Reason
Ignite Munching	The biggest ongoing issue for Fire Mages. Ignite Munching has been around for many years. Ignite Munching is more prevalent than ever in Cataclysm. It devalues the Crit and Mastery stats – and result in considerable lost DPS. Players would love this to be fixed – somehow – even though it’s been in the game so long and we’re told limitations of the game engine itself might make it difficult/impossible to do so.

High DPS Variance	Fire can have a large swing in potential DPS, moreso than other classes/specs, with Crit being the big offender. You can get lucky and perform well above normal, or be unlucky and perform poorly. Other classes and specs don’t swing this much. Raid leaders expect a degree of consistency from raid members, but the Fire spec itself puts this somewhat out of your control at times. Is Fire’s DPS variance simply too high?
Lack of Rotation Complexity	Fire’s level 85 rotation isn’t exactly complex. Keep up Living Bomb. Use Fireball and Scorch as dictated by your mana. Use Hot Streak when it procs. At level 85, Hot Streaks are rarer, so players have even less to look out for. Some players feel that Fire’s rotation simply doesn’t have enough going on.

Crit Dependancy: General	Fire mages love Crit. The problem is that Fire relies very heavily on crit to function. Getting crits equates to getting lucky or RNG. A little luck here and there is fine, and fun. But there’s a line between appreciating crit, and relying on it so badly because it’s not only makes the tree function, but fun to play. Combat ratings have been substantially reduced at lvl 85. Mages won’t be critting so much anymore. Players feel that Fire’s high crit dependency exposes a major design flaw with the spec, which is exacerbated in Cataclysm when Combat Ratings are so low.
Crit Dependancy: Hot Streak	Hot Streak has become a much rarer occurance. Tier 3 Hot Streak attempts to “smooth” Pyroblast use out, but Mages still feel like the spell is something they don’t get to cast enough. Does Tier 3 Hot Streak go far enough to smooth Pyroblast’s use out?
Crit Dependancy: Fun Factor	Although “Fun” is subjective, many mages will agree that Hot Streak Pyroblasts are a hallmark fun element in the Fire tree. Hot Streaks are much rarer at 85. Many players feel this makes the playstle relatively bland and boring in their absence.
Crit Dependancy: Combustion	Having a strong running Ignite (via Fireball or Pyroblast Crits) is needed for an optimal Combustion. But with lower crit ratings, this is more difficult to pull off on demand. Combustion is a 2 minute cooldown: But you may need to wait some time after that to actually use it. Some Mages consider this poor design and very frusutrating – and would prefer Combustion to be a more traditional type of cooldown.
Living Bomb: Refresh	Refreshing Living Bomb on a target will remove the current Living Bomb without an explosion. If you clip your Living Bomb reapplication, even if by only by a split second, you lose the explosion completely. This is very frustrating to players.
Living Bomb: Target Cap	Living Bomb was given a cap of 3 targets during Cataclysm Beta. This was due to how Overpowered Impact could be when used with an uncapped Living Bomb. However, the cap now causes frustration when Living Bomb interacts with Impact, as outlined in the point below. Simply increasing the Living Bomb cap to 4 or 5 would alleviate this from occuring in most realistic circumstances. This is because pulls with 4-5 mobs are common, but 6 and above aren’t. Having the Cap set at three just seems a little too low. 4-5 would make much more practical sense.
Living Bomb: Impact Interaction	Players find this very frustrating. If you have 4 mobs, with Living Bomb on one, using Impact will result in Living Bomb being spread to the other 3 targets – while the original Living Bomb will actually be removed completely from your original target. This occurs whether you wanted it to happen or not. Furthermore, there is no explosion when it’s removed. Mages do not like having such a powerful debuff removed from their primary target automatically.

Pyromaniac	This is a great talent on paper. The problem is that Pyromaniac swings a huge pendulum, alternating between extremely powerful and useless. Pyromaniac is excellent when it’s up (3 targets present) and useless if only 1-2 mobs are present. How is Blizzard going to balance this talent?
Number of Fire AOE Talents	Fire has a few AOE orientated talents. These range between mildly to very situational. Improved Flamestrike, Blastwave, Pyromaniac, Impact. There’s concern these AOE talents take up too many points in the Fire tree. If AOE is getting pushed somewhat into a niche role in Cataclysm, where we simply don’t AOE as often, why are so many Fire talent points dedicated to improving it?

Talents and Glyphs

Fire Talents

Tier	Talent	Notes
1	Master of Elements	Recommended.
1	Burning Soul	Highly Recommended. There are too many Cataclysm fights where pushback is an issue. This is not a talent you want to skip.
1	Improved Fire Blast	Optional. Impact can only be spread via Fire Blast, which has a base 30 yard range. Other Fire spells have a 40 yard range. Whether you feel more range is needed for Impact, to being it closer in line to the range on other Fire spells, is subjective. Some players will skip this talent completely, others will put a single point in.
2	Ignite	Essential. Cornerstone talent of the Fire tree.
2	Fire Power	Recommended.
2	Blazing Speed	Skip. PvP talent.
2	Impact	Highly recommended. Impact (DOT spreading) is a strength of the Fire tree.
3	Cauterize	Highly Recommended. This talent can be extremely useful for DPS and survival, especially during Heroic and Progression content. Read the section below for more details.
3	Blastwave	Highly Recommended. Blastwave is only ~1k mana at 85. Very cheap, and coupled with Improved Flamestrike, provides good DPS for a single GCD.
3	Hot Streak	Essential. Cornerstone talent of the Fire tree.
3	Improved Scorch	Situationally Recommended. This was considered an essential talent before patch 4.06, but due to spell mana cost reductions, whether to pick it up now largely depends on the type of content you’re doing. For long heroic encounters, encounters with heavy aoe-mana demands, encounters with mana drains, or encounters where Evocation is difficult to pull off – this talent is still desirable. For other content, such as short fights or non-raid content, Improved Scorch could safely be skipped.
4	Molten Shields	Optional. This talent could situationally see some use during encounters where Mage Ward is used. It won’t be included in most standard builds, but is something you may wish to consider picking up for specific fights. (Note: The Molten Shields talent will still proc the Blazing Speed effect, even if you have no points in the actual “Blazing Speed” talent)
4	Combustion	Essential. Fires 2 minute cooldown. For more details regarding how Combustion actually works, read the section below.
4	Improved Hot Streak	Essential. Cornerstone talent of the Fire tree.
4	Firestarter	Highly Recommended. Many fights require lots of movement. This talent lets you DPS on the run, and the mobility it gives is a strength of the Fire tree.
5	Improved Flamestrike	Highly Recommended. An Instant Flamestrike is great for AOE. Having Blastwave also give a free Flamestrike is another bonus.
5	Dragon’s Breath	Essential. You need this talent to reach Living Bomb
5	Molten Fury	Essential.
6	Pyromaniac	Recommended, but this talent is highly situational. Read the section below for more details
6	Critical Mass	Highly Recommended. Crit is what makes the Fire tree function, and is an important raid debuff to bring. Buffing Living Bomb and Flame Orb is also a strong bonus.
7	Living Bomb	Essential. Cornerstone talent of the Fire tree.

Arcane and Frost Subspec Talents

Tier	Talent	Notes
1	Piercing Ice	Recommended.

1	Netherwind Presence	Recommended.
1	Arcane Concentration	Optional. After recent Fire spell mana cost reductions, Fire Mages don’t need the mana efficiency this talent provides anymore.
1	Improved Counterspell	Optional / Situational. Using Counterspell as a spellock interrupt is sufficient for Raids. However, if you’re terrible with catching interrupts, and you’re doing a fight where interrupts are crucial – you could consider temporarily speccing into this talent as a crutch to assist you.
2	Invocation	Highly Situational. This is a talent you’ll skip from standard builds, but may consider using for very specific fights.

Glyphs

Type	Glyph	Notes
Prime	Glyph of Molten Armor	Essential. The strongest Prime Glyph. This provides +2% Crit on all your spells
Prime	Glyph of Pyroblast	Recommended. Pyroblast comprises a large portion of your total damage output
Prime	Glyph of Fireball	Recommended. Fireball comprises a large portion of your total damage output
Prime	Glyph of Frostfire	Situationally Recommended. Only use this (in place of the Fireball Glyph) if Frostfire Bolt is your primary nuke. If not, skip it.
Prime	Glyph of Living Bomb	Situationally Recommended. For single target: Living Bomb is not as strong as the other Prime Glyphs. For AOE fights however, or encounters where you can apply multiple Living Bomb’s simultaneously, Living Bomb will comprise a much larger proportion of your total damage. For these scenarios you can use this Glyph in place of the Fireball one.
Prime	Glyph of Mage Armor	Skip. You’ll be using Molten Armor, rendering this Glyph useless.

Major	Glyph of Evocation	Recommended. You’ll always prefer to cast Evocation for mana, even if you’re full health at the time. However, this Glyph gives you a powerful self heal for times where you might desperately need it
Major	Glyph of Polymorph	Recommended. Great Glyph to ensure that when you want to Polymorph something, it won’t be broken immediately by careless players.
Major	Glyph of Blink	Optional. This Glyph increases the range travelled by 5 yards. Be mindful that Glyph of Blink could work for you or against you, you’ll need to anticipate travelling the extra distance.

Minor	Glyph of Conjuring	Recommended. This also reduces the cost of conjuring Mana Gems. For any Cataclysm fights over 6 minutes, where you’ll need to resummon a Mana Gem, this seemingly innocent minor Glyph will save you a chunk of mana.
Minor	Glyph of Arcane Brilliance.	Recommended. The is recommended because people will frequently die on new fights in Cataclysm. After receiving a Combat Res, you may need to rebuff them with Arcane Brilliance. This Glyph will save you a chunk of mana.
Misc		All other Glyphs not listed here are too situational to mention. Pick and choose from them as necessary.

Mana Management

At the start of Cataclysm: The Fireball spell cost 16% of Base Mana. This has since been lowered to 9% several months after release. That initial, high 16% cost of Fireball required Fire Mages to very carefully manage their mana or risk running OOM only several minutes into an encounter. Thus, this rather lengthy “Mana Management” section was needed. Many of the points and behaviour below may no longer be necessary in standard practise now, as Mages can simply spam Fireball without fear of running OOM. However, it will still benefit readers to be familiar with exactly how Fire Mages managed their mana during the first few months of release. Several situations can and still will require you to do the same, even if they aren’t too common. These may include:

- Any time Evocation is interrupted
- Fights with Mana Drains
- Fights with unusually heavy AOE requirements
- Unusually Long Fights

Be sure to familise yourself with the section below. This is your backup plan for when things go wrong or don’t go to plan. You want to ensure that your Mana can last under even the most trying of circumstances. The original “Mana Management” section is below.

Fire Mages in Cataclysm need to manage their mana carefully.

Failure to do this will result in going OOM early, often – and poor DPS performance. This section will go into thorough details on Mana Management. This is one of the most important parts of this post that readers need to come away with an understanding of.

Fireball is the high DPS nuke, yet unsustainable to cast for long periods of time. You’ll OOM yourself after several minutes if you try, long before the encounter ends. Scorch can be cast indefinetely due to its free mana cost, but it’s lower DPS. So you can’t just cast Scorch forever either. So what do you do? The answer is: Use both. Somewhere between these two extremes you need to find the balance for a given encounter. If you get the balance right – you’ll make your mana the necessary duration and avoid going OOM – and still deliver maximum DPS possible.

This is the basic idea: Get used to casting Scorch and Fireball. But there’s a few finer details on how best to actually go about this. The differing Fire Mage rotations can be described as the following:

Name	Notes
Burn Rotation	The Burn rotation refers to chain casting Fireball, keeping Living Bomb up, and Pyroblast! on Hot Streak procs. This is our highest DPS rotation for single target, but is not sustainable for long. You want to use this rotation during Boss Weakened Phases During powerful on-use or passive effects (Trinket Procs, Engineering Gloves, Tailoring Capes) Molten Fury range After Spellstealing powerful Buffs During Encounter-specific +damage mechanics (Eg: While standing in a friendly void-zone which gives you +100% damage for the duration) To burn off excess mana before an encounter ends
Hover Rotation	This refers to the rotation used to keep mana levels hovering at a constant value. We call this value our Mana Reserve. We use the Mana Reserve to switch into the Burn Rotation at the opportune time. A Hover Rotation makes extensive use of “Scorch Weaving”. Scorch is cast frequently in rotation alongside Fireball. For example: 2 Fireballs to every 5 Scorches.
Pure Scorch Rotation	This is a rotation you can cast while completely OOM and 100% on the run. Scorch and Pyroblast! on Hot Streak procs.
Movement Rotation	This is a rotation you can cast 100% while moving: Scorch, Pyroblast!, Living Bomb, Flamestrike, Blastwave.

To play like a Fire Mage, good advice is to start thinking like an Arcane Mage. Mana is DPS. More Mana means more DPS. Unused Mana means wasted DPS. Spend your mana in the most effective way.

With more mana is available, you can cast your Burn Rotation for longer and more frequently. This means we should be using every mana resource available. Use Mana Gems on cooldown. Use Evocation. Accept innervates from any friendly Druids. Every ounce of mana you get will let you cast your Burn Rotation a bit longer.

Your goal is to end each fight with exactly zero mana. However, it’s not always possible to achieve this in practise. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve failed or done something wrong: Unique encounter needs might mean the optimal way to end a fight is indeed with excess mana, simply because you had no other way to burn it off.

Readers might be thinking, “Can I just cast my Burn Rotation until i’m OOM, then use Scorch to regen to full again – then alternate between the two?” The answer is you can most certainly try this, but it’s not possible nor optimal in many situations. Here are several scenarios which won’t allow you to do this:

- Myriads of Encounter specific mechanics. (Running a debuff out, AOE’ing adds, running to stack up or spread out, jumping between platforms, avoiding obstacles, Boss weakened phases)
- Movement
- Adds may spawn, requiring Burn Rotation immediately (You don’t want to be stuck on the Scorch regen side at the time)
- A Boss might apply a powerful spellstealable buff at random times. You want to have a Mana Reserve ready to immediately switch to Fireball.

Encounter mechanics will force you to constantly swap between Burn and Hover rotations. You cant plan around simply having the perfect rotation mapped out beforehand, which would only work on a “Patchwerk style fight”. But lets try: Lets walk through a Hypothetical 5 minute Patchwerk style fight. We’ll try to map our Mana and Rotations out perfectly beforehand:

Order	Notes
	Hypothetical example only: A 5 minute Patchwerk encounter with no adds, no movement, no trinkets worn, no glove/cape enchants, no weakened phases. Do not interpret the table below as anything other than a hypothetical example for what would be an unrealistic set of conditions for an encounter.

1	Start the fight with a “Burn Rotation” until you’re 12500 mana short
2	Use the first Mana Gem to go back to 100% mana
3	Continue the “Burn Rotation” until 35% mana (Approximately 1.5 minutes)
4	Use Evocation to go back to 100% mana
5	Resume the “Burn Rotation” phase until around 35% again. Use the second Mana Gem as soon as off cooldown
6	Use the “Hover Rotation” via heavy Scorch Weaving to keep mana levels constant. Use your 3rd mana gem as soon as it’s off cooldown to bring us up to 50% mana. (We’re hovering at 50% mana to save up enough mana for the incoming Molten Fury Range, which we expect to last 1 minute).
7	As soon as the boss reaches Molten Fury range (35%) switch back to the “Burn Rotation”.
8	Boss dies exactly as we run OOM.

For our 5 minute fight, with all these unrealistic conditions attached, our strategy might work. But can we rely on doing this for the majority of encounters? No.

If this boss had a movement phase, adds that spawned, a debuff you had to run out, void zones you had to move from, AOE that was required, a “Weakened Phase”, and if we’re using powerful On-use trinkets, glove/cape enchants – suddenly all our neat plans go out the window. There’s just so many variables which could force your plans to change. Therefore:

Fire Mages need to react dynamically to the unique needs of each encounter, and even to differing attempts on the same encounter. A static, pre-planned rotation must only be treated as a guide – be ready to deviate at any moment – for a magnitude of reasons.

There are several other ways one can attempt to approach mana at 85:

Technique

Notes

Pure Scorch Rotation

This refers to only casting Scorch in rotation, not casting Fireball at all. Doing this could still provide comparable DPS to the Burn rotation. Why? Movement and Hot Streak: Scorch is a fast casting spell, and casting it more often means you get many more opportunities for Hot Streak Procs. Pyroblasts are big DPS. The other big reason is you can cast the Pure Scorch rotation while moving. For stationary Patchwerk style fights: A Burn Rotation is, in a vacuum, still higher DPS than a Pure Scorch rotation by a margin of up to 10%. However, in practise, the difference may end up being much less: Burn Rotations get boosted support from the Glyph of Fireball and the 4-piece Tier 11 bonus, whereas Pure Scorch rotations do not. You may not have 4 piece, nor use the Fireball Glyph (See the Glyph section for more info). Furthermore, there are several additional factors to consider which can reduce the theoretical DPS difference:

Fight with frequent unexpected movement penalise a Scorch Rotation less (You keep casting while moving)

Fights with knockbacks penalise a Scorch Rotation less (You keep casting while knocked back)

Adds or AOE Fights may favour Scorch Rotations (Scorch produces more Impact procs than Fireball. Also means you will have more mana available to AOE instead)

In many encounters you’ll find yourself casting Pure Scorch rotations during these periods. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Players might know a theoretical “Patchwerk” fight places Burn Rotation as superior DPS – but need to to take all this into account – before blindly making the assumption that Burn Rotations are always superior. They aren’t. Both rotations have a time and place to be preferable, and optimal. It comes back to, again, the unique needs of each encounter.

Use Mage Armor

Using Mage Armor makes mana issues largely trivial. However it comes with two key problems. Firstly, you lose DPS mobility. Firestarter allows Scorch to be cast while moving, when Molten Armor is active. There are many Cataclysm encounters where you need to move, and move often. Using Mage Armor will prevent you from DPS’ing effectively during these periods. Second: It’s lower DPS. Simulations show that using Molten Armor is simply put, the better thing to do. You can certainly try to use Mage Armor regardless, but you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Primary Nuke: Fireball VS Frostfire Bolt

Fire Mages can cast either Fireball or Frostfire Bolt as primary nuke in their rotation. The DPS difference is minor, but Fireball is theoretically superior by a small margin. Why’s the difference rather small?

- Fireball and Frostfire Bolt cost the same amount of mana
- Fireball and (Glyphed) Frostfire Bolt do the same amount of initial damage

The only other difference stems from Glyph of Fireball and Glyph of Frostfire. Glyph of Frostfire Bolt adds a 3% damage over 12 seconds DOT (stacks 3 times) whereas Glyph of Fireball adds 5% crit.

The periodic damage of Glyphed Frostfire Bolt can crit, which leaves an Ignite. This is a very important point in practise because of Ignite Munching. More frequent Crits from minor, weak DOT’s such as FFB – result in more opportunities for Ignite Munching. Be sure to read the Ignite Munching section for an understanding of why this can be very detrimental to Fire Mages. Theoretically, FFB vs Fireball might be deemed as an “X% difference” by sims – but remember that Ignite Munching can and will exacerbate that difference – which many sims do not account for.

Therefore, we can sum up the primary nuke debate by saying: Fireball as primary nuke is better. Not by a huge margin, but enough to convince most players seeking Optimal Play to use Fireball over FFB.

Flame Orb

Flame Orb is a new Cataclysm Mage Fire spell. All mages learn Flame Orb at level 81. The Tooltip reads, “Launches a Flame Orb forward from the Mage’s position, dealing X Fire damage every second to the closest enemy target for 15 secs. 1 minute cooldown, 40 yard range.”

Flame Orb has a high spell coefficient, which makes it a powerful 1 minute cooldown.

Flame Orb does not AOE as it travels, instead it attacks the single closest target. At the end of its travel path, it can be talented to explode via Fire Power. The Flame Orb spell is more accurately described as a single target DPS cooldown which can provide a single AOE pulse at the end of its duration.

When cast, Flame Orb travels directly forward 40 yards then dissappears if no target was in range to attack. The Flame Orb travels forward very fast initially, but slows down greatly when it begins to attack a target in range. Flame Orb takes roughly 5 seconds to travel 40 yards. If cast with an object in the way, such as a wall, Flame Orb will still exist for the same 5 second duration, but will still dissappear afterwards if no target was in range to attack.

Although Flame Orb does steady damage per second, it’s not considered a DOT. Therefore, it does not directly interact with Flashburn or Combustion. However, the damage Flame Orb does can critically hit, leaving an Ignite, which can interact with those mechanics. It does not gain any additional ticks with increased levels of Haste.

Choose Your Game

Playing a Fire Mage: The Basics

Gearing a Fire Mage

Combat Ratings: Relative Values

Notes: Hit Cap, Meta-Gem, Enchants

Enchants and Item Enhancements

Gemming

Speccing a Fire Mage

Cataclysm: Key Mage Changes

Current Fire Problems and Concerns

Talents and Glyphs

Fire Talents

Arcane and Frost Subspec Talents

Glyphs

Mana Management

Primary Nuke: Fireball VS Frostfire Bolt

Flame Orb

Similar Posts:

Incoming search terms for the article:

24/7 Online Support

Contact us by E-mail

Choose US