Fire Mage Frequently Asked Questions — Season 4

You do not need any specific amount of Critical Strike to make Fire playable. Due to passive talents like Pyrotechnics giving stacking 10% critical strike rating, Critical Mass boosting your overall crit, Firestarter and Searing Touch guaranteeing crits, you can play Fire just fine, even on very low Critical You do not need to worry about having enough Critical Strike levels. Of course, having more Critical Strike is not a bad thing, but it is optional. There is no Critical Strike "cap" (aside from 100%), at which point more Critical Strike is bad. Additionally, there are no meaningful haste caps or breakpoints either.

Having said that, the best way to determine what items you should use is to use Raidbots' Top Gear.

All 3 Mage specs are looking relatively close to each other in strength for Season 4, based on limited PTR and simulation data.

However, since there was limited balancing going on for the Season 4 PTR, it is likely that there will be class tuning happening early on in the Season, so keep that in mind.

In a Raiding setting, Fire is a looking to be a strong Mage specialization. If you want to be fully optimal, you will want to play all 3 specs, especially with 3 different raids and thus many different bosses. Compared to other classes, Fire is looking to be somewhere in the middle of the pack, however, the top specs are looking to significantly outperform any of the Mage specs. Having said that, it is likely that there will be class tuning early on in the Season.

In a Mythic+ setting, Fire is still very strong; one of the most sought-after specs in the game, and used for pushing the highest possible keys.

All races are very close in DPS, and it generally does not matter what race you play. For a full overview of the DPS of every race, check the simulations page.