Fire Mage Leveling Guide From 1 to 70 for TBC Classic

Last updated on Jun 02, 2021 at 11:31 by Wrdlbrmpft 3 comments

Fire Mage is notorious for dealing enormous amounts of damage, but also for their reputation as "Glass Cannons". This leveling guide will teach how to level a Mage with the Fire spec, without "breaking" the cannon. Get ready to light your fire!

If you simply want to play the meta leveling spec, Frost, try out something completely different other than the meta, or simply explore the Mage class further, you may also want to try our Arcane Mage Leveling Guide, the Frost Single-Target Mage Leveling Guide, or the Frost Mage AoE Leveling Guide.

1.

Fire Mage Level-by-Level Rotation, Talents and Trainer Skills

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Level: 70
2.

Talent Tree for Leveling as Fire Mage

From Level 10 on you get one talent point per level, which you can use to build your talent tree. The talent menu can be accessed via the keybind N in game.

Your talents should look like the trees below. However, for the Fire tree you can swap some points around based on personal preference. The suggested order is optimized for Mana efficiency and damage.

Improved Fireball IconImproved Fireball makes your Fireball IconFireball casts faster, which means that your enemies die faster. With low-level Fireball ranks having low cast times, the damage increase from this talent is even greater.

The Ignite IconIgnite talent makes your Fire critical strikes deal 40% of their damage as a DoT (Damage over Time) over the next 4 seconds. Critical strikes from weaker spells, such as Fire Blast IconFire Blast can overwrite existing Ignite dots from stronger spells like Pyroblast IconPyroblast and Fireball IconFireball, resulting in a damage loss.

At Level 20, Pyroblast IconPyroblast will be your new pulling spell. It has a 6-seconds cast time. However, it does more damage than Fireball IconFireball and leaves a 12-second DoT on your enemy that will often do just enough damage so you can finish enemies with your wand and the DoT tick which conserves Mana. In some situations it is impractical to have a 6-second cast; there, pulling can be done with Fireball.

Elemental Precision IconElemental Precision is important to hit enemies that are on the same level as you or higher. The talent Flame Throwing IconFlame Throwing is useful for pulling, because it increases the range of the already very-high-range Fire spells even further. The talent Master of Elements IconMaster of Elements restores 30% of a Fire or Frost spell's base Mana cost once per cast, if the spell crits.

Incineration IconIncineration gives your Scorch and Fire Blast abilities a 4% increased chance to crit, which can save your life in hairy situations. A 6% increased critical strike chance for all fire spells comes from Critical Mass IconCritical Mass and Playing with Fire IconPlaying with Fire makes all your spells hit 3% harder for 3% Mana cost. Blast Wave IconBlast Wave is a great tool to be used offensively for finishing off groups of weak enemies, but also defensively for slowing them so they cannot reach you when running away. This ability has a 30-second cooldown and gives high damage for high Mana cost.

Fire Power IconFire Power makes all Fire spells deal 2% more damage per talent point, which is great. The new DPS cooldown at Level 43 is Combustion IconCombustion. When activated, it increases the chance for a critical strike by 10% after each spell until 3 critical strikes have been made. After that, the 3-minute cooldown of Combustion starts. The Fire Mage's "Execute IconExecute-like" ability is Molten Fury IconMolten Fury, which increases the damage done to targets with less than 20% health by 10%. This works very well in conjunction with Scorch IconScorch and Fire Blast IconFire Blast on enemies with low health. Arcane Subtlety IconArcane Subtlety is another new talent. It reduces the threat from Arcane spells by 40%, which makes Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion in dungeon groups a lot safer to use. Most Mages have no or very little Spell Damage and Healing on their gear at this stage, so it is better to skip Empowered Fireball IconEmpowered Fireball until Outland where decent Spell Damage gear is available.

The talent points in Arcane Focus IconArcane Focus will be enough to reach hit cap against enemies two levels higher than your level, which is useful for Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosioning in Dungeons. Those two talents are also the means to reach the incredibly-important talent of Arcane Concentration IconArcane Concentration, often referred to as clearcasting. This talent gives a chance per cast to make the next damaging spell cast within 10 seconds cost no Mana. This translates into less Mana consumption overall and less downtime spent drinking, resulting in increased leveling speed.

Empowered Fireball IconEmpowered Fireball gives the Fireball IconFireball spell 15% more damage from Damage and Healing effects on equipment. As a consequence, this gear is recommended to wear as pulling with Pyroblast IconPyroblast becomes inferior to pulling with Fireball when points in Empowered Fireball are spent. Alongside Blast Wave IconBlast Wave, Dragon's Breath IconDragon's Breath is a Fire-exclusive AoE ability which does high damage in a frontal cone and disorients enemies for 3 seconds. Any direct damage will break this disorient effect. Pyromaniac IconPyromaniac gives a 3% Critical Strike chance and 3% reduced Mana cost for Fire spells. Improved Scorch IconImproved Scorch is a very useful talent for dungeon and raiding content. Each Scorch IconScorch that is cast on an enemy will place a resistable debuff on the target to increase Fire damage taken from all sources by 3%, stacking up to 5 times. (Multiple) Mages can and should apply this debuff to any high-health target so consecutive Fireballs will deal 15% more damage. The last talent point, Arcane Impact IconArcane Impact, will increase the Critical Strike chance of Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion and Arcane Blast IconArcane Blast by 2% and is useful for dungeons. This spec can also be used early on in dungeons and raids and will only later be replaced by a stronger, but more gear and support-dependent, Fire spec.

3.

Rotation for leveling up as a Fire Mage

  1. Cast Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect and Frost Armor IconFrost Armor if you are missing their buffs.
  2. Cast Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect and Frost Armor IconFrost Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield IconMana Shield in any situation where you could die.
  3. Cast Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect and Ice Armor IconIce Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield IconMana Shield in any situation where you could die.
  4. Cast Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect and Mage Armor IconMage Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield IconMana Shield in any situation where you could die.
  5. Cast Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect and Molten Armor IconMolten Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield IconMana Shield in any situation where you could die.
  6. Cast Fireball IconFireball as your main attack.
  7. Cast Frostbolt IconFrostbolt as your main attack.
  8. Cast Fireball IconFireball as your main attack.
  9. Cast Frostbolt IconFrostbolt as your main attack. We will be skipping further Frostbolt IconFrostbolt ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment on a first character.
  10. Cast Fireball IconFireball as your main attack. We will be skipping Frostbolt IconFrostbolt ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment on a first character.
  11. Open with Pyroblast IconPyroblast and cast Fireball IconFireball as your main attack. We will be skipping Frostbolt IconFrostbolt ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment on a first character.
  12. Cast Fireball IconFireball as your main attack. We will be skipping Frostbolt IconFrostbolt ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment on a first character.

Shield skills, such as Mana Shield IconMana Shield, can be kept up during battle in order to minimize the cast time lost to enemy attacks, thus allowing you to finish them faster. However, Mana Shield also takes Mana from you, so you might have to spend more time drinking after using Mana Shield. Generally it is recommended to use them only as an emergency tool for survival or if you notice that you spend more time regenerating health than regenerating Mana.

Utility skills, such as Frost Nova IconFrost Nova, should be used to keep enemies away from you or to freeze and finish them off.

Utility skills, such as Frost Nova IconFrost Nova, and AoE skills, such as Cone of Cold IconCone of Cold or Blast Wave IconBlast Wave and Dragon's Breath IconDragon's Breath, should be used to keep enemies away from you or finish off packs of enemies as required.

You can make your own food and water with Conjure Food IconConjure Food and Conjure Water IconConjure Water. These spells should definately be learned, as water and food from vendors will cost you far more gold than these spells do. Sometimes other players even want to buy conjured water and you can gain a little extra gold. Conjured items disappear after 15 minutes of being logged out.

3.1.

Summary of Trainer Skills for Fire Mage

  • At Level 1, buy Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect as soon as you can afford it. It provides a significant boost to your Intellect which lasts for 30 minutes.
  • At Level 4, buy Conjure Water IconConjure Water and Frostbolt IconFrostbolt. Conjure Water creates free water you can use while leveling and to sell to others. Frostbolt deals strong single-target damage and slows the target by 40%.
  • At Level 6, buy Conjure Food IconConjure Food and Fire Blast IconFire Blast. Conjure Food creates free food you can use to level and sell to others while Fire Blast is usually used as a finisher or to deal damage while moving.
  • Also buy Fireball IconFireball at Level 6, as it does more damage than a Frostbolt IconFrostbolt without talents.
  • At Level 8, buy Polymorph IconPolymorph and Frostbolt IconFrostbolt. Polymorph Rank 1 allows you to take one humanoid or beast enemy out of combat for 20 seconds, which is very useful for looting quest items guarded by a single enemy or when dealing with several enemies. Only one enemy at a time can be polymorphed and, in TBC, crowd control effects can break at any time, with an increasingly-higher chance to break toward the end of the effect.
  • At Level 10, buy Conjure Water IconConjure Water, Frost Armor IconFrost Armor and Frost Nova IconFrost Nova. Frost Nova freezes nearby enemies for 8 seconds, allowing you to regain distance on them before re-engaging. In these low levels, the damage component of Frost Nova can also be used to finish one enemy off and freeze another enemy to engage him with Fireball IconFireball if you are fighting multiple enemies.
  • At Level 12, buy Fireball IconFireball, Conjure Food IconConjure Food and Slow Fall IconSlow Fall. Slow Fall slows your falling speed at the cost of a Light Feather Icon Light Feather. This comes in handy to avoid fall damage and enable shortcuts that would otherwise lead to death.
  • At Level 14, buy Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion, Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect and Fire Blast IconFire Blast. Arcane Explosion is your main AoE spell with the single-target spec. It is an instant-cast ability and can also be used to finish off low-health enemies. It has a high Mana cost but lower threat than the Fire AoE spells you will encounter later.
  • At Level 18, buy Remove Lesser Curse IconRemove Lesser Curse and Fireball IconFireball. Remove Lesser Curse is a bit niche for leveling since you will only rarely get cursed. However, the ability of this spell to remove curses from yourself or friends is very valuable later on in the game and you will definitely use it.
  • At Level 20, buy Blink IconBlink, Frost Armor IconFrost Armor, Polymorph IconPolymorph, Conjure Water IconConjure Water, Evocation IconEvocation, and Mana Shield IconMana Shield.
  • In Stormwind, Ironforge, Exodar (Alliance) and Orgrimmar, Undercity, Silvermoon (Horde) you can now buy the teleport spells for each city.
  • Each Teleport spell requires you to use one Rune of Teleportation Icon Rune of Teleportation, which can be bought at any reagent vendor. You can find reagent vendors by clicking the magnifier button on the mini map and they will be automatically displayed there when you are close to one. The Teleport spells can save a lot of travel time and makes learning new spells from your Mage trainers very convenient. Evocation IconEvocation is another great spell you will never want to miss. It restores 60% of your total Mana within 8 seconds. Use this ability as often as you can, as this will also increase your leveling speed by not having to drink. Blink IconBlink is a utility spell that allows you to travel 20 yards instantly. It removes rooting effects and most stuns from you; you can use it together with Frost Nova IconFrost Nova to get away from enemies and you can use it as a tactical spell in dungeons to move out of aoe effects or to reposition yourself instead of walking to a new position for several seconds. Other applications of Blink are to skip enemies and to prevent death from falling — when falling down from somewhere, Blink can be used shortly before hitting the ground to avoid fall damage. Mana Shield IconMana Shield will avoid cast time pushback and will absorb damage in dangerous situations. However, it costs Mana, so it is advised to be used only when needed as you will have to regenerate that Mana again.
  • At Level 22, buy Scorch IconScorch, Fire Blast IconFire Blast, Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion, and Conjure Food IconConjure Food. Scorch IconScorch is another finishing spell. It has a good damage-per-Mana ratio and a 1.5-second cast time. Later, it will be used to increase the Fire damage taken by enemies by up to 15%.
  • At Level 24, buy Fireball IconFireball, Pyroblast IconPyroblast, and Counterspell IconCounterspell. Counterspell instantly interrupts enemy casts and prevents spells of the interrupted school from being cast for 10 seconds. This ability has a 30-second cooldown and finds a variety of applications in PvP and PvE.
  • At Level 26, buy Cone of Cold IconCone of Cold. Cone of Cold slows enemies in front of you with a frontal cone. It can be used to deal damage to groups of enemies or finish them off. It can also be used defensively to flee from dangerous situations since it is instant-cast and slows enemies for 8 seconds. If you use it as a defensive ability, always use Rank 1 to save mana.
  • At Level 28, buy Scorch IconScorch, Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect, Mana Shield IconMana Shield, and Conjure Mana Agate IconConjure Mana Agate. Conjure Mana Agate is the first out of five spells that create Mana Gems, which can be used in and out of combat to instantly restore Mana. These gems do not share a cooldown with Mana Potion Icon Mana Potions, have a 2-minute cooldown, and are consumed on use. Except for the last rank of this spell, these gems cost more Mana to make than they restore, so only use the first four ranks if really needed. As any conjured item, these are destroyed when logging out for more than 15 minutes.
  • At Level 30, buy Fireball IconFireball, Pyroblast IconPyroblast, Ice Armor IconIce Armor, Ice Block IconIce Block, Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion, Conjure Water IconConjure Water, Fire Blast IconFire Blast, and Teleport: Darnassus IconTeleport: Darnassus (Alliance) or Teleport: Thunder Bluff IconTeleport: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at the respective city's portal trainers. You now stop using Frost Armor IconFrost Armor and use the slightly-better Ice Armor instead. Ice Block IconIce Block is very useful if you get into hairy situations and can be used to remove debuffs on you, avoid any kind of damage, and to buy time when you are waiting for another cooldown or a healing spell to land on you in group content. This spell is very versatile and it is recommended to get a feeling of when to use it.
  • At Level 32, buy Conjure Food IconConjure Food.
  • At Level 34, buy Scorch IconScorch, and Mage Armor IconMage Armor. With Mage Armor, 30% of your Mana regeneration continues while casting. This may not sound like much, but it makes a significant difference for leveling speed. Further, it gives a small amount of magic resistance. At this point you should not get hit by too many physical attacks any more, so Mage Armor is preferred over Ice Armor IconIce Armor.
  • At Level 35 Portal: Theramore IconPortal: Theramore and Teleport: Theramore IconTeleport: Theramore is available to learn for Alliance players in Theramore while Horde players can learn Portal: Stonard IconPortal: Stonard/ Teleport: Stonard IconTeleport: Stonard in Stonard. The Stonard portal is useful later on to get to Karazhan fast.
  • At Level 36, buy Fireball IconFireball, Pyroblast IconPyroblast, and Mana Shield IconMana Shield.
  • At Level 38, buy Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion, Conjure Mana Jade IconConjure Mana Jade, and Fire Blast IconFire Blast.
  • At Level 40, buy Scorch IconScorch, Conjure Water IconConjure Water, and Polymorph IconPolymorph. At Level 40, you can also start to buy the portal spells for each major city, except for Darnassus and Thunder Bluff which become trainable at Level 50. Portals use a Rune of Portals Icon Rune of Portals from a reagent vendor and can be used by anyone in your group.
  • At Level 42, buy Fireball IconFireball, Pyroblast IconPyroblast, Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect, and Conjure Food IconConjure Food.
  • At Level 44, buy Mana Shield IconMana Shield.
  • At Level 46, buy Scorch IconScorch, Fire Blast IconFire Blast, and Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion.
  • At Level 48, buy Fireball IconFireball, Pyroblast IconPyroblast, and Conjure Mana Citrine IconConjure Mana Citrine.
  • At Level 50, buy Conjure Water IconConjure Water, Portal: Darnassus IconPortal: Darnassus (Alliance) or Portal: Thunder Bluff IconPortal: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at each respective city's portal trainers.
  • At Level 52, buy Scorch IconScorch, Conjure Food IconConjure Food and Mana Shield IconMana Shield.
  • At Level 54, buy Fireball IconFireball, Pyroblast IconPyroblast, Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion, and Fire Blast IconFire Blast.
  • At Level 56, buy Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance IconArcane Brilliance. Arcane Brilliance buffs your whole group with Arcane Intellect for one hour and requires one charge of Arcane Powder Icon Arcane Powder from reagent vendors per cast.
  • At Level 58, buy Conjure Mana Ruby IconConjure Mana Ruby and Scorch IconScorch.
  • At Level 60, buy Conjure Food IconConjure Food, Conjure Water IconConjure Water, Fireball IconFireball, Fireball IconFireball, Pyroblast IconPyroblast, Polymorph IconPolymorph, Mana Shield IconMana Shield, and Teleport: Shattrath IconTeleport: Shattrath in the middle of Shattrath (Alliance and Horde). In Outland you can buy better Filtered Draenic Water Icon Filtered Draenic Water at Level 60 and Purified Draenic Water Icon Purified Draenic Water at Level 65, which are both better than the conjured Level 60 water. The Level 65 food Clefthoof Ribs Icon Clefthoof Ribs is also better than the conjured Level 60 food.
  • At Level 61, buy Fire Blast IconFire Blast.
  • At Level 62, buy Molten Armor IconMolten Armor and Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion. From now on Molten Armor is the suggested Armor type, since it adds 3% crit chance and damages mobs when they hit you. It also decreases the chance to be critically hit with Pyhsical melee attacks.
  • At Level 65, buy Conjure Water IconConjure Water, Scorch IconScorch, and Portal: Shattrath IconPortal: Shattrath in the middle of Shattrath (Alliance and Horde).
  • At Level 66, buy Fireball IconFireball.
  • At Level 68, buy Invisibility IconInvisibility, Mana Shield IconMana Shield, and Conjure Mana Emerald IconConjure Mana Emerald. Invisibility is a new spell that takes 5 seconds to make you invisible. During that time, you fade, which is useful in dungeon groups, as it reduces your threat against all targets by 20% per second until you finally become invisible and drop combat. This spell can also be used to sneak by enemies and reach a quest spot earlier, or to flee and avoid death. The new Mana Emerald contains 3 charges and restores more Mana than it takes to conjure, so you can both use it like the old gems and also use it in between too for a net Mana regeneration.
  • At Level 70, buy Arcane Intellect IconArcane Intellect, Arcane Explosion IconArcane Explosion, and Spellsteal IconSpellsteal. Arcane Brilliance IconArcane Brilliance, Conjure Food IconConjure Food, and Conjure Water IconConjure Water are learned from the books Tome of Arcane Brilliance 2 Icon Tome of Arcane Brilliance 2, Tome of Conjure Food VIII Icon Tome of Conjure Food VIII, and Tome of Conjure Water IX Icon Tome of Conjure Water IX, which are all Level 70 dungeon drops. Learning Rank 9 of Conjure Water and Rank 8 of Conjure Food is most important, because these two spells unlock Ritual of Refreshment IconRitual of Refreshment at your trainer. Ritual of Refreshment uses two Arcane Powder Icon Arcane Powders per cast and summons a table which gives everyone who uses it up to 80 Conjured Mana Biscuits. Spellsteal steals one beneficial magic effect from your target, which you can benefit from for a maximum of two minutes. There are a few, but not too many good spells you can steal. However, this ability is required to defeat High King Maulgar in the Gruul's Lair raid.
4.

Additional Fire Mage Information After Reaching Level 70

After you reached level 70, there is still a lot to learn. Our Fire Mage PvE Guide covers the most relevant and up-to-date information about your Fire Mage spells, talents, rotation, gear, and many more.

5.

Changelog

  • 02 Jun. 2021: Added link to Level 70 class guide for this spec.
  • 28 May 2021: Fixed typos and spell ranks.
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