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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.

• Levels 10 to 14 — 5 points in Improved Fireball
• Levels 15 to 19 — 5 points in Ignite

Improved Fireball makes your Fireball 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 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 can overwrite existing Ignite dots from stronger spells like Pyroblast and Fireball, resulting in a damage loss.

• Level 20 — 1 point in Pyroblast
• Levels 21 to 23 — 3 points in Elemental Precision
• Levels 24 & 25 — 2 points in Burning Soul
• Levels 26 & 27 — 2 points in Flame Throwing
• Levels 28 & 29 — 2 points in Master of Elements

At Level 20, Pyroblast will be your new pulling spell. It has a 6-seconds cast time. However, it does more damage than Fireball 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 is important to hit enemies that are on the same level as you or higher. The talent Flame 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 restores 30% of a Fire or Frost spell's base Mana cost once per cast, if the spell crits.

• Level 30 — 1 point in Master of Elements
• Levels 31 & 32 — 2 points in Incineration
• Levels 33 to 35 — 3 points in Critical Mass
• Level 36 — 1 point in Blast Wave
• Levels 37 to 39 — 3 points in Playing with Fire

Incineration 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 and Playing with Fire makes all your spells hit 3% harder for 3% Mana cost. Blast 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.

• Levels 40 to 42 — 3 points in Fire Power
• Level 43 — 1 point in Combustion
• Levels 44 & 45 — 2 points in Molten Fury
• Levels 46 & 47 — 2 points in Fire Power
• Levels 48 & 49 — 2 points in Arcane Subtlety

Fire Power makes all Fire spells deal 2% more damage per talent point, which is great. The new DPS cooldown at Level 43 is Combustion. 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-like" ability is Molten Fury, which increases the damage done to targets with less than 20% health by 10%. This works very well in conjunction with Scorch and Fire Blast on enemies with low health. Arcane Subtlety is another new talent. It reduces the threat from Arcane spells by 40%, which makes Arcane 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 until Outland where decent Spell Damage gear is available.

• Levels 50 to 52 — 3 points in Arcane Focus
• Levels 53 to 57 — 5 points in Arcane Concentration
• Levels 58 & 59 — 2 points in Pyromaniac

The talent points in Arcane Focus will be enough to reach hit cap against enemies two levels higher than your level, which is useful for Arcane Explosioning in Dungeons. Those two talents are also the means to reach the incredibly-important talent of Arcane 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.

• Levels 60 to 64 — 5 points in Empowered Fireball
• Level 65 — 1 point in Dragon's Breath
• Level 66 — 1 point in Pyromaniac
• Levels 67 to 69 — 3 points in Improved Scorch
• Level 70 — 1 point in Arcane Impact

Empowered Fireball gives the Fireball spell 15% more damage from Damage and Healing effects on equipment. As a consequence, this gear is recommended to wear as pulling with Pyroblast becomes inferior to pulling with Fireball when points in Empowered Fireball are spent. Alongside Blast Wave, Dragon'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 gives a 3% Critical Strike chance and 3% reduced Mana cost for Fire spells. Improved Scorch is a very useful talent for dungeon and raiding content. Each Scorch 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, will increase the Critical Strike chance of Arcane Explosion and Arcane 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.

Rotation for leveling up as a Fire Mage

1. Cast Arcane Intellect and Frost Armor if you are missing their buffs.
2. Cast Arcane Intellect and Frost Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield in any situation where you could die.
3. Cast Arcane Intellect and Ice Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield in any situation where you could die.
4. Cast Arcane Intellect and Mage Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield in any situation where you could die.
5. Cast Arcane Intellect and Molten Armor if you are missing their buffs. Use Mana Shield in any situation where you could die.
6. Cast Fireball as your main attack.
7. Cast Frostbolt as your main attack.
8. Cast Fireball as your main attack.
9. Cast Frostbolt as your main attack. We will be skipping further Frostbolt ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment on a first character.
10. Cast Fireball as your main attack. We will be skipping Frostbolt ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment on a first character.
11. Open with Pyroblast and cast Fireball as your main attack. We will be skipping Frostbolt ranks to save gold, as their damage contribution to your rotation is not worth the investment on a first character.
12. Cast Fireball as your main attack. We will be skipping Frostbolt 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, 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, should be used to keep enemies away from you or to freeze and finish them off.

Utility skills, such as Frost Nova, and AoE skills, such as Cone of Cold or Blast Wave and Dragon'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 and Conjure 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.

• At Level 1, buy Arcane 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 and Frostbolt. 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 and Fire 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 at Level 6, as it does more damage than a Frostbolt without talents.
• At Level 8, buy Polymorph and Frostbolt. 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, Frost Armor and Frost 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 if you are fighting multiple enemies.
• At Level 12, buy Fireball, Conjure Food and Slow Fall. Slow Fall slows your falling speed at the cost of a 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, Arcane Intellect and Fire 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 and Fireball. 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, Frost Armor, Polymorph, Conjure Water, Evocation, and Mana Shield.
• In Stormwind, Ironforge, Exodar (Alliance) and Orgrimmar, Undercity, Silvermoon (Horde) you can now buy the teleport spells for each city.
  • Alliance: Teleport: Stormwind, Teleport: Ironforge, Teleport: Exodar
  • Horde: Teleport: Orgrimmar, Teleport: Undercity, Teleport: Silvermoon
• Each Teleport spell requires you to use one 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 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 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 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 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, Fire Blast, Arcane Explosion, and Conjure Food. Scorch 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, Pyroblast, and Counterspell. 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. 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, Arcane Intellect, Mana Shield, and Conjure 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 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, Pyroblast, Ice Armor, Ice Block, Arcane Explosion, Conjure Water, Fire Blast, and Teleport: Darnassus (Alliance) or Teleport: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at the respective city's portal trainers. You now stop using Frost Armor and use the slightly-better Ice Armor instead. Ice 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.
• At Level 34, buy Scorch, and Mage 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.
• At Level 35 Portal: Theramore and Teleport: Theramore is available to learn for Alliance players in Theramore while Horde players can learn Portal: Stonard/ Teleport: Stonard in Stonard. The Stonard portal is useful later on to get to Karazhan fast.
• At Level 36, buy Fireball, Pyroblast, and Mana Shield.
• At Level 38, buy Arcane Explosion, Conjure Mana Jade, and Fire Blast.
• At Level 40, buy Scorch, Conjure Water, and Polymorph. 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 from a reagent vendor and can be used by anyone in your group.
• At Level 42, buy Fireball, Pyroblast, Arcane Intellect, and Conjure Food.
• At Level 44, buy Mana Shield.
• At Level 46, buy Scorch, Fire Blast, and Arcane Explosion.
• At Level 48, buy Fireball, Pyroblast, and Conjure Mana Citrine.
• At Level 50, buy Conjure Water, Portal: Darnassus (Alliance) or Portal: Thunder Bluff (Horde) at each respective city's portal trainers.
• At Level 52, buy Scorch, Conjure Food and Mana Shield.
• At Level 54, buy Fireball, Pyroblast, Arcane Explosion, and Fire Blast.
• At Level 56, buy Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance. Arcane Brilliance buffs your whole group with Arcane Intellect for one hour and requires one charge of Arcane Powder from reagent vendors per cast.
• At Level 58, buy Conjure Mana Ruby and Scorch.
• At Level 60, buy Conjure Food, Conjure Water, Fireball, Fireball, Pyroblast, Polymorph, Mana Shield, and Teleport: Shattrath in the middle of Shattrath (Alliance and Horde). In Outland you can buy better Filtered Draenic Water at Level 60 and Purified Draenic Water at Level 65, which are both better than the conjured Level 60 water. The Level 65 food Clefthoof Ribs is also better than the conjured Level 60 food.
• At Level 61, buy Fire Blast.
• At Level 62, buy Molten Armor and Arcane 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, Scorch, and Portal: Shattrath in the middle of Shattrath (Alliance and Horde).
• At Level 66, buy Fireball.
• At Level 68, buy Invisibility, Mana Shield, and Conjure 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, Arcane Explosion, and Spellsteal. Arcane Brilliance, Conjure Food, and Conjure Water are learned from the books Tome of Arcane Brilliance 2, Tome of Conjure Food VIII, and 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 at your trainer. Ritual of Refreshment uses two 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.

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.