World of Warcraft: Forever Fire Mage Guide

Fire Mages are pyromaniacs who uses their powerful Fire spells to set ablaze anything that does not get to safety in time. To do so, Fire Mages rely not only on direct damage, like the Arcane and Frost Mages do, but on a combination of direct damage and damage over time. They use their powerful key talent Ignite and the forceful Pyroblast to let single enemies burn to the ground quickly. Spells like Blast Wave and Flamestrike make quick work of groups of enemies. If you enjoy seeing your foes in World of Warcraft burn, then Fire Mage is the ideal class for you.

The Fire Mage playstyle is built around scoring Critical Strikes on the enemy and doing consistent high damage. With the Hot Streak and Combustion talents, they can keep up the Ignite and Pyroblast DoTs relatively consistently. The new Frostfire Bolt spell makes Fire more useful against enemies with high resistance to Fire spells, such as the well-known Fire Lord Ragnaros. Furthermore, it synergizes with Frost talents, such as Fingers of Frost and Shatter, tremendeously increasing your Critical Strike chance.

The classic Fire Mage will want to go for the Ignite talent though. The focus in a Fire Mage's rotation is not to just press one button for three minutes; you will also want to keep an eye on when you want to use your Combustion and when you hurl a Pyroblast on your enemy, so you get the maximum benefit from DoTs. Furthermore, the Improved Scorch talent will make you deal more Fire damage to your target, thus making the Fire spec even more engaging to play, as you need to keep the Improved Scorch debuff up on the target.

This guide will teach you how to become a Master of the Flames in World of Warcraft: Forever. Come and learn how to devour your enemies with flames.

There are several important things to keep in mind while leveling.

1. Have your personal buffs Arcane Intellect and your Mage armor of choice up ( Mage Armor, Frost Armor). This includes buffs from Scrolls, Elixirs, Buff food and other profession/world buffs.
2. If you need to kite mobs, pull them with Frostbolt so they are slowed from the start. On higher levels this may also trigger Fingers of Frost.
3. As a Fire Mage it is a good idea to start a fight with Pyroblast, as this will place a powerful DoT on the enemy.
4. If enemies die quickly from your wand — which is often the case at low levels — do not waste your Mana on spells (unless your Mana bar is full). You can even use the wand to regenerate mana while doing damage.
5. Use your wand to finish off enemies with low health. This saves mana and is often about as fast as casting a spell when an enemy hits you.
6. If you try to AoE enemies with Frost Nova, Blast Wave, Arcane Explosion and Flamestrike, never pull many mobs and be surprised, if it does not work. Start with one or two mobs and see if your Mana and Health bars are big enough to kill them. When this works, you may start pulling more mobs.
7. Always visit your class trainer and train your spells. You may even want to check out at which level new ranks of spells become available.
8. If you know you have to travel a bit before you engage the next mob, do not eat and drink. Let the passive regeneration do the work for you while you move. In many cases this can save you 20 seconds of sitting and drinking. This adds up and saves lot of time.
9. Get an Addon that makes observing Hot Streak procs easier.
10. If you have excess mana and a long travel route in front of you, use that time and mana to conjure water/food/Mana Gems, so you have it ready when you need it.
11. If a quest is too hard for you, move on and come back later. Green quests still give good XP and are easier when mobs are lower level than you.

This cannot be stressed enough: Get a Wand and use it as soon as possible. Wanding enemies is very strong in the early levels and can even out-DPS normal spells. Your spell of choice will be Fireball and this is why you invest your first 5 talent points into Improved Fireball.

Your instinct might tell you to put talent points into Ignite next, but since on low levels we have such a low chance for a Critical Strike, the talent barely adds any dps. Instead, we will put two talent points into Wake of Fire for several reasons: If Fire Blast is used to finish off enemies that give you experience (non-trivial), you gain 50% Critical Strike chance on your next Fire Blast cast within 20 seconds. That means that the next 3 talent points in Ignite will be reasonable, because we crit more often when using Fire Blast. Furthermore, the cooldown of Fire Blast is reduced by 2 seconds, which is a big DPS increase for the spell.

Hit talents in the Frost tree will stay untouched for now, because we need the Fire talent points to reach Pyroblast, our new opener and last spent talent point at Level 20.

Your utility spells and buffs are mostly Arcane Intellect, your armors Frost Armor and Mage Armor, Blink, and Mana Shield. The Elemental wards, Fire Ward and Frost Ward, absorb Fire and Frost damage from enemy casters, while Mana shield protects you from physical attacks at the cost of mana. Always have your Intellect and one of your Armor buffs up. The Frost Armor you want to use when you face physical damage mobs, as it slows their damage through enhancing your armor and their attack speed. Mage Armor enhances your Mana regeneration while casting and your resistance to spells. Blink is used to travel forward. Use it while traveling to go faster.

Your main damage spells will be Fireball, Fire Blast and Pyroblast. Later, at Level 40, you will be able to learn Frostfire Bolt, which will replace Fireball, because it also has a slowing component and benefits from several Frost talents. Frostbolt is only used to slow down enemies. Pyroblast is being used to pull mobs and put a strong DoT on them, Fireblast to finish them off, and to be cast when you have the Wake of Fire buff.

In order to control enemies, you can use Polymorph to turn Humanoids and Beasts into a sheep for a certain duration (depending on the rank of the spell). With Counterspell you interrupt spellcasters' casts. Frost Nova and Cone of Cold can help you keep single and multiple enemies at distance, making these spells perfect for kiting. When you kite groups of mobs and want to kill them, Blast Wave, Arcane Explosion and Flamestrike are good sources of damage. Arcane Explosion just does damage in a sphere that grows outwards around you, while Flamestrike does damage once and leaves a damage over time (DoT) burn on the ground, damaging enemies.

These and, of course, Conjure Food, Conjure Water, and several Mana gems that can be conjured and used later to restore Mana, are the most important spells of the Fire spec. Later you will also learn Teleport and Portal spells, such as Teleport: Ironforge or Portal: Undercity.

For Single Target your rotation should look like this:

1. Keep your personal buffs up (see General Leveling Tipps above)!
2. Open with Pyroblast (or Fireball before Level 20).
3. If the Wake of Fire is up, cast Fire Blast.
4. Cast Fireball
5. Cast Fire Blast to finish off non-trivial enemies (if they give you XP).

At low levels, utilize your wand a lot. It has high DPS!

For Multiple Targets your rotation should look like this:

1. Keep your personal buffs up (see General Leveling Tipps above)!
2. Mobs are tanked: Flamestrike > Blast Wave > Arcane Explosion
3. Your AoE Farm:
   1. Gather mobs with wand/body pull/ Fire Blast/ Arcane Explosion
   2. Freeze them with Frost Nova
   3. Face them, cast Flamestrike on them and slow them with Cone of Cold.
   4. Kite them with Arcane Explosion, slow with Cone of Cold if needed, or repeat stel two of this rotation.
   5. Cast Blast Wave, if you need an addition slow or want to kill many mobs in one sitting.

Explosives from Engineering can be very useful for AoEing groups of enemies. Health/mana potions and Mana Shield may save your life.

While being frozen from Frost Armor, you may also use bandages from First Aid.

Engineering is basically always the best profession you can get. It has so many tools, such as a cloaking device, target dummies, or explosives, that can boost your surviability or add damage, that it is always worth going for this profession.

The second best profession is usually Tailoring, as it allows you to turn the cloth (e.g. Linen Cloth) you find on your journeys into armor for yourself, and it provides some very strong end-game Enchanting items.

However, do not let professions take the fun from your gameplay. If you want to be a Mage that is picking flowers and brewing concoctions, then so be it. Go for Herbalism and Alchemy. Generally professions are more of a max-level PvE or PvP decision, covered in the in-depth class guides later in the Beta.

For secondary professions, First Aid and Cooking are very useful throughout the game. Fishing is notorious in World of Warcraft for it's addiction and relaxation potential and definitely a profession that is very useful as well, especially in combination with cooking.

Since the Beta is in it's early stages, a lot of stuff needs to be found out first before being added to this guide, so please have that in mind.

In general it is important to look reasonably on the mix of stats on an item, not gear only for one stat.

• Hit Chance — Generally, Hit chance is your best stat until the cap. Every Mage spec gets 5% Hit chance from their talents, but it only becomes really important in the higher levels when fighting bosses. Furthermore, on low level gear there is not a lot of hit. So we have to prioritize other stats
• Spell Power — Increases the damage of all your spells. This is basically the most sought-after stat.
• Critical Strike Chance — Increases your chance to critically strike enemies, which is a great damage increase for Fire Mages.
• Spirit — This may look surprising, but Spirit is a powerhouse. It works while you cast, especially with Mage Armor, while you move from one mob to another, while you travel. It restores Health and Mana, so you have to drink less. It is not the big direct damage increasing stat, but it reduces your downtime between fights. If you cast, Spirit Mana regeneration is lower (except for the Mage Armor effect). When you stop casting for 5 seconds, your Spirit-based mana and health regeneration will improve a lot. This is why Spirit is usually better than MP5.
• Intellect — Slightly increases your chance to critically strike enemies and increases your maximum Mana. More Mana means more drinking though.
• Stamina — Yes, this does not increase your damage, but what damage will you do when you are dead? Thankfully, this stat will come naturally with most gear and you do not have to gear for it.
• MP5 — Mana per 5 seconds is a stat usually found on healer items, but if it is on a good damage item, you may as well take it.

To this point we are still gathering all the information about new consumables.

The common and useful consumables are, of course, conjured food, water, Mana Gems. Alchemy provides Elixirs, Mana and Healing Potions. You will also want weapon Oils from Enchanting, buff food from Cooking, explosives from Engineering, and bandages and anti-venoms from First Aid. As soon as there is more info from the Beta, we will add the most recent information in this and all the other guides.

More WoW Forever Mage Guides

Frost Mage Ranged DPS GuideArcane Mage Ranged DPS Guide

More WoW Forever Guides from Other Classes

Retribution Paladin Melee DPS GuideSurvival Hunter Melee DPS GuideDiscipline Priest Healer GuideRestoration Druid Healer GuideRestoration Shaman Healer GuideSubtlety Rogue Melee DPS Guide