Fire Mage Patch 9.2 Changes Analysis and Tier Set Thoughts

This page will go over how the changes in Patch 9.2, Eternity's End, will affect Fire Mages, specifically how the changes might impact its playstyle, best Legendary choices, Covenants, and the like. If you are simply interested in what the current changes are for Mages in Patch 9.2 in general, you can instead read our full list of changes to the entire Mages class on our dedicated page below. For an additional list of content coming with Patch 9.2, you can also check out our Patch 9.2 Overview page.

Currently, Fire Mages have not received any changes to their base kit in 9.2. However, this lack of changes to the base kit does not mean there will not be changes in how you play the spec, what gear / Covenants you want to use, etc. In the rest of this page we will go over the different changes that impact how you play a Fire Mage in 9.2.

Just like with the base kit, Fire Mages have not received any changes to their talents in 9.2. Similarly just like in 9.1.5, it currently appears that there will be both Kindling and Pyroclasm builds available in 9.2. However, any balance tuning between now and 9.2 will very likely more decisively cause one of them to win out.

Within the new Sepulcher of the First Ones raid that will be coming in Patch 9.2, every class will once again earn pieces of a gear set that is uniquely class-themed with its own two- and four-piece bonuses for every specialization. For Fire Magess, these set bonuses currently are:

• Fire Mage 2-Piece — Increases the duration of Combustion by 4 seconds.
• Fire Mage 4-Piece — While Combustion is active your Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames recharge 100% faster.

The set bonuses for Fire have some great synergies with existing talents and Legendaries, which generally make for more interesting build choices. The 4-set bonus works very well with Kindling, as it reduces Combustion's cooldown, whereas Combustion reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames, which in turn make your Kindling do more work, causing the talent and the set bonus to play very well off eachother.

The 2-set is currently very weak, even with the synergies described above, as the 2 extra seconds usually simply yields to a single additional Pyroblast per Combustion, which is currently a minor DPS boost compared to other classes' 2-set bonuses. The 4-set bonus is relatively strong, making this tier set currently middle of the pack.

The 2-set bonus causes no change to our rotation, but the 4-set bonus causes some small changes to the rotation:

• You no longer need to hold on to 3 Phoenix Flames stacks for Combustion. The 4-set bonus gives you so many Fire Blast charges that you generally will only need a single Phoenix Flames for Combustion, which will come naturally due to the sped up recharge time.

Although there have been no changes to Covenant abilities or Soulbinds for Fire Mages at this time, it should be pointed out that as of Patch 9.1.5 players may freely switch between Covenants provided they have obtained the Renowned achievement on any character of their account. The only requirement for this achievement is that you must reach Renown level 80 with any Covenant. This allows Fire to swap between Venthyr and Night Fae depending on the fight they are working on, allowing Fire great flexibility, as before Fire Mages had to pick one and choose what they wanted to excel at.

In addition, Conduits will be unlocking their final few ranks, though this will not alter gameplay in any substantial way.

There is one much-needed change to the Harmonic Echo Legendary, which causes it to also echo the damage to your primary target, instead of only secondary targets. This change is much needed since all Mages in the Kyrian Covenant will be using this Legendary as their second Legendary in 9.2. (see below)

9.2 allows everyone to equip both a Covenant-specific Legendary, and a non-Covenant Legendary at the same time.

Unfortunately for Fire Mages, none of the Covenant Legendaries are particularly strong, nor have any impactful interaction with our other Legendaries. This means the second Legendary is just a small to medium DPS increase, without really enabling any new playstyle or synergies. Since there only is one Covenant specific Legendary per Covenant, you will always be using that Legendary as your second Legendary.