Fire Mage DPS Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Fire Mage in Mythic+

Fire Mage is a great choice for Mythic+. It can focus down priority targets while still doing good AoE DPS due to Mastery: Ignite and talents like Living Bomb.

1.1. Fire Mage Mythic+ Rotation

Both the single target and multi-target rotations do not change in Mythic+ content. For more information about the Fire Mage DPS rotation, refer back to the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page.

1.2. Fire Mage Utility

The main reason to bring a Fire Mage to a Mythic+ group is for its damage, but aside from that, it also has some very valuable utility which makes every Mythic+ group want at least one Mage:

• Arcane Intellect is a big boost for both the other caster DPS in the group, as well as additional healing for the healer.
• Time Warp is a required cooldown for any Mythic+ group.
• Remove Curse can be useful to dispel Curses in some dungeons.
• A Fire Mage adds some crowd-control in the form of Polymorph and Dragon's Breath.
• Spellsteal can be useful in some dungeons to remove dangerous buffs from enemy targets. Sometimes it can also be used as a big DPS boost for the Fire Mage by Spellstealing beneficial buffs that increase your damage.

2. Mythic+ Talents for Fire Mage

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+, these talents are recommended for all groups and keys at the current time.

Level	Choices
15	✗ Firestarter	? Pyromaniac	✓ Searing Touch
30	✗ Blazing Soul	✓ Shimmer	✓ Blast Wave
45	✓ Incanter's Flow	✗ Mirror Image	✓ Rune of Power
60	✓ Flame On	? Alexstrasza's Fury	✗ Phoenix Flames
75	✓ Frenetic Speed	✗ Ice Ward	✗ Ring of Frost
90	✓ Flame Patch	✗ Conflagration	✓ Living Bomb
100	? Kindling	✗ Pyroclasm	✓ Meteor

3. Mythic+ Affixes

The way Mythic+ affixes are tiered in Battle for Azeroth has changed quite a bit since their launch in Legion.

There are now three weekly affixes and one seasonal affix. The first affix available instantly at level two and three, the second affix starts at level four, the third affix enabled at level seven, and finally the seasonal affix at level ten.

3.1. Tier One Affixes

• Fortified increases the Health pool of all non-boss enemies by 20% and damage dealt by 30%.
• Tyrannical increases the Health pool of boss enemies by 40% and their damage dealt by 15%.

Fortified and Tyrannical are the two affixes every player will see. These affixes shift the focus of dungeons from boss to trash depending on the week. Fire Mages will excel during Fortified weeks as our multi-target damage has a short ramp up time and then will sustain at very high numbers with or without the use of cooldowns. During Tyrannical weeks, players may want to take more single-target oriented trinkets, gear, or even talents but that will be both dungeon and key level dependent.

3.2. Tier Two Affixes

• Raging increases the damage dealt by enemies below 30% by 100% until they die.
• Teeming adds additional trash mobs to certain packs throughout each dungeon.
• Bolstering buffs remaining enemies Health pools and damage dealt by 20% when an enemy dies nearby. To counter this affix, DPS all mobs down evenly and focus your casts into high Health mobs if there are any.
• Sanguine places a pool of blood on the ground when a mob is slain. This pool will heal remaining enemies who stay inside the zone and also damage players.
• Bursting forces enemy mobs to detonate when slain, afflicting the group with a stacking debuff that causes players to suffer 10% of their max Health in damage every four seconds. When handling the Bursting affix, ask how many stacks your healer can handle and try to not mindlessly DPS and exceed your healers stack limit. You can use Ice Block to remove these stacks for when there are too many stacks.

3.3. Tier Three Affixes

• Volcanic spawns volcanic plumes underneath and around players when in combat with any enemy. When damaged by Volcanic, players suffer 50% of their maximum Health pool in damage. The more enemies you are in combat with, the more Volcanic that will spawn.
• Grievous afflicts players with a stacking DoT when they fall below 90%. Use Blazing Barrier liberally during Grievous weeks and bring consumables to assist your healer when out of combat.
• Quaking will periodically attempt to interrupt casters by creating a damaging zone around each player. About 3 seconds after the zone forms, it will deal 20% maximum Health in damage to each player caught in the zone as well as interrupting any hard casts being finished during the shockwave.
• Explosive will occasionally spawn Explosive Orbs that need to be targeted and burned down within a short period of time or they will deal significant damage to the party. Explosive Orbs are not cleaveable and the amount of orbs that spawn scales with the amount of enemies pulled. Mastery: Ignite will also not spread to the Explosive Orbs, so you have to actively target them to kill them.
• Necrotic debuffs the target of enemy melee swings with stacking healing reduction and minor DoT.
• Skittish reduces the amount of threat generated by tanks throughout the dungeon. You should make sure you are not in melee range during Skittish weeks, because you get reduced threat when you are further away.

3.4. Seasonal Affix

Reaping is the seasonal affix for Season 2 of Battle for Azeroth. Reaping causes Souls to rise from the dead and attack the party at intervals of 20% completion on the Enemy Forces count. There are three different enemy types to be aware of:

• Risen Soul: Will apply Reap Soul to their current target, dealing 2% maximum health in damage every 3 seconds, per stack. This can be dispelled.
• Tormented Soul: Will cast Grave Bolt, which deals 25% maximum health in damage to the cast target. This cast can be interrupted.
• Lost Soul: Will cast Shadow Smash at their current target, a frontal cone ability that can be sidestepped. If you are hit by this, your maximum health will be reduced by 20% for 1 minute. Additionally, when Lost Souls die they will cast Expel Soul, spawning swirls on the ground that must be dodged. If you are hit by this, your damage and healing done will be reduced by 10% for 30 seconds.

Careful planning is required to deal with Reaping effectively. Be sure you keep track of when and how a Reaping will occur, and try to plan your pulls so that they end just as you hit the 20% interval. Once the Souls spawn, you will want to group them together for maximum AoE and cleave. Make use of Counterspell to bring the Tormented Souls in close.

Note that the Souls enter combat immediately upon spawning, although they can reset if in-combat stealth techniques, such as Shadowmeld, are used. Any Souls remaining from the previous wave will re-enter combat during the next wave. Like other trash mobs in dungeons, Souls will drop combat once the dungeon completes (all bosses are killed and Enemy Forces is at 100%), so you may want to kill the last boss before finishing off your trash count to avoid the final Reaping wave.

4. Changelog