Fire Mage DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.2
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Fire Mage in both single-target and multiple-target situations. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your DPS. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.2.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Fire Mage rotation.
Fire Mage Rotation
Welcome to our Rotation page for Fire Mages. On this page you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding scenarios.
Mythic+
The primary focus on this page is on raiding scenarios. Although the rotation is going to give pretty good results in Mythic+ as well, for a more Mythic+ oriented rotation, see our Mythic+ page.
Easy Mode
If the rotations below seem overwhelming to you, or you would like to read a more simplified version of the rotation, you might benefit from visiting our Easy Mode page, which outlines a close-to-optimal rotation in simpler terms.
PvP
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.
Single-Target Rotation for Fire Mage
Use the switches below to tailor the rotation to the talents you are using or situations you expect to be facing, and it will populate the rotation priority list appropriately:
Sun King's Blessing Talented
Fiery Rush Talented
Shifting Power Talented
Temporal Warp Talented
Searing Touch Talented
Dragon's Breath Talented
Alexstrasza's Fury Talented
Improved Scorch Talented
Hyperthermia Talented
Meteor Talented
- Cast
Time Warp while under the effects of
Temporal Displacement (or similar effects), right before you plan to use
Combustion, stacking 2 Time Warp effects.
- Cast
Combustion while you are in the middle of a
Fireball cast. Then follow our Combustion rotation below.
- Cast
Shifting Power when
Combustion is on cooldown, and you do not currently have it active. Lastly, ensure you do not have 3 charges of
Fire Blast. Generally, this means using it right after your Combustion phase ends.
-
Hardcast
Pyroblast when you have a
Sun King's Blessing proc.
- Cast
Pyroblast when you have a
Hot Streak proc.
- Cast
Scorch if the target is below 30% health and
Improved Scorch is timing out within a couple of seconds, and you do not currently have
Hot Streak.
- Cast
Fire Blast when you have
Heating Up.
- Cast
Phoenix Flames whenever
Feel the Burn is close to running out, and you do not have
Hot Streak.
- Cast
Dragon's Breath to generate
Heating Up or convert Heating Up into
Hot Streak. Ensure there are no spells in flight toward the target when using Dragon's Breath.
- Cast
Scorch if the target is below 30% Health to generate
Heating Up.
- Cast
Fireball to generate
Heating Up.
- Cast
Scorch if you have to move and have no instant casts to burn.
The core component of this specialization is chaining as many Critical
Strikes together as possible to maintain large Mastery: Ignites. Fire is
an extremely reactive specialization, meaning most optimizations
occur moment to moment rather than planning a large damage dump minutes.
It is highly recommended you read the "Combustion Usage" section as it is of crucial importance to the Fire specialization.
Combustion Rotation
Combustion should be used on cooldown whenever possible. You
should always overlap Combustion with other damage boosts that allow for a
large overall
Mastery: Ignite, such as
Meteor, trinkets, and
racials.
Since Combustion makes every spell critically strike, you want to get as many
hard-hitting spells in the window as possible. To facilitate this, you should
save at least one charge of Fire Blast and
Phoenix Flames,
though preferably, all charges
will be available for both of them. This is the case for normal Combustions
, and Combustions gained via
Sun King's Blessing.
During Combustion, we will be casting a lot of instant Pyroblasts.
Since Combustion guarantees a crit, this will always cause your Pyroblast to
proc
Heating Up or
Hot Streak. Because of this, you only need one
other spell to generate Hot Streaks. During Combustion, this will be
Fire Blast,
Scorch (or
Fireball with very high haste)
and
Phoenix Flames (unless you have talented
Alexstrasza's Fury, in which case you only use Phoenix Flames outside of
Combustion). Below, we have listed the priority of spells during Combustion:
- Use any on-use trinkets and racials like
Sinful Aspirant's Badge of Ferocity and
Berserking.
- Cast
Fireball if you are casting
Combustion manually in the step below. If you gained Combustion from
Sun King's Blessing, skip the Fireball and the next step.
- Depending on your
Hot Streak /
Heating Up status, execute the option listed below:
- If you already have a
Hot Streak proc: cast
Combustion near the end of your
Fireball cast
- If you already have a
Heating Up: cast
Combustion +
Fire Blast near the end of your
Fireball cast.
- If you have neither: cast
Combustion +
Fire Blast halfway through the
Fireball cast, followed by a second Fire Blast near the end of the Fireball cast.
- If you already have a
- Instant-cast
Pyroblast whenever you have
Hot Streak
- Hardcast
Pyroblast when you have
Sun King's Blessing 8th stack
- Use
Fire Blast and
Scorch for generating
Heating Up /
Hot Streak while keeping
Feel the Burn buff up.
- If you have very high haste (100%+, only achieved during double
Time Warp effects), use
Fireball instead of
Scorch.
- This is done because at these high haste levels, Scorch will have a shorter cast time than the global cooldown, which would cause downtime during which you are casting nothing.
- If you have very high haste (100%+, only achieved during double
- Cast
Dragon's Breath if
Combustion if there is less than 1 second left on Combustion and you do not have any
Hot Streak procs.
It is important to note if you proc the 8th stack of
Sun King's Blessing
during
Combustion, you should hardcast
Pyroblast to extend
your Combustion by 6 seconds. Make sure to keep up your
Feel the Burn
buff during it.
Worth noting, activating Combustion while you have
Sun King's Blessing's
Combustion active will NOT add 12 seconds to Combustion. Instead, it will reset
the
duration. So never cast Combustion during Sun King's Blessing's Combustion.
Opening Sequence for Fire Mage with Firestarter
If you are not running Firestarter, you just immediately go into
the Combustion rotation after
pre-casting
Pyroblast.
The opener below assumes the standard talent setup containing
Feel the Burn and
Sun King's Blessing, combined
with the less standard but still commonly used
Firestarter.
You always pre-cast Pyroblast 4 seconds before the pull timer
finishes.
- Right after the pre-cast Pyroblast, cast a single
Phoenix Flames (if you are running
Alexstrasza's Fury).
- During the global cooldown of Phoenix Flames, use your potion and activate
double
Time Warp. (assuming your strategy involves using Time Warp or a similar effect on the pull)
- Chain
Pyroblast and
Fire Blast until you are out of Fire Blasts.
- Cast
Shifting Power to get 3
Fire Blast charges again.
- Cast
Fireballs and
Fire Blasts and consume your
Hot Streaks as you get them until 8 stacks of
Sun King's Blessing. Keep your Fire Blast charges at or above 2.
- Once at 8 charges of
Sun King's Blessing, hardcast
Pyroblast (even if the target is still above 90% health). Near the end of the cast, cast
Combustion. Ensure you press Combustion before the Pyroblast cast finishes, or you will lose the Sun King's Blessing Combustion.
- Continue the standard Combustion rotation like normal.
Multi-Target Rotation for Fire Mage
There are two primary ways to do AoE damage as a Fire Mage.
One way is to simply do your single target rotation and spread Mastery: Ignite
to additional targets passively. This allows you to optimize your priority target
damage while still doing decent cleave and AoE DPS. The other strategy
is to opt into a more
Flamestrike oriented talent build, allowing
you to do significantly better AoE damage on high target counts, but at the cost
of single target and priority target DPS.
Ignite Based AoE Rotation
This means you do not have Fuel the Fire /
Flame Patch talented.
Do the standard single target rotation. Avoid target switching when
possible, as it will reduce the overall damage of Mastery: Ignite.
Only target switch for
Searing Touch or when required due to
fight mechanics.
Flamestrike Based AoE Rotation
This means you have Fuel the Fire /
Flame Patch talented.
Even with the Flamestrike build, you should generally only cast Flamestrike
when there are 3 or more enemies. Technically, in some situations, it is a small
DPS increase to use it on 2 targets, however, if the enemies even move out of
Flame Patch for a tiny portion of time, or Flame Patch does not tick
for the entire duration, it is already better to use a standard single target
rotation.
The Flamestrike AoE rotation is very straightforward: Instead of
casting
Pyroblast with
Hot Streak, you use it to instant-cast
Flamestrike. You still generate
Heating Up /
Hot Streak
via
Fireball (or
Scorch below 30% health or in
Combustion), but instead of Pyroblasts, you cast Flamestrikes.
All of the standard single-target optimizations still apply.
(e.g., keeping
Feel the Burn up as much as possible)
There is one exception for when you do hardcast Flamestrike:
- Hardcast
Flamestrike to activate
Sun King's Blessing.
Fire Mage AoE Tips For Both Builds
In this section, we list some tips that apply to both the Mastery: Ignite
and the
Flamestrike builds.
If you have Alexstrasza's Fury, use
Phoenix Flames only when you do not have a
Hot Streak.
Cast Living Bomb if there are 3 or more targets stacked, and at least 1 of
the targets will live for at least 8 seconds.
Cast Dragon's Breath if there are 3+ targets present or at any target count with
Alexstrasza's Fury talented, and you do not currently have
Hot Streak.
If you have Meteor talented, only cast it within
Combustion, either a standard Combustion or
Sun King's Blessing
Combustion.
Rotation changes for Season 3 Tier set (Tier 31) for Fire Mage
The Season 3 (Tier 31) Tier set ( Mage Fire 10.2 Class Set 2pc +
Mage Fire 10.2 Class Set 4pc) does not impact the Fire Mage rotation
in any way, it is just a passive bonus.
Important Notes for Fire Mages
Effectively Creating Crit Trains
Understanding how to generate Critical Strikes as efficiently as possible is crucial in utilizing Fire effectively. This specialization is designed to crit more often than not, so it is easy to understand why learning to execute the right combos to create a chain of crits is paramount.
Whenever you get a Heating Up proc, you should convert it to a
Hot Streak using
Fire Blast. Generally, you will
then want to cast a
Fireball and immediately spend your
Hot Streak on a
Pyroblast as your Fireball cast finishes. Both of
these spells will strike simultaneously, giving a chance of an
immediate follow-up Hot Streak if both critically strike.
If only one of the spells critically strikes, Heating Up will
proc, and you can immediately Fire Blast and repeat this process.
There is a 0.2-second grace period where Heating Up will not
be canceled if two spells impact simultaneously and only one critically
strikes.
This is known as "Pyroblast Fishing" and is the best way to create a large
chain of crits. The exception to this rule is during Combustion,
where all spells will crit, allowing you to chain together various combos
that will be covered in more detail later in the guide.
Spells That Do Not Trigger or Cancel Heating Up
Dragon's Breath (unless talented into
Alexstrasza's Fury)
Blast Wave
Living Bomb
Meteor
Frost Nova
Flamestrike (unless talented into
Fuel the Fire
- Any non-damage spell, such as
Blink or
Ice Block
Blazing Barrier
This can be cast when you have to reposition slightly. It lasts for 60 seconds, but it only has a 25-second cooldown. You can and should cast it before the start of every engagement.
Scorch
Scorch should be used in place of
Fireball while
Combustion is active. The reasoning is pretty straightforward:
- Faster cast time
- Guaranteed Critical Strike
- No travel time
In contrast, Scorch is very weak outside of
Combustion for the same reasons. Because it has no travel time, you
cannot efficiently fish for
Pyroblasts.
Scorch can be cast while moving and will also grant you a speed
buff when talented into
Frenetic Speed. Wherever possible, try to
instead rely on
Shimmer before relying on Scorch. Combined with
Frenetic Speed, this spell can benefit extended
movement if your charges of
Shimmer are unavailable. However, try to
lean less heavily on this spell as a movement crutch, as it will
deflate your damage due to its lack of potency. The only exception is when you
have talented
Searing Touch, and your target is under 30% Health,
as you can then use Scorch freely instead of Fireball.
Core Concepts for Fire Mage
Fire Mage is an elementary enough specialization to perform on a target dummy. Still, a few key factors will separate the good from the great. Learning to focus on what is important and mastering the core concepts of a specialization is what leads to overall solid performance on the damage charts. 3 major concepts form the central trinity of optimizing for success:
- proper use of
Combustion;
- critical Strike chains;
- movement management.
Managing movement is a fundamental skill shared by all the caster classes in World of Warcraft. The highly mobile nature of the Mage class allows flexible and creative ways to move during combat, making it of supreme importance that you give this the proper respect.
Critical Strike Chains
We talked about "Pyro Fishing" earlier in the guide, so there is no need to
go over it in detail again here. It should be considered, however, how
important properly chaining together your abilities is and its overall impact on your DPS. This is especially true on cleave, as building a smooth and
powerful Mastery: Ignite will determine how much cleave and AoE you can
output. Get used to properly chaining your spells by practicing on
target dummies or in LFR.
Movement Management
While it is difficult to describe the best ways to position and move during a dungeon or raid encounter, it is essential to your success as a Fire Mage.
Try and use Shimmer for "urgent" movement — when you need
to travel from one place to another as quickly as possible.
Blazing Barrier is a good choice when you only need to take a few
steps, as it only costs a single global cooldown.
Ice Floes is an incredible talent that allows you to not have to worry
about interrupting the long
Pyroblast hardcasts when using
Sun King's Blessing.
You should always keep 1 stack ready for Sun King's Blessing to ensure you do not
need to interrupt it for movement.
Always try to position yourself in a location central to fight movement. For example, if the boss is being moved in a circle, try to stay on the inside of the kite path to ensure minimal movement.
Quiet Movement
Many players will unconsciously move during fights, despite it being unnecessary. For example, sometimes the boss or adds will be moved by the tank a couple of yards. Though you are still in range to cast, you subconsciously mirror that movement, costing you global cooldowns. Consciously work to "quiet" your movement, and reduce unnecessary movement to a minimum. The best way to see this in action is to take a video of your raid, then watch yourself play. Most players will be surprised by the amount of wasted movement they commit. When you are forced to move, use the tips above and make your path as direct and decisive as possible.
Changelog
- 19 Nov. 2023: Updated checkboxes to by default has Alexstrasza's Fury enabled due to optimisations found make AF part of the default talent tree.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated rotation for new best talent builds in 10.2, and new tier set.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 15 Jul. 2023: Updated AoE Flamestrike rotation due to the nerf to Flamestrike.
- 14 Jul. 2023: Updated AoE Flamestrike rotation based on latest optimisations.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated rotation for the Fire Mage rework of 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated rotation pased on new tier set bonuses and new optimal talents.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Rewrote parts of the rotation to be easier to follow, and split the SKB/Pyroclasm into its own section. Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 03 Jan. 2022: Add Shifting Power to the rotation.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Update AoE rotation to more clearly explain the AoE rotation when you are not talented into Flamestrike/Flamepath.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Added section explaining rotational changes due to the tier set.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Mage Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Dutchmagoz. Dutchmagoz is a Mythic raider in one of the top raiding guilds, Turtles and the owner of the Mage Discord server, Altered Time, where he is involved in all things Mage, and you can reach out to him directly for feedback or questions about the guide.
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