Fire Mage DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Midnight (12.0.1)

2.

Best Talents for Fire Mage

Delve and Open World Talents Sunfury Single Target / Raid Talents Sunfury Mythic+ Talents Sunfury Scorchless Talents Frostfire Single Target / Raid Talents Frostfire Mythic+ Talents

1.1.

Sunfury Single-Target / Raid Talents for Fire Mage

This Sunfury build is a few % ahead of the Frostfire variant, however the difference is not massive, so you can play both Hero Talents if you strongly prefer one or the other.

This build works on all target counts, requiring no talent swaps whenever there are multiple targets. The listed Mythic+ / Dungeon builds focus on utility changes, not DPS changes.

1.2.

Sunfury Mythic+ Talents for Fire Mage

This Sunfury build is a few % ahead of the Frostfire variant, however the difference is not massive, so you can play both Hero Talents if you strongly prefer one or the other.

The Mythic+ / Dungeon build is practically identical to the single-target / Raid builds, but swapping into more utility spells in the Mage tree, but otherwise running the same actual DPS talents.

1.3.

Sunfury Scorchless Talents for Fire Mage

This build is technically slightly higher theoretical DPS than the single-target build (~1%), however, it gives up Scorch to do so. Considering Scorch provides immense mobility and quality of life, giving it up is generally not recommended. However, if you are very comfortable on a specific encounter and expect to lose zero DPS to movement, you can switch to this build to try pull the absolute maximum DPS out of the Fire spec.

Note: This build also works for Mythic+ without making any changes to the Fire tree, only swapping utility around in the Mage tree. But the same caveat goes as on single-target: If you expect to lose any DPS whatsoever to having to move, you should stick to Scorch builds.

1.4.

Frostfire Single-Target / Raid Talents for Fire Mage

This Frostfire build is a few % behind the Sunfury variant, however the difference is not massive, so you can play both Hero Talents if you strongly prefer one or the other.

This build works on all target counts, requiring no talent swaps whenever there are multiple targets. The listed Mythic+ / Dungeon builds focus on utility changes, not DPS changes.

Note: Frostfire builds do not run Scorch as Frostfire Bolt is simply a better filler, even when the target is below 30% health. You can spec into Scorch for the extra mobility, but I highly recommend just going Sunfury at that point as it is both stronger overall and picks Scorch baseline.

1.5.

Frostfire Mythic+ Talents Fire Mage

This Frostfire build is a few % behind the Sunfury variant, however the difference is not massive, so you can play both Hero Talents if you strongly prefer one or the other.

The Mythic+ / Dungeon build is practically identical to the Raid build. It focuses on swapping into more utility spells in the Mage tree, but otherwise running the same actual DPS talents.

Note: Frostfire builds do not run Scorch as Frostfire Bolt is simply a better filler, even when the target is below 30% health. You can spec into Scorch for the extra mobility, but I highly recommend just going Sunfury at that point as it is both stronger overall and picks Scorch baseline.

1.6.

Best Delve Talents for Fire Mage

This build is focused on making Delves as smooth of an experience as possible. It focuses on maximizing your survival and kiting capabilities, by speccing into more mobility and crowd-control, while giving up very minimal DPS. This build is also excellent for outdoor content.

Fire has the following Apex Talent:

• Fired Up: Consuming Hot Streak has a chance to grant you a stack of Fired Up, which increases your fire damage. Multiple applications may overlap.
• Fired Up: Gaining Fired Up reduces your Fire Blast cooldown by 2.5 seconds per point, 2 points.
• Fired Up: Combustion greatly increases the chance of getting Fired Up, reducing each time you proc Fired Up. Also causes Fired Up to extend Combustion by 1 second.

The Apex Talent for Fire grants a lot of damage for both Hero Specs, and is virtually always taken. Fired Up is a new proc which grants a large amount of bonus damage whenever it procs, which is just a very nice passive bonus. However, even more impactful is the massive 5 second Fire Blast cooldown reduction when it procs, which happens quite frequently, especially during Combustion.

This Fire Blast cooldown reduction makes it so you barely run out of Fire Blast charges during Combustion, often only running out towards the very end of Combustion. This allows you to chain Pyroblast into Fire Blast for almost the entire duration of Combustion without needing to weave in any other spells.

All these extra Fire Blast charges do cause a bit of a weird luxury "problem", where it relatively devalues Pyroclasm, because hard-casting Pyroblast during Combustion risks overcapping Fire Blast charges, making it difficult to hard-cast during Combustion. Due to this, you often end up having to delay the hard-casts until Combustion is over.

Fire has access to the Sunfury and Frostfire Hero Talent trees.

Sunfury mostly focuses around speeding up your rotation and spawning an Arcane Phoenix alongside you during Combustion, throwing out spells of its own providing damage and some utility. Gameplay wise, Sunfury speeds up your rotation a bit by proving a couple of sources of cooldown reduction on Fire Blast or additional haste, but the main rotational change comes from Memory of Al'ar, which grants you Hyperthermia when Combustion ends. While Hyperthermia is active, you can spam instant-cast Pyroblasts or Flamestrikes, providing another Combustion-like mini-burst after Combustion ends.

Frostfire is entirely focused on augmenting your damage by firing off a bunch of extra Frost spells, like Glacial Spikes and Comet Storm. Gameplay wise, Frostfire replaces your Fireball for Frostfire Bolt, which makes your rotation slightly faster because it has a lower cast time, but otherwise plays the same as Fireball. The main rotational change comes from Frostfire Empowerment, which makes your next Frostfire Bolt a very hard hitting instant-cast spell that also deals AoE damage.

For the full details on how the Hero Talents impact your rotation, see the rotation page.

Currently, Sunfury is generally ahead in DPS in most content, but the difference is not massive (5-10% depending on content), so if you strongly prefer Frostfire, you can play it in all but the very highest content.

Multiple talents require a change to your rotation to use them optimally. You can find more information on how your rotation will look after selecting your talents on our rotation page below.

If you are looking for in-depth explanations of what each talent does, we suggest reading through the spell summary page.

Since Battle for Azeroth, there is the option to enable "War Mode." Enabling War Mode grants the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at max level. However, doing so will enable PvP combat and the possibility of being attacked by members of the opposite faction while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the War Mode talents for leveling and outdoor content.

1. Glass Cannon gives you a significant damage buff. The reduced health is usually not a problem in open-world content.
2. Ring of Fire puts up a relatively large circle that burns enemies who walk into the outer part of the circle, doing significant damage.
3. Greater Pyroblast is a very hard-hitting spell, especially on high-health enemies, and it will greatly increase your damage against high-health enemies, like world bosses or rares.