Fire Mage DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (11.1.7)

This build is focused primarily on doing Delve content. It is very similar to the Mythic+ tree, however, it focuses a bit more on defensives and kiting since you do not have a dedicated healer. Although Brann does provide some healing, the enemies can hit relatively hard, and additional defensives and kiting are very valuable in Delves.

This is the strongest single-target build, although a bit more difficult to play than the Sunfury single-target build.

Note: This build is also the go-to Mythic+ build for Frostfire, only switching Mage tree defensives/utility as needed. However, the Sunfury AoE builds are stronger than the Frostfire variants for AoE damage.

This build does the best single-target DPS (out of the AoE builds) while still providing strong AoE damage, primarily via Mastery: Ignite, Living Bomb (from Lit Fuse and related talents) and Firefall. All of these abilities do their damage passively while doing your single target rotation, so this build allows you to focus down priority targets while still doing very good AoE.

This build is very similar to the cleave based AoE build, but it focuses more on Flamestrike based damage. Although this build is almost the exact same talents, this build is not recommended if you plan to primarily use your Hot Streaks on Pyroblast. If that is the case, you should use the cleave based build.

Fire has the option to choose between 2 main AoE builds:

• Cleave Based AoE Build;
• Flamestrike AoE Build;

The Cleave based build almost never casts Flamestrike, and instead does its AoE damage by doing its single target rotation and spreading Mastery: Ignite and doing AoE damage via Firefall and Living Bomb. Due to this, it does better priority target damage, at the cost of some AoE damage. It also does better boss damage.

The cleave build does still pick up Quickflame, but this does not mean you should actively cast Flamestrike. Flamestrike should only be used on low health large groups of enemies. Enemies that live longer should be cleaved down by doing the single-target rotation. You can drop this one point in Quickflame for any other single-target point of your choosing if you do not expect any low health enemies in the content you are doing.

The Flamestrike based build is almost identical to the cleave based build, swapping only Firefall into Fevered Incantation. You only do this because Firefall has almost no value if you are going to be spamming Flamestrike. The Flamestrike based rotation does more damage on AoE at the cost of doing significantly less priority target damage. Both builds are relatively close boss damage. Note that it is only worth casting Flamestrike from 5 targets and onwards, so going the Flamestrike based build is never worth it if you will not fight more than 5 targets.

Which build you go highly depends on the damage your group needs. If you are doing content where you do not fight more than 5 targets, you should always go the cleave based build. The cleave build will do best single-target and priority damage, whereas the Flamestrike based build will do more AoE damage. If you are unsure, I recommend the cleave based build.

For more information on Mythic+ talents, you can check out our dedicated Mythic+ page below.

This section is about picking the standard Fire Mage Talents. For an overview of the Hero Talent Trees, check out the page below.

The general Mage tree is extremely flexible. It is almost entirely personal preference, apart from a couple of key DPS nodes. You have many more points available than you need to get all of the DPS nodes, leaving you with many options in terms of survivability, crowd control, and utility. Below, we will highlight some of the key nodes that are important for DPS and suggest some of the best non-DPS nodes. However, even after that, you can assign a bunch of points as you see fit.

Talent	Reason for taking
Overflowing Energy	A large DPS boost.
Incanter's Flow	A large DPS boost.
Shifting Power	A large DPS boost.
Ice Block	One of the best defensives in the entire game.
Mirror Image	A great defensive tool useful in all content.
Alter Time	A very strong defensive and mobility tool in one, useful in all content.

Talent	Reason for taking
Spellsteal	A good pick if there are buffs you can steal that are either beneficial to you, or make the content easier by removing it from the target.
Remove Curse	A good pick if there are curses you can dispel.
Winter's Protection	Can be useful if you need the reduced cooldown to be able to solo soak a specific raid mechanic. If combined with Ice Cold and Cryo-Freeze it also becomes a very strong damage reduction tool.
Incantation of Swiftness	Can be useful for skipping content, like trash packs in dungeons, or open-world enemies
Tempest Barrier	A minor defensive tool useful in all content.
Arcane Warding	A minor defensive tool useful in almost all content.

The tier 2 talents contain almost entirely utility/mobility talents.

Talent	Reason for taking
Tome of Rhonin	A straight up DPS boost
Tome of Antonidas	A straight up DPS boost
Shimmer or Ice Floes	Both are extremely strong mobility tools. This choice is largely a personal preference. Ice Floes ultimately allows for more movement without losing DPS, but it comes at the cost of losing out on the burst movement (without having to give up a global cooldown like Blink does) that Shimmer provides. Generally, Ice Floes is preferred when running Sun King's Blessing, otherwise, Shimmer, but both are great choices regardless of whether you run Sun King's Blessing or not.

Talent	Reason for taking
Dragon's Breath	Very good crowd-control ability, especially useful in Mythic+ to interrupt spell casts. Also picked for DPS if running Alexstrasza's Fury.
Diverted Energy	A decent survivability tool useful in all content.
Master of Time	A decent survivability and mobility tool useful in all content.
Quick Witted	A good pickup in content where you need the reduced interrupt cooldown, like Mythic+ in a low interrupt group.
Slow	A good pickup to assist in kiting, especially when solo. Generally not too much usage in group content, though.
Cryo-Freeze	A very good self-healing tool when playing solo or a very strong defensive in all content when combined with Ice Cold.
Reduplication	Can be useful if it would give you an additional usage of Mirror Image for a specific high-hitting ability, but usually hard to proc this.
Reabsorption	Adds a relatively useful self-heal onto Mirror Image, but it is usually hard to proc this.
Blast Wave	Great crowd control that can be extremely useful in Mythic+ and open-world content, for its ability to AoE interrupt enemy spellcasts
Volatile Detonation	Used to further increase the ability to kite with Blast Wave, but should be careful in grouped content to not knock enemies into additional enemies and pull more than planned.
Mass Slow	Can be used to kite packs of mobs in Mythic+, in some cases, or good for open-world content.
Ice Nova	For even more crowd control. Also, technically a minor DPS increase when moving as it can be used when on the move if you have no Ice Floes / Shimmer ready and no other instants.
Ring of Frost	For even more crowd control.

In this tier, we unlock some of the strong final nodes as a priority, whereas the rest is flexible.

Talent	Reason for taking
Time Anomaly / Inspired Intellect	The strongest of the final nodes. We usually suggest picking Time Anomaly. However, if you do not like the randomness of Time Anomaly, you can pick Inspired Intellect for a minor DPS loss.
Greater Invisibility	One of the best defensive tools in the game.
Mass Barrier / Mass Invisibility	Provides quite a lot of defensive power for your group if you take Mass Barrier. Since the cooldown is not shared with Prismatic Barrier, it is a useful defensive tool even when solo. Mass Invisibility can be a very strong tool for Mythic+ to skip packs.
Temporal Velocity	A decent mobility tool. It is not that great of a talent on its own, but it is on the path to some very strong other nodes, so it's pretty much always taken.

Talent	Reason for taking
Ice Cold	Turns Ice Block into a very strong defensive cooldown that does not come at the cost of any DPS but removes the immunity aspect from it. Generally, we suggest taking this if you do not need the immunity aspect of Ice Block, as it lasts 6 seconds, and you are unlikely to sit in Ice Block for that long. Additionally, when combined with Cryo-Freeze, it also becomes a very strong self heal that you do not need to sit in Ice Block for to get the benefit of.
Displacement	Provides mobility, but is usually pretty difficult to pick up without giving up one of the major nodes.
Barrier Diffusion	A minor boost to your survivability that works in all content.
Accumulative Shielding	A minor boost to your survivability that works in all content.
Displacement	A decent mobility and defensive tool. Difficult to take without giving up one of the capstone nodes, but if you are skipping a capstone node, it is a very useful mobility + defensive tool.
Frigid Winds + Ice Ward	These nodes give you even more kiting power. Not very useful in most group content, but strong when solo and on the way to Ice Cold. If you are not taking Ice Cold, these two talents should be skipped for most group play.
Time Manipulation	Can be useful if you are doing content where you really need the extra crowd control.

In this section, we will go over the Fire Mage Talents. The focus of this section will be PvE content.

This section sets up a lot of the core components of the spec.

Talent	Reason for taking
Fire Blast	A key spell that is required for the functionality of the spec.
Phoenix Flames	A large DPS boost is required to continue the talent tree.
Fervent Flickering	A large DPS boost in all content.
Call of the Sun King	A large DPS boost in all content.
Scorch	A large DPS boost in all content. The only exception is if you are doing content where the enemy never drops below 30%. In that scenario, the talent can theoretically be skipped, but it is still useful just for the movement aspect alone.
Surging Blaze	A large DPS boost in all content and unlocks multiple other talents.

Talent	Reason for taking
Firestarter	Good DPS boost as long if the enemy remains above 90% health a large amount of time. For example, if a raid boss has a large shield at 100% health that you need to burn through first.
Pyrotechnics	Taken on single target builds, but skipped on AoE builds.
Lit Fuse	Taken for AoE builds, but skipped on single target builds.

Talent	Reason for taking
Flame On	A large DPS boost in all content.
Critical Mass	A large DPS boost in all content.
Combustion	Fire's key DPS cooldown. Massive DPS boost in all content.
Wildfire	Decent DPS increase on both single target and AoE, numerically stronger than other options.
Improved Combustion / Spontaneous Combustion	Both of these are large DPS boosts in all types of content. Improved Combustion is better, but Spontaneous Combustion can be taken for a small DPS loss, for a bit more quality of life, as you will not have to pool any cooldowns for Combustion.
Intensifying Flame	Good single-target DPS increase, while easy to pick up in AoE based builds without giving up AoE damage, so also picked in AoE builds even though technically providing minimal DPS.
Feel the Burn	Good DPS increase on both single-target and AoE.

Talent	Reason for taking
Ashen Feather	Taken on single target or cleave based AoE builds. Generally also taken even in the most heavy AoE builds, as it provides huge value if there ever is only a single target up. Can be skipped if your content never has any single target.
Master of Flame or Heat Shimmer	Both provide the same DPS on single target, but Master of Flame is easier to play, so generally preferred. Master of Flame also provides more damage if there are additional targets. Neither is picked for AoE scenarios though as there are better options.
Improved Scorch	Taken on single target but skipped AoE builds.
Inflame	Taken on single target but skipped AoE builds.
Controlled Destruction	A decent DPS boost. Taken in most content, but if you are doing content where you are constantly fighting new enemies, it can be skipped. Generally, it is still worth taking in Mythic+ even though you fight new enemies often, as long as the packs do not die very fast (e.g., less than 10 seconds). For low keys, it can be skipped.
Quickflame	Taken if running a Flamestrike based AoE build, otherwise skipped.
Mark of the Fire Lord	Taken for AoE builds. Even taken if you do not use Flamestrike, for the Living Bomb aspect.
Explosive Ingenuity	Taken for AoE builds.

Talent	Reason for taking
Kindling	Large DPS increase on both single target and AoE, numerically stronger than other options.
From the Ashes	Large DPS increase on both single target and AoE, numerically stronger than other options.
Fiery Rush	Large DPS increase on both single target and AoE, numerically stronger than other options.
Phoenix Reborn	Large DPS increase on both single target and AoE, numerically stronger than other options.
Sun King's Blessing / Unleashed Inferno	The best capstone node available. Unleashed Inferno is the best of the two, but Sun King's Blessing can be played if you really like the playstyle for a few percent damage loss.

Talent	Reason for taking
Fevered Incantation	Both points are taken on single-target, but either 1 or 0 taken for AoE. In AoE, you can take 1 point if you want to go full Flamestrike based build, but otherwise skipped.
Pyromaniac	Decent DPS increase on its own, but mostly picked to get to Hyperthermia. Picked on single target, but skipped for AoE.
Hyperthermia	Large DPS increase on single target and decently strong on AoE. Generally skipped in AoE builds as there are even stronger options for AoE.
Molten Fury	A large single target DPS gain in any content where enemies die at a normal pace. However, if you are doing content where the targets never go below 35% health, it should be skipped. Also skipped for AoE builds.
Fire's Ire + Cratermaker + Blast Zone	Taken in AoE builds, but skipped on single target.