Fire Mage DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Fire Mage in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic Fire Mage talents.
Talent Choices for Fire Mage
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area
(such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Still Mind and
Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change
talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.
Talent Cheat Sheets for Fire Mage
While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent build listed below works great for general purposes.
- Level 15:
Searing Touch
- Level 25:
Shimmer
- Level 30:
Rune of Power
- Level 35:
Flame On
- Level 40:
Frenetic Speed
- Level 45:
Conflagration (single target) or
Flame Patch for AoE
- Level 50:
Kindling or
Pyroclasm (see below)
Raiding
The builds suggested above do not account for specific fights in the current raid tier. If you wish to have a boss-by-boss breakdown of talent choices, you should check out our dedicated page below.
Mythic+
Mythic+ can potentially require a mix of certain AoE and Single-Target talents, depending on affixes and other variables. If you want advice that is specific to Mythic+, you should check out our page below.
How To Use Fire Mage Talents
There are multiple talents that require a change to your rotation in order to use them optimally. You can find more information on how your rotation will look after selecting your talents on our rotation page below.
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Fire Mage
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Tier 1 talents offer a minor boost to sustained damage.
Firestarter causes
Fireball and
Pyroblast to always critically strike when your target is above 90% Health.
Pyromaniac gives you a small chance to re-activate
Hot Streak instantly.
Searing Touch makes
Scorch a guaranteed Critical Strike and deals 150% more damage when the target is below 30% Health.
Searing Touch is the best option if the boss loses Health at a
steady rate throughout the fight. It also gives you a lot of flexibility by
turning your main filler spell into
Scorch,
(while the boss is below 30%) which can be cast while moving. It is also
the best talent for AoE situations.
Firestarter is the best option if the boss remains above 90%
Health for a disproportionate amount of time.
Pyromaniac can be used when the boss spends a
disproportionate amount of time between 30% and 90% Health, but this is almost
never the case.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents for Fire Mage
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Tier 2 talents offer a boost in defensive utility.
Blazing Soul causes
Blink to apply
Blazing Barrier.
Shimmer replaces your
Blink ability. It functions exactly the same as
Blink, except it is off the Global Cooldown, is a 25-second cooldown instead of 15, does not interrupt spellcasting, and it does not break stuns. This spell has 2 charges.
Blast Wave causes an explosion around yourself, dealing Fire damage to all enemies within 8 yards and knocking them back and then reducing their movement speed by 70% for 4 seconds.
Shimmer should be your go-to talent in most situations, as it
gives you more mobility and the ability to
Blink without triggering
a Global Cooldown. Not only does this result in a noticeable damage gain, but
should also allow for better survivability on high movement fights. It is also
worth noting that Shimmer has 2 charges, as opposed to Blink's single charge.
Blast Wave can be useful for Mythic+ if you need the additional
control for kiting.
Blazing Soul gives you extra survivability when you blink. It can
be useful in some situations, but is not an advised pick over
Shimmer.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents for Fire Mage
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Tier 3 talents are focused on providing the player a consistent damage increase.
Incanter's Flow increases your damage between 4% and 20%, cycling every 10 seconds.
Focus Magic can be used to put a buff on a friendly player that will cause that player to have 5% increased critical strike chance. Whenever they critically strike, your own critical strike will also be increased by 5% for 10 seconds.
Rune of Power places a small zone on the ground, which increases the damage you do by 40% for 10 seconds. This ability has a 40-second cooldown. Additionally, it also drops automatically when you cast
Combustion.
Rune of Power is the best DPS talent. However, due to its
restrictive nature, it may be not be practical to use on all encounters.
Incanter's Flow is a bit weaker numerically, but is usable on all
types of fight encounters.
Focus Magic is never the best option for your personal DPS, but
can in certain situations cause slightly more raid DPS when playing with very
geared other classes that benefit from critical strike a lot, especially if your
character is very undergeared compared to the person you put Focus Magic on.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents for Fire Mage
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Tier 4 talents are focused on providing unique damage utility.
Flame On reduces the cooldown of
Fire Blast by 2 seconds, and increases the maximum number of charges by 1.
Alexstrasza's Fury causes
Dragon's Breath to always critically strike, do 50% damage, and contribute to
Hot Streak. Additionally, your next
Pyroblast or
Flamestrike does 35% more damage.
From the Ashes gives you a stacking Mastery buff of 2% per
Phoenix Flames off cooldown. Additionally, any direct critical hits reduce the cooldown of Phoenix Flames by 1 second.
Flame On should be your go-to choice on raid bosses, as it allows
for the most
Hot Streaks throughout a fight, for both single target and AoE.
Alexstrasza's Fury can be used in situations where snap AoE damage
is required, or there is a constant stream of 5+ targets available.
It not much worse than
Flame On, but it does make the rotation considerably
slower paced.
From the Ashes is the best option when there is a constant stream
of additional targets that you can spread
Mastery: Ignite to.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents for Fire Mage
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Tier 5 talents focus primarily on providing utility.
Frenetic Speed causes
Scorch to increase movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds when cast.
Ice Ward gives
Frost Nova 2 charges.
Ring of Frost places a ring that can freeze up to 10 targets for 10 seconds at the targeted location, broken by damage. When the freeze ends, the targets will be slowed by 65% for 4 seconds.
Frenetic Speed is the only talent with a benefit in raids.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents for Fire Mage
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Tier 6 talents add various cleave and AoE utility to your kit.
Flame Patch adds a burning ground effect to
Flamestrike that lasts for 8 seconds.
Conflagration cases
Fireball to apply a small damage over time (DoT) effect to your primary target. Any targets affected by either this small DoT or
Mastery: Ignite can flare up to deal AoE damage.
Living Bomb applies a bomb to the target which explodes after a delay and spreads itself to nearby targets.
Conflagration is the best choice for single target.
Flame Patch is the best talent for all AoE situations for maximum DPS.
Living Bomb never does more DPS (outside of extremely high target counts)
than
Flame Patch, however, Flame Patch requires you to use
Flamestrike
to get any use out of it, which is not always what you want to be doing. Namely,
in a lot of scenarios with multiple targets, you want to focus down a specific
priority target instead of getting all targets down equally. Living Bomb can be
picked for such situations, where you can still focus your rotation on single-target
priority damage, but getting some free AoE damage via Living Bomb.
Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents for Fire Mage
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Tier 7 talents add new abilities and major playstyle shifts to your kit.
Kindling reduces the cooldown of
Combustion by 1 second every time
Fireball,
Fire Blast, and
Pyroblast critically strike.
Pyroclasm gives you a 15% chance to cause your next non-instant
Pyroblast to do 225% extra damage after consuming
Hot Streak. It can stack up to 2 times.
Meteor summons a meteor to fall from the sky after a short delay, dealing large initial damage and leaving a burning patch on the ground for 8 seconds.
Pyroclasm is the best option for single-target if you are
using
Sun King's Blessing.
Kindling is the best option for Night Fae Fire Mages for
all situations if you are not using
Sun King's Blessing. Otherwise, it is
only best on AoE.
Meteor is the best option for single-target for
non-Night Fae Fire Mages if you are not using
Sun King's Blessing,
assuming it is possible to always hit the target with Meteor.
PvP Talents (War Mode)
Since Battle for Azeroth, there is be 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 to enable 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.
Fire Mage War Mode Talents
In this section we will rank the War Mode talents for leveling and outdoor content.
Controlled Burn increases the pace at which your
Mastery: Ignite deals damage, which is a great damage booster in outdoor content where most enemies do not live the full duration of Ignite.
Tinder is great because there are often times where you are not casting
Fireball for prolonged periods of time due to moving from area to area. This talent will make your first Fireball on almost every new encounter do more damage, and be extremely quick. Combined with
Firestarter it is a guaranteed Critical Strike, giving you
Heating Up, which you can then follow up with a
Fire Blast giving you a
Hot Streak instantly on almost any new target you fight.
Pyrokinesis is great for giving you
Combustion much quicker than otherwise possible. It allows you to use Combustion very often, giving you a huge damage increase over the course of leveling / world content.
Changelog
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 19 Aug. 2021: Updated best Level 50 talents due to Sun King's Blessing buffs.
- 28 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 12 Mar. 2021: Added missing third PvP talent.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 25 Nov. 2020: Fixed incorrect tooltip.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands launch. Changed the suggested talents based on new optimal builds for level 60 and removed references to level 50 effects like Azerite traits and essences.
- 20 Oct. 2020: Removed reference to Temporal Shield since it got moved to Arcane only.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands 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, Angered, owner of the Mage theorycrafting website Altered Time, and the owner of the Mage Discord server, Altered Time.
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