Fire Mage DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.0.7

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.

You can easily import the talent trees below into the game with the "Copy export string" button.

As you can see from the tree above, basically all of the AoE nodes (right side of the tree) are skipped. This is because spreading high Mastery: Ignites is simply a better way to do AoE damage on almost all target counts, and we simply do not have the points to spec into the right side of the tree.

The build suggested above does not account for specific fights in the current raid tier. When the first raid is closer to release, we will provide talents on a per-boss basis.

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.

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.

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 straight up DPS boost
Rune of Power or Incanter's Flow	Rune of Power is the best theoretical DPS choice for any amount of targets. However, Incanter's Flow can be close, and Rune of Power is quite restrictive, so it may not be practical for all encounters.
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.
Tempest Barrier	A great defensive tool 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
Incantation of Swiftness	Can be useful for skipping content, like trash packs in dungeons, or open-world enemies

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. However, when running Sun King's Blessing and/or Pyroclasm, Ice Floes is a very good tool to ensure you do not have to interrupt hard casts while dodging raid mechanics, without having to Shimmer out of your Rune of Power.
Diverted Energy	A great survivability tool useful in all content.

Talent	Reason for taking
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, limited use in group content as you are unlikely to sit in Ice Block for long
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 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
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 / Temporal Warp	The strongest of the final nodes. The choice largely comes down to whether or not you are doing group content where someone else can provide Time Warp (or similar effect). If your group does not have someone else who can provide Time Warp, or your group will not use Time Warp until very late in an encounter, you should go Time Anomaly, otherwise Temporal Warp.
Shifting Power	A straight-up DPS boost, stronger than Meteor.
Greater Invisibility	One of the best defensive tools in the game.
Flow of Time	Mandatory to get to the final nodes, but also a pretty strong mobility tool in its own right.

Talent	Reason for taking
Dragon's Breath	A very good crowd-control ability, especially useful in Mythic+ to interrupt spell casts.
Accumulative Shielding	A minor boost to your survivability that works in all content.
Displacement	A decent mobility tool. Worth picking up if you already took Accumulative Shielding.
Temporal Velocity	A decent mobility tool. Not that great of a talent on its own, but it is on the path to Dragon's Breath so nice to pick up as a benefit of going for Dragon's Breath.
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 Shifting Power anyway.
Time Manipulation	Can be useful if you are doing content where you need the extra crowd control. Not worth taking instead of Dragon's Breath, so usually only worth taking if you are skipping one of the final talents in the tree.

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. You will take almost every single talent in this section of the tree, with very little flexibility.

You always take all talents in this section, apart from Flamestrike and Improved Flamestrike.

Flamestrike and Improved Flamestrike could be picked up for a heavy AoE-focused build. However, it is simply not feasible to get these talents without giving up very large DPS nodes later in the tree, so we do not recommend going down the heavy AoE path.

Talent	Reason for taking
Flame On	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.
Critical Mass	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.
Combustion	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.
Improved Combustion	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.
Feel the Burn	Large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.
Firemind (1x)	Large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.
From the Ashes	Stronger than Alexstrasza's Fury due to our focus on Mastery: Ignite
Call of the Sun King	Decent DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.

Talent	Reason for taking
Cauterize	An incredible single-point survival talent, that we strongly recommend when doing difficult content where you are afraid of dying.
Firemind (2x)	If you are not getting Cauterize, you should put 2 points into Firemind.

Talent	Reason for taking
Pyroclasm	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options. Even on AoE, it is stronger than other options due to the large Mastery: Ignite it provides.
Kindling	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options.
Master of Flame	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options. Also is a large contributor to what makes the single target-focused build work so well in AoE.
Sun King's Blessing (+talents leading to it)	Very large DPS boost in all content, numerically stronger than other options, especially when considering the path it takes to reach.
Fevered Incantation (1x)	Numerically better than other options

After the talents above, we have 3-4 points remaining (depending on if you picked Cauterize / a second point in Firemind), with 3 points to each capstone trait. This means we can pick up 1 more capstone talent and potentially 1 additional talent.

Talent	Reason for taking
Fiery Rush (+talents leading to it)	The Fiery rush path is somewhere between even and 1% DPS behind the Hyperthermia path, depending on your gear on pure single target. However, Fiery Rush is significantly better on cleave and AoE, so we generally suggest going the Fiery Rush path for most content.
Hyperthermia (+talents leading to it)	The Hyperthermia path is somewhere between even and 1% DPS ahead of the Fiery Rush path. However, it is significantly worse on cleave and AoE. We only suggest taking Hyperthermia over Fiery Rush on pure single-target fights, and only if, in your simulations, you are closer to 1% ahead than even.

If you went the Hyperthermia path, you will have 1 point left over. This final point can go into any of the nodes you skipped in the previous tiers. Generally, this means either a second point into Firemind or into Cauterize if you skipped it.

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. Ring of Fire puts up a relatively large circle, that burns enemies who walk into the outer part of the circle, doing significant damage.
2. Greater Pyroblast is a very hard-hitting spell, especially on high-health enemies, and it will greatly increase your damage against high-health enemies.
3. Pyrokinesis allows you to use Combustion more often, allowing you to kill enemies quicker.