Fire Mage DPS Stat Priority — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.5

1. The Basics of Stats for Fire Mage

The stat priority for Fire Mage is as follows:

1. Intellect;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste;
5. Critical Strike.

Intellect is the best stat in all situations. On pure single-target situations, the respective values of Critical Strike, Mastery, Haste and Versatility fluctuate depending on gear, but they are very close. Mastery scales much better with additional targets than any other stat and is the reason it is listed above the other secondaries that are not crit. We encourage players to sim themselves if possible to determine what stats you should desire according to your current distribution, as this may change depending on your current values. This is because a deficiency of one stat will often cause it to become high in value, relative to the others, until you reach a "normalized" value. A sim can be very easily run by almost anyone using the Raidbots Stat Weights tool.

These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using SimulationCraft.

2. Fire Mage: Getting a Better Understanding

2.1. Statistics Explanations

Intellect is your primary stat. You should look for this stat in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Spell Power, which increases the damage of your spells.

Critical Strike increases your chance to critically hit, which in turn increases your chances to get instant-free Pyroblasts. This gives you the most reliable damage and smoothens out the rotation considerably, giving you the most consistent output.

Mastery, through Mastery: Ignite, increases the damage of your Ignite DoT. Mastery is reasonably close to Critical Strike in value, increasing with the number of targets present, eventually out-pacing Critical Strike on sustained AoE and cleave. Critical Strike and Mastery have good synergy, because Pyroblasts and Flamestrikes affected by Hot Streak cause double the normal ignite value, which is further increased by your Mastery.

Haste influences the cast speed of your spells. It also influences the cooldown of Fire Blast and the speed at which Living Bomb detonates.

Versatility is a flat-out damage done increase and damage taken reduction.

3. Changelog