Fire Mage DPS Stat Priority — The War Within (11.0.5)

Last updated on Nov 26, 2024 at 16:17 by Dutchmagoz 66 comments
General Information

On this page, you will find out the optimal stat priority for your Fire Mage. We first present the stat priority, before delving into more complex explanations. Our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.5).

If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Fire Mage stat priority.

1.

The Basics of Stats for Fire Mage

For Fire, the first couple of stats are all very close in value. The only real exception is Mastery, which is generally worse than all other stats. Critical Strike bounces around a lot depending on the talents picked and the gear used. Especially having Mage Fire 10.2 Class Set 2pc Icon Mage Fire 10.2 Class Set 2pc will greatly increase the importance of critical strike over most stats, tying it with haste.

You will want to prioritize stats as follows for both single-target and AoE:

  1. Intellect;
  2. Haste (a lot better than the rest);
  3. Versatility;
  4. Mastery;
  5. Critical Strike.

All of the secondary (non-Intellect) stats are relatively close in value despite the way they are ordered on our list, with the exception of Haste, which is generally quite a bit better than the rest. We encourage players to sim themselves, if possible, to determine what stats you should aim for 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. Due to this, we strongly recommend using Raidbots Top Gear instead to handle your gearing needs (see our Raidbots guide).

Using purely stat weights is never the best way to go about gearing your character. On the gear page, we go in-depth into how to best gear your character for varying types of content.

2.

Diminishing returns on secondary stats

Secondary stats have diminishing returns. This means as you get more points into one stat, it will take increasingly more rating to get 1% more stats. This reduction goes as follows:

  • From 0 to 30%, there is no penalty.
  • From 30% to 39%, there is a 10% penalty.
  • From 39% to 47%, there is a 20% penalty.
  • From 47% to 54%, there is a 30% penalty.
  • From 54% to 66%, there is a 40% penalty.
  • From 66% to 126%, there is a 50% penalty.
  • You can not get more than 126% from gear rating.

Generally, you can ignore most of this, but it does again put emphasis on using simulations to determine what stats to use. We strongly advice you to use Raidbots Top Gear to determine what gear to equip, as it automatically handles all of these complexities for you.

3.

Gems, Enchants, and Consumables

The gems, enchants, and consumables you will use are directly derived from your stat priority, and you can find our advice on this topic in our dedicated page.

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

4.

Fire Mage: Getting a Better Understanding

4.1.

Statistics Explanations

Intellect is your primary stat. 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-cast Pyroblast Icon Pyroblasts.

Mastery, through Mastery: Ignite Icon Mastery: Ignite, increases the damage of your Mastery: Ignite Icon Mastery: Ignite DoT.

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

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

5.

Changelog

  • 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
  • 21 Sep. 2024: Updated stat weights description to more clearly explain that using top gear is better.
  • 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
  • 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
  • 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
  • 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
  • 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
  • 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
  • 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
  • 06 Nov. 2023: Updated suggested stats due to changes in 10.2.
  • 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
  • 10 Jul. 2023: Updated suggested stats for the Fire Mage rework of 10.1.5.
  • 01 May 2023: Updated suggested stats based on 10.1 changes.
  • 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7 and switched mastery to above versatility.
  • 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
  • 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
  • 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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