2.1.
New Content
Midnight Season 1 has officially launched, and with it we get lots of new
content, like three new Raids, Mythic+ opening, and the start of the PvP season.
Due to this, you get access to a new Tier-set and lots of new gearing options.
If you want to check out any of the new content, make sure to head over to the dedicated sections!
2.2.
Class Tuning
With the launch of Season 1, Fire has received
some balance adjustments:
Ignition now increases 
Flamestrike's
Mastery: Ignite damage by 15% (was 50%).
Fireball damage increased by 15%.
Frostfire Bolt damage increased by 15%.
Fire Blast damage increased by 25%.
Mage Fire 12.0 Class Set 2pc: Now increases 
Pyroblast and
Flamestrike damage by 6% (was 8%).- Mage Fire 12.0 Class Set 4pc: Fire Blast cooldown reduction
reduced to 0.3 seconds (was 0.5 seconds).
These changes impact the best rotation and best talents a bit, so I highly
recommend checking out the Rotation Page and Talents Page.
Additionally, Blizzard already announced that there will be further tuning
at the start of the second week of the season, and most likely multiple
other waves of balancing
As always, when this happens, the guide will be updated as soon as these
changes occur, or when new theorycrafting findings have been made, so make
sure to check back regularly during the first few weeks of the season.
When it comes to tuning adjustments, our next planned pass is expected to arrive
with the Midnight Season 1 launch on March 17. Our next pass will follow immediately
afterwards utilizing data gathered during the week Heroic difficulties are available;
these changes will go live with the launch of Mythic raid difficulty and Mythic+ on
March 24.
Beyond these dates, we will look to perform more tuning passes based on data gathered
during the starting weeks of Mythic difficulty for Season 1 and the March on Quel’Danas
available the week of March 31.For these two passes we err on the side of caution with
the amount of tuning we do until their respective Mythic end-bosses die to avoid being
overly disruptive to progression. After these key dates we will have several check-in passes
planned roughly a month apart. Once players obtain higher item level and better optimized gear
sets, the throughput of several specs will shift up or down relative to others and we feel
it’s important to be diligent in looking at the current state of class balance as time goes on.
2.3.
Midnight Changes for Fire Mage
Midnight has arrived, and Fire Mage has received a substantial rework
affecting both the Mage class tree and the Fire spec itself. The core identity of Fire
remains the same, chaining critical strikes for 
Hot Streak procs, but the
pacing and burst profile has shifted significantly. Fire is now a more burst-oriented spec,
with 
Combustion being a much stronger and more meaningful cooldown,
however with significantly less Combustion uptime, while damage
outside of Combustion is more reliant on fishing for critical strikes. Additionally,
Fire now has significantly fewer buffs and debuffs to track.
2.3.1.
Apex Talent
Midnight introduced a new type of talent, called Apex Talent.
It shows up at the bottom of your talent tree, and has four ranks.
It functions similar to other talents, costing talent points like usual.
For Fire, we get the following Apex Talent:
- Fired Up: Consuming Hot Streak has a chance to grant
you a stack of Fired Up, which increases your fire damage. Multiple
applications may overlap.
Fired Up: Gaining Fired Up reduces your Fire Blast
cooldown by 2.5 seconds per point, 2 points.
Fired Up: Combustion greatly increases the chance of
getting Fired Up, reducing each time you proc Fired Up. Also causes
Fired Up to extend Combustion by 1 second.
The Apex Talent is a strong damage increase, especially during
Combustion, further cementing Combustion as a very strong cooldown.
The bonus damage alone is great, but the reduced Fire Blast cooldown
also causes your Combustion to feel very fast paced.
2.3.2.
Hero Talent Changes
Frostfire has been streamlined to reduce buff tracking.
The tree now focuses on being visually appealing while buffing Fire's
core abilities and firing off additional Frost spells for extra damage.
Click to
expand
- The Fire/Frost Mastery buffs have been completely removed.
Meteor is further cemented as a strong ability for
Frostfire.
For example, 
Flash Freezeburn causes it to give
Frostfire Empowerment alongside the pre-existing
functionality
of 
Isothermic Core causing it to
also fire off a 
Comet Storm.- New talent:
Duality — Casting Pyroblast
has
a chance to fire a 
Glacial Spike.
- Many different talents increase the effectiveness of both your
Fire spells and your procced Frost spells, like
Elemental Conduit causing Comet Storm and
Glacial Spike to apply Mastery: Ignite,
Molten Chill increasing Ignite from all Frostfire spells,
Dualcasting Adept increasing the critical damage of Frost
spells, etc.
Sunfury has had any buffs you would previously track and
play around removed, while keeping the core fantasy of summoning a
Phoenix to do high burst damage.
Click to
expand
Burden of Power now passively increases Pyroblast
and Flamestrike damage instead of being proc-based.- New
Ashes of Inspiration talent — When your Arcane
Phoenix expires, grants Lesser Time Warp (20% Haste for 10 seconds).
- New
Pyrocosm talent — Fireball has a chance
to summon a Meteorite, which reduces the cooldown of
Fire Blast when it lands.
Sunfury Execution has been reworked — Causes
Pyroclasm to do more damage and causes Meteor to
proc Pyroclasm.
2.3.3.
Core Rotational Changes
The biggest change is the shift in pacing especially outside of
Combustion.
You will cast more Fireballs fishing for
Hot Streak and Heating Up procs. This is due to the removal
of many sources of guaranteed critical strikes and greatly reduced
Combustion uptime:
Phoenix Flames and all related talents have been removed.
Sun King's Blessing has been removed.
Hyperthermia has been removed.
To compensate, Fireball now has a significantly faster cast time
(1.8 sec baseline, down from 2.3 sec), making the rotation outside of
Combustion feel quite fast despite fewer guaranteed procs. Additionally, a
new proc in the form of Pyroclasm has been added, giving
Hot Streak a chance to make your next hardcast Pyroblast or
Flamestrike deal massively increased damage.
2.3.4.
Ignite and Cleave Changes
Mastery: Ignite has been reworked: It no longer automatically spreads
to nearby targets when you cast Fire Blast, and its base
effectiveness is reduced. However, you can regain Ignite spreading (and
more) through talents like Ignition and 
Wildfire, making
cleave builds a real trade-off instead of free damage.
Additionally, the entire 
Lit Fuse / Living Bomb set of
talents have been removed. However, these were all entirely passive
and barely ever picked anyway, so this does not meaningfully change
the rotation.
2.3.5.
Other Changes
- Mage defensives have been consolidated and simplified:
►
Click to expand
Blazing Barrier is now your primary defensive.
When fully talented into all supported talents it now
provides more absorption (30% max HP), damage reduction, and
healing you for 15% of damage absorbed. It also has a
shorter GCD so you can quickly return to DPSing.
Greater Invisibility and 
Mirror Image no
longer reduce damage taken — they are now purely
utility spells.
Mass Barrier has been removed.
Temporal Realignment has been added, which allows
you to self-heal after dropping to low health, at the cost
of some manual control over 
Alter Time. Alter Time
is normally mostly used for dealing with high burst damage,
but via Temporal Realignment, it can also be useful for
healing yourself up when you get low health from chip
damage.
- Mage Mobility has been slightly reduced and has a few tradeoffs to make now:
►
Click to expand
Shimmer now has only 1 charge base (was 2) and a 30
second cooldown (was 25) baseline. You can gain back the
lost charge, but it is now a trade-off between
Reflection and the extra
charge.
Blink can now be improved via talents:
Spatial Manipulation grants an extra charge,
Improved Blink reduces its cooldown.
Ice Floes has been removed.
- Various utility talents have been nerfed or changed into choice-nodes:
►
Click to expand
Shifting Power has been removed entirely.
Blast Wave has been removed from baseline (only
accessible via Sunfury talent, but very situational).
Ice Nova and 
Cone of Cold are now mutually
exclusive. 
Mass Polymorph and 
Ring of Frost are now
mutually exclusive.
Counterspell now interrupts for 7 seconds (was 5).
Frostfire
Sunfury
