Fire Guide [11.1.0]
1. Introduction
Fire is a spec that revolves around interactive critical strikes and burst damage, while possessing some unique mechanics such as casting while casting.
Strengths:
Good Mobility.
Minor execute with Searing Touch and Improved Scorch.
Excellent cleave damage when targets are near each other via Ignite
Strong defensive kit & cheat death in Cauterize.
Time Warp, Arcane Intellect, & the class tree provide a wide range of dungeon utility.
Drawbacks:
No spread AOE or cleave.
Sun King's Blessing and Kindling overly punish the spec for not maintaining uptime.
Competes with the other mage specs for similar strengths.
Main raid utility is Arcane Intellect which does not make stacking the class appealing.
Extremely low passive tankiness. Defensive kit is all proactive which requires spec comfort or encounter knowledge.
The full patch notes can be found here: The War Within - Undermine(d) Update Notes
General- Call Of The Sun King now only grants one additional Phoenix Flames
- Phoenix Reborn now refunds one Phoenix Flames.
- Fire Blast cooldown increased to 14 seconds.
- Excess Fire now triggers when you cast Meteor.
- Excess Fire can now stack up to two times.
- Excess Frost now triggers when you consume Excess Fire
- Rune of Power has been removed.
- The talent tree rework changes what tools we have access to. However the tools themselves have undergone minimal change.
- Dragon's Breath, Blast Wave, Ice Floes, Ice Nova and Greater Invisibility are available to all mage specs.
- Ignite is spread via Fire Blast.
- Mages once again have Alter Time.
- Mirror Image is now a defensive utility cooldown rather than a damage one.
- Spell buffs such as Combustion only affect spell damage. Other sources of damage, such as trinkets, are unaffected.
- Mages once again have Remove Curse and Arcane Intellect
2. Spells & Abilities
- Fireball - Filler ability, it does low damage and is used to generate Heating Up.
- Fire Blast - Medium damage ability that always crits and is usable while casting. The primary use of Fire Blast is to convert Heating Up gained from Fireball into Hot Streak so we can use our payoff spells.
- Pyroblast - High damage single target ability with a long cast time. It becomes an instant cast spell while Hot Streak is active.
- Flamestrike - AOE ability with a long cast time. It becomes an instant cast spell while Hot Streak is active.
- Scorch - Very low damage, short cast time ability that can be cast while moving.
- Phoenix Flames - Instant cast, charge based spell with a slow travel time.
- Combustion - Primary DPS cooldown. It gives us 100% critical strike chance for 10 seconds.
- Living Bomb - DOT that explodes for AOE damage. All enemies hit become a Living Bomb.
- Blazing Barrier - Small shield for 60 seconds.
- Mirror Image - Creates 3 copies of your character for 40 seconds. While an image is active your damage taken is reduced by 20%, and taking direct damage causes an image to dissipate.
- Alter Time - Snapshots your current location and health. The spell can be reactivated again within 10 seconds to return you to said location and health.
- Ice Block - Immunity that prevents all damage and debuffs but renders you unable to perform other actions while its active.
- Greater Invisibility - Turns us invisible immediately and provides a 60% damage reduction. Can be used to fizzle several targeted boss abilities.
- Shifting Power - Channeled spell that deals very low AoE damage and reduces all your remaining cooldowns by 12 seconds.
- Arcane Intellect - Increases your raids/groups Intellect by 3% for 1 hour.
- Blink - Teleports you 20 yards forwards. Our main mobility tool.
- Spellsteal - Steals or purges 1 beneficial magic buff from an enemy target.
- Remove Curse - Dispels all curses from a friendly target.
- Cone Of Cold - Frontal cone AoE that damages and slows all targets hit.
- Dragon's Breath - Frontal cone AoE that damages and disorientates all targets hit.
- Blast Wave - Knocks back, slows and damages all nearby enemies.
- Frost Nova - Freezes, roots and damages all nearby enemies.
3. Talents
Talent Import String: C8DAJHMkDNl9e4q1zfgySSx9jbGMbzCmhxs4BYmZGmGzMmBAAAAAgBCYmZaZWWmBAymxMYMzYmxsYWGzYmhZ2mhZWwAAAAAAAA
While both hero specializations are viable, for the majority of the playerbase I recommend Sunfury for it's mobility and flexibility..
SunfuryVery high mobility.
High Combustion uptime.
Excellent low target cleave.
Great AOE with Flamestrike
Very high apm.
Reliant on procs.
Worse defensively.
Instantaneous AOE with Meteor.
Slightly higher pure Single Target.
Great defensive.
Lower APM.
Less frequent Combustion.
Less resources overall.
Needs to plant and cast Frostfire Bolt.
Favors more specialized gearing.
4. Rotation
4.1 Rotation Overview
The fire mage rotation revolves around 3 main concepts:
- Maximising Hot Streak generation
- Maximising damage during Combustion
- Maximizing cooldown reduction on Combustion via Kindling
4.2 Hot Streak
Fire is based around maximising Hot Streak. Hot Streak is gained by achieving two direct critical strikes in a row. One critical strike gives us Heating Up, and a critical strike while Heating Up is active gives us Hot Streak. Hot Streak makes our next Pyroblast or Flamestrike instant cast and doubles its Ignite damage. In order to assist us with this, Fire mage possesses the unique ability to cast Fire Blast while casting, making it easier to convert Heating Up into Hot Streak.
When fire is conserving resources for Combustion, we utilize what is called 'fishing':
- Cast Fireball until one critically strikes and gives us Heating Up.
- Use Fire Blast to convert the Heating Up into a Hot Streak.
- Consume the Hot Streak using Pyroblast or Flamestrike.
- Repeat the sequence, using any additional abilities such as Meteor, Phoenix Flames and Sun King's Blessing procs in between.
Note that by the time a Fireball reaches the target and critically strikes you will be already casting another Fireball - continue to cast, cast Fire Blast while casting, and consume the Hot Streak with Pyroblast at the end of the cast.
When we are in these resource conservation phases, we will utilize the fishing technique, queueing our instant cast Pyroblast behind a non-instant cast (usually Fireball, but sometimes Pyroblast) so that both spells hit the target at the same time. This is because there is a small grace window where if one spell crits and the other doesn’t, we don’t lose the Heating Up gained from the spell that crit. Do note that this trick does not work with Scorch due to its faster travel time, so keep that in mind when moving or using Searing Touch.
An additional note for the Hot Streak cycles is the concept of 'Munching'. Munching occurs when you cast a Heating Up generator (Fire Blast,Phoenix Flames,Frostfire Bolt) while already having a Hot Streak, while not having the ability to consume the Hot Streak before the Heating Up is granted, wasting the generator. Consuming a Hot Streak while at maximum stacks of Sun King's Blessing is another form of munching.
Other spells we have that do not interact with this Hot Streak build/spend flow such as Meteor and Shifting Power, can be used at any time after a Pyroblast.
4.3 Combustion
Combustion is our main DPS cooldown and where a lot of our damage comes from. To maximise damage during Combustion, we want to enter Combustion with 2+ charges of Fire Blast, and 2+ charges of Phoenix Flames. This is incredibly important but especially when playing with Unleashed Inferno This pooling logic also applies to Combustion gained via Sun King's Blessing.
Our goal during Combustion is to cast as many Pyroblast as possible. An ideal Combustion consists of chaining instant casts. Every Pyroblast will give you Heating Up, so you only need to cast one other spell to gain Hot Streak. This additional spell should be Fire Blast, Phoenix Flames or Scorch. Use Ice Nova as your final global if you do not have time to generate AND spend another Hot Streak before Combustion ends.
Consuming Sun King's Blessing while in Combustion adds 6 seconds to your current Combustion. However casting Combustion while one is already active via Sun King's Blessing will simply reset your Combustion to its base duration.
Combustion should be used on cooldown as much as possible. It can be delayed slightly for things such as extra damage phases, or add spawns to take advantage of the additional Ignite cleave, as long as you do not lose a Combustion cast during that encounter.
There are a few situations where we might Scorch during Combustion. You should be aware of the 'double pyro' trick. This essentially let's us cast 2 Pyroblast in a row without generating in between. This only works if all spells are guaranteed to crit.
Why does this work?
- Your Scorch cast with Hot Streak finishes
- You do not gain Heating Up/Hot Streak immediately because there is a server side delay on buff application
- Hot Streak is consumed by Pyroblast
- You gain Heating Up from the Scorch once the server is done applying the buff
- Pyroblast lands and converts Heating Up into Hot Streak
- You can Pyroblast again
4.4 Opener
Precast Fireball/Pyroblast into Phoenix Flames and enter Combustion afterwards.
4.5 Priority
4.5.1 Combustion Priority
- Cast Pyroblast with Hot Streak.
- Cast Scorch if Improved Scorch has less than 4 seconds left or you have Heat Shimmer.
- Cast Fire Blast with Heating Up.
- Cast Phoenix Flames with Heating Up.
- Cast Scorch if you are able to complete the cast before Combustion expires.
When over 100% haste, you should cast Fireball in Combustion over Scorch.
This season, Hyperthread Wristwraps are available once again. To use these, two of our previous casts must have been Fire Blast, and we want to be completely out of Fire Blast charges.
Priority during Hyperthermia:
- Cast Fire Blast with Heating Up to prevent capping charges.
- Cast Pyroblast
4.5.2 Priority outside Combustion
Filler priority with no Combustion or Hyperthermia:
- Cast Shifting Power after Hyperthermia from Memory Of Al'ar.
- Cast Pyroblast with Hot Streak.
- Cast Scorch if Improved Scorch has less than 4 seconds.
- Cast Scorch with Heat Shimmer.
- Cast Phoenix Flames to prevent overcapping on charges or munching Flame's Fury.
- Cast Fire Blast if you are about to cap on charges.
- Cast Fire Blast with Heating Up.
- Cast Scorch if the target is below 30% health.
- Cast Fireball.
5. AOE Rotation
5.1 AOE Overview
The AOE rotation can be split into 2 distinct styles based on what spell you want to spend Hot Streak on.
- Pyroblast and Ignite based AOE. Good for cleave or priority damage. Has signfiicant ramp time to build up to full strength.
- Flamestrike based AOE. Good for high target counts, and for front-loading your damage.
With current tuning I recommend Ignite for priority damage and Flamestrike for AOE damage at 5+ targets.
The target cutoffs for when to use each varies based on the talents you have taken.
- Builds that take Firefall will want to use Pyroblast even into extremely high target counts to maximize meteors.
- Builds that take Quickflame or Flame Patch will usually start pressing Flamestrike at 5 targets.
- Builds that take both can be considered "Hybrid" builds and can use either as the situation dictates, trading maximum output for flexibility.
5.2 Ignite
Ignite is spread from the primary target to nearby targets via Fire Blast. Therefore Ignite based AOE involves the same rotation as single target.
- Hot Streak doubles the Ignite damage of the affected spell.
- Ignite deals damage over time based on your Mastery. With 36% mastery, a spell that deals 10k damage would deal 3.6k damage over 9 seconds through Ignite.
- Ignite ticks every second. so in the above example Ignite would tick 9 times dealing 400 damage per tick.
- When Ignite is applied to a target with an already active Ignite, the duration is extended so that Ignite will tick 10 times. The duration will be somewhere between 9 and 10 seconds.
- If the above Ignite had ticked 5 times there would be 1.1k Ignite damage remaining (this is referred to as the Ignite bank).
- If you cast another spell for 10k with 36% Mastery (3.6k Ignite damage). The Ignite bank would increase to 4.7k. The bank is then evenly re-distributed across all 10 ticks. Meaning each tick would do 470 damage.
- When you cast Fire Blast. The 4 (or 8) targets with the smallest Ignite bank within range of the primary target are chosen as potential spread targets. If the Ignite bank on a given target is smaller than the primary target, the primary Ignite successfully spreads & overwrites the old one. If the Ignite bank on a given target is larger than the primary target, nothing happens and that potential Ignite spread is lost.
- When you cast Fire Blast the following events happen in order:
- Ignite is spread.
- Fire Blast damage is dealt.
- Feel The Burn is gained.
The most important thing to keep in mind with Ignite based AOE is to make sure your priority target lives for as long as possible. While we will initially build up and spread a massive Ignite bank during Combustion. We can keep the damage 'rolling' by consistently DPSing the same target. Each spell we cast will redistribute the Ignite bank across all 10 ticks and spread it again, drastically increasing our cleave DPS.
5.3 Flamestrike AOE Rotation
The crux of Flamestrike based AOE is simply replacing Pyroblast with Flamestrike.
Blizzard restricts the ability to cast our reticle casts (Meteor, Flamestrike) with '@Target' macros. Instead, use an '@Cursor' macro like below.
#showtooltip
/cast @cursor Flamestrike5.3.1 Combustion Priority
- Cast Pyroblast or Flamestrike with Hot Streak.
- Cast Fire Blast with Heating Up.
- Cast Phoenix Flames with Heating Up.
- Cast Scorch if you are able to complete the cast before Combustion expires.
When over 100% haste, you should cast Fireball in Combustion over Scorch.
Priority during Hyperthermia:
- Cast Fire Blast with Heating Up to prevent capping charges.
- Cast Pyroblast
5.3.2 Priority outside Combustion
- Cast Shifting Power after Hyperthermia from Memory Of Al'ar.
- Cast Pyroblast or Flamestrike with Hot Streak.
- Cast Fire Blast if you are about to cap on charges.
- Cast Fire Blast with Heating Up.
- Cast Phoenix Flames.
- Cast Scorch if the target is below 30% health.
- Cast Fireball.
6. Stats & Gearing
6.1 Stats
Fire has no stat breakpoints, no hard caps, and no specific stat percentages to aim for - that's not how stats work anymore.
- Haste reduces the cast time of our spells, the global cooldown, and the recharge time of Fire Blast.
- Versatility provides a flat damage increase and damage taken reduction.
- Critical Strike increases the critical strike rate of our abilities and therefore the rate at which we generate Hot Streak. It also increases our Mastery during Combustion with Improved Combustion. With Kindling critical strike increases our frequency of Combustion.
- Mastery - Ignite causes our direct damage spells to deal additional damage over 9 seconds based on the damage of the original spell. Can be spread via Fire Blast.
Due to the large stat budget on items, item level will usually be an upgrade. Stat weights vary depending on your current gear and talents. To accurately compare items you must sim yourself. Remember that Mastery value increases when cleaving with Ignite.
Sunfury stat priority::
- Haste
- Intellect
- Mastery
- Versatility
- Critical Strike
Frostfire stat priority::
- Haste
- Intellect
- Versatility
- Mastery
- Critical Strike
This does not mean that an item with intellect is always better than one without.
- Firestarter drastically reduces the value of Critical Strike rating.
- Searing Touch slightly reduces the value of Critical Strike rating.
- Kindling slightly increases the value of Critical Strike rating.
- Feel The Burn slightly reduces the value of Mastery rating.
- Flame Patch increases the value of Haste when casting Flamestrike.
6.2 Trinkets
Because active trinkets share a cooldown, we generally want to pick up one active trinket and one passive trinket. For up to date trinket data please refer to the sims page of the site.
Notably, Nueral Synapse Enhancer is in this season's loot pool, and shares a cooldown with on-use trinkets.
6.3 Crafting
Recommended Embellishments:
- Duskthread Lining is currently the most powerful embellishment if you can maintain uptime, however this is not always possible. The best slots to craft this in are Bracers, Belt, and Feet.
- Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension paired with a Writing Armor Band is a very strong choice for raid and single target.
- Elemental Focusing Lense is also a good choice when a weapon craft is not optimal for you.
- Which of these you choose as your early crafts will vary based on your loot luck, sim yourself for best results.
7. Consumables
- Phial: Flask of Tempered Swiftness
- Potion: Tempered Potion
- Rune: Crystallized Augment Rune
- Food: The Sushi Special
- Chest: Crystalline Radiance
- Weapon: Sophic Devotion
- Legs: Sunset Spellthread
- Ring: Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste
- Bracers: Devotion of Avoidance
- Cloak: Chant of Burrowing Rapidity
- Feet: Defender's March
- Gems: You will want to have at least four different color gems to empower your Culminating Blasphemite. Use the Top Gear tool in Raidbots to determine your best four.
8. Racials
Fire generally has more impactful DPS racials than some of the other specs in the game. Utility racials still remain powerful and are worth consideration.
8.1 Horde
- Tauren - Brawn makes Tauren the best Horde race for Fire. It does the same DPS as Dwarf but has a worse utility racial.
- Troll/Orc - Berserking & Blood Fury are competitive DPS racials that have the advantage of making the damage more burst oriented than Dwarf/Tauren
- Goblin - Rocket Jump is one of the few useful utility racials while Time is Money keeps the race somewhat competitive for DPS.
8.2 Alliance
- Dwarf - Might of the Mountain makes Dwarf the best race for Fire. It does the same DPS as Tauren but has better utility in Stoneform.
- Void Elf - Spatial Rift is one of the few useful utility racials while Entropic Embrace keeps the race somewhat competitive for DPS.
9. Macros
Macro all cooldowns, racials, and items into one key.
#showtooltip /cast Combustion /cast Blood Fury /cast Berserking /use 11 /use 12 /use 13 /use 14 /use 2
The macro below can be used to automatically cancel Ice Block if you try to cast a spell while blocked; and automatically targets something if you try to cast a spell with no target. [nochanneling] will also allow you to spam the key without cancelling Shifting Power:
#showtooltip /cancelaura Ice Block /cast [nochanneling] Fireball /targetenemy [noexists][dead]
Automatically cast ground targeted abilities wherever your mouse cursor is, saving you a click. Example with Flamestrike, works for all other ground targeted spells, such as Meteor:
#showtooltip /cast [@cursor] Flamestrike
Can be used to cancel Ice Block and immediately Blink. Useful when Ice Blocked in a void zone as you'll Blink out and take no damage. Also works with Shimmer:
#showtooltip /cancelaura Ice Block /cast Blink
Counterspell. Prioritizes Mouseover > Focus > Target:
#showtooltip Counterspell /cast [@mouseover,harm][@focus,harm][harm] Counterspell
Spellsteal. Prioritizes Mouseover > Focus > Target:
#showtooltip Spellsteal /cast [@mouseover,harm][@focus,harm][harm] Spellsteal
Mouseover Remove Curse:
#showtooltip Remove Curse /cast [@mouseover]Remove Curse
10. Advanced
10.1 Cancelling Alter Time
Alter Time snapshots our current location and health. The spell can then be reactivated within 10 seconds to return us to said location and health. However if the buff expires we will be returned regardless, which sometimes we may not want to do.
If we cancel the Alter Time buff, it will not automatically be activated at the end of the duration, allowing us to stay where we are.
/cancelaura Alter Time
10.2 How Ignite Works
- Hot Streak doubles the Ignite damage of the affected spell.
- Ignite deals damage over time based on your Mastery. With 36% mastery, a spell that deals 10k damage would deal 3.6k damage over 9 seconds through Ignite.
- Ignite ticks every second. so in the above example Ignite would tick 9 times dealing 400 damage per tick.
- When Ignite is applied to a target with an already active Ignite, the duration is extended so that Ignite will tick 10 times. The duration will be somewhere between 9 and 10 seconds.
- If the above Ignite had ticked 5 times there would be 1.1k Ignite damage remaining (this is referred to as the Ignite bank).
- If you cast another spell for 10k with 36% Mastery (3.6k Ignite damage). The Ignite bank would increase to 4.7k. The bank is then evenly re-distributed across all 10 ticks. Meaning each tick would do 470 damage.
- When you cast Fire Blast. The 4 (or 8) targets with the smallest Ignite bank within range of the primary target are chosen as potential spread targets. If the Ignite bank on a given target is smaller than the primary target, the primary Ignite successfully spreads & overwrites the old one. If the Ignite bank on a given target is larger than the primary target, nothing happens and that potential Ignite spread is lost.
- When you cast Fire Blast the following events happen in order:
- Ignite is spread.
- Fire Blast damage is dealt.
- Feel The Burn is gained.
10.3 Double Pyro Trick
There are a few situations where we might Scorch during Combustion. You should be aware of the 'double pyro' trick. This essentially let's us cast 2 Pyroblast in a row without generating in between. This only works if all spells are guaranteed to crit.
Why does this work?
- Your Scorch cast with Hot Streak finishes
- You do not gain Heating Up/Hot Streak immediately because there is a server side delay on buff application
- Hot Streak is consumed by Pyroblast
- You gain Heating Up from the Scorch once the server is done applying the buff
- Pyroblast lands and converts Heating Up into Hot Streak
- You can Pyroblast again
11. FAQ
What does the acronym IB stand for?
Fire Blast. The spell used to be called Inferno Blast and IB is used to prevent confusion with Fireball.
Does Fire scale more with stats or crit than other specs?
No it doesn't. This is incredibly outdated information and hasn't been true for 10 years at this point. Fire does not start expansions relatively weaker and become relatively stronger later, specs do not work like that anymore.
Why am I always criting on dummies!?
You have Firestarter selected.
How do I sim Mythic+?
There is no single sim that will represent a Mythic+ dungeon. Looking at the results of multiple Patchwerk sims with different numbers of targets and various settings can help you understand what is good in different situations. Note that very short sim durations and fight styles other than Patchwerk can be misleading and are therefore NOT recommended.
What stat percentages should I aim for?
Nothing, you don't aim for specific percentages of stats. There are very few stat breakpoints in the game that are of utmost importance, and any that are will be reflected in sims. You equip the gear that gives you the most DPS with almost no thought on what stat percentages that leaves you at.
Should I use Pawn?
No, it's an outdated addon, based on an outdated way of thinking about the game. It relies too heavily on stat weights being an accurate method of comparing gear, which they aren't. Just use top gear and never think about stat weights ever.
What should I set my Spell Queue Window to?
If you don't know why you're changing it leave it at the default (400). You can print out your current Spell Queue Window by entering this command /dump GetCVar("SpellQueueWindow") ingame.
Should I use Arcane Momentum?
Generally I would advise against it as it's more error prone and currently has multiple different bugs.
My sim says this thing gives X stat, but in game I get Y?
Raidbots takes it's tooltips from Wowhead. They may not necessarily lineup with the values being used by the sim. Always check the HTML report.