3.3.5 Fire Mage
Marziabo Frechette
Welcome to our Fire Mage guide for WotLK Classic, tailoredfor PvE content. Here, you will learn how all you need to know to playFire Mage proficiently. Click the links below to navigate the guideor read this page for a short introduction.
Mage has three balanced PvE talent trees. This guide willlead you through the World of Fire Mage. WhileArcane Mages are considered thestrongest short fight nuke spec andFrost Mages are considered tobe leveling and PvP gods, Fire Mage excels at consistently doingthe highest overall damage in PvE. Fire Mage's playstyle is all about managing yourLiving Bomb and Hot Streak procs correctly.Generally, Fire is a blend between damage over time(DoT) spec and single target spells. Ignite, Living Bomb and the DoT fromPyroblast deal damage over time. However, the majority of damage still comesfrom direct damage spells, such as Fireball/Frostfire Bolt. Fire Mage isalso the strongest Mage spec when it comes to dealing AoE damage.
Fire Mage is brought to raids purely for their DPS value, crowdcontrol and food, as well as raid buffs, such as Arcane Brilliance and Focus Magic.If you want to speedrun raids with a lot of trash mobs, Frostfire Bolt (FFB)is the preferred spec. FFB has a stronger Blizzardand uses Firestarter, a free and instant Flamestrike, which procs from Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave.Furthermore, FFB is less Mana hungry than the single target damage variantTorment the Weak (TTW) spec, which uses Fireball as their mainsingle target spell. In consequence, TTW is the go for spec if you are not speedrunningor the raid you play does not have a lot of trash.
Generally, because Fire talents scale so well with gear, Fire Mage starts to surpassArcane in PvE as soon as the itemsfrom raids with Hit Rating also have better overall stats, which is the case from Tier 8 onwards.For PvP, Frost Mages are generally the betterchoice due to their huge arsenal of survivabilty, crowd control and burst damage tools.In our DPS rankings you can check out how Fire Mage isranked in the current tier. Ultimately, you should not let these listsstop you from playing the Mage spec you enjoy playing most.
For PvE, the decision making for Alliance players is not as easy as for HordeMages. Draenei boosts Hit by 1% for spell and physical attacksfrom Heroic Presence for the whole group (even in a raid,only the group in which the Draenei is in will affected, not the whole raid), which is in theory the best Allianceracial. The self-heal Gift of the Naaru is a cherry on top. However, the value ofthe Hit buff disappears as soon as there is another Draenei in yourgroup, in which case Gnome is the next best Alliance race withExpansive Mind. Especially for TTW, the 1% Hit from Heroic Presence isvery useful, as TTW requires a lot of Hit rating. In PvP, Human isthe best choice, as they have Perception and Will to Survive. If youhave a Draenei in your raid group and want to PVP as well, Gnome might be a goodcompromise between PVE and PVP performance, because Gnomes also haveEscape Artist.
Just as Undead, Draenei have a slightly higher resistance to Shadowspells. Their Gemcutting ability increases their Jewelcrafting skill. The twomost important racial traits are Heroic Presence and Gift of the Naaru.Heroic Presence increases the Hit chance of players grouped withyou, and Gift of the Naaru is a heal-over-time that scales with your level,usually used in niche situations such as healing while running away fromenemies.
Perception is a very strong passive ability, detecting any stealth class around you,giving you a massive advantage in PvP. While The Human Spirit isn't greatfor Mage, it's better than nothing. Diplomacy is useful any time you doa reputation grind and Will to Survive can be very strong in PvE and PvP. Thecombination of Perception and Will to Survive make Human a very good race forPvPers.
Gnome is very strong for PvE due to their Intellect boost from Expansive Mind, providing a useful buff to allthree Mage specs, especially for Arcane. Escape Artist is a very strongracial trait for both PvP and PvE, as it is instant in WotLK and on a low1.75-minute cooldown. The extra Arcane Resistance helps in a few PvEsituations. The bonus to Engineering is just as handy as any other races' professionbonuses.
Mana Tap and Arcane Torrentrestore Mana and also grant Mage a 2 second AoE silence,which can be used as an emergency Counterspell. The additional Magic Resistance decrease magicdamage taken slightly and as Arcane beings, Blood Elves have increasedEnchanting skill.
Trolls are the best PvE Horde race for Mage. The passive damage increase tobeasts is nice to have while leveling and farming beasts, but the realdeal is the increased cast speed from Berserking. This ability lets you cast 20%faster for 10 seconds. Further, Trolls are able to generate small amountsof Health during combat, an ability no other race has. Da Voodoo Shuffle reducesthe duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%.
The racial traits of Undead are most the powerful in PvP combat, but alsohave niche uses in PvE. Undead can cancel Charm, Fear and Sleep effects. When combinedwith Ice Block, this is a very strong ability. The Undead hunger for fresh bodies lets themfeast on their enemies' corpses, restoring Health very quickly. Being able tobreathe three times longer underwater than any other race, Undead do notneed to fear from drowning while doing underwater farming or questing, andUndead are more resistant to Shadow damage.
Engineering is without a doubt the best profession. Explosives, such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charge, deal a big chunkof extra damage and can be woven into your normal rotation using macros. In addition,Engineering offers access to several Best in Slotenchants, strong pre-raid items, such as Visage Liquification Goggles,and farming items like the Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, which can be used forfarming Eternals, such as Eternal Water.
In every phase of WotLK, Tailoring gives access to several verystrong Tailoring items, which last long in PvE content. One example from Phase 1 is the Ebonweave Robe. The key reason why Tailoring is so good for Mage isthe best in slot cloak enchant Lightweave Embroidery. To add to this, you can enchant your legsalmost for free, as the exclusive tailoring Sanctified Spellthread costsonly one Eternium Thread to make. While not important for PvE or PvP, Tailoring alsooffers Epic flying carpets, such as the Magnificent Flying Carpet, and allows you to craft several of the already mentionedBind on Equip items throughout the expansion, such as Merlin's Robe.
Besides Engineering and Tailoring, all the otherProfessions are not considered best in slot, however, thepower gap between Tailoring and the alternatives is small, but still noticable.The other professions listed below provide almost equal bonuses.Jewelcrafting offers more flexibility with Hit Rating, as 3x Rigid Dragon's Eyes provide 42 more Hit rating than 3x Rigid King's Amber, which canresult a use of stronger non-hit raid items. Leatherworking provides differentFur Linings, such as Fur Lining - Frost Resist or Fur Lining - Spell Power,which can flexibly be applied and changed between encounters for only one Arctic Fur.This, however, is considered to be a niche use of this profession. The following list provides youwith more information about the bonuses each profession can give:
In the whole Fire tree, there is only two talents that have something to do with mana. Master of Elements, which refunds 10/20/30% of fire or frost spell base mana cost on a critical hit. And Pyromaniac, which reduces mana costs of fire spells by a whopping 3%. In the Frost talent tree, you can get another whopping 3% mana cost reduction.
Fire tree could use some mana efficiency or mana regeneration buffs without forcing mages to go up 20 points in Arcane tree. In PvP you get oom very quickly and you do not even need to cast many spells, basic survival costs lot of mana. You can forget about using mana shield because it will hit your mana pool too hard.
I disagree. Fire has the benefit of damage, frost has the benefit of mana efficiency (among others). Being really annoyed at not having enough points for talents or not having all the talents you want is just kind of part of the game.
The benefit of damage melts away when in the middle of a raid encounter you have to stop for evocation for 6 seconds. And the whole point of this topic was the fact that you can get all mana talents and they still will not make a difference. The talents are simply too weak in design to sustain mana.
Another point I forgot to mention is molten armor vs. mage armor. Mage armor allows 30% of mana regeneration to continue while casting. Molten armor provides +3 crit which fire mages need in order to deal proper damage. However, during raid encounters you are pretty much forced to use the mage armor.
You lose about half of your total mana casting fireball in order to gain enough mana from Master of Elements to get one free fireball, do you think this is talent is effective? It is better than nothing, but do you think it is effective?
Dude, what are you even talking about? The entire dichotomy of arcane vs fire in PvE is that fire has infinite mana, and squeezes in additional dps by using destro pots, molten shield etc.
In PvP you play frost anyway and just lance them to death so w/e.
Your post makes no sense to me. Arcane you play your mana bar and pay druids to innervate you, fire you play cooldowns basically and haste scaling.
What you need to look at in this issue, is Master of Elements a good mana restoring talent or not? In my opinion it is not and I have made my case about it. You all seem to agree with me because you all are unable address the actual issue and instead bring up shadow priests, mana totems and paladin buffs. All of these arguments actually support my position in this topic, because in order to not have any kind of mana issues, you need these classes as a fire mage. However, if some of these classes are missing, you will run out of mana even if you do all mage tricks.
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