The information that I used as research comes first from Totalhalibut's YouTube mage guide:
and secondly from simply reading the talents myself. I took Total's recommendations and scaled them down for lower leveled mages and then I will build it back up for level 80 and finish up with the full Cataclysm rotation that he finishes the video with.
Before we begin, I want to list the talents that you will not be taking. Please keep in mind that this entire blog is directed towards PvE gameplay and not PvP. Here's the list:
- Blazing Speed - b/c this isn't pvp and your talents can be better spent elsewhere
- Improved Scorch - b/c you won't be casting it much anyway
- Molten Shields - again, more pvp related
- Firestarter - this one you may want to take when you start doing Cataclysm instances that require you to be on the move a lot more, but you can wait to decide on that later on.
Level 25
To begin with, at soon as you hit level 25, go to the AH and get yourself the Glyph of Fireball. This glyph adds 5% crit to your fireball spell. This is massively valuable to you because at this point you should already have two talents that are directly affected by your spell crits. The first one gives you back mana and the other one turns your spells into free dots. So more mana and more damage.
Level 29
By level 29 you will begin to use what I consider the most valuable talent in the fire tree: Hot Streak. At this time your talent tree should look something like this:
You can see the two talents that benefit from spell crit. Master of Elements returns 30% of your base mana every time you crit. And Ignite take your spell crits and make 40% of your damage become additional damage over time. Spell Crit is your friend, indeed. ^_^
Feel free to put your 2 points of Impact into Fire Power instead, but I figure at these levels your tanks are probably pulling multiple targets and you'll want the extra aoe dmg potential, but that's your call. The important point here is that if you limit yourself to only 5 points in the first tier and 5 points in the 2nd tier, then you can put that 1 point you get at level 29 into Hot Streak.
Also, Total recommends putting your 3 points all into Burning Soul instead of 1 point and 2 in Improved Fire Blast like I recommended. Later I recommend the same thing, so if you don't want to spend the gold on respecing later, then go ahead and do it Total's way from the start. However, bear in mind that you will then no longer have the 8% Fire Blast crit that I reference below. Overall you may consider that a non-issue.
What's so special about Hot Streak? Every time you crit with fireball, you have a chance of procing Pyroblast, making it instant cast and mana free. There are other spells that trigger it also, such as Fire Blast. If you follow the recommendation link above, you'll have an 8% chance to crit with that. So 8% with Fire Blast and 5% with Fireball = increased chances of a free and instant Pyroblast. So here is the rotation I recommend at this stage of the game:
- spam Fireball
- Fire Blast whenever it's up
- on hot streak only: Pyroblast
Level 39
As early as level 39 you will be able to put your first point into Improved Hot Streak, which essentially increases your chances of procing Pyroblast, which is fabulous. So now, when you get two non-periodic crits in a row, you have a 50% (and at level 41 it becomes 100%) chance to proc Pyroblast. BTW non-periodic means that your crits from dots don't count for inducing a proc. The following is the talent setup that I recommend (obviously at 41 you use that talent point to complete your Improved Hot Streak):Notice that I took a point in Blast Wave. This is great for aoe damage on trash pulls and you should definitely add it to your rotation. So your spell priorities should look pretty much the same, but for the one additional spell:
- spam Fireball
- Fire Blast whenever it's up
- on hot streak only: Pyroblast immediately upon procing
- if more than one mob: Blast Wave
Even if there are no other mobs around to spread your dots, Fire Blast is still good to cast because it adds to proc potential for Pyroblast. I believe at the later levels hot streak will proc more frequently and you will not need Fire Blast anymore, but we'll get to that later.
Level 59
At level 59, Scorch finally has a valuable purpose to in your rotation thanks to a talent called Critical Mass. Here is the recommended talent tree:
You will eventually want to take Dragon's Breath because it's required to get Living Bomb, but there is no use in investing those points now. Total said the spell is a waste of your time. The new talents that we've picked up include Combustion, which turns all those nice crit-induced buffs back into direct damage and creates a new dot that lasts 10seconds. Total recommends that you wait on using Combustion until you have a high crit on Pyroblast or Fireball. This is because the dot from Ignite is based on 40% of your crit damage. So, the more you crit for, the more damage your Ignite dot will have. The more your Ignite dot has, the more your Combustion dot will do in turn.
In addition to Combustion you'll have Molten Fury which increases the amount of damage you do when your target is near death. More damage is always nice. :) You will also pickup Improved Flamestrike. This talent is really awesome for aoe/trash pull damage. Not only does it turn your Flamestrike into an instant cast spell, it will be automatically cast every time that your Blast Wave hits more than one target! Awesome, right? :)
In order to access all these lower tree goodies, I also grabbed Cauterize from the third tier. Hopefully you will never need this, but it's nice to have the instant and free reincarnation just in case.
Okay so all of this so you can get to Critical Mass. Here's what's so awesome about that talent. It does make your Living Bomb and Flame Orb do more damage, but at this stage of the game you don't have that yet so that doesn't matter right now. What matters is the 5% extra crit it produces from the target that has your Critical Mass debuff. Remember, we love crit because it not only means more mana and more dots, but it also means more hot streaks! You will be getting this extra crit initially by casting scorch. At level 59 you only have a 33% chance of procing the debuff on your target, so you might have to cast it more than once until you reach level 63 and then it becomes 100% chance upon casting scorch. Until then, you will continuously cast scorch until it procs OR if you're lucky enough that your scorches induce a hot streak, then throw in a Pyroblast because Pyroblast also has a chance to induce the Critical Mass debuff. But again, at level 63, your first scorch will be all that it takes. Once you have that debuff, continue with your rotation.
Okay so without further ado, here is your new rotation:
- Scorch (until you get Critical Mass, which will take only 1 casting at level 63 when you make it 100%)
- spam Fireball
- Fire Blast whenever it's up
- on hot streak only: Pyroblast immediately upon procing
- Combustion: save for when you have a nice, high crit from Pyroblast or Fireball
- if more than one mob: Blast Wave (flamestrike will go down automatically)
At this time, if you feel you are getting enough crits with Fireball to induce Hot Streak and no longer want Fire Blast in your rotation aside from spreading your dots, you may wish to swap your talents to Total's recommendation in that top tree - giving yourself full points in Burning Soul and no points in Improved Fire Blast. That is of course assuming that you didn't already make it that way from the start.
Level 69
Moving on, level 69 is the earliest point that you can get Living Bomb.
Living Bomb is a dot that lasts 12 seconds. When those seconds are over, it explodes and does aoe damage to nearby enemies. To get to it, you'll need to pick up the Dragon's Breath as we discussed at the top and 1 point in Pyromaniac. Once you have Living Bomb, your rotation grows into this:
- Scorch (only once now b/c you have it at 100%)
- Living Bomb
- spam Fireball
- on hot streak only: Pyroblast immediately upon procing
- Combustion: save for when you have a nice, high crit from Pyroblast or Fireball
- if more than one mob: Blast Wave(flamestrike will go down automatically)/Fire Blast
Your final rotation change will come at level 81, when you finally get Flame Orb. At this stage, Total's video of rotation recommendation comes into full effect:
- Scorch (only once now b/c you have it at 100%)
- Living Bomb
- Flame Orb
- spam Fireball
- on hot streak only: Pyroblast immediately upon procing
- Combustion: save for when you have a nice, high crit from Pyroblast or Fireball
- if more than one mob: Blast Wave(flamestrike will go down automatically)/Fire Blast
Level 71 and beyond
The following is a list of the remaining talents I recommend beyond level 69.
Put your last point into Pyromaniac.
3 Points - Arcane Concentration (Clearcasting!)
3 Points - Piercing Ice (Spell Crit!)
2-3 Points - Netherwind Presence (Spell Haste!)
Depending on your preference and experience when Cataclysm comes out, that final variable point for spell haste can be used to pickup Firestart and allow you to cast Scorch while moving.
This concludes my Fire Mage Guide. Please bear in mind that I am in no way an expert on mages. Not only is a mage not my main class, my highest level mage is still running Burning Crusade content. This is simply my logical recommendations based on the research I have done from watching Totalhalibut's video and reading the talent trees. I may be completely wrong about a lot of things, but it's a great place to start if you are new to the game or simply just want to try something different to see if it will work better for you.
If you have any questions, particularly an explanation of some of the geek terms that have been abbreviated or simply left undefined, feel free to put it in a comment. Hope some of you found this useful! If this proves successful, I may post another one for Frost Mages.
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