Fire Mage PvE Guide

Welcome to the Fire Mage guide for PvE in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic. In this guide, we will go over talents, rotation, gearing and gemming/enchanting. Feel free to use the above links to navigate to specific sections of the guide.

Best Races

There are a total of six playable races for Mages. Each faction having three each.

Alliance

• Human: With few scenarios present in PvE for Mages to benefit from Perception, the main racial that Mages would benefit from with being Human would be The Human Spirit, increasing their total spirit by 10%. Of course, it’s also a benefit to have Diplomacy, increasing your reputation gains by 10%, as well.
• Gnomes: With an expanded mana pool thanks to Expansive Mind, their intellect is increased by 5%. Gnomes also benefit from Escape Artist, allowing for two forms of getting rid of snares/stuns, thanks to Blink.
• Draenei: Draenei have two beneficial racials; Inspiring Presence, which increases both you and your entire party’s chance to hit with spells by 1%, and Gift of the Naaru, which is a free Heal-over-time (HoT) you can use in dire situations.

Horde

• Undead: Undeads aren’t gifted with racials that directly benefit a Mage.
• Troll: Trolls, on the other hand, are gifted with two racials that benefit mages quite substantially. Berserking allows you to increase your casting speed by 10-30% (The actual speed is dependent on how much health you have when you activate it) Slightly less useful, Beast Slaying does increase your damage against beast targets by 5%.
• Blood Elf: Blood Elves are gifted with Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent which allows you to silence mobs in an Area-of-Effect (AoE) situation and also regenerate mana, respectively, based on how many charges of Mana Tap you currently have.

Best Alliance Race: Because you will likely be able to have a Draenei Shaman in your group thanks to TBC offering the option now, you won’t necessarily need an Inspiring Presence of your own. Also, from a realistic standpoint, an increase of 10% to your Spirit isn’t as vital as the ability to break Crowd Control spells more than once. Gnomes would be the best choice for mobility, survivability and with the increased mana pool, DPS.

Best Horde Race: As an example, on a 2-second cast, Berserking would reduce it to 1.4 – 1.8 (10% = 1.8, 30% = 1.4) This would be a major asset in raiding environments while Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent would both be a major asset in dungeons and heroics. I’d have to give it to Trolls as Berserking has longevity past dungeons and heroics.

Best Professions

Blacksmithing: Mages don’t benefit from Blacksmithing, and it’s not recommended that you choose this profession.

Leatherworking: Apart from being able to craft things like Drums of Battle, Mages don’t benefit greatly from Leatherworking and it’s not recommended you pick this profession. Especially since Blizzard has confirmed that the various different Drums items will be nerfed upon launch.

Tailoring: By far the most important profession for any Mage to pick up. We are able to craft high-end pieces of gear that rival that of Tier 5 before we even enter Karazhan such as the Spellstrike and Spellfire armor sets. We are also able to craft our leg enchants, Mystic Spellthread and Runic Spellthread.

Alchemy: Along with the ability to craft various potions, flasks and elixirs, Alchemy allows players to craft Alchemist’s Stone. Becoming an Alchemist opens the door for some serious gold-making with the opportunity to utilizing transmuting.

Jewelcrafting: Jewelcrafting allows players to craft strong trinkets and unique gems. One notable trinket available in Phase 1 would be Figurine – Living Ruby Serpent. Some notable unique gems would be Blood of Amber and Don Julio’s Heart.

Engineering: Engineering allows for players to craft powerful helmets such as Gnomish Power Goggles, but as a Mage we should focus on crafting Spellstrike Hood. From a PvE standpoint, Engineering doesn’t offer the most benefit out of the professions.

Enchanting: Enchanting provides you the opportunity to increase your total spell damage by 24 by using Enchant Ring – Spellpower on each of your rings. Note: As confirmed by Blizzard, TBC Classic will NOT allow enchanters to enchant their rings, drop Enchanting, pick up a new profession and continue to benefit  from Enchant Ring – Spellpower unlike in original TBC.

Gathering Professions: Since Tailoring doesn’t require a gathering profession in order to maintain, that allows to pick up another production profession or Enchanting.