PvE Fire Mage Rotation, Cooldowns, & Abilities (SoM)

• Author: Amery
• Date: March 15, 2022
• Updated: March 25, 2022
• Expansion: WoW Classic

Rotation & Gameplay Tips

To successfully raid as a fire mage, it is important to know when your specialization is appropriate to use. Somewhere you should never bring a fire mage is Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, as nearly every enemy in both raids is resistant to fire damage. You absolutely can deal more damage than a frost mage, but your rotation is far tougher than spamming Frostbolt. This gives the fire specialization a lower skill floor than frost, but a higher skill cap. This means that fire has more potential than the other two specializations and is lethal in the hands of a talented damage-dealer.

Here are some gameplay tips for a fire mage:

• As a fire mage you’re limited to just one damage-boosting cooldown, Combustion. The spell gradually boosts your chance to crit with fire spells until you land 3 of them. Considering the nature and damage of your spells, this is best used in conjunction with Pyroblast for huge critical strikes.
• Get comfortable with using Evocation. This 8 minute cooldown will just about completely restore your mana bar during an 8 second channel. This does give you a ton of mana, but it also means you can’t deal any damage during it. Try to time the use of Evocation with down or transition periods during fights so you don’t lose casting uptime.
• Don’t forget to keep Arcane Intellect (or Brilliance) applied to allies for +31 to intellect. You can use Mage Armor for extra mana regeneration during the fight, nice in combination with your 10% from Arcane Meditation.
• Make sure to conjure your mana gem prior to beginning a fight. This is another great way of restoring mana in the middle of a fight. Conjure Mana Ruby grants you around 1000, good for about half of a free mana potion.
• One thing a mage does offer their raid group is utility. You can Conjure Food and Conjure Water for free food and water, or even cast portals to transport allies quickly to major cities. Polymorph can also be useful for crowd-control when making large pulls.
• Don’t let the vulnerability stacks from Improved Scorch or the damaging tick from Ignite fall off! Improved Scorch grants +15% fire damage with 5 stacks, while Ignite gives 40% extra damage to every spell you cast. These two talents are specifically what make fire so powerful, but it does mean fire has a ramp-up time to keep spells applied.

The best part about playing a fire mage is a fun rotation! Frost mages are quite simple, considering you only use one spell throughout most of the fight. Some players prefer this style of rotation, but if you’re interested in something requiring more of your attention and focus, a fire mage just might be your cup of tea.

If you’re just fighting a single enemy, your first priority will be to cast Scorch until you have 5 vulnerability stacks applied. After this, you’ll want to cast Pyroblast so you can apply your strongest version of Ignite and apply the Pyroblast damage-over-time tick. After this, you can switch to spamming Fireball, but you’ll actually be better off using Fire Blast first.

While Fire Blast deals less damage, it is an instant cast with a cooldown, meaning it can deal more damage for the time you’re spending to cast it versus a Fireball. At this point, you’ll continue to use Fireball until your Improved Scorch or Pyroblast damage-over-time tick falls off, using Fire Blast whenever it is convenient. This works out best when you need to move, considering every other spell requires you to stand still.

If you’re facing multiple enemies, you’ll get to make use of one of your special fire-exclusive talents! You’ll start the fight off with Flamestrike to apply the damage-over-time tick, then immediately get in close so you can get maximum effectiveness from Blast Wave! After this, you’ll spam Arcane Explosion until your Flamestrike DoT falls off!

To simplify:

1. Single Target:
   1. Scorch to 5 stacks
   2. Pyroblast to apply Ignite
   3. Fire Blast
   4. Fireball
2. Multiple Targets:
   1. Flamestrike to apply DoT
   2. Blast Wave
   3. Arcane Explosion