In this article, we list your Fire Mage (WoW MoP 5.3) core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation). We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that playing a Fire Mage will face you with.

The other articles of our Fire Mage guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Blatty, one of the best Mages in the world, who raids in Method, the currently ranked #1 guild on WoWProgress. He has been contributing a lot to the community through his streams on Twitch and now works for Millenium, his new streaming platform.

1. Single Target Rotation↑top

The rotation of a Fire Mage consists in the following priority list.

1. Apply and refresh Living Bomb.
   • When you have a large damage-increasing proc (trinkets, weapon enchants, etc.), refresh it right away, otherwise refresh it after it explodes.
2. Cast Pyroblast when Pyroblast! procs.
3. Cast Inferno Blast when Heating Up procs and Inferno Blast is off cooldown.
   • Inferno Blast will always crit, upgrading Heating Up to Pyroblast!.
4. Cast Fireball.
5. When moving, cast Scorch instead of Fireball.

See our Opening Sequence for instructions on what to cast when the fight starts.

1.1. Heating Up Trick

When upgrading Heating Up to Pyroblast! with Inferno Blast, do not use the instant-cast Pyroblast just yet. Keep casting Fireball until you get another Heating Up. When this happens, cast Fireball again immediately followed by your instant-cast Pyroblast. Fireball and Pyroblast will land on the target at the same time and if any of them is a critical strike, then your current Heating Up will be upgraded and will give you another instant-cast Pyroblast.

1.2. Tier 6 Talent

Invocation is your best Tier 6 talent and is very straightforward to use. Cast it before the pull to get Invoker's Energy up and recast it every time it expires.

Make sure that, during Evocation, you do not have to refresh Nether Tempest.

If you chose Rune of Power as your Tier 6 talent, then make sure that your Rune of Power is always active and that you stand in it at all times.

If you chose Incanter's Ward as your Tier 6 talent, then use it every time it comes off cooldown.

We discuss how other choices of talents affect your play style further down the page.

1.3. Cooldown Usage

Combustion is your only real DPS cooldown. It creates a new DoT on your current target by combining the power of your existing Ignite DoT on this target. It does not take Living Bomb or the Pyroblast DoT into account. Always use Combustion after landing a big critical hit (or a series thereof) with Pyroblast.

Alter Time returns you to your current location, health, mana, buffs, and debuffs when you cast it a second time or after 6 seconds. We advise you to always use it in conjunction with a powerful trinket proc/on-use effect (the duration of which will be extended for 6 seconds) or when Pyroblast! is up (to have it up again 6 seconds later). Alter Time also works with Presence of Mind (if you chose it as a Tier 1 talent). Finally, you can use it to bypass encounter mechanics, for example before receiving a large amount of damage or a dangerous debuff.

Proper usage of Combustion and Alter Time is crucial for achieving high DPS as a Fire Mage, especially when you combine these two abilities with Presence of Mind. Make sure to read our more advanced section on the usage of Combustion, Alter Time, and Presence of Mind.

Mirror Image is a very small DPS cooldown, which you should use when the images can attack the boss for their entire duration (30 seconds).

2. Multiple Target Rotation↑top

For 2 and 3 targets, you should use Living Bomb as your Tier 5 talent. For more targets, use Nether Tempest.

Against 2 or 3 targets, keep Living Bomb up on all targets and perform your single-target rotation on one of them. Use your instant-cast Pyroblasts on all targets, so as to keep your DoTs running. If the targets are tanked together, you can use Inferno Blast to spread your DoTs.

Against 4 or more targets tanked apart, keep Nether Tempest up on all targets and perform your single-target rotation on one of them. Use your instant-cast Pyroblasts on targets that do not have the Pyroblast DoT running.

Against 4 or more targets tanked together, keep Nether Tempest up on all targets and perform your single-target rotation on one of them. Spread your Pyroblast DoT (hardcast Pyroblast if necessary).

If AoE damage is crucial in an encounter, it is important to note that casting Combustion will always reset the cooldown of your Inferno Blast, making it very easy to spread your Combustion DoT. Also, Glyph of Inferno Blast allows you to spread your DoTs to an additional nearby target.

Against targets with low health, use a combination of Cone of Cold (glyphed) and Arcane Explosion. You can also pre-cast Flamestrike where the adds will appear.

3. Armors↑top

Your only viable choice of armor is Molten Armor. That said, if you are almost entirely in Tier 15 Heroic gear, you can switch to Mage Armor for Alter Time in order to increase the damage of your subsequent Combustion

4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Fire Mage↑top

While the rotations we gave in the previous sections will yield very good results, there are a few things you should be aware of, in order to play your Fire Mage to its full potential.

4.1. Pyroblast and Heating Up

A critical strike with Fireball, Inferno Blast (which is guaranteed to crit), Pyroblast (instant-cast or not), Frostfire Bolt (which is not normally part of your rotation), and Scorch will grant you Heating Up. Scoring a second critical strike in a row will transform Heating Up into Pyroblast!, granting you an instant-cast, mana-free Pyroblast.

Heating Up and Pyroblast! are two different buffs, which is an important distinction as you can have them up at the same time on a target. This means that if you score a third critical strike in a row before using your instant-cast Pyroblast, this critical strike will not be wasted. If, however, you score a fourth critical strike in a row without using your instant-cast Pyroblast, then your new Heating Up will transform into Pyroblast! and override your previous buff, effectively wasting it.

Note that Critical Mass multiplies the critical strike chance of your Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Pyroblast, and Scorch spells. It makes it easier to get instant-cast Pyroblasts.

4.2. Ignite and Ignite Munching

Mastery: Ignite is your Mists of Pandaria Mastery. It increases the damage that Ignite does on your target. Ignite is a DoT that is applied and refreshed when you deal damage with Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, Inferno Blast, Scorch, or Pyroblast. In Cataclysm, it used to be only triggered by critical strikes.

As you can see in the tooltip, when Ignite is refreshed, it creates a new 4-second DoT and whatever remained on the DoT that was refreshed is added to the new DoT. In theory, this should remove Ignite Munching (which used to cause critical strikes too close to each other to not be properly accounted for) from the game.

4.3. Combustion, Alter Time, and Presence of Mind

When cast, Combustion creates a new DoT on your target. Every second, it will tick for an amount that represents the current DPS of your Ignite DoT.

Your goal is to always cast Combustion with a high Ignite. This is not always possible, but at times, you can reach very high Ignite values by properly combining Alter Time and Presence of Mind. This is a key aspect of playing a Fire Mage to its full potential.

Barring any encounter-specific requirements, you should be using Glyph of Combustion, which gives your Combustion a 90-second cooldown and a 20-second duration. This way, every other cast of Combustion will benefit from the very high Ignite values you can reach thanks to Alter Time.

When casting Pyroblast, it always takes a bit for your Ignite to be refreshed (because Pyroblast needs to travel to the target), so you may sometimes find yourself casting Fireball when your Ignite becomes high enough for Combustion. For this reason, we advise you to use a /stopcasting macro for casting Combustion.

4.3.1. Tips for Combustion when Alter Time is on Cooldown

Between each cast of Alter Time, you will be able to cast Combustion once. This will not be a very damaging Combustion, compared to the ones you will cast in combination with Alter Time and Presence of Mind, but you should still try and get the best out of them.

To get a high Ignite without Alter Time, do the following.

1. Set up a situation where you have Heating Up and Pyroblast! up at the same time (usually, by upgrading a Heating Up with Inferno Blast and casting Fireball until Heating Up procs again).
2. Use our Heating Up trick to consume your Pyroblast! and increase your chances to get another instant-cast Pyroblast.
3. If you get another instant-cast Pyroblast, then cast it and cast Combustion. If you do not, you can cast Combustion anyway or use Presence of Mind+ Pyroblast to try and increase the value of Ignite. Note that this does not always work, unless the Pyroblast from Presence of Mind critically hits (these instant-cast Pyroblast do not get the +25% increased damage buff that the instant-cast Pyroblasts from your critical strikes do get).

In any case, do not delay this cast of Combustion, because it would just end up delaying the much more damaging Combustion that you would get when Alter Time is available.

4.3.2. Tips for Combustion when Alter Time is available

Thanks to Alter Time, you can get many instant-cast Pyroblasts in a row, allowing you to build a very high Ignite for your Combustion. Proceed as explained below.

1. Set up a situation where you have Heating Up and Pyroblast! up at the same time (usually, by upgrading a Heating Up with Inferno Blast and casting Fireball until Heating Up procs again).
2. Cast Fireball and immediately pop your Alter Time macro.
3. Depending on whether your spells score critical strikes on not, you will be able to cast a number of Pyroblasts before finally consuming Presence of Mind. When this happens, use your Alter Time macro again and keep casting Pyroblast until you finally consume Presence of Mind again.
4. Cast Combustion. Note that you should always cast Combustion before the Pyroblast from Presence of Mind hits the target, because these Pyroblasts do not benefit from the +25% increased damage that instant-cast Pyroblasts from your critical strikes do get. So cast Combustion while the Pyroblast from Presence of Mind is traveling. That said, if you have a big enough Ignite, you do not need to wait until the Pyroblast from Presence of Mind before casting Combustion.

4.3.3. Presence of Mind

Outside of Alter Time, you can freely use Presence of Mind. Note that you may sometimes need it when casting Combustion outside of Alter Time, as we explained above.

4.4. Opening Sequence

We advise you to use the following opening sequence (or opener).

• Before the pull:
  1. cast Mirror Image (-4 seconds);
  2. use your Potion of the Jade Serpent and start casting Pyroblast (-3 seconds);
  3. apply Nether Tempest.
• After the pull:
  1. spam Fireball until Heating Up procs;
  2. when Heating Up procs, queue Inferno Blast after Fireball to upgrade Heating Up to Pyroblast!;
  3. resume casting Fireball until you get a Heating Up on top of your proc of Pyroblast!;
  4. proceed as we explained above for getting a high Ignite for Combustion using Alter Time and Presence of Mind;
  5. perform your regular single-target rotation.

5. Changelog↑top

• 07 Jun. 2013: Updated multiple-target section after 2 weeks of Patch 5.3 raiding.
• 25 May 2013: Living Bomb is now the best option for single-target situations. Multiple-target rotation still needs to be updated, but another lockout of testing is needed. Added a tip regarding using Mage Armor during Alter Time to increase Combustion's damage.
• 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing changed (may need to review AoE rotation after a few days of raiding).
• 17 Apr. 2013: Update after Blatty's review of the guide.
  • Improved single-target rotation.
  • Improved AoE rotation.
  • Added section with a lot of tips for setting up Combustion.
  • Added opening sequence.
  • Emphasised the importance of Blazing Speed over the other two Tier 1 talents in the talents cooldown section.
• 29 Mar. 2013: Moved advice to use Scorch while moving directly into the rotation section at the beginning of the article. This will make it clearer.
• 10 Mar. 2013: Made multiple-target rotation explanations clearer so that it can no longer be understood that Inferno Blast spreads Living Bomb.
• 07 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated multiple-target rotation to reflect the fact that Glyph of Inferno Blast (formerly Glyph of Fire Blast) now spread DoTs to an additional nearby target.
  • Updated value of Invocation's buff: was 25%, is 15% now.