Fire Mage PvP Guide for Cataclysm Classic

Fire Mage does consistent damage and has a small but powerful toolkit of survivability spells and talents. Sheeping in PVP is now harder, as the cast time has been increased, so you need to be careful when sheeping enemies, not to trigger any spell locks during the long cast time.

Strengths

• Deals huge amounts of damage over a short time.
• Has both decent damage over time effects and direct damage.
• Can cause havoc in AoE with Combustion and DoTs.
• Survives a killing blow every minute with Cauterize.
• Decent crowd-control and survivability tools.
• Snares are less of a problem with Blink and Blazing Speed.
• Can cast while moving ( Firestarter).

Weaknesses

• Lower survivability than Frost Mages.
• Has less powerful crowd-control than Frost Mages.
• Does not have huge burst on demand, more luck related ( Hot Streak).
• Vulnerable to interrupts, as most of your damage is in the Fire spell school.

• Glyph of Living Bomb — A straight 3% damage increase to your main DoT Living Bomb.
• Glyph of Mage Armor — Enhances the mana regeneration of your Mage Armor.
• Glyph of Pyroblast — A 5% increased critical strike chance for your Pyroblast!.

• Glyph of Frost Armor — Allows your Frost Armor to regenerate 2% of your maximum mana every 5 seconds. If you use Glyph of Mage Armor as a Prime Glyph, you may also use Glyph of Dragon's Breath here, but that is completely optional.
• Glyph of Blast Wave — The slow effect of Blast Wave lasts one second longer.
• Glyph of Polymorph — Polymorph now removes all damage over time effects from the target, so the sheep does not break instantly.

• Glyph of Slow Fall — Removes the reagent cost from Slow Fall.
• Glyph of Conjuring — Reduces the Mana cost of conjuring by 50%.
• Glyph of Arcane Brilliance — Reduces the Mana cost of Arcane Brilliance by 50%.

If you have not already, we recommend taking a look at the Spells Summary page first. The better you know your abilities, the better and more versatile you are at playing your Mage. There is no real rotation, as what you do always depends on what your enemies do. The following spells are considered most important for Fire Mages:

• Fireball — Cast when not at risk of being interrupted.
• Scorch — Filler spell that can be cast while moving ( Firestarter talent) and to fish for Hot Streak procs. Also applies the 5% crit debuff from the Critical Mass talent.
• Living Bomb — Apply and maintain on all (up to 3) targets that will not be crowd-controlled.
• Pyroblast! — Only hardcast Pyroblast when you are absolutely certain that you will not be interrupted. Use the Hot Streak instant Pyroblast!s to further increase your dps or burst down players.
• Combustion — Use to increase preassure from DoT damage on enemies. Can be spread to all nearby enemies with an Impact proc and Fire Blast.
• Fire Blast — Use to dps and to stun or spread your DoTs, if Impact procs.
• Blast Wave — A useful targeted AoE slow, can also be used to uncloak stealthed enemies and to hinder them from fleeing.
• Dragon's Breath — AoE damage and 5-seconds disorient CC.
• Cone of Cold — AoE damage and 4-seconds freeze CC. Works well together with Shatter, which triples your critical strike chance versus frozen targets.
• Frost Nova — Freeze CC. Has the same Shatter interaction as Cone of Cold above.
• Ring of Frost — Freeze CC that works with Shatter and can be used to create distance between you and enemies or to set a trap.
• Flame Orb — A high damage ability, useful if you seek to nuke one target to oblivion.

In addition to your main damaging and CC spells, you also have important utility spells:

• Invisibility — Used to flee from combat.
• Time Warp — Alternative to Bloodlust/ Heroism, offers 30% increased attack/casting speed for you and your group for 40 secons.
• Spellsteal — Steal beneficial magic effects from your enemies.
• Polymorph — Transforms your enemies into a pet, removing all dots on them, thanks to Glyph of Polymorph.
• Mirror Image — Minor DPS increase.
• Mana Shield — Absorbs Damage at the cost of mana.
• Mage Ward — Absorbs Fire, Frost or Arcane damage, gives you Blazing Speed, after dissipating from absorbing damage.
• Ice Block — Makes you immune to all attacks for 10 seconds, but can be cleansed by spells like Mass Dispel
• Remove Curse — Cleanse 1 curse from a friendly target. Especially useful when dealing with Warlocks.
• Slow Fall — This ability can be key to ambush attacks, or surviving jumps from high above.
• Blink — Teleports you 20 yards forward, even out of most stuns/snares.
• Counterspell — Interrupts enemy casts and can spell lock the cast spell scool for 7 seconds. With the talent, it also silences enemies for 4 seconds. Off global cooldown.
• Frost Armor — The armor you want to use versus melee enemies. It slows melee attackers and provides additional armor, while also regenerating mana through the Glyph of Frost Armor.
• Mage Armor — Used against casters. Provides resistance versus all spell schools and regenerates mana, whilst also reducing the duration of harmful Magic effects against you.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Fire Mage in Cataclysm PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Tailoring — is great for the Lightweave Embroidery cloak enchant.
2. Jewelcrafting — Gives you three powerful from Chimera's Eye, giving you a 3x stat boost, compared to normal gems.

While Engineering was a very strong profession in the past expansions, in Cataclysm we prefer Jewelcrafting and Tailoring.

The list linked below provides you with the Best-in-Slot gear setup for a Fire Mage in PvP.

To learn in which setups Fire Mages are typically strongest, please read the guides we have prepared below: