[Archived] Fire Mage 5.4

[Vladamyr 169]

Great guide update!

Just wanted clarification on 1 thing. Under 4.3.1 & 4.3.2 it says:

"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 Pyroblast!procs)."

Shouldn't that say:

"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 to a Pyroblast! and then casting Fireball until Pyroblast! procs)."

Once again great update. You guys are killing it

[Damien 1,514]

Great guide update!

Just wanted clarification on 1 thing. Under 4.3.1 & 4.3.2 it says:

"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 Pyroblast!procs)."

Shouldn't that say:

"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 to a Pyroblast! and then casting Fireball until Pyroblast! procs)."

Once again great update. You guys are killing it

Thanks, I fixed it. I meant to say to cast Fireball until Heating Up procs again ;)

[Vladamyr 169]

You got where I was going Copy/Paste kicked my butt on the edit LOL.

[Vladamyr 169]

On the Heating Up Trick, do you want to make sure to dump the Pyro before Inferno Blast comes off cooldown (I'm assuming a bad luck crit string or lower gear levels)?

[Catastrophy 0]

Hello everyone. I love my fire mage and thought I'd share my current build. 510 item level pulling 130k the other night on Tortos. As far as this guide goes, for the level 90 talent tier, I find Encanters Ward to be the best. It provides the largest burst dps increase, provides a negligible defensive CD, and has a decent passive effect when you can not use it. On any fight in ToT, just pop Encanters Ward and dip your toes in a sandtrap or the like. The thought that there are no opportunities to use this talent are wrong, just stand in the fire and get your buff. You can double this with Temp Shield to make sure you don't waste healers mana taking damage to proc. The other point I wanted to make was about using frost armor. Simply put 7%haste>5%crit. Easier to hit Combustion 3+ breakpoint and once you get into ToT gear, your crit will be near 30% without molton armor. This less popular build has worked very well for me, so maybe give it a shot.

edit:4815 I think needed to hit the haste breakpoint.

edit:not using combustion glyph

Edited May 4, 2013 by Catastrophy

[Tarazet 144]

Great read, it's nice for the ordinary guy to be able to get a look into the playstyle and thought process of the top players. I've been playing around with my level 87 Draenei Mage using the Alter Time/PoM gaming in this guide, and I'm seeing 40-50K on single target boss fights.. more if I have multiple targets.

[Vladamyr 169]

I don't know how to program action lists in Simcraft, so I was wanting feedback from other fire mages.

I have been using the action list below and seen improved results over the guide's priority. (very minor differences)

I was wondering if some other fire mages would weigh in and just test it a little?

• Tier 6 Talent
• Mage Bomb (if Pyromaniac buff is missing)
• Pyroblast! (if Inferno Blast is coming off cooldown in <2 seconds)
• Pyroblast! (immediately following a Fireball cast with Heating Up)
• Inferno Blast (with Heating Up)
• Mage Bomb
• Pyroblast!
• Fireball

Thanks,

[Guest Orixa]

As Combustion is off the GCD, there is no reason to use a /stopcasting macro. Might want to update that section.

[Oltier 471]

It is off GCD that's true but you cannot cast it while casting any other spells such as Fireball, and you MIGHT unintentionally cast Fireball in the heat of a battle, spamming buttons. This jeapordises your goog ignite, and combustion. Thus, I firmly believe that the /stopcasting command is indeed useful.

[DiiGiiTAL 1]

Great work as always chaps!

[Guest OniHouse]

Good job updated the guides but I found something I find quite odd:

Under the gems section it properly advises you to use crit or crit+something gems and then under the profession part you suggest things like:

Blacksmithing Provides a 320 Intellect gain through two extra sockets, Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves, in which you can fit 2 Brilliant Primordial Ruby.

Jewelcrafting Provides a 320 Intellect gain through the ability of using 2Brilliant Serpent's Eye.

While those are pure intellect gems and as far as I know should not be used according to the earlier gemming section. Also would like to note that using Smooth Serpent's eyes might not actually be worth it due to the stupid way blizzard made them compared to primary stat serpent eyes. A Smooth Sun's Radiance goes from 320 crit to Smooth Serpent's Eye 480 crit resulting in a measly 160 crit upgrade where you would expect a 320 crit upgrade. Meanwhile a Brilliant Primordial Ruby goes from 160 intellect to Brilliant Serpent's Eye 320 intellect resulting in the same 160 upgrade BUT primary stats are normally worth double the secondary stats on gems so using a Smooth Serpent's Eye essentially robs yourself of 160 secondary or 80 primary stats.

I'm pretty sure the only reason we gem crit is that you get double the amount of crit on a gem compared to intellect but the serpent eyes do not follow the same logic and rate int as equal to crit. I've tried to tweet this to GC on several occasions asking for an explanation but he never responded.

[Damien 1,514]

Good job updated the guides but I found something I find quite odd:

Under the gems section it properly advises you to use crit or crit+something gems and then under the profession part you suggest things like:

Blacksmithing Provides a 320 Intellect gain through two extra sockets, Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves, in which you can fit 2 Brilliant Primordial Ruby.

Jewelcrafting Provides a 320 Intellect gain through the ability of using 2Brilliant Serpent's Eye.

While those are pure intellect gems and as far as I know should not be used according to the earlier gemming section. Also would like to note that using Smooth Serpent's eyes might not actually be worth it due to the stupid way blizzard made them compared to primary stat serpent eyes. A Smooth Sun's Radiance goes from 320 crit to Smooth Serpent's Eye 480 crit resulting in a measly 160 crit upgrade where you would expect a 320 crit upgrade. Meanwhile a Brilliant Primordial Ruby goes from 160 intellect to Brilliant Serpent's Eye 320 intellect resulting in the same 160 upgrade BUT primary stats are normally worth double the secondary stats on gems so using a Smooth Serpent's Eye essentially robs yourself of 160 secondary or 80 primary stats.

I'm pretty sure the only reason we gem crit is that you get double the amount of crit on a gem compared to intellect but the serpent eyes do not follow the same logic and rate int as equal to crit. I've tried to tweet this to GC on several occasions asking for an explanation but he never responded.

That's something we have been meaning to address in the guides, but it's a bit complex to do, so we've kept postponing it :) I'll add it to our list of things to patch in our guides (and not just the Fire Mage guide).

[Vladamyr 169]

Damien, I have a question about the heating up trick. I have found that it is always a dps loss for me to hold the pyro! past the point that i can get the pyro! to land and inferno blast coming off cooldown (at about 2 seconds on inferno blast cooldown is where i make sure to finish my fireball cast and use my pyro! proc). The reasoning is i am losing out on the number of Pyro!s I get, if I don't do that. Is this what you are doing or are you holding that pyro! till you can apply the Heating Up trick again and ignoring infreno blast till you have no Pyro! proc?

And if it's the 2nd, is that a factor of each character's crit rating (a crit breakpoint if you will)?

[vizoere 1]

Awesome mage guide! I've played my fire mage since I started, but never seem to get close to the DPS of hardcore players. I'm seeing better numbers already and have just started trying to follow your suggestions.

I had a thought though when I read the macros page.

In section 1.1.6 Polymorph it states,

Note that this macro will slightly interfere with the Counterspell and Spellsteal macros given earlier. If you try to use one of these two macros, it will result in the spell being cast on your sheeped target (which is your current focus). In such cases, use a simpler macro for Counterspell and Spellsteal that casts the spells at your current target.

To lessen the interference, how about changing Counterspell and Spellsteal macros to:

#showtooltip/stopcasting/cast [modifier:alt] Counterspell; [@focus,exists][@target] Counterspell

and

#showtooltip/stopcasting/cast [modifier:alt] Spellsteal; [@focus,exists][@target] Spellsteal

This wouldn't cause any additional interference that I can think of, but would be useful in encounters where you need to have a focus target to poly, and your main target will be the recipient of your counterspell/spellsteals. You'd just have to get used to using Alt for counterspell/spellsteal when you have a sheeped focus target

Cheers

Edited May 24, 2013 by vizoere

[Damien 1,514]

Damien, I have a question about the heating up trick. I have found that it is always a dps loss for me to hold the pyro! past the point that i can get the pyro! to land and inferno blast coming off cooldown (at about 2 seconds on inferno blast cooldown is where i make sure to finish my fireball cast and use my pyro! proc). The reasoning is i am losing out on the number of Pyro!s I get, if I don't do that. Is this what you are doing or are you holding that pyro! till you can apply the Heating Up trick again and ignoring infreno blast till you have no Pyro! proc?

And if it's the 2nd, is that a factor of each character's crit rating (a crit breakpoint if you will)?

You kind of lost me lol :P

Awesome mage guide! I've played my fire mage since I started, but never seem to get close to the DPS of hardcore players. I'm seeing better numbers already and have just started trying to follow your suggestions.

I had a thought though when I read the macros page.

In section 1.1.6 Polymorph it states,

To lessen the interference, how about changing Counterspell and Spellsteal macros to:

#showtooltip/stopcasting/cast [modifier:alt] Counterspell; [@focus,exists][@target] Counterspell

and

#showtooltip/stopcasting/cast [modifier:alt] Spellsteal; [@focus,exists][@target] Spellsteal

This wouldn't cause any additional interference that I can think of, but would be useful in encounters where you need to have a focus target to poly, and your main target will be the recipient of your counterspell/spellsteals. You'd just have to get used to using Alt for counterspell/spellsteal when you have a sheeped focus target

Cheers

Thank you for the comment! We are getting a lot of comments these days, so I'll probably just do a pass in a week or two and update everything at once for minor issues like this macro :P

[Vladamyr 169]

Sorry that was a little convoluted and this might be too.

My question pertains to the Heating Up trick and how to use it in the rotation.

Heating Up Trick: When I get my first Heating Up proc and upgrade it with Inferno Blast to a Pyroblast! proc, I then cast Fireball till I get a Heating Up proc. I then make 1 more fireball cast with the Pyroblast! queued at the end so that both will strike the target at the same time and hopefully upgrade the Heating Up.

The question is do you ignore Inferno Blast at this juncture till you have used up all Pyroblast! procs?

If that is so, I am finding that to be a dps loss compared to prioritizing using up the Pyroblast! procs before Inferno Blast comes off of cooldown. Maybe it's a gear issue and I simply don't have as much crit (non-heroic). What I have found is that i can get off 2 fireball casts at most to try to fish for the Heating Up proc during the Heating Up Trick, and then I use up the Pyroblast! procs before Inferno Blast is available again. If I was to hold the Pyroblast! proc after Inferno Blast became available again, I run into situations where i'm not seeing as many Pyroblasts in a fight because i'm not utilizing Inferno Blast as much?

[Oltier 471]

Sorry that was a little convoluted and this might be too.

My question pertains to the Heating Up trick and how to use it in the rotation.

Heating Up Trick: When I get my first Heating Up proc and upgrade it with Inferno Blast to a Pyroblast! proc, I then cast Fireball till I get a Heating Up proc. I then make 1 more fireball cast with the Pyroblast! queued at the end so that both will strike the target at the same time and hopefully upgrade the Heating Up.

The question is do you ignore Inferno Blast at this juncture till you have used up all Pyroblast! procs?

If that is so, I am finding that to be a dps loss compared to prioritizing using up the Pyroblast! procs before Inferno Blast comes off of cooldown. Maybe it's a gear issue and I simply don't have as much crit (non-heroic). What I have found is that i can get off 2 fireball casts at most to try to fish for the Heating Up proc during the Heating Up Trick, and then I use up the Pyroblast! procs before Inferno Blast is available again. If I was to hold the Pyroblast! proc after Inferno Blast became available again, I run into situations where i'm not seeing as many Pyroblasts in a fight because i'm not utilizing Inferno Blast as much?

How about using Inferno blast, while you have a Pyroblast proc already? That would (in my theory... omg it's been a long time I played fire mage) result in having a Pyroblast and a Heating up buff up, so that you could do the "Pyroblast trick". My only concern is, what if your fireball casted before that Inferno blast also crits? That would mean a wasted Pyro...

Now another thought. If you don't get a Heating up while having Pyroblast proc, you would most likely not get Heating up even if you didn't have that Pyroblast proc up. Meaning that, you would not use Inferno blast anyway.

So consequently, you can either use that Inferno blast to get a Heating up (but it has a chance to get a wasted pyroblast proc), or you keep using the "classic pyroblast trick".

[briala 6]

I'm having trouble with the 2nd use of the Alter Time macro. I see the intent is to bring back the Pyroblast! proc and the PoM buff. When I use it though, it seems there is a delay for my client to recognize that it has either of these two back, so it ends up hardcasting Pyroblast instead.

Anyone else have this or is it something specific to my set up? I have a small amount of lag, usually about 130-150, is that it?

If I can't avoid this problem, any suggestions on macro touch ups? I like the first use of the macro, where it reliably gets an instant speed Pyroblast off.

[Oltier 471]

Phu...

You could add a /stopcasting to the beginning of the macro, but that can easily scew up things.

The intent of the macro is a bit more complicated than you assume.

When we start using it, we already have a Heating up proc, and a Pyroblast proc and we are casting a Fireball.

/stopcasting/use Presence of Mind/use Berserking/use 13/use 14/use 10/use Alter Time/cast Pyroblast

You the Pyroblast at the end is to ensure, that once we use the macro, an instant Pyro will fly just together with the Fireball we were casting previously. IF either of them crits, the Heating up we stored up, will convert into Pyroblast. if Both of them crits, we'll have a heating up AND a pyroblast, then you start spamming Pyroblasts until u run out of them.

But, if you ask a stopcasting command at the top, you are risking that, you will interrupt your fireball cast before the macro.

For this reason, I instead always run around like an idiot while under the effect of Alter time, and I also set up Weakauras with a cool animation at the moment, when PoM fades. So I will always know when to cancel Alter time, or Combust.

Now.... We cannot really do anything about your lag issue. If you feel taht you are underperforming because of this, I would not recommend you to play fire.... Fire is all about good reaction time, and even if you have it... With hard lagspikes.. mehh...

[Guest noxema]

I'm just curious, is there are certain amount of crit you should be able to reach before you start playing fire over frost? and if, when?

[Vladamyr 169]

You need at least 10k crit rating and 505 ilvl to compete with frost.

[Guest RedTony]

Here is a useful macro for Alter time, as long as you have chosen Presence of Mind as T1 talent:

#showtooltip

/cast Presence of mind

/cast Alter time

[Oltier 471]

Here is a useful macro for Alter time, as long as you have chosen Presence of Mind as T1 talent:

#showtooltip

/cast Presence of mind

/cast Alter time

It has already been mentioned in the macro section.

#showtooltip Alter Time/use 10/use 13/use 14/cast Presence of Mind/cast Alter Time/cast Pyroblast

[Guest Jason]

I don't understand the process for Combustion and Alter Time. Shouldn't step 2 below say "Cast Pyroblast" and not "Cast Fireball"? I have Heating Up and Pyroblast! already up, so if I cast a Fireball and it crits then I will have wasted one of my free Pyroblasts no? What am I missing? 

 

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.

[Damien 1,514]

I don't understand the process for Combustion and Alter Time. Shouldn't step 2 below say "Cast Pyroblast" and not "Cast Fireball"? I have Heating Up and Pyroblast! already up, so if I cast a Fireball and it crits then I will have wasted one of my free Pyroblasts no? What am I missing?

It won't consume your free Pyroblast, because the Alter Time macro we are proposing does cast Pyroblast. So what will happen is:

• Fireball is cast;
• the Alter Time macro casts Presence of Mind, starts Alter Time, and casts Pyroblast (so it will consume your instant-cast Pyroblast);
• Fireball and Pyroblast will land roughly at the same time, and if either crits, you will get a second instant-cast Pyroblast (i.e., Heating Up will get upgraded).