[Archived] Fire Mage 5.4

[Guest Chebu]

Thanks for the great guides.

Something to add is that now Shatter is relevant for ALL mages. Therefore the freezing talents are relevant, especially in questing / instance environment. For a fire mage waiting for heating up the following combo is win:

(you have heating up)

-Inferno Blast

-Frost nova / pop Ice Ward (on self or tank) an wait for hit

-Pyroblast

for arcane mage it's:

(you have a 5 Stack AB)

-Frost nova / pop Ice Ward (on self or tank) an wait for hit

-AB

[Guest Graylen]

Shatter? wow...I SO didn't pick that up...I haven't seen anything on this in the guides I have read. It makes sense assuming it stacks with CM?

[Damien 1,514]

Thanks for the great guides.

Something to add is that now Shatter is relevant for ALL mages. Therefore the freezing talents are relevant, especially in questing / instance environment. For a fire mage waiting for heating up the following combo is win:

(you have heating up)

-Inferno Blast

-Frost nova / pop Ice Ward (on self or tank) an wait for hit

-Pyroblast

for arcane mage it's:

(you have a 5 Stack AB)

-Frost nova / pop Ice Ward (on self or tank) an wait for hit

-AB

What you advise to do is not recommended. You are spending one Global Cooldown to cast Frost Nova, so it really needs to buff up your damage to the point that it is worth spending that Global Cooldown on it. In a raid environment, most enemies are immune to Frost Nova, so using that spell is a bit pointless. For enemies that are not immune, the problem is that Frost Nova breaks on damage, so chances are that your target will no longer be frozen by the time you get to cast Arcane Blast or Pyroblast.

The one situation when it is useful is during AoE times, when you have a lot of mobs. You can just Frost Nova them right before Frost Bomb is going to explode, or you can Frost Nova them and follow in up with Arcane Explosion. If there really are a lot of mobs, chances are that some will still be frozen when you finally get to damage them.

[Guest Blayzemage]

I'm surprised no one has suggested this yet (though to be fair I skipped a page of the thread);

Get a Hot Streak

Cast PoM

Cast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast twice (both instant casts)

Recast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast twice more (again both instant casts)

This gets maximum use out of Alter Time, as it gives us four instant-cast Pyroblasts in a row.

[Guest osc]

I'm surprised no one has suggested this yet (though to be fair I skipped a page of the thread);

Get a Hot Streak

Cast PoM

Cast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast twice (both instant casts)

Recast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast twice more (again both instant casts)

This gets maximum use out of Alter Time, as it gives us four instant-cast Pyroblasts in a row.

^^^^Yes thats awesome^^

Also each one of those Pyros might trigger another heating up that you can Inferno Blast into another one, so if you're careful about not just spamming the pyro button you can alot of times get 5 out of it. Makes a nice combustion.

[Damien 1,514]

I'm surprised no one has suggested this yet (though to be fair I skipped a page of the thread);

Get a Hot Streak

Cast PoM

Cast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast twice (both instant casts)

Recast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast twice more (again both instant casts)

This gets maximum use out of Alter Time, as it gives us four instant-cast Pyroblasts in a row.

Thank you for your comment, I added a section to mention your tip, at the end of the guide ;)

[Guest Matt]

Thank you for your comment, I added a section to mention your tip, at the end of the guide ;)

It's been a while since I played Fire, but with Arcane changes in 5.2 I think I'll be switching back. I have a question about this specific rotation and wonder if the additions I'm listing here would be useful at all...

Hot streak

Cast PoM

Cast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Combustion

Cast Inferno Blast

Alter Time ends

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Combustion

Cast Inferno Blast

Procs Pyroblast?

You may not be able to get 4 casts off during Alter Time, but would this not be a big hitting rotation? I'm not in front of the game right now to test it out, but wanted to put it out there while I was thinking about it.

[Guest Oltier]

It's been a while since I played Fire, but with Arcane changes in 5.2 I think I'll be switching back. I have a question about this specific rotation and wonder if the additions I'm listing here would be useful at all...

Hot streak

Cast PoM

Cast Alter Time

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Combustion

Cast Inferno Blast

Alter Time ends

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Pyroblast

Cast Combustion

Cast Inferno Blast

Procs Pyroblast?

You may not be able to get 4 casts off during Alter Time, but would this not be a big hitting rotation? I'm not in front of the game right now to test it out, but wanted to put it out there while I was thinking about it.

Alter time does not reset cooldown on Combustion.

[Palgyr 0]

Hello guys and girls,

first of all, really awesome guides!

Everything I need or want to know I look up here

But there is one thing I don't understand, which is why do you suggest Pandaren's Step on boots instead of Haste ? Since Haste > Mastery it should be 175 Haste over 144 Mastery, right ? Ok, it has a speed buff on it, but we have blink, which gets us out of almost everything

[Guest Bagaela]

Hello guys and girls,

first of all, really awesome guides!

Everything I need or want to know I look up here

But there is one thing I don't understand, which is why do you suggest Pandaren's Step on boots instead of Haste ? Since Haste > Mastery it should be 175 Haste over 144 Mastery, right ? Ok, it has a speed buff on it, but we have blink, which gets us out of almost everything

Blink eats a global cooldown - running out of the way doesn't.

[RunicLovePotion 9]

Is it time to upgrade it to patch 5.2? A lot of glyphs and some talents have changed since then.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Johnzinho

[Damien 1,514]

We're going to do that today :)

[Guest Guest]

Living Bomb does not get spread with Inferno Blast glyphed or unglyphed. Uncertain what the point of it is anymore.

[Damien 1,514]

Living Bomb does not get spread with Inferno Blast glyphed or unglyphed. Uncertain what the point of it is anymore.

The main point is to fish for Pyroblast procs or to spread DoTs for multiple-target damage.

[Guest harro1]

I understand. Was just an FYI that your guide still states that Living Bomb gets spread with a glyphed Inferno Blast. In the section titled "2. Multiple Target Rotation". Needs to be changed to reflect 5.2 behaviour.

[Damien 1,514]

I understand. Was just an FYI that your guide still states that Living Bomb gets spread with a glyphed Inferno Blast. In the section titled "2. Multiple Target Rotation". Needs to be changed to reflect 5.2 behaviour.

I guess the sentence you're incriminating is "Inferno Blast will spread your DoTs to 3 nearby targets."

I wasn't referring to Living Bomb, but I will make it clearer so there can no longer be any sort of confusion.

[Guest neive]

i use icy veins as you have good advice however i'd like to bring to your attention that Glyph of Molten Armor has apparently been removed from the game. So you are advising that it is a good major glyph to use. I went looking for it and discovered that it no longer existed.

[Elhombre 0]

Hi everyone, quick question about PoM/Pyro macro and Alter Time.

In the guide at Section 4.5 I'm interpreting that I need to be able to selectively use PoM then Alter Time before Pyro! to get the DPS boost. My question is.....does this mean the PoM/Pyro macro needs to be deleted? Has anyone tried to macro an alternative?

Thanks

[Vladamyr 169]

i use icy veins as you have good advice however i'd like to bring to your attention that Glyph of Molten Armor has apparently been removed from the game. So you are advising that it is a good major glyph to use. I went looking for it and discovered that it no longer existed.

I see where the guide says this:

Glyph of Armors can be useful to Fire Mages, as it improves the defensive bonus given by Molten Armor (the armor that Fire Mages use) against physical damage.

[Damien 1,514]

Hi everyone, quick question about PoM/Pyro macro and Alter Time.

In the guide at Section 4.5 I'm interpreting that I need to be able to selectively use PoM then Alter Time before Pyro! to get the DPS boost. My question is.....does this mean the PoM/Pyro macro needs to be deleted? Has anyone tried to macro an alternative?

Thanks

You can keep the Presence of Mind/Pyroblast macro. Alter Time has a 3-minute cooldown while Presence of Mind has a 90-second cooldown. This means that only every other cast of Presence of Mind can benefit from Alter Time. For the other casts, you should still use the Presence of Mind/Pyroblast macro to get a free Pyroblast. What it basically means is that you need to have, on your action bar, Presence of Mind, Pyroblast, and a macro with to use Presence of Mind and Pyroblast at the same time.

[Vladamyr 169]

Damien, I can see a reason for PoM and the macro of PoM/Pyro but I'm failing to see the reasoning for just plain Pyroblast on your action bar? Personally, I've never used PoM (my guild is totally casual and it's way more fun to outrun people back in after wipes) and before 5.2 It was too imperative for me to have scorch (for my guilds situation).

Was just wondering?

[Guest Pleasebonk]

Hi all,

I have a question about holding Pyroblast procs.

It seems that reapplying the Pyroblast periodic effect "erases" any current Pyroblast periodic effects (does not add to the reapplied DoT). To maximize the damage of the dot, we would want to let the current Pyroblast dot tick for as long as possible, but of course we run into losing Pyroblast procs if we held onto it too long. However, these procs are not very sneaky and can only occur if we have a Heating Up proc. This means that we ought to safely hold onto the proc as long as we don't have Heating Up, and when we do, we release the proc.

However, I do realize that this becomes a problem with Inferno Blast off CD. If you are holding onto a Pyroblast proc and you get Heating Up and Inferno Blast is off CD, we'd want to release the proc and cast Inferno Blast. Unfortunately due to the global CD, we can't get the Inferno Blast to hit before the procced Pyroblast lands due to the global CD induced by the Pyroblast.

However, it seems that if Inferno Blast is on cooldown, we would maximizing the Pyroblast DoT damage by holding onto Pyroblast procs until either Inferno Blast is about to come off cooldown or we get Heating Up.

Is this correct?

Thanks for your time, sorry if it's long...

[Damien 1,514]

Hi all,

I have a question about holding Pyroblast procs.

It seems that reapplying the Pyroblast periodic effect "erases" any current Pyroblast periodic effects (does not add to the reapplied DoT). To maximize the damage of the dot, we would want to let the current Pyroblast dot tick for as long as possible, but of course we run into losing Pyroblast procs if we held onto it too long. However, these procs are not very sneaky and can only occur if we have a Heating Up proc. This means that we ought to safely hold onto the proc as long as we don't have Heating Up, and when we do, we release the proc.

However, I do realize that this becomes a problem with Inferno Blast off CD. If you are holding onto a Pyroblast proc and you get Heating Up and Inferno Blast is off CD, we'd want to release the proc and cast Inferno Blast. Unfortunately due to the global CD, we can't get the Inferno Blast to hit before the procced Pyroblast lands due to the global CD induced by the Pyroblast.

However, it seems that if Inferno Blast is on cooldown, we would maximizing the Pyroblast DoT damage by holding onto Pyroblast procs until either Inferno Blast is about to come off cooldown or we get Heating Up.

Is this correct?

Thanks for your time, sorry if it's long...

The Pyroblast DoT lasts for 18 seconds, so you're most likely going to have close to 100% uptime on it. For that reason, you don't really need to worry about this DoT. You may want to hold on to a Pyroblast DoT you applied while you were under the effect of a large Intellect proc, or something like this. But this is a very specific case, and it shouldn't be generalized.

Damien, I can see a reason for PoM and the macro of PoM/Pyro but I'm failing to see the reasoning for just plain Pyroblast on your action bar? Personally, I've never used PoM (my guild is totally casual and it's way more fun to outrun people back in after wipes) and before 5.2 It was too imperative for me to have scorch (for my guilds situation).

Was just wondering?

If you only keep the PoM+Pyroblast macro, then you may run into issues. Imagine Alter Time is off cool down, but you are not going to use it just yet because the timing isn't right (your raid is about to use Heroism, there's going to be a large encounter-specific damage increasing buff, etc.). So you have to wait for a bit before using Alter Time. Pom also comes off cooldown, but you must save it for Alter Time. If you have to wait, for let's say 30 seconds, you still need to be able to cast Pyroblast, but without consuming PoM. You can also improve the PoM+Pyroblast macro and add an "alt" or "shift" modifier on the PoM line.

[nisaloncaje 0]

I have caredully read the talents page, but it seems that most top PvE fire mages use different talents.

[Damien 1,514]

I have caredully read the talents page, but it seems that most top PvE fire mages use different talents.

Well, the guide gives default talents, but it turned out that Tier 15 requires the use of specific talents for almost every encounter. I can't tailor the guides for Tier 15 Heroic content, as it needs to be useful to anyone reading it, not just those attempting Tier 15 Heroic content. In any case, I updated the conditions for choosing a few of the talents.

Also, the page you've linked to can be very misleading. What this page lists is simply a snapshot of the talents these players were using before they logged out. It can give a general trend for Throne of Thunder, but the thing is that most of these people are stuck on the same bosses, so what we're seeing here is what Mages are using for Council of Elders, Megaera, and Ji-Kun (the 3 bosses on which most of the Mages with more than 2 Heroic kills are currently progressing).