WotLK Classic Fire Mage Guide

Mage has three balanced PvE talent trees. This guide will lead you through the World of Fire Mage. While Arcane Mages are considered the strongest short fight nuke spec and Frost Mages are considered to be leveling and PvP gods, Fire Mage excels at consistently doing the highest overall damage in PvE. Fire Mage's playstyle is all about managing your Living Bomb and Hot Streak procs correctly. Generally, Fire is a blend between damage over time (DoT) spec and single target spells. Ignite, Living Bomb and the DoT from Pyroblast deal damage over time. However, the majority of damage still comes from direct damage spells, such as Fireball/Frostfire Bolt. Fire Mage is also the strongest Mage spec when it comes to dealing AoE damage.

Fire Mage is brought to raids purely for their DPS value, crowd control and food, as well as raid buffs, such as Arcane Brilliance and Focus Magic. If you want to speedrun raids with a lot of trash mobs, Frostfire Bolt (FFB) is the preferred spec. FFB has a stronger Blizzard and uses Firestarter, a free and instant Flamestrike, which procs from Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave. Furthermore, FFB is less Mana hungry than the single target damage variant Torment the Weak (TTW) spec, which uses Fireball as their main single target spell. In consequence, TTW is the go for spec if you are not speedrunning or the raid you play does not have a lot of trash.

Generally, because Fire talents scale so well with gear, Fire Mage starts to surpass Arcane in PvE as soon as the items from raids with Hit Rating also have better overall stats, which is the case from Tier 8 onwards. For PvP, Frost Mages are generally the better choice due to their huge arsenal of survivabilty, crowd control and burst damage tools. In our DPS rankings you can check out how Fire Mage is ranked in the current tier. Ultimately, you should not let these lists stop you from playing the Mage spec you enjoy playing most.

For PvE, the decision making for Alliance players is not as easy as for Horde Mages. Draenei boosts Hit by 1% for spell and physical attacks from Heroic Presence for the whole group (even in a raid, only the group in which the Draenei is in will affected, not the whole raid), which is in theory the best Alliance racial. The self-heal Gift of the Naaru is a cherry on top. However, the value of the Hit buff disappears as soon as there is another Draenei in your group, in which case Gnome is the next best Alliance race with Expansive Mind. Especially for TTW, the 1% Hit from Heroic Presence is very useful, as TTW requires a lot of Hit rating. In PvP, Human is the best choice, as they have Perception and Will to Survive. If you have a Draenei in your raid group and want to PVP as well, Gnome might be a good compromise between PVE and PVP performance, because Gnomes also have Escape Artist.

For the Horde, Troll is clearly the best PvE Mage race, due to Berserking and Da Voodoo Shuffle being so strong. In PvP, Undead are king with Will of the Forsaken and Cannibalize.

Just as Undead, Draenei have a slightly higher resistance to Shadow spells. Their Gemcutting ability increases their Jewelcrafting skill. The two most important racial traits are Heroic Presence and Gift of the Naaru. Heroic Presence increases the Hit chance of players grouped with you, and Gift of the Naaru is a heal-over-time that scales with your level, usually used in niche situations such as healing while running away from enemies.

• Shadow Resistance — Chance to be hit with shadow spells decreased by 2%.
• Gemcutting — Jewelcrafting skill increased by 5.
• Heroic Presence — Increases chance to hit by 1% for you and all party members within 30 yards.
• Gift of the Naaru — Gift of the Naaru is a heal that scales with your level and will heal your target over the course of 15 seconds.

Perception is a very strong passive ability, detecting any stealth class around you, giving you a massive advantage in PvP. While The Human Spirit isn't great for Mage, it's better than nothing. Diplomacy is useful any time you do a reputation grind and Will to Survive can be very strong in PvE and PvP. The combination of Perception and Will to Survive make Human a very good race for PvPers.

• Perception — Increases stealth detection. Passive ability.
• The Human Spirit — Spirit increased by 3%.
• Diplomacy — Reputation gains increased by 10%.
• Will to Survive — Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character.

Gnome is very strong for PvE due to their Intellect boost from Expansive Mind, providing a useful buff to all three Mage specs, especially for Arcane. Escape Artist is a very strong racial trait for both PvP and PvE, as it is instant in WotLK and on a low 1.75-minute cooldown. The extra Arcane Resistance helps in a few PvE situations. The bonus to Engineering is just as handy as any other races' profession bonuses.

• Escape Artist — Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect.
• Arcane Resistance — Chance to be hit with arcane spells decreased by 2%.
• Engineering Specialization — Engineering skill increased by 15.
• Expansive Mind — Intellect increased by 5%.

Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent restore Mana and also grant Mage a 2 second AoE silence, which can be used as an emergency Counterspell. The additional Magic Resistance decrease magic damage taken slightly and as Arcane beings, Blood Elves have increased Enchanting skill.

• Magic Resistance — Chance to be hit with spells decreased by 2%.
• Arcane Affinity — Enchanting skill increased by 10.
• Arcane Torrent — Silences all mobs within 8 yards of you for 2 seconds and grants 6% of your base Mana.

Trolls are the best PvE Horde race for Mage. The passive damage increase to beasts is nice to have while leveling and farming beasts, but the real deal is the increased cast speed from Berserking. This ability lets you cast 20% faster for 10 seconds. Further, Trolls are able to generate small amounts of Health during combat, an ability no other race has. Da Voodoo Shuffle reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%.

• Berserking — Increases your casting and attack speed by 20%. Lasts 10 seconds.
• Beast Slaying — Damage dealt versus Beasts increased by 5%.
• Regeneration — Health regeneration rate increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat.
• Da Voodoo Shuffle — Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%.

The racial traits of Undead are most the powerful in PvP combat, but also have niche uses in PvE. Undead can cancel Charm, Fear and Sleep effects. When combined with Ice Block, this is a very strong ability. The Undead hunger for fresh bodies lets them feast on their enemies' corpses, restoring Health very quickly. Being able to breathe three times longer underwater than any other race, Undead do not need to fear from drowning while doing underwater farming or questing, and Undead are more resistant to Shadow damage.

• Will of the Forsaken — Removes any Charm, Fear, or Sleep effect.
• Cannibalize — When activated, regenerates 7% of total Health every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yards. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect.
• Underwater Breathing — Underwater breath lasts 233% longer than normal.
• Shadow Resistance — Chance to be hit with shadow spells decreased by 2%.

Engineering is without a doubt the best profession. Explosives, such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charge, deal a big chunk of extra damage and can be woven into your normal rotation using macros. In addition, Engineering offers access to several Best in Slot enchants, strong pre-raid items, such as Visage Liquification Goggles, and farming items like the Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, which can be used for farming Eternals, such as Eternal Water.

In every phase of WotLK, Tailoring gives access to several very strong Tailoring items, which last long in PvE content. One example from Phase 1 is the Ebonweave Robe. The key reason why Tailoring is so good for Mage is the best in slot cloak enchant Lightweave Embroidery. To add to this, you can enchant your legs almost for free, as the exclusive tailoring Sanctified Spellthread costs only one Eternium Thread to make. While not important for PvE or PvP, Tailoring also offers Epic flying carpets, such as the Magnificent Flying Carpet, and allows you to craft several of the already mentioned Bind on Equip items throughout the expansion, such as Merlin's Robe.

Besides Engineering and Tailoring, all the other Professions are not considered best in slot, however, the power gap between Tailoring and the alternatives is small, but still noticable. The other professions listed below provide almost equal bonuses. Jewelcrafting offers more flexibility with Hit Rating, as 3x Rigid Dragon's Eyes provide 42 more Hit rating than 3x Rigid King's Amber, which can result a use of stronger non-hit raid items. Leatherworking provides different Fur Linings, such as Fur Lining - Frost Resist or Fur Lining - Spell Power, which can flexibly be applied and changed between encounters for only one Arctic Fur. This, however, is considered to be a niche use of this profession. The following list provides you with more information about the bonuses each profession can give:

• 48 Spell Power or extra 42 Hit Rating — Jewelcrafting
• 47 Spell Power — Alchemy
• 46 Spell Power — Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Inscription, Leatherworking
• Lifeblood, passive heal — Alchemy
• Toughness, 60 Stamina — Mining
• Master of Anatomy, 40 Critical strike rating — Skinning

Using macros and addons makes your life significantly easier when playing Wrath Classic, and they can improve your experience a lot, depending on how skilled you are at customizing them.

If you are interested in learning more about addons and macros suited to Mage, check out our guides below: