WotLK Classic Fire Mage Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

If you are not familiar already with all the Fire Mage spells, take a look at our Spell Summary page. It is also an interesting read, if you want to refresh your memory. Knowing how all your important spells work helps you understand your class better. This will improve your performance, as you will not have to think about spells any longer, but simply know them and can focus on what happens around you in PvE and PvP situations. Fire Mages come with a very high damage potential in long fights due to the "execute phase" from Molten Fury and with end-game gear they can even out-DPS Arcane Mages. Knowing when to use your cooldowns optimally will elevate your damage even more.

This guide assumes you are running one of the Fire Mage PvE builds and that you are playing a Level 80 character.

There are a few spells you always need to have active if you want to maximize your performance:

• Arcane Intellect/Arcane Brilliance — This boosts your Intellect stat and therefore your Mana pool and Critical Strike chance.
• Molten Armor — Boosts your Critical Strike chance by 35% of your total Spirit (55% with Glyph of Molten Armor) and deals damage to enemies that hit you. This is the better choice, unless you face extreme Mana problems all the time.
• Mage Armor — Boosts your Magic resistance by 40 and allows 50% of your Mana regeneration (70% with Glyph of Mage Armor) to continue while casting. Only use this armor if you really need the Magic resistance or Mana regeneration.
• Focus Magic — Cast on another caster who does a lot of crits to boost theirs and your Critical Strike chance by 3%.

Fire Mages have it a bit harder than Arcane Mages when it comes to AoE damage, as their threat modifiers are generally worse and the top Fire spec comes with a lot of burst damage, especially when AoEing with a Blast Wave -> Flamestrike -> Dragon's Breath -> Flamestrike combination through the Firestarter talent, and several Living Bombs going off at the same time. Blizzard (for FFB Mages) also has a high threat potential. This can lead to overaggro situations very quickly. If Mirror Images are not available for a full blast rotation, Fire Mages need to be careful when they AoE to not pull aggro and die from enemies beating them. If your tanks are doing low threat or you are simply generating too much threat, it is always better to hold back for a few seconds. The alternative is continuing with AoE and dying to threat. Therefore, the massive AoE threat potential can also decrease a Fire Mage's AoE viability.

However, there is no need to worry: The standard Fire spec that goes into the Arcane tree for Torment the Weak also takes 2 points in Arcane Subtlety, which allows you to do low-threat Arcane Explosions in threat-capped situations.

Mirror Image can be used on AoE to disappear from the threat list while doing heavy burst AoE damage. Simply use them while engaging the next pack of mobs and enjoy doing no threat until the Mirror Images disappear.

This WeakAura by Hildigunnur shows you a list of targets you have threat on and displays your threat relative to your tank. There are several such modifications on wago.io, just search there for 'aoe threat'. Another way to survive high AoE threat is to use Ice Block or Invisibility when in danger. Ice Block is no threat wipe, but it gives your tank more time to build threat during its duration. Invisibility takes you out of combat after 3 seconds and completely resets your threat.

The Living Bomb DoT takes 12 seconds to explode, so it is best used directly on pull while mobs are still running toward the tank. DoT up as many mobs as possible (Flame Throwing can help to DoT earlier), but make sure to only use this technique if you know that the mobs will survive long enough for the detonation to go off. Cast Dragon's Breath in melee range of the mobs. This will trigger Firestarter which allows you to cast Flamestrike (Rank 9). Cast Blast Wave and hit the mobs in front of you, and follow it up with a Firestarter Flamestrike (Rank 8). If your mobs are stationary, it is better (damage-wise but not threat-wise) to cast Blizzard. If the mobs move, cast Arcane Explosions. Should the enemies live long enough, you can cast Living Bombs and Dragon's Breath/Blast Wave (followed by instant Flamestrike) again. If any of these spells causes you to overaggro, reconsider using them. Frostfire Mages can find great damage potential in Living Bombing high health enemies early, casting Flamestrike (Rank 9) and Flamestrike (Rank 8) where mobs are gathered and use a Blizzard. This rotation does very high DPS on range, while Torment the Weak Fire Mages have their highest damage potential in melee based AoE. Regardless of your spec, you will always do more damage being alive (and for Fire TTW: spamming Arcane Explosion) than being dead and doing 0 damage. If you go into melee for the Blast Wave, Dragon's Breath and Flamestrike, using a macro that automatically casts Flamestrike on your position can be helpful:

• #showtooltip
• /cast [@player] Flamestrike(Rank 9)

You can exchange the [@player] with [@cursor] to cast it on your cursor's position position. Further, you can also exchange the spell name or even the rank (e.g. Rank 9 to Rank 8), but do not add a space between the spell's name and the (Rank x) or the macro will not work. Not adding a rank at all will automatically cast the highest rank of a spell.

All AoE spells can be combined with Global Thermal Sapper Charges and Saronite Bombs by using a macro, and of course with all kinds of trinkets, cooldowns, and consumables. You can, for example, macro your trinket, Potion of Speed, the Troll racial Berserking, and a Saronite Bomb into a macro that puts down a Flamestrike at your cursor's position:

Flamestrike Macro:

• /use 13
• /use Potion of Speed
• /cast Berserking
• /use [@cursor] Saronite Bomb
• /cast [@cursor] Flamestrike(Rank 9)
• /cqs

Frostfire Bolt Mages can add a /cast Icy Veins line to the macro.

Arcane Explosion Macro:

• /use 13
• /use Potion of Speed
• /cast Berserking
• /use Global Thermal Sapper Charge
• /use [@player] Saronite Bomb
• /cast Arcane Explosion
• /cqs

The trinket in the upper trinket slot is accessed via /use 13, and the trinket in the lower trinket slot via /use 14. You can only use one activation trinket at a time. If you wish to not include any trinket, potion, buff, or bomb in your macro, simply leave these lines out. The tag [@cursor] casts the Saronite Bomb and Flamestrike at your cursor position, while [@player] casts the Saronite Bomb at your player position. If you wish to use another spell, such as Blast Wave, simply write Blast Wave instead of Arcane Explosion in the macro.

Fire Mages are capable of doing huge amounts of single-target damage, especially in long fights during Molten Fury. Your main rotation will be to keep up Living Bomb (prioritize refreshing Living Bomb over using a Pyroblast Hot Streak proc). If no Destruction Warlock with Improved Shadow Bolt or no Frost Mage with Winter's Chill is around, you need to keep up the Improved Scorch debuff by casting Scorch every 30 seconds. Cast Fireballs and, when you score two crits in a row and Hot Streak activates, cast an instant Pyroblast. As of Phase 3, Mages will no longer need to deal with the 'Ignite Munching' problem, which was previously solved with addons and macros. Ignite munching basically meant that you lost Ignite damage from a Hot Streaked Pyroblast hitting at the same time as a Fireball, because one Ignite got (partially) overwritten.

When you face Mana problems, cast Evocation when you are OOM (out of mana) and make sure to use your Mana Sapphire on cooldown. A good macro for using Mana Sapphire is the following (this macro can also be used with potions, simply replace Mana Sapphire with the potion name):

• #showtooltip Fireball
• /use Mana Sapphire
• /cast Fireball
• /cqs

A good way to pump your DPS from stacking cooldowns is to use your Mirror Image on cooldown and to use Combustion together with Fireball in the following macro:

• /use 13
• /use Potion of Speed
• /cast Berserking
• /cast Combustion
• /use [@cursor] Saronite Bomb
• /cast Fireball
• /cqs

(Frostfire Bolt Mages can add a /cast Icy Veins line to the macro.)

This way you will use your top trinket (13 is the top trinket slot, 14 is the bottom trinket slot), a Potion of Speed (or a Flame Cap, if you adjust the macro accordingly), Berserking (only relevant for Trolls), Combustion, throw a Saronite Bomb at your cursor position, and cast Fireball on your target.

Mirror Image — Should be used for additional damage, as the Mirror Images attack your enemy and do additional damage, or to disappear from the threat list while doing heavy burst (AoE) damage. Mirror Images benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism if cast beforehand and only attack if an enemy is nearby and you are already in combat with them.

Fire Blast — Will be cast while moving or to finish off an enemy with a last cast. Fire Blast has no travel time. When you have a Hot Streak proc and know you will need to move before the buff expires, keep it until you need to move and cast Fire Blast -> Pyroblast -> Fire Blast.

Combustion — Increases your Critical Strike damage bonus with Fire damage spells by 50%, and causes each of your Fire damage spell hits to increase your Critical Strike chance with Fire damage spells by 10%. This effect lasts until you have caused 3 non-periodic Critical Strikes with Fire spells. Keep this spell for when you have as many damage increasing buffs as possible, as the Critical Strike damage bonus will scale with those damage increasing buffs.

Remove Curse — While this is no damage spell, it is of high importance to decurse on some fights, and doing so is part of being a good Mage.

Spellsteal — In some fights you either help your team to survive or you gain a massive buff when spell stealing from enemies.

Polymorph — Turning your enemies into a sheep for 50 seconds is sometimes required in PvE encounters and you should always be ready to use this spell.

Blink — This can either be used to travel a large distance within one GCD and continue casting or to move out of dangerous boss mechanics. Blink can be seen as a passive DPS increase, as you travel forward 20 yards and then have 1.5s global cooldown to position before you can cast again. Moving the same distance would take significantly longer and would reduce your overall casting time. If you are a good Mage, using this spell to avoid movement is a sign of quality.

Ice Block — Makes you immune to most kinds of damage. If you pulled aggro from a mob, they return to the 2nd-highest threat target (which usually is the tank). It can also be used to remove deadly debuffs from you.

Mana Shield, Frost Ward, and Fire Ward — absorb damage and can be useful in some PvE situations.

Playing a Mage does not only mean to press the Fireball/ Frostfire Bolt and Pyroblast buttons, but also managing your Mana, using crowd control spells, and making sure you survive.

Please consider taking a look at the Fire Mage spells section if you want to refresh your memory.