WotLK Classic Fire Mage Spec, Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

Fire Mage talents aim to maximize single-target and AoE damage.

If you were looking for a leveling-oriented build please refer to our Mage leveling guide.

Fire Mages in WotLK can play a Frostfire or an Arcane Fire spec. The Arcane Fire spec is also called "Fire TTW" or simply "TTW", as it utilizes the Torment the Weak (TTW) talent in the Arcane tree. TTW gives you a flat 12% damage bonus on Fireball and Pyroblast, which are 2 of your 3 main damage spells. The other main damage spell is Living Bomb. This talent tree also excels at both burst and consistent AoE damage and is good for Dungeons, Raids and leveling. The Frostfire Bolt (FFB) talents are appealing, because Frostfire Bolt double dips (benefits twice) from Precision, lowering your needed hit cap by 6% compared to Fire TTW. Frostfire Bolt also double dips from effects like Improved Shadow Bolt and Improved Scorch, as well as from Heart of the Crusader and similar effects, resulting in a 8% increased critical strike chance. The main rotation for Frostfire is the same as for TTW, just that you use Frostfire Bolt instead of Fireball, and Blizzard is stronger. With FFB you give up the talent Focus Magic, which is basically the key component whether FFB or TTW is stronger. If you spec TTW and give Focus Magic to a Fire Mage, Shadow Priest or Moonkin, TTW is slightly ahead in single target damage. The mana efficiency, lower hit cap (and easier gearing), and better AoE of the FFB spec count as arguments for you to decide which of the two specs you want to use.

Improved Fireball decreases the cast time of your Fireball by 0.5 seconds, which makes your Fireball go from a 3.5- to 3-second cast time. This talent is a massive DPS increase.

Ignite makes your targets burn after suffering from a Critical Strike with Fire spells. This burning leaves a DoT on the target that deals 40% of the spell's total damage over 4 seconds in increments of 2 seconds. If you crit for 1,000 damage, the Ignite DoT would do a total of 400 damage, with 200 damage dealt after 2 seconds and another 200 after 4 seconds. If you do crit again before any of these ticks, the Ignite DoT duration is reset to 4 and the damage from the new crit is added to the Ignite damage of the first crit. This is the most important Fire talent.

World in Flames increases the Critical Strike chance of all the AoE spells this build utilizes by 6%.

Pyroblast is basically a stronger Fireball with a 5-second cast time. This talent is very important, as it is required to reach the Blast Wave talent and synergizes with the bread and butter talent Hot Streak.

Burning Soul reduces the threat of Fire spells 20% and gives Fire spells a 70% chance to not suffer spell pushback from damage.

Improved Scorch increases the enemy's chance to take a critical strike from spells by 5%. If a Destruction Warlock with Improved Shadow Bolt or a Frost Mage with Winter's Chill is around, you do not need to worry about the Improved Scorch debuff. The debuff lasts for 30 seconds.

Master of Elements returns 20% of a spell's base Mana cost, if it crits. AoE spells that crit multiple targets only return the Mana once per cast.

Playing with Fire increases all spell damage caused and taken by 3%. Doing 3% more damage at the cost of taking 3% more is worth it.

Critical Mass gives all your Fire spells a 6% higher chance to crit.

Blast Wave is your first out of 2 possible Fire AoE spells and deals massive amounts of Fire damage. This ability has a 30-second cooldown and has to be used with care, as Fire spells only get a 20% threat decrease. Only use this spell if your tank has a good threat lead to avoid pulling aggro and dying to enemy attacks. This is even more important with the Firestarter talent, which gives your Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath the chance to cast an instant Flamestrike within 10 seconds.

Fire Power increases Fire damage done by 10%. This is also one of the strongest talents the Fire tree has to offer.

Pyromaniac increases the chance to crit with Fire spells by 3% and allows 50% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.

Combustion is your big Fire cooldown. When Combustion is activated, it increases the Critical Strike chance of your Fire spells by 10% each time you hit one of your foes, until you have crit three times with non-periodic Fire spells. Further, while active, it increases the Critical Strike damage bonus of all Fire spells by 50%, so it is very important to use this damage cooldown together with as many damage-increasing effects as possible, or during the execute phase with Molten Fury. After scoring three crits, the 3-minute cooldown of this talent starts.

Molten Fury is a passive ability that increases the damage dealt to a target with 35% Health or less by 12%. It is only logical to use all your damage-increasing abilities, such as trinkets, Potion of Speed, Flame Caps, and cooldowns like Combustion during that nuke phase to maximize the damage you deal.

Empowered Fire increases the spell damage scaling of Fireball by 15%. That means that if you have 1,00 spell damage with raid buffs, your Fireballs will not get 1,000 bonus damage, but 1,150. This drastically increases the value of the Spell Damage stat for Fire Mages. Further, you gain a 100% chance to regain 2% of your base Mana when Ignite does damage.

Firestarter gives your Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath spells a 50/100% chance to make your next Flamestrike an instant cast and cost no Mana for 10 seconds. Taking one point in this talent is usually enough, as you usually hit so many targets with Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave that the 50% chance is enough to trigger this talent.

Dragon's Breath bathes enemies in front of you in a frontal cone of Fire and disorients them for 3 seconds. Any direct damage (that means DoTs, notably Ignite, are excluded from this rule) will break the disorient effect. This ability does very high AoE damage and, paired with Combustion and Blast Wave, you can add good Ignite damage to your targets. Use with caution though, because of the high threat Fire spells do.

Hot Streak makes your next Pyroblast an instant spell, if you score two crits in a row with any combination of Fireball, Fire Blast, Scorch, Living Bomb, or Frostfire Bolt. This is probably your most important Fire talent together with Ignite.

Burnout increases your Critical Strike bonus from spells by 50% but makes your non-periodic spell criticals cost 105% of their Mana cost.

Living Bomb places a DoT on your target that deals damage and triggers an explosion, dealing damage to everyone within 10 yards of the target after 12 seconds. This is a very powerful spell and can also be improved with Glyph of Living Bomb, allowing the DoT ticks to crit.

Arcane Subtlety decreases the threat you do with your Arcane spells by 40% and decreases the chance your helpful spells will be dispelled by 30%. This talent is key, as it will make it very hard for you to pull aggro, be it with Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, or Arcane Explosion.

Arcane Focus increases your chance to hit with Arcane spells by 3%.

Arcane Concentration gives you a 10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any attack goes off. This gives you an average of 10% reduced Mana cost on your damaging spells.

Spell Impact gives your main DPS spells a 6% damage bonus.

Student of the Mind increases your total Spirit by 4%, which gives you slightly more Critical Strike rating from Molten Armor.

Focus Magic is a powerful buff to be cast on a friendly target. It increases their Critical Strike chance with spells by 3%. If they score a Critical Strike, your Critical Strike chance is also increased by 3% for 10 seconds.

Torment the Weak gives your main DPS spells a 12% damage bonus if your target is slowed in any way (physical/spell/movement slow), which they usually are from a Death Knight's Icy Touch or a Warrior's Thunder Clap.

This tree is only relevant for the Frostfire spec. Contrary to the 3 points in Ice Floes, the two points in Frostbite or Improved Frostbolt are filler points to reach the other important talents

Ice Floes reduces the cooldown of Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block and Icy Veins by 20%.

Ice Shards makes your Frost Spell Critical Strikes deal 200% damage. This talent stacks with Burnout and makes your Frostfire Bolt and Blizzard crit extremely hard.

Precision increases your chance to Hit with all spells by 3%, gives 6% for Frostfire Bolt.

Piercing Ice increases all Frost damage done by 6%.

Frost Channeling benefits your Frostfire Bolt's mana efficiency, however these two points can also be put into Flame Throwing.

Icy Veins increases your casting speed by 20% and gives you a 100% spell pushback protection for 20 seconds. Does not protect from interrupt effects or stuns.

The best Fire Mage Glyphs are Glyph of Fireball if TTW (or Glyph of Frostfire if FFB), Glyph of Living Bomb, and Glyph of Molten Armor (Major), and Glyph of Arcane Intellect and Glyph of Slow Fall (Minor). The third glyph is your personal choice. Further, one could argue that Glyph of Fire Ward and Glyph of Frost Ward are better minor glyphs than any other, but the use of these is very, very niche, so this guide will stick to the quality of life glyphs. Below you will find a complete list of glyphs, in case you would like to experiment with them, e.g. for farming purposes. Your tanks will love you if you use Glyph of Blast Wave, however the knockback effect can also be utilized to benefit your raid in some situations.

Major Glyphs
Glyph of Arcane Barrage	Glyph of Fire Blast	Glyph of Living Bomb
Glyph of Arcane Blast	Glyph of Fireball	Glyph of Mage Armor
Glyph of Arcane Explosion	Glyph of Frost Nova	Glyph of Mana Gem
Glyph of Arcane Missiles	Glyph of Frostbolt	Glyph of Mirror Image
Glyph of Arcane Power	Glyph of Frostfire	Glyph of Molten Armor
Glyph of Blink	Glyph of Ice Barrier	Glyph of Polymorph
Glyph of Deep Freeze	Glyph of Ice Block	Glyph of Remove Curse
Glyph of Eternal Water	Glyph of Ice Lance	Glyph of Scorch
Glyph of Ice Armor	Glyph of Icy Veins	Glyph of Water Elemental
Glyph of Evocation	Glyph of Invisibility

Minor Glyphs:

• Glyph of Arcane Intellect
• Glyph of Blast Wave
• Glyph of Fire Ward
• Glyph of Frost Armor
• Glyph of Frost Ward
• Glyph of Slow Fall
• Glyph of the Penguin