WotLK Classic Fire Mage Spell Summary

Fire Mages offer a variety of useful buffs for themselves and the group they play in. These buffs can be used to increase stats, damage and healing taken, Critical Strike chance, and Mana regeneration. Other buffs decrease damage and healing taken and decrease damage taken. The armor buffs only castable on the Mage, while the other buffs listed below can be cast on any group member.

Arcane Intellect — Increases Intellect on the target. Can be improved with Glyph of Arcane Intellect.

Arcane Brilliance — Increases Intellect of everyone in the target's group. Requires one Arcane Powder to be cast.

Dampen Magic — Buffs the target to decrease magic damage and healing taken. Can be enhanced by 50% with Arcane talents. Very niche use.

Amplify Magic — Buffs the target to increase magic damage and healing taken. Can be enhanced by 50% with Arcane talents. Useful on players that take Physical damage only or almost exclusively Physical damage. A very strong situational spell.

Molten Armor — 35% (or 55% with the Glyph of Molten Armor) of your Spirit will be converted into Critical Strike Rating. Deals 170 Fire damage per hit to melee attackers, decreases the chance to be critically hit by 5%. Can be enhanced with Fire talents to affect ranged and spell attacks as well.

Mage Armor — Increases magic resistance by 40 and allows 50% of the Mage's Mana regeneration to continue while casting. Can be enhanced by Arcane Shielding (50%) and Glyph of Mage Armor (20%)

Ice Armor — Increases the Mage's Armor by 930 and Frost resistance by 40 and slows enemy melee attackers. Can be enhanced by Frost Warding (50%) and Glyph of Ice Armor (50%).

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.

Mages are sought after for their crowd-controlling abilities, such as Polymorphing enemies and Frost-exclusive slowing and freezing effects. Further, they supply their group and themselves with fresh water and food and open portals to all major cities of each faction. Mages can also remove curses from allies and magic from enemies.

Polymorph — With this spell, humanoids, critters and beasts can be turned into a sheep for a certain amount of time. This effect can end before its maximum time has passed. Through the Fragmented Magic quest and the Tome of Polymorph: Turtle book, enemies can also be turned into a pig or a turtle, which is of course a very nice cosmetic upgrade. Glyph of the Penguin can transforms your Polymorph targets into a penguin. Glyph of Polymorph removes damage-over-time effects from your Polymorph target, which could otherwise break Polymorph.

Conjure Refreshment — Conjured Mana Strudels, usable by friendly players, restoring health and Mana. Conjured items disappear from the inventory after logging out for 15 minutes or more. This spell can be learned from Mage trainers.

Ritual of Refreshment — Creates a portal two friendly players need to click in order to make a table appear. Costs 5 Arcane Powder. Each player can take up to 80 Conjured Mana Strudels from this table. Conjured items disappear from the inventory after logging out for 15 minutes or longer.

Conjure Mana Gem — A Mage can create different types of Mana gems, which can be used in combat to restore Mana. The highest rank of this spell restores most Mana. Mana Gems are unique; conjuring the highest rank does not allow you to conjure lower ranks of it. Does not disappear when logging out. Has 3 charges. Can be improved with Glyph of Mana Gem.

Teleport Spells: Every Mage can teleport to their faction's major cities, to Shattrath, or to Dalaran at the cost of one Rune of Teleportation.

Portal Spells: These spells are used to open portals to each faction's major cities, to Shattrath, and to Dalaran that the whole group can use. Costs 1 Rune of Portals.

Invisibility — The Mage fades out for 3 seconds and becomes invisible after that time. Each second before becoming invisible, the threat against all enemies is reduced. Any damage taken or action from the Mage cancels the spell. This can be used as a threat dump, to leave combat, or to sneak by enemies. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Invisibility.

Evocation — A channeled spell that restores 60% of your Mana during 8 seconds. Haste effects make the channeling faster and damage taken while channeling reduces the Mana restored. Has a base cooldown of 4 minutes, can be reduced to 2 minutes with talents. Another small tip is that the Tier 3 2-set bonus (Frostfire Regalia) reduces the cooldown of Evocation by a minute. With this in mind, you can swap to the 2 pieces, wait for a second (the bonus needs a bit to activate), Evocate, and swap back to your normal gear. Be sure to only use this strategy out of combat, as you can only switch back to your normal gear out of combat and Tier 3 is terrible to wear during an encounter.

Spellsteal — Sometimes enemies have beneficial magical buffs you can steal with this ability. Stolen buffs last on you for two minutes. Some bosses require one Mage to steal a magical buff from an enemy, in order to be able to tank it. Range can be improved with talents.

Counterspell — This spell is used to interrupt enemy casting and to prevent any spell of the interrupted spell school from being cast for 8 seconds. Can be improved with talents.

Blink — Teleports the Mage 20 yards forward. This ability can be used to reposition during fights and save some running time, flee from enemies, break snaring effects, or to prevent fall damage by Blinking shortly before reaching the ground. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Blink.

Slow Fall — At the cost of one Light Feather (0 with Glyph of Slow Fall), Mages can reduce their and allies' falling speed for 30 seconds. This can be used to survive falling down, or to move to locations normally unreachable, by jumping from a higher ledge to a lower position. Can be cast before mounting and it will persist while mounted.

Remove Curse — Removes a Curse from a friendly target. Glyph of Remove Curse makes the decursed target immune to Curses for 4 seconds.

Frost Nova — Freezes enemies 8 yards around the Mage for 8 seconds.

Fire Mages use different offensive abilities than Frost or Arcane Mages.

Fireball — Your main damage spell (in Fire TTW spec) with a 3.5-second cast time, or 3 seconds with talents. With Glyph of Fireball the cast time is further reduced to 2.85s. Fireball receives 15% more Spell power through the Empowered Fire talent.

Frostfire Bolt — Your main damage spell (in Fire FFB spec) with a 3-second cast time. With Glyph of Frostfire the initial damage is increased by 2% and the critical strike chance of FFB is increased by 2%. Frostfire Bolt receives 15% more Spell power through the Empowered Fire talent.

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.

Pyroblast — Hurls a big fiery boulder on an enemy, does high damage, and leaves a strong DoT on the enemy. In PvE two critical strikes in a row from non-periodic Fire spells trigger Hot Streak and make your Pyroblast an instant cast. Outside of raiding, Pyroblast is mostly used for pulling while leveling or solo farming, because of the very long 5s cast time. Only available via talent points.

Scorch — Has a 1.5s cast time and does less damage than Fireball, but can be a very important spell. With the Improved Scorch talent, it 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.

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. Glyph of Fire Blast increases the Critical Strike chance of Fire Blast by 50% when the target is stunned or incapacitated.

Blast Wave — A high damage Fire AoE spell on a 30-second cooldown. Damages all enemies around the Mage, knocks them away, and dazes them for 6 seconds. Glyph of Blast Wave removes the knockback effect and reduces the Mana cost of the spell by 15%. With the Firestarter talent, your damage from Blast Wave gains a 50/100% chance to make your next Flamestrike an instant cast. Only available via talent points.

Dragon's Breath — Does high Fire damage to enemies in a cone shape front of the Fire Mage and disorients enemies for 5 seconds. Any direct, so not damage-over-time, damage interrupts the disorient effect. Has a 20-second cooldown and puts Cone of Cold on a small cooldown. With the Firestarter talent, your damage from Dragon's Breath gains a 50/100% chance to make your next Flamestrike an instant cast. Only available via talent points.

Flamestrike — Has a 2-second cast time and can be placed anywhere within a 30 yards radius around the Mage. Does instant damage and leaves a DoT that is not subject to the AoE cap. With the Firestarter talent and Blast Wave/Dragon's Breath, Flamestrikes can become an extremely powerful tool for your AoE damage. You can also stack the two highest ranks of this spell (Rank 9 and 8) for even more damage.

Arcane Explosion — The main AoE spell when a fight is not stationary (when mobs are being kited by the tank). Generates very low threat with the Arcane Subtlety talent. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Arcane Explosion.

Blizzard — Is a strong AoE spell, but should only be used on stationary enemies and in conjunction with your other Fire Aoe Spells. In the Frostfire spec this ability does very high dps, especially when combined with Rank 9 and 8 of Flamestrike.

Ignite — After Critical Strikes with Fire spells, a DoT is placed on the target to deal 40% of the Critical Strike's damage over 4 seconds to the target, "ticking" (dealing damage) every 2 seconds. If you crit multiple times in a row, the 40% damage from each critical strike are accumulated and added to the next Ignite "tick" and the remaining Ignite DoT time is reset to 4 seconds. This is the most important core ability of playing Fire Mage and is only available via talent points.

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.

Icy Veins — Increases your casting speed by 20% for 20 seconds. During the duration of Icy Veins, your spells are no longer subject to spell pushback. Use this when ability as often as possible.

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. Can be improved with Glyph of Mirror Image.

Molten Fury — 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.

Every Mage spec has good defensive capabilities. They can absorb damage from different sources and even become immune to damage.

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

Ice Block — Puts the Mage in an Ice Block for 10 seconds, making them immune to almost all attacks and spells. Some boss abilities can penetrate the Ice Block immunity and Priests can dispel Ice Block with Mass Dispel. This ability can also be used to protect the caster from fall damage. After using Ice Block, you get the Hypothermia debuff that prevents you from using Ice Block again for 30 seconds. Can be improved with talents and Glyph of Ice Block.

Blazing Speed — A PvP ability with limited use in PvE. Gives a 10% chance when hit by melee or ranged attacks to increase movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds and dispels movement-impairing effects. This is considered to be a defensive ability, as it lets you flee from dangerous situations more easily and create space between your opponent and yourself. Only available via talent points.

The AoE spells Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave can also be used defensively to create space between yourself and enemies.