Fire Mage Battleground Blitz Guide — The War Within (11.1.7)
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about playing Fire Mage in Battleground Blitz, including specific playstyle tips, talent builds, and much more.
Fire Mages in Battleground Blitz
Playstyle as Fire Mage
The main role of a Fire Mage in Battleground Blitz is to use relentless
damage on enemies to quickly force kills and crowd control with Polymorph.
To keep your team offensive, you will use
Time Warp when your team has
cooldowns and follow this up with
Polymorph on enemy healers or DPS if
they will not take damage to break it. If teams try to setup kills on you, use
Ice Block to ensure you stay alive.
In addition to damage and crowd controlling, you will also be slowing every
enemy you can with Slow,
Frost Nova, and
Ice Nova. This
is a crucial part of the Mage toolkit for Battleground Blitz. If you are able
to slow enemies when they are on their way to a base and your team is able to
pass them, your team will likely get the base.
Talent Choices for Fire Mage
Here is the talent build you will be using to maximize your damage output:
Recommended PvP Talents for Fire Mage
These are the 3 PvP talents you should be using in Battleground Blitz.
Ignition Burst is great for increasing your overall damage output and gives you even more instant damage to help kill enemies at low health.
Overpowered Barrier increases the absorb of your barriers by 100% and have an additional effect, but the duration is reduced.
Blazing Barrier reflects 40% of damage absorbed. This is great for increasing your survivability and helping kill enemies that are focusing you.
Ice Wall – An extremely versatile spell that can be used to wall of healers from their DPS or to prevent flag carriers from getting into their base.
For a more in-depth breakdown of talents, continue reading the talents section of this guide:
Crowd Control as Fire Mage
In Battleground Blitz, without the Arena Dampening effect, healers, when left alone, are able to sustain against many players with relative ease. The way to counter the high throughput of healers in Battleground Blitz is with the effective use of crowd control.
Mage has many tools in its kit to aid with this:
Polymorph
Slow
Dragon's Breath
Blast Wave
Frost Nova
Ice Wall
Ring of Frost. Note:
Ring of Fire replaces this.
Note: Be careful with Polymorph! This will dispel all DoTs on the
target, and you could be removing quite a bit of damage if you have an
Affliction Warlock or Shadow Priest on your team.
Fire Mage Defensives
Ice Block is your main defensive ability. If you have run out of
Shimmers and have no other ways to kite or survive, use this spell.
This will protect you from all damage.
Cauterize is a passive ability that gives Fire Mages a "second
life," preventing you from dying on a 5-minute cooldown and instead burning
your health for 6 seconds. It also increases your movement speed. This is very
useful when you are about to die, and it helps you get away from enemies.
Blazing Barrier is a slightly weaker form of
Ice Barrier. However, it deals damage when you are struck by melee
attacks. It is best used typically off cooldown to mitigate maximum amounts
of incoming damage.
Alter Time may seem like a confusing ability at first, but it
is really straightforward. The first time you press this ability, it remembers
how much health you have and your location. The second time you press it, it
will return to the same location with the exact health you had when you first
pressed it. This should be used when you feel like you are about to take damage
or about to be stunned. This ability can be
Purged, so be mindful.
Although Mirror Image deals damage and slows enemies,
it should primarily be used as a defensive cooldown. While the images are
active, you take 20% less damage. Taking direct damage will break 1 of the
3 mirrors. If the images stay alive for the entire duration, you will get
this damage reduction for 40 seconds! Use this when you do not have Alter
Time, and you see the enemy using their burst cooldowns.
Blast Wave is a knockback that gives Mages an additional way to
get away from melee players. Use this when melee have connected you with
heavy damage cooldowns or you need to kite and run. Talented into the
Volatile Detonation talent allows
Blast Wave to send
enemies extremely far away and can even be used to knock off maps like
Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm
Fire Mage Stat Priority and Gear
- Intellect;
- Haste;
- Versatility;
- Mastery;
- Critical Strike.
The stat priority for Fire Mage is the same in Battleground Blitz and Arena. If you want an in-depth explanation and suggestions on gear, read the gearing section of this guide:
The Role of Fire Mages in Battlegrounds
Capture the Flag (Warsong Gulch, Twin Peaks)
On both Warsong Gulch and Twin Peaks, if you are defending your own flag
carrier, you should encourage them to take high ground on the upstairs ledges
so you can protect them with Blast Wave.
Similarly, when attacking enemy bases, you should look to knock players off the high ground. You can do that either to make sure that your teammates can attack the enemy flag carrier or to separate the flag carrier from their healers.
Due to Fire Mage having incredibly high single-target damage and multiple
slows, your primary goal in capture the flag maps is to play offense. This
means that when an enemy player picks up your flag, you should be trying to
kill that flag carrier. Quickly leave the team fight when this happens and s
etup kills on the enemy team's defense. Utilize tools like Slow and
Ice Nova to slow the flag carrier and
Polymorph on the enemy
healers. For an in-depth guide to Fire Mage damage rotations, read here:
Resource Race (Arathi Basin, Battle for Gilneas, Deepwind Gorge)
Before a Resource Race battleground starts, you should decide with your team which base you should focus on first.
- If there is an enemy healer at the base you are assigned to, then you should crowd control them as soon as possible and use your burst cooldowns to kill their teammates
- If there is no healer but there is more than one DPS enemy, you should use your crowd control on the one who your team is less likely to attack (as they would break your crowd control)
Your primary goal on resource race maps is simple: capture nodes and slow
enemies. Polymorph lasts 6 seconds, and it takes 4 seconds to capture
a node. This means that if an enemy is alone at a base, you should easily be
able to take it. Always pay attention to who is at which base. You will also
want to slow any enemies who may be trying to help their teammates at a base.
Utilize your multiple slows and
Polymorph to prevent any enemies from
providing backup to their team.
Hybrid (Eye of the Storm)
Similar to resource race maps, your goal is to capture any nodes and slow
enemies who might be trying to help if they are falling behind. The goal on
this map, unlike normal Rated Battlegrounds, is to team fight at one node and
try to cap both bases. This results in long 7v7 team fights, and the winner
will more than likely pull ahead quickly. Trade your defensives when you get
low ( Ice Block,
Alter Time, etc.) and get value out of
Dragon's Breath/
Polymorph on enemy players.
Note: Capping the flag will make the inactive bases active, and both teams will have to recap the nodes. Use this tactic if your team is falling behind on points or lost the team fight.
King of the Hill (Temple of Kotmogu)
Ranged DPS specializations will always be the best orb carriers on Temple of Kotmogu, so you should be one of the first players to get an Orb if there is one available. The most important part about this map is to win the initial team fight and quickly gain momentum by grabbing 3 orbs and standing in the middle of the map. When the enemy team starts to resurrect, leave middle and kite around the center. Here are some tips for this map:
- Players take more damage the longer they hold the orb. This means that, eventually, the Orb carriers will die. Ideally, your team will only hold 2-3 orbs at a time so that you do not easily wipe when you have high stacks.
- Make sure you die on the correct side of the map! You and your team will resurrect depending on where you died. If you die on purple side, you will resurrect on blue side and vice versa. Ensuring you and your team resurrect together is crucial, this will allow you to regroup faster and quickly wipe the enemy team that will be weak.
Changelog
- 15 Jun. 2025: Updated recommended talents.
- Updated recommended PvP talents.
- 21 Apr. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.5.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.
- Updated recommended talents.
- Updated recommended PvP talents.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.7.
- 30 Nov. 2024: Updated Recommended PvP Talents.
- 20 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
- Updated Recommended Talents.
- 15 Sep. 2024: Updated Recommended Talents.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 28 Aug. 2024: Page added.
Other PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved 3000 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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