Fire Mage DPS Guide — The War Within (11.0.5)

During the middle of the 11.0.5 patch, Fire received a few significant buffs, especially to Frostfire, which has a pretty sizeable impact on the spec. Normally we do not list individual tuning changes outside of big patches, but due to the changes it causes to the spec, we are listing them here.

The November 26 buffs to Frostfire are buffing almost all aspects of Frostfire. Almost all Frostfire nodes are buffed, and the combination of all of these buffs makes Frostfire now the best Hero Talent for Fire. Due to this, Sun King's Blessing is now also the best keystone talent instead of Unleashed Inferno, amongst various other talent tree optimizations due to the buffs.

These changes also heavily buffed Fire's cleave AoE DPS, making it now significantly closer to a Flamestrike based build in terms of AoE damage, while having higher priority and boss DPS.

We strongly recommend reading our Rotation Page on how to play with Frostfire + Sun King's Blessing, and check out the new best talents on our updated Talents Page.

• Pyroblast damage increased by 8%.
• Meteor direct damage increased by 25%.
• Ashen Feather Phoenix Flames damage bonus increased to 50% (was 25%).
• Frostfire buffs:
• Frostfire Mastery was buffed to grant 2% haste (was 1%).
• Isothermic Core Comet Storm effectiveness increased to 200% (was 150%).
• Frostfire Burst damage increased by 25%.
• Frostfire Infusion damage increased by 50%.
• Excess Frost cooldown reduction increased to 10 seconds (was 5 seconds).

In 11.0.5, Fire has received a mini rework. Overall, the core gameplay is not changing much, but there are some key changes. One of the most obvious changes, if you are playing Sunfury, is that the new Glorious Incandescence provides significantly more Hot Streak in AoE situations, alongside significantly more Combustion cooldown reduction via Kindling. This makes AoE feel even faster than before. There is a not so obvious downside to this: The Flamestrike based AoE rotation actually runs out of mana after 1-2 minutes of constant combat. This makes Flamestrike AoE pretty much dead on sustained fights unless they lower the mana cost of Flamestrike. If they do lower the mana cost, it will be a significant buff to Fire's AoE damage.

Otherwise, you will pretty much play Fire the same way as you did before 11.0.5. The talents have been rebalanced, which also causes the best talents to be updated on our Talents Page, especially the AoE talents as there are not multiple viable AoE builds. This also impacts our Mythic+ Page.

• The Talent Majesty of the Phoenix was changed: Phoenix Flames now causes your next Flamestrike to have a 20% increased Critical Strike Damage and Chance. This can stack up to 3 times.
• The Fire Talent Tree has received a lot minor balance changes:
• Heat Shimmer has had its bugs fixed: It can now proc while casting Scorch and it no longer gets consumed if triggered during a Scorch cast.
• Pyromaniac can now trigger Hyperthermia.
• Most of the Living Bomb related talents were buffed slightly. Lit Fuse has a higher proc chance (4% -> 6%), Explosive Ingenuity increases it by 4% now instead of 3% and increases Living Bomb's damage by 50% (was 25%). Explosivo was nerfed to increase Living Bomb's damage by 30% instead of 40%. Overall these changes are a very small buff to Living Bomb damage.
• Sparking Cinders was buffed to trigger 3 times per minute (was 2), and the bonus damage is now 15% for both Pyroblast and Flamestrike, instead of 10% for Pyroblast and 20% for Flamestrike.
• Controlled Destruction was fixed (nerfed) to actually increase Mastery: Ignite by 0.5% instead of 1%.
• All damage has been reduced by 3%.
• Frostfire got various changes:
• Excess Fire has been reworked. It no longer generates Living Bomb, but instead simply explodes for Frostfire damage to nearby targets.
• Frostfire Infusion was buffed to do 50% more damage.
• Isothermic Core was buffed, the Comet Storm now does 25% more damage.
• Sunfury got various changes:
• Glorious Incandescence has been buffed to now cause Fire Blast to hit up to 2 nearby targets on-top of its original effects. Note: This is a significant increase to Hot Streak generation on AoE, as each Fire Blast hit (not cast) contributes to Heating Up / Hot Streak, meaning that every single Fire Blast cast gives you a full Hot Streak.
• Memory of Al'ar was buffed to provide 1 second per exceptional spell instead of 0.5 seconds.
• Burden of Power was buffed for single-target, and nerfed for AoE. It now provides Pyroblast 20% damage (was 15%), but Flamestrike 30% (was 60%).

Fire Mage has received a minor rework in The War Within, with a minor spec talent tree rework and some changes to the base talent tree. Below, we will first go into the changes in the Mage talent tree before diving deeper into the changes in the Fire tree.

The Mage tree did not receive a lot of changes, but it did receive some important ones to hotly debated talents. Below, we list the most important changes:

• Temporal Warp has been removed, which was a highly divisive node, with some players loving it and some hating it. It was replaced for a passive 3% Intellect choice node against Time Anomaly.
• Ring of Frost and Ice Nova have been turned into a choice node, reducing the total amount of crowd-control available by a little bit, although neither were picked very often in PvE.
• Supernova has been moved from the Arcane tree to the class tree, and put into a choice node with Dragon's Breath. This new choice node is in a very central place in the tree, so it is easy to pick up.

In contrast to the Mage tree, the Fire tree got a minor rework. Many nodes have been repositioned, turned into choice nodes, or split choice nodes into their own individual nodes, allowing you to pick both. Additionally, a fair amount of new nodes have been added.

See below a list of the most important changes. The full, exhaustive list of changes can be found on the Class Changes page, which is linked further below.

• Scorch and all of its related talents were changed:
  • Scorch now has the guaranteed critical strike effect of Searing Touch and the 30% movement speed from Improved Scorch merged into it for targets below 30% health.
  • Searing Touch was removed; however, all of its previous effects were put into different nodes into one way or another, in stronger versions. As described above, the guaranteed crit is now baseline on Scorch, and the bonus damage to Scorch was moved to a new node, Down in Flames, which greatly increases the damage of Scorch to targets below 30%. This new node is in a choice node with Improved Scorch, which was buffed. This means you now have to pick between doing significantly more damage with Scorch or a bit more damage with all of your spells.
  • Heat Shimmer is a new talent which has a chance to give you a new proc effect, making Scorch instant-cast and treat the target as if it is below 30% health.
• Living Bomb has received a bunch of changes, with new talents modifying its behavior, proccing it, or otherwise changing it:
  • Living Bomb itself was removed as an ability you can cast manually. Instead, you can proc it and spread it via other means.
  • Lit Fuse is a new talent which will be the primary way to proc Living Bomb. It gives you a new proc that makes your next Fire Blast apply Living Bomb to 3 nearby targets, which on explosion can spread up to 5 targets.
  • Sparking Cinders is a new talent that gives your Living Bomb explosions a chance to make your next Flamestrike and Pyroblast do more damage.
  • Explosive Ingenuity is a new talent that increases the Lit Fuse proc chance and further increase Living Bomb damage.
  • Convection was changed to now reapply Living Bomb to the original target if there are no nearby targets to spread to. This can only happen once per original Lit Fuse proc.
  • Explosivo guarantees a Lit Fuse proc when you cast Combustion, and significantly increases the Lit Fuse proc chance during Combustion.
  • Blast Zone greatly increases the number of targets that Lit Fuse can apply Living Bomb, too, by making the initial proc apply it to 5 targets, and any further explosions spread to up to 8 targets.
• Quickflame is a new talent that increases the damage of Flamestrike. This is a choice node with Flame Patch, letting you choose between higher AoE burst via Quick Flame or lower burst but higher overall damage with Flame Patch if the enemies stay inside the patch.
• Pyromaniac and Inflame are no longer choice nodes.
• Call of the Sun King now provides the guaranteed critical strikes on Phoenix Flames that Alexstrasza's Fury used to provide, making Alexstrasza's Fury now only apply its effects to Dragon's Breath. Additionally, Alexstrasza's Fury is now a choice node with a new talent, Ashen Feather. This new talent increases Phoenix Flames' effectiveness on single-target.
• Controlled Destruction was changed to increase Ignite damage as you fight the same target longer, up to 50 stacks.
• Tempered Flames was replaced for Spontaneous Combustion. This new talent is a choice node with Improved Combustion, which immediately sets all your Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames charges to the maximum.
• Kindling and Unleashed Inferno now also provide cooldown reduction on Combustion for Flamestrike crits, allowing an overall shorter Combustion cooldown time both on single-target and AoE scenarios.
• Sun King's Blessing was changed to now require 10 stacks instead of 8 stacks.
• Molten Fury increases all damage dealt to targets below 35% health.
• From the Ashes is now no longer a choice node and was changed to increase Phoenix Flames damage and reduce its cooldown on direct damage from other spells.
• Mark of the Fire Lord is a new talent that increases your Ignite damage from Flamestrike and Living Bomb.
• Many nodes changed position in the tree, were replaced, or had their numbers changed, but these are all minor changes and hard to list as it is basically a new talent tree.

On top of the relatively large changes in the Fire tree, the Hero Talent Tree system was added. See our dedicated Fire Hero Talent Tree page below for more information on Fire's Hero Trees.