Fire Mage DPS Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (11.1.0)

Fire has the option to choose between 2 main AoE builds:

• Cleave Based AoE Build;
• Flamestrike AoE Build;

The Cleave based build almost never casts Flamestrike, and instead does its AoE damage by doing its single target rotation and spreading Mastery: Ignite and doing AoE damage via Firefall and Living Bomb. Due to this, it does better priority target damage, at the cost of some AoE damage. It also does better boss damage.

The cleave build does still pick up Quickflame, but this does not mean you should actively cast Flamestrike. Flamestrike should only be used on low health large groups of enemies. Enemies that live longer should be cleaved down by doing the single-target rotation. You can drop this one point in Quickflame for any other single-target point of your choosing if you do not expect any low health enemies in the content you are doing.

The Flamestrike based build is almost identical to the cleave based build, swapping only Firefall into Fevered Incantation. You only do this because Firefall has almost no value if you are going to be spamming Flamestrike. The Flamestrike based rotation does more damage on AoE at the cost of doing significantly less priority target damage. Both builds are relatively close boss damage. Note that it is only worth casting Flamestrike from 5 targets and onwards, so going the Flamestrike based build is never worth it if you will not fight more than 5 targets.

Which build you go highly depends on the damage your group needs. If you are doing content where you do not fight more than 5 targets, you should always go the cleave based build. The cleave build will do best single-target and priority damage, whereas the Flamestrike based build will do more AoE damage. If you are unsure, I recommend the cleave based build.

• Swap between the Flamestrike and Cleave based builds based on the type of damage profile you need for your current dungeon.
• Replace Mass Barrier for Mass Invisibility if your dungeon route requires the ability to skip enemy packs and have no one else providing the group with invisibility (a Rogue or using potions).
• Swap in/out of Remove Curse for any defensive talent of your choice when there are no Curses to dispel in the dungeon, you plan to do, or if someone else will handle the dispelling.
• Swap in/out of Spellsteal for any defensive talent of your choice when there are no buffs worth dispelling in the dungeon you plan to do.
• Take Ring of Frost or Ice Nova if you need any more crowd-control, at the cost of any of your defensives.
• Replace Blast Wave for any defensive talent of your choosing if you do not need the crowd-control.
• Opt out of Ice Cold (and the nodes leading to it) for any defensive nodes of your choosing if you need the immunity of Ice Block for the dungeon you are doing.

This section has Mage-specific tips for dealing with the various affixes of Mythic+. If you want general guides for each of our Dungeons or Mythic+ in general, check out our dedicated page below.

The main reason to bring a Fire Mage to a Mythic+ group is for its damage, but aside from that, it also has some very valuable utility, which makes every Mythic+ group want at least one Mage:

• Arcane Intellect is a big boost for both the other caster DPS in the group, as well as additional healing for the healer.
• Time Warp is a required cooldown for any Mythic+ group.
• Remove Curse can be useful to dispel Curses in some dungeons.
• A Fire Mage can add a lot of crowd control in the form of Dragon's Breath, Polymorph, Blast Wave, Ice Nova, Ring of Frost, or even Mass Slow.
• Spellsteal can be useful in some dungeons to remove dangerous buffs from enemy targets. Sometimes, it can also be used as a big DPS boost for the Arcane Mage by Spellstealing beneficial buffs that increase your damage.
• Mass Barrier can be brought as a decent defensive cooldown for the group.
• Mass Invisibility can be very useful to skip certain packs.