Fire Mage Build

I've wrestled with the same pvp versus pve question. Here's what I finally came up with. It lacks PoM and I sure do miss it in the BG. I decided I'd miss the lack of combustion more during raids, so I put 32 points in fire.

I don't think you'd be gimping yourself too badly during raids without combustion, but you will lose that little extra boost to climb the damage charts. That may not be a bad thing for my mage <evil grin>.

I guess it just depends where you think you'll be spending more of your time. If you'll be BGing constantly, then go for the PoM. If you will be raiding more, I'd go with a split pvp/pve spec so you can have the best of both worlds.

Amb's Spec
 
I'll hand out my opinion just because of the "mage" part, but keep in mind I do not play a fire mage anymore. I still love to pvp though in open areas when I get a chance.

I do not completely understand your current build but since you're wanting to change it, there is no need to go into that. With your new build, you are looking to go into a little peeveepee. I currently have it, and it is rarely used, and the talent points that I'm speaking of are in Magic Absorbtion. What I would change 3 of those points into is 3/3 Imp Arc Explosion. With my experiences, you do not have the luxury of sitting back and casting all the time. AoE'ing is done a lot more with AE, Blastwave, Frost Nova, and Cone of Cold. 3/3 in Imp AE is going to help a lot more than getting back 200 mana for 1 resist which doesn't happen all that often.

Now, this is not a joke, although it may seem like it. lol. I would put 1 point into Arcane Resilience. PvP requires stamina and armor. Without these, you are one dead mage as it only takes a few hits to kill us. I speak from experience here with my low low low health. lol. Any added help you can get will benifit you.

Next up Fire Tree. I don't find anything wrong with what you have done here for PvP. The 1 point in Imp Flamestrike looks like you just were not sure on where to put it. I don't blame ya. I wouldn't know where to put it either. You may want to think about putting it in Incinerate though. Just a thought. My thought process behind this is, will you be using a lot of Fire Blast or Flamestike to pvp? Which ever one you think you will be using more, that is where the point needs to go.

The build I would use in your position as a pvp Fire mage? Here ya go
Chris' 21/30/0 build forya
 
I'm likely talking out of my backside, as I don't play fire, and I don't PvP, but here goes.

I would personally drop Imp Fireball and go with Incinerate and Imp Scorch - you don't have a lot of time to sit around casting... nice short spells FTW.

On that note, also I'd try to pick up Imp Fire Blast (1.5s shorter cooldown on an instant.....uber!)

I agree with Chris - Pick up Arcane Resiliance. I'd probably drop 3 more points in absorption for improved AE.

There's a few other little tweaks here and there, but it depends on...like you said.... how much you'll gimp yourself for instances. I don't know if there's a good hybrid build or not. It mostly depends on your playstyle.
 
I've never had PoM and I don't miss it at all. One very nice tactic I've seen out of a fire mage 1v1 (got me every time) was to sheep the target (me) thus giving time to cast a pyroblast. At that point I was already at half life, a few fire blasts and scorchs and I was done. While it may be tempting to cast fireball insted for more dmg, pvp is all about speed, so scorch would work better.


Personally I prefer frost over fire in pvp by far. A warrior charging you will probably not die before he gets his 2hit kill on you, regardless of how much dmg yer fire spells crank out. With frost spec I can get a good 3 hits in before the target gets to me (frostbolt is also a faster cast spell than fireball). At that point I can frost nova, jump back and hit another frost bolt + fire blast and maybe an arcane explosion. With 5/5 shatter my target is usually dead at this point.

Thats IMHO, my pvp experience is primarily from ultima online, but some of the same theories apply, and I've got a little bit of experience here, thats what its shown me.
 
remember that good warriors can stance-dance and intercept stun you, so frost nova is a great tactic - then stand just inside of their intercept range, so that they can't charge/stun you... allowing you to CoC when the nova breaks...then blink past them, turn around and nuke while they're looking for you.
 
I will never be a constant/heavy pvper. I may slowly climb the rep ladder, but I'm just not very good at mashing buttons fast enough in order to survive long. However, I do enjoy pvping some. The problem with Samage's current spec is that it's all about raiding. What I'm trying to accomplish (or think about, anyway) is a build that is still solid for raiding but can do some pvp. I'm not concerned about #1 on the dps charts in a raid, but I should certainly be near the top.

PoM is not that great for frost mages, but for fire it is uber. Sheep > Pyro > PoM > Pyro. That's two Pyros in the air at the same time! Basically, I was trying to get PoM, Pyro, and Blast Wave for pvp, and the rest of the talents focused on raiding.

The jury is still out on all of this. I've been playing my warrior more and more, trying to get him geared for raids. I've started pvping w/ him a little. Talk about a frustrating challenge, try taking a prot-spec warrior into BG and kill Horde. I've found that I'm best suited for tanking the elites in AV. Go figure :D
 
Kirk said:
I'm not concerned about #1 on the dps charts in a raid
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Well, that's good...because... er... uhm...nevermind. I'll be nice :P

Actually, if you ever raid with Deedlyt, you can only hope to do about 1/3 the damage that he can do. At least, that's where I sit currently. *cry*
 
Durruck said:
Actually, if you ever raid with Deedlyt, you can only hope to do about 1/3 the damage that he can do. At least, that's where I sit currently. *cry*
Click to expand...

Some people buy gold from the Chinese farmers. Deedlyt owns the Chinese farmers. It's no wonder he has uber gear to put us mages to shame. :D
 
Those spec, the first in particular, is a very solid pve fire raiding spec. Very mana efficient, options to increase dps at the cost of dpm... good build all the way aorund.

But as for pvp... well first off let me give my opinion based on my recent experience with my pvp mage on the "other server" I play on (he is lvl 60 now, and I am rank 6... not the most experienced, but I think I learned something in that time). If you want to pvp well go frost. Let me put it from this perspective, listing which classes you will do well or poorly against with a fire spec:

Fire:
Warrior (easy, just use rank 1 frost bolt, blink (when he charges or intercepts), fire blast and frost nova... enjoy kiting him to death)
Warlock (run!!!!)
Shadow Priest (run!!!)
Holy or Disc Priest (hope you have POM or something because otherwise you the priest can just out last you, and likely mana burn you down to nothing, lucky impacts are key here)
Rogue (if you outlast them initially you have a 50/50 chance of winning, but you have to stay away, and hope they aren't a patient rogue)
Hunter (gg you loose most likely, especially if they have scatter shot)
Paladin (you can win if you are patient and keep your distance, also have to time counterspell well)
Shaman (gotta keep your range, else they will shock you and kill you fast, best to run)
Mage (if frost I hate to say it if he has ice block up and knows how to use it, he has the advantage, or if he has POM he might have the upper hand as well).

As a frost mage I have found:
Warrior (super easy)
Warlock (I find I win about 5-10% of the time now... thanks to ice block, the fact that I am UD and have the trinket to cancel a second fear... but generally run!!!! Gotta burn cold snap and get as many crits as possible with shatter)
Shadow Priest (same as above, though I try to avoid letting them fear me by keeping distance)
Holy or Disc Priest (maximize double shatters, and burn cold snap)
Rogue (if I outlast them initially I generally dominate all impatient rogues)
Hunter (I find I dominate any hunter who doesn't have loads of health 1v1, and I mean loads and loads, easy to work that deadzone)
Paladin (you can win if you are patient and keep your distance, also have to time counterspell well... I think the fire mage has the advantage here)
Shaman (gotta keep your range, else they will shock you and kill you fast, best to run... easier to kite as frost... 1 second rank 1 frostbolt)

Ice barrier gives me a lot of extra health effectively which also makes me tons more survivable in pvp.

But if I was to spec fire again for pvp, I would do something like an elementalist build:

Elementalist

or I would encourage something like this for fire/arc:

Fire/Arc

Swap imp fire blast for imp scorch for more pve in that build.

I am not convinced that imp CS is worth the additional talents, and while arc meditation is great w/ spirit gear I don't tend to have enough to make it worth while... perhaps your gear is different. It seems that most of the +dmg gear is heavy on int and stamina, not spi. To be honest I don't have mana issues often since mages have so many ways to regen man: evoc, mana gems, items that return mana upon use, mage armor, mana pots etc...
 
Durruck said:
Well, that's good...because... er... uhm...nevermind. I'll be nice :P

Actually, if you ever raid with Deedlyt, you can only hope to do about 1/3 the damage that he can do. At least, that's where I sit currently. *cry*
Click to expand...


*cry* Randy speaks the trueth. I honestly do not know how he does it.
 
I remember something about him buying a guide from a salesman who just popped out of a burning, sulfurous pit that popped out of the floor...

he said it wasn't too expensive: he didn't feel a thing.
 
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