Fire Mage Guide and Discussion

I just came back in to reiterate just how completely awesome Combustion-Impact is.

Used Combustion while the boss had LB DOT, Ignite DOT, Pyro DOT, then immediately used Impact to spread those DOTs to about 6-7 other adds in the area.

Damage. Was. Everywhere.
 
EDIT 1.17.11: Stat values have changed slightly, but the general order remains the same. I will try and update these numbers soon.
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Influenced by Gilga's resto post, I just wanted to post some relative stat values for the Fire Mage.

Intellect 3.96
Haste (until 516)
Hit 3.1209
Spellpower 2.6208
Crit 2.2168
Mastery 1.4517
Haste (over 516) 1.3722

You can use this to evaluate gear, and even whether or not it's worth it to get a socket bonus. Here's how:
If a piece of gear has a blue socket with a +10 Haste socket bonus, you can either:
- Put in a +40 Intellect gem, ignoring the socket bonus, and the value would be: 40(3.96) = 158.4
- Put in a +20 Intellect/+20 Hit gem, getting the socket bonus of +10 Haste, and the value would be: (20 x 3.96) + (20 x 3.1209) + (10 x 1.3722) = 155.3

Since 158.4 > 155.3, the socket bonus is not worth getting. You would use the pure Intellect gem.

Suppose we change the socket bonus to +10 Intellect. Is it worth it now?
- Put in a +40 Intellect gem, ignoring the socket bonus, and the value would be: 40(3.96) = 158.4
- Put in a +20 Intellect/+20 Hit gem, getting the socket bonus of +10 Intellect, and the value would be: (30 x 3.96) + (20 x 3.1209) = 181.2

Since 181.2 > 158.4, the socket bonus is worth getting. You would use the +20 Intellect/+20 Hit gem.
 
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I know that using your guide, Crit isn't worth as much...but I believe (from what I've been reading the past few weeks) that crit is so much more EXTREMELY important to a fire mage.

I'm currently specced frost, and I'm hesitant to try fire because of my low crit rating. I know I'd get a boost from molten armor, but the spec just seems so crit dependent.

Next time I have time, I want to dual spec a fire PvE spec and compare the heroic dps to my frost spec. My plan right now is to stay frost until I get enough crit to make fire worthwhile.

I also haven't tested scorch only method of casting in fire, but based off of numbers I've seen, that almost seems like the best method. Especially in Misc fights where you need to reserve mana for AoE. Not to mention faster casting results in more hot streaks which results in more DPS overall. I had the same idea of keeping the dots up for FFB or FB (i have yet to test/decide) and use scorch as the main attack.

If done right it also improves your mobility that much more, as you can just move in the middle of casting rather than ending a fireball or FFB and begin casting scorch.


Flame, or other fire mages here, would you be willing to post a quick average of your ilvl and your DPS with PvE fire spec at that level?
 
My ilvl is 347, and in my last heroic, I was able to manage 13k dps overall damage on the Ogre boss in H Deadmines (I made sure not to AOE at all that fight - I was interested in finding out my single target dps, cause someone had just asked me what it was). This fight is a good mix of being able to stand still, and also having to move a lot.

Also - what is your crit rating? I did that 13k dps with 18.59% crit rating. Check my armory page for any other info about me - I was wearing what the armory shows during that heroic. I'm not fully enchanted, or even belt buckled.

Finally, I think my guide makes crit LOOK like it's less important than it is. Basically, it's your second stat once you're hit capped. You can pretty much remove spellpower from the priority, since it simply just comes on your weapons - you can't reforge for it or anything. I just put it in there to be completely thorough. Since you won't be considering spell power on your armor, that leaves only Intellect higher than crit after you've reached the hit cap. You won't actually gear for Haste, you'll get plenty on whatever caster gear you get. You'll just reforge less of it.
 
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Awesome! Sounds good.

I'm a good number of ilvl away from that (only done a few heroics), so that's where I will start with gearing up. Once I can get some better crit gear I'll focus on a fire spec.
 
A few possible updates on the PTR:

Fire
•Flashburn now increases damage done by all your periodic fire damage effect by 22.4%, up from 20%. Each point of Mastery increases periodic damage done by an additional 2.8%, up from 2.5%.
•Fireball now costs 12% of base mana, down from 16%.
•Living Bomb now costs 17% of base mana, down from 22%.
•Firestarter no longer requires you to use Molten Armor to cast the Scorch spell while moving.

This should put Mastery well ahead of Haste, but I think crit will still be worth more.
 
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