Mage Fire Talent Builds

The Fire tree is an anomaly. For a while, it was considered to be quite easily the strongest tree for a Mage. However, as more people started raiding Molten Core, the increased presence of Fire Resistance on everyday gear became a problem. The previously powerful fire spells would get resisted much more often. And so, people turned to Frost, if not for raiding, to avoid the effects of the growing sea of FR gear. However, lately it appears that more and more Mages at endgame have been returning to the Fire spec for various reasons.

Whatever those reasons may be, it can’t be denied that FR gear notwithstanding, the Fire tree is a very powerful tree. It doesn’t have the trickery and versatility of the Arcane tree, nor does it provide the mana efficiency and survivability of the Frost tree. The Fire tree is about damage. Lots of damage. While the Frost tree provides survivability through slowing effects, chills, roots, and the lovely Iceblock, Fire provides survivability through making the other guy very, very, dead.

There are two styles one can approach the Fire tree with—a Scorch build and a Fireball/Pyro build. Both have their advantages.

A Scorch build is more suited for PVE. While most Fire mages won’t use their actual fire spells for the most part in MC/BWL (due to “Resist” or “Immune” being the words of the day), Fire spells are perfectly viable in ZG, AQ20/40, and any of the Level 60 dungeons. The reason Frost tends to be a common raiding spec for Mages is because of its mana efficiency. A Mage without mana is a useless Mage, and Frost extends that mana pool significantly. Chain casting Fireball will leave you burned out (quite literally) very quickly. Scorch, however, is a very mana-efficient spell. Not only is the spell itself very efficient, its rapid casting speed means more chances to proc Clearcast (assuming you’re also Arcane spec), which is a free Fireball or Arcane Missiles, whichever is your wont. In addition to which, when it crits, it will still do respectable damage—but not the massive Pyro/Fireball crits that make monsters decide that they should go chew on your cloth-wearing behind for a bit.

That being said, lets take a look at the tree itself.

Tier 1: (0 Talent Points Required)
Improved Fireball (0/5): Reduces the casting time of your Fireball spell by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 sec.
Impact (0/5): Gives your Fire spells a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to stun the target for 2 sec.

Tier 1 of the Fire tree is pretty solid. Improved Fireball is a requirement for Pyroblast, so if you want that you need to put points into it. Also, reducing the cast time from an excruciatingly long 3.5 seconds to a more reasonable 3 seconds is quite nice. Impact is also a good talent to have. 10% to stun is nothing shabby, especially with Scorch builds that machinegun-cast. Impact is also one of the few defensive options in the Fire tree—though relying on a proc for your defense is never a great idea. Still, it’s a nice talent to have, and most Fire builds incorporate it to some degree. Fairly useless in raiding PVE (except for the Battleguard Sartura fight where it’s not too shabby), but really nice in PVP.

Tier 2: (5 Talent Points Required)
Ignite (0/5): Your critical strikes from Fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 8/16/24/32/40% of your spell’s damage over 4 sec.
Improved Fire Blast (0/5): Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Blast spell by 0.5/0.8/1/1.2/1.5 sec.
Flame Throwing (0/2): Increases the range of your Fire spells by 6 yards.

Tier 2 has two great options and one average one. Ignite is wonderful, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Fire build without it. The counterpart to the Frost tree’s Ice Shards talent, it boosts the normal 150% damage on spell crits to be in line with the normal 200% damage that melee attacks get. In the end, with 5/5 Ignite, your spells will do 210% of the damage as opposed to 200% on Frost spells with Ice Shards, only it’s a DoT (1000 damage base, 1500 crit. 40% of 1500 is 600, which gives us 2100 in total). It’s absolutely essential to have.

Imp. Fireblast is pretty lousy, though. All in all, you get 1.5 seconds off your Fireblast. That—although nice—is not worth the 5 talent points it takes to get there. Some builds put just 1 point into it for the initial .5 seconds off the cooldown in order to satisfy requirements for higher tiers, but putting all 5 into it is a waste.

Flame Throwing is also nice. 36 yard Scorch and 41 yard Fireball are great in PVP, and in big mobile fights like those in AQ. While there are some builds that don’t have it, I consider it fairly important to have.

Tier 3: (10 Talent Points Required)
Incinerate (0/2): Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast and Scorch spells by 2/4%.
Pyroblast (0/1): Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes 716 to 890 Fire damage and an additional 268 Fire damage over 12 sec. 1 minute cooldown, requires 5 points in Improved Fireball.
Improved Flamestrike (0/3): Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike spell by 5/10/15%. < take you when time casting lose not to chance 65% 50 25 a spells your Gives 3): (0 Soul Burning ?>

The third tier of the Fire tree is pretty good. For Scorch builds, an extra 4% crit for only 2 talent points is lovely, though it’s probably not the best use of your talent points if you’re a Fireball/Pyro mage. Speaking of Pyroblast, it’s directly to the right of Incinerate. Pyroblast is what gives the Mage the BIG crits for Fire spells. The 12 second dot is nice for fighting rogues as well, though the actual damage is fairly negligible. However, due to its 6 second cast, it’s fairly worthless unless you’re planning to go 21 points in Arcane for Presence of Mind. In a PVP situation, standing still for 6 seconds is just asking for death (or worse, a Counterspell/Kick/Spell Lock). And in PVE, those big crits will make mobs go “RAWR MAGE KILL.” Still, it’s a powerful spell.

Improved Flamestrike is a mixed blessing. While 15% crit is certainly nothing to scoff at, Flamestrike really isn’t one of our most commonly used spells. Sure, it’s nice to PoM Flamestrike around a group of Horde/Alliance capping a flag in AB/AV and see all the nice pretty big crits pop up, but that’s a very specific situation. However, it is a prerequisite for the amazing Blastwave, so this talent is worth picking up. However, if you’re only going 20 points into Fire, you can’t get Blastwave anyway, so this talent is pretty useless to you.

Burning Soul is another mixed blessing. In PVE you shouldn’t be getting hit, so it’s pretty pointless. In PVP, if you’re getting hit it’s usually a very bad thing, so you have more important things to deal with. It is nice when fighting hunters and other spellcasters, but since it’s not even a 100% chance to avoid interruption, there are better options.

Tier 4: (15 Talent Points Required)
Improved Scorch (0/5): Your Scorch spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire damage. This vulnerability increases the Fire damage dealt to your target by 2% and lasts 15 sec. Stacks up to 4 times.
Improved Fire Ward (0/2): Causes your Fire Ward to reflect 20/35% of the Fire damage absorbed back to the caster.

Tier 4 of the mage tree is, all things considered, fairly weak. Improved Scorch is only useful for Scorch builds, and even then it’s iffy. In PVP it’s rare to get all 5 Fire Vulnerabilities down on a target. When you do, that’s an extra 10% damage which is pretty sweet, but it rarely happens. This is more for PVE, as it enhances all the fire damage of the other mages and warlocks in your group and you’re almost assured to get all the 5 Vulnerabilities down.

Improved Fire Ward is completely useless. If it reflected 35% of the damage taken while Fire Ward was active, it might be better, but it’s all the damage absorbed. Considering the maximum rank of Fire Ward absorbs just shy of 600 damage, it’s a waste of two talent points.

All things considered, it’s good that the lower tiers have so many good talents, because Tier 4 is pretty weak.

Tier 5: (20 Talent Points Required)
Critical Mass (0/3): Increases the critical strike chance of your fire spells by 2/4/6%.
Blast Wave (0/1): A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for 462 to 544 Fire damage, and dazing them for 6 sec. 45 sec cooldown, requires 3 points in Improved Flamestrike.

Tier 5 is nice, very nice.The 6% crit from Critical Mass is lovely, and would be worth taking even if it weren’t a requirement for the Tier 6 and Tier 7 talents. Blast Wave, too, is phenomenal. Not only is it a powerful, instant AoE, it’s great for snares and temporary crowd control. The Blastwave daze is the only snare effect that you cannot trinkett, shapeshift, or Blessing of Freedom out of. That makes it great for running the flag (or slowing the opponent’s carrier) in Warsong Gulch. And an instant 500 damage is nothing to sneeze at.

Tier 6: (25 Talent Points Required)
Fire Power (0/5): Increases the damage done by your fire spells by 2/4/6/8/10%. Requires 3 points in Critical Mass.

The sole talent in the 6th tier, Fire power, is nice. If paired with Improved Scorch and a Warlock with Curse of Elements, it’s pretty much a constant Arcane Power. It’s very nice to have.

Tier 7: (30 Talent Points Required)
Combustion (0/1): When activated, this spell gives your next Fire damage spell a 100% critical strike chance. 5 minute cooldown, requires 5 points in Fire Power.

When looking at Combustion, we can’t just figure in the talent itself. After all, an auto-crit Pyroblast or Blastwave is really nothing to sneeze at. Sometimes the Fire mage lives or dies by that one crucial crit. However, in taking Combustion, let’s look at what you’d have to give up.

By taking Combustion, you deny yourself either the extremely versatile Presence of Mind in the Arcane tree, or (for all you hippie elementalist Mages out there) the invaluable Iceblock. As said before, Pyroblast is useless without PoM—and an automatic crit means nothing if you can’t get the spell off. And Iceblock is just too useful as a debuff cleanser or temporary “Oh crap!” button. Both of the alternatives are far superior to Combustion, so I really can’t recommend taking this on any circumstances.

In the end, the Fire tree is a powerful, fun talent tree with lots of different options. Some of the more popular builds are 31/20 Arcane/Fire (Arcane Power + PoM + Pyroblast = pain), or 21/30 Arcane/Fire (taking PoM, because it’s much better than Combustion). There are some mages who swear by 0/30/21 (Fire/Frost) builds, but with the current state of Mage talents, giving up Evocation/Improved Arcane Explosion/Improved Counterspell/Clearcast is simply too much of a price to pay for most Mages.