Updated for Warlords of Draenor 6.2.2

Fire is more challenging than Frost and some think that makes Fire more interesting than Frost. Most high level PvPers are Frost, but there are a few who go Fire and there are even a couple in the top 100 ranks. If you’re up for the challenge, read on.

Fire Mage PvP Contents

• The Fire Mage PvP Build
• Fire Mage Stats
• Fire PvP Gems
• Fire PvP Enchants
• Burn ’em! (your abilities)
• Rotations (What to do)
• “How to Fire” Videos
• How to Keybind
• Fire Macros
• Gearing up
• Mage Professions
• Mage races for PvP – An additional edge, choose wisely.
• Level to 100, ASAP

Fire’s survivability and control are greater than that of Arcane, but less than Frost.  Fire relies on DoT’s and Pyroblast procs to do the majority of its damage, making it capable of putting out damage on multiple targets. Fire can do very well in battlegrounds  PvP, but the lack of survivability and control makes arena a bit more interesting.

Some skilled players are competitive though, and Fire Mages can do some pretty impressive burst when things line up. Fire is also quite vulnerable to dispel magic (your procs can be dispelled) and RNG (Random Number Generation,) which means that if you’re facing a good dispeller or are simply unlucky you’ll find yourself doing far less damage than otherwise.

Basically you live by the crits. As long as you’re generating Pyro! procs then you’re fine.

The guide is oriented towards level 100 PvP. If you’re looking for raiding info then see our page on Fire DPS. If you aren’t yet 100 and want to get there ASAP then see this leveling guide. Also see our Warlords changes post for info on the new skills, talents, glyphs, etc.

 

Fire Mage PvP Build

Let’s see… you can do ganking, world PvP (solo or group,) duels, arena (2, 3, 5s,) and various BGs. Your talent picks will vary depending on your PvP of choice and your group. Our picks for general PvP are checked , but other talents might be the best for particular situations.

If you’re not yet 100 then go here.

Tier 1, level 15

1. Evade attacks: Evanesce – 45 second cooldown Vs Ice Block’s 5 minutes. Lets you avoid all attacks for three seconds, which can be useful. It can also be annoying to the enemy if you can time it right. Does not removes effects already on you, unlike Ice Block, but has a much shorter cooldown.
2.  Movement: Blazing Speed does nothing for your DPS, but gives you a nice “break free from snares,” which saves your Blinks. It’s also a good gap closer or space maker. More movement capability is always a good thing.
3. Move and Cast: Ice Floes now comes with three charges, so three spells while moving with that 20 second recharge. The least of these talents for PvP.

Tier 2, level 30

Three talents for mitigating damage.

1. Escape damage: Alter Time lets you rest up to the last ten seconds. It lets you avoid that massive incoming damage. Doesn’t save you if that damage kills you, however. It also does not affect mana, buffs, or debuffs. It’s pretty much a survival talent, not an “extend damage” talent, but it can save your form a lot of damage and reposition you for more effective blasting.
2.  Passive reduction: Flameglow constantly mitigates some damage. It’s a great choice for fights where you anticipate taking constant fairly small damage. It won’t save you from dying in a stun or massive damage, but you also don’t have to remember to use it and it will constantly mitigate some damage. It cannot be purged and it does not consume a Global Cooldown (GCD) as it’s a passive. One less thing to deal with. Over a longer period it can absorb more damage than Barrier, plus you don’t have to wait for the cooldown to reset after the barrier is knocked down. Nerfed somewhat in 6.2.
3. Shield: Ice Barrier is the “fire and forget” shield. Put it up and forget about it for a minute. Blocks a fair amount of damage. Especially useful in fights where you are suffering from “pushback” or there’s a big chunk of damage coming in. With a 25 second cooldown you can have it up much of the time. It can be purged and takes a global to apply.

Tier 3, level 45

As this tier is composed solely of CC, take whichever appeals to you most/suits an encounter best. Each talent has definite strong points.

1.  Area freeze: Ring of Frost is an AoE CC. Freeze several opponents and let your team burn them. Nice for grabbing a group or blocking pathways (eg: tunnels to bases in the BGs.)  Takes 2 seconds to cast or arm. For small groups and duels Frostjaw might be more useful. For the Battlegrounds, Ring has definite uses. Works great against anyone who can’t be hit with Ice Nova (eg: Ferals.) Or freeze a group and blast away. Have your DK pal Gorefiend Grasp all enemies into the ring. With careful planning you might be able to ring the entire enemy team.
2.  Melee: Ice Ward is another form of AoE CC with different usage. Useful if you or another is being attacked by melee. Nice for kiting that melee as you get three shots every 20 seconds. Not so useful against caster teams. Even if you have Blast Wave this talent will still cast Frost Nova.
3. Root & Silence: Frostjaw is a very nice single target CC/Silence, freezing the target in place and silencing him. It’s your only blanket Silence. Since you no longer have Deep Freeze or Shatter it’s not what it used to be. Good vs. Casters.

Tier 4, level 60

1. Drop effects: Greater Invisibility is an interesting choice for survivability. It removes effects, massively reduces damage, drops you from the “radar,” so can be very nice in bad situations, escaping, or getting into better position before unloading.
2. Escape a killing blow: Cauterize lets you avoid death, but also sets you on fire, which is actually a much better tradeoff than it might sound. Ice Block removes the DOT, Evanesce removes part of it. Not so interesting in PvP as in PvE, though if you have a sharp healer it can save you.
3.  Reset:  Cold Snap resets your Ice Block, Dragon’s Breath, and Frost Nova. The additional Ice Block + 22% Heal can help survive in some bad situations.

Tier 5, level 75

In Warlords you can only access Living Bomb, instead of any the bombs. Which of these talents is “best” depends on the game you’re playing.

1. DOT: Living Bomb is a fair choice, esp. if you prefer a DOT and don’t want to break nearby CC. It doesn’t break nearby CCs until it explodes and if you refresh it before it ends then it doesn’t explode and just continues the DOT.
2. Passive: Unstable Magic is a solid single target choice and decent against groups. It has a 30% chance for your basic Fireball to explode on impact, doing more damage to the primary target and also damages nearby targets. Better for PvE than PvP since it’s random.
3.  Boom!:  Blast Wave does solid damage to the main target and decent damage to all other targets within 8 yards, also slowing them. Can be brutal when combined with Incanter’s Flow and Prismatic Crystal. You can also cast it on friendly targets, or yourself, to damage and slow nearby enemies so it’s also something of a peel. Replaces Frost Nova. This is easily your hardest hitting spell.  The wave effect will break any CCs on nearby targets.

Tier 6, level 90

1. Burst: Mirror Image – every two minutes you get three images to blast away at the target. Nice for the burst. Maybe be the best of the three for duels.
2. Stay in place: Rune of Power is the simplest to use of this tier, seeing as all you have to do is stand in it. Might be useful in certain BGs when you have are able to just stand in one place and blast away, such as blasting the AV or Isle of C. bosses. In PvP you will be moving too much to make good use of this talent.
3.  Passive: Incanter’s Flow is constant and will average out to about 12% increased damage, while moving and doing everything else you do, which aint’ bad. It cycles from 4 to 20% added damage, peak to peak is ten seconds. Try to cast your pyro procs at the peak flow to get that 20%.

Tier 7, level 100

These are all good, but have different uses.

1. Cooldown reduction: Kindling: Each of your crits from Fireball, Pyroblast, and Inferno Blast reduces your Combustion cooldown (base 45 seconds) by 1 second. This is a passive effect, so one less item on your bars. The wekest of the three.
2.  Single target: Prismatic Crystal puts a crystal at the targeted location. Only you can attack it and it takes 130% damage from your attacks. Any time it takes damage it instantly releases that damage, splitting it evenly among all enemies within 8 yards. Very nice in some fights where people will remain at one spot (a flag, for example) for the 12 seconds. Otherwise their moving away from the crystal will be an issue. Note that against a single target it will be doing 130% damage of your attacks to that target, less against 2+. Of course the single target has to be close the the prism, but that’s what stuns are for. Drop a prism and then drop a Pyro! proc and a couple of Blast Waves…
   • Have two charges of Blastwave ready, have Pyro! & Heating Up procs ready, fire any “on use” buffs (such as your Int potion and/or trinket,) then drop the crystal and fire away.
3.  Area: Meteor: Every 45 seconds you can drops a fraggin’ meteor!! Does damage to an 8 yard area, also burning the ground doing continuous damage to all who remain in the fire. Orbital bombardment is always cool. The 3 second delay makes it necessary to be careful with your targeting, but that’s what your team’s stuns are for. Using a Dragon’s Breath or other CC right before meteor lands makes sure that they’ll hang around for the impact. Flag being capped or some other group staying in place? Blow ’em up. Applies your Ignite to any enemies that it burns.

 

Fire Glyphs

In Warlords you now learn certain glyphs automatically, just as you do your abilities. You still have to instal them, but you don’t have to otherwise acquire them. All mages learn the same set of glyphs. You can still buy the other glyphs the usual way.

• At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned: Frost Nova and Blink
• At level 50, you learn: Polymorph
• At level 75, you will learn: Slow and Frostfire Bolt

Exclusive glyphs are glyphs which cannot be used with each other, such as the glyphs of Regenerative Ice and Ice Block.

As with the talents the glyphs are easily changed to suit the situation.

The Major Fire Mage Glyphs

1. Glyph of Polymorh – removes all dots from your target, making your Poly stick better.
2. Glyph of Regenerative Ice – regenerate 4% of health for every second on Ice Block, exclusive with…
3. Glyph of Ice Block – When your Ice Block ends you get an immediate Frost Nova and 3 seconds of immunity to all spells. This works even if you cancel Ice Block early. Exclusive with other Ice Block glyphs.
4. Glyph of Spell Steal can add up if you’re able to spam it, though it’s a big mana hit. You do have to sucessfully steal a spell to get the heal.

Other occasionally useful glyphs:

1. Glyph of Remove Curse is a damage buff every time you remove curse. If you are using this ability a lot then you want this glyph.
2. Glyph of Combustion – More burnination on a longer CD. Can make for brutal combustions if you can line it up with Pyro! crits, Incanter’s Flow, and your damage buffs.
3. Glyph of Dragon’s Breath for more DB damage
4. Glyph of Inferno Blast – Spreads your DoTs to an additional target.
5. Glyph of Blink – More range on your Blink.

Minor Glyphs

Minor glyphs are generally just cosmetic, though a few have minor utility.

1. Glyph of Rapid Teleportation – speed boost for 1 min after teleporting.
2. Glyph of Momentum – Let’s you bink in the direction you’re moving rather than facing. Nice for strafing.
3. Whatever you like.

 

Fire Mage PvP Stats

Warlords Note: Hit, Expertise, and Resilience are dead and so is Reforging. Yes, some gems and items still have Resilience. Look at your character pane, though. You will not find a “resilience” stat. Int no longer adds to Crit, but you start with a base 5%. Crit is also your “Attuned” stat, meaning that Blizzard feels it’s the best stat for your damage output. An attuned stat gives you an addition 5% to that stat (from all sources) and yours is provided by your new level 90 ability Incineration.

You also have two new stats, Versatility and Multistrike.

• Your Stat Priority: Intellect > Crit > Haste > Mastery >  Multistrike > Versatility
• Gear should have Crit & Haste, then Mastery. Forget the rest.
• Never sacrifice Crit for any other stat.

Explanation of Stats

Int also increases every damaging thing you do, as it’s your Spellpower. It does not add to your mana pool, crits, or anything else. All of your gear has Int on it anyway and there are no cases, in Warlords, where you have any chance to swap Int for any secondary stat.

Crit – your Pyroblast procs and Critical Mass make Crit, by far, the most valuable of the rest of the stats. With your base 5%, Molten Armor, Arcane Brilliance, and Incineration you start at 20% Crit. While Crits only do 150% damage (200% in PvE) you’re looking for procs from those crits more than their damage.

Haste is nice, but Crit is better. Haste speeds up your casting and lowers your cooldowns and global cooldowns, as well as speeding up and DOT effects you have up. Haste is useful  when you’re casting fireballs and polymorphs. Crit/Haste gear will be your best bet (and for PvE, as well.)

Mastery is generally weak and your ignite DOTs can be easily dispelled anyway. You live and die mainly by Pyro! blasts that come from your crits, not your DOT damage.

Multistrike gives you one chance for an additional strike at 30% effect (based off a new roll, not the damage you just did,) for a direct increase to your damage. Your Multitrikes can also crit, which will mean more “Heating Up” and Pyro procs. Multistrike is nerfed in PvP, in that you only get one, not two, chances at that additional attack. It’s roughly half as effective as in PvE.

Versatility increases your damage and your damage reduction. It’s sort of a combination of the old PvP Power and Resilience stats.

Spirit, Agility, & Str are useless to you.

Tertiary stats, such as Leech and Avoidance, do not appear on PvP gear, only PvE gear.

 

 

Fire Mage PVP Gems

In Warlords Season 2 some of the PvP gear you find, in boxes and such, will have a gem socket. Drop Crit gems into those sockets.

• Immaculate Critical Strike Taladite: +75 Critical
• Greater Critical Strike Taladite: +50 Crit
• Critical Strike Taladite: +35 Crit

Gem primarily for Crit at any gear level.

In Warlords: Hit, Expertise, PvP Power, and Resilience are all dead. Gems that used to have Hit are now Crit, and the gems that had Expertise are now Haste.

Sockets have a small chance to appear on discovered gear, such as found in boxes or your Gladiator Sanctum, not vendor gear. There are no meta gems or gems that have primary stats (such as Int.) There are also no socket bonuses for WoD gear.

(You should have plenty of gold to buy these gems from your questing and dailies, but go here if you need more.)

For gear under item level 600

Sockets are available on non-Warlords gear, if you choose to gem that gear then here are some picks

In Short: Gem for Int or Int/Crit.

• Meta: Burning Primal Diamond (esp. since Fire is so reliant on Crits.)
• Red socket: Potent Vermilion Onyx
• Yellow: Smooth Sun’s Radiance
• Blue: Veiled Imperial Amethyst
• Belt buckle sockets: Smooth Sun’s Radiance

Gems for Warlords of Draenor
Prismatic		Immaculate Critical Strike Taladite: +75 Critical Greater Critical Strike Taladite: +50 Crit Critical Strike Taladite: +35 Crit 75 point gems are very expensive, 50s much less so, and 35s are dirt cheap. Two 75pt gems will add about 1.5% to your Crit rating, so if you drop down to two 50s you will only lose about .5% Crit.
Mists of Pandaria Gems, for gear under ilevel 600.
Meta		Sinister Primal Diamond: +20 Critical Strike, and chance on spell damage to gain 30% spell haste Capacitive Primal Diamond: +20 Critical Strike, and chance on melee or ranged hit to gain Capacitance Burning Primal Diamond: +14 Int & 3% Increased Crit Effect Forlorn Primal Diamond: +14 Intellect and 10% Silence Reduction
Red		Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 10 Int
Yellow		Smooth Sun’s Radiance: +20 Crit
Blue		Rigid River’s Heart: +20 Crit
Orange		Potent Vermilion Onyx: +5 Int & +10 Crit
Green		Sensei’s Wild Jade: +10 Crit and +10 Mastery
Purple		Veiled Imperial Amethyst: 5 Int and 10 Crit
Cogwheel		Requires an engie helm, such as this. Quick Tinker’s Gear: 38 Haste Smooth Tinker’s Gear: 38 Crit Fractured Tinker’s Gear: 38 Mastery

 

Fire Mage Enchantments

Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.

In Warlords you can enchants your rings and neck items. The old Hit enchants have been changed to Crit, Expertise enchants are now Haste. The Mists enchants cannot be applied to items higher than ilevel 600, so you will not be able to apply those enchants to your level 100 PvP gear.

The only warlords enchants are the ones shown below for Weapons, Cloak, Neck, and your Rings.

Various Caster Enchantments
Weapons, Main & Off-Hand	Enchant Weapon – Mark of the Thunderlord – Chance for +500 Crit for 6 seconds, your crits might increase the duration. Mists: Enchant Weapon – Jade Spirit: Sometimes increases Int by 83. Off Hand: Enchant Off-Hand – Major Intellect: +25 Int
Cloak	Enchant Cloak – Gift of Critical Strike – +100 Crit and +10% movement speed Note: There is a “breath of” version of each of these enchants which have the same stats, but without the 10% movement bonus, and which is probably cheaper. Mists: Enchant Cloak – Superior Intellect: +15 Int
Rings	Enchant Ring – Gift of Critical Strike: +50 Crit Note: There is a “breath of” version of each of these enchants with +30 Stats, instead of +50.
Neck	Enchant Neck – Gift of Critical Strike: +75 Crit Note: There is a “breath of” version of the above enchant which provides +40 to the stats, instead of +75
Shoulders	Greater Crane Wing Inscription: +15 Int and 5 Crit (If you have Inscription 600 you can get the “Secret” version of this, which adds +5 Int.)
Chest	Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats: +9 to all Stats
Bracers	Enchant Bracer – Super Intellect: +15 Int
Gloves	Enchant Gloves – Superior Mastery: +25 Mastery
Belt	Livingsteel Belt Buckle: Gem slot for a nice Int gem
Leggings	Greater Cerulean Spellthread: +19 Int and +11 Crit
Boots	Enchant Boots – Greater Precison: +12 Crit rating

Your Burning Abilities

Single Target Burnination

• Mastery: 5 second DOT, based on how hard you’ve hit. All your fire shots add in to this ignite.
• Scorch:  meh damage, but can cast while moving and get procs. Your perk adds a speed boost.
• Fireball: cast time, decent damage.
• Pyroblast: long cast time, hard hitting, you’ll rarely use this unless opening from surprise.
• Pyro!: Your Pyroblast proc, instant cast, free, and 25% more powerful. Can be purged.
• Combustion: takes your ignite (mastery) that’s already on the target and and makes an additional DOT.

Multiple Burns (area effects and DOT spreading)

• Inferno Blast: does damage (more with the glyph) and spreads dots. Always crits. Used to push a Heating Up proc into a full Pyro! proc.
• Flamestrike: area damage and slow, will not proc Pyroblast!. Slows the enemy. Has a cast time, with your perk it has no cooldown.
• Dragon’s Breath: Damage in a cone in front of you, disorients opponents, 20 second cooldown.
• Blast Wave: damage and slow. Does not proc heating up on crits. Hits harder than your Pyro! proc for single target damage and it also adds a fairly hard hitting area effect. This ability has a 3 second cooldown in 6.1
• Meteor, if you have it. Does damage to an 8 yard area, also burning the ground doing continuous damage to all who remain in the fire. Be careful with targeting, you don’t want them to be out of the area when it hits. 

Defenses

• Ice Block
• Invisibility – disappear for 20 seconds. Greater Invisibility (talent) makes the effect instant, removes two DOTs, and provides 90% damage reduction while in effect.
• Cold Snap: Talent. Heals you for 22% and resets several cooldowns, including Ice Block and Dragon’s Breath.

Crowd Control

Note that if you get spell locked for most of these you will not be locked out of fire.

• Counterspell: Interrupts their cast, locks that school of magic for a few seconds. With Glyph of Counterspell you can use it while casting or channeling other spells.
• Dragon’s Breath: Damage in a cone in front of you, disorients opponents, 20 second cooldown. You can run up, DB the healer, then poly him. Peel melee off the healer and then poly one or let them wander into your ring of frost. Nice when you can get the enemy team stacked up. Also nice when you can get a DB off as the enemy is popping offensive cooldowns. Note that the cooldown is short enough that if you DB the same opponent as it comes off cooldown, you might hit the Diminishing Returns issue.
• Polymorph: Another old standby. Polymorphing the other guy, such as the healer, gives you an edge. Spammable, though it’s subject to diminishing returns. Dragon’s breath into Poly. Sap (from your Rogue buddy) into Poly. If the first is trinketed the 2nd sticks.
• Ring of Frost (talent) is great for blocking areas. Plop it down such that disoriented (from your Dragon’s Breath) opponents will wander into it.
• Ice Ward (talent) causes an ice nova to root your opponent(s) when they hit you. Other enemies that are close will also be rooted. This is very nice when you’re being pressured by melee.
• Frost Jaw (talent) is nice when fighting casters. Root ’em and quite ’em all in one. Root ’em (they trinket) and then poly them.

Mobility

• Blink: Another old standby, frees you from stuns and roots. Your perk gives you 2 seconds of faster movement after blinking. 
• Blazing Speed (Talent:) a brief burst of +50% speed. Use it to better position yourself, either for a Dragon’s Breath or to get distance. It frees you from Snares, which saves a Blink. If you can jump before it expires then you’ll get a bit more distance.
• Improved Scorch perk: 30% increased speed, after scorching, for three seconds.
• Slow Fall: Another old standby, if you have to leap off a cliff to escape. 
• Cloak enchant (Enchant Cloak – Gift of Critical Strike) adds 10% speed.
• Nitro Boosts, if you have Engineering.

Utility

• Remove Curse – Removes various curses
• Time Warp – +30% Haste to everyone in the party for 40 seconds.
• Spellsteal – Grab a helpful effect from the target. Very high mana cost. Glyph of Spellsteal adds a small heal every time you grab a spell.
• Slow Fall – Wheee!

Passives, Buffs, and Perks:

• Critical Mass – 130% chance to crit on abilities that can generate a proc.
• Incineration – +5% Crit from all sources
• Arcane Brilliance  – +5% Crit & +10% Spellpower
• Molten Armor – +5% Crit and 6% damage reduction
• Enhanced Pyrotechnics – stacking crit chance for Fireball only.
• Improved Flamestrike removes the cooldown. It still has the cast time.
• Improved Inferno Blast spreads your DOTs to additional targets.
• Improved Scorch – faster movement after Scorching.

 

Ok, Let’s Burn Someone. Fire Mage PvP Rotations

Note: At the top of the page I mentioned that your procs are vulnerable to dispelling. Your going to need to deal with that dispeller. Conterspell and Frostjaw (the talent) can help, so can having your team beat his head in.

Videos are below this section.

Warlords Season 2 Set Bonuses:

Same bonuses as Season 1. With the set bonuses: You will want to Scorch three times, to get the max Fireball Crit chance buff, then Fireball. With the 4 piece bonus you will be casting Fireball(s) right after your fire your Pyro! proc.

1. 2 piece Set bonus: Casting Scorch reduces the cast time and increases the critical strike chance of Fireball by 15%, stacking up to 3 times.
2. 4 piece Set bonus: When you consume Hot Streak, your Pyroblast target has a 15% increased chance to be critically hit by your Fireball spell for 10 sec.

Rotations:

You will want to have Arcane Brilliance up at all times. If you can use consumables (not in rated PvP) then use

• Blackrock Barbecue: 100 Crit
• Greater Draenic Intellect Flask: 250 Int for one hour
• Draenic Intellect Potion: 1,000 Int for 25 seconds
• If you’re in Ashran you can get special items from killing the level 102 rares. One example is the Blink book, which will reduce your Blink cooldown while in Ashran. Make sure you use these.

The best use of Inferno Blast (IB) is to trigger Pyro procs, since IB is a guaranteed crit. Pyro! = your Pyroblast! proc.

1. Basic method 1: Inferno blast, wait 8 seconds, 2nd Inferno blast = Pyro! proc. DO NOT cast your scorch or other fire spells during that 8 seconds.
2. Get a crit, then use inferno blast
3. Note that If you just spam scorch and wait for the Pyro proc that way, well, it doesn’t work well. 🙂

Bursting

1. Scorch until you have a heating up proc.
2. Dragon’s Breath (keeps him in place for your Meteor.)
3. DPS “on use” trinket
4. Meteor
5. Inferno Blast, resulting in a Pyro proc
6. Pryo!
7. Combustion
8. 2x Blastwave

If you have Prismatic Crystal

1. Have both Blast Wave charges
2. Get a Pyro! proc, and a heating up proc and save both for a moment
3. “On Use” trinket + potions + any other buffs
4. Drop Prismatic Crystal
5. Fire it all off: Peak Incanter’s Flow > 2 x Blast Wave > Pyro! proc > Combustion

Getting Pressured/Trained

• Use instants. Your blastwave has a slow and your Ice Ward will root them. There’s also your Dragon’s Breath. All of your Ignites add a slow.
• Bait the silences. Cast a Poly (for example,) it gets “kicked,” and you’re not locked out of your Fire school. If you suspect that Rogue is going to Shadow Dance > Garrote then you cast something unimportant and let him lock that.
• Inferno blast > wait 8 seconds > inferno Blast > fire off the Pyro! proc.

Warlords note: You no longer have Shatter or Deep freeze. You DO have an extra 5% chance to Crit, base, and you have a level 92+ perk, Enhanced Pyrotechnics, which grants you a stacking 5% crit buff for your Fireball until you DO crit.

Fire Mage PvP Videos

Hansol’s Rotations

Hansol’s probably one of the world’s leading Fire Mages, with a 2800 or so arena rating. He’s also able to explain clearly what he’s doing. Nice combination.

In this one he discusses the Fire Mage rotation and a nifty little add-on.

Hansol’s Prismatic Crystal “How To.”

Here’s how to make the best use of your Pris. Crystal in the Arena.

Hansol’s Basic “How To” for Fire Mages

Hansol the Pyromaniac demonstrates BG burnination and why Fire is just plain fun. Not updated for Warlords, but close enough.

More Mage Guides, from Skill-Capped

Unless otherwise noted (ie: Free) a Skill-Capped membership is required to view these videos, the membership is a grimly expensive $4 a month. Go here if that works for you. They will have a number of Warlords videos coming out.

• Video: How to do the damage – patch 5.1, but still good.
• Video: Keybinding Guide: Arena 1-2-3 Macros
• Skill-Capped Mage Guides (mostly Frost, but there are some for Fire and some of general interest.)

 

Basics of Keybinding

If you’re not binding your abilities to your keys then you’re gimping yourself. Here’s a good tutorial on the why and how of keybinding. Start with a few bound abilities and work out from there. Memorize them by practicing on the target dummies.

Check out Impulse if you want an addon that will help you with your keybinds and macros.

 

Click here, Join Skill Capped, Get Better

 

Fire Mage Macros for PvP

Removes curse(s) from your mouse-over target. If you’re removing curses regularly then you want Glyph of Remove Curse for the damage buff. 

#showtooltip Remove Curse
/cast [@target,mouseover,noharm][] Remove Curse

Stopcasting & Cancel Auras

This makes sure you stop casting whatever you’re casting (Scorch, Fireball, etc.) and then cast what you need to cast,. such as Counterspell or Dragon’s Breath.

#showtooltip Dragon’s Breath
/stopcasting
/cast Dragon’s Breath

Similarly you can cancel out of Ice Block or any other beneficial effect in order to cast something else. You can also cancel things such as a Paladin’s hands: /cancelaura Hand of Protection. With the /stopcasting you can also use this to stop casting any other spell to get that counterspell off.

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell

Blast Wave

If you don’t have a target then Blast Wave will go off with you as the target. This macro makes sure that you have a live target for your Blast Wave. It will not target you if there is no other target selected. This will save a few accidental Blast Waves where your target dies or you otherwise lose targeting right before/as you cast.

#showtooltip Blast Wave
/stopcasting
/cast [harm] Blast Wave

If, for some reason you definitely want to fire Blast Wave with you as the target, because there might a stealthie nearby, then you can use this:

#showtooltip Blast Wave
/stopcasting
/cast [target=YourName] Blast Wave

Party Macros

This is especially useful for 2s. If you have a few people you regularly team with, just put all of their names into your macro. You can put in as many names as you like, up to a max total of 250 characters. Just add the names of the people you regularly play with. For example, this macro, which will remove Curse from the first name it encounters on the list:

#showtooltip Remove Curse
/stopcasting
/cast [target=roflstomp] Remove Curse
/cast [target=gnomepunter] Remove Curse
/cast [target=gobganker] Remove Curse
/cast [target=princessice] Remove Curse
/cast [target=kingcrimson] Remove Curse

You can do this with any spell you might cast on an teammember, such as Ice Ward.

 

 

 

Gearing up

In addition to the traditional ways of getting gear (fight to earn honor/conquest points and buy gear) you can now win gear in strongboxes earned from BGs and Ashran events. You can also get random pieces of gear from your Gladiator’s sanctum. Conquest gear is rarely, if ever, found in those boxes or in your sanctum.

Also, you can earn Conquest points (and Honor points) from your Sanctum and by doing the PvE events in Ashran. Do enough of those events and hand in enough bones and you should be able to get a fair number of Conquest points.

Can you use PvE Gear for PvP? Yes, but… PvP gear comes in two ratings, one for PvE and one for PvP. For example, the honor gear is 675/710. That means it’s 675 in PvE (dungeons, etc.) and 710 in any PvP situation.

Note that there are actually three tiers of PvP gear in Season 2:

1. Wild Aspirant is ilevel 625/700 and is found from your Gladiator’s Sanctum work orders, in strongboxes won from the BGs, or from Ashran PvP events. It can also be found as “Warforged,” which adds 6 item levels. This gear cannot be purchsed.
2. Wild Combatant is the honor gear. It’s 675/710 and can also be Warforged. This gear can be bought, awarded from your Gladiator’s Sanctum work orders, or found in strongboxes.
3. Wild Gladiator is the Conquest gear and is 700/730. It cannot be Warforged.

If your raid gear is better than the PvP rating of the PvP gear then yes, you should use the PvE gear.

Note that if both of your trinkets are PvP trinkets that you will get a 15% damage reduction Vs player damage. Which is nice since Resilience is dead. Example: Primal Gladiator’s Badge of Dominance – see the set bonus?

Not yet 100?

Get leveled and run BGs or Skirmishes. Try to get the honor cap (4k) by the time you hit 100. This will allow you to immediately pick up the honor weapon or trinket pair (for the damage reduction) when you hit 100.

At 91 you can buy a crafted ilevel 630 weapon and two pieces of 640 armor (head, chest, or legs, pick two.) You can also buy items to reroll stats on those pieces (Crit and Haste would be nice.)

Upgrading those items, by up to 75 points, can be done but is very expensive. If you have Archeology you can also get a 620 neck item: Sorcerer-King Toe Ring. So you now have, at 91, if you have the skills or are rich:

1. Two 640 armor bits, go for the chest and the legs. Can be upgraded to 715 in season patch 6.2. Yes, these will be slightly better than your 710 season 2 honor gear.
2. 630 Weapon: Crystalfire Spellstaff – upgrade to 705.
3. Alchemist trinket ( Draenic Philosopher’s Stone, requires Alchemy 500.) In patch 6.1 this trinket can be upgraded.
4. Escape trinket Crafted Malevolent Gladiator’s Medallion of Tenacity, not needed by humans.
5. Archeology neck item: Sorcerer-King Toe Ring
6. Potions and flask, as appropriate.

Freshly 100

Ok, you’ve got green gear and maybe a couple of decent pieces (see above.)

Do you need a PvP Escape Trinket? If so then buy one off the AH. Crafted Malevolent Gladiator’s Medallion of Tenacity

Should You Get the Honor Gear?

If you’re freshly 100 or the honor gear is otherwise better than your current set, then yes. Grind it out. It will make your arena and/or RBG work much less painful.

The Honor & Conquest Gear

If you already have the PvP escape trinket then save upgrading them to last. Otherwise seriously consider getting them first, for the 15% damage reduction. One of those trinkets will have the “on use” ability, for your Burst, and the other will have your escape.

Go for items with Crit and Haste.

Get your weapon(s) as soon as possible, that will be your biggest gear improvement, by far, since the weapons have a very nice Spellpower bonus.

After that go for the bigger pieces first (Head, Chest, Legs, Shoulder) as they have the biggest stat increases. Try to get your 4 piece set bonus as soon as you can. Finish out with the smaller pieces.

See above for enchants

Picking The Gear

All of the Honor and Conquest pieces have to picks per slot, each with different stats. Conquest gear has a third option, once you get Revered rep with your PvP faction (Wyrnn or Vol’jin.) These pieces generally have Versatility on them. Note that only one of the items (from the set bonus pieces) will actually have the set bonus.

The set bonuses are decent, fortunately you don’t have to give up anything to get them.

The rep is obtained in Ashran, by handing in Artifact Fragments.

This is the conquest gear list, in roughly the order that you should get them. Honor is the same, with the only difference being that you will be able to get the honor weapon first while the Conquest weapon requires 7,250 Conquest Points earned.

Your Weapon, neck, rings, and cloak can be enchanted. No gem slots will be available on an purchased item.

None of these pieces require faction rep.

1. If you don’t have the escape trinket then get that first.
2. Consider getting the trinket pair first, for the 15% damage reduction. If you already have that, from an older set, then wait on them until later.
3. Head: Wild Gladiator’s Silk Cowl – Crit and set bonus
4. Shoulders: Wild Gladiator’s Silk Amice – none of the pieces have Crit. You now have the two piece set bonus.
5. Weapon: Wild Gladiator’s Energy Staff – Crit & Mastery
6. DPS trinket: Wild Gladiator’s Badge of Dominance for the “on use” Int.
7. Chest: Wild Gladiator’s Silk Robe– set, none of the pieces have Crit. 
8. Legs: Wild Gladiator’s Silk Trousers – Crit and Haste. You now have the 4 piece bonus.
9. Gloves: Wild Gladiator’s Gloves of Prowess – Crit & Mastery
10. Cloak: Wild Gladiator’s Drape of Cruelty – Crit & Mastery
11. Neck: Wild Gladiator’s Pendant of Prowess – Crit & Haste
12. ring #1: Wild Gladiator’s Band of Cruelty – Crit & Haste
13. ring #2: Wild Gladiator’s Band of Victory – Crit & Multistrike
14. Belt: Wild Gladiator’s Cord of Cruelty – Crit & Haste
15. boots: Wild Gladiator’s Treads of Prowess – Crit & Multistrike
16. bracers: Wild Gladiator’s Cuffs of Prowess – Crit & Mastery
17. Escape trinket (Humans can get a second DPS trinket:)
    • Humans can use Wild Gladiator’s Insignia of Dominance for the Int proc.
    • Wild Gladiator’s Medallion of Cruelty for a few more points of Crit and the escape.

 

Fire Professions

In Warlords all the profession bonuses are dead. You can use tailoring to craft PvP gear or some starting raid gear and/or make some gold and engineering will burn all your gold, but will let you make some interesting gadgets. The gathering professions will be just for the gold or to supply other professions.

Crafting profession can make ilevel 630 weapons and 640 armor. Both can be upgraded, points at a cost greatly exceeding that of the original item. Secondary stats on crafted items are random, but they can be rerolled until you get what you want.

Professions for Fire Mages
Tailoring	Cloth armor, flying carpet, murlock chew toy, and allows you to make nets (Embersilk Net) and battle standards (such as: Fearsome Battle Standard)
Leatherworking	Not much, if anything, for you here.
Jewelcrafting	Make those nice gems, rings and neck items, and gemmed mounts.
Enchanting	You can now enchant everyone’s neck items and rings.
Inscription	Make glyphs, caster weapons, fortune cards, shoulder enchants, and a few other things.
Alchemy	Chemistry is fun, unfortunately you can’t make acids or bombs. You can make flasks and potions to boost stats and cause other interesting effects. You can also make a very nice DPS trinket: Draenic Philosopher’s Stone, requires Alchemy 500. This item is upgradable in 6.1.
Engineering	has lots of interesting toys, such as gliders, nitro boosts, bombs, and mounts.
Blacksmithing	Nothng much of use here, other than maybe some caster weapons
Skinning	Supply leatherworking (why?) or earn gold.
Herbalism	Supply alchemy and Inscription or make gold.
Mining	For the gold or to supply Blacksmithing.

 

 

Races for the PvP Fire Mage

Not that race is a replacement for skill, but some have certain advantages. Play what you like, as long as it’s Undead. 😉

Only the high points of the racials are covered below.

In Warlords all racial ability that had Hit or Expertise are gone. All races now have some DPS ability. Blood Elves and Worgen have 1% crit chance, and Night Elves have it by day only. Draenei have more Int. Orcs and Trolls both have nice cooldowns and useful resistances.

The Best?

• Alliance: Human (escape trinket) & Dwarf (Stoneform)
• Horde: Orc (Cooldown & resistance) and Undead (escape from fears)

Pandarens:

• take less falling damage,
• have a melee range stun,
• get better buffs from foods,
• and can choose to be either Horde or Alliance.

For the Alliance

Humans: Effectively can have three DPS trinkets.

• Escape ability allows use of two DPS trinkets.
• Added Versatility

Gnome:

• Decent escape,
• bigger mana pool (not that mages have mana issues.)
• small size helps (really.)
• +1% Haste

Night Elves:

• A bit harder to hit,
• Shadowmeld has definite uses. Ambushing, for one, dodging incoming spells (if your timing is good,) for another.
• +2% Movement
• +1% Crit by day, +1% Haste by night.

Dwarves: Damage reduction & remove effects

• Ability washes away bleeds, most magic effects, and reduces damage for a short time. Very nice ability.
• +2% Critical effect

Draenei:

• Bonus to your Int.
• a small heal.

Worgen: More crit and more movement.

• +1% crit, is nice
• Sprint-like ability is quite useful.

For the Horde

Orcs: Best Horde race for the burst.

• Blood Fury for increased burst,
• stun resistance works out to about 1 second off of a 6 second stun. Not bad.

Undead: Remove effects

• Remove Fear, Sleep, and Charm.
• Drain life (and heal.) The Drain is automatic and will add (a small amount) to your Damage totals.
• Eat your dead opponents.
• Indefinite underwater breathing might have some use, somewhere.

Trolls:

• Berserk increases Haste,
• less affected by roots & slows.

Goblins:

• 1% Haste,
• Rocket Jump is a decent escape or gap closer.

Blood Elves:

• Arcane Torrent restores some mana (which you won’t need) and silences whatever is within range.
• +1% Crit.

Tauren don’t believe in Magery.

 

How to Get your Mage to the Level Cap, ASAP

Mage leveling is really pretty easy. Once you get a couple of spells under your belt you’ll destroy things quickly and efficiently. If your mage is already at 100 then you have those other alts you want to level though those 100 levels.

With the thousands of quests to the level cap and a bazillion mobs to kill (not to mention other players, but they don’t count here) sorting out which quests are best and which series of quests will get you to 100 the fastest is important, not to mention the “where to go, what to do” part, which is why we highly recommend Zygor’s Guide.

Zygor’s is an in-game guide and it nearly automates the whole leveling process: you just pick your starting point, at any level, and the guide tracks which quest you’re on, tracks the quest objectives, and automatically advances and updates as you complete your tasks and quests. In addition, a waypoint arrow is set automatically, so you never have to wonder where to go. All of the important quest info is included in the guide so you never have to wonder what to do. You’ll find that it’s vastly superior to the in-game questing help.

Playing with Heirlooms and/or Recruit a friend? Gaining a few levels in the dungeons or in PvP? Zygor’s has your back. The guide knows what level you are and will correctly suggest where to go next and will let you dump all of your obsolete quests. You will probably never need to look at your quest log again.

Grab your copy here and get to 100 as fast as possible, or read our review, first.

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More Mage Pages

• Want to burn down the opposition in a PVE environment? Go here: Fire, Frost, Arcane
• Or try something other than Fire in PvP? Frost PvP, Arcane PvP
• How to Gear Up for PvP
• Info and Tips to get your mage leveled faster
• The Mage Blog