What follows is a complete analysis to all of the talents in the fire tree. Each talent will be discussed from both a PvE and a PvP standpoint, and finally, given a rating on the following scale:
- Must have
- Solid
- Okay
- Poor
- Skip it
All talent descriptions are assuming you have maximized the talent.
Fire
Tier 1
Improved Fire Blast – Reduces the cooldown of your Fire Blast spell by 2 sec.
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Poor
PvP: Must have
Fire Blast is a vital PvP spell for any spec. Reducing it’s cooldown by a full 2 seconds with a mere two talent points makes this a truly excellent talent for any PvP build. Not recommended for any PvE build, as there are lots of better options elsewhere.
Incineration – Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast, Scorch, Arcane Blast and Cone of Cold spells by 6%.
Raiding: Solid
Solo: Poor
PvP: Solid
This talent is a good choice for deep arcane and deep fire mages, as well as PvP builds. Of these, best suited to arcane mages, as Arcane Blast is a central nuke for them. PvE frost mages can ignore this talent. Blizzard effectively renders Cone of Cold obsolete in the AoE department. None of these spells are used much in solo play for a fire mage, as such improving them is usually pointless.
Improved Fireball – Reduces the casting time of your Fireball spell by 0.5 sec.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Skip it
An absolute must for a raiding fire mage. Fireball is a core nuke, and shaving off half a second of each cast adds up very, very quickly. Excellent for solo play, as well. Definitely useful for a PvP fire build that uses fireball, but generally speaking a very bad investment for PvP.
Tier 2
Ignite – Your critical strikes from Fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell’s damage over 4 sec.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Solid
An absolute must for any raiding fire mage, and very good for a PvP build that uses a fair amount of fire spells. For instance, hybrid Arc/fire mages stand to gain a substantial amount of damage from this talent.
Please see this post for further maths on ignite. And fear not! For Blizzard are working on fixing ignite. Even as it stands now, ignite is still a must for mages who wish to DPS.
Burning Determination – When Interrupted or Silenced you have a 100% chance to become immune to both mechanics for 10 sec.
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Skip it
PvP: Solid
A very strong talent for PvP. The reason why it is not ranked higher is because the mechanic immunity buff is either shorter in duration, or equal to, most spell interrupts and silences. For instance, against another mage, this talent would serve no purpose. However, against a mage and a shaman, it would be an excellent talent. This talent prevents you from being chain interrupted, and gives you a rather harsh advantage over shamans.
World in Flames – Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike, Pyroblast, Blast Wave, Dragon’s Breath, Living Bomb, Blizzard and Arcane Explosion spells by 6%.
Raiding: Solid
Solo: Skip it
PvP: Skip it
A strange little talent, this one. Directed at AoE and fire’s specials, it oddly doesn’t do a very good job of making itself worthwhile. There are better talents for raiding and PvP in every direction, and even its benefit to AoE effects is meh, at best.
It is, however, very powerful for single target DPS. The boosts to Pyroblasts and Living Bombs crit rate are fantastic for raiding fire mages.
Tier 3
Flame Throwing – Increases the range of your Fire spells by 6 yards.
Raiding: Solid
Solo: Must have
PvP: Solid
Ah, the ubiquitous range talent. Awesome for leveling, very useful for PvP for fighting at range, and a comfort blanket for raids and instances. Really, the only tangible benefit you gain from this is an extra 6 yards of reaction time for those times you pull aggro, and a little extra positioning room. I don’t care how much threat and damage tanks are outputting these days, some mage, somewhere, will find a way to pull aggro.
A definite must for leveling, however. More range means more time to cast.
Impact – Gives your damaging spells a 10% chance to cause the next Fire Blast you cast to stun the target for 2 sec.
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Must have
PvP: Must have
If you are using the fire tree at all for PvP, here’s a talent that is really awesome. Stuns are excellent in PvP, even very short ones like this.
Note: There is a bug where Impact will overwrite Deep Freeze. Beware.
Pyroblast – Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes lots of Fire damage and an additional bunch of Fire damage over 12 sec.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Must have
Thanks to Hot Streak, this is an excellent spell for raiding purposes, an excellent opener for leveling mages, and very powerful in PvP. The power of PoM Pyro is legendary, and will only continue to be a very deadly burst damage spell. Not to mentioned that Blast Wave is also an excellent spell for PvP and leveling, and you need Pyro to get it.
Burning Soul – Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Fire spells by 70% and reduces the threat caused by your Fire spells by 10%.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Okay
PvP: Must have
Burning Soul will reduce each pushback to 0.15 seconds, for a total of 0.3 seconds if you get hit by something twice. Excellent for any PvP build that uses fire spells (i.e. Scorch, Frostfire), and the threat reduction makes it a must for any sort of group PvE.
Tier 4
Improved Scorch – Increases your chance to critically strike with Scorch, Fireball, and Frostfire Bolt by 3%, and your damaging Scorch spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 1% and lasts 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Poor
PvP: Solid
An absolute must for at least one raiding mage. A full 5% extra critical strike chance for any offensive spell will be very valuable to any spell caster that likes critical strikes. All of them, for example. Bear in mind that a frost mage or a warlock can stack this debuff much easier and more efficiently, freeing the fire mage from ever having to cast Scorch. If you can count on one of those to be present at all times, you can skip this talent entirely for raiding. Do so at your own risk, however, as it also provides a 3% crit boost to your main nukes.
A good talent for PvP, if just for the dispel fodder it provides to protect other magical effects, like Slow, Polymorph, or Frost Nova.
Molten Shields – Causes your Fire Ward and Frost Ward spells to have a 30% chance to reflect the warded spell while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Skip it
PvP: Poor
The Ward thing is… kinda gimmicky. Every now and then you’ll get lucky and see a frostbolt reflected, not really worth it on it’s own. Unless you duel other mages a lot.
The boost to Molten Armor is nearly useless; it does provide a little extra damage for leveling mages, but that’s about it.
Master of Elements – Your spell criticals will refund 30% of their base mana cost.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Solid
PvP: Okay
Note that this is a valuable for any raiding mage, regardless of the spells used. This affects base mana cost, meaning even if the spell is free (i.e. Clearcast) you still get refunded mana if it crits. For instance, let’s say you cast Arcane Blast during a clearcast proc, and it crits. You spent no mana casting the spell, but you still get refunded for 30% mana. Make sense?
Note: This doesn’t work with stacked Arcane Blasts. If ABlast is stacked so that it costs 200% more mana, or 400%, or whatever, it will still only refund mana according to it’s base cost.
It’s value is lessened in PvP, due to the fact mana efficiency is largely worthless, and resilience is such a party pooper when it comes to crits.
Tier 5
Playing With Fire – Increases all spell damage caused by 3% and all spell damage taken by 3%.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Solid
PvP: Poor
This talent increases your DPS by 3%. Take it, you must. Fool, you be, if skip it, you do. That said, you can skip it if you’re down the fire tree for PvP purposes. Even though it affects all spells, the cost to your own survivability is not worth it. For solo play, there are better talents nearby to spend points if you are in the lower levels (pre-Outland).
Critical Mass – Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire spells by 6%.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Must have
An absolute must for raiding fire mages and PvP fire mages. You can safely avoid this talent if you are any other kind of mage.
Blastwave – A wave of flame radiates outward from the caster, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for a hefty amount of Fire damage, knocking them back and Dazing them for 6 sec.
Raiding: Poor
Solo: Must have
PvP: Must have
A very powerful ability for any PvP, giving you an instant cast, powerful nuke, and an extra knockback ability for survivability’s sake. Excellent for both damage and survivability during solo play.
Tier 6
Blazing Speed – Gives you a 10% chance when hit by a melee or ranged attack to increase your movement speed by 50% and dispel all movement impairing effects. This effect lasts 8 sec.
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Skip it
PvP: Must have
An intensely powerful ability for PvP purposes, despite it’s unpredictable nature, and a little because of it. Impossible for you to predict, and impossible for your opponent to predict. Can be very powerful against all melee classes, since the majority of them would have already blown a movement cooldown in getting to you, and thus will have less options left to catch you again.
Fire Power – Increases the damage done by your Fire spells by 10%.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Solid
Must have for any fire mage, whether you’re doing raiding, leveling, or PvP. If PvP, you can afford to drop some points from here to put them into a survivability talent.
Tier 7
Increases chance to critically hit by 3% and allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Solid
Another must have for raiding fire mages. Crit is a very important stat for any mage, and fire has become a rather expensive tree, so the mana regen gets some mileage. A strong talent for PvP fire mages, as it counteracts resilience, and, of course, more crits are a awesome.
Note that this does stack with glyphed Mage Armor and Arcane Meditation.
Combustion – When activated, this spell causes each of your Fire damage spell hits to increase your critical strike chance with Fire damage spells by 10%. This effect lasts until you have caused 3 critical strikes with Fire spells.
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Must have
PvP: Solid
Due to the all around higher amounts of spell critical strike chance being thrown around, Combustion is nearly useless. Throwing all the raid buffs together, it isn’t hard for a fire mage to be rocking 50% critical strike rate, or more. Coupled with Living Bomb crits, and Combustion provides a nearly nonexistent boost to DPS.
Better for PvP as, like Shatter, it very quickly dodges around that whole resilience issue. It can, however, be dispelled comparatively easily.
A must for leveling. Typically, leveling mages have far less critical strike rating than end game mages, as such, this is actually a worthwhile cooldown. Not to mention Dragons Breath is fantastic for leveling.
Molten Fury – Increases damage of all spells against targets with less than 35% health by 12%.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Solo
PvP: Solid
I’m really getting tired of saying this, but yes, another must have for raiding mages. 12% more damage for a third of a boss fight is awesome no matter what way you look at it. Strong talent for PvP as well, providing a passive execute mechanic. And, most importantly in that regard, cannot be dispelled or really countered in any way.
Tier 8
Fiery Payback – When below 35% health all damage taken is reduced by 20% and your Pyroblast spell’s cast time is reduced by 3.5 secs while the cooldown is increased by 5 secs. In addition, melee and ranged attacks against you have a 10% chance to disarm your attacker/
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Poor
PvP: Okay
This is Cheat Death’s mentally challenged little brother. The damage reduction is good in that it is a passive effect that simply exists. It cannot be dispelled, and can only be countered with more damage. Funny how a bunch of classes have execute mechanics for when their target is below 35% health. Nonetheless, it is a passive effect that will help your healer pull you back from the brink.
The other half of the effect, sadly, is near useless. When below 35% health, the whole “I must deal more damage!” way of thinking goes out the window, to be replaced with “Flee!”. Stopping to cast a spell isn’t exactly the best way to avoid getting focused and destroyed, even if the spell is only 1.5 seconds long.
The disarm effect is neat, though very unreliable, sadly.
Empowered Fire – Increases the damage of your Fireball and Frostfire Bolt spells by an amount equal to 15% of your spell power. In addition, each time Ignite deals damage, you gain 2% of your base mana.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Poor
Excellent for raiding mages, and has the added bonus of providing some much needed scaling to frostfire builds. A definite pass for PvP mages. We PvP’ers have a word for casting 3 second long spells, and that word is “suicide”.
Tier 9
Firestarter – Your damaging Blast Wave and Dragon’s Breath spells have a 100% chance to make your next Flamestrike spell instant cast. Lasts 10 sec.
Raiding: Skip it
Solo: Poor
PvP: Poor
DB and BW are both point blank effects, whereas Flamestrike is best used from a safe distance. The time it would take to use BW or DB to proc this effect renders it moot in a raiding environment. It’s basically faster to just cast Flamestrike in the first place, and not bother with running into the melee.
You probably won’t have room for this in a raiding build anyways.
It does have some merit for soloing and PvP, as you’ll be using BW and DB a lot. Throwing down an instant Flamestrike whenever you do can provide a little extra damage.
Dragon’s Breath – Targets in a cone in front of the caster take Fire damage and are Disoriented for 5 sec. Any direct damaging attack will revive targets. Turns off your attack when used.
Raiding: Poor
Solo: Must have
PvP: Must have
If you’re going to be a PvP fire mage, Dragon’s Breath will be one of the deadliest abilities at your disposal. Note that the Disorient breaks on direct damage only, meaning things like DoTs can happily tick away without breaking the effect.
And turns off attack? Really? Having problems with mages attempting to stab people? Well, I guess if a priest can pull aggro on a boss by thwacking it with a healy mace, anything is possible.
Kinda an unreliable AoE for PvE encounters. (Not including solo’ing. DB is excellent for solo play). It’s cone is small and difficult to judge if you haven’t used it extensively, and the damage it deals is hard to justify based on the mana cost.
Hot Streak – Any time you score 2 non-periodic spell criticals in a row using Fireball, Fire Blast, Scorch, Living Bomb or Frostfire Bolt, you have a 100% chance the next Pyroblast spell cast within 10 sec will be instant cast.
Raiding: Must have
Solo: Must have
PvP: Must have
If you happen to be this deep in the fire tree for PvP purposes, this talent is a must. This is the fire tree’s answer to PoM Pyro. A very significant boost to DPS in PvE content as well.
Note: If Living Bomb crits multiple targets, each crit counts towards Hot Streak.
Tier 10
Burnout – Increases your spell critical damage bonus with all Fire spells by 50% but your spell criticals cost an additional 5% of the spell’s cost.
Raiding: Must have
Solo:Must have
PvP: Must have
Gives fire spells really bloody powerful critical strikes. A definite must for any fire mage. Why yes, this does stack with things like Ignite and, for frostfire bolt, Ice Shards.
Tier 11
Living Bomb – The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking Fire damage over 12 sec. After 12 sec or when the spell is dispelled, the target explodes dealing Fire damage to all enemies within 10 yards. This spell can only affect one target at a time.
PvE: Solid
Solo: Must have
PvP: Okay
This is, essentially, an instant cast Seed of Corruption that never blows early, unless it’s dispelled. Surprisingly strong for single target DPS; it functions as a DoT against one target, and does a good job at it. As the DoT ticks can crit, and thus proc Ignite, Living Bomb is an excellent source of damage and mana.
The explosion effect is oddly weak, hitting a little harder than Arcane Explosion does. That isn’t really the point, however. The explosion, if it crits, procs Hot Streak, which allows you to use Pyroblast, which more than makes up for the explosion being weak.
It helps out PvP fire mages a little; even though a fire mages lifespan in PvP is typically less than 12 seconds, typically this can be tossed in AV style fights, where (hopefully) nobody is going to notice you until it’s too late.
No World in Flames? I mean, name alone…
And I like to think of it as the +6% crit chance to the rogue hangin offa yuir nuts spell.
BURN YOU LITTLE BASTARD, BURN!
One question, does Master of Elements proc offa aoe crits? Cuz if you Aoe more than two targets, thatsa almost guarenteed 30% cost reduction….
I disagree about Improved Scorch. It’s nice, but with a frost mage in your raid you don’t need to worry about it as Winters Chill is kept up far more efficiently.
This would also result in a downgrade to the Incineration talent as you won’t be worrying about those scorch crits anymore.
Of course, that assumes you have a frost mage with you at all times.
Also, if you take Hot Streak then I’d say that World in Flames deserves more love too.
But before I get too picky, I’d like to say thanks for the effort you’re putting into these nicely done talent tree guides. I’m sure I’m not the only mage out here that appreciates it.
Love the two guides so far.
After I played the talents on live and not just the beta I may disagree with some of the points
Thanks, Euripedes. I’ve got a 70 fire mage waiting in the wings, so this is pretty handy!
thanks as always for another useful guide ! Looking forward to the last installment on Frost !
The rating for Imp. Scorch is assuming that there is not a frost mage in the raid.
Even if there was, I’d still recommend getting it. After all, what happens if the frost mage doesn’t show? Or his power goes out? Well, you’d have to go respec so the raid can get underway. Depends if you want to take that risk, however small it may be.
If there is a frost mage, I am in full agreement that it’s best to leave Scorch in the dustbin. Fireballs and Pyros are far better, DPS wise, and, as you said, Frosties can get the debuff stacked more efficiently.
Will add that into the post just in case nobody reads the comments
Version 1.1
Changed the wording of Imp. Scorch to reflect frost mage synergy.
Added “Solo” ranking to all talents.
[...] goodness, and laugh your butt off in the process, that’s the place to go. A quick little sample, if you will: “We PvP’ers have a word for casting 3 second long spells, and that word [...]
First let me say that your site is pretty good, very well maintained. However some of your rankings for the new talents kind of make me wonder if you play a fire mage much at all, I started this game as a fire mage years ago and never once spec’d out of it. I have several different ideas on the Solo heading you used here. Keep in mind these are based on solo play, questing and such, 5 mans even.
When building a fire mage the first assumption you need to make is that you are going deep fire, otherwise your not a Fire Mage are you? That being said Crit is THE basis of a Fire Mage’s DPS, just look at the end tree talents. Crit=Instant spells, theoreticaly you could scorch spam with the Glyph and rock a Pyro every third cast for free. Therefor Incineration is a MUST for any style of play and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use Fire Blast.
Skip World in Flames? I don’t even begin to understand that, DB and BW both proc an instant FS and with their Imp Crit they will give you Instant Pyro, which might crit then you can Fire Blast Crit and Pyro again, it is insane.
Flamethrowing labeled as a Must? With all those crits and instant spells do you really need to be another 6 yards away? Nothing will live long enough to hit you more than once trust me. Besides Solo play is no longer a range game for us mages, if your more than a Blink away from your target your too far. How can you use your new AOE talents/tooltips if you are 35 yards away?
Molten Shields as well, what mob are you fighting that is going to stay at range and pew pew you? As a Fire Mage you should be charging in and starting your DB/FS rotation after the first Pyro.
Fiery Payback First of all in solo play YOU are the only guy getting hit so the 20% DMG reduction is fantastic, beyond that max DPS is the ONLY way you are going to live through the encounter and a 1.5 sec Pyro Crit esspecially cause by now I should hope your target is at least as hurt as you are you get the extra DMG for him being at 35% too you will annihilate him.
OMG!? Skip Fire Starter? Honestly in solo play with mana gems, evocation, and free water why do you care about your mana pool? Instant AOE=Win Blizz likes to have 2 mobs together, it forces people to use more of their abilities and as fire, now, Polymorph should be laughed at. To quote BRK “MQoSDPS” (Mass Quantities of Sustained DPS) We are walking Nukes plain and simple, we CAN single target DPS…but why when we can kill 5 at a time? AOE Grinding anyone?
Lastly Living Bomb… … OMG. Stupidest spell I have ever seen, nothing will live long enough during Solo play to make that spell anywhere near viable, even during my AOE testing I HAD to AVOID the mob I cast it on for it to detonate and then it usually was wasted anyway cause I had everything else dead already.
Still you had this up before a lot of other sites and the info is accurate, maybe it is just a playstyle difference but I don’t see Fire Mages as long range anymore, not on Solo play.
“Skip World in Flames? I don’t even begin to understand that, DB and BW both proc an instant FS and with their Imp Crit they will give you Instant Pyro”
World in Flames simply isn’t good enough relative to the other talents around it. Don’t misinterpret what I say here, it’s not a bad talent, it’s just most of the talents around it are better.
That said, to quote from Hot Streak:
“Any time you score 2 spell criticals in a row using fireball, fire blast, scorch or frostfire bolt”
DB and BW provide nothing for Instant Pyros.
“With all those crits and instant spells do you really need to be another 6 yards away?”
Yes, yes you do. Fire itself has very little kiting power; it relies largely on it’s ability to take things down before they can get close. An extra six yards is an extra spell you can cast.
I mean, if you are level 70 rocking 1000 spellpower and fighting level 68, 69 mobs outside of Black Temple, then no, you probably don’t need those extra yards.
But, if you are level 72 in quest rewards fighting level 74 monsters… yeah, you’re going to need that extra room.
“How can you use your new AOE talents/tooltips if you are 35 yards away?”
Why would you use them at all in solo play? Outside of AoE grinding, there is almost no use to them whatsoever. If you are going to AoE grind as fire (here I’m talking at least 6 mobs) then rock on.
“Molten Shields as well, what mob are you fighting”
Any spell caster or hunter analogue mob will attack you from range. That’s what they do. Having the ability to stun your opponent, no matter what method they use to attack you is only a boon.
“YOU are the only guy getting hit so the 20% DMG reduction is fantastic”
First, as a mage, you should never get hit in the first place. Except by ranged mobs. In which case we have that useful Molten Shields up there to stun them.
Second, if your health ever actually dips to 35% in solo play, you have managed to do something horrifyingly wrong.
You bring up AoE grinding a lot.
First off, as fire, it is an extremely inefficient way to play. Your mana pool will run dry very, very swiftly, and you won’t be able to kill as many mobs as you could have if you had gone at them target by target.
Why we worry about mana is simple. How much experience do you get from drinking?
That is not to say that AoE grinding as fire is stupid. It’s ludicrous fun; it’s just inferior to single target killing and frost AoE.
If you want to try and get efficient as fire AoE, you’re going to need to be killing at least 6 mobs at once for it to be worth the mana cost.
Living Bomb, then. Living Bomb’s strength is in the fact that it is a single target DoT. The explosion at the end is underwhelming, and is not why you should take it.
Rather, treat Living Bomb as a single target DoT, in the same boat as Shadow Word: Pain or Curse of Agony. That is what it does best.
Excepting of course that Living Bomb can only be cast on a single target unlike any other DOT.
I mention AOE grinding alot because it is mostly all I do anymore, on a Heroic Magisters run all I did was AOE untill the boss, the tank (Warrior) never lost aggro and we didn’t CC a damn thing, with managems and evocation I only drank sporadically usually while the tank was lining himself up.
I miss spoke earlier in my rotation I toss out scorch to get the Pyro during my rotation. Just because I am fire does not mean I can’t use Frost nova when my AOE spells are on CD, when solo I ride in gather 5-8 mobs incinerate them use evocation (if im hurt, I have the glyph) or a mana gem and carry on. 6 seconds spent killing 6 mobs followed by (if neccisary) 5-8 sec of drinking is still way faster than single target DPS or the way I have seen Frost mages do it though they don’t get hit, meh.
If I’m in a group I agree I shouldn’t be getting hit but I solo farm the Treants in the Skettis and not getting hit isn’t an option.
All of this of course is purely my opinion based on how I have the most fun playing the game. I still say Molten Shields is crap, there are way better talents to use those points on.
Molten Shields is only an awesome talent if you’re getting hit by something. Say, in a raid or a group, it would be useless, and is marked as such.
Do you have Impact, by the way? Without it, Molten Shields is utterly useless, no matter how or where you use it.
Also, the numbers seem to be a little… off.
Fire AoE is interesting. A single DB – FS – BW – FS rotation easily burns through over 2k mana, which, while easily regained via drinking (takes about 8-ish seconds), that rotation is dealing about 6500 damage per mob. This was with 1100 spell power and 35% crit.
I can easily see how that could very swiftly slaughter a lot of mobs, but it’s not possible for undergeared mages. The types of gear a mage is going to use while leveling just doesn’t have the stats to pull this off in any sort of efficient way.
Leveling mages also do not have access to multi-charged mana gems until they are of relatively high level. You can’t just mana gem and move on to the next pull, as you would spend far too much time resummoning mana gems if they try to chain pull.
Now, that said, this almost seems like a good idea to use for Northrend. A geared mage can kill a lot of stuff very quickly, assuming they don’t die. If I dumped my entire mana pool, for instance, I can typically deal about 80k damage to a single target rotating AoE’s and Scorch/Pyros, as you described, before my mana runs dry.
Using single target attacks to kill off random mobs (using gems and evocate) resulted in over 300k damage dealt before I actually had to stop and seriously drink.
Oh yes, one last thing. Northrend is extremely hostile towards trying this. I was dragged, pulled, pushed, stunned, interrupted, and silenced more times than I care to count while attempting this : /
Actually no I don’t, I have 61 points in the tree but everything I took directly increased my damage out put or my Crit, with nothing left over for those talents. I honestly don’t think I will take them even when the expac comes out, probably try to get down the arcane tree or frost tree for T3 talents there.
Just as a side note my buddy has a Belf fire mage spec’d almost identacle to mine and he ran me through Sunken Temple last night, we killed the dragonkin in the hallway to the Troll boss and to Eranikus but left the others completly forgeting that he pulls all living dragonkin when attacked. We killed him and had 20-25 mobs bear down on us, I was on my warrior so I hit intimidating shout and challenging roar after his AOE cycle to get them off him, he used evocation (Glyphed for health) and I used shield wall and a pot and he started his AOE again, Pricless. If I had a second to think I would of taken screen shots.
oops hit post too early, I didn’t get into the beta so I don’t know what Northrend is like, but I wasn’t looking at this from a leving to 70 point of view which now seems kind of dumb as this post is labeled as a guide. I have 1057 Spellpower buffed and 37% crit I have been wandering around with epics for a little too long I guess, not thinking right.
Still I believe that while leveling you should be fighting level equivalent mobs or your in the wrong area, Blizz made getting to 60 ridiculously easy now so you don’t ever have to hunt for quest areas anymore. Hell I never even made it to WPL before I hit 60 on my Hunter. That being said AOE should still be viable while leveling if you are properly geared as a mage. I mean dressed in reward and dungeon gear at about level equivalent.
Spell cost is based on base mana before stats so it should be possible to use an AOE rotation even while leveling, as your spells are cheaper. I haven’t tried that though so I am just theorizing.
It’s definitely worth looking at, but I’m thinking it wouldn’t be possible to pull off from an average leveling mage.
Most of them will not have access to superior drops from dungeons, most will have access to AH greens and little more. If they have a truly pimped main, they might buy AH blues, but that’s essentially it.
Perhaps, once the Bind to Account gear is in the game, that gear would be sufficient for fire AoE grinding. It is programmed to scale to level, acting as a “Superior” item, so it should have the stats necessary to be roughly equivalent to dungeon gear.
That, and the shoulders have a 10% experience modifier to them, making AoE grinding even better.
Version 1.2
Updated introduction.
Changed descriptions for Hot Streak and Living Bomb to reflect the new mechanics.
Changed description for Pyromaniac to match it’s new mana regeneration properties.
Changed wording of Master of Elements, and added Arcane Blast note.
Slight wording change to World in Flames.
Added notations to Firestarter.
[...] my detailed guides to specific talent trees for further information to choose your [...]