Focus Magic: Fire Builds

In this edition of Focus Magic, OMF discusses Fire Builds!

Intro

Azeroth. The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the podcast segment, Focus Magic. It's continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds, and quickly teleport home if they prove hazardous or we get bored.

To seek out new life and new civilizations...and set them on fire. Or Freeze them. Whichever. To boldly go where no mage has gone before!!

There should be some Star Trek music here, but I don't have any except the Deep Space 9 theme. Plus I'm not sure if there's a copyright issue or if that would be fair use. Just imagine it in your heads.

Welcome Back. To Me.

Welcome back to Focus Magic, guildmates. As you are doubtless aware, I missed last episode on account of I was in Utah attending the Extralife Nerdtacular on the weekend when I normally would have recorded my segment. I could go on and on about how incredible that experience was and how awesome all the guildmates I met were, but that'd take up my entire segment, and you're not here to hear about that! You wanna hear me talk about magery stuff! So lets get to that.

FINALLY Gufoni lets us burn stuff!

This week, we'll finally visit what Gufoni wouldn't let us talk about two weeks ago: the Fire tree. We're mostly going to cover it from an endgame perspective, but we'll try to be as general as possible for mages of all levels.

Fire's a fun tree, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, who doesn't love setting things ablaze? I certainly do. I can't tell ya how many mages I've talked to who don't wanna be anything BUT fire. They want stuff to BUUUURRRRN.

Basic Fire Spells

Lets quickly run down our basic fire spells.

• You've got your Fireball, your primary nuke. Long cast time, hits pretty hard, has a slight DoT component.

• You've got your Fire Blast, an instant cast quick damaging spell. Hits decently hard, has a cooldown.

• There's Scorch, which on it's own, seems pretty lame. It's got a really fast cast time, no cooldown, but isn't as powerful as Fire Blast. But it's not really designed to be used on it's own. We'll get to that in a second.

• You've got Flamestrike, your AOE spell. You click a target, wait out the cast time, and a powerful burst of flame erupts in the area you chose, doing direct damage AND damage over time. Seems really cool, in practice, it's pretty weak as an AOEing spell, I'm sad to say, compared to the likes of Blizzard.

• Finally, there's Frostfire Bolt. Frostfire Bolt is our primary nuke of two schools. It's got a long cast time, but on its own, doesn't hit as hard as Fireball. However, because it's considered both a fire and frost spell, it can be modified by certain talents in both trees. More on that momentarily.

Spells You Get From Talents

Now lets take a look at what Spells we get from talents spent in the Fire Tree. This is where things get fun!

• First up, there's Pyroblast. Pyroblast is a super-hard-hitting nuke that has a super long cast time. Many fire mages like to use this as an opener when soloing or even in a group (to give the tank time to build threat). I personally can't stand waiting that long for a spell. I never use this spell on it's own. However, in concert with another talent...but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

• Next up, there's Blast Wave. An Instant cast AOE spell that affects the area around you, damaging targets, knocking them back, and dazing them to boot. LOADS of fun as an AOE spell, in PvP and soloing. In a group environment, knock backs are generally viewed by tanks as a bad bad thing.

• Then there's Combustion. Combustion raises your chance to critically hit with your fire spells by 10% every time you cast one, until you have landed three critical strikes. Very powerful, but has some downsides for the high end mage. Again, more there in a bit

• Dragon's Breath is a cone-shaped frontal AOE spell that damages and disorients all targets it hits. Great spell for saving your bacon from that thing smacking you in the face.

• Finally, we've got Living Bomb. Living Bomb applies a pretty strong DoT to a target. When that DoT reaches the end of it's duration, the target explodes, doing fire damage to it and everyone around it. This spell is really good as an addition to the grouped fire mage.

Key Talents To Set Stuff On Fire With

So, we've got all these spells at our disposal. Let's take a look at a few key talents in our talent trees that make them exceptional. Not going to cover EVERYTHING, just key talents that cover important aspects of the spec. Most talents are pretty self explanatory

• Improved Fireball lowers the cast time of your fireball by half a second. In any fire build centered around this spell, this talent is a must have. Reduction in casting time is the best damage increaser for any spell when leveling. If you're a new mage leveling fire, stop it and go listen to my segment on leveling frost. If you MUST level fire, put your first five points right here.

• Ignite is a hallmark talent of the fire tree. It's been through plenty of changes, and plenty of controversy to go with it, but despite all that, this talent is still a hallmark must have. With 5 points, all of your fire spells crits will burn for an additional 40% of the damage over 5 seconds. Basically, every time you crit, you get to watch it burn and watch your damage go up. Very nice.

• Burning Soul reduces spell pushback by 70%, and lowers threat caused by 10% when fully talented. Spell pushback is something you will learn to deal with as a fire mage. Your nukes have long cast times. Despite all your methods of control, getting slapped in the face is going to be inevitable when soloing. This talent can help that out, and reduced threat in groups is essential. Fire mages generate the most threat of all of our specs.

• Flame Throwing adds range, giving you more distance they have to cross to hit you, and lets you play sniper with fire spells. With this talent, you've got the longest range of any mage spec, so use it.

• Improved Scorch - Okay, here's what makes Scorch actually useful: this talent, right here. With three points, every scorch you cast will apply a debuff that increases the critical strike chance of any spell cast against that mob by 1%, up to a maximum of 5%. And to top if off, you get an extra 3% crit chance for your own Scorch, Fireball, and Frostfire Bolt spells. This debuff is one of the great things you as a fire mage can bring to a group. It'll help your own DPS immensely, and it also helps your spellcasting teammates. In a group, you should stack this scorch debuff to help your group out, unless a frost mage or warlock is doing their version of this debuff themselves. More on that in a second.

• Finally, let's look at the one talent that may have done more for Fire Mages when it was added than any talent previous to it. It's called Hot Streak. If you cause 2 spell critical strikes in a row, using any combination of Fireball, Fire Blast, Scorch, Living Bomb, or Frostfire Bolt, your next Pyroblast within 10 seconds becomes Instant Cast. With all the critical strike increasing talents we have, this will happen a lot more than you might think, and you absolutely MUST use this every time it occurs. In a group you will likely be chain casting Fireball (or Frostfire Bolt) when this effect procs. Do not stop casting to use it, finish your current spell, then immediately use your instant Pyro, and resume chain casting. It's got 10 seconds before it runs out, you can wait that long.

Nifty trivia: Hot streak's proc has the same graphic and sound effect as getting an achievement. Someone not familiar with it might wonder who keeps getting achievements. It's rather funny.

Level 80 Builds

So lets look at some overall level 80 builds. There are two primary builds that PvE mages use in the endgame. You're not gonna find many PvP builds for Fire, most mages who PvP actively go for Arcane or Frost, so we won't cover those here.

• The first one centers around the use of Frostfire Bolt. It's built around the concept that Frostfire Bolt is considered both a Fire and Frost spell, so talents from both trees will affect it. Properly built, Frostfire Bolt will be a devastatingly powerful and HIGHLY mana-efficient spell. This build also offers you a free 3% worth of spell hit rating towards the cap. The downside is that this build will skip the two major AOE talent spells and many of the survival options from the tree, so it's not advised for solo leveling without some modification. Here's how this build works.

We're gonna put 18 points in Frost first. Put 3 points into Ice Floes and 2 into Frostbite. This'll give you some reduction in cooldowns for spells like Ice Block, Frost Nova, and most importantly Icy Veins, as well as 10% chance for Frostfire bolt to Freeze a target (Yes that DOES work, neat, eh?).

Then put 3 in Precision for the free +hit and mana cost reduction (here's where part of the mana efficiency starts), and 3 in Ice Shards. Your bonus damage for all your frost spells is now increased by 100%. Odd choice for a fire build, but remember Frostfire Bolt is a frost AND fire spell. This talent will go towards making Frostfire Bolt hit like a mack truck on a critical strike.

Next put 3 points in Piercing Ice (straight up 6% damage increase to Frostfire bolt) and 1 for Icy Veins. Finally get your last three points into Frost Channeling for the mana cost reduction (more mana efficiency!) and threat reduction. You might wonder, why not Arctic Reach? Lets get some range on Frostfire Bolt, right? Look at the talent again...notice it specifies only certain spells it works on, and Frostfire Bolt aint one of them. Don't assume EVERY talent works on Frostfire Bolt, only ones that say "All frost/fire Spells", "All Spells" or specifically call out Frostfire Bolt include it.

Now, let's move to Fire. Note that Improved Fireball only works for Fireball. As we're not going to use that spell at all with this build, we'll put the first 5 points in Improved Fire Blast and Incineration. Next, get 5 points in Ignite, and 3 in World in Flames. This might seem odd, given that most of the spells World in Flames affects are AOE, but it also works for Pyroblast, and we'll be using that spell a LOT with Hot Streak, so pick this up.

Pick up Flame Throwing, Pyroblast, and Burning Soul from the next tier. Those are all obvious. Improved Scorch and Master of Elements should be maxed out next. Master of Elements is yet another factor in making this spec hugely mana efficient.

Next, Grab Critical Mass and Playing with Fire. Yes Playing with Fire increases your spell damage taken. It won't matter in the long run, trust me. Skip Blast Wave. Keep going to get Fire Power in the next tier, skip Blazing Speed. It's good for PvP, but not much else. Next tier, get everything: Pyromaniac, Combustion, and Molten Fury. All of these are DPS increases. In the next tier, you'll want Empowered Fire, but skip Fiery Payback, it's a PvP talent.

You'll want Hot Streak of course in the next tier, but you're going to give up Dragons Breath and Firestarter. This is a single target DPS build for endgame grouping, you don't need those talents.

Get Burnout (more bonus critical strike damage is awesome, and it'll make Frostfire bolt just that much more powerful), and of course, Living Bomb. Don't be concerned about the extra mana cost from Burnout, Master of Elements more than makes up for it.

• Okay, so that's the Frostfire Bolt spec, lets take a look at the Fireball based spec I mentioned]. This build is built around the use of Fireball as a primary nuke, augmented by the Arcane Tree, specifically Torment the Weak, Spell Impact, and Student of the Mind. It's a lot stronger in terms of overall DPS than Frostfire Bolt, but it's major drawback is that it offers NO free hit rating from talents. You will need to get up to 17% worth of hit rating from gear, gems, and possibly debuffs and consumables all on your own. This cannot be done without the absolute best gear from the intro raids on heroic mode, I do not recommend you start out your raiding career trying this.

This build will be VERY similar in terms of the fire tree to the Frostfire Bolt build. We're only going to change two things.

Number 1: Take the points out of Incineration and Improved Fire Blast, and put them into Improved Fireball.

Number 2: Take the point out of Combustion (disclaimer: you may not want to do this particular one, keep listening for why I did it)

You'll be putting no points into the Frost Tree, so that leaves you 19 points to put in the Arcane Tree.

Your first 5 points are filler, so stick them into Arcane Subtlety and Arcane Focus. Next put 5 points into Arcane Concentration. Clearcasting will help a lot, this build is not as mana efficient as Frostfire Bolt

Fill out Spell Impact, Focus Magic, and put ONLY 2 points in Student of the Mind. Finally, get all three of your last 3 points into Torment the Weak.

Now, there is a lot of debate that could be had on taking the point out of combustion and putting it as the second point in Student of the Mind. It has to do entirely with the way Living Bomb works on Hot Streak versus how it interacts with Combustion.

Living Bomb's ticks will increase the charges on your combustion, and if you have the Glyph of Living Bomb, the tick-crits will count towards the three-crit limit before the spell fades. However, the tick-crits do NOT count towards Hot Streak, only the final explosion (assuming it crits), counts towards Hot Streak.

Combustion's best use is obviously to get you some guaranteed crits and to increase your chances of a Hot Streak proc, so when Living Bomb crits "eat" your Combustion's three charges, it can almost seem like a waste of a talent choice versus a second point into Student of the Mind, which gives you more spirit, and thus equals more crit.

So it's a choice, really. Do you want a slight constant crit increase, or a spell which continually increases your crit chance, but gets sucked up on your less hard-hitting crits (Living Bomb) instead of the ones you want it for (Fireball and instant Pyros)?

My personal choice is the second point in Student of the Mind. Your mileage may very, so test them both out when you can.

Glyphs

Okay, so you've got your talent build picked out. What about glyphs? Well, you'll want the Glyph of Molten Armor for both of these specs, the more crit you can get out of your spirit, the better. You'll want the glyph for whichever spell you're using as your primary nuke (fireball or Frostfire Bolt), for sure. The last glyph is a bit open depending on your raid's makeup.

If you run with a warlock that has the Improved Shadow Bolt talent (or a frost mage with Winter's Chill, but you're unlikely to run into a raiding frost mage these days), that talent will apply a debuff which essentially does the same thing as your Improved Scorch debuff, increase spell critical strike chance by 5%. They also don't have to cast a specific spell to do it, it simply applies as part of their primary nuke. If you have a warlock that can do this, they're the better choice for it. In that case, you will want the Glyph of Living Bomb. That Glyph makes each of your Living Bomb's ticks able to crit, at the same chance as your Fire spell crit chance. It's a very good DPS increase. If you do not, you might want to consider the Glyph of Improved Scorch. With that Glyph, you need only cast Scorch ONCE to apply all 5 stacks of the debuff, rather than five times, giving you more time to cast fireballs/Frostfire Bolts. Now bear in mind you CAN still provide this debuff by spamming scorch a bunch, but it's a lot less overall DPS you're doing.

Another fire mage could be present in your group as well, doing this very same thing. Again, that last choice is up to you entirely.

Spell Rotation

Okay, so you're glyphed and talented out. But what do you DO? What's your rotation?

• First, cast Living Bomb. Get it up and when it blows, cast it again.

• Next, if it's your job to provide the crit debuff, stack scorch up to 5 times (or once if you're glyphed for it). Keep that stack up at all times, you only need cast an additional scorch to refresh it, but if it expires you've got to use 5 more scorches to get it up. Refresh it before it expires.

• Then just cast fireball or Frostfire Bolt, and use Hot Streak when it procs. Note, do not interrupt a spell to use Hot Streak, wait til a cast finishes, and then use it.

• Get the mod Scorchio2. It gives you a countdown bar timer to show how much time Living Bomb and Scorch have remaining. It's invaluable for showing you when you need to reapply them.

Outtro

Okay, that's it fellow fire mages. We've covered about every aspect of Fire in PvE I think we can. This is Dahkar, aka Old Man Franks, reminding you: Help control the gnome population, roll a troll today!!