We break down all the reasons you should consider playing Fire Mage in Patch 10.1 and even throw in a few reasons of why you might not. From all the changes since launch to the new tier set bonuses coming in 10.1, join us as we explore Dragonflight Season 2 Fire Mage!
Why You Should Play a Spec in Dragonflight Season 2 Series
Blood DK
Feral Druid
Preservation Evoker
Beast Mastery Hunter
Arcane Mage
Mistweaver Monk
Shadow Priest
Assassination Rogue
Elemental Shaman
Protection Warrior
Dragonflight Season 2 Mage Tier Set
Update
Update: as of 4/28/23 Fire Mage Mastery: Ignite is nerfed by 6%. This comes with news that Fire has apparently had a pretty big bug with Mastery: Ignite in simulations causing it to overperform by around 10% for the entire expansion. With this information it is likely that Alexstrasza’s Fury is the best pick for all content, assuming you have the Underlight Conjurer’s Brilliance 4p tier set. It also means that Onyx Annulet and Seal of Diurna’s Chosen are now much better than before in Single Target. The rest of this writeup was made before these changes/revelations but it shouldn’t change much aside from numbers.
Why You Should Play Fire Mage in Dragonflight (and Why You Shouldn’t)
If you have ever wondered why the saying is “fight fire with fire” instead of “fight everything with fire”, then perhaps Fire Mage is the specialization for you. From the fire we stand in during raids, to the Pyroblasts of the Defias Pillagers, fire has always been one of the most deadly schools of magic in World of Warcraft. Fire Mage has always been known for its offensive focus, high damage, and cleave in the form of Mastery: Ignite. If you are looking for a specialization that lets you turn your enemies into bonfires with legs, spreading their flame to other nearby enemies, then look no further.
Fire Mage is a specialization that relies on cooldowns and burst to deal damage, but it requires uptime to generate that burst. The Fire Mage playstyle in Dragonflight consists of heavy damage windows during Combustion and Rune of Power to deal loads of damage and in-between phases where you are building Sun King’s Blessing and using Kindling to make Combustion come back quicker. Fire still has gets a lot of free extra cleave damage essentially for free with Mastery: Ignite, so long as the main target is close enough to other targets to cleave to. Having both Sun King’s Blessing and Pyroclasm means that you will often need to complete hard-cast Pyroblast as this specialization but talents like Ice Floes help you to avoid interruptions.
Fire still has the same shortcomings it has always had. It has no spread cleave if targets are separated, relies on hard-casting, has very little passive damage reduction, and brings little utility to the raid aside from Arcane Intellect. Even with the new tier set, the playstyle is still defined by Sun King’s Blessing and very little has changed aside from some talent choices and the damage going up.
| Why You Should | Why You Shouldn’t |
Why You Should Play Fire Mage in Dragonflight Season 2
Fire is almost identical to Season 1, but it is receiving some nice buffs to Pyroblast, Fire Blast, Fireball, Scorch, and minor buffs to Improved Combustion and Improved Scorch. Fire Mage is a strong option due to its strong cleave, high burst, and cheat death with Cauterize which is now even more accessible when playing Alexstrasza’s Fury.
Tuning
Keep in mind this could change, but tuning in Season 2 is a bit of a mess with big winners and big losers. Fire was recently buffed by around 9%, and has a good tier bonus which makes it a winner. Fire has great Single Target and cleave. It is also very mobile, has execute with Searing Touch, an immunity with Ice Block, and a cheat death with Cauterize.
In Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible, most of the encounters are Single Target with instances of 2 target cleave. Season 2 also has many instances where mobs have huge, important absorb shields that need to be broken quickly. Similar to Devastation Evoker, Fire Mage greatly benefits from this because Firestarter is active while the target’s health remains above 90%. For these reasons Fire is a very good fit for raid.
Mythic+ Fire Mage has incredible uncapped AoE and strong boss damage. It gives up next to nothing for both since the only change in AoE is that the current pick From the Ashes overtakes Alexstrasza’s Fury. The difference between the two in Single Target is very small, but Alexstrasza’s Fury plays a lot better. Without defensives up, Fire Mage is a lot less sturdy than many other classes which means that you might need special attention at times.
At this time, I expect Fire to be the meta pick for Mages in Raid and Mythic+, but with the recent Mastery: Ignite nerf Arcane will have higher Single Target.
Talent Changes in Season 2
The only real thing shaking things up for Fire Mage is the new tier bonus:
The tier set for Fire Mage makes it so that Phoenix Flames gives targets hit a debuff that increases their damage taken and direct damage returns a buff that lets us cast amped Phoenix Flames without activating the cooldown. Having this full tier bonus is an increase of around 12%, making it the best of the Mage tier bonuses in Season 2.
In Season 1, Phoenix Flames was held for as long as possible due to From the Ashes causing you to lose 2% Mastery. With this tier set, once you get your first free Phoenix Flames charges you are able to sustain them pretty easily. You can also play Alexstrasza’s Fury now instead, which is better in general.
Alexstrasza’s Fury is great because it makes Phoenix Flames and Dragon’s Breath always crit, and it makes Dragon’s Breath contribute to Hot Streak. Not only is this talent fun to play because it makes Phoenix Flames feel like a real button, it also means that dropping a talent for Cauterize is a smaller hit to your damage.
Fire Mage Utility for Dragonflight
In terms of utility, Fire Mage offers the same raid buff as the other specializations. All Mage specializations bring Arcane Intellect and Time Warp. We also offer Portals and Conjure Refreshments. These are nice, but not really exactly necessary for combat.
Fire Mages have stops for Mythic+ with Dragon’s Breath and Blast Wave. They can also Remove Curses and offensively dispel magic buffs with Spellsteal.
More of the Same!
If you love Fire Mage as it is now with the Sun King’s Blessing playstyle, rejoice! The spec is essentially the same aside from maintaining a debuff with Phoenix Flames and having the option to play Alexstrasza’s Fury. It still has all the benefits from Season 1 and it will perform well in Mythic+ and Raid.
Why You Shouldn’t Play Fire Mage in Dragonflight Season 2
Lack of Talent Choices
Even though there are competitive talents in the tree (such as Hyperthermia and Time Anomaly) that we don’t take as Fire Mages, there is very little that is really worth swapping around. The Raid and Mythic+ builds are going from being identical to having one choice node swap. Flamestrike, Living Bomb, and all of the supporting talents for them are just worse in most cases than playing single targeting and letting Mastery: Ignite spread.
Sun King’s Blessing has a profound effect on the class and is too powerful to avoid. In addition to this, Cauterize competing with damage talents is less than ideal. AoE talent options that feature Flamestrike are also too expensive to pick up at the cost of boss damage.
Not for the Faint of Heart
Fire Mage is very punishing because it involves maintaining a lot of buffs that can be munched while also requiring constant hard-casting of Pyroblast. Because a lot of our Combustion uptime comes from Sun King’s Blessing, but you mainly generate Sun King’s Blessing stacks in Combustion, disruptions can easily break your momentum and derail you. This can lead to mistakes that snowball into greatly reduced uptime of Combustion and loss of damage.
This point has been brought up multiple times but it bears repeating: Fire Mages constantly have to hardcast Pyroblast, often times just to activate a buff. Ice Floes helps a lot with this, but it doesn’t remove the frustration completely.
Reliance on Healing
Mage has very little passive damage reduction and no reactive self-healing. You have extremely strong abilities to survive but most of them require knowing the damage is coming ahead of time. Once damage is dealt to you, you don’t have good options to heal yourself with using your immunity, Ice Block. The good news is that this is a problem for all Mages, not just Fire.
More of the Same…
If you don’t like how Fire Mage is now, I don’t blame you. Fire has felt like it could benefit from a rework for a long time now. Even though we got good changes to the tier bonus and some pretty huge tuning, the playstyle isn’t any less reliant on constant uptime to do well. There was a brief moment when Tempered Flames looked competitive, but with a smaller margin for error as this build and the buff to Improved Combustion it is unlikely Tempered Flames is still a good option.
With Dragonflight we had the promise of a new talent system with fun choices but we ended up getting Shadowlands Fire Mage version 1.1. For some of us Mage veterans it feels as if the class has been a abandoned for a while now when it comes to the issues with the spec and the lack of variety.
This article isn’t a perfect place to talk about this, but Dragonflight is the first expansion since I started playing Mage in Cataclysm pre-patch where I spent most of my time on another class. This was partially due to the hype of a new ranged specialization, but there was also a sense that the problems with the Mage talents weren’t going to be fixed. As I am finishing up this writeup I can’t help but feel a little validated in my decision to swap since we are going into another tier with more of the same. I’m not bringing this up to pat myself on the back, it is more of an expression of my disappointment. Even if the class is tuned high and the damage is good, it still has serious problems. Now is as good of a time as ever to raise these concerns. I sincerely hope the next time I write something like this for Fire Mage, I can tell you that we are making progress.
About the Author
This guide is written and maintained by Preheat, previously a World First raider and founding member of Liquid. Preheat plays Evoker and Mage and has participated in the MDI and multiple Race to World First events over the years. He has also commentated multiple community events such as the Keystone Masters, numerous charity events, and the Team Liquid Race to World First. For all things Evoker and Mage, you can find him in his Discord, on Twitter, posting videos to YouTube, and streaming on Twitch.
For more information on playing Fire Mage, please see our class guide updated for Dragonflight:
Fire Mage Guide
