I feel that the Fire spec deserves it's own guide, since it is considerably more complex than Arcane is (we use ~5 buttons compared to 3).
Fire Mage
Created by Molpe for 4.01, updated by Adana for 4.3.3
Talents
Recommended Spec - 3/35/3
Mandatory PvE Fire talents are Master of Elements, Burning Soul, Ignite, Fire Power, Impact, Blast Wave, Hot Streak, Combustion, Improved Hot Streak, Firestarter, Improved Flamestrike, Dragon's Breath, Molten Fury, Pyromaniac, Critical Mass, and Living Bomb. This amounts to 29 points of talents, so you will need to spend 2 additional points in Fire before you can take talents in other trees. Full points in Netherwing Presence (Arcane Tree) and Piercing Ice (Frost Tree) are mandatory as well.
Glyphs
Primary glyphs:
- Fireball
- Molten Armor
- Pyroblast.
- (optional) Living Bomb (Useful for heavy aoe fights, 2% crit from Molten Armor is stronger otherwise)
Major glyphs will be something like Dragon's Breath, Evocation, and personal preference. Use whatever minor glyphs you want.
Stat Weights
17% Hit > Haste (to 2005) > Crit > Haste > Mastery
Fire mages do significant DoT damage, which makes haste plateaus valuable for DPS. 2005 is an easily achievable plateau to focus on obtaining. Note Flame Orb and Ignite are not affected by haste.
Gemming
Gemming pure intellect is almost always the best way to gem, unless a socket bonus gives you the same amount of intellect (ex: red and blue slot chest that gives +20 intellect, in which case you gain +20 hit for gemming for the socket).
- Red - Brilliant
- Yellow - Potent or Reckless
- Blue - Veiled
Shield
- Molten Armor
Combat
Single Target DPS
In roughly the correct priority order
- Combustion
- Living Bomb (Refresh as soon as it falls off)
- Flame Orb
- Pyroblast! (Instant cast pyroblast)
- Scorch (If 5% crit debuff is not on the boss)
- Fireball
Note: DO NOT CLIP LIVING BOMB. This is a significant DPS loss.
AoE DPS
- 3 Living Bombs
- Blastwave on CD
- Flamestrike (Use when DOT has disappeared).
"Optional AoE DPS"
- 3 Living Bombs
- Scorch till Impact procs
Note: Impact procs are unreliable, but do massive AoE damage
Combustion
This is a unique spell, which deserves it's own section on how to use properly. Combustion does small to moderate initial damage, and adds up all the fire damage over time effects currently on your target and creates an additional debuff that does the combined damage. This means the more (and stronger) dots you have on the target when you use Combustion, the stronger it will be. Optimal Combustion generally includes Living Bomb, Ignite (preferably from Pyroblast or Fireball), and the Pyroblast dot. Note that spellpower/intellect procs significantly increase the damage of this spell if the dots were applied while they were up. Also note that due to the randomness of Fire in general (due to relying heavily on crit to do good dps) it may not always be possible to get an ideal combustion, and turns into a dps loss if you wait too long to use it.
Addons
Try out CombustionHelper if you are having trouble using your Combustion at the best possible time.