Fire Mage Mythic+ Guide (2024)

Tier Set

• (2pc): Pyroblast and Flamestrike cast with Heating up deal 10% increased damage.
• (4pc): Fire Blast, Phoenix Flames and Fireball deal 10% increased damage and their chance to critically strike is increased by 10%.

This tier set is completely passive and you do not need to think about it at all.

Single Target

Opener Rotation

The goal of your single target opener rotation is to enter Combustion as quick as you can while reacting to your Pyroblast crits.

• If the precasted Pyroblast did not crit, cast a Fire Blast during the fireball cast and then also activate Combustion during the Fireball cast.
• If the precasted Pyroblast did crit, then activate Combustion during the fireball cast.

Combustion Priority List

Combustion is fire mages main cooldown and with how much uptime you can obtain on Combustion with Sun King's Blessing, maximizing these windows is crucial to playing fire mage correctly.

1. Hard cast Pyroblast with 10 stacks of Sun King's Blessing
2. Cast Pyroblast with Hot Streak
3. Cast Fire Blast with Heating up
4. Cast Phoenix Flames with Heating up to prevent overcapping Phoenix Flames
5. Cast Scorch

Outside of Combustion Priority List

1. Cast Shifting Power after Combustion
2. Hard cast Pyroblast with 10 stacks of Sun King's Blessing
3. Cast Pyroblast with Hot Streak
4. Cast Phoenix Flames with Heating up to prevent overcapping Phoenix Flames
5. Cast Fire Blast if you are about to cap on charges
6. Cast Fire Blast with Heating up
7. Cast Scorch if the target is below 30% health
8. Cast Fireball

Outside of Combustion you want to aggressively spend Phoenix Flames to get to the next Sun King's Blessing window. Avoid overspending Phoenix Flames.

Ignite Multi Target

If using the Ignite build, which is recommended, the rotation is exactly the same as single target. With the Ignite build, Ignite is passively spread when casting Fire Blast to the mobs surrounding the main mob you are targeting.

Flamestrike Multi Target

The Flamestrike build is essentially the same as the Ignite build but you replace Pyroblast with Flamestrike

Combustion Priority List

1. Hard cast Flamestrike with 10 stacks of Sun King's Blessing
2. Cast Flamestrike with Hot Streak
3. Cast Fire Blast with Heating up
4. Cast Phoenix Flames with Heating up to prevent overcapping Phoenix Flames
5. Cast Scorch

Outside of Combustion Priority List

Outside of Combustion using the Flamestrike build still uses Fireball as filler but spends Hot Streak on Flamestrike

1. Cast Shifting Power after Combustion
2. Hard cast Flamestrike with 10 stacks of Sun King's Blessing
3. Cast Flamestrike with Hot Streak
4. Cast Phoenix Flames with Heating up to prevent overcapping Phoenix Flames
5. Cast Fire Blast if you are about to cap on charges
6. Cast Fire Blast with Heating up
7. Cast Scorch if the target is below 30% health
8. Cast Fireball

Ignite

An important aspect of doing damage with the Ignite build, especially in lower keys, is to swap your Ignite off of your priority target before that target dies or you need to swap. You can achieve this by having your last global be a Fire Blast before swapping targets. By doing this, fire mages do not lose any damage if their priority target dies or they need to swap off of a target to another one.

Phoenix Flames vs Fire Blast

Understanding the differences has a steep learning curve when playing Fire Mage for the first time. Fire Blast is off the GCD, castable while casting and instantly hits the target when you cast it. Phoenix Flames on the other hand, is on the GCD, not castable while casting, and has a travel time before it hits the target. This drastic difference can cause issues because of the gameplay loop between generating and spending Hot Streaks. Since you use Fire Blast fairly frequently, you might expect Phoenix Flames to behave the same but, it is the polar opposite. The best advice is to expect these "rhythm disruptions" during your Combustion and become more comfortable with waiting for your Phoenix Flames to hit the target.

Losing damage by being far away from the target due to Phoenix Flames travel time.

Phoenix Flames has a very slow travel time. Depending on your haste and distance from the boss, this can cost you damage. You lose damage because you can be in a position where you are waiting for your Phoenix Flames to hit the target while your global is ready. The simplest way to fix this issue is to be closer to the boss. Another way you can fix this issue is by doing something called, "Phoenix Flames Weaving." This is only doable when you have high haste and are forced to be far away from the target. After casting Pyroblast during your Combustion, you will have a Heating up. You can then cast Phoenix Flames into Fire Blast into a Pyroblast Pyroblast combo. You can achieve this because you send the Pyroblast before the Phoenix Flames hits the target. This completely negates the time you lose by waiting for your Phoenix Flames to hit the target while your GCD is ready. Here is what it should look like.

It is important to remember that this is only doable with high haste and you need to be at least 20+ yards away from the target.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

← Scroll for more Dungeons →

Affixes

Learn how to effectively handle various Mythic+ Affixes as a Fire Mage. Depending on the level of the Mythic+ Dungeon you face up to two additional Affixes alongside Fortified and Tyrannical.

• Entangling
  • Energized Barriers lets you remove Entangling completely by casting Blazing Barrier.
  • Both Ice Floes & Shimmer are great mobility tools to get out of Entangling.
• Incorporeal
  • Polymorph
• Afflicted
  • Remove Curse
• Volcanic
  • Ice Floes is a great tool to handle this affix.
• Bolstering
  • Fire Mage has the luxury of using single target abilities during AoE, use this to your advantage by swapping targets to even out the health of mobs.
• Spiteful
  • Slow them with Blast Wave & Cone of Cold.
  • Talent into Ring of Frost if this affix is a big problem for your group.
• Sanguine
  • Volatile Detonation is a great tool to knock mobs out of Sanguine.

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Mythic+ dungeons as a Fire Mage. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to the recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the scenario.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Belor'relos, the Suncaller
  • Does Damage On-use that scales with enemies
• Ashes of the Embersoul
  • Grants you decaying Intellect over 20 seconds
• Irideus Fragment
  • Grants you decaying Intellect over 20 seconds
• Spoils of Neltharus
  • Grants you Secondary Stats based on the current buff you have from the trinket

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
  • Strong single target damage and also executes mobs at 5% health.
• Whispering Incarnate Icon
  • Better or worse depending on how many people in your group are using it.
• Idol of Pure Decay
  • Decent single target damage.
• Furious Ragefeather
  • Decent single target damage.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• 2x Blue Silken Lining Reliant on being 90%+ health for the majority of the time.
  • Craft on Wrists, Boots, Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.
• Allied Wristguards of Time Dilation
  • Less DPS for yourself but very strong for your group as a collective.
  • Great option when Blue Silken Lining has low uptime.

Remaining Sparks

• Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped to keep your food buff even if you died.
• Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 on max item level therefore it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Phials

• Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- For maximum DPS.
• Phial of Tepid Versatility -- For less DPS but more survivability.

Food

• Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
• Deviously Deviled Eggs

Combat Potion

• Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
• Residual Neural Channeling Agent
  • Can be used while being dead if your potion is ready.

Health Potion

• Potion of Withering Dreams -- For a big burst of healing
• Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- For less healing upfront but an additional small heal over time.

Weapon Rune

• Howling Rune --- Default
• Buzzing Rune --- If you have too much haste

Augment Rune

• Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation
• Draconic Augment Rune

Sockets

• Fierce Illimited Diamond --- Unique, made by work order
• Energized Ysemerald

For min-maxing a Fire Mage in Mythic+, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • One of the most potent racials in Mythic+ currently and historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Bursting stacks.
    • Splinterbark on Overgrown Ancient (Algeth'ar Academy).
    • Deep Chill from Glacial Proto-Dragons (Halls of Infusion).
    • Withering from Fetid Rotsingers and Brackenhide Shapers (Brackenhide Hollow).
    • Earthen Shards from Sentinel Talondras (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Stolen Time from Infinite Timereavers (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Dragon Strike from Chargath (Neltharus).
    • Bold Ambush from Qalashi Hunters (Neltharus).
• Shadowmeld -- Night Elf
  • Also one of the most potent racials in Mythic+ historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Cast Shadowmeld when Forgemaster Gorek (Neltharus) targets you with Blazing Aegis, this completely negate the mechanic for you and the rest of the group.
    • Run past basically any mob and then cast Shadowmeld to make them reset. Even works on mobs that have stealth detection if you get enough distance before you Shadowmeld.
• Escape Artist -- Gnome
  • Free yourself from roots.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While you're in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.

Recommendation

Even if Dwarf and Night Elf aren't the overall best racials in terms of DPS but their abilities have such a big impact on your Mythic+ experience that you need to use either of them if you're serious about pushing keys with your Fire Mage. If you wish to simply play the race with the highest damage, you should pick either Dwarf or Tauren. They have the same passive damage increase but Dwarf has a far superior racial ability for Mythic+.

Discover recommended macros for Fire Mages during Mythic+ dungeons and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

#showtooltip/use [@cursor] Flamestrike

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Fire Mage, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Mythic+ dungeons to make your life easier.

Credits

Written By: Hopeful, Wolfdisco

Reviewed By: Wexi