Introduction
Welcome to Method’s Fire Mage class guide.
My name is Tamir, also known as tam1h. I've been pushing high mythic+ keys since Legion as a mage and raiding since Warlords of Draenor. I have been raiding in the top 30 scene throughout most of Shadowlands and Dragonflight.
What has changed
Patch 10.2.0 Fire Mage Tuning Changes
There were no impactful changes for Fire Mage in Patch 10.2, since the spec just got reworked in 10.1.5, see the section below for more information.
Changes in Patch 10.1.7
There haven't been any changes to Frost Mage in Patch 10.1.7 that have required updates to the guide.
Patch 10.1.5 Fire mage Tuning Changes
All 3 mage specs are receiving significant changes in the upcoming patch 10.1.5, lots of abilities getting removed, moved, and reworked, on top of tuning.
I will write the most important things to note for Fire Mage in the next upcoming patch 10.1.5
- Rune of power getting removed (all abilities getting buffed by around 12-15% to compensate for the loss of rune of power)
- Incanter’s flow replace invisibility in the class tree(our default choice)
- Shifting power has been moved in the class tree
- New talent: Ice Cold Replace Ice Block - reduces all damage taken by 70% for 6 seconds but no longer grants immunity, this spell is off the GCD(means u can press it while casting something else)
- New talent: Mass Barrier: Cast mage spec based barrier (ice barrier for frost) on yourself and 3 nearby allies on 2 minutes CD (very strong for Dungeon Content)
- New talent: Mass Invisibility Similar to the mage pvp talent, you and your allies within 40 yards instantly become invisible for 10 seconds, taking any action will cancel this effect and only works outside of combat(similar to shroud)
- Pyroclasm has been removed
- Flamestrike is Baseline
- Cauterize is now Baseline
- Flamestrike now contributes towards Hot Streak (Talent)
- New Talent: Intensifying Flame: while ignite is on 3 or fewer enemies it deals 15% increased damage
- New Talent: Unleashed Inferno: While combustion is active your fireball pyroblast fireblast scorch and phoenix flames deals 50% increased damage and reduce the CD of combustion by 1.25 Sec (choice with Sunking’s Blessing)
- Sunking’s Blessing has been redesigned together with Pyroclasm, and now last 30 seconds
Conclusions about Fire in Patch 10.1.5
Overall, Fire Mage received some very good changes with Cauterize baseline and we also received some Raid and M+ utility with Mass Barrier and Mass Invisibility. On the tuning side, we have to wait and see how numbers will be since Blizzard is still playing with numbers regarding fire; it got buffed by 12% to compensate for the Rune of Power loss, then nerfed by 10%, then buffed again by 4%, so they are still trying to look where they want fire to be.
From my point of view, fire is probably going to be in a similar spot, with a strong single target and good AoE. With the fact that some spells moved around, 2 choices became 1 choice and talents became baseline abilities we gained more raw power in the fire tree, all of which was supposed to put fire in a better position than patch 10.1, but again, it's all going to come down to numbers.