PVE WotLK Fire Mage DPS Guide (Short)

Welcome to our PVE Arcane Mage guide for WoW WotLK. This guide will show you what you need to know to play the Mage class as Arcane. If you follow this build you should be at the top of the DPS chart in no time!

Talents

This build is designed for new players and primarily uses Frostfire Bolt.

Fireball is the main ability used in this second build. This build is higher DPS and works better with high level gear. This build picks up Torment the Weak from the arcane tree. Torment the Weak still works even if the boss can’t be snared, it only cares about the debuff being on the boss.

If you would like, with either build you can take a point ouf of Master of Elements and put it into Blast Wave.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

• Frostfire or Fireball
• Molten Armor
• Living Bomb

Minor Glyphs

• Slow Fall
• Frost Ward
• Fire Ward

Gems

Gems can change based on your build, equipment and caps. You may need to adjust your gems to account for your gear.

• Meta: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond

1st Build

• Runed Cardinal Ruby
• Purified Dreadstone
• Potent Ametrine

2nd Build,

• Red: Potent Ametrine
• Blue: Misty Eye of Zul
• Yellow: Potent Ametrine

Enchants

You may need to adjust your enchants based on your gear but these are the standard enchants.

• Head: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
• Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Storm
• Back: Greater Speed
• Chest: Powerful Stats
• Bracers: Superior Spellpower
• Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower
• Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs: Brilliant Spellthread
• Boots: Icewalker
• Two-Handed Weapon: Enchant Staff – Greater Spellpower
• One-Handed Weapon: Mighty Spellpower or Black Magic

Stat Priority

1. Hit (17%) (14% with talents)
2. Spell Power / Critical Strike
3. Haste
4. Spirit (Increases crit rating)
5. Intellect

Mages need 17% hit, 446 rating, to always hit bosses. Precision gives you an extra 3% hit rating. This lowers your cap to 14%, which is 368 rating.

Spell power and critical strike rating are your primary stats for this build. The more often you crit, the more consistent your DPS will be.

This spec relies heavily on Hot Streak so your crits are super important. You will need 45% crit for this spec to even be viable. You will need 71% critical strike chance to have a 50% chance of procing Hot Streak after casting a Fireball. 

Haste is really a secondary stat with this build. Just let it increase as your gear upgrades and don’t try to gem or enchant for it.

Spirit is an unusual stat that is very beneficial to a Fire Mage. Molten Armor converts your spirit into Critical Strike Rating.

• Regular Molten Armor  converts 35% spirit to critical strike rating.
• Glyphed Molten Armor  converts 55% spirit to critical strike rating.
• Glyphed + T9 set bonus, Khadgar’s Regalia, converts 70% spirit to critical strike rating.

You can also use the Khadgar’s Regalia set bonus to buff with improved Molten Armor and then swap back to your regular gear.

Intellect is only useful when you first hit 80 and have mana problems still.

Rotation

1. Scorch
2. Living Bomb 
3. spam Frostfire Bolt (first build) or Fireball (second build)
4. Pyroblast after Hot Streak procs

• Cast Scorch every 30 seconds.
• Cast Living Bomb every 12 seconds after it explodes.
• Cast Pyroblast every time Hot Streak procs.