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 the top 30 scene throughout most of Shadowlands and Dragonflight.
What has changed
Patch 11.1 Changes
Frostfire took a bit of a hit in Patch 11.1. It’s still playable, but it’s behind compared to Sunfury and unleashed inferno gameplay compared to SKB; which also took a hit during patch 11.1. This set the deal that Sunfury will be the hero talent choice, in both Raiding and Mythic+.
Fire Mage in Patch 11.1 is getting a bit of a slower pacing to the resource generation, such as Fireblast and phoenix flames, due to the fact that we don’t really cast many filler spells, such as fireball.
From testing on the PTR, with a respectable amount of haste, this change isn’t even noticeable. Basically, how you should treat this change, is that you will cast a few more fireballs.
This is the list of Fire Mage changes:
- Heat Shimmer has been updated – No longer makes Scorch instant-cast. Now increases Scorch damage by 10%.
- Pyrotechnics has been updated – Critical chance increased to 20% (was 10%).
- Controlled Destruction has been updated – Now also triggers from Fireball.
- Master of Flame has been updated – Now increases Ignite and Fireball’s damage by 15% when Combustion is not active.
- Call of the Sun King has been updated – No longer grants an additional charge of Phoenix Flames and now grants 15% increased Phoenix Flames damage.
- Fire Blast cooldown increased to 14 seconds (was 12 seconds).
- Hyperthermia duration reduced to 5 seconds (was 6 seconds).
- Hyperthermia’s chance to trigger has been reduced.
- Pyroblast damage increased by 10%.
- Pyroblast mana cost reduced to 1.5% base mana (was 2.5%).
- Flamestrike damage increased by 10%.
- Flamestrike mana cost reduced to 1.5% base mana (was 2.5%).
- Unleashed Inferno damage bonus increased to 70% (was 60%).
- Phoenix Reborn now refunds 1 Phoenix Flame charge on use (was 2).
- Phoenix Reborn's Phoenix Flames damage bonus increased to 200% (was 100%).
- Phoenix Reborn’s description, auras, and tooltips have been updated to better communicate their effects.
- Fixed an issue that caused Pyromaniac to grant Hyperthermia more often than it should.
- You can no longer trigger Hyperthermia when you already have it and it’s chance to trigger has been reduced.
Fire Mage Changes for The War Within
Going into The War Within, mages generally but also Fire mages specifically are getting significant changes with some talents shifting around, some talents being removed and some new talents also being added.
I will note the most important changes that will affect fire mage below.
One of the main features going in the War Within is we are getting a new talents tree called Hero talents. Fire is getting two new talent trees to play with which will define our playstyle. The two new Hero Trees are called Sunfury and Frostfire, which we’ll talk about briefly in the Talent and Playstyle sections.
- Mass barrier is now a 3 minute CD
- Time warp is being removed (no double lust anymore)
- Time anomaly is changed to proc more often
- Inspired Intellect - on the same row with time anomaly arcane intellect grants you additional 3% intellect (however its additive intellect so its much weaker)
- Supernova is on the same choice as Dragon’s Breath
- Ice nova and Ring of frost share the same choice
- Barrier Diffusion - whenever one of your barriers is removed, reduce its cooldown by 4 seconds (works very well with mass barrier)
- Sun King's Blessing stacks required has been increased from 8 to 10
- Phoenix Reborn has been redesigned to work with our previous S2 Tier set from Dragonflight which gives us the refunds on Phoenix Flames and increase the damage by 100%
- Living bomb is now a passive talent that is tied into our Hot Streak (see more in the next section)