Fire Mage Tips (for AoE)

[Viledead]

Was asked to provide some tips here re: fire mage. Obviously my mage in H Yor tonight was basically LFR gear, but was competitive enough.

EDIT: i'm tired so this may or may not be complete, or completely accurate.

Notes from the Log (when yor went down):

(PS I made TONS of mistakes! But this is looking for obvious issues).

Mord cast fireball 24 times, I casted it 85 times. He's scorching WAY more. Only reasons I can think of is movement or no mana.

Combustion: 60 ticks vs 212 ticks. My 212 ticks is actually low too. I did 4.3 million dmg with combustion, mord did 900k.

Don't cast flamestrike so much. Blastwave has the fs effect, so you don't need it that much. Spreading LB is more important.

Never use fireblast unless there's an impact (25 vs 6).

Beginner:

Quite simply it's all about combustion and impact.

Don't worry about Pyro dot if you are having issues overall. Living Bomb and Ignite are the big ones. Don't even worry about how good the ignite is either. Getting something off is better than nothing (which is the difference between your 50k+ dps and 35k dps). Handling the more advanced tips will take you to 70k+++.

If you find yourself missing an impact proc due to timing issues, you need to consider saving Flame Orb. Also Blast Wave hitting adds should proc it. Keep it for combustion, just to be save.

Don't tab target to apply living bomb to adds. Only mana void. Treat Yorsahj like your "dps pillar" - everything applies to him, then you spread by impact.

For Yorsahj, use evocate right after the first mana void drops. Then occasionally use the mana gems.

Slightly Advanced:

Save trinks/etc to buff LB/ignite before combustion/impact.

impact the slime when adds are around it.

Don't tab target

I know SimC says mastery is great a lot of the time - but it doesn't take into account fight mechanics/etc. For instance, crit is apparently great for AoE (this is why you are seeing the 1505 haste soft cap then crit specs).

Other Notes:

DTR is the best caster weapon. No conversation.

Cunning of the cruel is amazing for this fight.

Both raiding mages are capable of hitting 60-70k+ dps.

I highly recommend to not quickly rush back to Arcane - outside of heroic spine, fire out performs arcane. Seriously, arcane kind of sucks right now. And you won't get better with fire if you don't play it full time while raiding - timing combustion takes practice.

If your curious, my self assessment of my performance is pretty poor too. I only used mirror images twice, racial not enough, and i casted scorch too much. I am really at the mercy of RNG with the shit gear, but honestly I think with practice I can get comfortably to 45-50k dps in the same gear. And with "average" luck. And not on a laptop with 1/2 size keys on shitty internet.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Viledead

[Tychondris]

Thanks for the post Vile---This really clears things up for me. I just have to improve my micro management of my CD's and use of the approriate skills for more effective AoE dps on that fight. I look forward to putting this knowledge to good use.

The dagger from Madness & the Cunning of the Cruel both would be good for that fight. The epic caster staff (with the damage duplication buff) plus the Cunning of the Cruel would be even better. I am 109 seething cinders away from getting the 391 version of the staff but obtaining the full version could take a while. (looks like I am going to have to whore myself out to FL groups or try & find a hard mode farming group or get into a guild one)

Untill I can get those in the meantime I did modify a pair of LFR gloves for use with fire (reforge to crit) & swapped out my Will of the Unbinding for what amounts to the last tier contents version of Cunning of the Cruel (Variable Pulse Lightning Capacitor). That seemed to make a difference on sessions with the target dummies & in a LFR run I did last night. Again I would like to say thanks for the post you made--really appreciate it.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Mordechai

[Viledead]

Hey Mord no prob. Yeah an orange stick and an OP trinket would help a lot.. But really even without it's possible to do some pretty crazy dps - i don't know if VPLC/insignia are better than WoU - as far as I know WoU > all in every case. Not an expert on mage trinks tho...but following the "int > all" idea means WoU is the one to keep, and potentially replace the other one.

Also Rath (the 1 hand dagger) did a fair amount of dmg for me. But not sure if that means it's better than a better weapon with higher stats.

I really think once you scorch less, time combustion and impact better, and only fireblast for impact....you'll do great dps..

[Ulqui]

i had a feeling the mages were using fireblast on cd... didn't feel like asking them though lol