TBC Classic Fire Mage Guide (Phase 3)
About the Class
Fire Mage is a ranged cloth-wearing caster. Its damage is built around 
Fireball and the debuff from 
Scorch. In TBC the tree was heavily reworked: 
Ignite became a personal debuff for each mage, and the new talents Molten Fury, Empowered Fireball, and 
Dragon's Breath define the playstyle. Molten Fury increases damage against low-health targets, so the spec performs well in long boss fights. That said, Fire burns a lot of mana and requires more raid support than the other trees.
Strengths
- High area-of-effect damage.
- A powerful execute phase in long fights thanks to Molten Fury.
- Excellent scaling with spell power.
- A classic and comfortable mage spec to play.
- With good gear, long fights, and enough support, it outperforms Arcane.
Weaknesses
- Mana consumption often becomes a problem.
- Threat is higher than Arcane's, which limits your damage.
- To match Arcane, you need serious raid support.
- It requires the most spell hit of the three mage specs.
- It is heavily gear-dependent.
Stat Priority
- 1Hit (spells)
- 2Spell Power
- 3Spell Haste Rating
- 4Critical Strike (spells)
- 5Intellect
- 6Stamina
- 7Spirit
- 8Mana per 5 sec.
Talents
Ability Priority
- Scorch — build up and maintain 5 stacks of the Improved Scorch debuff; worth it if the target survives at least 4 Fireball casts
- Fireball — your main single-target damage
Fire Blast — while moving and for finishing off
Molten Armor — keep it up for the critical strike chance
Blink — instead of running when repositioning
Important Abilities
Spell Ranks
Flamestrike is cast alternately at rank 7 and rank 6: the periodic effects of different ranks are independent and stack, and the damage over time is not cut by the target-count cap.
Best in Slot (BiS)
Best in Slot (BiS)Tier 6 Set — Tempest Regalia
Tier 6 Set — Tempest RegaliaEnchants, Gems, Consumables
Enchants
Gems
ConsumablesRaces
Best Professions
Grants 
Enchant Ring - Minor Intellect — a very strong enchant that can only be applied to your own rings and stops working if you drop the profession. Plus 
Disenchant for breaking down surplus gear.
Explosives like 
Dense Dynamite and 
Super Sapper Charge are not subject to the AoE damage cap and weave into the rotation. It also provides 
Destruction Holo-Gogs, 
Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite, 
Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, and 
Dimensional Ripper - Area 52.
Early on it provides strong sets — Spellfire (
Spellfire Robe, 
Spellfire Gloves, 
Spellfire Belt) and Spellstrike (
Spellstrike Hood, 
Spellstrike Pants) — but they are quickly replaced by raid gear. At 375 skill it unlocks the best leg enchants: 
Runic Spellthread and 
Golden Spellthread.
Provides drums with 30-second buffs. Because of the 
Tinnitus debuff, they cannot be received more than once every 2 minutes, so the profession's value has dropped noticeably.
Author
Fouren
Fouren has been playing World of Warcraft for over 15 years. He is an active player with 12 Cutting Edge achievements under his belt, and has reached the top 1% and 0.1% multiple times on various classes. His main classes are healers, particularly Holy Paladin.
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