Leveling A Fire Mage In Cataclysm

I spent the couple of weeks before the official Cataclysm release trying out the new zones with my new night elf fire mage Saxsy. In doing that I got a good feel for leveling things new with the new mechanics and new talents. In this post I’m going to try to outline the process.

I’m not going to get deeply into detail as to how fire compares as a leveling spec versus frost or arcane. I haven’t really tried the latter two specs so I can’t do a comparison justice.  My sense is that fire is the quickest but most dangerous spec; great for leveling as long as everything goes correctly. Frost is probably the “safest” spec, with arcane somewhere in the middle.  But that’s just my sense.  I could be wrong.

We’ll start at level 10, when you decide to start your way into fire. At level 10, you will basically have 5 spells of use to you: pyroblast, fireball, fire blast, arcane missiles and frost nova. Of these, fireball is your best friend. You will hit the fireball key or button for about 80% of the spells you cast so learn to love it.  The other spells are used as follows:

• Pyroblast: as an alternative to fireball when pulling a mob. Unnecessary generally, and somewhat riskier if you’re in a crowded area (you may pull aggro on a mob tagged by someone else);
• Fire Blast: a finishing move to kill a mob low on health, otherwise it’s a dps loss as compared to fireball;
• Arcane Missiles: when they proc.  These may be a dps loss versus fireball so you can ignore the proc if you want, but they deliver damage faster and thus might be useful as a finishing move. You’ll want to get used to casting things on a proc anyway.
• Frost Nova: your panic spell. If mobs spawn on top of you or otherwise get to you with high health, cast this and run away, either to get some distance and cast fireballs at them, or just run away if it’s too dangerous.

The first tier of talents doesn’t add much in the way of useful talents at a low level, but they’re ultimately ones that are going to be useful later.  My personal preference is to put 2 points in Improved Fire Blast, then 2 points in Master of Elements, and then 1 point in Burning Soul, because I think if you’re doing it right you won’t be hit much and thus won’t need the pushback protection of the latter talent. You could just as easily argue that you’re not going to cast Fire Blast (your finishing spell) at a long range anyway, making Improved Fire Blast a less useful talent. And finally, you could argue that the mana gains from Master of Elements are minimal at this level. There’s arguments for any of the talents and any combination is fine.

At level 12 you’ll pick up evocation, which is a faster way to get back mana. I hold it in reserve in case a mob attacks unexpectedly, but you can make grinding faster by using it whenever it’s available and you end a fight with less than 30% mana.

At level 14 you’ll get polymorph. This is generally not a useful spell when questing, although one thing you can do to make sure you get an item on the ground guarded by a mob is to polymorph the mob, run in and take the item, then run away and either kill or leave the mob.

At level 16 you’ll get blink. This is another spell primarily for defensive purposes. It will let you run away from mobs faster, either to get some distance after frost nova’ing them or just to get away.  You’ll want this on a key you can get to quickly.

At level 18 you’ll get cone of cold.  This is actually a very useful spell at early levels. Most of the time, if you pull mobs from a proper distance, they’ll be dead as they get to you.  Sometimes they won’t.  At that point, you can either frost nova them, step back, and finish them, or use cone of cold to slow them, run a bit further away, and do the same thing.

At level 20 you’ll get arcane blast. This is only useful against mobs that are immune to fire and can be tucked away on a key you’ll almost never press.

At level 22 you’ll get arcane explosion. This is your first real AoE talent, but unless you have to get rid of a huge pack of low-health mobs, it’s practically useless while leveling.

The second tier of mage talents is chock full of goodies.  The first three points should go into Fire Power, which will result in a straight up 3% increase in your damage.  The next two points you get should go to ignite, which is a key fire mage talent that everyone should have. While you’re leveling it’s less useful because mobs typically won’t live long enough for the ignite dot to be incredibly useful, but it still has a lot of value.  If you chose 3 points in Ignite and 2 points in Fire Power instead I would not argue with you.  Impact is a great talent too, and we’ll be getting back to it.  That should bring you to level 27.

Level 25 will get you your first glyphs.  Typically these glyphs will sell for far more on the AH than you can afford, so hopefully you can get someone to make them for you. The best prime glyph to get is Glyph of Fireball; +5% crit to the spell you use most can’t be beat.  The best major glyph is Glyph of Evocation; this is actually an incredibly useful glyph for leveling and by far the best of the major glyphs. At this point, there’s no useful minor glyph.

At level 26, you’ll get scorch. Early on this is an almost useless spell. The only time I would use it is if a mob has very low health and fire blast is on cooldown.

Level 28 gets you Ice Lance. There’s an argument for ice lancing mobs snared with frost nova, but in my experience that’s less useful now.

Level 29 gives you access to the third tier of talents.  The first point should go into Hot Streak; this will allow you to cast pyroblast a lot more often. It’s particularly useful when Hot Streak procs at the end of a fight and you can pull a new mob with a fireball-pyroblast combo (cast fireball first, though).  The next point should go into Blast Wave, which is another spell that can be used defensively to slow mobs that are chasing you. It’s also good for the rare time you will be AoEing.  The next three points should be dropped back into the second tier talents; finish off either Ignite or Fire Power, and then put the next two points in Impact. Cauterize isn’t that useful a leveling talent because the DoT it puts on you will kill you anyway unless you have a healer with you, and Improved Scorch isn’t necessary because you shouldn’t be having mana issues. Impact, on the other hand, will allow you to frequently stun a mob, which will be a very useful skill as mobs begin to survive past four fireballs.

Once you take hot streak, you can take arcane missiles off your bar. They won’t proc again, and you’ll be replacing them with pyroblast, which is a heck of a lot more useful anyway.

Level 30 gets you Remove Curse.  You’ll use it from time to time.

Level 32 gets you Slow Fall. At this point the minor glyph, Glyph of Slow Fall, will become useful, and I recommend you get it. You’ll be surprised how often you’ll want to jump from high places and land safely.

Level 34 gets you Molten Armor. Use it. It’s nice.

Level 36 gets you Mage Ward. Use it in fights where there’s fire, frost or arcane damage. It will make leveling much quicker since you won’t have to wait around to be healed up.

Level 38 gets you Conjure Refreshment.  Enjoy.  You will get a new type of conjured food at levels 44, 54, and presumably 64, 74 and 85.

Level 39 allows you to start into the fourth tier of talents.  The first two points should go into improved hot streak. The more pyroblasts, the better. The next point should probably go into Firestarter; this will give you a useful spell to cast while on the move. For the next two points I would go and pick up whatever talents you are missing in the first tier.  Combustion isn’t very useful for leveling (although you will want it later), and molten shields is pretty much a PvP talent.  I can’t offer any PvP advice.

Level 44 gets you Flamestrike.  This is the first really useful AoE talent in the fire tree, although it doesn’t come into its own until you get the Improved Flamestrike talent later. Flamestrike does a good portion of its damage in an invisible 8 second DoT, so spamming it is less than ideal because the second flamestrike will overwrite that DoT.  Here’s a useful macro:

#showtooltip
/cast Flamestrike
/script Stopwatch_Clear()
/timer 0:08
/script Stopwatch_Play()

This will set a timer to ding when the flamestrike DoT has worn off (and when you can cast a new flamestrike.  Depending on your reaction time, it may be useful to set the timer to 0:06. You may clip the last DoT on that, but it will then give you a ding two seconds before, allowing you to plan the next cast. Between casts you can use arcane explosion or single target a mob.

Level 46 gets you mana shield.  This is almost always worthless because it doesn’t block much damage and eats through your mana. But sometimes it might help.

Level 48 allows you to conjure a mana gem. These are useful and self-explanatory.

Level 49 gets you access to the fifth tier of talents.  The first one to take is Dragon’s Breath. This spell will take the place of Cone of Cold, and will prove very useful. It is primarily a defensive spell, used to disorient mobs that reach you (and by this time in your leveling, most mobs will reach you). It will allow you time to cast a fireball after stunning the mob. It should be your first line of defense against mobs that unexpectedly turn up and surprise you.

By this point, the sequence of casts should look something like this:

1. Pyroblast to pull.
2. Fireball while pyroblast is traveling. It should leave your hands less than a second after the pyroblast hits its target.
3. Two more fireballs as the mob runs toward you.
4. Dragon’s Breath if the mob is not dead. Step back slightly.
5. Fireball.
6. Fire Blast if it will kill the mob, otherwise frost nova and step back again.
7. Fireball.
8. Fire Blast to kill the mob.
9. If the mob’s not dead, fireball (maybe blink if it’s safe to do so) until the mob can be killed by a Fire Blast.

Usually mobs will die by step 6, sometimes earlier if you get a crit or two. It goes without saying that if hot streak procs at any time you should cast pyroblast, and if impact procs you should stun the mob with a fire blast.

The next three talent points should go into Molten Fury. The last point for tier 5 should go into Improved Flamestrike. We’ll get back to that talent later.

Level 50 gets you mirror image. This is a nice defensive spell which will take mobs off of you and allow you to cast free of aggro worries. It’s on a long cooldown, but don’t be hesitant to use it against tough mobs or mobs that surprise you.

Level 50 also gets you access to new glyphs.  Your next prime glyph should be Glyph of Molten Armor; extra crit helps a lot. The next major glyph should be Glyph of Dragon’s Breath; reducing the cooldown on a crucial defensive spell makes it more likely to be available when you need it. Your next minor glyph should be Glyph of Mirror Image; this is a very slight DPS gain, but more importantly you won’t have to bear the thought of an image of you casting frost bolts.

Level 52 gets you Blizzard. This is useless. Do not even bother to put it on your bars. I hate Blizzard (the spell).

Level 54 gets you Frost Armor. This is useless.

Level 56 gets you Frostfire Bolt. This is a useful alternative to Arcane Blast for mobs that are immune to fire. There are also people who use this to replace fireball in their rotation. I don’t, so if you’re interested in that you can ask those other people.

Level 58 gets you Arcane Brilliance. This should be up at all times.

Level 59 gets you access to the sixth tier of talents.  The first three points should be put into Critical Mass. At that point, pulling with Pyroblast becomes a far better strategy than pulling with fireball. In dungeons on mobs that last a while, you will want to cast scorch to apply the Critical Mass debuff. For long fights you should only need to do this once, as you’ll likely get a hot streaked pyroblast to reapply the debuff before it falls off.

The next point should go into Improved Flamestrike, and the point after that should finally go into Combustion.  Combustion will become more useful once you can take Living Bomb at level 69.

Level 68 gets you mage armor.  This is useless.

Level 69 gets you Living Bomb. This is not as much fun as it used to be, but it’s still fun.

At that point, there are a lot more strategies that come into play with playstyles, but once you fill the fire tree I think you don’t really qualify as “leveling” anymore, so I’ll stop here. I may get back to this later, but as of now Saxsy is only 61 and I’d like to try to experience the 61-80 content before I say anything more.