There seems to be a lack of guides though in regards to how to play Fire in PvP. And the guides that I have seen have some serious flaws (like taking Improved Fireball). So I've decided to share the knowledge that I learned playing as Fire on my to rank 14.
The Build: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/2300052312201-055232010300315
I recommend a 21/30 build for Fire PvP. Keep in mind this build is solely for endgame PvP purposes. If you use this build for leveling or raiding you will perform terribly. I prefer this build to 31/20 because it gives you more viability outside of Arcane Power. Meaning that you can kill people quite well without using your cooldowns. So your cooldowns are an added bonus on top of an already strong and effective build.
There isn't really a whole lot of wiggle room or customization with this build. You need PoM and you need to upgrade your fire damage as much as possible. This means your talent choices need to be spent as wisely as possible.
Explanation of Choices
Untalented Fireball is a 3.5sec cast, which is far too long for PvP. Even talented down to a 3sec cast it is still far too long for PvP purposes. So it really isn't worth spending points in Improved Fireball for PvP. The better option is to take Impact.
Don't underestimate Impact. It gives your Fire spells a 10% chance to stun. It doesn't sound like much, but it does proc more than 1 out of every 10 spells because it is a chance per spell cast. I don't remember if it can proc off of Ignite, Fireball DoT, or Pyroblast DoT. I want to say that it can, but I am not sure.
With the selection of Impact your main PvP nuke becomes Scorch, which is why Improved Scorch is taken. Scorch is less damage than Fireball, but is only a 1.5 second cast. This makes Scorch ideal for PvP because:
- More chances for Impact procs
- Shorter cast time allows for damage to be dealt quickly and then for you to move
- Harder to interrupt
- Debuffs the target to take more damage from your fire spells (with the talent)
- Benefits from the Incinerate talent (4% more crit)
- Benefits from Critical Mass talent (6% more crit)
The final Fire talent I will explain is Improved Fire Blast. Fire Blast is terrible for raiding and leveling, but it really shines in PvP. Your main PvP "rotation" is going to be Scorch spam while keeping Fire Blast on cooldown (i.e. use Fire Blast as soon as it is ready). Taking 1.5secs off this cooldown means more Fire Blasts and more damage. Fire Blast also benefits from the Incinerate talent.
* In Vanilla (and Classic) Ignites will stack as a single debuff on a target regardless of how many mages crit and apply it. The debuff itself lasts only 4 seconds, but if you crit again within that 4 seconds the debuff timer gets reset and the new damage gets rolled into the previous damage. If you have enough mages and coordinate Combustion usage you can keep this Ignite rolling for quite a while. Rolling Ignites are really more for raiding than PvP, and actually now that I think about it I am not sure I ever got a rolling Ignite in PvP (but maybe I did, my memory is foggy). If they can happen against players though it is another reason to use the Scorch spam and Fire Blast on cooldown approach in PvP.
The only Arcane talents you really need are Presence of Mind and Improved Counterspell. Improved Mana Shield is useful because Mana Shield is one of the few defensive abilities that you have, so losing less mana per point of damage is quite beneficial. The others are just kind of the best available; not terrible, but not super great either.
How To Play
I've already mentioned this, but the basic play style for this build is to use Fire Blast on cooldown and spam Scorch. It's a pretty simple rotation really with the hardest part of the rotation being becoming proficient at using Fire Blast on cooldown. Or at least that is what it was for me.
The hardest part overall of this build is staying alive long enough to use that sweet PoM/Pyro. When the other team finds out that you are a Fire mage you will instantly become a target because they know that you will be an easy kill. They also know that you can inflict a world of hurt on their team if they do not take you down. So the real learning curve with this build is learning how to stay alive. Unlike in retail you do not have Blazing Barrier, Ice Block, Invisibility, and even Temporal Shield to help you stay alive. Instead the defensive abilities you have are all situational: Dampen Magic, Mana Shield, Fire and Frost Wards.
Dampen Magic is only useful against magic. Mana Shield is only useful against physical damage. Fire and Frost Wards are only useful against Fire and Frost damage. You do not have a spell that just absorbs all types of damage. As such you need to take all the precautions you can in order to stay alive. Probably the most useful tip I can offer is to stay in the rear as much as possible to avoid becoming a target. Melee should be the ones making the push into a group, not you. You should be hanging in the back trying to pick people off that get within range of you and protecting your healers.
The other thing you can do is learn how to kite melee intelligently. As a fire mage you have at least 6 primary spells to help put distance between yourself and another player:
- Frost Nova
- Blink
- Polymorph
- Cone of Cold
- Blast Wave
- PvP Trinket
So as an example let's say that you are carrying the flag in WSG (which you shouldn't be, but I need an example of when you would want to kite someone rather than kill them) and you are trying to get back and cap the flag so that your team can win. A Warrior from the other team Charges you and Hamstrings you. You Polymorph him and keep walking. He trinkets out of your Polymorph instantly. You Polymorph him again and gain some distance. Polymorph breaks and he Charges again. This time you Frost Nova and get away before he can reapply Hamstring (or use your PvP trinket if he does). You gain some distance and use a Fire Blast, Scorch, rank 1 Frostbolt or other type of quick damage spell before Frost Nova breaks to keep him in combat and keep running. He Intercepts. You Blink. At this point the Warrior has no other options to close the distance between himself and you aside from a Swiftness potion or the Nifty Stopwatch trinket (or some other speed increase). He might also drop combat and mount up to catch you. If he does use one of these you still have Cone of Cold and Blast Wave as options to slow him down. Hopefully by this point though you've found some teammates that can help you out. Now I'm not saying this is always going to happen this way. In fact, the better option here would probably be to just kill the Warrior, but hopefully this illustrates what I mean by kiting intelligently.
The final part of this build is using PoM/Pyro effectively. You never want to open with this combo. This combo is used to finish off an opponent. You will have to learn at what hp% to use this as it will vary from Mage to Mage based on their gear and spell damage. This is really, I think, the easiest part to master. The harder part is staying alive long enough to use it.
Gear
Classic is much more gear dependent than retail. The real PvP balance isn't really based on classes or player skill. It's based on how many epics you have compared to the other players. So the best thing you can do to increase your PvP success is to get the best gear possible. This means that you will probably end up raiding if you want to be as successful as possible. The reason is because a lot of the "pre-raid BiS" or even "raid BiS" available outside of raids sacrifices stats for +dmg in their item budgets. A good example of this is comparing Robe of The Archmage to Arcanist Robes. In terms of +dmg Robe of the Archmage beats Arcanist by 17. However in terms of stats Arcanist Robes have 19 more Stamina and 13 more Intellect. Now the higher Intellect is good because more Intellect means a higher chance to crit, and Fire really benefits well from more crits in PvP. And the increased Stamina is also good because it will increase your survivability, which you desperately need as Fire. In my opinion it is worth sacrificing the spell power for the increased stats for PvP.
If you don't want to raid the rare PvP set (Champion's Arcanum) is pretty good. If we are getting the final upgraded version that set is actually better than Arcanist from MC for PvP purposes. The epic PvP set (Warlord's Regalia) is very good, but requires a significant time investment to obtain. The reputation PvP rewards are also pretty good. If you decide to focus on PvP alone you can probably end up with some pretty good PvP gear actually.
You don't technically need an on use trinket like Talisman of Ephemeral Power (ToEP) or Zandalarian Hero Charm (ZHC), but I find that this build works a lot better with one.
You don't need a whole bunch of hit either, only 3%, so make sure you get it from your gear because you don't have enough spare talent points to get even one point in Elemental Precision. Crit is a very good stat to stack for this build also as it benefits greatly from more crits.
What I would not do, as I somewhat hinted at above, is use Wowhead's BiS lists as a gearing guide for PvP. The reason is because these lists are raiding focused and are concerned with getting you as much +dmg as possible. In order to PvP effectively as a Fire mage you need stats like Stamina and Intellect more than you need +dmg. Your spells already deal a pretty good amount damage. What you need is more survivability and crits, which is what you get from more Stamina and Intellect. The raid sets and PvP sets are a better choice for PvP than the gear in these lists.
Enchants
I would do the following enchants for PvP:
- +9 stam to bracers
- +4 stats to chest
- + spell power to weapon
- + fire damage to gloves
- + run speed to boots
Races
For Horde I would roll Undead. Will of the Forsaken is hands down the best PvP racial in the game and it will save you from having to use your PvP trinket in one of your trinket slots. This means you can run something like Eye of the Beast for more crit in addition to an on use like ToEP or ZHC instead of having to use it for the PvP trinket. Troll is not a terrible option because Berserking is pretty useful, but I think Undead is superior.
For Alliance I would roll Gnome. Escape Artist is much more useful than Perception in my opinion. That's not to say that there won't be times where Perception will be useful, but overall I think Escape Artist will be more useful.
Professions
The only profession I consider mandatory for PvP is First Aid, which is a secondary profession that can be learned in addition to whatever your two primary ones are.
Alchemists can make Free Action Potions, Living Action Potions, Healing Potions, Limited Invulnerability Potions, etc. Herbalism is good to take with Alchemy because you will be able to farm the herbs for your potions yourself.
Engineers can make can make grenades and explosives that can be thrown to stun and/or deal additional damage in PvP. The amount of useful PvP gadgets Engineers can make are too many to list, so check out Wowhead for a complete list. Mining is good to take with Engineering because you will be able to farm the ore needed for your gadgets.
The other professions are less useful in PvP. You can still roll one of them and preform quite well in PvP though.
Fire is a very strong build in PvP. One of the strongest in my opinion. The PoM/Pyro combo is a lot of instant damage and you will be able to take down almost anyone with it. The trick with this build though is learning how to be effective and kill people when this combo is on cooldown. The best way to do this is with Scorch and Fire Blast spam to proc Impact and Ignite while staying alive. It really is a true glass cannon build.
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