The majority of the changes in Cataclysm for mages as occurred in fire mage builds. In this post we will review these changes to Fire Mage Builds and give you some tips and ideas for how to better use these new talents and abilities.

Changes to Fire Mage Builds, Talents and Abilities

One of the first changes we will look at is with Burning Soul.  This talent now works for all spells and not just fire spells which is really cool.

The next talent that has been changed is Impact.  Impact now in addition to being a Fire Blast stun it has an additional ability that spreads your fire DoTs (damage over time effects) to nearby target (12 yards).  It can be a little difficult to time it right, but you can get some great additional damage without any mana cost.

Blast Wave has been changed.  It doesn’t radiate out directly from your mage anymore, instead you target an area like any other AOE spell.  Other than that the talent is exactly the same.

One of the coolest new changes that has occurred in the fire spec talent tree is with Improved Scorch.  This talent reduces the mana cost of Scorch by 100%. This is incredible!  This gives you free scorches at your disposal.

Another great spell that works in conjunction with Improved Scorch to really hit it home is Firestarter.  Firestarter allows your Molten Armor to cast the Scorch spell while moving.   This is a PVP dream come true!!

So to use these two talents together and do some serious damage, hove your Molten Armor buff on which will then allow you to spam Scorch on your target forever!  You still have the keep your target in front of you but you can strafe and run while Scorching and totally pwn your enemies!

Now all this coolness doesn’t come without a penalty.  Firestarter does take away from your Molten Armor the chance to critically hit but replaces it with the ability to cast scorch while  moving.

We highly recommend you get both of the talents as part of your Fire Mage Build as early as you can.  I’m sure you will come up with really crazy ways to use these two new talents.

Next up in changes to Fire Mage Builds is Cauterize which is mainly a PVP talent.  This is another spell  that may be difficult to time just right.  But basically what it does is, if you know your going die (similar to a Rogue with Cheat Death), you can cast this and it will give you a last minute health boost (6 secs to live) to allow you to possibly finish off your enemy before you die.   You could still get healed and live, but if your gonna die, die with your boots on!!

Another changed talent is Combustion.  Its actually completely different and does not have the same effect as before.  What Combustion now does is takes all of your DoT’s (damage over time effects) and turns them a single effect.  This then allows you to reapply all of your DoT’s to give your double the damage!  This makes for a great addition to your rotation for Bosses or Raid Mobs.  The only draw back to this talent is that is has a long cool down – 2 minutes, so plan how you use this ability carefully.

Hot Streak is basically the same spell as its always been, giving you a chance for a free Pryoblast instant cast, but what Blizzard changed was that it now  procs on a percentage basis which makes it kind of random.  So if you get 1 crit there is a percentage that Pyroblast will proc.  We haven’t seen what this percentage is either.  This kind of sucks in my opinion because it makes it feel very random.

But if you combine this with Improved Hot Streak, it returns it back to its original functionality and will proc 100% of the time after 2 crits.  So if your gonna to take Hot Streak, we recommend also getting Improved Hot Streak.

Also be aware that if you take Hot Streak will disable your Arcane Missiles just like Brain Freeze does in Frost.

Improved Flamestrike makes your Flamstrike instant all the time. But whats also cool about Improved Flamestrike is that it will automatically cast Flamestrike if your Blastwave hits more than one target. This is great if you happen to pull more than one mob or if you’re AOE grinding.

Also with Pyromaniac – if your fighting 3 or more mobs this talent gives you a buff that ups your haste by 10%

Critical Mass now gives your Living Bomb and Flame Orb 15% more damage and your Pyroblast and Scorch have 100% to make your target vulrnable to spell damage and increases your crit chance for that target by 5%.  Basically this is the old version of Improved Scorch only now it works for Scorch and Pyroblast so this definitely a talent that you should always take.  Besides it gives you 15% more damage on your Living Bomb and who doesn’t want more Living Bomb damage?!?!

Finally is Flame Orb, which is not a talent but a spell  you learn from your trainer.  It is essentially like Frostfire Orb accept it does not slow.  It’s still very cool as you can freeze your target in place and cast this and let it do damage to your target.  Fire and Forget.  Love it!

And Thats it for changes to Fire Mage Builds!  For the complete break down of the Fire Mage Build and the talent tree we have added our recommended build below.

What build did you make for your mage?   Any suggestions? Leave a comment below and let us know about your fire mage builds.