Fire Mage DPS Rotation

This blog entry is dedicated to helping you understand how to better play a Fire Mage.

The rotation is as follows:

• Start with a Scorch to get 5% Crit Debuff up
• Cast Flame Orb (Be sure to be facing the target!)
• Put up Living Bomb
• Cast Fire Ball and be sure to re-apply Living Bomb, 5% Crit Debuff via Scorch, and pop every instant Pyroblast which procs.
• Use Combustion when you have Living Bomb up on the target and get a Critical Strike with your Fireball. Be sure to cast it the instant after the Fireball crits to ensure you get the maximum effect of the Ignite ticks (All critical strikes cause the target to burn for a few seconds, and Combustion takes the total DPS of all DoTs and re-applies them as a second DoT. Seeing as the Ignite ticks go away after a few seconds, being sure to pop Combustion the moment you crit is necessary in order to get all the pending ticks of Ignite in with Combustion. Also works well when used in conjunction with cooldowns, etc.)

And that's really it! Be sure to be using all damage cooldowns whenever they are available and don't stop casting! The #1 flaw I see in those trying to maximize their DPS is taking time to think about their rotation while in combat and not doing anything while thinking what they should be doing. If you ever get confused during your rotation and don't know what to do, try to establish a fall-back spell. For myself, it was Fireball when I first started learning the Mage class. If I were ever confused and lost my place in my rotation, I would default to Fireball for a few seconds (which is better than not casting at all!) until I found my place and could continue on with the rotation.

Also, the addon I used was called CombustionHelper which tracks how much DPS you have currently on your target, if Living Bomb is active, if you have Ignite ticks, Pyroblast, and will also let you know if you missed an instant-cast Pyroblast (from waiting too long) or re-applied Living Bomb too early (which I did once. Oops).

The addon I used to track my Damage Per Second is called Recount. It can track DPS, HPS (Healing Per Second), Deaths, and a slew of other in-combat statistics.

I hope this write-up has helped to add clarification; and, as always, good luck!