WOW Classic SOD: Will Fire Mage Stand Out In Phase 3 PvE Content? - Talents, Runes & More

With the third phase of WoW Season of Discovery upon us, now is the perfect time to get your hands on some amazing builds. This time, I’ll walk you through crafting the ideal Fire Mage build for PvE content in Phase 3. Whether you're a seasoned player looking to optimize your gameplay or a newcomer seeking for build, this guide is designed to help you excel as a Fire Mage in the latest phase.

Fire Mage Talents

First, let’s talk about talents of Fire Mage. These are the best talents that you’ve used so far: 5 points into Impact and Ignite, 2 points into Burning Soul, 1 point into Pyroblast and Blast Wave, 3 points into Improved Scorch, Master of Elements, and Critical Mass.

The remaining talents are allocated 5 points in Firepower and Ice Shards, 1 point in Combustion, 3 points in Elemental Precision, 2 points in Frost Warding. These talents are essentially locked in, but if you prefer not to use Blast Wave or Pyroblast, Flame Throwing is a viable alternative. It depending on the nature of the fights.

Fire Mage Runes

The next part is about runes. There are also some new runes for us to choose from in Phase 3. For the head, we’re using Advanced Warding for the most value in fire, while the Arcane Healer rune at the bottom isn’t as effective. Moving on, we have Burnout for the chest, Balefire Bolt for wrists, Living Bomb for hands, Frostfire Bolt for the waist, and Icy Veins for the legs, which has proven to be more effective than Living Flame. Lastly, Spell Power is the choice for feet.

Fire Mage BiS Gear

Next, we’re going to quickly look at the best in-slot gear.

For the head slot, we have the Eye of Flame, which is extremely rare and requires a large amount of WoW SOD Gold but excellent with 43 fire damage. If you can’t get that, then the next best option is probably the Visage of the Exiled, offering 20 intellect, 21 spell damage, and 1% hit.

Moving on to the neck, we’re using the Arcane Crystal Pendant, although it’s expected to be buffed. For shoulders, the Fractured Mind Pauldrons are superior, providing 18 spell damage, 14 intellect, 12 spirit, and a chance to increase casting speed by 10%. These are the tailoring shoulders. The cloak of choice is Hukku's Hex Cape, offering 10 intellect and 15 spell damage.

For the chest, we’ll utilize the Malevolent Prophet's Vestments set piece, boasting 11 intellect, some stamina, 23 spell damage, and 1% crit. The set bonus includes 18 spell damage and 1% hit, although the latter is unnecessary because of Elemental Precision. For wrists, it’s Dryad' Wrist Bindings from the Warsong Outriders, or Void-Powered Invoker's Vambraces from Engineering bracers if not exalted.

The gloves are the Atal'ai Hexxer's Gloves, offering 16 intellect and 19 spell damage. The belt will be Bonecaster's Belt of Fiery Wrath with 26 spell damage, or a raid drop with lesser stats. For the boots slot, we can choose the Malevolent Prophet's Leggings, boasting significant spell damage and other useful stats.

For rings, the Band of Boiling Blood or Drakeclaw Band of the Harbinger are options. The trinkets include the Miniaturized Combustion Chamber, Void Pearl, or other raid drops. The main trinket is the new one called Atal'ai Blood Ritual Charm, significantly boosting spell damage for a short duration. Some of them are loots from the Sunken Temple.

For weapons, the choice of dagger is the Hubris, the Bandit Brander, or the Modas Karkun if available. The off-hand will be a choice between the Drakestone of the Blood Prophet or an interesting Personal Spellbook. The wand is the Wizard's Hand of Fiery Wrath, although alternatives like Blackrock Depths drops or Phase 2 wands can suffice.

These gear choices represent the best options available. If you manage to acquire all of them, you’ll be in great shape.

Fire Mage Rotation

For the next I want to mention is the rotation. We’ll be using Balefire Bolt for 18 times. How this rotation works is: we use 9 times of Balefire Bolt after the Scorches, so there’ll be 5 Scorches, 9 Balefire Bolt, then we’ll move on to the Frostfire Bolts.

When the debuff ends on the Balefire Bolt, we’ll go back to using the Balefire Bolt. In between that, we want to maintain our Improved Scorch and Living Bomb. It’s going to be a very good rotation, a bit of fresh air from the RNG around Hot Streaks.

Tips And Tricks

When we’re actually in the new phase, there might be features like buttons. Some non-bosses had buttons so you could restore mana. There’s going to be a lot of elements to consider, but the main point with this build, you can be confident that you’re doing good DPS.

Secondly, I recommend you to use the Frostfire Bolt. Frostfire Bolt is now highly mana-efficient, so you could likely keep going for 2 minutes, maybe even 3 minutes without your DPS suffering too much.