Spell Rotation for Single Target Fire Spells - Revised

Over two years ago, I wrote a post about Spell Rotation for Single Target Fire Spells. To this day, it is still, by far, one of my most popular posts as far as hits it gets. Nevermind the fact that it's 2 years old. Google doesn't recognize that when people start searching for it. "Fire Mage Spell Rotation" is what people are generally searching for, and that's how people find that old post. So, I thought it only fair that I update the post. Why, after all these years, am I deciding only now to update it? Honestly, I have no idea. lol. Nonetheless, here it goes.

Mages are created for damage. We harness the raw arcane energies and unleash them on our foes. Sure there's a couple of "perks" that we get with free food and water (which I really miss when playing my shaman), and portals to practically everywhere (which isn't as big of a deal if you have Astral Recall). We also have one of the best CC's in the game... not that that's really used much anymore, but I digress.

As a history lesson (and for anyone leveling a mage), fire mage spell rotation has historically been about a number sequence. Something along the lines of 7 fireballs and then an improved scorch, rinse and repeat. But it's really more of a priority system now, much like shadow priests have been for years, with a bunch of if-this-than-that-else-that's.

Let's go through the spells in the "typical" order. I'll explain the spell, talk about some of the talents that support it, explain when to use it in a single target sequence, and then you should be good to go.

Scorch - As a fire mage you'll generally want to start off hitting the boss with this spell. The main reason is because of a talent that you will want to have called Improved Scorch. As you can read from the tooltip, after 5 applications of Improved Scorch, all spells (yours and others) will have a 5% increased chance to critically hit. So, you want to make sure this is on the boss at all times. If you choose, there is also a Glyph of Improved Scorch that will mean you'll only have to cast this spell once before going on with the rest of your rotation.

All of that said, if you have a Frost Mage (Winter's Chill) or Afflication or Demonology Warlock (Improved Shadow Bolt) in your raid/party, you can completely ignore Scorch. All of the Frost Mage's spells will add the Winter's Chill effect (same debuff as scorch) and the Warlock usually uses their filler spell, Shadow Bolt, in between casting DoTs anyway. So, you can ignore it if somebody else is taking care of it.

Pyroblast - This spell is probably the biggest reason we're no longer a number sequence class. And more specifically, it is this spell in unison with the talent Hot Streak. So, whenever you crit twice in a row (which generally happens quite often), you can let this insta-pyro go. You do want to make sure that you have the full 5% increased crit debuff up first so that the spell has a greater chance to crit, but after that, let it fly. I do suggest a mod such as MageAlert to let you know when Hot Streak, Brain Freeze, or Missile Barrage proc. It's an audible way to let you know that it's ready. I just don't see the tiny little buffed button otherwise.

This spell is also towards the top of the prioritization since it's a huge hit AND you want to make sure you clear the crit table. If you crit twice and keep casting another spell, you could be sitting with an insta-pyro ready to go while you continue to crit. Cast the spell, go back to what you're doing, and then you have the opportunity to get another double crit for another insta-pyro! Additionally, there's a nice little DoT on this spell as well. It's not a lot, but it does help.

And finally, because we only cast this spell when we have Hot Streak up, it becomes a type of mobility spell. Need to reposition yourself? If you have the time, you can wait until Hot Streak procs, and then move as the 1.5 second global cooldown has triggered.

Living Bomb - If you haven't proc'ed Hot Streak with your Scorches, it's time to get your Living Bomb DoT up. Keep this spell up on your target as much as possible. You can't refresh this DoT; you have to wait until the final explosion until you cast it again. So, it's unlikely that you'll have Living Bomb on a target 100% of the time. Aim for the most, but you don't want to be sitting there waiting for it to go off.

For example, if you've just finished casting Fireball and there's 0.5 seconds left before Living Bomb goes off, what do you do? Do you sit there for 0.5 seconds waiting for the Living Bomb to explode? No. You cast another Fireball, let that fly, and then reapply Living Bomb.

Again, this is one of the mobility spells. If you have to move, this is a good insta-cast spell. You may even be able to justify using that 0.5 seconds in the example to move and then cast this spell as you're continuing to your destination.

If you're this far into fire and you have this spell, you'll also want the Glyph that goes along with it. Everybody loves more crits, right?

Fireball - This is where it comes down to what type of Fire Mage are you? You're generally a Fireball Fire Mage or a Frostfire Fire Mage. If you're a Fireball Fire Mage, you probably have some points in Arcane to take advantage of Focus Magic. You'll also want the Glyph of Fireball which means more crit, which means more damage, and also means more mana by means of Empowered Fire. Once the crit debuff is up (by means of Scorch or a Warlock), Living Bomb is going, and there's no Hot Streak, this is your main nuke. Spam this until Living Bomb blows up, Scorch needs to be renewed, or Hot Streak procs.

Check Fireball specs with Elitist Jerks or simply google it to find one. If you believe the masses, this is currently one of the highest DPS specs. You do need a good deal of hit to go along with it since you lose some in talents, but that's not really the point of this post, so I'll leave it at that.

Frostfire Bolt - If, on the other hand, you're more of an elemental mage using both Fire and Frost schools, you'll probably be using this as your nuke. Frostfire Bolt takes advantage of talents from both of those schools to increase it's damage. And the Glyph of Frostfire is required for this build. There's absolutely no down side for this glyph. It's your main nuke, it increases damage and crit. Use it.

As for spell rotation for Frostfire Bolt, if you're a Frostfire Mage, then simply use this spell instead of Fireball. As a Frostfire mage, there's really no reason to cast Fireball. Likewise, as a Fireball mage, there's no reason to cast Frostfire.

Fire Blast - With the way this spell scales, it's really not in the normal rotation much at all. You can use it as a filler here and there, but overall, it's generally better to cast another spell. That said, there is still some uses for this spell. Take the example I gave before. If you're on the move but waiting for Living Bomb to explode before you reapply, throw in a Fire Blast and then use that Living Bomb. Otherwise, you'll generally do more damage simply going back to your nuke.

Of note:
Molten Armor - While this isn't one of the spells in the "rotation", you'll want to be raiding with this armor on. And most likely, you'll want the accompanying Glyph as well. More crit... yep... we love it.

So, to sum it up. Scorch Debuff > Hot Streaked Pyroblast > Living Bomb > Fireball / Frostfire Bolt.

Now go out and do some damage.

Healing for Coren Direbrew

For a short window of only two weeks, heroes have a chance to take on one of the deadliest strongest hardest drunkest bosses in all of Wow. This may be one of the trickiest fights to heal for in all of Wow. Possibly even more difficult than Heroic Hogger. This is.... Coren Direbrew. Dun! Dun! Dun!!!

Okay, in case you didn't get the sarcasm from the opening paragraph, Coren Direbrew is not a difficult boss. Yes, he's the guy you go kill in Black Rock Depths bar as a daily quest. So, with a 5-man party, you can kill him 5 times. If you keep bringing new toons in like we did, you can kill him upwards of 14 times

So, I got the Ancient Pickled Egg, which was a decent upgrade for my healer. I won one of the Stamina trinkets, but gave it up to one of our tanks. We had two Great Brewfest Kodos drop. Which is a heck of a lot more than I saw last year. Two other people actually won the rolls, but they each gave them to other people. (It was an all guildie thing so no biggie there.) One was given to one of our druids that really, really wanted it. And the other one was given to me since the original owner probably wouldn't use it, and I thought it was pretty darn cool. We didn't see the Ram drop, nor did we see the Tankard O' Terror. But I think we saw every other drop.

Oh! Anyway.. back to the subject of the post. Again, it was mostly satirical. With a decently geared tank, he's pretty much a pushover. He can be disarmed. And at one point, my wife's shadow priest was healing with Vamperic Embrace. So... yeah... no need to consult bosskillers on this one. Just have all 5 people dps. Maybe throw down a healing totem just in case... but that's about it.

Yep... it was seriously that easy. I kind of snickered when at one point, I saw 3 people advertising in General Chat: "Healer LFM for Brewfest." Hmm... I wonder if I can solo him... Maybe I'll try that tonight.

Starting Brewfest Due Date

Like many of the holidays, Brewfest is one of those holidays where you need to start relatively early and miss few days in order to get all the achievements possible, and get the meta-achievement. I generally stay away from these types of holidays in Wow, but this one really don't seem too horrible, so for some reason, I'm trying it. But then you do the math, and it's really not that hard. Here's the breakdown:

For those that may be reading this a couple days late, you'll most likely have to start no later than September 29th. That will get you to 350 Tokens. You'll need 350 for the outfit so you can complete Disturbing the Peace. As Brajana points out, if you save up and buy all 3 clothes pieces (350 tokens), you can return them for full value in 2 hours.

This schedule assumes that you do all of the dailies each day. You'll get 40 tokens the first time you kill Coren, 40 when you take out all the pink elephants, 10 when you do the first brew delivery quest, and 10 when you throw beer at S.T.O.U.T. Other than that, you have the daily to ride through IF or Org to bark the beer (15 tokens) and the daily that occurs every 1/2 hour to get the Dark Iron Dwarves drunk (10 tokens). Then finally, this assumes that you can deliver the kegs of beer 15 times in 4 minutes (2 tokens for each delivery).

So... 55 tokens per day, with the first day netting an additional 100 from quests. At 5 days, you'll have 375.

If you want to walk away with Hops and/or the pets, you may have to spend a few more days gathering tokens. But strictly speaking on achievements, that is what you'll need. Remember, this is based on being able to do the keg run 15 times in 4 minutes. If your lag means that's just not possible for you, you may need to figure out other math. But even if you only do it 13 times, you can still get the 350 in 5 days.

Edit: Had inadvertently missed the Elephant quest which gives you 40 tokens. I updated the remaining numbers and pushed back the Due Date accordingly.

Account Locked by Boy of 18

Just when you thought all of the stories about accounts getting hacked had slowly faded away, here comes another story of a new tactic that is out there to mess with your World of Warcraft account. So beware, and consider yourselves forewarned.

It was a typical, relaxing Saturday afternoon. We had spent our Saturday attending soccer games, doing yardwork, and then recovering from those activities. I logged in to Wow and did some mining just to pass some time. Everything seemed perfectly okay with my account. Nothing was wrong at all. Plus, I have an authenticator. My account isn't in jeopardy at all, right?

Furthermore, I keep the authenticator in a specific spot on my desk. It is well out out reach of our toddler, and the older children know that this is daddy's key to his online world, and I would severely beat anyone be sad if it were to be lost. (Yes, that was a joke.) It always goes back to that location. That safe spot.

So, after my farming, I was fixing some food. I noticed that I didn't put it back in THAT spot. It was just sitting there on top of the desk. To the best of my recollection, I meant to take care of it, but I didn't (or so that's how I remembered the story). But I didn't think much of it.

Not until I went to log on for our raid that night. I had been off to a meeting, come back, put the kids to bed, and was ready to log on for the night... but the authenticator was gone! It wasn't in it's spot. I replayed the events in my mind, and after retracing my steps, I knew that my 18-month old was to blame. My wife and I searched the entire house. (Big props to her for looking so hard, btw.) At one point, our oldest woke up, and we asked her about it as well, and she didn't know anything. I did log on to vent to let everybody know why I was late, and then eventually that I wasn't making the raid because of my "locked" account.

After quite some time searching, and even looking into calling Blizzard to disassociate my authenticator with my account (they're only open weekdays from 8am to 8pm FYI), I decided to give it up for the night. Hopefully I could figure out a way to coerce my 18-month old (who doesn't talk much, but can understand basic commands) to retrieve the authenticator for me.

The next morning after all the kids got up, I had this vision of the Brady Bunch where everybody searches for the authenticator that "Tiger" ran away with, and "Cindy" finds it in the dog house or something. Nice thought, right? Yeah... didn't exactly happen like that, but all the kids did search... mostly. And we didn't find it.

Then Sunday afternoon, I went to get dressed for church, and what fell out of my suit pants? The authenticator. So, due to my own failing memory, I had locked myself out of Wow and our raid. As a side note, I still have to make up for getting upset at my son and blaming him. But on the plus side, he's 18-months, so he didn't really get what was going on anyway. lol.

Time for: Stump the Raid Leader

As I've mentioned numerous times, our guild now takes things a bit slower. Sure, you'll find a small band of us running heroics on most nights, but as for raid content, we generally only raid 1 or 2 nights per week. And with the recent change and us able to carry over our raid ID's from week to week, it's been our new goal to go in and see new (to us) content.

Before the raid lock extension was made available, as a guild we'd get in and take down Flame Leviathan (with as many as 2 towers up), Deconstructor, Ignis, Razorscale, and Kologarn. That's pretty much where we were in progression. And with a couple of hours per night, it would sometimes be Flame Leviathan and Deconstructor one night, and then Kologarn and attempts at Iron Council the other night.

But 2 weeks ago, we decided to start carrying over the Raid ID. And due to RL conflicts with some people, we were only able to raid 1 night per week. So... Flame Leviathan and Deconstructor one night. Kologarn and attempts at Iron Council the next week.

Now we're at this week. A couple of attempts at Iron Council, and we beat it. Woot! My first time. Then one attempt at Auriaya, and she's dead. Woot! First time for most of our guild.

And... and... that was it. I had been leading the raids along with another guy. Neither one of us had been further. Sure we could have looked it up on Wowhead or Bosskillers really quick, but I guess we get to spend time on it next week. It was just one of those moments... one of those realizations that YES! we killed the bosses, but NO! I have no idea what to do next. lol

Have a great weekend everyone. I've got a couple posts in the hopper, so see you next week.

Leiandra on Twisted Nether Blogcast

So, the last couple of weeks has kind of hit me hard here at work. But that's only part of my excuse as to why I haven't posted much. The majority of the reason is the following: I've been asked to be a guest on Twisted Nether Blogcast on 10/1/09.

Why does this make me want to post less? I have no idea. In my mind, I think I'm worried that if I post too much, that I'll run out of things to say on the Blogcast. I have no problem talking about Wow and theorycrafting with my friends for hours on end, but there's all of a sudden this pressure because it's recorded. Yes, I know... completely silly, especially since it's still 2 weeks away. I promise I'll repent. But yeah... my first Blogcast. Woot! (Oh, and don't tell Nibuca. lol.) Yep... I'm that big of a dork.

The Bowling Post, Part 2

Continued from Part 1. If you didn't read it, go start there.

Now that you have all of your bowling gear. You have your own shoes, your own ball. You may even have a dedicated towel and wrist guards because you're just that good. You're strong enough to roll the ball all the way down the alley, and you even get a strike or spare... even if only every once and awhile. You enjoy bowling so much, that you'd like to share this experience with a bunch of friends that also enjoy bowling. Or maybe you want to make new friends that will share in this new found enjoyment of yours. So, you head to your local bowling center and you sign up for a league.

(For Wow, you hit 80... and that seems to be the only basic requirement. I've seen people in full greens headed in to heroics. At any rate... however you did it, you're now in a guild.)

While your commitment to the bowling league is only 1 night per week, you're pretty hardcore. So, you also spend a lot of extra time bowling on the side, watching bowling on TV, and also researching the latest technologies. You're committed. You may even be bowling 2 nights or more per week. I think my Grandpa, at his peek was bowling about 4 nights per week.

In Wow, you generally are raiding for more than one night per week (obviously depends on the guild you're in). But even if you do only raid once per week, you're pretty hardcore, so you research gear, upgrades, min/maxing with your gems, etc. "What other achievements do I need," you may ask yourself. Or how do I get that cool pet that others have. Endless amounts of research and actual "work" are involved to have the gear to truly contribute to your raids.

Now here's one of the things that I don't get in the differences between these two "sports". If you're not going to make it on your bowling night, you generally need to get a sub. Somebody that will fill in for you, take your spot. And/or at least let your teammates know. This is generally taken into account by raiding guilds having more than the minimum number. If you're a 25-man raiding guild, you probably have at least 30 active accounts in your guild. Hey, things happen. Things like, "Gotta go, guys. Cat's in the oven again."

But if you sign up for a guild that raids say Monday through Wednesday, make it a point to be active, be online and ready to raid on those days. If you've previously spoken with your team captain (raid leader) that you can't make it on certain days, that's fine as well. Just live up to your word. Do what you've said you will. That's called integrity. :)

In the actual game, the most coveted thing you can do is bowl a perfect game. (That's a score of 300 for any of you non-bowlers out there.) Or if you've already completed that task, maybe you aim to bowl a perfect series. (That would be 3 perfect games.) These would be the achievements in Wow.

But remember, you also need your teammates to win. Even if you bowl a perfect series, sure this will help your team substantially, but if they're practicing gutter balls, I'm afraid you're not going to be winning any tournaments. (You may be going pro and making some bucks there, but you won't be winning any team leagues with your current teammates.) The same thing goes for Wow. You want to be equally yoked with your teammates. If you're the highest DPS'er in the world, but you're running with a tank that can't hold aggro... you're gonna be running around like a little girl... with her hair on fire... you get the picture. Furthermore, if you're 90% of the DPS in your 10-man raid, and something somehow happens and you die, your raid just lost a heck of a lot of DPS.

The whole point of this post, besides a lot of fun analogies is that while Wow is a game, so is bowling. And if you make a commitment to join a league, or be in an active raiding guild, do your best to live up to those commitments. But on the flip side, if you're not having fun, don't register with that team next season, but don't just stop showing up.