3.0.2 Fire Mage Build

I didn't do much productive last night — still playing around with all the new stuff. I need to get Alamein out into the battlegrounds, but last night I needed sleep more.

For the first part of the night, we were bugged. All of Outlands was down for Shandris, so we were limited to any toons that logged out in old Azeroth. I took the time to respec my lower-level toons. The most advanced is Gazala, who's a level 43 rogue; everyone else is a lot lower level than that. So the respecs weren't very informative — though it is interesting to see what talents have moved in each tree.

Once Outlands were back, I logged on to Sali and respeced her too. I know much less about the mage talents — either old or new — than I do about druids. So I'm much less confident that I've chosen a useful spec in any sense. Still, I wanted to share my thoughts.

I don't have my exact spec available, but I chose something pretty close to this: Level 70 Deep Fire Mage: 0/61/0. As with Alamein's talents, I consciously focused on a deep Fire build so that I could understand the available abilities. Based on about 10 minutes of testing, here are my initial impressions:

Firestarter is awesome. It gives you a natural combo of Blast Wave -> Flamestrike, limited only by the GCD. This will be great for AoE farming or damage as a fire mage, providing you can survive a few hits. The knockback on Blast Wave is fun too, and a bit more useful as a mage (compared to Typhoon on a Moonkin druid).

On the other hand, I couldn't really use Living Bomb, because I was testing on lower-level mobs. They would just die before the bomb went off. I suspect this spell will be rather situational, so I'll have to understand more about when to use it. Similarly, I never had a chance for Hot Streak to proc, so I'll have to test with that some more.

Burnout is a weird talent, particularly when you combine it with Master of Elements. Spell crits refund 30% of their cost due to Master of Elements but then lose 5% of that back to Burnout. It works out in the end, which is all that matters I suppose.

Burning Soul is a nice addition. Fire mages never had a lot of pushback protection, so this is a big help. I was also very tempted to take Burning Determination but ended spending the points elsewhere; this is probably more useful in PvP than PvE but still could be nice.

I think in a real build, I will be inclined to take some points in Arcane. Unfortunately none of the Tier 1 arcane talents are very appealing for a fire build, but beyond that there's some nice stuff. Arcane Concentration is a good talent, and Magic Absorbtion looks like it will be powerful. Spell Impact is a nice chunky damage boost on a lot of bread-and-butter spells. Focus Magic looks interesting, but unfortunately only works if you're partied with someone. No benefit for soloing.

So that's a quick look at fire-based mage talents. I'll test them out a bit more and report back!

A tale of two alts

The Great Hold continues. Wyrmm, Cargarios, and Alamein are now standing on level 39. Firegrin is at 36, and only a few bars from 37 if I remember correctly. So the rest of us will continue to hold at 39 for now -- probably through the weekend I would imagine.

Part of the plan was to play a good amount of battleground games. I'd love to get another 10 games for Alamein, so that she can get a nice pair of boots. But last night I was mellow enough that I didn't want to get fired up in PvP. So instead, I played an alt for the evening.

I love rolling other characters, so I have a ton of alts. I have 8 on Shandris alone, and only one of those is Horde. Now, some of those have become redundant in various ways. I had rolled a Draenei shaman, but since Eric's rolled one of those too, I'll probably let her languish. Another is a human paladin who wasn't going anywhere; I've converted her into an auction house alt for now.

Right now there are two alts who I'm spending some time with. Both are female gnomes. The oldest -- actually my first character on Shandris -- is Sali. She's a mage, currently at level 19. I'll admit that I'm not terribly skilled at playing a mage right now. The options are quite a bit different, and I'm not deeply familiar with advantages and disadvantages of all her spells. But still she's a lot of fun. She's an engineer, which makes for a very different crafting experience, with some fun and amusing gear. She is specced for Fire, which is a little less common, but I like the idea of taking a different approach from most. Somehow I've built a whole personality and backstory around her, which leads me to mix in a bit of roleplaying. Nobody else probably sees it or cares, since Shandris isn't an RP realm, but it's still fun for me. She hasn't been questing in quite a while, but I've taken her into Warsong Gulch several times and she's been amusing to play there.

The other alt who I've spent time with is Gazala, my gnomish rogue, currently at level 13. She's an enchanter, which is very different from the usual professions I've engaged in. She has a whole collection of dusts and essences and shards, as several characters have sent her things to disenchant. She's also an herbalist, as a way to make money (and oh yeah, to find Swiftthistle too). I've also built up a backstory for her, so again I have the roleplaying aspect to enjoy.

I spent some time with Gazala last night. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to play a rogue. The ability to stealth around is both useful and fun, and her damage-dealing makes for a real advantage against higher-level mobs. Last night, she soloed Hogger at level 12 without too much trouble. Her first attempt was a failure, mostly because a wandering bear joined in the fight. But the second time she did quite well; it did take a healing potion but with that it wasn't even close. I'm unsure whether she'll stay near Stormwind or quest near Ironforge instead, but either way I think I will put some time into leveling her up.