Things You'll Need:
- A World of Warcraft Account with a level 80 mage
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Step 1
First off, you'll want to create a spec and pick your glyphs that are appropriate for an FFB mage. There isn't a lot of flexibility here, each talent and glyph plays a specific role and you'll want almost all of them. A link to the FFB talent spec is included at the end of this article.
At level 80 you will get three major glyphs. An FFB raiding mage will choose these three:
* Glyph of Molten Armor
* Glyph of Frostfire Bolt
* Glyph of Improved Scorch -
Step 2
Choose your Fire Talents:
Fire (53 points)
* 2/2 Improved Fire Blast - While fire blast isn't used much by this spec, you need five points in the first talent tier, and there isn't any need for improved fireball. You'll probably use this more in PvP or to get the killing blow on trash than anything else.
* 3/3 Incineration - FFB spec thrives on crit
* 5/5 Ignite - 10%-20% of your total DPS will come from ignite DoT ticks
* 3/3 World in Flames - This benefits your boss damage and the increased blizzard crits will increase your trash damage
* 1/1 Pyroblast
* 2/2 Burning Soul - Threat isn't a big problem in WotLK but you still want to make life easy for your tank whenever you can
* 3/3 Improved Scorch - This talent is your biggest asset to raid DPS, and it stacks with Earth and Moon and Curse Of Elements
* 3/3 Master of Elements - Some added mana will be helpful in longer fights, especially if you are in a 10-man instance with no Replenishment, or some of your DPS'ers die early
* 3/3 Playing with Fire - straight damage increase
* 3/3 Critical Mass - straight damage increase
* 1/1 Blast Wave - This spell doesn't have much use while instancing or raiding, so you may choose to put this point elsewhere (flamethrowing for raiding, permafrost or imp blizzard for soloing)
* 5/5 Fire Power - straight damage increase
* 3/3 Pyromaniac - straight damage increase
* 1/1 Combustion
* 2/2 Molten Fury
* 3/3 Empowered Fire - straight damage increase
* 1/1 Dragon's Breath - Only useful on trash, this spell can help you control a mob that has aggroed onto a healer, giving the tank a few extra seconds to pick it up
* 3/3 Hot Streak - 10%-20% of your damage will come from hot streaked Pyroblasts
* 5/5 Burnout
* 1/1 Living Bomb - 10%-20% of your damage will come from Living Bomb. As of patch 3.0.8, a Living Bomb crit can trigger Hot Streak -
Step 3
Choose your Frost Talents:
Frost (18 points)
* 2/3 Frostbite - Not a useful talent for raiding, but you need 5 points in the first tier. You could put these two points in Improved Frostbolt to get slightly faster casts of Rank 1 Frostbolt in PvP
* 3/3 Ice Floes - For raiding, this is primarily to get your Icy Veins up sooner
* 3/3 Ice Shards - Straight damage increase
* 3/3 Precision - 3% change to hit is worth 79 hit rating points. You'd have to get these points on your gear if you didn't take this talent.
* 3/3 Piercing Ice - Straight damage increase
* 1/1 Icy Veins - You should be able to use IV at least twice in most boss fights. Stacking it with Bloodlust/Heroism and an on-use trinket produces a lot of burst DPS.
* 3/3 Frost Channeling - Again, making life easier on your tank. -
Step 4
Choose your gear:
A raiding mage will need spell damage, crit, and spell hit on their gear. If you are raiding with a boomkin or shadow priest, you will need 289 spell hit to never miss, otherwise you will need 368 spell hit. Spell hit is your most important stat, followed closely by spell damage. Early raiding mages will want to use the trinket from heroic Violet Hold and the crafted cloth hat to get a big jump on their spell hit needs. There is a link below that lists all the possible combinations for the amount of spell hit that you might need while fighting a raid boss. -
Step 5
The rotation for raid bosses:
1. Cast living bomb
2. Cast scorch. Because of your glyph, this will apply 3 debuffs.
3. Cast scorch again. The debuff count will now be 5.
4. Cast Frostfire bolt.
From this point on, you will want to spam Frostfire bolt, unless one of the following situations comes up:
1. If your Living Bomb has expired, re-cast living bomb.
2. If your scorch debuff is about to expire, re-cast scorch once to refresh the debuff
3. If Hot Streak has procced, cast Pyroblast -
Step 6
Using Cooldowns:
Your combustion cooldown is three minutes and your Icy Veins cooldown is two minutes. Since most raid boss fights last more than three minutes, you will get to use both of these cooldowns twice if the first use is early in the fight. You can pop them both together right away, but keep in mind that the early stages of the fight are more aggro sensitive than later stages. Wait a few seconds before hitting icy veins, and use your combustion after icy veins is over. This gives you a good DPS boost without frontloading your aggro too much. If you are getting too high on threat, use your Mirror Image spell to distribute some of that threat.
Near the end of the fight, both of your cooldowns should be available again, and the tank should have a significant threat lead. Your damage output increases by 20% once the boss has less than 35% life due to your Molten Fury talent, so pop all your cooldowns for big damage numbers and finish off the fight. -
Step 7
The rotation for trash is much more flexible. Generally speaking you will be using AoE spells for any trash pull with more than two enemies.
1. Cast living bomb on a non-skull target.
2. Cast blizzard on the pack of mobs
3. Cast flamestrike. The flamestrike will land around the same time that the living bomb goes off, giving you additional chances to stack ignite.
4. Spam blizzard until the mobs are dead.
Trash AoE'ing can be tricky business. Be sure to check with your tank first and make sure that AoE spells are okay. If not, just single target the skull, using scorch and FFB on targets with high hit points (over 120,000) and FFB only on targets wtih lower hit points (under 120,000).
A more sophisticated AoE rotation can produce higher DPS as long as the tank will be holding the mobs in roughly one place.
1. Cast living bomb on any target that will live long enough (usually a non-skull, high-HP target)
2. Cast flamestrike rank 9
3. Cast flamestrike rank 8
4. Cast blizzard.
5. Go back to step 2. -
Step 8
Review your results and your DPS using either the Recount add-on, the wowmeteronline.com website, or the WOWWebStats website, and make adjustments as necessary. Increase your spell hit if you are experiencing a lot of misses.
