12-21-2004, 07:42 PM
i) Fire Skills
Fire is about what fire has always been about â damage, damage, damage. Only one spell doesnât do damage, and it isnât all that useful.
Fireball
Rank one: level 1.
Rank up at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60.
There isnât a great deal to say about Fireball; itâs what you use to shoot things and make them die, at least in theory. It consists of two damage components: the initial impact, and some damage-over-time for eight seconds afterwards, amounting to roughly ten percent of the impact. As you increase your rank in Fireball, two things happen that distinguish it from other spells. Firstly, at rank 2 it reaches 35 yards in range, longer than any other spell. Secondly, its casting time will rapidly increase, so that by the time youâve got Fireball rank 5, it casts at 3.5 seconds, making it the longest-casting combat spell that isnât a talent. Further ranks increase damage, but not casting time, so 3.5 seconds is the longest youâll ever take to throw one.
Fireballâs primary use, obviously, is as your longest-ranged damage dealer, and it can be frequently seen as the first spell in any solo battle. Once theyâre getting all friendly-like up close, however, itâs time to switch off, because with Fireballâs long cast time youâre guaranteed to be interrupted at least twice. That doesnât do great things for Fireballâs damage.
Fireblast
Rank one: level 6.
Rank up at 14, 22, 30, 38, 46, 54.
The moment you cast Fireblast, it delivers a burst of fire damage at instant speed, without the possibility of interruption. Of course, there are drawbacks: a fairly lengthy eight-second cooldown, and a relatively short 20-yard range.
Itâs decently mana-efficient, but mana efficiency is the most overrated attribute of any mage spell. The only efficiency that matters is making sure their life bar runs out before yours does, and if it takes your whole mana bar to do it, well, thatâs just how it goes. Efficiency only matters in the sense that you shouldnât need more than your whole mana bar to kill something.
Fireblast lends itself to a number of applications. The most obvious is for finishing off mobs that have survived to get close to you (in later levels, this will be virtually all of them), because it canât be interrupted. It does, however, have substantial other combat use if youâre careful. Its eight-second cooldown gives it a fairly lousy damage-per-second stat, but you wonât be standing still while waiting for it to cycle. Rather, Fireblast is a series of peaks in your overall damage-per-second, each separated by eight seconds. If you expect a fight to last at least eight seconds after the target first enters Fireblast range, using one immediately is almost always a good move. Be careful, however. Eight seconds sounds a lot shorter than it is, and there are cases where not having a Fireblast available right away can hurt you.
Finally, when there are named mobs that you need to kill for a quest, and the spawn site is being camped, thereâs no better tool than Fireblast for tagging it right away. I definitely recommend against using it to steal spawns from people who were there before you, but not all players feel the same way, and having a quick hand on your Fireblast helps there.
Flamestrike
Rank one: level 16
Rank up at 24, 32, 40, 48, 56
The Blood Mageâs signature spell from Warcraft III is back in WoW. Flamestrike is your first targeted area-of-effect spell, blasting a small area with fire and burning for about eighty percent of impact damage over the next eight seconds. It has a 3 second cast time. Area-of-effect spells do not target mobs, so when aiming you need to know where your chosen victimâs going to be: unlike bolts, Flamestrike will not follow your target. In practice, this limits Flamestrikeâs use to stationary targets.
You can try to use Flamestrike instead of Fireball in solo play â the area of effect makes up, mostly, for Fireballâs range advantage. The only problem with this is its damage. At rank 1 Flamestrikeâs damage is basically comparable with rank 3 Fireballâs - but Flamestrike costs three times as much to cast and does forty percent of its damage over eight seconds. Fireball rank 4, which is obtained two levels later, is completely superior. Flamestrike 2 and Fireball 5 are obtained at the same level, and the damage is again fairly even, except that Flamestrike still costs twice as much and needs an eight-second wait for the full effect. Efficiency doesnât matter, I said, but donât take that as a license to use ridiculously inefficient spells. Paying twice the mana for the same damage is a bad deal no matter how you slice it.
But, of course, itâs an area-of-effect spell, you say, and it has to be measured against multiple targets to see how much better it is. Which is true, to a point. If you use it on two targets you instantly have more total damage than Fireball. In solo play, however, youâre better off pulling two targets (if you have to) with Polymorph, which gives you less time to cast against the other guy but which doesnât raise the problem of having two mobs attacking you at the same time. Even if you somehow want to pull more, youâre still better off using Polymorph first. So Flamestrike in solo is basically used when you want to pull more than one mob and not polymorph any of them. Wait, what?
Flamestrike is a great deal more interesting in group play. When you have a tank, you are guaranteed targets that will sit still for your roasting and which are also likely to stick around for the eight seconds it takes for Flamestrike to finish. Of course, itâs not as simple as that.
Against one target, Fireball does better damage, etc, as outlined above. You still might want to consider Flamestrike because it builds its aggro a little more slowly, but itâs not a huge difference. You want to use it for multiple targets. However, thereâs an associated problem, which is true of all AoE spells. The best party play involves focusing on one target, killing it first. In many parties, this means getting the other(s) just annoyed enough to go after the tank and then ignoring them. Delivering a Flamestrike in this typical situation results in every mob other than the primary target switching aggro...to you. Two or maybe three of them go tearing after you, you have to turn and make a run for it, and the entire party plan goes to hell (handbasket optional).
If you want to uncork a Flamestrike, the party has to be ready for it. Enough threat has to be on the tank so that when you do shoot off the Flamestrike, theyâre mad enough at him to ignore the fact that theyâre on fire. Generally, this means youâll be delivering Flamestrikes late. If damage is spread around to attract each target, you can cast them earlier, but this is generally too much coordination to expect out of pickup groups.
Flamestrike is interesting, but you have to use it with care. At later levels, Flamestrikeâs damage gets better than Fireballâs on single targets, which would make it somewhat more useful except for the fact that it still costs an outrageous amount of mana and can miss. Some things donât change.
Fire Ward
Rank one: level 20
Rank up at 30, 40, 50, 60
The only non-blasting spell in Fire, Fire Ward sucks up fire damage. Fire damage is uncommon in the game, but you can count on seeing it from time to time. It lasts thirty seconds or until its damage limit is reached, and it has a thirty-second cooldown.
Fire Ward is obviously situational, if only for the reason that itâs no good against things that donât use fire. The less obvious reason, however, is because the amount it absorbs is not particularly large compared to the damage youâre likely to be seeing at each level of Fire Ward. At level 30 you can get a Fire Ward that absorbs 185 fire damage, for example, but your hit points are going to be in the 700-800 range at a bare minimum at that level. If youâre following a good solo strategy and getting stamina gear, itâll be much higher.
Sure, it helps to prebuff before going into combat against a fire-user, but itâs not critical. Fire Wardâs actual usefulness is limited to those cases where you would have died before killing the mob without Fire Ward, and survived because of Fire Ward. Those arenât too common. Itâs a fair bet that there will be more times you die and think âBut I had Fire Ward!â than times where you lived with a margin smaller than your Fire Wardâs protection.
Scorch
Rank one: level 22
Rank up at 28, 34, 40, 46, 52, 58
When you cast Scorch, you hit a target for a small-to-moderate amount of fire damage. Scorch is a funny little spell. It doesnât do much of anything, in many senses. It doesnât have especially good range, nor especially good damage. On the upside, it doesnât cost a lot of mana or time to cast, either.
So why use Scorch? Well, Scorchâs one standout feature, mana efficiency, isnât a matter of concern for a soloing mage, as Iâve said. You can be efficient for minutes with Scorch, but if youâve nearly been clawed to death after thirty seconds, efficiency isnât going to save you. In solo play, you will rarely want to use Scorch, since for solo players, Scorch really doesnât do anything that Fireball canât do better.
Where Scorch really shines is in group play. This can confuse a little - why would a low-damage single-target spell be useful in group play? Picture this: itâs a few seconds after the battleâs started, and all the opponents are on your tank. There hasnât been a lot of threat built up. If you launch a big-damage nuke spell now, whatever you hit will break out and start chasing you. You donât want to cast that spell until more threatâs been built on the tank. At the same time, you want to contribute.
You need a spell that doesnât do enough damage to draw aggro. It also shouldnât cost much mana, which you want on bigger spells, nor tie up casting time. It should do good damage for the mana, or you wouldnât bother casting it. It also shouldnât require any preparation on the partyâs part. You need Scorch.
Scorch is the surgeonâs scalpel, a weapon of precision. It isnât used by spamming it and itâs never the primary offensive spell, which explains why a lot of people have no idea what spell Iâm casting when I use Scorch. It is, however, critical to maximizing your damage output in groups. Wielded properly, Scorch will never do you wrong.
Fire is about what fire has always been about â damage, damage, damage. Only one spell doesnât do damage, and it isnât all that useful.
Fireball
Rank one: level 1.
Rank up at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60.
There isnât a great deal to say about Fireball; itâs what you use to shoot things and make them die, at least in theory. It consists of two damage components: the initial impact, and some damage-over-time for eight seconds afterwards, amounting to roughly ten percent of the impact. As you increase your rank in Fireball, two things happen that distinguish it from other spells. Firstly, at rank 2 it reaches 35 yards in range, longer than any other spell. Secondly, its casting time will rapidly increase, so that by the time youâve got Fireball rank 5, it casts at 3.5 seconds, making it the longest-casting combat spell that isnât a talent. Further ranks increase damage, but not casting time, so 3.5 seconds is the longest youâll ever take to throw one.
Fireballâs primary use, obviously, is as your longest-ranged damage dealer, and it can be frequently seen as the first spell in any solo battle. Once theyâre getting all friendly-like up close, however, itâs time to switch off, because with Fireballâs long cast time youâre guaranteed to be interrupted at least twice. That doesnât do great things for Fireballâs damage.
Fireblast
Rank one: level 6.
Rank up at 14, 22, 30, 38, 46, 54.
The moment you cast Fireblast, it delivers a burst of fire damage at instant speed, without the possibility of interruption. Of course, there are drawbacks: a fairly lengthy eight-second cooldown, and a relatively short 20-yard range.
Itâs decently mana-efficient, but mana efficiency is the most overrated attribute of any mage spell. The only efficiency that matters is making sure their life bar runs out before yours does, and if it takes your whole mana bar to do it, well, thatâs just how it goes. Efficiency only matters in the sense that you shouldnât need more than your whole mana bar to kill something.
Fireblast lends itself to a number of applications. The most obvious is for finishing off mobs that have survived to get close to you (in later levels, this will be virtually all of them), because it canât be interrupted. It does, however, have substantial other combat use if youâre careful. Its eight-second cooldown gives it a fairly lousy damage-per-second stat, but you wonât be standing still while waiting for it to cycle. Rather, Fireblast is a series of peaks in your overall damage-per-second, each separated by eight seconds. If you expect a fight to last at least eight seconds after the target first enters Fireblast range, using one immediately is almost always a good move. Be careful, however. Eight seconds sounds a lot shorter than it is, and there are cases where not having a Fireblast available right away can hurt you.
Finally, when there are named mobs that you need to kill for a quest, and the spawn site is being camped, thereâs no better tool than Fireblast for tagging it right away. I definitely recommend against using it to steal spawns from people who were there before you, but not all players feel the same way, and having a quick hand on your Fireblast helps there.
Flamestrike
Rank one: level 16
Rank up at 24, 32, 40, 48, 56
The Blood Mageâs signature spell from Warcraft III is back in WoW. Flamestrike is your first targeted area-of-effect spell, blasting a small area with fire and burning for about eighty percent of impact damage over the next eight seconds. It has a 3 second cast time. Area-of-effect spells do not target mobs, so when aiming you need to know where your chosen victimâs going to be: unlike bolts, Flamestrike will not follow your target. In practice, this limits Flamestrikeâs use to stationary targets.
You can try to use Flamestrike instead of Fireball in solo play â the area of effect makes up, mostly, for Fireballâs range advantage. The only problem with this is its damage. At rank 1 Flamestrikeâs damage is basically comparable with rank 3 Fireballâs - but Flamestrike costs three times as much to cast and does forty percent of its damage over eight seconds. Fireball rank 4, which is obtained two levels later, is completely superior. Flamestrike 2 and Fireball 5 are obtained at the same level, and the damage is again fairly even, except that Flamestrike still costs twice as much and needs an eight-second wait for the full effect. Efficiency doesnât matter, I said, but donât take that as a license to use ridiculously inefficient spells. Paying twice the mana for the same damage is a bad deal no matter how you slice it.
But, of course, itâs an area-of-effect spell, you say, and it has to be measured against multiple targets to see how much better it is. Which is true, to a point. If you use it on two targets you instantly have more total damage than Fireball. In solo play, however, youâre better off pulling two targets (if you have to) with Polymorph, which gives you less time to cast against the other guy but which doesnât raise the problem of having two mobs attacking you at the same time. Even if you somehow want to pull more, youâre still better off using Polymorph first. So Flamestrike in solo is basically used when you want to pull more than one mob and not polymorph any of them. Wait, what?
Flamestrike is a great deal more interesting in group play. When you have a tank, you are guaranteed targets that will sit still for your roasting and which are also likely to stick around for the eight seconds it takes for Flamestrike to finish. Of course, itâs not as simple as that.
Against one target, Fireball does better damage, etc, as outlined above. You still might want to consider Flamestrike because it builds its aggro a little more slowly, but itâs not a huge difference. You want to use it for multiple targets. However, thereâs an associated problem, which is true of all AoE spells. The best party play involves focusing on one target, killing it first. In many parties, this means getting the other(s) just annoyed enough to go after the tank and then ignoring them. Delivering a Flamestrike in this typical situation results in every mob other than the primary target switching aggro...to you. Two or maybe three of them go tearing after you, you have to turn and make a run for it, and the entire party plan goes to hell (handbasket optional).
If you want to uncork a Flamestrike, the party has to be ready for it. Enough threat has to be on the tank so that when you do shoot off the Flamestrike, theyâre mad enough at him to ignore the fact that theyâre on fire. Generally, this means youâll be delivering Flamestrikes late. If damage is spread around to attract each target, you can cast them earlier, but this is generally too much coordination to expect out of pickup groups.
Flamestrike is interesting, but you have to use it with care. At later levels, Flamestrikeâs damage gets better than Fireballâs on single targets, which would make it somewhat more useful except for the fact that it still costs an outrageous amount of mana and can miss. Some things donât change.
Fire Ward
Rank one: level 20
Rank up at 30, 40, 50, 60
The only non-blasting spell in Fire, Fire Ward sucks up fire damage. Fire damage is uncommon in the game, but you can count on seeing it from time to time. It lasts thirty seconds or until its damage limit is reached, and it has a thirty-second cooldown.
Fire Ward is obviously situational, if only for the reason that itâs no good against things that donât use fire. The less obvious reason, however, is because the amount it absorbs is not particularly large compared to the damage youâre likely to be seeing at each level of Fire Ward. At level 30 you can get a Fire Ward that absorbs 185 fire damage, for example, but your hit points are going to be in the 700-800 range at a bare minimum at that level. If youâre following a good solo strategy and getting stamina gear, itâll be much higher.
Sure, it helps to prebuff before going into combat against a fire-user, but itâs not critical. Fire Wardâs actual usefulness is limited to those cases where you would have died before killing the mob without Fire Ward, and survived because of Fire Ward. Those arenât too common. Itâs a fair bet that there will be more times you die and think âBut I had Fire Ward!â than times where you lived with a margin smaller than your Fire Wardâs protection.
Scorch
Rank one: level 22
Rank up at 28, 34, 40, 46, 52, 58
When you cast Scorch, you hit a target for a small-to-moderate amount of fire damage. Scorch is a funny little spell. It doesnât do much of anything, in many senses. It doesnât have especially good range, nor especially good damage. On the upside, it doesnât cost a lot of mana or time to cast, either.
So why use Scorch? Well, Scorchâs one standout feature, mana efficiency, isnât a matter of concern for a soloing mage, as Iâve said. You can be efficient for minutes with Scorch, but if youâve nearly been clawed to death after thirty seconds, efficiency isnât going to save you. In solo play, you will rarely want to use Scorch, since for solo players, Scorch really doesnât do anything that Fireball canât do better.
Where Scorch really shines is in group play. This can confuse a little - why would a low-damage single-target spell be useful in group play? Picture this: itâs a few seconds after the battleâs started, and all the opponents are on your tank. There hasnât been a lot of threat built up. If you launch a big-damage nuke spell now, whatever you hit will break out and start chasing you. You donât want to cast that spell until more threatâs been built on the tank. At the same time, you want to contribute.
You need a spell that doesnât do enough damage to draw aggro. It also shouldnât cost much mana, which you want on bigger spells, nor tie up casting time. It should do good damage for the mana, or you wouldnât bother casting it. It also shouldnât require any preparation on the partyâs part. You need Scorch.
Scorch is the surgeonâs scalpel, a weapon of precision. It isnât used by spamming it and itâs never the primary offensive spell, which explains why a lot of people have no idea what spell Iâm casting when I use Scorch. It is, however, critical to maximizing your damage output in groups. Wielded properly, Scorch will never do you wrong.