This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview of the class. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource on this class, check out this guide here.

Click here for the Mage Class Guide, also check out this page for more world of warcraft leveling tips & tricks.

Index:
1.0 - Introduction
2.0 - Talents
3.0 - Gear & Progression

Mages are a tricky class to gauge performance on, particularly in leveling speed.  Put a mage with the best gear possible in the hands of an amateur and you have one of the worst levelers in the game.  On the flip-side with an experienced player behind the class it becomes one of those oft-mentioned speed demons.

A large amount of the blame for this can be placed on the relatively complicated talent trees. Unlike many other classes where the choice for each tier is quite obvious in general, mages have quite a few talents that *sound* good and *look* good but are most definitely not good.

So, that’s why this guide is here to help, in addition to overcoming the hump of what talent build and general progression to follow, I’ll also be covering what statistics you want to aim for to truly maximize efficient damage output.

2.0 – Talents

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For the purposes of this guide we’ll be following what I personally believe to be the most efficient leveling/grinding build, whether it actually is or not likely depends on your personal play style, but in general this should work well with an efficiency minded fire mage.

Many of the talents are something of a passive increase as opposed to an actual noticeable triggering effect or an ability of its own – Improved fireball, Ignite, Flame throwing, incinerate, etc.  This is likely due to the fact that all mages use are our abilities, as opposed to other classes that have some form of damage outside this spectrum, such as melee/wands.

Flame throwing is one of my favorite talents to pick up due to its overall massive increase of utility throughout leveling.  By picking up flame throwing you can practically guarantee your ability to drop your target, even bosses, before they enter melee range, and should they somehow do so, we have the next talent in line.

Burning soul is a massive help for any fire mage, giving you a better chance to avoid interruption than you are to take the hit to your spellcasting bar, and this can be crucial on close fights/when you get surprised by an opponent.

Improved scorch combined with ignite and incinerate result in an immensely efficient, easy-use attack, that can even be spammed from start to finish to drop monsters in a swift and simple manner.  Another thing, this is really
your *only* efficient damage spell when it comes down to it, and can let you extend the last stretches of your mana pool to drop a tough enemy or two.

The next biggies are master of the elements and critical mass, these two are another combination that dually improves your damage output, burst and consistent, as well as your mana efficiency in a lovely joint boost.  The simple formula is, more criticals equals more damage, yet it also results in a 30% refund from the master of the elements talent, a win-win situation.

More talents that result in something of a mana-refund are arcane concentration and elemental precision, located in the arcane and frost trees respectively.  These two, when combined with your already present fire talents as mentioned above, allow you to run a lean-mean mana-efficient machine, it’s a fairly nice result.

And finally we hit fire power, blast wave, molten fury, combustion, and pyromaniac.  These can pretty much be summed up as, lots more damage, slightly more mana efficiency, and lots more fun.  Empowered fireball is just a dumping ground given it’s relatively ineffectiveness pre-70’s gearing.

10 - 14 Improved Fireball
15 - 19 Impact
20 - 24 Ignite
25 - 26 Flame Throwing
27 - 28 Incinerate
29 - 30 Burning Soul
30 - 33 Critical Mass
34 - 36 Improved Scorch
37 - 39 Master of the Elements
40 - Combustion
41 - 45 Fire Power
46 - 48 Pyromaniac
49 - Pyroblast
50 - Dragon's Breath
51 - 53 Precision
54+ - Explore your options, pick up what you will.

3.0 – Gear & Progression

The most important statistics for any mage are intellect and stamina, these two improve two things that no mage is ever satisfied with, health and mana.  Thankfully it isn’t too hard to find numerous cloth pieces that contain at least one, and often both, of these stats in ample levels.

Secondly we come to the more complicated stats, spell damage, spell critical, spell hit, and spell penetration.  Of all these spell damage is the most common as well as generally the best to stack once you’ve hit 40+, prior to this stamina and intellect are both more prevalent and useful.

Past 40 you can start searching for increased spell damage gear as well as picking up a few spell crit items if possible. It’s just that all of these are extremely rare to find unless you deliberately prepare them ahead of time, as in before leveling the mage, and keep them in the bank or something.

60+ is when you start rolling in the spell damage, crit, hit, etc.  All of these are present in some form or another on almost every piece of mage gear throughout Outland, in addition to lavish amounts of stamina and intellect.

Basically, prior to 60 you’ll hit many dry spots in terms of gear, but after that level you’ll be hard pressed to avoid it.