Hi, Deve
Your questions are completely valid and I will attempt to give an answer which will be of some help.
Your mentioning that you have multiple characters that suffer from the same issues you’ve highlighted here lead me to believe there may be a concept-grasping issue that should be addressed first.
A mage, just like any class, has a rather exhaustive spell/ability book. While they (mostly) all have their use, many have a higher priority than others given the particular situation you find yourself in. As an example, Mirror Images is a fantastic utility/defensive spell which fulfills a purpose should you find yourself about to face-tank one or several dangerous enemies. However, given it’s cool-down time, you are not able to use it as often as, say, a fireball to their face. I know this seems obvious, but stay with me here.
All classes require understanding of each spell/ability and how they can be used in sequence or combination to benefit from their effects. Fire mages have a unique mechanic in “Heating Up” and “Hot Streak”. It would be of extreme benefit to you to open your spell book (P by default), and read each spell and ability, as well as the passives, under both the generic “Mage” tab (an image of a staff) as well as the “Fire” tab (an image of a fireball). When you do this, you’ll see the effects of these abilities and under what circumstances they are activated or triggered (commonly referred to as a “proc”).
For example, if you cast Fireball, a ball of flame looses from your hands and impacts your target, dealing damage. That spell has a chance to critically strike, meaning it will do roughly double damage (kept simple for instruction sake). With your engineering background, think of it like a logic system. If X is true, Y happens. In this case, if that fire ball critically strikes (“crits”), then your character will passively become affected with a buff called “Heating Up” for a few seconds. With default graphics settings, you will see two small flame-like indicators - one on each side of your character on your GUI. What this means, is that if the NEXT spell you hit the enemy with also crits, that “Heating Up” buff will transform into “Hot Streak” for several seconds. That Hot Streak (passive Fire mage ability) removes the cast time of Pyroblast and Flame Strike, as well as increases the duration of the burning effect.
This is a key element to Fire Mage play and fundamental to understanding how you can nuke those enemies without having to burn Combustion, which is a damage-defining cooldown for the spec. More on this later.
You needn’t worry about trying to cast a 3-second pyroblast for big damage if you can understand how to combine your spells and abilities in order to benefit from the class’ kit. In essence, when you look at Icy Veins, WoWhead or any other guide, and see a “priority” rotation listed, all you need to do is apply your logic system to it. That’s how they are laid out: “This is the top spell in priority, given that it’s available, off-cooldown, or that a set of circumstances are true”. If the set of circumstances are not true, then move down to the next priority spell/ability, and so on and so forth until you hit a spell that meets the True condition; then you cast/use that, and reassess.
While it is certainly overwhelming to think about at first, I assure you time and practice will ease this into not only muscle memory, but understanding of what needs to be cast and when and under what circumstances. Remember that even the most powerful casters must train themselves to utilize their full potential. As a Fire Mage, it’s all about those big, juicy Pyroblasts.
Which leads me to Combustion. There is certainly “one” best way to perform a rotation of abilities and spells within the window of the guaranteed-critical-strike Combustion window. However, that assumes that all of your Fire Blast charges, Phoenix Flame charges, trinkets, racials, and any/all other abilities are available and ready. This isn’t always the case, so I will briefly cover what to expect when inside the window. As this is almost always an issue that can cause discussion and even controversy (because math), I will refer you to the guides to see the exact optimal rotation for Combustion windows.
In short, when you activate Combustion, your goal (we’ll stick with single target), is to trigger/use as many Pyroblasts as possible within the 10 second window to capitalize on the guaranteed crit nature of the buff. In order to facilitate this, let us revisit the passives Heating Up and Hot Streak. When you activate Combustion, every spell will critically strike. Okay, well, since Pyroblast cast time is removed under Hot Streak, how do I get to that? The answer is Heating Up. In order to get to Heating Up, I need to crit with a fire spell (most of them, but not all, trigger Heating Up. A complete list can be found on Icy Veins, WoWhead, ect). For your convenience, I’ll list the three primary ones.
Fire Blast (highest priority)
Phoenix Flames (very good)
Scorch (short cast time, but no travel time and can be cast while moving)
Note: Fireball can be used just before entering Combustion, but for now let’s keep it relatively straightforward.
When you are outside of Combustion (the buff is not active), the typical spell sequence utilized by fire mages is to cast a fireball until it critically strikes and you gain the Heating Up buff. You then begin casting another fireball. Here’s where the magic happens (sorry, couldn’t resist). BEFORE the second fireball finishes casting, smack that Fire Blast spell button. Why? Because it can be cast while you are casting another spell and it is a guaranteed critical strike. Now, recall that you are casting a second fireball after one that already critically struck, granting the Heating Up buff. That Fire Blast has converted the Heating Up buff into a Hot Streak buff, which has now removed the cast time on your next Pyroblast cast within X seconds. As the cast of your second fireball (which you are presently casting) ends and you let it fly, hit the Pyroblast button at the same time (preferably just before) the cast ends and the fire ball looses. Now, you’ll see the fireball cast AS WELL AS the giant Pyroblast leave your hands at the same time. Because of how the game engine is currently, if either one or both of those spells critically strikes, it will count toward - you guessed it - granting a fresh Heating Up buff. If both of them crit, yessir, you are now the proud owner of a fresh Hot Streak buff for the next several seconds, since each critical strike with those fire spells has counted in-sequence and satisfied the requirement for Hot Streak, thus removing the cast time of your next Pyroblast again.
This is commonly referred to as “Pyroblast fishing”.
This chaining of fire spells in order to cast your big Pyroblast is the basis of Combustion. If every spell crits, then you needn’t cast Fireball. Now it’s on to using instant-cast spells that will allow you to pump as many Pyroblasts as possible within 10 seconds.
So, go to a training dummy, cast Fireball until you get a Heating Up proc, then begin casting another Fireball. As soon as you start casting the second fireball, cast Fire Blast, then cast Combustion (can also be cast during cast-times), and que up that Pyroblast by pressing the spell right before the second Fireball finishes casting. That’s the “standard” entry into Combustion burn - more or less.
Now, you’re in Combustion, your character is literally on fire, and everything you cast will crit, utilizing your class’ passives to remove the cast time of Pyroblast.
You should have a Hot Streak buff from the Fireball and Pyroblast both critting thanks to Combustion (see opener above). Cast the Pyroblast, hit Fire Blast. You now have Hot Streak again! Cast the Pyroblast and use a Phoenix Flames - they both crit = Hot Streak! Keep going. Use the Pyroblasts and instant-cast spells I listed above until your character stops burning and you’re back to the “standard” rotation I mentioned earlier - fishing for Pyroblasts - until Combustion comes back off cool down.
In short, Night Fae mage is all about doing everything you can to shorten the cool down on Combustion so you can get right back into it. That’s when 99% of your damage happens (slight exaggeration). It’s a fun, bursty style of play and can be very rewarding when well-practiced and executed perfectly. I have yet to do it as often as I’d like, but that’s the point of learning and training.
I hope this has been helpful. I’ll keep my eye on this thread should you have any more questions. My hope is that this gives a fundamental overview and direction for you to take the next steps on your journey of learning, understanding, and training to have fun and blast your enemies to cinders.
Best,
Storm
P.S. There are many, many, MANY more nuances that come with experience and learning. I highly recommend revisiting the guides when you feel you have a better grasp for the basics I’ve covered here. There is plenty more than what I’ve tried to lay out above. But I feel it’s a good start. Some of the more advanced players on these forums may have a few words for me, as my over-generalizations of spell sequences and function might cause their eyes to bleed, but I trust they will forgive me and allow the room for fundamentals before pushing toward nuanced optimization.