Help: fire mage rotation

My fire parses are lacking and I don’t know why. I wonder if its somehow my rotation during combustion and outside combustion thats the problem.
Combustion: Fireball (until 0.2-0.3 sec) - combustion → Pyro (hot streak) > phoenix flames(PR) > Fire blast > scorch (shimmer) > phoenix flames > fireball

Outside combustion: Phoenix flames and fireblasts with pyro hot streak and shifting power when no fire blast charges and 0-1 phoenix flames.
Should I be casting fireball more often cauz I pretty much never do and I pretty much only cast scorch with shimmer or when boss is lower than 30% to keep improved scorch stacks.

I’m by no means good, but:

Assuming Sunfury…

  • Prioritize spending Fireblast in Combust over PF. FB is off the GCD so you get way more pyros out chaining FB → Pyro → FB → Pyro etc. Use PF when you’re out of FBs. Use Scorch in Combust when you’re out of both.
  • Get weakaura(s) that tell you how long until Combust is back up and how long Combust is currently up. You want to pool your PF/FB charges going into Combust, and during Combust you want to be aware of when it ends so you can start spamming Pyros (Sunfury gives a free Hyperthermia post-Combust).
  • Use Fireball outside of Combust, unless you have a Heat Shimmer proc. Convert crits to hot streaks via FB/PF, unless Combust is coming back up soon - in that case, be conservative with your FB/PFs. Your damage outside of Combust is almost meaningless and is really just fishing for CDR on Combust via Kindling.
  • Use Shifting Power on cooldown to get Combust back up, and to give you back FB/PF charges.
  • Primarily only use Scorch in execute. Get a weakaura that tells you when the target is sub 30% - replace Fireball with Scorch in these cases always.

Once you have your Combust rotation down, everything else is really just about getting back into that moment. Focus on getting that down - read some guides about e.g. double pyros via Scorch in Combust etc, how ignite works, etc. but if your Combust is flawless that’s all that matters.

Here’s your rotation:

Precast pyroblast → queue up Phoenix flames.

Those two spells release at basically the same time.

Start casting Fireball. Those first two spells should hit not long after you start the aforementioned fireball.

Combust. If the first 2 spells crit, then pyroblast queue up after Fireball. Fireball and Pyro will connect for hot streak. Pyro again, fire blast, pyro, fire blast, Pyro… and so on.

If the first two spells don’t both crit as you start combusting, you just start fire blasting earlier.

I don’t think I’ve ever cast fireball during combustion. It ends before i can bleed myself of fire blast charges, Phoenix flames, and scorch procs.

My opinion doesn’t mean much but I don’t even put fireball on my rotation bar I’ll use scorch instead, it cast faster and I can also cast it on the run. I’ll go through my instacast and cast scorch while I’m waiting on CDs and insta cast. I also don’t worry to much on your AoE strike I mean you can but it takes too much time trying to put the ground cast in the right spot just focus on insta pyros, phoenix, Scorch, and ignite. I will rotate mobs on pyros to get the bonus damge to your dot fire damage but that’s just on harder content, usually in heroics and below it’ll die quickly

Fireball isn’t a huge part of Fire’s damage profile so the lost damage of using scorch is meh, but a big part of using Fireball is to have it connect at the same time as a Hotstreak Pyro; because there is a small window where spells won’t overwrite Heating Up, it basically doubles your chance to get a proc, and scorch doesn’t do that.

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I’ve started to practice this and see what you mean, I’ll try and time my fireball and insta pyro to hit same time or fireball and use FB or PB. I’m liking but I just hate not being able to cast it on the move lol. Taking some getting use to it.

Take Ice Floes! You can hit it while you’re casting so you don’t have to cancel a cast if you suddenly have to move. It’s also great for Shifting Power on the go. Regular blink also lets you blink out of stuns/roots which comes in handy (e.g. cocoons on last raid boss). Shimmer is nice but I’ve gotten way more value out of Ice Floes - it’s fairly rare that you absolutely need to get across a whole room ASAP. (You can also shimmer while casting but I’ve found that to be dangerous sometimes lol and positioning it properly so you’re still facing the target can be awkward.)