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Flamestrike

Flamestrike

3% of base mana	40 yd range

2 sec cast	12 sec cooldown

Requires Mage (Fire)
Requires level 44

Calls down a pillar of fire, burning all enemies within the area for (77.7% of Spell power) Fire damage and an additional (40.5% of Spell power) Fire damage over 8 sec and reducing their movement speed by 50% for the duration.

Improved Flamestrike (Level 92+)
Flamestrike no longer has a cooldown.

Buff

Flamestrike

(10.125% of Spell power) Fire damage every 2 seconds.
Movement speed slowed by 50%.
8 seconds remaining

Spell Details

Duration

8 seconds

School

Fire

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

3% of base mana

Range

40 yards (Long)

Cast time

2 seconds

Cooldown

12 seconds

GCD

1.5 seconds

Effect #1

School Damage (Fire)
Value: 1
Radius: 8 yards

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Periodic Damage
Value: 1 every 2 seconds
Radius: 8 yards

Effect #3

Apply Aura: Decrease Run Speed %
Value: -50%
Mechanic: Snared
Radius: 8 yards

Flags

Guides

Mage DPS Guide

Warlords of Draenor
Mage Changes

[Outdated] Arcane Mage
PvE Guide 5.4

Comments

Comment by Paps

The best way I've found to AoE a group of mobs from a distance is to Flamestrike and immediately Blizzard, and repeat. Blizzard lasts the exact same amount of time that the DoT portion of Flamestrike lasts, so it's incredibly mana-efficient compared to just spamming Flamestrike.

Comment by Archangel

This is an excellent grinding tool. As the caster above said, AoE grinding with this is excellent when combined with Blizzard and Arcane Explosion.

However, with my Ice mage, I use it differently. I gather up all enemies, Frost Nova -> Flame Strike. With Shatter this has a +50% Critical Strike rating, making it about 80% crit chance on all mobs. As I'm specced 11 into Fire, the mobs that it does crit on burn for an additional 40% of the original crit, +425 over 8 seconds.

Usually they are mostly dead at this point, so I will Blizzard or AE to finish them off. This combo is also much fun for ganking groups of Lowbies. Lowbies tend to hang around the meeting stones when getting ready for an instance. IB -> Blink in -> Frost Nova -> Flame Strike -> ALL DEAD!

Comment by Yender

The additional damage over time is the same effect as consecration, not a DoT like the spell tootip makes it sound.

Comment by zolikk

I saw somewhere that Flamestrike was receiving a 2 sec cast time in WotLK, yet Wotlkwiki still denotes it as 3 sec. Can anyone confirm? BTW this spell seeing some uses anyway thanks to Firestarter...(*Warrior screaming: 'There's fire allover the place and that slippery mage is jumping between the flames while I can't see a damn spot where I could safely step!'*)

Comment by Abomb

with firestarter u will get a free flamestrike when u use blast wave or dragons breath, this will give fire mages a great amount of burts damage in pvp

Comment by BoddAH

This is one of the Mage spells that hasn’t been change yet but clearly deserves a new graphic effect, it looks like something out of Warcraft III.
Many spells have already gotten improved graphics (Blast Wave, Fire Bolt, Blizzard…).

Comment by khan33

I never DID find out if FS can stack together. The instant FS from blast wave and DB allows 2 FS to be brought down. Add a frost nova to hold them in the pan and blink away.

I've been doing this since BC in pvp and while leveling in WolK, but never knew if I was wasting mana.

Oh, BTW: in BGs, an FS was nice minefield to bring out rogues-- couldn't see it until you were in it. Death & Decay was like that too until they put a fancy "don't step here" graphic on it lol Hope they don't make FS easy to spot :)

Comment by fartbandit

Just to add that on the new 3.3 PTR the cast time of Flamestrike has been reduced from 3 seconds down to 2 seconds which makes this a more attractive spell to use on AoE targets. Right now its probably easier to simply hit one target with living bomb before using Blizzard so that you're not stuck with doing no AoE damage for 3 seconds. After this change im going to go from being uncertain as to whether i should use flame strike in my AoE rotation to absolutely using it all the time

You can be guaranteed i and most other mages will be simply blinded by numbers when using living bomb before hitting them with a flame strike and then during the flamestrike cast select blizzard and click it as soon as the flamestrike hits!

A welcome change blizz... :)

Comment by craftyard

At low levels this along with arcane explosion and to a lesser extent frost nova are your only AoE abilities.

Comment by Pyronhell

This skill is level 18 instead of level 16.

Comment by flopfaint

The afterburn affect DOES NOT get reduced when more than 10 mobs tread upon it, so it is now one of the better AoE spells if you are killing large amounts of enemies. :) Happy Farming

Comment by fieryshadowcard

Flamestrike's an interesting AoE that enjoys a bit of usage in many situations. I'm also going to assume that all three specs get some mileage out of it, as I play a frost mage and can think of several immediate uses for it in PvE situations. Note that this assumes you are a frost mage or have 3/3 Ice Shards.

Situation 1) Up front aoe burst. Flamestrike's non-crit upfront damage is slightly lower than the crit of a Blizzard tick (more if the upfront burst crits). Its ability to apply moderate aoe damage for the next 8 seconds in addition also means it's still doing damage while you can take other actions (btw, the total periodic damage of all four ticks is in the same ballpark of the upfront damage). This means that in situations where you would Blizzard, if the mobs last long enough, dropping a Flamestrike and then immediately going into Blizzard should improve your AoE dps considerably, at least for the first 8 seconds. Whether or not reapplying Flamestrike after the first Blizzard is beneficial depends heavily upon how much longer the mobs you're AoEing will last. If they've still got some health to go, then yes, go for it. Also, if they've got very little health left, it is also probably more beneficial to drop Flamestrike if you don't think they'll last through another Blizzard.Think about it: In the time it takes for one Blizzard tick, you are able to drop an aoe that hits for roughly the same as a Blizzard crit tick and then deals damage roughly equal to another blizzard crit tick over 8 seconds, which (haste notwithstanding) is about the same duration of Blizzard's full cast. So, for every blizzard tick you give up, Flamestrike is adding on two.

Situation 2) Single target buffering. Let's face it, there are some situations where there just aren't enough enemies to Blizzard, or the enemies just aren't strong enough to make full use of your AoE, in which case single-target damage is better. In these situations, Flamestrike still has uses. Definitely if you only have two enemies, still a strong candidate if you have three (although three tends to be blizzard-worthy), if you drop Flamestrike at the beginning and then go into Frostbolt mode, you'll still be able to apply some decent damage to both mobs in addition to your frostbolt spam.

Situation 3) Fingers of Frost abuse. Let's say you are utilizing situation 2 to full effect, and fingers of frost procs. You could consume one charge with a single-target spell of your choice, and then immediately use the second for Flamestrike. For those experienced in how to take advantage of FoF, this means that you could use the second charge of FoF for Flamestrike and an insta-cast spell of your choice (Deep Freeze, Ice Lance, Fire Blast, Cone of Cold) and the second charge will treat both Flamestrike and the spell you cast as though they were affected by FoF, even though only one charge was consumed.

There are other uses (centering Flamestrike on yourself for protection against enemies while you do other things; using frost nova or Freeze over a recently flamestruck area; etc.), but these are some of the most frequent uses I've noticed. Remember Frost Mages--Death from above (Blizzard), death from below (Flamestrike).

Comment by diabeticjedi

i can understand moving a skill back a bit for the cataclysm system changes but from 16 to 44?

Comment by jasosik

almost useless for low level mage ? in BC and Wotlk i always use this on low lvl to grind weak mobs.

Comment by Kanariya

The daze effect of the now-removed Blastwave has been built into this spell.

Comment by Nitefyr

New animation in 5.4

Comment by elysiandreams

Anyone else having the new ground visual last for about 3 seconds then disappear? I cant tell if the effect lasts the full 8 seconds or not, partly because it's not visible after 3 seconds.

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