Rift Mage 61 Pyromancer Guide

Rift Mage 61 Pyromancer Guide by Berzz

Introduction: Here is a little guide for what I have found to be the best way to handle 61 Pyro. This is directed towards Mages trying to get the most out of Pyromancer.

Disclaimer: This is what I believe be the 100% best rotation/playstyle. I am open to feedback/suggestions and am always game for improving the rotation/playstyle. Please build to this constructively if you feel I have misinformed the mage population. I say proc a lot.

Spec: http://rift.magelo.com/en/soultree#G5Aw/iGlliFlkyGy/S8

Buffs: – Glyphs of Power, Pyromancers Aegis, Lightning blade

Strategies in DPS: 

To really get great numbers with Pyro, you need to be proactively min/maxing around the 3 second internal cooldown of Pyromancers Aegis. If you mindlessly spam fireball, wildfire procs, cooldowns your dps will not be as good as it could be.
Fireball is a 1.35 second cast time in full buffs. Ideally to min max the aegis rotation, the main structure of your rotation is always going to be one of these 3:

a) Fireball (aegis proc) – > Filler – > Filler -> [Repeat] – This system will have a 3.35 second downtime between Pyromancers Aegis procs (when extinguish is not active).

Or

b) Fireball(Aegis Proc) -> Flame Volley -> a) – This system will land you a 4.35 second downtime between Pyromancers Aegis proc (when extinguish is not active). Because flame volley is a beast, it is still a large DPS gain even though you are theoretically missing out on the Aegis Proc for that extra second.

Or

c) Fireball -> Fireball -> Fireball…There will be times when you have no fillers. Your rotation then looks like this

**Important Note regarding Fireball Spam! To help explain this, I will show an example. **

Flame Bolt -> Fireball (Aegis Proc) -> Fireball (Procs Wildfire) -> Fireball -> ????

If you think that you should hit flame bolt next you are wrong! People dedicated to min/maxing will always take note of the ICD in Pyromancers Aegis. This means that the next fireball in the example will tap into the Pyromancer’s Aegis proc. You may think that this is blatantly obvious, but in the middle of a fight it is extremely difficult to keep track of which fireballs are proccing Aegis. This example isn’t limited to wildfire procs, but literally everything (CB Procs, Fusillade/flamevolley coming off CD etc). Knowing when to leave a fireball spam cycle is extremely important for your DPS. Chances are if you are unhappy with your pyro numbers, it is because you are blowing procs when you see them while in a fireball spam cycle. Sometimes you will leave the cycle at the right time without thinking about it, but 1/3 times you are leaving at the wrong time. It may seem tedious, but keeping mental notes while playing Pyro; Counting to 3 seconds, or counting the number of abilities used between Aegis procs is the only way to keep track.

The Rotation/Priority and Rules:

Main Filler:

Fireball is not considered a filler, ideally you want to stick to the structures posted above [a) or b)] which always will min max the aegis ICD meaning all your fillers are thrown in between.

Fusillade >Flame Volley> **Cinderburst** > Countdown > Inferno (below 40% only) > Flame bolt 

Abilities Left out or ****:

Extinguish – Use this ability on CD, and after instant casts to avoid ability lag. Do not use this during Heatwave.

Fulminate – Use for short term target swaps. Do not use at the beginning (first 40seconds) of a pull!!!!! That charge at the beginning of every encounter is extremely important for Raid Cooldowns. If you don’t mind doing dailies for charge pots, they can come in handy if you decide to use Fulminate. I never found reason in my parses to use or not to use Fulminate. I leave it to personal preference. (If you like large #’s go ahead and use a Brominate). At the moment I am using Fulminate followed by a charge pot on fights like Goloch. (only using Fulminate in the bubbles). This next little blip about Fulminate is extremely frustrating. It is possible to watch your burning fury stacks before using Fulminate (or trying to give it the best possible chance to crit). “Force criting” a Fulminate requires both eagle eyes in searching through your buffs, and the spell leading up to 100 charge to be instant cast. If it is a fireball leading to fulminate it is impossible to tell if you will have BF stacks or not. This is because the BF stacks are consumed when the fireball hits the target. (Even if you are standing on the boss there still is a brief travel time). If I see that I have 0 BF stacks, I usually chicken out and pop IC on.

Flame Bolt (10% Damage Buff) – If you follow my opening rotation and the structures/ this should always be up!

Cinderburst – Since we are relying on an Armor to reset the cooldown of Cinderburst, it is not crucial you blow it as soon as you see it. It takes precedence over every spell in the filler priority if the proc is about to run out of time. If the proc is not going to run out, it is far better to use your other fillers and wait until you need to use the proc.
Heatwave Filler:

Fusillade > Flame Volley > Cinderburst (Proc) > Countdown >Cinderburst (hard cast) > Inferno (below 40% only) > 

Try and maintain structure a) during heatwave.

The 10% damage buff isn’t included in the priority. Remember to keep this up even during heatwave (every 10seconds). You will at least have to do 1 flame bolt every heatwave.

A few Rules:

Heatwave – always have all cooldowns blown before using this and be at max(ish) charge! Ideally you want to line this up with Flaring Power however you will often find you are popping it mid flaring if you use my starting rotation (which is okay, flaring lasts 30seconds). The archon is always a mage ;) so often you can tell the archon what works best for the Pyro’s. Heatwave also allows you to have 2 stacks of countdown on the target. I often try to use heatwave right after countdown.

Fireball (aegis proc) -> Countdown ->Heatwave -> Countdown -> fireball (aegis proc)…….

Do I flame Volley during heatwave? Yes. By doing this you are using Flame Volley ~25% sooner than if you were to wait until the end of heatwave. If you heatwave twice during an ecounter, that is 30 extra seconds of eating up the Flame Volley CD. This means you have a 50% chance of getting an Extra Flame Volley in a fight if you use it during heatwave.

Fusillade/FlameVolley/Cinderburst– Always, Always, Always have internalize charge active during these abilities. These are your mainstream pyromancer nukes. They need to have Internalize Charge stamped to them. You will find that they might possibly come off CD during a period where you don’t have internalize charge active; it is far better to wait a second or 2 to turn IC on then to blow them without IC stamped to them.

Flame Volley – only use this if you have the improved flame bolt (10% dmg buff) for more than 5 seconds. The reasoning here is because after that flame volley, you are guaranteed to have an Aegis proc on the next fireball. You do not want to be delaying the next Aegis Proc by an additional second because you need to flame bolt and refresh that buff.

Internalize Charge – This is the main grey area that is hard to explain. You want IC stamped to as many big nukes as possible but at the same time you want to eliminate IC toggling as much as possible. I can’t offer a rotation of managing charge to religiously follow. Along with min/maxing through the ICD, how you handle internalize charge will be the next discrepancy in your DPS and another mages DPS. If I see big nukes coming off CD, I will definitely put internalize charge on before hitting that 100-110 charge threshold. Ideally you want to be in structure c while internalize charge is turned off.

Here is the starting SINGLE TARGET rotation I use.

There are many viable starting rotations, the just of them is that you need to get through your cooldowns and prepare to heatwave with all raid CD’s up.

Firestorm to 100 Charge (pre pull)
On the pull:

IC on – > Fireball -> Flamebolt -> Extinguish (off gcd) ->Countdown ->Fireball ->Flame Volley ->[Maintain Stucture a) or c) Until you completely drain and build back up to 85 Charge (or Verse of Joy)] -> IC on -> Heatwave -> [Heatwave Priority with Structure a),b),or c)] -> Structure a)b)c)

In my guild VoJ is timed with Flaring. After draining the first 100 charge, the timing works out so we get a VoJ around when I build up to about 20 charge. VoJ will keep your charge constant with IC turned on during its duration.

Here is a Parse w/ my stats. 

Depending on how many times you Fulminate, that will either raise or lower your fireball percentage by 1 or 2.

Parse – 14.9k http://i.imgur.com/wGyZ86M.png

Stats – 5304 sp/1979sc/865cp