Here is what I am thinking about. I am mostly running 5 man dungeons now, but still want to do some farming (rep, gold, etc). Do you think this is viable? I really want to play fire right now. Of coarse I'll switch when I start doing MC.
AOE fire tree by Reverend Chris, on Flickr
Here is what I am thinking about. I am mostly running 5 man dungeons now, but still want to do some farming (rep, gold, etc). Do you think this is viable?
Yes. This is viable. By definition this can be done. However, is this worth doing? No.
"AOE Fire Mage build. Possible?" Possible - not worthwhile.
When I hear that you are running 5 mans, I'm inclined to say: do whatever you want, they're just dungeons, who cares. When I hear "farming rep/gold/etc", I immediately feel like you should be optimizing your time. Farming is typically not fun. Its not engaging gameplay. The entire point of farming is to spend some of your played time working so that you can progress your character. If you enjoy farming and want to make it less efficient and less productive, play with a fire build. But if you do not enjoy farming and would prefer to do other things, optimize your build and spend less time so you can do other things with your ingame time. Even if you enjoy farming, you would still probably prefer to make more gold per hour... And thus, frost is superior within this context.
A fire build will just be rough for AoE farming. Frost is strong, reliable and consistent. Fire is volatile, unreliable and inconsistent.
It would be viable to AoE grind without spending any talent points as a mage. You could have a completely empty talent tree and still kill large AoE pulls and thus, any spec is viable by definition. Every time I see the word "viable" on these forums, I just shudder in anticipation of the thread responses. INB4 someone actually says that fire is awesome for AoE farming. Fire is bad when compared to frost for grinding. This is why people specifically respec to frost for farming sessions and then switch back - even as late game fire mages.
Stfuppercut Fire (gather -> Nova -> Flamestrike/CoC) was actually better for lasher specific farm on pservers because of the low HP of the mobs (at 60 it’s like 1-2 AE with the CoC slow to finish everything after that rotation) but alas Classic uses the nerfed loot table lashers so the herbs and Satyrs are the focus for mages now and frost is undeniably better for those so you’re still right ;)
Do you think this is viable? I really want to play fire right now.
Then do it!
If you're just running normal 5 man dungeons and not spellcleave groups then who cares (I would be kinda annoyed if everyone in a spellcleave group wasn't deep frost).
You've got 3/3 https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=12488/improved-blizzard which is the main thing, you absolutely will miss https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=13033/ice-barrier and https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=11958/ice-block so you'll just have to be more conservative (or clever) with your pulls when you're playing solo but in groups nobody is going to notice or care.
I'm currently clearing DM:E with a Fire/Frost AoE mage. He "invented" some sort of hybrid spec. Works quite well. We can do big AoE damage and nuke the bosses in like 30s. Pretty fun, if you ask me.
A fire mage build is possible all the time is DOE
A fire mage AOE is NOT possible.