Leveling as a Damage Dealer

This guide focuses on pure damage specs while leveling, providing the best ones to do damage. Which are good for Soloing, Instant Adventures, Dungeons and Warfronts.
Though warning mistakes could be present.

I would personally say Mage is the 3rd best class to level with.
Clerics are by far the best, Warriors come in 2nd, Rogues are 4th as they have hardest time and Primalists are unknown at this point.

As you enter the game there’s some key points you should know as a Mage:

• While leveling long cast time abilities with like 2.5s & 6s seconds aren’t going to be useful in the main rotation. You should only be looking to use these types as the opener ability as they will take a chunk out of an NPC right at the start while Soloing.

• Damage over time abilities are useless while soloing as you shouldn’t be taking 16s to kill an enemy. For Instant Adventures and Dungeons you might have a tough boss so it could be good idea to use a damage over time ability. As for Warfronts they are only good for overloading enemy so they can’t live through the damage, though that does requires multiple damage over time abilities on the enemy.

• There’s not a lot healing you can utilize while leveling, as Chloromancer requires at least 8 points to get a Veil and even then it will be very small heals as you deal damage. Though if you have Harbinger it would be survivable healing while doing solo content.

• Pets are only good against one NPC at a time as they can’t hold or survive multiple enemies and even then they can fail to hold one enemy.

• Shields are the best thing if you want to block damage, though they do have 30s cooldowns.

Thanks to 2.8 update to Stormcaller you have a very easy way to deal damage at low levels, later on this will change as other souls become more potent however it is up to you.

So at Level 1 the best combo of souls for damage is 0 Stormcaller, 0 Dominator, 0 Pyromancer

You have everything you ever want right there:
- Neural Prod which is spammable so you never have to stop dealing damage.
- Flame Bolt which does have a cooldown, however provides a superior jolt of damage than Neural Prod.
- Raging Storm your ultimate damaging ability, you do have channel for 4s though it’s well worth it.
- Forked Lightning for all your aoe damage needs, having an aoe ability at level 1 is so good.
- Transmogrify if you want to remove an enemy from the equation.
- Fireball is one of those abilities you only want to start with against an NPC and never use again.

If you have Harbinger we will be swapping out Pyromancer for it, though if you don’t we'll be covering both together when it comes to spending soul points. Though I will be focusing on Pyromancer for abilities, macros and the rotation as they will matter towards your damage.

I find macros are really helpful no matter the level and reduce the space needed on your bars, so instead of pressing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 you press 1, 2 and 3.

So here’s your first macro:
#show Flame Bolt
suppressmacrofailures
cast Flame Bolt
cast Neural Prod
cast Break Free

Now I’ve added Break Free in there, it’s not part of your souls though it is a ability you get at level 1 from the Ascended Powers tab like your out-of-combat resurrection ability.

Most don’t macro as they think you should save it for specific abilities and say you're a bad player for doing so don’t listen, the only time where it can triggered so many times in a few seconds is in Warfronts and even then are you that quick to use it? and when should you as there are so many abilities that can get you?

Placement of the ability at the back of the macro with help avoid using Break Free on snares and roots for a second and will trigger right away if you get stunned or disabled. So long as you're pressing the macro.

Rotation:
For your rotation it’s a basically cast Raging Storm > Flame Bolt > Neural Prod repeat.

Keeping Raging Storm & Flame Bolt on cooldown and spamming Neural Prod.
While doing Solo content against NPCs you could use Fireball as your opener.

Spam Forked Lightning for aoe damage best used in Instant Adventures and Dungeons only for trash and adds. Trash being the groups of enemies between the bosses and adds that spawn during a boss fight.

Transmogrify to divide enemy NPCs up or to disable an enemy player in a Warfront preferably a healer or someone who gets in the way of an objective.

Now for new soul points:

• The first 4 points should go into Storm Energy’s (Stormcaller) giving you 2% more Spell Power with each point and grants access to new abilities.

• Then 2 points into Quick Thinking (Dominator) which reduces you cast times by 0.5s after using Transmogrify or your new unlocked ability Thunder Blast.

Abilities:
- Icicle provides a snare and deals damage, it does cost Charge to use however that doesn’t matter at this point of time. Charge is a type of resource Mage abilities generate in order to cast greater abilities.
- Thunder Shock which spammable and increases in damage by 15% for each stack of Electrified you generate from Raging Storm and Forked Lightning. So you definitely want to replace Neural Prod for Thunder Shock.
- Thunder Blast is off the global cooldown so you you don’t need to wait for the 1.5s that abilities generate before casting Thunder Blast. So it deals damage, triggers Quick Thinking reducing cast times by 0.5s, interrupts and knocks back the enemy.

So with these new abilities comes new macros to utilize:
#show Icicle
suppressmacrofailures
cast Thunder Blast
cast Icicle
cast Flame Bolt
cast Thunder Shock
cast Break Free

#show Forked Lightning
suppressmacrofailures
cast Thunder Blast
cast Forked Lightning
cast Break Free

Rotation:
So the rotation changes due to new abilities:
Thunder Blast > Icicle > Raging Storm > Flame Bolt > Thunder Shock

Keeping Thunder Blast, Icicle, Raging Storm & Flame Bolt on cooldown and spamming Thunder Shock.
You don’t use Fireball anymore.

Now for new soul points:

• Your next point goes to Storm Energy’s (Stormcaller).

• 3 points go into Charged Atmosphere (Stormcaller) allowing any air ability to apply Electrified so you're always increasing the damage of Thunder Shock.

• One point goes into Living Storm (Stormcaller) which will help during aoe if the enemies are taking a bit more time to die and is also good for Warfronts.

• One point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger) for 2% increase in Spell Power.
• One point in Ignition (Pyromancer) just to increase your range of damaging abilities.

• One point into High Voltage (Stormcaller) to increase your damage by 1% and reduces damage taken by 1.25%, it also opens the next tier of talents in Stormcaller which are awesome.

• 2 points into Voltaic Strength (Stormcaller), this is one of those awesome talents, each point increases your Stormcaller single target Air & Water abilities by 1% other single target Air & Water abilities 0.5% and Voltaic Strength stacks for every Electrified stack you have active. So with 6 points which gives 6% and 3 stacks of Electrified your Stormcaller Air & Water abilities will increase in damage by 18%.

• Another point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger).
• Another point in Ignition (Pyromancer).

• 3 more points into Voltaic Strength (Stormcaller).

• Another point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger).
• Another point in Ignition (Pyromancer).

• One point into Voltaic Strength (Stormcaller) making it 6 points in total making it a 18% damage increase.

• 2 points into Conductive Medium (Stormcaller), another awesome talent, increases your damage by 1% per point spent and stacks up to 3 times so in total 6% damage increase. However it does require the use of Charge consuming abilities to keep the buff active, which shouldn’t matter as your using Icicle anyway and it stacks to max while out-of-combat.

• Another point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger).
• Another point in Ignition (Pyromancer).

• Finally before we talk 2 points into Supercell (Stormcaller) to increase your Air and Water damage.

Abilities:
- Living Storm only require to be applied to one target to deal it’s aoe damage, and can only be applied to one target at a time.
- Pyromancer's Armor increases your Fire damage by 6%.
- Ride the Wind is your run away ability if you want to quickly depart your current location, does cost Charge to use.
- Wind Chill knocks back the enemy and snares them for 10s.
- Countdown a new fire damaging ability from the Pyromancer soul, it’s not going to be worth the global cooldown to use if your enemy if going to die within 8s so that’s why it’s not going to be macro’d.
- Static Flux increases your Air and Water damage by 10% for 15s, does cost Charge, and goes on cooldown for 15s so you can just stick into the macro and not worry about it too much.

Macro time:
#show Icicle
suppressmacrofailures
cast Static Flux
cast Thunder Blast
cast Icicle
cast Flame Bolt
cast Thunder Shock
cast Break Free

#show Forked Lightning
suppressmacrofailures
cast Static Flux
cast Thunder Blast
cast Forked Lightning
cast Break Free

Rotation:
Static Flux > Thunder Blast > Icicle > Raging Storm > Countdown (if worth it) > Flame Bolt > Thunder Shock

Keeping Static Flux, Thunder Blast, Icicle, Raging Storm & Flame Bolt on cooldown and spamming Thunder Shock.
Use Countdown if worth it.

Make sure to apply the buff Pyromancer's Armor to yourself.

I should point out by this point you should have enough points to be able use a Harbinger & Chloromancer combo if you want healing while doing solo content. So if you wish to create a seconds role then I suggest you use Leveling as a Harbinger guide as a starting point.

New Soul Points:

• Next point goes into Superconductor (Stormcaller) which increases the stack size of Conductive Medium by 1 stack per point.

• Another point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger).
• Another point in Ignition (Pyromancer) this final point will also reduce the cast time of Icicle by 0.1s and gives your damaging abilities a grand total of 5 meters extra range.

• Another point in Superconductor (Stormcaller) making Conductive Medium provide a 10% damage increase.

• Two points into Supercell (Stormcaller).

• One point goes in Mental Fortitude (Dominator) increasing the range of your range of damaging abilities.
• One point goes in Burning Focus (Pyromancer) increasing single target damage by 2% per point spent.

• Another point in Supercell (Stormcaller).

• Two points go into High Voltage (Stormcaller).

• Another point into Mental Fortitude (Dominator).
• Another point into Burning Focus (Pyromancer).

• Three points into Vengeful Storm (Stormcaller), Living Storm will now jump to a nearby living enemy if the current one dies while Living Storm was active.

• One point into Mental Fortitude (Dominator).
• One point into Burning Focus (Pyromancer).

Abilities:
- Gathering Storm allows you to channel your mana back if you run out, later on during endgame content you might find this a waste of time during combat so you might what vials that provide mana once you get up to that level.
- Storm Armor this is why I stopped the list of soul points. It’s a major increase to your single target damage, 20% increase in damage for your Air and Water abilities. Though there is a downside to Storm Armor being you can’t use Forked Lightning to deal aoe damage with while Storm Armor is active as it reduces the number of targets hit to only one target, 8 turns into 1. So you will have to remove it during those times you want to deal aoe damage.
- Internalize Charge is basically the Pyromancer’s version Static Flux, however it is not going to be used as Static Flux is is far superior for this spec.

Macros:
No changes for macros.

Rotation:
Static Flux > Thunder Blast > Icicle > Raging Storm > Countdown (if worth it) > Flame Bolt > Thunder Shock

Keeping Static Flux, Thunder Blast, Icicle, Raging Storm & Flame Bolt on cooldown and spamming Thunder Shock.
Use Countdown if worth it.

Make sure to apply the buff Storm Armor to yourself.
Using Storm Armor while dealing single target damage and to remove Storm Armor when dealing aoe damage.

New Soul Points:

• One point goes into Acumen (Dominator) for 2% intelligence increase per point spent.
• One point goes into Burning Fury (Pyromancer) increasing your crit chance by 2% per point spent.

• One point into Hailstorm (Stormcaller), this is one of those long cast time one and we will not be using Hailstorm until this next point in Relentless Hail is spent.

• One point into Relentless Hail (Stormcaller) making Hailstorm usable.

• One point in Supercharge (Stormcaller) increasing the stack size of Electrified by 1 stack per point spent. Remember Voltaic Strength well that 18% increase is now a 24% increase.

• Another point goes into Acumen (Dominator).
• Another point goes into Burning Fury (Pyromancer).

• One point in Supercharge (Stormcaller) turning that 24% increase into a 30% increase in damage.

• One point into Unstable Atmosphere (Stormcaller) increasing the damage of your Air and Water abilities by how much spell power you have.

• One point into Acumen (Dominator).
• One point into Stoke the Flames (Pyromancer) increasing single target damage by 2% per point spent.

• One point into Unstable Atmosphere (Stormcaller) and breathe.

Abilities:
- Cyclone basically pulls enemies into to the location of your current target, most useful during trash if they are spread about and want to aoe them all down.
- Hailstorm is one of those long cast time abilities, however it will become an instant cast. Ideally you want to use this aoe damage over time ability while enemies are grouped up in one location, and it will also cost Charge to use.
- Storm Locus another major ability. Increases the damage the enemy takes by 20%, however if there’s more than one enemy that 20% is divided between them so each enemy gets an equal amount of damage taken. So at 8 enemies each enemy takes 2.5% increased damage from your Air and Water abilities. Storm Locus can be used out out-of-combat so you can tag them and they will not attack you.

Macros:
#show Icicle
suppressmacrofailures
cast Static Flux
cast Thunder Blast
cast Icicle
cast Thunder Shock
cast Break Free

#show Forked Lightning
suppressmacrofailures
cast Static Flux
cast Thunder Blast
cast Forked Lightning
cast Break Free

Rotation:
Storm Locus > Static Flux > Thunder Blast > Icicle > Raging Storm > Thunder Shock

Keeping Static Flux, Thunder Blast, Icicle & Raging Storm on cooldown and spamming Thunder Shock.

You should target to use Living Storm during your single target rotation, the start of rotation preferable before Raging Storm, however only if the enemy is only to take a while to die.

Make sure to apply the buff Storm Armor to yourself.
Using Storm Armor while dealing single target damage and to remove Storm Armor when dealing aoe damage.

Keep Storm Locus active on your current target, it’s a major debuff if it’s only one target.

We will not be using Flame Bolt or Countdown any more.

So at this point of time other souls should becoming viable to the damage you're currently doing with this spec, and they will eventually surpass it completely as you level. Now I would recommend you keep this spec for about 5 more levels maybe more though it’s up to you.

I will personally changing this spec into Pyromancer for the future of this guide.

So here is when you reset your soul points and choose your new spec:
40 Pyromancer, 12 Stormcaller, 1 Harbinger
40 Pyromancer, 12 Stormcaller, 1 Elementalist

Spent Soul Points:

• 5 points in Ignition (Pyromancer) to reduce the cast time of Fireball to 2s and increase the range of damaging abilities by 5 meters.
• 3 points in Fiery Concentration (Pyromancer) to avoid pushback on Fireball while in Warfronts or during heavy incoming aoe damage.
• 3 points in Burning Focus (Pyromancer) increasing single target damage by 6%.
• One point into Burning Bonds (Pyromancer) providing a root ability once Unbreakable Bonds is spec’d into.
• 3 points in Stoke the Flames (Pyromancer) increasing the damage of Fireball and Cinder Burst by 6%.
• One in Flicker (Pyromancer) to provide a quick jump to a new location, depending on where you are facing forward.
• 3 points into Innate Fire (Pyromancer) to increase the bonus damage increase Internalize Charge provides by 6% and the stack count to 6 stacks.
• One point in Fire Storm (Pyromancer) to give you an aoe ability.
• 3 points into Improved Flame Bolt (Pyromancer) to make Flame Bolt increase your damage for 10 seconds.
• One point in Pyromancer's Blessing (Pyromancer) to make any damaging Fire ability to cause Cinder Burst to become instant, basically making Cinder Burst usable now with in the main rotation.
• One point in Wildfire (Pyromancer) to allow you to have some kind of Fire ability to use while moving or kitting an enemy, however it does require to be proc'd first to do that.
• 2 points in Pyromancer's Vengeance (Pyromancer) to increase the chance that Cinder Burst becomes instant, but more importantly allows you access to Pyromancer's Fury later on.
• 5 points in Pyromania (Pyromancer) increasing the damage of Fire abilities based on your Spell Power.
• One point in Heat Wave (Pyromancer) to make you cast Fireball super fast for 15s every minute.
• One point in Flash Burn (Pyromancer) making your interrupt Scorch stun any enemy for 5s, though cannot stun the same enemy again for 45s.
• 2 points in Spark (Pyromancer) make that 1.5s global cooldown after any ability be reduced to 1s.
• 3 points into Pyromancer's Fury (Pyromancer) makes Fireball usable in the rotation, so long as you have the stacks of Pyromancer's Fury to use up.

• 5 points in Storm Energy’s (Stormcaller) to giving you 10% more Spell Power.
• 5 points in Cyclogenesis (Stormcaller) to increase crit chance by 5%.
• 2 points into Conductive Medium (Stormcaller) increases your damage by 2% per stack. However it does require the use of Charge consuming abilities such as Internalize Charge to keep it active and it stacks to max while out-of-combat.
• One point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger) for 2% increase in Spell Power per point spent.
• One point in Biting Cold (Elementalist) to increase crit chance by 1% per point spent.

Abilities:
- Pyromancer’s Armor increases Fire damage by 6% and allows Pyromancer's Blessing/Vengeance/Fury to trigger, without Pyromancer’s Armor you can’t use your main abilities.
- Fireball your main damaging ability to use that accounts for about 30% of your damage.
- Flame Bolt a slight jolt of damage and increases your damage for 10s, and can be used for movement from time to time.
- Countdown a delayed damaging ability useful for building stacks of Pyromancer's Fury and later on will become a very important part of you damage.
- Cinder Burst your mini nuke ability once it becomes instant.
- Inferno doesn’t require the 1s global cooldown before it can be used so once the enemy is below 40% health Inferno can be used every 10s without interference.
- Fire Storm allows you to channel aoe damage in a specific location.
- Raging Storm your filler ability if you run out of Pyromancer's Fury stacks in order to cast Fireball while everything is on cooldown.
- Thunder Shock is another filler ability if you run out of Pyromancer's Fury stacks and allows you to deal damage if you need to move around.
- Internalize Charge boosts the damage of your next 6 abilities by 16%, does cost Charge to use though.
- Heat Wave an awesome ability to use if you just have Fireball to cast allowing to burn the enemy to death in seconds, however it does require at least one stack of Pyromancer's Fury before using.
- Burning Shield provide a shield to shield you from some of the incoming damage that might or will hit you.
- Scorch your only interrupting ability to stop cast time abilities from completing like Fireball on the enemy, or to stun an enemy as they start to use the heavy damaging abilities, or to stop them from running away.
- Burning Bonds to stop an enemy from moving.
- Burn disable the enemy preventing them from dealing damage or doing healing or anything other than moving.
- Flicker allows you teleport to a new location a few meters away to avoid damage.
- Ride the Wind is your run away ability if you want to quickly depart your current location, does cost Charge to use.
- Cerebral Flare allows you to channel your mana back if you run out, later on during endgame content you might find this a waste of time during combat so you might what vials that provide mana once you get up to that level.

Macros:
#show Flame Bolt
suppressmacrofailures
cast Inferno
cast Countdown
cast Flame Bolt
cast Fireball
cast Thunder Shock
cast Burning Shield
cast Break Free

#show Heat Wave
suppressmacrofailures
cast Heat Wave
cast Inferno
cast Fireball
cast Thunder Shock
cast Burning Shield
cast Break Free

Rotation:
Flame Bolt (Cinder Burst) > Countdown (Cinder Burst) > Fireball x2 (Cinder Burst)

Have Pyromancer's Armor active before you do damage.

Keep Flame Bolt, Countdown and Cinder Burst on cooldown.
If you have Pyromancer's Fury stacks use Fireball, if not channel Raging Storm or use Thunder Shock.

Keep Internalize Charge active on yourself on yourself, so when you consume the last stack press it again.
When Cinder Burst become instant use it right then and there.

For Heat Wave use it whenever you want to deal a lot of damage to an enemy while your standing in one spot, you can use Flicker to move if they move out of range or root them before you start Heat Wave.

You can build stacks of Pyromancer's Fury with Fire Storm before you enter combat if you have time.

At this point I want to introduce Kalerts to you to help keep track of specific abilities, this is a very useful addon that you can use at any level however for this guide it most important now that we have gone deep into Pyromancer.

The addon is called karuulalert which you can download from http://ift.tt/1YnQHHw

Before I give you the code to get tracking abilities here's some tips.

You have Sets which match the number of Roles you have so if you have 3 Roles you can have Set 1 track buffs for your 1st Role then Set 2 track buffs for your 2nd Role and so on.
If you go through all the Sets you come across Sub Sets which allows you track abilities no matter what Set you are using.
So in short use Sets for your Roles and Sub Sets for Boss Mechanics.

Karuulalert also need to learn abilities if you need to make new Kalerts, it needs to be scanning while you play.

I'm giving you a complete Set of Kalerts for Pyromancer, two Kalerts have bee disabled as they aren't needed right now.

Karuulalert:

Code:

KA::A1/ikeNqdkluPmzAQhf8Kb31LbWLAyE/mpu5LtVql6kukaAJDQDWwst2V6OW/17BRmnRpl63
GSGAfmfnmnPtRDx30Jep3xiu+6lFQsROPCkbU82vhnvsXIsnSPPEzSijJJc0zJohTF66Iq4e2tiI
DC+/3n+72cGxVa8dDWw692dcKTONvqsqIMPAFJ5EIybToxg/cHd+NhfKL+SnS/OMuf3A7bk2Xbsn
czXl7/grn/xU/7rpHPTxh5RUKOvSSQdm5mz8wlmSSkNjPGSWBn4UZK+RqEOxRn8YjQkdhxoloJCK
2vcVZxtgtY/QWdQ+q/YZe2oA+4ZIZCyo5uxAQxhNOAy6D1RAaFYLBBsGy44WCE77ClKn+YcpNaKT
uBn1LU7yM1rNKhmEaZzxlUSSLLN/mq2lAl9CjaVpUFTtHbOs88W9pUjD2ioTM5U7+RiLL0o1JQ3+
dqo2dRm8vtlyJJAtdnNIgZHFcJDFfb8dRoTFtfzoM9cE2eKinoJpnXzh9JV0XP5bT9cF57H2Gp8V
Q/T6UEU+I79MgdQipm/8bmh+Gqm410nPDxAUp/u+GfwEhzmIk

New Soul Point:

• Your first point goes into Flame Volley (Pyromancer) give you a very damaging channel ability.

• One point into Accelerant (Pyromancer) causing Countdown to increase how much damage is done to the enemy.

• One point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger).
• One point in Biting Cold (Elementalist).

• 3 points goes in Accelerant (Pyromancer) making the enemy take a total of 10% more damage from you.

• One point in Eldritch Knowledge (Harbinger).
• One point in Biting Cold (Elementalist).

• 2 points in Fire Starter (Pyromancer) removing the cooldown from Countdown allowing Accelerant to place on new enemies right away.

• 3 points into Burning Fury (Pyromancer) increasing your crit chance by 2% per point spent.

• 3 points into Improved Bolt (Pyromancer) making Fireball more crit friendly.

• One point in Incinerating Flames (Pyromancer) reducing the damage you take while using Heat Wave.

• 2 points into Wildfire (Pyromancer).

• One point into Smolder (Pyromancer) improving your damage on the enemy if you have Countdown active on your current target while channeling Fire Storm.

• One point into Chain Reaction (Pyromancer) making Countdown trigger damage on all the enemies when you current Countdown expires while you were channeling Fire Storm them.

• Now the 3 and final points into Ravenous Flames (Pyromancer) giving access to the last root abilities!!!!!!

Abilities:
- Flame Volley is a massive amount of damage over 3s and another massive amount right after you complete the channel.
- Fulminate does cost Charge however deal massive amount of damage.
- Searing Bolt deals damage and triggers Countdown’s damage on the enemy, allowing you cast Countdown again.
- Fusillade channels Fireballs at the enemy far faster than Heat Wave ever could dealing a massive amount of damage in 2.5s.

At this point of time it's best to have you look at full Pyromancer guides for Level 60+ players to get you doing more damage.
Guides such as Learning Pyromancer or Quick Pyromancer Guide.

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Leveling as a Damage Dealer