Scorch

Scorch is a mage spell that deals fire direct damage. Its short cast time offers proportional damage output when compared to other direct damage fire spells. Scorch’s damage is instant once the spell is cast. It is a blast effect rather than a missile or projectile. This makes it hard to trace back to the casting mage. Scorch has the best damage per mana ratio of all fire spells.

Improvements



 * Bonus Damage: Playing with Fire, Fire Power, Molten Fury, Spell Impact, Arcane Instability, Arcane Power and Spell Power will increase the effective damage output of this spell.


 * Casting Time: Presence of Mind will make Scorch instant cast, while Icy Veins will give 20 spell haste and immunity to interruption, but both are wasteful as Scorch already has a short (1.5 second) cast time.


 * Critical Strike Chance: The talent Improved Scorch adds a debuff to the target that increases the spell critical strike chance against them by 5% for 30 seconds. Combustion gives a 10% bonus when activated and lasts until 3 critical strikes occur. Incineration, Critical Mass, Pyromaniac and Arcane Instability each increases the chance by varying amounts.  Arcane Potency increases your critical strike chance by a large amount after gaining the Clearcasting state or using Presence of Mind.


 * Critical Strike Damage: Burnout increases its mana cost by up to 5%, but also increases its critical strike damage by up to 50%. Spell Power gives a critical strike damage bonus to all your spells.


 * Mana Cost: Pyromaniac, Precision and Frost Channeling each reduce its casting cost. Master of Elements will refund up to 30% of its cost whenever it crits.  Arcane Concentration can give you the Clearcasting state that reduces your next spell's cost by 100%.


 * Range: Flame Throwing extends the range of Scorch to 36 yards at max rank.


 * To Hit Chance:: Precision and Pyromaniac each improves this by 1-3%.


 * Miscellaneous: Ignite gives targets hit with a critical strike a DoT for up to 40% of Scorch's damage. Impact gives a 4-10% chance of a hit stunning a target for 2 seconds- effective with Scorch because the spell can easily (and most likely will) be spammed.  Hot Streak causes 2 consecutive strikes from Scorch, Fireball or Frostfire Bolt to make your next Pyroblast spell instant cast.


 * Glyph: The Glyph of Scorch increases its damage by 20%.

Tips and tactics
This spell has excellent DPM, and when combined with Arcane Concentration is a great way for the mage to do good single-target damage without needing to rest often. A mage can constantly cast Scorch (each immediately after the last, since the cast time is the same as the Universal Cooldown) until he reaches the clearcasting state, which he can then "cash in" for a free heavy damage spell like Arcane Missiles. This is a group-only technique, however, as Scorch's DPS is too low for you to kill even-leveled mobs (especially while losing casting time to damage) without being killed yourself.

The Improved Scorch talent is a wonderful way to help getting more critical strikes (and thus more chance on Hot Streak). Besides a static +3% crit chance on scorch, fireball and frostfire bolt, it also applies a debuff which increases spell critical strike chance against that target by 5% and lasts 30 sec. As of patch 3.3.0 this no longer requires stacking the debuff to obtain 5%. The scorch debuff is also not just something that not only fire mages can enjoy, but any other DPS caster as well. Note however that the debuff doesn't stack with any similar effects like a Frost Mage's Winter's Chill or a Warlock with Improved Shadowbolt.

Scorch is a much overlooked primary attack spell in raids. When used with appropriately high levels of critical strike rating as part of a scorch and fireblast rotation, in conjuction with the fire and arcane talents that boost critical strike damage and rate it produces perfectly viable raid DPS with excellent mana efficiency. Fireball is preferrable is most situations however, as it has a higher coefficient to cast time ratio derived from the talents Improved Fireball and Empowered Fireball, receiving a larger benefit from one's spell damage gear. See spell power coefficient for more information.