Cauterize

This may at first seem like a PvP talent, and yes, it does shine in that aspect of the game. What it essentially provides is death protection. Once per minute, any attack that would ordinarily have killed you will instead return you to 40 percent of your max health (whether that be a heal or not). The catch, of course, is that it also applies a powerful fire DoT effect to you that will damage you for a total of 48 percent of your max health over the next 6 seconds. In other words, it'll kill you if left unchecked.

You have several tools at your disposal to keep you from dying once you cheat death initially: Your healer can heal you, you can Ice Block to remove the DoT, or you can do what I like to do.

I cast Mage Ward. This way, the ward absorbs enough of the DoT effect to keep you alive, and when it dissipates, Molten Shields allows it to trigger Blazing Speed, letting me run around like a crazy person, Scorching and Fire Blasting and just generally being a dick to the boss. It's super fun.

There will be PvE mages who turn their nose up at this talent, thinking that it isn't a DPS-increasing talent. They're right ... it isn't -- if you're alive. If you're dead, lying broken on the ground, bleeding out and not casting any spells -- suddenly Cauterize looks like a pretty big DPS increase. Maybe you're awesome lucky enough that you never die in fights. I'm not. I'm a mage. I die in fights. I sneeze violently or trip over an upturned rock -- and wham, I'm dead. You never know when the ability to cheat death might come in handy. Just ask a rogue.

Blast Wave

This is one of many AoE options for fire mages. The 15-second cooldown is a bit longish, and the new ability to target the spell can be more of a curse than a blessing, requiring an extra click and just generally feeling clunky, but Blast Wave is still a powerful tool. It provides meaty instant damage and applies a 70 percent slowing effect that lasts for 3 seconds.

In addition, it works in conjunction with Improved Flamestrike to provide a double-whammy, two-for-one AoE buffet a little further down the tree. For one point, it's worth taking. With the de-emphasis on AoE in Cataclysm, though, you could hardly fault a mage who'd prefer to focus on single target talents if he decided to pass on this.

Hot Streak

Quite possibly the most essentially "fun" mechanic we've got, Hot Streak gives you a free, instant Pyroblast whenever it decides to proc. In this basic version of the talent, you have a small chance to proc the free Pyroblast on every crit from your major fire nukes. This chance fluctuates depending upon your crit chance. My math skills are embarrassing, but in basic terms, the chance of regular tier 3 Hot Streak proccing goes down as your crit levels increase. At lower levels, you'll see it often enough that the talent is well worth it. At higher levels, it gets overtaken by procs from the tier 4 version, Improved Hot Streak. When your crit chance is in the 20 to 25 percent range, the chances of tier 3 Hot Streak proccing are at their highest, something like 9 percent from each spellcast. At around 47 percent crit chance, the chances of getting a tier 3 Hot Streak essentially become zero.

Not that any of this matters, since you'll be taking both talents anyway. The important thing to know is that at most normal ranges of crit chance, you'll be getting Hot Streak procs from both sources. And it's a basic scientific fact that you will never get one when you really need one. This is proven.

Improved Scorch

This may seem odd on the surface. Two talent points gives me a mana-free Scorch? Umkay? The purpose of this talent is to provide you with a mana conservation option in longer fights. What you can essentially do with this is switch from a Fireball-centric rotation to a mana-free Scorch/Hot Streak-Pyroblast rotation when you run out of mana without a major drop in DPS. Thanks to Master of Elements, you'll actually be able to gain mana back during this rotation without spending any whatsoever.

This isn't a huge deal now, when most fights are over before we run out of mana, but it will be in Cataclysm. Trust me. Fights be long, yo.

Molten Shields

This reduces the global cooldown on Mage Ward to half a second, making it approximately 1,000 percent more awesome to cast and also triggers a free Blazing Speed effect whenever the ward absorbs its full amount of damage and dissipates. Best part? You don't have to actually have the Blazing Speed talent to get its effect here. Buckle in: It's fantasy scenario time!

OK, so you get whacked by something hard enough to kill you. Only it doesn't kill you, because Cauterize kicks in. To counter the DoT, you throw up a .5-second global cooldown Mage Ward, which saves you from death a second time seconds later. Molten Shields triggers, and suddenly you have Blazing Speed. You begin sprinting around at crazy speeds, flame coming off your feet, spamming free Scorches while you run thanks to Improved Scorch and Firestarter. Master of Elements returns mana to you the entire time, and Hot Streak gives you a free Pyroblast or two, which you crit with, giving you a big fat Ignite effect, and you also have the tail end of previously cast Living Bomb still working. You whack your target with a sizable Combustion DoT, and since you have an Impact proc sitting in your back pocket from all those Scorch casts, you also pound your enemy with a Fire Blast, spreading all of those DoTs around to everybody else nearby.

And you do all of this without having to stand still even once.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2010 fire tree!