Unlike the frostfire mage, the specialized fire mage puts his remaining talent points in the arcane tree since additional frost talents would be of no use to him. Normally, that is what you call a 18/53/0 spec, which picks up all the talents that empower the fireball on the way to living bomb and instant pyros. All in all the gameplay of the fire mage is very similar to the frostfire mage's but the fire mage has to sacrifice mana efficiency for higher damage rates. Besides, as the name suggests, the fire mage will be screwed when dealing with mobs that are resistant or even immune to fire. Fortunately, however, the raid content of Wrath of the Lich King does not contain such encounters yet, so you do not have to worry about that right now. And besides, Blizzard has announced that there will be the future possibility to switch between two specs on the fly. That way, a mage could have fire and frost power with him all the time and be prepared for nearly any situation.

Similar to the frostfire mage, the fire mage puts his emphasize on spell damage when collecting his gear. But where the frostfire mage does not really profit that much from spell haste rating, the fire mage will go for items with this stat since he gets enough critical strike rating from his fire spec and the fireball glyph.