Fire Mage Guide 5.0.5

[Deleted]

You sure on this? When checking my character it said:

LB: 19400 dot with 19500 explosion in 11.12 seconds -> 3506 dps
Nether Tempest: 42000 as dot in 12.05 seconds -> 3508 dps

Sure, it is ahead. But on a so minimal amount it does not matter.

Yeah, because the haste breakpoint of NT is lower than LB. And longer duration = less refresh = more FBs

[Deleted]

Well Carline's math is a little wrong, because he assumed that the 5% haste buff from Spriests and boomies is 5% on your total so if you had 1000 haste before the buff you would have 1050 after.

This is incorrect, the 5% haste buff is the equivalent of 5% worth of haste OR 2125 Haste, as for the reforge numbers, this is the stat priorities that I am pretty sure with I would say 98% sure, these are the values that are supported by my own personal tests and over 1000000 iterations on several versions of simcraft. BUT it is only what? day 10 of the expo... I could be wrong. but I am pretty confident.

I'll also point out that this is horribly wrong. Haste has ALWAYS been multiplicative based on your own personal values, never additive.

[Carline]

Well Carline's math is a little wrong, because he assumed that the 5% haste buff from Spriests and boomies is 5% on your total so if you had 1000 haste before the buff you would have 1050 after.

This is incorrect, the 5% haste buff is the equivalent of 5% worth of haste OR 2125 Haste, as for the reforge numbers, this is the stat priorities that I am pretty sure with I would say 98% sure, these are the values that are supported by my own personal tests and over 1000000 iterations on several versions of simcraft. BUT it is only what? day 10 of the expo... I could be wrong. but I am pretty confident.[COLOR="red"]

No it's not. Haste behaves multiplicative (= just the way I calculated). You're wrong.

Also this is true:

According to your weights intelect is not double value of crit. so in a yellow socket would be better to gem pure crit.

With those stat weights you stated in the OP it would make no sense to gem for intellect since 2xCRIT > 1xINT

[Daves]

With those stat weights you stated in the OP it would make no sense to gem for intellect since 2xCRIT > 1xINT

This is what I don't understand either.. if INT in ilvl460-ish is worth 3.1, then crit is worth 3.2 (160 int gem vs 320 crit gem).

Can someone please verify this? I'm still not sure what to gem for atm. Yellow 320 crit, red 80 int 160 crit? Or gem for intellect?

As for 12.5% haste.. I'm missing around 300 haste to get it (raid buffed ofc), would it more beneficial for me to get a pure haste gem in one of the yellow sockets in this case?

[scuac]

1 Haste = 425 rating.

3043/425= 7.16

7.16%+(5%)= 12.16% check please.

Except that Haste is a multiplicative stat and you don't simply add it.

1.0716 x 1.05 = 1.12518 or 12.52%
check please

[Carline]

This is what I don't understand either.. if INT in ilvl460-ish is worth 3.1, then crit is worth 3.2 (160 int gem vs 320 crit gem).

Can someone please verify this? I'm still not sure what to gem for atm. Yellow 320 crit, red 80 int 160 crit? Or gem for intellect?

As for 12.5% haste.. I'm missing around 300 haste to get it (raid buffed ofc), would it more beneficial for me to get a pure haste gem in one of the yellow sockets in this case?

Regarding gems: Well, it highly depends on your gear setup overall. I've run several sims with different setups with my gear (ilvl 463+) and it seemed that I was pretty much right at a "border line".
In several sims, where I gemmed for INT, it seemed CRIT was more valueable with 0.51 or 0.52 (using relative values regarding INT for more convenience).

But when I changed my setup to full HIT/CRIT gemming (+ I would have CRIT on every single piece, either base stat or reforged; otherwise you would sometimes trade INT for HASTE/MASTERY) INT became more valuable with CRIT at 0.48/0.49.

However, it was really close in every Sim, even though I played around with the gemming/reforging/enchanting a lot. After several (6 or more times with 50k literations) Sims i decided to use the setup with the highest theoretical DPS -> gemming for full HIT/EXP/CRIT with INT/CRIT mixed gems only in red sockets when I couldn't need any HIT/EXP anymore. (again meaning that I had hitcap and CRIT on every piece, either base or reforged)

I want to point out that this was for MY setups and probably shouldn't be used as a general guide. But I'm pretty confident to draw one conclusion: With gear around 463 stat weights of INT and CRIT are pretty close to each other (if you take double CRIT obv) and it highly depends on personal setup/preferences. It won't make or break your setup at this point. Actually I think Blizz has done a really good job with the new gemming system because you now have a lot more choices than gemming straight INT, what we've done for years now pretty much all the time.

Also my gear has changed over the past few days (473) and I will run new Sims to see if anything changed drastically. If you are interested please feel free to send me a PM, but it probably will take a while.

EDIT: As for gemming 1 haste gem until haste breakpoint. Not sure about that either at the moment. I'm missing 90'ish haste to 3043 so I might go for a 160haste/160hit gem instead of 160crit/160hit. But that's not tested or simmed yet...

[Rinoa]

If Int has a scaling factor of 3.1, and crit has one of 1.6 - wouldn't it then make sense to gem +320 crit in yellow slots instead of 80 int + 160 crit?

80 Int plus 160 crit would be (80*3.1)+(160*1.6)=504

While 320 crit would simply be 320*1.6=512

Is there something I'm missing, or is pure crit better than int/crit if your scale factors are correct?

Edit: Only read the OP so I missed all the discussion. Reading it now.

[Rekindled]

Removed the stat weights section because people seem to have issue raiding the big wall of text and acknowledging that the weights are iffy and a generalization at best, due to the nature of crit, haste and int scaling. Also WIP= work in progress So its removed for now. I am churning out about 5 seperate 100000 sims to try and get weights, but it totally based on gear. Also why are people so but hurt over talents. Like I said tier 6 - personal choice all I can do is attempt to guide you on how I think is the best way to play. These are guides, you are not robots.

[Ardolas]

greeting all!
my eng may be bad, bz i'm rus ))
read this portal till every day, there are a lot clever mages ^^
but i'm not raiding in cataclysm and don't know about changes.. =( and have few questions, plz help me)
1. about haste.. what amount i need to get more ticks unbuffed? 2241 or 3056 unbuffed i need? and what raidbuff buff we for haste?) i know play such as casual in 10, and don't have all classes
2. in raid pally buff mastery +3k, i read in one theme that now we need ~15% mastery => mage don't needed items for mastery?

[scuac]

greeting all!
my eng may be bad, bz i'm rus ))
read this portal till every day, there are a lot clever mages ^^
but i'm not raiding in cataclysm and don't know about changes.. =( and have few questions, plz help me)
1. about haste.. what amount i need to get more ticks unbuffed? 2241 or 3056 unbuffed i need? and what raidbuff buff we for haste?) i know play such as casual in 10, and don't have all classes
2. in raid pally buff mastery +3k, i read in one theme that now we need ~15% mastery => mage don't needed items for mastery?

1. You need over 3000 haste plus raid haste buff to get to 12.5% total haste so your dots get and extra tick (this is for fire mages). The raid haste buff is provided by caster dps specs of hybrid classes (i.e. Boomkin, Spriest and Elem. Shaman).

2. Mastery is the most important stat for Arcane mages. Fire and Frost don't care too much for it, and having that buff or not is not a big deal.

[Deleted]

Removed the stat weights section because people seem to have issue raiding the big wall of text and acknowledging that the weights are iffy and a generalization at best, due to the nature of crit, haste and int scaling. Also WIP= work in progress So its removed for now. I am churning out about 5 seperate 100000 sims to try and get weights, but it totally based on gear. Also why are people so but hurt over talents. Like I said tier 6 - personal choice all I can do is attempt to guide you on how I think is the best way to play. These are guides, you are not robots.

I'm sure people appreciate the effort you've put into making the guide, but when making a guide you should attempt to remove all personal bias from it, and try to present things as transparently as possible. This is actually why maths has come in handy to a lot of theorycrafters, because it provides all the statistical data that is required and numbers are something everyone can understand (ie bigger numbers will equal bigger dps). Of course you can say 'I'm partial to this, and I think this will work better than X or Y for Z reason', but for example, saying 'Invocation is only viable in theory, not in practice' isn't what people who are maximising DPS will want to see, they will want to see WHY you think this, using numbers.

If stat weights are based on gear, say so, and give your current sim results. People won't argue, what people were surprised about is that, given the stat weights you yourself had calculated, the rest of your guide was incorrect - see the gems section.

No one said that writing a guide was easy. Of course people are going to critique you, constructive or otherwise. If you can't handle that and adapt to what others are saying, don't write a guide. It's that simple. I do, however, appreciate the fact you're trying to help people.

[Yelizra]

It has nothing to do with luck.

This biggest problem I've had with Fire is waiting for Pyroblast! So I can cast a decent Combustion. Casting a full Pyroblast just seems like a waste of time and DPS to me but casting Combustion without all three DoTs is also no good. With optimized reforges, I think I'll be somewhere around 21% crit. Still, sometimes it just seems like I get absolutely no Pyroblasts!; I don't know what else to call that besides bad luck.

[Keyblader]

I have a question but it also applies to frost, most fire mages I see are using Vision of the predator, and Mithril Wristwatch. But I have been using Vision of the Predator and Flashfrozen Resin Globule. In case you aren't familiar with it, it grants 847 hit on equip, and on use grants 4232 intellect for 25 seconds. Is this a bad trinket? or have people just not been lucky with drops. I'd like to know if the vision and wrist watch are a better combo, not only for fire, but for frost as well.

[Deleted]

This biggest problem I've had with Fire is waiting for Pyroblast! So I can cast a decent Combustion. Casting a full Pyroblast just seems like a waste of time and DPS to me but casting Combustion without all three DoTs is also no good. With optimized reforges, I think I'll be somewhere around 21% crit. Still, sometimes it just seems like I get absolutely no Pyroblasts!; I don't know what else to call that besides bad luck.

There is still a fair bit of RNG, but it's far, far less than in 4.3.
Last night, with 24% crit fully buffed, I was getting some fairly large ignites. Maxed out at 72K, but average on-pull ignites were in the 60-65K region. Led to some pretty awesome combusts ^^. Make sure you're using Inferno Blast once you get Heating Up just to guarantee the Pyroblast! proc.

I have a question but it also applies to frost, most fire mages I see are using Vision of the predator, and Mithril Wristwatch. But I have been using Vision of the Predator and Flashfrozen Resin Globule. In case you aren't familiar with it, it grants 847 hit on equip, and on use grants 4232 intellect for 25 seconds. Is this a bad trinket? or have people just not been lucky with drops. I'd like to know if the vision and wrist watch are a better combo, not only for fire, but for frost as well.

Depends largely on whether you need the Hit or not. I've not had good luck with drops so I'm using Resin + watch. If I had the choice, would probably take Vision as Fire purely cos of the extra crit, as frost it's not as important and I would say that the controlled burst of Resin is probably better.

[Deleted]

This guide is so wrong.
4. Your Living Bomb:Combustion priority is wrong. In all situations you should refresh Living Bomb before casting Combustion unless your ignite only had 1-2 seconds left.

Combustion only takes the Ignite and Pyroblasts DoT's for the damage calculation, LB doesn't matter at all.

I have a question but it also applies to frost, most fire mages I see are using Vision of the predator, and Mithril Wristwatch. But I have been using Vision of the Predator and Flashfrozen Resin Globule. In case you aren't familiar with it, it grants 847 hit on equip, and on use grants 4232 intellect for 25 seconds. Is this a bad trinket? or have people just not been lucky with drops. I'd like to know if the vision and wrist watch are a better combo, not only for fire, but for frost as well.

I have all of those trinkets and asked myself the same thing. According to sims, using my character, VotP is the best one out of those three. The difference between FRG and MW was only 100 dps for me, with MW coming out on top. For frost it might be FRG since crit isn't as valuable.



As for stat weights, I did sims today and with my stats, crit is about as good as int (like for most of you guys). However, I have only 2900 haste rating and haste and mastery are about 1/3 worse than crit, I might try a int/haste gem and do another sim to see what it says.

For anyone wondering, my stats are 16885 SP, 2898 haste, 4855 crit, 1084 mastery, everything unbuffed, with my weights being Int 3.05, Hit 1.82, Crit 1.53, Haste 0.99, Mastery 0.93, those weights are fully buffed of course.

[Rinoa]

Is SimC updated yet so you can import armory profiles?

[Deleted]

Haste to 12.5% (3056) [+5% from raid buff] - This assumes Glyph of Combustion OR

I have 3058 haste rating (7.20%) and with 5% raid buff I assume its 12.20%? which clearly isnt 12.50%?

[scuac]

Haste to 12.5% (3056) [+5% from raid buff] - This assumes Glyph of Combustion OR

I have 3058 haste rating (7.20%) and with 5% raid buff I assume its 12.20%? which clearly isnt 12.50%?

1.072 x 1.05 = 1.126 i.e. 12.6%
Haste is multiplicative (as opposed to crit that is additive).

[Decimation2g]

Pretty sure Crit/Int is > than pure Crit gems. Not by much but any gain is better than none.

[Mortanius]

I haven't played WoW since shortly after Cataclysm was released, but a friend of mine told me something disturbing. Is Fire currently rated the weakest spec in regards to raw PvE DPS?