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  1. #1

    To the people going Fire, next spec?

    What will you get first, Frost or Arcane?

    I was going to go for Frost but I'm fairly sure Arcane will be strong next tier or just sooner or later.

  2. #2
    Stood in the Fire Torian kel's Avatar
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    ... Both? With Artifact Knowledge, while your primary will likely always have a point or two ahead, their's not reason to not have the other two closely behind.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Torian kel View Post
    ... Both? With Artifact Knowledge, while your primary will likely always have a point or two ahead, their's not reason to not have the other two closely behind.
    Ahh, I see. Haven't payed that much attention to the swapping of specs lately.

  4. #4
    I think I'll go for Arcane as my first offspec.

    Not too worried about Artifact level but the secondary stats in Fire gear will be better for Arcane than for Frost. Since we usually aren't able to build two sets during progression because everyone is gearing up, I think it's better to focus on using what I have.

    Or am I missing something here?

  5. #5
    Nothing else until progress is over, then some frost, just because I find the rotations miles above arcane.

  6. #6
    You are missing something, mastery is now last for fire as crit>haste is the new priority. Arcane will want to stack master>haste, and frost will be haste>crit.

    As such, fire>frost is a better match up.

  7. #7
    Fire>arcane.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Vycaus View Post
    You are missing something, mastery is now last for fire as crit>haste is the new priority. Arcane will want to stack master>haste, and frost will be haste>crit.

    As such, fire>frost is a better match up.
    Secondary stats are a very minor factor. They should not base major decisions like that. It's the mechanics that matter and the total numbers above all.

    PS. You are wrong about what you say on specifics by the way. e.g. Mastery may be very weak on Arcane currently.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Curnivore View Post
    Mastery may be very weak on Arcane currently.
    Which is annoying as hell considering it's our attuned stat. Mage Armor gives 192 Mastery. That's less than 2% mastery. That's 2% more mana and mana regen. How is that even REMOTELY comparable to 15% crit and 8% haste?

    I think Crit is our best stat with the other two stats trailing behind.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    arcane i think so

  11. #11
    Secondaries are everything when picking your off spec. You're only gonna get 1 set of gear during progression, and playing a "door spec" without proper stats would be pointless. You go stack haste and mastery fire arcane, because that will be the prio, and then run fire as your off and tell me how that goes.

  12. #12
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    2 things:

    1) I'll be using Arcane as my offspec, and eventually MS later on

    2) why are people saying that haste is a stat we should be aiming for when talking about Fire?
    Sylvaeres-Azkial-Pailerth @Proudmoore

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Torian kel View Post
    ... Both? With Artifact Knowledge, while your primary will likely always have a point or two ahead, their's not reason to not have the other two closely behind.
    Artifact Knowledge is catchup mechanic and it will not affect you much in early weeks of Legion (5 days research and pretty low increase with first few research notes).

    Best bet is Arcane as second spec.

  14. #14
    Haste reduces the CD of fire blast and the cast time of fire ball. Because haste directly leads to more pyros, the increase to mastery is minimal gains. Also, during combustion, all crit rating becomes mastery rating. More haste means more globals during combustion.

    Mastery's importance was linked to old fire's combustion and general aoe damage. Now that we have flame strike, more hot streaks means more aoe or ST.

    Thus Crit >>> haste > mastery.

    Mastery is still good, just not 2nd.

  15. #15
    I don't think attuned stats exist anymore. Could be wrong.

    I would imagine Arcane is the 2nd spec you'd want to focus on. Frost doesn't provide a ton that fire does not. I think Frost could be very competitive assuming it's tuning gets equal or very close to Fire.

    But Arcane has very good burst aoe. And greater invis which Ofc is a nice defensive but more importantly can occasionally cheese mechanics.
    Quote Originally Posted by Unmerciful Conker View Post
    What?! They said soon? Well you dont hear that everyday, I dont know about you guys but that has put my mind at total rest.

  16. #16
    I will be all-in on fire and praying they don't fuck us too hard with the hotfix balance. Even if the DPS numbers are way closer I believe Fire to be superior mechanically for most important things on progression to the point that I'm reasonably confident going all-in on its weapon.

    To everyone talking about artifact knowledge and how you can easily have all three it definitely does not work like that. Also the artifact knowledge increases so slowly at expansion launch.. remember it starts at 7 days and slowly goes down.

    Yes, you are choosing between 21-22 in one wep vs like 19/19 when the raid opens. Thats true but remember they buffed the final 20 stack traits significantly and if you mess around with leveling every weapon you will be significantly behind on that when progression time for NH is happening. The fire weapon for example is 15% fire damage at 20/20 which is pretty significant.

    Its very easy to get any/all weapons to 20-25 traits. But getting those ranks into the 0/20 "final" trait is going to be massive for DPS and requires a fully unlocked artifact to even start.

    To give more concrete evidence with numbers (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...0/edit#gid=0):

    Total cost for a level 40 artifact (4/20 in final trait so 7% increased fire damage dealt) is ~17 million AP. Total cost for having two artifacts maintained equally up to 36 each is ~8.7 million AP each, so ~17.4 total.

    If you choose to level your fire weapon + an offspec equally, by the point in the expansion that you have earned ~17 mil AP you will be missing 7% increased fire damage vs someone that pumped the fire weapon only. Based on the spreadsheet math (it assumes you do daily heroic, 8x mythic dungeons per week, and all suramar rep + AP world quests each day) you will reach 17 mil AP roughly 77 days after Legion launches.

    It will take 194 days to have one artifact that is fully unlocked 36/36 + 20/20. Getting your 2 off-specs to just 28 traits each (basically unlocking your gold traits and most relevant DPS ones) will cost you 2 million AP which is not an insignificant amount - its exactly the same that it costs you to go from 36 to 37 on one artifact which gives you your first 5% increased total damage trait.

    TLDR: Its definitely possible that they change how AP works, but as it is right now on the beta you will be gimping your "main" specs damage by trying to maintain two specs instead of focusing on just one. This is a long-term thing, you will not have a fully maxed out artifact until 6+ months into the expansion so these choices aren't just for the opening raid or something.
    Last edited by Ammanas; 2016-08-18 at 06:01 PM.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Ammanas View Post
    Thats true but remember they buffed the final 20 stack traits significantly and if you mess around with leveling every weapon you will be significantly behind on that when progression time for NH is happening. The fire weapon for example is 5% fire damage per point.. being behind even 2-3 points on that is going so manifest in a significant DPS difference.
    That's not true. Currently, the first point is 5%, the second 1% and 0.5% for every point after that. Total will be 15% at 20/20.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Arcane Slow spell allows for better kiting and Greater Invisbility might allow them to do soaking...........but get the feeling 60% dmg reduction is not enough.

    So probably arcane would be a my second spec because of the utility

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Vagar View Post
    That's not true. Currently, the first point is 5%, the second 1% and 0.5% for every point after that. Total will be 15% at 20/20.
    Ah thank you for the correction, that definitely leaves me feeling a bit better about it. However with the example I gave above your still missing 7% increased fire damage which isn't insignificant. I'll update the other post so people don't see the 20% number and draw the wrong conclusions.

  20. #20
    Arcane is likely to be the better choice for fire mage offspec. Simply because of its mechanics that allows for a long burst phase and decent cleave even without spending talents in the AoE setup.
    IMHO

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