So, Everyone is going Fire at launch?

[Deleted]

Even if fire is best for pvp, is it great compared to other classes?

[ssviolett]

i wouldnt recommend that if you're going to spec fire anyway at ilvl 820+, you're going to miss out on a lot of AP and by the time you reach lvl 110 you'll easily have your first golden trait and well on your way to your 2nd, also keep in mind that flame strike has a slow and it does comparative dmg to fireball/frost bolt and the only thing you need the burst for is for the rares, literally every reason you give for playing is also an argument for playing fire. i dont know why you would lvl as frost if you're going to spec fire anyways, there is literally no reason for it, putting 9-13 points into frost only to respec and start from scratch once you reach ilvl 820+ is really a waste, you'd be better off lvling as fire so that you have 9-13 points in it from the begining.

First of all Frost has great buff for 5% rep and exp - this will be awesome for levelling and unlocking WQs. As for damage and AOE - from my Beta experience mobs are quite tough when scaling with your level. Even with 740 gear I was struggling to kill 4-5 mobs at once in both specs at level 102 - and on higher levels situation will be even worse, so you cannot just tag zillion of mobs and AOE them, single target damage will be required. Also, I'm not going to put a lot of points into Ebonchill - only 8 for improved Ice Barrier, you can easily catch up later with Artifact Knowledge.

[Seneca]

Even if fire is best for pvp, is it great compared to other classes?

(all this post will be based keeping only 3v3 high rated arenas in mind)

To keep it short, I'll make a caster PvP tier list:

God Tier: fire mage, shadow priest
Tier 1: demonology warlock
Tier 2: balance druid, affliction warlock, frost mage
Tier 3: elemental shaman, destruction warlock
Tier 4: arcane mage

Fire is the best you can hope for (with shadow) if you want to play a strong (the strongest with shadow) caster in PvP.

The reasons are:

1) lots of instant casts: their longest cast is like, 1.5sec long anyway with the proper talents, some casters have 2.25 sec fillers (cough arcane cough)
2) triple school of magic: you are not vulnerable (kind of immune) to interrupts, considering the point above too (instant casts).
3) on demand (instant too) burst: Combustion, 3x Fire Blasts, 3x Phoenix's Flame, refresh on Fire blasts through a few talents.
4) lots of medium/hard CCs: dragon's breath + polymorph + counterspell is overwhelming to say the least. Also, it is possible to do dragon's breath + polymorph to get free polys.
5) lots of mobility: having lots of instant casts plus things like shimmer and ice floes means that you can jump right and left 9 out of 10 times.
6) damage is high(er): I don't really know the reason but fire pvp templates are boosted*, compared to the other mage specs.


All in all, I would summarize fire pvp current state in this way:

God tier mobility; (pure mobility + damage while moving);
God tier damage; (boosted templates, reliable thanks to lots of instant casts, bursty on demand)
God tier CC; (more medium/hard CCs than other classes/specs on top of a triple school of magic)
Tier 1 survivability; (indirectly boosted by having lots of CC and mobility, there's also the quite good (or overpowered) flame cannon**, lvl 28 pvp talent)
Tier 4 utility; as all mages lol. TW doesn't work in arena, food can be replaced, teleports make you leave the instance (kappa), slowfall is useless in arena (and situationals in some bgs).


** Flamecannon: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=203284/flamecannon

* fire PvP templates:

Fire
Stat Template

Primary: 120%
Critical Strike: 150%
Mastery: 50%


Spell Multipliers

Cauterizing Blink heals for 50% in PvP
Fireball deals 250% damage in PvP
Pyroblast deals 70% damage in PvP

(brief side note, 150% crit and 50% haste is better than 100% and 100% haste, so that is not neutral to begin with)

Basically, fireball hits for 440% SP in PvP (and it is not even that spammed because there are better things to do most of the time).
With the Tinder*** pvp talent, every 8 secs, the coefficient of your next FB goes up to 572% SP and its dps goes up to 381% SP (excluding secondary stats and artifact traits).

To give it a context, 0 stack arcane blast coefficient is 225% SP and dps is 100% SP (excluding secondary stats and artifact traits, which are in favor to fire too imho). So empowered Fireballs (available every 8 secs) have 4x the dps of 0 stack arcane blasts to put it blunty.

As a side note, it is more like arcane pvp talents being horrible than fire pvp talents being broken.


*** Tinder: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=203278/tinder


Excluding last minute nerfbats, you cannot go wrong with fire if you are looking for a strong pvp caster.

[Deleted]

Nice summary, you forgot "bazillions of fun!"

Its hard to argue the fun level of fire, especially with us getting phoenix flames. You've got flame orbs above your head.
Flame. Orbs. Yes.

[Akraen]

What will you be speccing?

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/frost/MyC0

Pretty much everything I ever wanted as a frost mage.

[Reachie10]

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/frost/MyC0

Pretty much everything I ever wanted as a frost mage.

Will you be PvP and PvEing?

I haven't tried lonely winter yet - no glacial spike?

[Deleted]

(all this post will be based keeping only 3v3 high rated arenas in mind)

To keep it short, I'll make a caster PvP tier list:

God Tier: fire mage, shadow priest
Tier 1: demonology warlock
Tier 2: balance druid, affliction warlock, frost mage
Tier 3: elemental shaman, destruction warlock
Tier 4: arcane mage

Fire is the best you can hope for (with shadow) if you want to play a strong (the strongest with shadow) caster in PvP.

The reasons are:

1) lots of instant casts: their longest cast is like, 1.5sec long anyway with the proper talents, some casters have 2.25 sec fillers (cough arcane cough)
2) triple school of magic: you are not vulnerable (kind of immune) to interrupts, considering the point above too (instant casts).
3) on demand (instant too) burst: Combustion, 3x Fire Blasts, 3x Phoenix's Flame, refresh on Fire blasts through a few talents.
4) lots of medium/hard CCs: dragon's breath + polymorph + counterspell is overwhelming to say the least. Also, it is possible to do dragon's breath + polymorph to get free polys.
5) lots of mobility: having lots of instant casts plus things like shimmer and ice floes means that you can jump right and left 9 out of 10 times.
6) damage is high(er): I don't really know the reason but fire pvp templates are boosted*, compared to the other mage specs.


All in all, I would summarize fire pvp current state in this way:

God tier mobility; (pure mobility + damage while moving);
God tier damage; (boosted templates, reliable thanks to lots of instant casts, bursty on demand)
God tier CC; (more medium/hard CCs than other classes/specs on top of a triple school of magic)
Tier 1 survivability; (indirectly boosted by having lots of CC and mobility, there's also the quite good (or overpowered) flame cannon**, lvl 28 pvp talent)
Tier 4 utility; as all mages lol. TW doesn't work in arena, food can be replaced, teleports make you leave the instance (kappa), slowfall is useless in arena (and situationals in some bgs).


** Flamecannon: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=203284/flamecannon

* fire PvP templates:

Fire
Stat Template

Primary: 120%
Critical Strike: 150%
Mastery: 50%


Spell Multipliers

Cauterizing Blink heals for 50% in PvP
Fireball deals 250% damage in PvP
Pyroblast deals 70% damage in PvP

(brief side note, 150% crit and 50% haste is better than 100% and 100% haste, so that is not neutral to begin with)

Basically, fireball hits for 440% SP in PvP (and it is not even that spammed because there are better things to do most of the time).
With the Tinder*** pvp talent, every 8 secs, the coefficient of your next FB goes up to 572% SP and its dps goes up to 381% SP (excluding secondary stats and artifact traits).

To give it a context, 0 stack arcane blast coefficient is 225% SP and dps is 100% SP (excluding secondary stats and artifact traits, which are in favor to fire too imho). So empowered Fireballs (available every 8 secs) have 4x the dps of 0 stack arcane blasts to put it blunty.

As a side note, it is more like arcane pvp talents being horrible than fire pvp talents being broken.


*** Tinder: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=203278/tinder


Excluding last minute nerfbats, you cannot go wrong with fire if you are looking for a strong pvp caster.

That's a great post but I'd like to point out it's technically not answering the question. It should say why it is better than others. Otherwise one could come in and say "Hey, warriors/other class have this and that and beat it".

I don't mean to ditch it, and I know it might need a small book to fully answer it, just saying it's not conclusive as a comparison by design.

[Torian kel]

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/frost/MyC0

Pretty much everything I ever wanted as a frost mage.

No RoF ? No GS ? Mirror Images ? Cold snap ? What in the world.

[Gungnir]

That's a great post but I'd like to point out it's technically not answering the question. It should say why it is better than others. Otherwise one could come in and say "Hey, warriors/other class have this and that and beat it".

I don't mean to ditch it, and I know it might need a small book to fully answer it, just saying it's not conclusive as a comparison by design.

Well it kind of does. To put it bluntly;
- No other ranged class besides Boomkin has high damage instant casts, and boomkin is gated behind resource while fire can just snap burst any time.
- Fire getting access to temporal shield makes fire remarkably hard to kill on top of having great mobility due to instant casts since you can just top yourself if you get bursted on, which NO other ranged class can do.

Basically, every ranged spec has flaws they have to work around. Fire has the least flaws and is overall the best suited to handle almost every situation.

[HTowN]

Well it kind of does. To put it bluntly;
- No other ranged class besides Boomkin has high damage instant casts, and boomkin is gated behind resource while fire can just snap burst any time.
- Fire getting access to temporal shield makes fire remarkably hard to kill on top of having great mobility due to instant casts since you can just top yourself if you get bursted on, which NO other ranged class can do.

Basically, every ranged spec has flaws they have to work around. Fire has the least flaws and is overall the best suited to handle almost every situation.

Combustion is vulnerable to dispel.

[Seneca]

That's a great post but I'd like to point out it's technically not answering the question.It should say why it is better than others. Otherwise one could come in and say "Hey, warriors/other class have this and that and beat it".

Better than who? Frost and arcane? The other caster specs? All specs in the game? Older versions of fire?

Genuinely asking so I know what kind of answer you would like to have.

I don't mean to ditch it, and I know it might need a small book to fully answer it, just saying it's not conclusive as a comparison by design.

No problem mate, I know that it was a brief summary (it is quite short for being a post of mine :P), I just tried to keep it short to make it redeable and to not overwhelm this topic with my post(s).

As you say, it might need a sort of small book to talk about everything, but tell me what you would like to know and I'll try my best. I can't analyze anything otherwise I would really need 1 week.

Maybe you simply want a comparison with the other mage specs? That's way easier to begin with, for example. Let me know.

[Deleted]

Better than who? Frost and arcane? The other caster specs? All specs in the game? Older versions of fire?

Genuinely asking so I know what kind of answer you would like to have.

What you quoted at first was asking about the strength of fire/mage against other classes.

[Seneca]

What you quoted at first was asking about the strength of fire/mage against other classes.

So u want a deep comparison between fire and the other 35 specs?

[Deleted]

So u want a deep comparison between fire and the other 35 specs?

No I don't expect you to do that. I was pointing out it's not conclusive.

[Lebanese Dude]

Actually nvm

[Antonin]

I also think you're way undervaluing Arcane in PvP. It's certainly not the worst caster, although it may be the worst of the 3 mage specs. Comparing a 0 stack arcane blast to a fireball is silly when Arcane has so many ways to quickly/instantly get 4 stacks nowadays. There is literally no reason to ever cast a 0 stack AB. I'd say it's definitely better than ele shaman or destruction warlock.

[Lebanese Dude]

I think people undervalue Arcane because they don't want to see the good parts of it.

Mass Invisibility itself can decide outcome of games. It's underrated because it's not moar damage.

[Seneca]

I also think you're way undervaluing Arcane in PvP.

Then, the same should be said about Venruki (multi r1 mage) and Ziko (multi r1 mage) let alone the other multi r1 players which think the same.

There's a multi r1 player, called SonyD, which made a sort of tier list of all specs a few days ago, and well, arcane was at the very bottom.


Not trying to boost my argument and turn down yours, my opinion could be biased as hell surely, but when the very best players all say the same thing, I think we can give the argument some credibility?

Keep in mind we are talking about players which have been playing 24/7 3s arena in beta for many, many months.

They stream daily, if you would like to see them playing/commentating.

Edit: https://www.twitch.tv/venruki Venruki playing his fire mage in 3s right now.

https://www.twitch.tv/ziqoftw Ziko with his fire mage, he is not doing 3s right now though.

It's certainly not the worst caster, although it may be the worst of the 3 mage specs.

Well it's also about quantity, if it is way, way worse, than it is already an issue.

The fact that, for example (let's pretend for a moment), arcane is worth 2, elemental and destruction are worth 1, and fire and shadow are worth 10, doesn't mean that arcane is in a good spot, it means that them all, arcane, elemental and destruction, will never be played competitively because their spots are taken by other caster specs.

Comparing a 0 stack arcane blast to a fireball is silly when Arcane has so many ways to quickly/instantly get 4 stacks nowadays.

It's funny you say that, because I think that even a 4 stack AB is lower than that lol (check my math, it could be wrong, I think it was in my last post lol).

To summarize (no traits, no secondaries, which should be more or less neutral I guess, secondaries are fixed in PvP anyway):

0 stack AB: 2.25 sec cast time, 150% SP = 66,66% SP/s

4 stack AB: 2.25 sec cast time, 360% SP = 160% SP/s

Fireball: 2.25 sec cast time, 175% SP (525% SP with pvp multipliers), plus pvp intellect multiplier (1.2), plus Fireball pvp multiplier (2.5) = 233% SP/s

(not that it is needed, but for clarity's sake there's also: )
Fireball with Tinder, pvp talent: as above plus +30% damage, +50% haste, every 8 secs = 1.5sec cast time, 682,5% SP = 455% SP/s

God if I am bad at math, anyone please check it if you don't mind.

Wrong math aside, a normal Fireball, in PvP, hits as hard as 1.5x 4 stack AB (oh my god put this way is sad).

There is literally no reason to ever cast a 0 stack AB.

There's literally no reason to ever cast a 4 stack AB in PvP, considering that a fire mage casting Fireball outdamages you by a lot.

To make it worse, they have better, stronger spells to begin with. At best we can "burst" a bit more with Abar, which resets our stack, or use MoA every few mins, which has a cast, and a delay.


To make it even worse, we go OOM with 8 fully stacked AB (if my math is not wrong). So, if for whatever reason, AB would hit as hard as Fireball, it would still be bad as hell.

I'd say it's definitely better than ele shaman or destruction warlock.

By the time your enemy is at 70% of his health, you, as an arcane mage, are at 0% of your mana.

Yeah, it is bad like that.

Oh, while we are at it, forget to use Spellsteal, because it costs 1/5 of your mana, or 2x times your 4 stack arcane blast if you want.

Arcane is really unplayable beyond imagination, unless there's some niche trick we all are missing.

I think people undervalue Arcane because they don't want to see the good parts of it.

Mass Invisibility itself can decide outcome of games. It's underrated because it's not moar damage.

I am open to enlightenment, I am really are.

edit: about MI, it breaks on damage, so if you have, let's say, a corruption, your invisibility lasts 1 secs. Breaks on AoE damage too.

Also, it's not something new, whose value is hard to quantity, the last exps rogues had, baseline, a mass stealth ability which lasted 3x more than MI does now. Was good, definetely didn't mean a night and day difference.

[BoonOP]

Hey Seneca, you have a link to where SonyDigital gave his list? Curious to see his thoughts. Although I can already imagine it!

[Seneca]

Hey Seneca, you have a link to where SonyDigital gave his list? Curious to see his thoughts. Although I can already imagine it!

Only found the 14 august one, I remember more recent tier lists though

https://www.twitch.tv/sonyd/v/84028311

I wanted to list you the exact minute, but there's not really a clear minute because he keeps adding things on the fly. I suggest you to watch it all to not lose anything.

23 august! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL6jXG_DQ5o