Will Roaring Blaze take over when tier sets are released?

[TummyBoy]

So, in the Warlock T19 set, our two piece bonus is that we (a) now store three charges of Conflagrate, and (b) Conflag's cooldown is reduced by three seconds.

To me at least, this seems incredibly powerful, especially for Roaring Blaze. RB is a 25% damage boost to your current Immolate's damage (until it expires or is refreshed), and it stacks multiplicatively. From that we get the following math:

Immolate + [1] Conflagrate = 1.25 damage multiplier on Immolate for its remaining duration
Immolate + [2] Conflagrates = 1.56 "
Immolate + [3] Conflagrates = 1.95 "
Immolate + [4] Conflagrates = 2.44 "
Immolate + [5] Conflagrates = 3.05 "

With Havoc as a mechanic, assuming there are two targets present when we apply Immolate and buff it up, all of the above values are doubled in a sense, as it is hitting two targets.

I think four Conflagrates is a bare minimum for how far we will be able to buff our Immolate, and maybe even five with enough haste. Of course, it goes without saying that Backdraft also scales with more Conflags, but with the two talents currently neck and neck, I have to imagine that RB will simply be better due to its strong scaling.

Has anyone else come to the same conclusion or is there an argument to be made for Backdraft?

[JV Chequer]

On the other hand 4tp make chain chaosbolting better with fast casts and Backdraft helping on this mainly on "burst priority targets" situation.

[Gaidax]

Hopefully not, I just do not like that talent.

[Deleted]

The talent restricts you a bit too much for my liking having to pool it for predicted burst which effectively only gives you 2 CB casts at the reduced cast time. Think it would be just as useful for chain casting CB

[Sylar Hao]

Probably Roaring Blaze will be better in most situations, but I've never picked it... and I'll stick to that plan. Adding clunkiness to a spec with heavy RNG involved through a talent by pooling and timing Conflagrates while trying to avoid SS capping... not the best idea imo. I prefer casting faster CBs and Incinerates and have a more stable and "free" rotation.

[Liarparadox]

Probably Roaring Blaze will be better in most situations, but I've never picked it... and I'll stick to that plan. Adding clunkiness to a spec with heavy RNG involved through a talent by pooling and timing Conflagrates while trying to avoid SS capping... not the best idea imo. I prefer casting faster CBs and Incinerates and have a more stable and "free" rotation.

I felt this way at first. I now prefer RB. It isn't clunky at all I find anymore; it flows very nicely. o. It doesn't take much to avoid capping; just a bit of practice being mindful of what's coming up/off cd soon, which is what we should be doing anyway. Just takes a bit of practice. I hope it's the clear choice.

[Baconeggcheese]

Depends if it increases the gap between the two and by how much as well as how the encounters play out.

The reason you see virtually no RB usage now even though its technically better is that it isn't practical to use on most fights for the tiniest gain. If that stays consistent with the tier bonus you likely won't see it getting used much if at all.

I used it quite a bit during the alpha / beta but it was kind of hard not to when it was 60% a stack. The gap is so small these days, I'm skeptical.

Oh and that's without taking the belt / bracers into consideration.

[Liarparadox]

The reason you see virtually no RB usage now
.

Not sure why you think this is true. Just an expression? It's used quite a bit. It might not be used as much; but I'd hardly characterize it as "virtually no RB usage".

[Rayaleith]

TBH I strongly prefer RB. With BD you are forced to stay still when you conflag. IF you happen to be forced to move, you lose the buff (or part of the buff).

[Sunlighthell]

I like RB more than BD. With RB my rotation is pretty fluid while with BD there's nothing that can be really called a rotation.

[Bridius]

TBH I strongly prefer RB. With BD you are forced to stay still when you conflag. IF you happen to be forced to move, you lose the buff (or part of the buff).

Same here. I find RB easier to use then BD especially on single target. I HATE having to worry about getting maximum possible benefit from your 3 sec of BD. Moving or casting Immolate just feelsbadman with backdraft up. With RB you get your immolates rolling and that's pretty much it.

It gets a little tricky when cleave comes into play. You need to make sure you're not ruining yourself with a bad havoc + immolate.

Some people in here though saying that it's the "tiniest gain" I don't think that's true. I've noticed a pretty substantial damage increase since I switched over to RB.

BD is still necessary for padding though on a fight like Il'gynoth. Couldn't go without it there.

[penquinn]

Same here. I find RB easier to use then BD especially on single target. I HATE having to worry about getting maximum possible benefit from your 3 sec of BD. Moving or casting Immolate just feelsbadman with backdraft up. With RB you get your immolates rolling and that's pretty much it.

It gets a little tricky when cleave comes into play. You need to make sure you're not ruining yourself with a bad havoc + immolate.

Some people in here though saying that it's the "tiniest gain" I don't think that's true. I've noticed a pretty substantial damage increase since I switched over to RB.

BD is still necessary for padding though on a fight like Il'gynoth. Couldn't go without it there.

maybe because you are playing better but number crunching wise its a minuscule increase for a trickier playstyle for most

[Baconeggcheese]

Not sure why you think this is true. Just an expression? It's used quite a bit. It might not be used as much; but I'd hardly characterize it as "virtually no RB usage".

I guess I should add the caveat "among top parses". Or even further, among top progression parses. I haven't really been paying as much attention since we went on farm, but at least up to that point there was basically 0 RB usage.

[Count Zero]

My big problem with the different playstyles within a given spec is they all compete for muscle memory. It's a lot different when you're using different buttons for, say, single target vs aoe. But when you're using the same buttons in a different way to do the same things ...

I realize there have always been style variations based on what talents/gear/set bonuses/trinkets, etc, etc, but I never really felt like those variations competed for muscle memory against each other the way we have it now.

[Bjarkan]

I guess I should add the caveat "among top parses". Or even further, among top progression parses. I haven't really been paying as much attention since we went on farm, but at least up to that point there was basically 0 RB usage.

Actually, in the pre-patch time, when i was hunting for wolves for Savage Blood, to me was a lot more fluid and easy with RB... Maybe because that time RB was 60%, and we only had one SS for opening, but i remember that using BD was very mana draining for poor damage...

Now, RB usage for me becomes really intuitive. When farming, normally a make packs from 2 with Mana Tap > Havok > Chaos Bolt > Immo > Confla (or x2, depending the target) > CDF... Generally after this is rise and repeat, or if i had a bad hand of RNG with mastery and crit, i finish with some Incinerate or Rain of Fire.

Another thing, maybe is because im confortable with my talents after so many usage, but i dont really know how to open with BD. Right now, i open like this:

Pre-pull: Mana Tap > Pre-pull: Chaos Bolt > Pre-pull: Incineration > Immox2 > Conflagx2 > Chaos bolt > Doomguard > Riftx2 > Conflag > CDF > Mana Tap > ...

That is a fixed opener, a least with my actual haste... Dont mana problems even with Mana tap. I try it BD + RE + SC some time back, and feel the opening was a little weak, and very easy too cut off too if some mechanic happened and was to early to use the defensive CDs. Another thing i dont really like is the illusion of infinity mana... RE restore our mana with each CB we cast sure, but if we had a but time geting SS, BD burn your mana too fast, and it can be unpreditable.

[Baconeggcheese]

but i remember that using BD was very mana draining for poor damage...

I'm not sure why hunting for wolves in prepatch is supposed to be relevant?

Also you typically see BD paired with RE, so mana drain is completely irrelevant.

Now, RB usage for me becomes really intuitive

Never said it wasn't intuitive, said it wasn't practical.

[Cyberthug32]

I have found RB performs better for myself on mythic fights. The good thing is whether you got BD or RB, you aren't really hurting your dps it seems.

[Morbeam]

Our set bonus is so strange -esp the 4th. For RB I am curious to see how people will manage their shards before they immolate because I have the legendary belt and If I have to cast 3 conflagrates one after another while immolate is up I'll probably cap myself even with 0 shards at the begining which may be a big problem. I feel like lots of shards will be wasted here. Now with BD is even more hilarious to me with such low cd on conflagrate / nearly 6.9 with 30%haste/ how we are supposed to cast 2 chaos bolts so we can use the 4th piece bonus and also not cap on conflgrate charges :O It will be something like - conlfragrate - 6.8 sec cd starts here - chaos, incin, chaos - confl again /GCD/ - chaos,incin, chaos or incin/if we dont have shards/ and I think at this point the first charge will be already up again and we havent even used the 3rd one yet. And I don't think that we can even wait for shards if we we want to cast atleast 2 chaos bolts every time after conflagrate. This will be a mess

[HeyGuysHello]

With my Chaos Bolts having a 20% chance to return a shard and Soul Conduit combined, I sometimes feel like crying as I'm trying to get rid of shards to no avail. If I didn't take Backdraft I'd never see the end of my shard pool. The two-piece we've got coming up is seriously interesting, though. Taking averages into account, there's almost no difference in theoretical numbers between BD and RB, but the two-piece looks as if it could be a game changer. Even more interestingly (since I haven't seen it taken into consideration), if there's a seriously movement heavy fight we might even have to consider Shadowburn so that most of our damage comes from Immolate > Shadowburn > Conflagrate > Pet. This situation also makes way for Mana Tap to shine and either Soul Harvest or F&B to get some raid use. This is conjecture of course, but fun to think about.

[Bjarkan]

I'm not sure why hunting for wolves in prepatch is supposed to be relevant?

In prepatch we had different mechanics, only one SS for opener been the most relevant, so the usage and damage of Destro came a lot for Immolate damage, as casting Chaos Bolts, or Rain of Fire for that matter, was not very common from pulls to pulls. This, plus RB boosting Immolate for 60% back then, made RB for efficient to farm then BD.

This is just no more the case, but still, RB is quite good for farm, or a least, i dont had any problem using it for it. And why i use wolves examples, well, was the better experience i had in a enviorement really aggresive (mobs, allys, anothers farmers), so using one spells after another in rapid succetion and for long periods was necessary for a efficient farming. Same principles could apply to Raid & Mythic farms.

Also you typically see BD paired with RE, so mana drain is completely irrelevant.

I'll just quote myself here:

"Another thing i dont really like is the illusion of infinity mana... RE restore our mana with each CB we cast sure, but if we had a but time geting SS, BD burn your mana too fast, and it can be unpreditable."

Do i really need to explain it more? In a simple way, having RE is no mean not having mana problems, because bad RNG can, in fact, force you to use Life Tap anyway (is not quite common, but it happens). We had enough RNG for having another of a resourses tight to it, i prefer having some better control on my spells, and fixed resourse spell cost is a very important thing to control GCD.

Never said it wasn't intuitive, said it wasn't practical.

Practical sense differ from person to person, what is practical for you, could not be practical for me... But this was not what i was mean about. I was mean that after using RB for so long, i could use it efficiently depending on the situation, and become a intuitive when using it with one charge, or two charges, thats all.