7.1.5: Fire completely wrecked

[Deleted]

Demo warlocks before HFC patch would like to say hi.

It doesn't mean it will be the same now, especially since we're not able to swap specs that easily. Anyway, let's wait and see. There have even been official posts saying number tuning will come at a later stage in ptr.

[BiggestNoob]

Curious what those numbers actually represent since it says last 2 weeks. For progression the picture was somewhat different though. Fire was broken as fuuuck in BRF though, because of double combustion and bosses like tho'gar and hans/franz where you were basically using a quad damage buff.

Other than that, I know for a fact that arcane mages weren't doing 6x the damage of BM hunters during progression of Mythic Iron Reaver, but I didn't stick around for the last 6 something months of HFC to see what actually went down during that time.

I'd have gone back in time if possible. I'm pretty sure the BRF/HM logs are cut off once HFC released, but the HFC logs were there until the prepatch. I know warlocks were top tier in HFC progression (mostly destro, aff on 2 fights and demo on 2 or 3 when add waves still lived long enough). At the end warlocks were just aff on every boss because you just mostly ignored adds (they blew up from cleave) and burned bosses. Speed kills like sub 2 minutes on most bosses.

The fire logs there are a bit misleading -- a highly geared fire in a group that had below average DPS could do insane numbers on many bosses, but Arcane was still better on everything. If adds ever lived long enough for fat combustions your raid's DPS was bad or you had a bad comp. The comps people ran with were warlock/rogue/mage heavy because they had so much burst, and the ring made you do like 200% more damage for 15 seconds, so the goal was to burst as much as possible and use the explosion to skip mechanics or push bosses.

Here are a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV3dBSHBbVo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQKJMUnIP3w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHIoIIpAwM

Most people didn't kill bosses like this but you could do these kinds of things because of how strong these specs were.

[Deleted]

I'd have gone back in time if possible. I'm pretty sure the BRF/HM logs are cut off once HFC released, but the HFC logs were there until the prepatch. I know warlocks were top tier in HFC progression (mostly destro, aff on 2 fights and demo on 2 or 3 when add waves still lived long enough). At the end warlocks were just aff on every boss because you just mostly ignored adds (they blew up from cleave) and burned bosses. Speed kills like sub 2 minutes on most bosses.

The fire logs there are a bit misleading -- a highly geared fire in a group that had below average DPS could do insane numbers on many bosses, but Arcane was still better on everything. If adds ever lived long enough for fat combustions your raid's DPS was bad or you had a bad comp. The comps people ran with were warlock/rogue/mage heavy because they had so much burst, and the ring made you do like 200% more damage for 15 seconds, so the goal was to burst as much as possible and use the explosion to skip mechanics or push bosses.

Here are a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV3dBSHBbVo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQKJMUnIP3w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHIoIIpAwM

Most people didn't kill bosses like this but you could do these kinds of things because of how strong these specs were.

Those are pretty irrelevant though. They could do this because (at least for the last video) their average ilvl was 740+ with legendary rings on every player. During progress when the content was working as intended (outgearing always breaks it) this kind of opening burst meant nothing if you couldn't sustain it.

[gallamann]

What I see is a bunch of fotm rerollers crying about their op spec getting nerfed. Let me explain something your pee-brains can't seem to understand. Blizzard isn't killing fire, they are trying to make every mage spec good SO YOU CAN PLAY WHAT YOU LIKE NOT WHATS FOTM + it's PTR, they'll probably adjust it until they feel like fire isn't the only spec worth bringing to a raid lmao.

Not sure if you play Mage, but you have a SERIOUS problem with Legion mage history.

In beta one could log into Mage Class Hall and see mage spec balance was fucked because 99 out of 100 mages were fire. BTW the lead for Mages at Blizzard should be fired over this.

Most of that was how SHIT Frost and to a lesser extent Arcane were.

Blizzard did NOTHING to bring up Frost/Arcane and that shit state went live.

Meaning all of us mages who want to play mage and not feel like they are dragging their raid down, opted to play fire. Some of us additionally stuck to a ranged class because so many in their guilds were going over to melee.

Were there some FotM, no question. However most of the posts I read on this forum are from long standing mages (3+ expansions).

Further as someone who played Frost in both MoP and WoD, they literally took the "fast pace" play of Frost away and gave it to Fire. Still confuses me because that was really what made Frost fun. Was glad Fire received that feel.

[sosaria]

Not sure if you play Mage, but you have a SERIOUS problem with Legion mage history.

In beta one could log into Mage Class Hall and see mage spec balance was fucked because 99 out of 100 mages were fire. BTW the lead for Mages at Blizzard should be fired over this.

Most of that was how SHIT Frost and to a lesser extent Arcane were.

Blizzard did NOTHING to bring up Frost/Arcane and that shit state went live.

Meaning all of us mages who want to play mage and not feel like they are dragging their raid down, opted to play fire. Some of us additionally stuck to a ranged class because so many in their guilds were going over to melee.

Were there some FotM, no question. However most of the posts I read on this forum are from long standing mages (3+ expansions).

Further as someone who played Frost in both MoP and WoD, they literally took the "fast pace" play of Frost away and gave it to Fire. Still confuses me because that was really what made Frost fun. Was glad Fire received that feel.

And people still want us to trust Blizzard to -not- fk the balancing up with the upcoming patch. Still the first iteration, yes, but history (as above post) suggest they will break the fire mage regardless.

[Deleted]

No matter how often people say this merely is PTR's first iteration and that the changes are only mechanical, people will still believe it's the end of fire.

So be it.

this is so true, ppl forget that this is just the first iteration of the ptr and have only changed the class mechanically, over the next month or so, we'll see the devs making more adjustments to fire's dps, what they are doing or trying to do atleast, is to lower our dependence on our burst windows and improve fire's sustained ST dps which imo is a good thing bcoz we'll loose so much dps if we dont get our combust+RoP combo off that its just stupid, its a step in the right direction.

- - - Updated - - -

And people still want us to trust Blizzard to -not- fk the balancing up with the upcoming patch. Still the first iteration, yes, but history (as above post) suggest they will break the fire mage regardless.

aye, that is a major concern, after all, mages once did "jaw-dropping damage" *cough*

[Wenoxar]

I'd have gone back in time if possible. I'm pretty sure the BRF/HM logs are cut off once HFC released, but the HFC logs were there until the prepatch. I know warlocks were top tier in HFC progression (mostly destro, aff on 2 fights and demo on 2 or 3 when add waves still lived long enough). At the end warlocks were just aff on every boss because you just mostly ignored adds (they blew up from cleave) and burned bosses. Speed kills like sub 2 minutes on most bosses.

The fire logs there are a bit misleading -- a highly geared fire in a group that had below average DPS could do insane numbers on many bosses, but Arcane was still better on everything. If adds ever lived long enough for fat combustions your raid's DPS was bad or you had a bad comp. The comps people ran with were warlock/rogue/mage heavy because they had so much burst, and the ring made you do like 200% more damage for 15 seconds, so the goal was to burst as much as possible and use the explosion to skip mechanics or push bosses.

Here are a few examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV3dBSHBbVo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQKJMUnIP3w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHIoIIpAwM

Most people didn't kill bosses like this but you could do these kinds of things because of how strong these specs were.

You just posted 3 bosses out of 4 (hellfire high council too) where affli is the only real choice, except for Iron Reaver where Destro might be somehow maybe good if you really struggle with the bombs but your position on skada would be bigger with affliction regardless

Demonology was never good on 2 or 3 targets, it was quite good on quick aoe burst like Kormrok or Mannoroth.

Destruction was extremely strong through entire HFC from beginning to the very end except for prepatch where Demonology was the only possible choice.

[Deleted]

In beta one could log into Mage Class Hall and see mage spec balance was fucked because 99 out of 100 mages were fire. BTW the lead for Mages at Blizzard should be fired over this.

Well, we don't know if that was the plan or not. Based on the rather weak attempts to buff Arcane and Frost they might have decided that it will be easier to keep mages happy in the era of artifacts if they are all Fire.

There are always things that won't get mentioned and as a player you cannot be sure what is the real reason. For example these 7.1.5 changes can be because:

a) After almost 3 months of Legion Blizz has enough data to balance specs properly.

or

b) Blizz noticed that people are soon getting full artifacts. It's time to make them grind another artifact.

Of course it can be a bit of both.

[Deleted]

More like: hey guys people are having fun with fire spec, it's time to put a stop to this.

[Obelisk Kai]

More like: hey guys people are having fun with fire spec, it's time to put a stop to this.

Well I like Fire, but I have not been comfortable with how it has been designed in early Legion.

Let's face it, right now Fire is about packing as much damage into Combustion as possible. You know what other spec is designed around packing as much damage into your cooldown as possible? Arcane.

They made a mistake in focusing so much of Fire's damage into a burst window. Fire by it's very nature has always been a sustain based, cleaving spec. Our current set up actually goes against the grain in that it nullifies Fire's advantages and tries to give us a second Arcane spec.

Our sustain is weak because our burst is strong, which means our cleave is also weak over time.

IF, as we expect, the nerf to our burst is followed by a buff to our sustain then Fire will be in a much better place than it was pre-patch.

For those players who love the burst, Arcane (which is the poster child for a burst damage spec) will become the go to playstyle. Arcane is getting some work this patch as well and it seems it is about to rise in the world.

Now, there are still some points of concern with Fire. We have to see the next PTR build, the one they said would make things clearer.

The new Flame On is actually amazing. If you take it, Fire becomes a joy and feels super smooth. The problem is it is so amazing it actually overshadows the other two talents on the tier. Who will take controlled burn or Alexstrasza's fury when Flame On is a passive joy button. Part of me thinks it is so good they should just go ahead and make it baseline. I believe that in it's current state virtually every Mage will take it anyway.

And there is the removal of Ice Floes. A lot of Mages are acting like that this is a catastrophe for Fire and Arcane. For Arcane, I don't know. But objectively, Fire could probably get along just fine without Ice Floes as we have scorch, and scorch could be buffed to compensate. Given the change to the legendary where Scorch is now a guranteed crit rather than a 350% damage increase, a buff to scorch maybe on the cards (and the speed talent you get for scorch is stupid fun when paired with the artifact trait). Fire is one of the most mobile ranged specs in the game. We really do have to be frank, is Ice Floes REALLY that important or is it a spell we COULD do without but it's just so convenient we want to keep it regardless, even if it marginalises scorch?

[Deleted]

And there is the removal of Ice Floes. A lot of Mages are acting like that this is a catastrophe for Fire and Arcane. For Arcane, I don't know. But objectively, Fire could probably get along just fine without Ice Floes as we have scorch, and scorch could be buffed to compensate. Given the change to the legendary where Scorch is now a guranteed crit rather than a 350% damage increase, a buff to scorch maybe on the cards (and the speed talent you get for scorch is stupid fun when paired with the artifact trait). Fire is one of the most mobile ranged specs in the game. We really do have to be frank, is Ice Floes REALLY that important or is it a spell we COULD do without but it's just so convenient we want to keep it regardless, even if it marginalises scorch?

You never had to hard cast a pyro, don't you ? Bracers in a raid environnement without ice floe is broken.

[D3athsting]

For the record my 860 assa rogue alt does same or above ST damage as my 873 fire main, well played blizz

[Obelisk Kai]

You never had to hard cast a pyro, don't you ? Bracers in a raid environnement without ice floe is broken.

So the only reason to have ice floes then is IF you have the legendary bracers...what if the legendary bracers allowed you to move while casting that pyro if the effect procs?

Look at it from the outside. If that's the only reason we need ice floes...then Blizzard is going to conclude we don't need Ice Floes.

[Deleted]

For the record my 860 assa rogue alt does same or above ST damage as my 873 fire main, well played blizz

Given that rogues are (or are supposed to be) single target specialists, you can't seriously complain that fire mages which excel at AOE should be as good as a rogue in ST? 10 ilvl difference doesn't mean you are entitled to be performing great at everything.

[Armourboy]

Given that rogues are (or are supposed to be) single target specialists, you can't seriously complain that fire mages which excel at AOE should be as good as a rogue in ST? 10 ilvl difference doesn't mean you are entitled to be performing great at everything.

No I think the point was that everyone keeps saying that Fire needs to be nerfed because it is great at everything, yet his 860 Rogue is outdoing his 13 ilevel Fire Mage in ST. If we were great at everything his/hers Fire Mage ST should be blowing the doors off of his/hers Rogue.

[Deleted]

You never had to hard cast a pyro, don't you ? Bracers in a raid environnement without ice floe is broken.

Personally, I felt that was the whole fun part of the bracers, having to actually think about your positioning when using it. Of course, I still don't have them, but I reckon with Shimmer you should be more than fine still. I agree Ice Flows is not the worst thing in the world to lose, although I will miss it dearly.

[Deleted]

Not one competent player ever said fire was OP. It's a myth created by people who don't know anything about this game and perpetuated by people even dumber.

I am a very competent player and i love casters. I've played all caster spec for fun, and raided also as many different casters, and i can say i chose fire mage for legion because it was has the superior toolkit of all caster specs in the game currently.

It has literally everything a caster would want to have:
very high mobility - not only ice flows and scorch, also blink, and enough instants that allow you to reposition without major or any dps loss
smooth and intuitive gameplay
super strong burst on demand
very decent single target
strong aoe
super strong cleave aoe
survivalability as no other caster: cauterize and ice block

Call this overpowered, but i think this is just a developer's job well done - to ensure well balanced gameplay and amazing toolkit of the spec(dmg numbers are just a matter of fine tuning).

First 7.1.5 changes are a little bit drastic and some of them even unnecessery, low-tuning bursts gotta result in sustained dmg increase, lets hope we get whats right for us

[Orwell7]

Blizzard: "the class tuning in the patch notes is far from final"

Players: "OMFG THIS IS THE END THIS IS IT THEY KILLED X SPEC!!!!!"

GTFO, how many times did you hear this? How many times they said that they won't have content draughts? Etc-etc.
"relax it's just alpha"
"oh come on, it's in beta, the launch will be OK"
"oh okay, let's wait til 7.1"
"don't worry about 7.1.5 PTR, the patch notes are far from final"

hm?

[Rumstein]

Blizzard: "the class tuning in the patch notes is far from final"

Players: "OMFG THIS IS THE END THIS IS IT THEY KILLED X SPEC!!!!!"

Here's the thing:
Sure, it's only half (if even) the changes that there will be total.
But honestly, what the hell is the point in putting only half the changes in the PTR at this stage? Tweaks to come sure, but skill reworks that are dependent on other skill reworks yet to come? If you destroy half the skills, and add another half to compensate, but you only allow people to test the destroyed ones and not give any word as to what the compensation is, you really think people aren't going to be pissed off?

There is no point putting half the changes (minus balancing number tweaks) into the PTR at a time. Save them up and do them all at once, so that they can be looked at together rather than in a vacuum. Until then, we can only test what they have given us, and tell them that it plays like shit.

[ssviolett]

Blizzard: "the class tuning in the patch notes is far from final"

Players: "OMFG THIS IS THE END THIS IS IT THEY KILLED X SPEC!!!!!"

Blizzard: "the class tuning in the patch notes is far from final"
Players: keep silence
Patch 7.1.5 notes: Fire Mage DPS was reduced by up to 30%
Firemages: Okay

fxd 4 u