Mages' changes facing 7.1.5

[Xuvial]

They have increased scaling by Item level on jewelry for secondaries now. ilvl 905 is 20% more on PTR than live, so ilvl makes a bit more of a difference there as well.

But for fire, will it be worth equipping e.g. 875 ilevel jewellery with the wrong stats (e.g. haste/vers) over an 855 ilevel jewellery that is almost entirely crit? I have a feeling not.

I think Blizzard's whole "ilevel should matter" is only really going to apply to slots which provide primary stats, i.e. everything except jewellery.

[Geldor]

But for fire, will it be worth equipping e.g. 875 ilevel jewellery with the wrong stats (e.g. haste/vers) over an 855 ilevel jewellery that is almost entirely crit? I have a feeling not.

I think Blizzard's whole "ilevel should matter" is only really going to apply to slots which provide primary stats, i.e. everything except jewellery.

That's actually what they stated in their last remark. They are fine with jewelry being the exemption of the "15ilvl 100% upgrade" rule.

[Deleted]

I'm still not sure why they don't add Crit back as a component of INT like it used to be, seems like it would go a long way to pushing INT back on top. I'm guessing there was a reason they took it off and I just can't remember the why.

Just because it's another out of whack scaling thingie.

[Zantharus]

I don't understand why firespec is still getting nerfed. I spent about 3 months gearing my mage with almost all crit/mastery gear exclusively, gemming and enchants and after 2 weeks of playing ice with same ilvl though different-statted gear I outdps firespec by at least 20% (simulcraft suggests I should be approx. 30% higher at the moment with perfect play).

I don't know how you solid old-timer firemages do it. You have to manage those CDs and if any fight mechanic/tank movement/interrupts gets on you during your burst rotation your middle of the pack dps goes to shit. It's very sad that we have to be very tight with core abilities AND have great gear AND not suck in order just to not underperform.


Where the fk did trade and random opinion get going that "Firemages are OP" because one of us downed a legion heroic or early mythic boss with over 300k damage months back? Seriously? Parses and my general examinations (anecdotal) show something like this:


a) Lower ilvls below and around 840, hunters/dks/dh/rogues do way more than mages
b) Higher ilvls around 860-870 add locks spriests ret pallies and enhancement shamans to that list. 880+ I have no personal idea.
c) Unless perfect play, we don't get mythicwide #1 or maybe #2 slot without some luck in the crit RNG. Stuff doesn't live long enough for mastery/cleave to matter and our non-insta-burstdmg is bullshyte, though LB is pretty baller. Yeah boss burst is nice but that by itself doesn't justify a spec, sorry.

Finally, after running a frost CB/IF/TV spec for about 6 weeks I'm finding it a LOT more flexible, a lot more forgiving about movement and a lot less stressful than possibly running into a 2-3 sec cast issue and dropping my dps over 100k in a fight. I feel really bad for everyone who invested heavily into firespec and got legendaries for it and then have it be nerfed to below even middle of the pack. I LOVE NOT HAVING TO BASE 10-15% OF MY TOTAL DPS ON HAVING OR NOT HAVING FREAKING RUNE OF POWER UP FOR A CERTAIN PULL OR TWO (besides saving 1-1.5 RoPs for boss pull). I wouldn't feel as disappointed about it if say we had a tank or heal spec, which we don't and never will. Besides for flavor I don't see any practical reason to play fire especially since now even our big BiS legendaries are getting nerfs. Why.....

Public opinion is full of the power of retard. Except for that 4 day BC patch where ret pallies could kill 5 people while eating a sandwich with wings and bubble, and when DKs first came out in Wrath. And early DH pvp. But fire OP? No way Jose. Shouldn't even be lightly touched in the direction of nerf.

[Fayolynn]

Blizz likes to panic when fire is too good early in an expansion. I fully expect it to be nerfed to the point where it's unplayable in competitive settings until 7.2 at least.

You think thy will fix it in 7.2? My prediction is...

7.1.5 = nerf
7.2 = they realize how bad they messed up but don't do anything to fix it
7.2.5 = small numbers tuning
7.3 = address the actual problem and makes fire playable
7.3.5 = classes reworked for the next expansion

[Woobels]

You think thy will fix it in 7.2? My prediction is...

7.1.5 = nerf
7.2 = they realize how bad they messed up but don't do anything to fix it
7.2.5 = small numbers tuning
7.3 = address the actual problem and makes fire playable
7.3.5 = classes reworked for the next expansion

I mean, I hate to reinforce this shit mindset people have at all but if Blizzard is going to pull a Blizzard they'll launch 7.1.5 with us being shit, then some big content patch later, most likely the final one, we'll end up being brokenly good again (for farm) which will make people think we're perpetually overpowered again going into the next expansion.

[sosaria]

I mean, I hate to reinforce this shit mindset people have at all but if Blizzard is going to pull a Blizzard they'll launch 7.1.5 with us being shit, then some big content patch later, most likely the final one, we'll end up being brokenly good again (for farm) which will make people think we're perpetually overpowered again going into the next expansion.

That's the fear that I am having. I'm of the view that Blizzard will break the fire mage, leave it for a patch or two, THEN come back and say "oops, need to fix this".

But we're already screaming this in their faces right now...

[Fayolynn]

I mean, I hate to reinforce this shit mindset people have at all but if Blizzard is going to pull a Blizzard they'll launch 7.1.5 with us being shit, then some big content patch later, most likely the final one, we'll end up being brokenly good again (for farm) which will make people think we're perpetually overpowered again going into the next expansion.

that was pretty much what I was getting at. We will be shit, they will pretend to try and fix us then they will make us good/OP before the next expansion.

[mrgreenthump]

we'll end up being brokenly good again (for farm) which will make people think we're perpetually overpowered again going into the next expansion.

Did anyone honestly think this time it would be different?

[Fayolynn]

Did anyone honestly think this time it would be different?

Well when we started off in a good place and Blizzard said they didn't plan on making big sweeping changes... yes sadly.

[Orrin]

I don't understand why firespec is still getting nerfed. I spent about 3 months gearing my mage with almost all crit/mastery gear exclusively, gemming and enchants and after 2 weeks of playing ice with same ilvl though different-statted gear I outdps firespec by at least 20% (simulcraft suggests I should be approx. 30% higher at the moment with perfect play).

Number tuning is not finished yet so we don't really know if we're really nerfed. I'm willing to say nerfed only when we'll see last PTR build that goes to live.
Ideally burst would be lowered and rotational spells would be buffed to current leves

Well when we started off in a good place and Blizzard said they didn't plan on making big sweeping changes... yes sadly.

Let's look at Warlocks. They had perfectly playable specs much of the community liked. Well, Blizzard decided to change them for sake of changing. They got worse for no reason because of design philosophy of 'let's make everything dumb and add complexity with talents'. I don't know if I want that kind of redesign

[gallamann]

Number tuning is not finished yet so we don't really know if we're really nerfed. I'm willing to say nerfed only when we'll see last PTR build that goes to live.
Ideally burst would be lowered and rotational spells would be buffed to current leves

Do not have leg. bracers.

I don't get this mindset, current levels I am best 5-7 in my raid (talking 50k+ behind the ones above me), aka I am currently sitting top of the middle of the pack. Shifting damage isn't going to magically let me compete for the top 3 spots and wtf else can we do beside DPS?

[D3athsting]

wtf else can we do beside DPS?

FOOD.

Do you really expect to beat melees in meleegion on any fight other than xavius?

[pleblius]

I've plugged this a bit on Altered Time already, but I thought I'd throw this here:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752168438

That's what I think we need in order to level out Fire's crit reliance. The changes right now just bring down crit's value during our Combustion, but it's still just as necessary for sustain. Crit's the only stat we have the scales decently well until we have a high enough value of crit, because Pyroblast is just that much more useful than Fireball. Nerfing its value during our burst doesn't help our overall damage, it just brings the spec down as a whole without fixing our real issues.

[Orrin]

Do not have leg. bracers.

I don't get this mindset, current levels I am best 5-7 in my raid (talking 50k+ behind the ones above me), aka I am currently sitting top of the middle of the pack. Shifting damage isn't going to magically let me compete for the top 3 spots and wtf else can we do beside DPS?

Shifting damage from CDs to nukes has little to do with overall dps, it's done for another reason - extreme reliance on CDs (if you screw up your COmbustion, you dps drop dramatically), viability of talent choices and strength of crit. It also may make ire less OP on trash and allow for better dps on single target fights. And bracers are being nerfed so that they were not as good in providing dps.

WHat will decide your dps on live is how well will devs tune Fire damage, not the act that damage was shifted from Combustion to nukes.

I don't really understand why are you frustrated? What's 'magical' should you see in a spec tuning process that didn't happen many times before on PTRs and in betas?

- - - Updated - - -

I've plugged this a bit on Altered Time already, but I thought I'd throw this here:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752168438

That's what I think we need in order to level out Fire's crit reliance. The changes right now just bring down crit's value during our Combustion, but it's still just as necessary for sustain. Crit's the only stat we have the scales decently well until we have a high enough value of crit, because Pyroblast is just that much more useful than Fireball.

I don't think that design problem of Fire reliance on crit can be solved during an expansion considering that there can't be massive redesign of the spec before next expansion. Also devs are pretty commited to HS gameplay and it pushes crit, it was happening since WotLK and it seems it won't change. I guess we might see Fire being nerfed in each major patch because of crit hyperscaling nature. However considering that in Legion with ilvl increase int will be inflated much more then secondary stats, crit hyperinflation won't be as noticable.

So crit on every piece of loot it is.

Nerfing its value during our burst doesn't help our overall damage, it just brings the spec down as a whole without fixing our real issues.

I don't understand why people link dps to spec design. One has nothing to do with another - if base spells spell power coefficients are tuned right, dps will be right too during any given patch. Problem is not in design, it's in devs ability to notice dps disparities between specs and classes and commitment to adjusting it, nothing more

And devs are adjusting damage right now - maybe you don't know about it, but Fireball and Pyro damage in being increased on PTR. It seems that it's not enough yet, but it changed last patch and probably will change in the future before patch goes live

[pleblius]

I don't understand why people link dps to spec design. One has nothing to do with another - if base spells spell power coefficients are tuned right, dps will be right too during any given patch. Problem is not in design, it's in devs ability to notice dps disparities between specs and classes and commitment to adjusting it, nothing more

And devs are adjusting damage right now - maybe you don't know about it, but Fireball and Pyro damage in being increased on PTR. It seems that it's not enough yet, but it changed last patch and probably will change in the future before patch goes live

What causes DPS disparities? Design problems.


And I do think the crit problem could be solved with a mid-expansion patch. I made a whole forum post about it.

[Deleted]

Did anyone honestly think this time it would be different?

I actually thought it would be with the following reasoning:
- Mages have huge Critchance this expansion, But
- We got many tools to force crits and even in sims show at a certain point critchance dps gain would fall off. So woulnd't be a performance balance issue.
- Raid items are not as crit optimized compared to dungeons, and Nighthold setpiece has low amount of crit pieces.
- Blizzard knows how demotivating it was for players to constantly have our critchance nerfed at the start of every new raid tier.
- Surely blizzard isn't retarted and they've learned from past expansion.

Sadly blizzard was retarted -.-.

Now their was one performance balance issue. While ussually fire is insanely strong at the end of a raid tier this time the reverse happen but not as extreme. Once classes went over 870 ilvl you really started to notice firemages were slowly falling because we didn't scale that well on ilvl. In a way the same issue remained as previous expansion but just less severe because of the tools to force critchance.

Having said that Blizzards main motivation for the changes was because their adamant about higher ilvl is always better and probably they don't like players having 65% in one stat.
The irony is that many rpg, including diablo Ilvl isn't everything. I enjoy it when the right item being more valuable than higher ilvl, just not when it goes beyond 10ilvl.
I also don't understand what the issue is with having high % in one stat as long as it doesn't cause balance issues. To me the critical moment for fire is between 45-55% critchance(add 1.1 multiplyer) after that it's less game changing.

Number tuning is not finished yet so we don't really know if we're really nerfed. I'm willing to say nerfed only when we'll see last PTR build that goes to live.
Ideally burst would be lowered and rotational spells would be buffed to current leves

I'm fairly sure fire will be a net nerf unless we are still extremely far behind in ptr and blizzard will overcompensate but that happens more during Beta not ptr. Than once it's live I hope the mage community will band together including the wait and see/ theory crafting community and give a shared complained + some arguments about what our DPS weakness is and why this is important like what happened at the start of Throne of Thunder.
But I'm not sure it will happen this time. In throne of thunder all specs were underperforming while now many wait and see players might just switch spec while others will just keep complaining because their too attached to fire spec because of AP and Legendaries.

Having said that it's hard to give feedback on our total damage being too low except for players to cry about it. It's not my style so i focus on mechanics what what i might find even more important. But it's really not what you want as spec to start being nerfed when the patch releases only hoping for blizzard to hotfix.

I do have a feeling Living bomb will end up being stronger than currently because of the new +dmg to all spells mechanic.

[Alvito]

Did anyone honestly think this time it would be different?

At first no. When they kept using fire as the example of not wanting to over nerf a class and have other classes and specs fly by it I started to hope it would be useful for all of Legion.

[stomination]

At first no. When they kept using fire as the example of not wanting to over nerf a class and have other classes and specs fly by it I started to hope it would be useful for all of Legion.

Then you find out Frost and Arcane both do more single target.

[Alvito]

Then you find out Frost and Arcane both do more single target.

Arcane has way too many pitfalls and very few fights are single target. There isn't a single fight I would consider going arcane over. Frost for a few sure, arcane no way. There are 2 single target fights out of the current 10. Id still pick frost or fire for those due to the pace and movement of the fights.