Mages' changes facing 7.1.5

[pleblius]

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.


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.

Again, check out my post: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752168438

The short answer is that the fire delta is too large. Balance us for low crit, and we're too good at high crit. Balance us for high crit, and we're too bad at low crit. We started off the expac doing really well until Blizzard nerfed Pyroblast to account for the legendary and our high crit values.

[Orrin]

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.

I don't understand how one is connected to another. Are Fire Mages severely dependant on crit? They are. Is it good? Not really.
Does anything prevent devs from giving Fire Mages higher dps? No, nothing and crit dependency has nothing to do with it. Godlike damage of Ignite spread on multitarget fights might, OP bracers might, but crit you've written long post about? No.

Again, check out my post: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752168438

The short answer is that the fire delta is too large. Balance us for low crit, and we're too good at high crit. Balance us for high crit, and we're too bad at low crit. We started off the expac doing really well until Blizzard nerfed Pyroblast to account for the legendary and our high crit values.

You ignore what Blizzard did with gear. They won't change our crit dependency (and some other classes dependency on particular stats). We started xpac with high levels of crit already, we have 50% crit in first tier of content.

Blizzard decided to balance classes differently then in previous expansions: before secondary stats grew at the same rate as int with ilvl. In Legions they won't. There won't be situation of Icecrown CItadel gear which allowed reaching softcaps of stats and stat starvation in Naxx. In legion at the beginning of the expansion high secondary stat ratings on gear were already given as a baseline so that stat dependant spec gameplay didn't change much between major patches. Crit in Argus patch shouldn't be that much higher then now, it's int that will scale much more.

That 'low crit' you're talking about is found only on people who don't do anything beyond Heroic dungeons. Anyone who does Mythic+ and raid has gear to have comfortable levels of crit already. WHen in next patch players will catch up in ilvl, they will have comfortable levels of crit too.

Devs balanced Fire (and some other specs) hyperscaling through stat increase with ilvl on gear.

Look at tier gloves. 55 ilvls of increase give only 0,28% more crit while Raid finder gloves have 1,22% of crit baseline. So most of secondary stat is included on a base level, stat increase with ilvl is somewhat small. 55 ilvls increase Crit rating by 23% and while int is increased by 67%.

[Deleted]

Correct me if i am mistaken, your whole argument is that blizzard thinks it should be easier to have consistent DPS, because cd's are too strong with the current iteration of firemage, and missing/missplaying them punish you, making it harder to do said consistent dps.

[sanohh]

Did Glacial Spike builds seriously get another nerf... like wtf blizz

[Divr]

Did Glacial Spike builds seriously get another nerf... like wtf blizz

Maintaining my comment in the Frost main thread. This could possibly be a buff with some "stealth" changes (but perhaps I missed them in previous iterations)
Frost Mage thread

[Deleted]

Maintaining my comment in the Frost main thread. This could possibly be a buff with some "stealth" changes (but perhaps I missed them in previous iterations)
Frost Mage thread

Wondering why does it link to a threat that's meant as a guide not about ptr notes?

[Seramore]

Wondering why does it link to a threat that's meant as a guide not about ptr notes?

...because people are discussing the spec in the thread?

[heef]

- Surely blizzard isn't retarted and they've learned from past expansion.

Sadly blizzard was retarted -.-.

/atleast10tarts

[Vynestra]

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.

Arcane has a lot less pitfalls in 7.1.5.

Movement is not even really an issue anymore, which is one of the biggest w/ quickening.

Also arcane aoe is ridiculous.

[gallamann]

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?

Frustrated because without bracers there isn't a fight that I can compete for top 3 excepting I get too sleep 2nd half of Xavius and pull off two back to back combusts in tenacle phase and even then its useless damage to tenacles (45 million this week). Meanwhile if you look at boss damage I am 20-30 million behind the people behind me.

When all a class can do is DPS, then I don't think it is unreasonable for said class to be able to at least compete for top 3, even if that means a combust cycle that must be perfect to achieve that result with the risk being, you don't, your DPS is shit.

Yes I have seen it many times before and Blizzard never gets balance right, we will be stuck "middle of the pack" until they get live numbers from 7.1.5 showing what we have already shown via live 7.1 numbers.

"Magically" because shifting damage, lowered our damage.

That they added a 15% fire aura is just sadly lazy, doubt that touches our non fire damage from trinkets / pots.

They persist with the RoP tier and for "reasons" RoP is always the superior choice.

Nor have they done anything to make other secondaries attractive, hell a strong argument could be made that crit is even more valuable.

[mrgreenthump]

Frustrated because without bracers there isn't a fight that I can compete for top 3 excepting I get too sleep 2nd half of Xavius and pull off two back to back combusts in tenacle phase and even then its useless damage to tenacles (45 million this week). Meanwhile if you look at boss damage I am 20-30 million behind the people behind me.

Not to be a downer, but the bracers won't make up a 30 million damage difference on boss damage.

[Alvito]

Arcane has a lot less pitfalls in 7.1.5.

Movement is not even really an issue anymore, which is one of the biggest w/ quickening.

Also arcane aoe is ridiculous.

We will see what actually makes it live. They will end up over buffing and over nerfing a few things across the board. For the people that like arcane hopefully it will come up some.

[Seramore]

We will see what actually makes it live. They will end up over buffing and over nerfing a few things across the board. For the people that like arcane hopefully it will come up some.

?? it's already better on PTR than live. it will be coming up

[Alvito]

?? it's already better on PTR than live. it will be coming up

They have drastically changed things on the PTR and still have a few changes coming along. Until things are live in game and they have a chance to interact with set bonuses I wouldn't put too much stock in anything good or bad.

[mrgreenthump]

They have drastically changed things on the PTR and still have a few changes coming along. Until things are live in game and they have a chance to interact with set bonuses I wouldn't put too much stock in anything good or bad.

Not many changes coming, some tuning yes, but mechanical changes are doubtful.. due to latest patch being tagged release and Nighthold openning on 17th of January.

[Deleted]

I don't understand how one is connected to another. Are Fire Mages severely dependant on crit? They are. Is it good? Not really.
Does anything prevent devs from giving Fire Mages higher dps? No, nothing and crit dependency has nothing to do with it. Godlike damage of Ignite spread on multitarget fights might, OP bracers might, but crit you've written long post about? No.

Of course they are connected, it is just like it says in the next bit you quoted, balance fire for high crit and the damage will be crappy on low crit, and balance them around low crit and they will be godlike on high crit. So yes, stupid design is the reason that dev's can't up fire's damage because it would run rampant very quickly. This has everything to do with crit.

You ignore what Blizzard did with gear. They won't change our crit dependency (and some other classes dependency on particular stats). We started xpac with high levels of crit already, we have 50% crit in first tier of content.

Blizzard decided to balance classes differently then in previous expansions: before secondary stats grew at the same rate as int with ilvl. In Legions they won't. There won't be situation of Icecrown CItadel gear which allowed reaching softcaps of stats and stat starvation in Naxx. In legion at the beginning of the expansion high secondary stat ratings on gear were already given as a baseline so that stat dependant spec gameplay didn't change much between major patches. Crit in Argus patch shouldn't be that much higher then now, it's int that will scale much more.

That 'low crit' you're talking about is found only on people who don't do anything beyond Heroic dungeons. Anyone who does Mythic+ and raid has gear to have comfortable levels of crit already. WHen in next patch players will catch up in ilvl, they will have comfortable levels of crit too.

Devs balanced Fire (and some other specs) hyperscaling through stat increase with ilvl on gear.

Look at tier gloves. 55 ilvls of increase give only 0,28% more crit while Raid finder gloves have 1,22% of crit baseline. So most of secondary stat is included on a base level, stat increase with ilvl is somewhat small. 55 ilvls increase Crit rating by 23% and while int is increased by 67%.

He is ignoring it because it really doesn't have anything to do with what he said, and the whole secondary stats philosophy of blizzard is one of the design problems.

The whole philosophy that blizzard has in this expansion towards secondary stats is only aggravating the crit dependency problem, not helping it. By giving specs loads of front loaded secondary stats they made downgrading a thing. If you have a spec that will only function with a certain amount of a certain secondary stat, you will need to have this stat on your item for it to be an upgrade. This is the design problem, they tried to design the classes with these high secondary stats in mind, but they "forgot" to balance specs around multiple secondary stats.

That low crit will happen to anyone who will choose to have an higher ilvl over the correct stats. Everyone loots gear with secondary stats that are just horrible to them, the problem arises that you will do more damage with lower items because the higher items lack a certain stat. A flat out increase off intelligence on items does not fix the underlying design problems, it will only make it worse. I can see myself not using a 100 ilvl better ring or neck if it does not have the desired stats on them because of the bad scaling of secondary stats, yes these have no primary stat on them, but they make the problem very visible.
The gloves aren't a good example, because they do have crit on them. Take any piece of gear that does not have crit on it and compare it to one that does have crit on it. How much additional intelligence does a 10 ilvl upgrade need to be better then a item with perfect stats?
Lets say a head item @ 865 has 1491 int 838 crit and 542 mastery on it, lets say 1 crit is about the same as 2 haste.
Another head item @ 875 has 1637 int 901 haste and 532 mastery.
The higher ilvl has 146 more intellect on it and combined 53 secondary stats more it doesn't really matter what stat, as it is not crit and crit is about twice as powerful as any other secondary stat.
Now lets see what happens when we say that 1 crit = to 1 int and all other secondary stats are worth half of 1 int (this is pretty much the case for fire).
the 865 item would have 1491 int + 838 (crit (they have the same value) + 271 (2 mastery is 1 int) = 2600
The 875 item would have 1637 int + 450.5 (2 haste is 1 int) + 266 (2 mas is 1int) = 2353.5

This means that the 875 would need another ~250 intelligence on it before it had the same potential as the 865 item for a fire mage. Of course, they can't do that because that would make the item much to powerful for classes that do use haste and mastery as main stats, and so we are back at the same place.

It doesn't matter how much intelligence they flap on there, the underlying problem doesn't go away, crit will still be to valuable for the spec. The only thing it will do is make it more apparent who got shitty drops and who got good ones.

The only change (that i have seen) so far that addresses fire's crit dependency is the nerf to PI, the rest of the changes only address the burst of fire. It is really simple, if blizzard wants item level to matter for all classes then they should not design classes to be highly dependant on 1 secondary stat to be on an item in order to do damage and have the current secondary stats philosophy. These things just do not mix.

[Seramore]

They have drastically changed things on the PTR and still have a few changes coming along. Until things are live in game and they have a chance to interact with set bonuses I wouldn't put too much stock in anything good or bad.

ok coach

[Deleted]

Not many changes coming, some tuning yes, but mechanical changes are doubtful.. due to latest patch being tagged release and Nighthold openning on 17th of January.

So mages are still shit on ptr?

Good thing our guild has started boosting alts.

[Orrin]

That low crit will happen to anyone who will choose to have an higher ilvl over the correct stats. Everyone loots gear with secondary stats that are just horrible to them, the problem arises that you will do more damage with lower items because the higher items lack a certain stat. A flat out increase off intelligence on items does not fix the underlying design problems, it will only make it worse. I can see myself not using a 100 ilvl better ring or neck if it does not have the desired stats on them because of the bad scaling of secondary stats, yes these have no primary stat on them, but they make the problem very visible.
The gloves aren't a good example, because they do have crit on them. Take any piece of gear that does not have crit on it and compare it to one that does have crit on it. How much additional intelligence does a 10 ilvl upgrade need to be better then a item with perfect stats?
Lets say a head item @ 865 has 1491 int 838 crit and 542 mastery on it, lets say 1 crit is about the same as 2 haste.
Another head item @ 875 has 1637 int 901 haste and 532 mastery.
The higher ilvl has 146 more intellect on it and combined 53 secondary stats more it doesn't really matter what stat, as it is not crit and crit is about twice as powerful as any other secondary stat.

Please reread my post, I've already written that Blizzard won't change spec during expansion, won't probably change crit depenedency even and that Fire can't function without crit gear. I don't understand why do you explain to me the same things I've already written.

My point, Fire already has comfortably high levels of crit in first tier of epic gear and it alleviates much of the problems with balancing for high crit. There won't as much exponential growth with ilvls later

[Deleted]

Please reread my post, I've already written that Blizzard won't change spec during expansion, won't probably change crit depenedency even and that Fire can't function without crit gear. I don't understand why do you explain to me the same things I've already written.

My point, Fire already has comfortably high levels of crit in first tier of epic gear and it alleviates much of the problems with balancing for high crit. There won't as much exponential growth with ilvls later

But you are wrong, blizzard is right now changing the way specs work, right now, in this expansion. And i have to explain it, as you do not seem to understand that this is a design problem. I think you are the one who should read it again and try to understand what the problem is with crit and how it works with current scaling of secondary stats.

As i have explained to you, flapping intellect on items doesn't alleviate anything, it only makes it worse.