Fire DPS

[Aceshigh]

So I just started to play a mage tonight and thought it would be cool to try out fire. I read the stick and saw this quote:

"In a Patchwerk-style encounter your single-target rotation should be ideal. Refresh Living Bomb ASAP when it falls, cast Flame Orb, Mirror Images and Combustion on cooldown. Fill with Fireball spam and cast Pyroblast! on Hot Streak procs."

Does that mean only use Pyroblast when it procs from hot streak, or should I be keeping the pyro dot up even outside of procs? I've been told otherwise but I've always found MMO to be my best source of information so I need to confirm.

Thanks in advance.

[Deleted]

Below numbers take from my mage

Well self buffed, but unhasted by 2pc etc...
Pyroblast is a 2.9 second cast for ~24k damage or about 8.275 dps
Fireball is a 2.06 second cast for ~20k damage or about 9.708 dps

Now there are a couple of things...
1) DOT
Pyroblast leaves a dot on the target, which ticks at 3.750 damage every 2.5 seconds for 5 ticks or devided by the 2.9 second cast time... 1.293 dps
Which means that you need to get atleast 1 tick off the Pyroblast DOT to equal DPS, more ticks start gaining DPS.
Assuming you get 5 full ticks you otherwize wouldnt you gain ~4.5k dps over a fireball.

2) Interuptions
If you need to move, cancelling your cast you run the risk of losing dps.... The odds of needing to move increase as your cast time increases.
Naturaly an interupted FB at 2 seconds is less bad than 2.85 seconds lost on a non-casted Pyroblast

3) Crits
As you cast more FBs than Pyro's you have more chances at crits.
Lets say you back to back either FBs or Pyro's and its 2 seconds exact for FB and 3 for Pyro.
Over 18 seconds you can cast 9 FBs or 6 pyros, lets assume a perfect 33% crit rate (33% isnt that hard to get in a raid environment).
9 FBs 6 normal hits, 3 crits >> 6 * 20k + 3 * 40k + 3 * 2 ticks * 10k Ignite = 120k + 120k + 60k = 300k / 18 = 16.666 dps
6 Pyro's 4 normal hits, 2 crits >> 4 * 24k + 2 * 50k + 2 * 2 Ticks of 14k Ignite + 1.250 * 15 PyroDOT (no dot the first 3 seconds) = 96k + 100k + 56k + 19k = 271k
Which means you need to have 29.000 / 1.250 = 23 more DOT ticks to make up
Now assuming you lets for all 6 pyro's roll all the dots you actually cast them every 12.5 seconds or so. You get 30 dot ticks (5 ticks each), this would be a dps increase of 7 * 1.250 = 8.750 damage done over 75 seconds that is a full 116 dps.

4) ignite stacking for Combustion
Due to the cast times Pyro Ignites dont stack as well as FB ignites.
In fully 2pc haste stacked, my FB is 2 seconds flat, add 5% cast haste in raid to that and my FBs are Sub 2 second casts.
With ignite ticking always every two seconds means if I crit 2 FBs I stack 2 full ignites creating nice 20k ignite to push into Combustion.
For Pyro this will never happen unless you have a Hot Streak instant cast (munching BYTES though), at most you will stack half a Ignite.

5) Holding on to Hotstreaks
To maximize your DOT damage you preferably do not want to refresh your PyroDot untill its last tick.
As a result you want to be holding on to your Hot Streak procs to the last 3 seconds of your PyroDot, assume you proc Hot Streak at the cast of your hard casted Pyroblast you need to hold it for 9-ish seconds, during which you might proc HS again... which is a significant dps loss.

All this adds up to:
1:1 Pyro beats a fireball, however weighing in the different factors present in WOW... Fireball spam will mostlikely win out in a "real world" enviroment.
If executed perfectly on the perfect fight, Pyro weaving may increase your dps by <1% at the risk of losing 5% when you fail.

There are and will be places where an occasional or even spammed hard casted Pyroblast will be a dps gain, for sure when you are so hasted that FB is sub-GCD (Alysrazor for one extreeeeeeme example, Hero + 2pc + Trinket procs + raid buffs perhaps) perhaps times where you can reliably get all 5-6 ticks of the Pyrodot to tick all the time having a secondary target, without a top 1 priority to kill, example here might be Madness assuming the corruption dies timely and Bolt is not an issue.

The two biggest problems with Fire mages I have seen are the two basic rules
1) Always keep Crittical masssss up
2) Living bomb, let it drop but REFRESH ASAP (Sub 80% up time is NOT acceptable, aim for 95% though that means you have to refresh it within 1 second of it dropping, but DO let it drop)

[MerinPally]

Or the short answer is that in your original article he says "Pyroblast!" rather than Pyroblast. With an exclamation mark it comes from Hot Streak, without, it doesn't.

[Aceshigh]

Namliam thank you for that very detailed post, helped me understand Fireball v. Pyro much better.

Or the short answer is that in your original article he says "Pyroblast!" rather than Pyroblast. With an exclamation mark it comes from Hot Streak, without, it doesn't.

That's what I assumed it meant but wanted to check to make sure as I've been told by fire mages in game that Pyroblast is some godlike spell and if I ever let it drop off I should be shot lol.