5.0.4. Fire vs Frost vs Arcane fun factor

[Deleted]

Hi!

So I tried all three mage specs in new patch with rotations, gemming and reforging as suggested here or at icy veins and this is what i got:

Fire: Nice touch with new "heating up" system, nice rotation, dont need combustion helper anymore, althrough its still viable. Can use FFB again without any downgrade (used glyph slot, but what are the options?). AOE damage comes from flamestrike and then blizzard, if you want to get closer then dragon breath and arcane explosion are options. I was using living bomb, that is preety much unchanged. However rotation and whole system seems to be boring.

Frost: Lots and losts of things to cast. Frostbolt is really only a filler, brain freeze and fingers of frost are popping up all the time. AOE is same like fire. I was using frost bomb and didnt like it because of cast time and short time to blow then. Maybe thats me, but I wasnt able to use frost bomb like it needs to be used, all rotation is kinda crazy and superfast.

Arcane: Changed a lot. Rotation is a real rotation finally. Fast but not fast as frost. I was using nether tempest and liked it a lot. Great AOE damage from nether tempest casted on every mob (no max. number of targets yet) so random damage from it is on everybody and arcane explosion that generated charges itself. I was using real rotation with mana gems and evocation only on bosses, but thats fun too, there is no thick line on burning vs conservation phase like at last datadisc.

So funwise: 1. Arcane 2. Frost 3. Fire.

Whats your opinion?

Also, sorry for my english.

[Dharkor]

Haven't tried arcane yet, but for me fire and frost are equally fun:-
Fire is much less frustrating and I love being able to force pyros with heating up.
I thought frost pre patch was also quite fun and I played it quite often in pve, though there's a little bit more to it now which makes it even more fun for me

[Deleted]

btw as far as i understand it the nether tempest / living bomb / frost bomb is ment to be used in all specs.

it depends on the fight. Nether tempest beat living bomb slightly in single target. in 2-3 targets living bomb is best. with 4/5+ targets frost bomb becomes your choice.

[Deleted]

For Frost, the bomb's choice can change the fun aspect a lot.
For a low paced play, Frost Bomb is good with predictable Brain Freeze proc, very rotational.
For a ore nervous fight, Nether tempest is very good with very random proc.

For all spec, the AOE can be frustrating. It's possible to do amazing burst AOE (especially in Frost with Frozen Orb) before dropping quite low for some times.

[Deleted]

btw as far as i understand it the nether tempest / living bomb / frost bomb is ment to be used in all specs.

it depends on the fight. Nether tempest beat living bomb slightly in single target. in 2-3 targets living bomb is best. with 4/5+ targets frost bomb becomes your choice.

Sure, thats good option, I just wasnt testing it that way. However, frost bomb ticks and also cooldown are reduced by haste, so it will be more viable in a spec with haste as first priority. Its not clear whitch specs are that, but frost comes in mind first.

[Holtzmann]

I'd put them as Arcane, Frost and Fire, in order of least to most fun.

I'm extremely happy I can finally play Fire in PvE without feeling frustrated that the Hot Streaks never come. Inferno Blast is the game-changer for me, and it's basically what makes the spec just so much fun. Got a crit? Have another one, and then a Pyroblast to boot! Did that crit? Maybe a Combustion is in order! Spread it with IB and watch the numbers fly. I know it's psychological, but I like the big yellow numbers popping up in high speed all over the place. Meanwhile, I've already played Frost in Cataclysm, and it didn't change much in the transition. It's still an interesting spec, specially with having to keep up bombs. Arcane got quite a bit better, but mana management isn't really my thing so I won't be playing it.

[KoolKidKaos]

I've been fire since ICC, and haven't changed once. At first, the new glyphs and stuff, I despised it. But, after adjusting and leveling on Beta using fire, using it on live, I have come to love it all. I have tried arcane and frost, and fire just still holds that special place for me, in pvp and pve. It's fun, unpredictable and enjoyable in any situation.

[Deleted]

I'm extremely happy I can finally play Fire in PvE without feeling frustrated that the Hot Streaks never come. Inferno Blast is the game-changer for me, and it's basically what makes the spec just so much fun.

I have to disagree. I still feel the Fire Frustration, but instead of being a lack of Pyroblast it's now due to missed Heating Up auras. There's no way to hit every Heating Up with Inferno Blast and if you're spamming Fireballs you're bound to cancel the Heating Up every so often. I know there's supposed to be 0.25 second delay added but you still get your Fireballs out of sync with Heating Up and end up missing the Inferno Blast.

And don't even think about getting a 100% Inferno Blast hit rate during Timewarp...

On top of this, the best way to get a Combustion is to chain crit Pyroblasts together. So now your best strategy is to save up a Pyroblast! and a Heating Up. Then cast the Pyroblast!. Pause to see if it crits. Then do the new Pyroblast! and hope that crits as well.

But at least Fire is a lot of fun! RNG like a slot machine, but critting is fun

[Redcinder]

Fire: Nice touch with new "heating up" system, nice rotation, dont need combustion helper anymore, althrough its still viable. Can use FFB again without any downgrade (used glyph slot, but what are the options?). AOE damage comes from flamestrike and then blizzard, if you want to get closer then dragon breath and arcane explosion are options. I was using living bomb, that is preety much unchanged. However rotation and whole system seems to be boring.

Wait what O.o I was still in belief that getting a high ignite (While not absolutely necessary) and Pyroblast dot then putting up Combustion with the spread of Inferno Blast was still the best was of AOEing as fire.
This being because your ignite is always up and Combustion having both a low cooldown and proccing your Inferno Blast ready to AOE ?

---------- Post added 2012-09-11 at 11:39 AM ----------

I have to disagree. I still feel the Fire Frustration, but instead of being a lack of Pyroblast it's now due to missed Heating Up auras. There's no way to hit every Heating Up with Inferno Blast and if you're spamming Fireballs you're bound to cancel the Heating Up every so often. I know there's supposed to be 0.25 second delay added but you still get your Fireballs out of sync with Heating Up and end up missing the Inferno Blast.

And don't even think about getting a 100% Inferno Blast hit rate during Timewarp...

On top of this, the best way to get a Combustion is to chain crit Pyroblasts together. So now your best strategy is to save up a Pyroblast! and a Heating Up. Then cast the Pyroblast!. Pause to see if it crits. Then do the new Pyroblast! and hope that crits as well.

But at least Fire is a lot of fun! RNG like a slot machine, but critting is fun

No ofcourse you cant expect to hit every Heating Up proc with an Inferno Blast whilst Time Warp is up because Inferno Blast does have a cooldown. But you can easily guarantee that you hit every Heating Up proc with Inferno Blast whilst its off CD because even though you are casting your next Fireball when your Heating Up proc occurs your Fireball still has travel time and Inferno Blast doesnt. This means it will insta hit the target before your Fireball and get you your Pyroblast!

[Holtzmann]

I have to disagree. I still feel the Fire Frustration, but instead of being a lack of Pyroblast it's now due to missed Heating Up auras. There's no way to hit every Heating Up with Inferno Blast and if you're spamming Fireballs you're bound to cancel the Heating Up every so often. I know there's supposed to be 0.25 second delay added but you still get your Fireballs out of sync with Heating Up and end up missing the Inferno Blast.

And don't even think about getting a 100% Inferno Blast hit rate during Timewarp...

On top of this, the best way to get a Combustion is to chain crit Pyroblasts together. So now your best strategy is to save up a Pyroblast! and a Heating Up. Then cast the Pyroblast!. Pause to see if it crits. Then do the new Pyroblast! and hope that crits as well.

But at least Fire is a lot of fun! RNG like a slot machine, but critting is fun

I don't know about your set-up, but I play with fairly high latency and I haven't been missing Heating Ups at all after running LFR twice on my Mage. It was weird at first, but then I got the timing right.

I like Inferno Blast because it's a way to reduce the frustration of "damn it, there's a wasted crit!". Yes, it does have a cooldown, but the fact that I know I won't go for almost a minute without any Hot Streaks at all is what I like. Is it on cooldown? I'll just keep on casting. It's not like I'm losing any DPS by adding more crit fireballs into the ignite stack while IB refreshed. And if the second fireball crits, I'll be happy to chuck a home-grown, all-organic, all-natural Pyroblast! to the boss' face. :P

In short, I like RNG. Too much RNG is just frustrating, and having to land two crits in a row with your normal critical hit percentage is WAY too much RNG to me. Being able to give RNG a push every now and then by making it so I need only one crit instead of two feels just right to me.

[SpaceDuck]

its not a matter of missing heating up procs, its more DTR them up :P

[Deleted]

No ofcourse you cant expect to hit every Heating Up proc with an Inferno Blast whilst Time Warp is up because Inferno Blast does have a cooldown. But you can easily guarantee that you hit every Heating Up proc with Inferno Blast whilst its off CD because even though you are casting your next Fireball when your Heating Up proc occurs your Fireball still has travel time and Inferno Blast doesnt. This means it will insta hit the target before your Fireball and get you your Pyroblast!

Obviously I'm not talking about situations where Inferno Blast is on CD. I'd like to see some recent Fire Mages boss fights to see how others are accomplishing this 100% Inferno Blast hit streak. Maybe I can make one myself to illustrate my problem.

---------- Post added 2012-09-11 at 01:43 PM ----------

In short, I like RNG. Too much RNG is just frustrating, and having to land two crits in a row with your normal critical hit percentage is WAY too much RNG to me. Being able to give RNG a push every now and then by making it so I need only one crit instead of two feels just right to me.

Yeah, perhaps I'm just not completely used to it yet. I do prefer this way to the old one. It's definitely an improvement.

[Shangalar]

It takes some getting used to, but Ghostcrawler has confirmed that there is a grace period of 0.25 seconds after the next spell hits and doesn't crit that you don't lose the heating up buff. So:
1. Cast Fireball
2. CRIT! Heating up buff appears while you are casting your next Fireball
3. You use Inferno Blast while the next Fireball is flying.
4. If the Fireball was a normal hit, you still have 0.25 seconds to use Inferno Blast before the buff expires.
- so you have the full flight time of the second Fireball spells + an additional safety mechanism of 0.25 seconds... Result: RNG nullified (except getting the first Crit, but that's just normal gameplay then, not begging and crying for RNG to stop hating us)

As for the topic of this thread - my fun factor list is currently Frost, Arcane, Fire while the difficulty level (to master) is still exactly the same as always: Arcane, Frost, Fire.

[Sattori]

Getting back to the OP:
Fire>Frost>>>Arcane

I enjoyed Cata Arcane a lot. You actually had to decide when to burst and when to slow down. With MoP Arcane it's the same rotation ALL THE TIME. That's right, you don't get a DPS boost for "burning" because AB eats your mana too quickly and you spend half your "burn" evocating. Test it yourself, it's sad. Which means that you're doing the same rotation (which is actually a simple priority list) at the pull, during lust, during vulnerability, at the end of the fight... all the time. More buttons and less decision making. I dont see how anyone could play it more than an hour and not be bored out of their minds.

[Korru]

Frost > Fire > Arcane

[nagano]

For me Arcane and Fire are pretty equal now. Pre-patch fire all the way, but now that the Arcane rotation has change I find it much more enjoyable. I have never tried frost so I can't comment on that one.

Oh, and I love Nether Tempest. With a mob of 4 or 5 I was doing about 28k-30k with Nether Tempest and the proc from Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind.

Nether Tempest is also a really cool effect. My wife and I took our mages into a dungeon and put Nether Tempest on everything and to see all of that flying back and forth was pretty cool looking. I need to get a screen shot of that.