[Fire] Hotfix Dec 10th

[skitz0129]

We'll see. A minor buff from an over dramatic nerf. I have no arcane gear so switching was a bit out of the question for a good while.

Overdramatic my ass. You were only pushed down to the middle of the twenty some-odd DPS specs in the game. You know, where every single Hunter spec is, or above where both Druid DPS specs are, way above Pally DPS, way above Priest DPS.

Mages are always gifted with multiple specs that perform stupidly well, so when you're knocked down to average (middle is average, not bottom like your exaggeration makes it seem), you guys all throw a hissy fit.

You still have 2 specs that perform at ridiculous levels alongside afflocks. Your worst spec is still better than all of the DPS specs for almost half of the classes. You're going to be just fine.

Spoiled ass mages I swear...

Infracted.

[Joshythemage]

See raidbots, it was fine. If you were 20k DPS below your raid as a fire mage after the nerf, youbad.

Fire has always been retardproof: Keep 1 debuff up, spam 1 button until a second lights up, push second button.

Armory of those 10 classes with decent progression and ranks?

First, if you're playing a fire mage like that you're doing it wrong. Second, there really aren't any specs in the game that are hard to play. Maybe hard to play WELL but not hard to play. Fire mage like most other specs is easy to learn, challenging to master and of course RNG can make or break you.

[Choptimus]

First, if you're playing a fire mage like that you're doing it wrong. Second, there really aren't any specs in the game that are hard to play. Maybe hard to play WELL but not hard to play. Fire mage like most other specs is easy to learn, challenging to master and of course RNG can make or break you.

No. Fire is faceroll and is exactly what I described it as. Go away.

Living bomb up.
Fireball.
Crit? Inferno blast!
Pyroblast.

Hard class man.

[apepi]

I am not understanding what was wrong with the mage nerfs, they seemed fine to me. Man I wished my class got watched over like mages do...

[Invrnc]

Fire is now more in line with other specs, but it seems like many of the top level progression mages are switching specs. not sure if you qualify that as "fine".

There is always going to be a worst spec for mages. Right now, it's fire. But fire isn't actually bad, as you said, it's in line with other specs. Obviously, the top level progression mages will do what they must, which is play the highest dps spec, so they're going to switch from fire. Also obviously, mages who like fire are going to complain, just as mages who liked arcane complained prior to the fire nerf+arcane buff. That's how it is. When you get nerfed, you cry, when you get buffed, you deserved it.

As you said, "fire is now more in line with other specs." That doesn't seem like grounds for complaining, especially from those of us who are playing classes who are (still) worse off.

[zephid]

This hotfix won't really change anything, except giving fire a bit more cleave damage. The increase to critical mass is too small to make any real difference when it comes to single target DPS.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:14 AM ----------

I am not understanding what was wrong with the mage nerfs, they seemed fine to me. Man I wished my class got watched over like mages do...

You don't understand what is wrong with the nerfs to fire? Seriously? Fire went from being probably the best dps spec in the game to being one of the absolute worst.

Did fire need a nerf? Yes it probably did, but they overdid it.

[Iskra22]

Fire mages were fine: http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D.../all/7/30/avg/

If you go fight by fight as opposed to an utterly meaningless "overall" you'll see that fire is last or essentially tied for last on most fights, and is propped up by strong performance on wind lord and amber-shaper. Shockingly, those are the cleave fights where we can leverage the one mechanic the spec has going for it, dot spreading. The situation is even more dire if you look at normal modes where gear scaling hasnt kicked in to ridiculous levels. Inexplicably, blizzards reaction to this situation is to BUFF CLEAVE. I don't even understand who comes up with these changes anymore.

The inferno blast buff is the exact opposite of what they should've done. Fire has always been tough to balance because when theres more than one target, suddenly the specs dps skyrockets, as inferno blast spreads like 50%+ of our dps to every single target at the cost of a GCD. As as result, either single target dps is low, or AoE cleave is absurdly gamebreakingly high.

These changes follow no real logical thought process. The post 5.1 hotfix should've reverted combustion to 5.0 levels, and the critical mass nerf would've been fine with a flat % crit added to stop dps from plummeting enormously. Todays hotfix is even more baffling. Scaling was an issue before, but now our dps is too low. So they buff our dps by adding back some scaling... Just fucking add like 4% damage to fireball and pyroblast instead. More dps, without reintroducing the problem you were trying to fix in the first place...

[Deleted]

Exactly. This is how the balancing should be done. Small tweaks week to week til it feels right.

I HATE it when people think simming crap can just outright determine balance. That's such a wrong stance to have and so many people think nothing else but sims matters.

And yea, mages are ridiculously spoiled. The class never DOESN'T have a top 3 DPS spec.

That also works the other way around. They can just nerf with small numbers untill they get it right.

No. Fire is faceroll and is exactly what I described it as. Go away.

Living bomb up.
Fireball.
Crit? Inferno blast!
Pyroblast.

Hard class man.

Name me any class that has different basics, all of them are the same so stop focussing on mages and go post some sort of rotation in any other forums.

OT, lets hope the small buff gets us a lust fase with a few crits in it again

[Kildragon]

That also works the other way around. They can just nerf with small numbers untill they get it right.




Name me any class that has different basics, all of them are the same so stop focussing on mages and go post some sort of rotation in any other forums.

OT, lets hope the small buff gets us a lust fase with a few crits in it again

If you can play a Demo lock with 4 buttons I will applaud you.

[artem123]

I'm actually inclined to agree with you. I'll even go as far as to note a trend that started in Cata if not earlier. And that trend goes something like this...

1. Cata launches, fire is fantastic.
2. Several weeks in Blizzard nerfs fire.
3. Around the launch of DS Blizzard returns fire to it's Cata-launch state.
4. MoP launches and Fire is great.
5. After a few weeks Blizzard nerfs fire.
6. A few weeks later Blizzard (briefly) buffs fire.
7. Less than a week later they nerf Fire again.
8. Less than a week after that they give fire a very minor buff.

I might expect these sort of balance issues if Fire Mage were new. But, really, the spec/class has been in game since launch. Does it really take eight years (and counting) to balance?

tech 8years would count if EVERYTHING STAYED the same.
So technically the balancing aspect would be a few months so far, due to new talents, that sorta thing

[Iskra22]

If you can play a Demo lock with 4 buttons I will applaud you.

If not setting up/using combustion or a level 90 talent or alter time, or scorch/PoM, counts as "playing a fire mage", then sure I can "play a demo lock" with 4 buttons too.

[Kildragon]

If not setting up/using combustion or a level 90 talent or alter time, or scorch/PoM, counts as "playing a fire mage", then sure I can "play a demo lock" with 4 buttons too.

True, but it's hard to argue that Fire has the complexity of a spec such as Demo.

[Iskra22]

True, but it's hard to argue that Fire has the complexity of a spec such as Demo.

Different specs are different, none are particularly hard to play with a bit of practice. Complexity has always come from adapting your playstyle to encounter mechanics, not from the playstyle itself.

Anyway this is really off-topic and not relevant.

[RickJamesLich]

The new buff really does nothing but help with trash in heroics (not important) and also helps with the 4th boss in HoF (we had no dps problems here). The very minor boost to crit isn't a reason to go back to fire - which only really shines with a good amount of hard mode gear. I think blizz realized when 95% of fire mages respecced that they went too far, but it's going to take more than the 1.3 critical mass change to fix that.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:18 AM ----------

I'd also like to add, combustion was the culprit here, with trinkets, altar time, and some good RNG, combustion can end up being a third of your dps in one ability. I personally thought it was fun because it gave you something to focus on besides watching for pyro procs and refreshing bombs, but I gotta say that they should consider removing it or making it similar to how it originally was (a simple crit booster, but with no damage itself). I'll admit, it did OP damage, take it away and give us the 1.5 critical mass back.

[Emek]

I like how the thread went from discussing the quality of the buff and where it would put fire, to a bunch of dumpster blasting virgins complaining about mages. Shut the fuck up and get off the mage forums if you aren't going to fucking contribute..

The buff is small, I don't see it going a long way in terms of changing anything. It'll be a decent buff for cleave fights, but there are just as many single target fights as there are cleave, and arcane single target is very strong right now. Seeing as the gearing and gemming differences between fire and arcane is night and day i think this is only gonna matter to people who actually ONLY WANT to play fire, more casual type people.

Infracted.

[aggixx]

Imo, this hotfix will move fire up from a little mediocre to to maybe a little above average, but it's unfortunate that Blizzard is more concerned with slight, dare I say "petty", balance changes instead of fixing underlying problems with the spec. They actually managed to widen the gap in flexibility between the three specs via the inferno blast change by making fire's cleave ability even better than it already was.

[Zalamander]

Im confused, inferno blast used to spread ignite, combution and pyro dot to "all" targets nearby didnt it?, this change to inferno blast is a massive nerf to fire AoE, that was already underpowered? why do people in this threat keep saying its a buff?

[RickJamesLich]

I like how the thread went from discussing the quality of the buff and where it would put fire, to a bunch of dumpster blasting virgins complaining about mages. Shut the fuck up and get off the mage forums if you aren't going to fucking contribute..

The buff is small, I don't see it going a long way in terms of changing anything. It'll be a decent buff for cleave fights, but there are just as many single target fights as there are cleave, and arcane single target is very strong right now. Seeing as the gearing and gemming differences between fire and arcane is night and day i think this is only gonna matter to people who actually ONLY WANT to play fire, more casual type people.

Wow, so much fail in one post lol. There's not just as many cleave fights, and fire was doing fine on cleave fights prior to this. Essentially people are complaining because fire got a massive nerf, most mages have respecced, and now we get an off the wall buff that helps pretty much in 5 mans and the 4th boss of HoF. Do you even play a mage?

[Emek]

Wow, so much fail in one post lol. There's not just as many cleave fights, and fire was doing fine on cleave fights prior to this. Essentially people are complaining because fire got a massive nerf, most mages have respecced, and now we get an off the wall buff that helps pretty much in 5 mans and the 4th boss of HoF. Do you even play a mage?

i said the buff was unsubstantial and you said the buff was unsubstantial. i don't get why you're fucking getting butt rustled at me.

garalon ambershaper empress wind lord

that's more than just 1 boss btw

[Aquamonkey]

Im confused, inferno blast used to spread ignite, combution and pyro dot to "all" targets nearby didnt it?, this change to inferno blast is a massive nerf to fire AoE, that was already underpowered? why do people in this threat keep saying its a buff?

Inferno Blast always spread to 2 targets only, until this hotfix. It's a 50% buff.