Critical mass nerf for 5.2 fire... REALLY???

[Xzan]

@ willemh - Well the cap from my point of view is the best solution. It's there to get Fire Mages the extra crit they need but later it poses a problem if you have too much of it.

Let's have an example - CM x1.5, crit 40%, cap 45%.
You'd benefit from CM only up to 30% of your crit, making it 45%. The other 10% would only provide the 'basic' improvement, making the total crit 55%.

I think such solution would be way better than nerfing CM every raid tier...

edit: The CM cap and multiplier numbers would need to be tweaked, as the example I provided would actually be pretty sick...

[Bullarkie]

@ willemh - Well the cap from my point of view is the best solution. It's there to get Fire Mages the extra crit they need but later it poses a problem if you have too much of it.

Let's have an example - CM x1.5, crit 40%, cap 45%.
You'd benefit from CM only up to 30% of your crit, making it 45%. The other 10% would only provide the 'basic' improvement, making the total crit 55%.

I think such solution would be way better than nerfing CM every raid tier...

edit: The CM cap and multiplier numbers would need to be tweaked, as the example I provided would actually be pretty sick...

I agree. This would ensure that fire is still fun to play (heating up) at all gear levels.

When geared players hit the cap they can focus on Haste/Mastery. Having these types of caps isn't uncommon.

[Pandacally]

You all cry alot about a nerf to CM that was so predictable no-one with a little bit of foresight could have missed. These "crit" adjustments will happen as long as the class is designed as it is now (however good many suggestions have been to at least preserve the fun of the specc).
fact is, blizz wants fire to be RNG dependant, thats why it is inheriently a bad specc for progression (because you are mostly undergeared and you need people to do reliable dmg/burst whatever).
Than there is also the lack of obvious raid utility, which is also a big concern, but normally only cutting-edge progression guilds will bench players for that. Even in Top100 guilds, there might be just one or two bosses where it might be better to bench the mage for someone else (mostly multi-dotters).

But on the positive side, our talent trees got some QoL changes, with blink and blazing speed we are now one of the most agile classes, and also the shorter invocation is really good compared to 5.0 and 5.1.

So considering that, we are still quite well-doing as a class, especially if you do not focus on some theoretical BiS-gear DPS output, but if you consider the package as a whole. I'll be playing frost for progression with alternating fire/arcane as second specc.

[Menphis]

If we are not going to be top damage, we need more utility. All we do is provide Lust (which shamans, a very popular class among raids, provide) and a decent buff (which is covered anyway by other classes). We do not have portals, health cookies, or anything else that makes us worth bringing besides our damage. Nerf that and then there is no reason to bring us when other classes do better at what we can only do.

I really agree with this.

[oraz4000]

Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler

@Konnery1 It's a reasonable concern. We discussed and think we'll revert CM nerf and nerf elsewhere like Pyro.

[Potato Bus]

Here are some recent changes:

- Renewing Mist - mana cost reduced 10%.
- Healing Rain - mana cost reduced 15%.
- Beast Cleave - damage increased from 30% to 50% of original damage.
- Critical Mass - nerf reverted. It's back to 30%.
- Pyroblast - direct damage reduced 10%.

The mana changes were to help less well geared healers. The Beast Cleave change was because we felt Survival's multi-target damage was too far ahead. We don't mind good AE as a spec niche, but it shouldn't be so high that you feel like an absolute idiot for not swapping to that spec. (This is the same mentality we used when trying to tone down without destroying Combat rogues being good at cleaving.) The Fire changes were because we needed to nerf Fire to keep other mage specs competitive in PvE in 5.2, but we agree that nerfing Critical Mass unfairly targets less well geared players, and that the spec is just less fun if it crits too rarely. (Long term, we might investigate some of the non-linear percent scaling suggestions players have made.)

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...?page=100#2000

That lasted long. I'm glad that GC recognized the impact this change would have on lower geared players (like myself). I'm okay with a nerf, just not to the fun of the spec (crits make fire fun, not critting is frustrating and annoying)

[LocNess]

Here are some recent changes:

- Renewing Mist - mana cost reduced 10%.
- Healing Rain - mana cost reduced 15%.
- Beast Cleave - damage increased from 30% to 50% of original damage.
- Critical Mass - nerf reverted. It's back to 30%.
- Pyroblast - direct damage reduced 10%.

The mana changes were to help less well geared healers. The Beast Cleave change was because we felt Survival's multi-target damage was too far ahead. We don't mind good AE as a spec niche, but it shouldn't be so high that you feel like an absolute idiot for not swapping to that spec. (This is the same mentality we used when trying to tone down without destroying Combat rogues being good at cleaving.) The Fire changes were because we needed to nerf Fire to keep other mage specs competitive in PvE in 5.2, but we agree that nerfing Critical Mass unfairly targets less well geared players, and that the spec is just less fun if it crits too rarely. (Long term, we might investigate some of the non-linear percent scaling suggestions players have made.)

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...?page=100#2000

That lasted long. I'm glad that GC recognized the impact this change would have on lower geared players (like myself). I'm okay with a nerf, just not to the fun of the spec (crits make fire fun, not critting is frustrating and annoying)

Meh. 10% will hurt but it is a lot better than the 1.2 nerf. I will be okay with this.

[Methusula]

This doesn't sit right with me for some reason. It seems like the nerf to CM was a lot bigger than just 10% reduction to direct damage of pyroblast. I like that they are considering the non-linear scaling option though.

[aGit]

Now , you have to admit fire is doing awfully bad atm .
Saying otherwise is just lying.

We'll be even worse when 5.2 hits.

Btw we're not talking about arcane mages , but fire. Keep that in mind.

use one of the other dps spec then. the worst spec you could go for is fire @ 7th of all the dps specs out there. meaning 3 out of 7 best dps specs are your specs. Try playing a retribution paladin or a shadow priest. They have no other specs to dps in and are the 2 dead last spec atm.

Fire is not doing awfully bad atm.

[Kikazz]

welcome to how ret pallies felt, start of cata.

[Twotonsteak]

Classes get nerfed when they're overpowered or overtuned.

Fire is neither overpowered or overtuned. In fact the ONLY time a Fire mage should do better than either Arcane or Frost is when multiple targets are present. And even then it's questionable against Frost mage.

In fact fire is very under-represented because current gear makes the RNG aspect damn-near prohibitive.

Now it IS possible that Blizzard expects a Fire-spec Mage, in BIS gear from the next tier, to actually be competitive. But it would take a long time for enough Fire-spec mage to reach that point to make a difference.

[Shangalar]

Now seeing as the CM nerf will no longer be there and we're discussing exactly the same thing in the primary 5.2 thread, I am locking this one.

Please continue the discussion there.