Originally Posted by
Eyliria
No. Fire is broken.
In fact, Fire *has been* broken since ICC, when they let us break 80% crit rates and we showed them how broken their hot streak mechanic could get.
As long as Fire has "hot streak" scaling the way it does with crit, it will be a balancing nightmare that CONSTANTLY will require to get hit in the head with a hammer as gear gets better.
Every time there's a new tier of gear, Fire needs to be reigned in, and the lower ilvl mages cringe because it makes the spec even less fun (and dps-wise, worthless) to play. The fact Fire '"requires" a 510+ ilvl to play well is silly, but that's a symptom of how good our scaling is.
That's why we started this expansion with a 1.5 modifier on critical mass, and went as low as 1.2 when HoF/TOES came around. Once you hit sweetspot on crit, shit goes flying out the window.
Unfortunately, it's too late into the expansion to design revamp fire. I'd argue they've been clinging to the crit/hotstreak mechanic for too long (2 expansions now) because it's a signature playstyle of the spec, and they're unwilling to let it go, but, as long as we are so heavily crit dependant, balancing us will be a nightmare.
And this shouldn't be news to anyone. Fire mages are scaling monstrosities that get out of hand really quickly.
At 1.18RPPM, the meta had a ~15% uptime for me most of the time, and it felt like it was up enough to do good damage, and improve a lot of my combustions, as well as bump the proc rate of my other RPPM procs over the course of a night. It's a really powerful gem.
Now, at 1/3 of that, the effects will be compounding, because not only are you giving up the raw benefit of the gem, but you are also losing on lesser proc rates for other rppm mechanics that were benefitting from better proc rates under the meta as well.
Only time will tell if they'll adjust the coefficient up, but, personally I'm not holding my breath. Not every 'legendary' has to be good for everyone, and at this point they probably feel that adjusting the proc up for fire mages would do more harm to the overall balance than good, even if the gem will stand as a mere ~3% upgrade over the meta, while other classes can benefit as high as 15%.
It's poor form to use it as a balancing tool, but... Patience, I guess. As long as the spec doesn't fall behind others, they have no incentive to adjust this, and, since we're still quite competitive without it, we just get stuck with an underwhelming legendary meta.
C'est la vie.