Combustion Frustration!

[Shypanda88]

Hey guys, I've made a few posts and you have all been extremely helpful.
I have finally gone fire, after getting enough gear. My biggest frustration is this, Combustion. I do have the addon to help me see my ignite, bomb, pyro etc. I also have Weak Auras to tell me when all my trinkets and such are procing.
I am comparing my combustion % done to others who have ranked on fights on world of logs. My % is DRASTICALLY lower than everyone else s. This is beyond me, because I'm sure that might be what is hurting my dps. I should be putting out way more with the gear I have. So from one mage to others, help me please. I don't want to be a baddie and I can't figure out what I am doing wrong to get such low combusts!

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/q1h7r...?s=1760&e=1872
This was tonight's fight, which went horrible for us in general after he's been on farm, but here is our actual kill. I looked at other 'attempts' and saw maybe 5% as the highest percent.

[mrgreenthump]

ugh.. Are you using any addon to help your timings at all? I mean 14k tick average is just really low considering all the damage done bonus from being in the pools..

Quote from the fire mage guide:

There are 2 ways of handling your combustion CD.
- The reactionary method. This method entails getting some addon like: CombustionHelper, MyBigIgnite and letting the addon tell you when to hit combustion. I believe this is the suboptimal.

- The proactive. This method entails working your CD's and setting yourself up to have a big ignite on demand. In this section I will elaborate on this method.

First off: the keys to the proactive method are Presence of Mind and Alter Time. The main thing that most mages seem to not understand is: You do not have to wait the full 6 seconds for Alter Time to reset you.

I use the simple macro:
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Alter Time

Scenario 1: Alter Time and PoM
- Fireball until you get a crit.
- Inferno Blast queue that crit into a Pyroblast Buff.
- Make sure Pyromaniac debuff (via mage bomb) is up.
- Pop all trinkets/Synapse Spring buffs
- Hit the Macro, then hit pyro - At this point it will fire 1 pyroblast (using up the buff), you will have a PoM buff, and 6 seconds till Alter Time ends.
- Hit Pyroblast again - this will use up the PoM buff (sending out pyroblast 2)
- Hit the Macro - This will preemptively end your Alter Time countdown and reset you to: Pyroblast buff and PoM buff
- Hit Pyroblast for insta pyroblast 3 (consuming the pyro buff for the 2nd time).
- Hit Pyroblast for insta pyroblast 4 (consuming PoM buff for the 2nd time).
- Hit Combust

Scenario 2: PoM
- Fireball until you get a crit.
- Inferno blast queue that crit into a Pyroblast Buff.
- Make sure Pyromaniac debuff (via mage bomb) is up.
- Pop all trinkets/Synapse Spring buffs
- Hardcast another Fireball
- Queue Insta Pyroblast via Pyroblast Buff.
- Hit the Macro, then quickly hit Pyroblast (using a PoM Pyro)
- Hit Combust

Glyphed Combustion is a 1:30 CD that exactly matches PoM. Alter Time of course is 3:00 CD. Thus you cycle between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2.

Edit: And comparing yourself to the top ranks on WoL, you are comparing to the people that generally got lucky and got far superior gear to the rest of the player base.

[Shypanda88]

I do use Combustion helper and my big ignite. I also have Weak Auras, which I use to see all of my buffs that I get from trinkets, lightweave, evocate etc. I don't combust until I have a big ignite, my bomb up and enough pyro damage up. I also make sure I have all or majority of my procs. That's why I'm confused why it is so low. It's not like I'm just popping it randomly whenever.

I have already read this post as well, which for me was already telling me what I knew. :[

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 05:36 AM ----------

I know this is extremely low and it's not only for this fight. My other fights are extremely depressing to look at my combusts. I feel like I'm missing something HUGE and just not realizing it.

[mrgreenthump]

I really can't say why you are not producing numbers then, as Combustion mechanic is really straight forwards, it computates directly from your current ignite and the ammount of ticks from your haste.. So procs in a sense don't even matter as long as you got a big ignite. Now to get those big ignites you ofc need procs and more importantly pyroblast crits.

Now as you are using MBI, you should prolly start watching it more closely and see what kind of ignites you have. After a while you just automaticly tend to watch the ignite meter, when combustion is abt to come off cd or you need to use your combustion for some damage timing.

Now what comes to your damage, your pyro crits on the logs are actually quite nice. So your ignite should be pretty good when using HS+HU etc. Certainly more than what produces 14-25k average ticks when standing in pools on Jin'rohk. So maybe you just didn't pay enough attenchion to the ignite meter, or then its broken again(tends to happen on patch days)

[Shypanda88]

I wish I could blame on it being broken, but I'm pretty sure it's me being bad. What would you say is a good ignite to pop combust? And in a 5 minute fight, how many combusts should be used? Is the idea to get ignites as high as you can, then pop it as fast as you can? I'm pretty confused. It is very straightforward, that is why I'm completely confused why such a simple thing is so complicated for me to get down!

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 06:10 AM ----------

Woooahhh, I'm playing with dummies and I think I figured it out. :] I spiked up really high and the meters are saying combust was 15% of my damage.

[mrgreenthump]

I wish I could blame on it being broken, but I'm pretty sure it's me being bad. What would you say is a good ignite to pop combust? And in a 5 minute fight, how many combusts should be used? Is the idea to get ignites as high as you can, then pop it as fast as you can? I'm pretty confused. It is very straightforward, that is why I'm completely confused why such a simple thing is so complicated for me to get down!

Yes you pop combustion when your ignite is the highest, and the ignite for combustion that I'm happy with is around 100k+ with crits(more if pots+alter time etc), but I think you should start something like 50k ignite and work up from there. And for a 5 min fight you should use 4 combustions. You should pretty much try to use it on cooldown, but not without a good/decent ignite.

[reflection]

I would not say 100k+ is doable in your gear. I'm currently at 522 and if I am lucky I get up to 60k-80k. On pull I manage to get up to like 150k ignite if I am lucky with crits.

I trained this a bit on a target dummy just selfbuffed without flask and stuff. There I used to get up to like 50k if done correctly and with some luck.

What also really surprised me was that combustion doesn't matter that much these days. It's more important to do the other Fireball/Pyro rotation correctly. Combustion is just luck and at some points you can't just do very much then start yelling at your computer monitor just because you pulled the full PoM/AT combo and had 1 Pyro critting out of 4 instant pyros at 60% crit with pyros.

What really increased my DPS was to do the fire rotation correctly. You should always wait till you have another heating up before pulling your instant pyro. So you always want to finish to cast your current fireball and together with that throw the instant pyro at the boss while you have heating up. Do that even if your inferno blast is off CD.

[Deleted]

You have similar gear as I had when we killed Jin'rokh last reset, and while I'm nowhere near a top Mage, I did 60k more DPS than you (and our fights lasted about similar length). My average Combustion ticks were 79k, compared to your 14. And I had terrible RNG that fight. You say you are doing everything that Vykina is advising on the pull, but I just can't for the life of me imagine how your ticks can be this low. You are doing something wrong.

Perhaps you can record an opener on a dummy? It's the only way to really see what you might be doing wrong.
With your gear, without a pot/flask/TW, you should be able to reach 70-80k Ignites on a dummy test opener.

Like Reflection said: Combustion is a low % of our damage compared to previous expansions. It's just not that important anymore. That said, it's still the missing link between doing ok'ish DPS and doing great DPS. And on fights like, for example, Council or Tortos, it's going to be the difference between doing shit DPS and amazing DPS .

[Deleted]

Perhaps you can record an opener on a dummy? It's the only way to really see what you might be doing wrong.
With your gear, without a pot/flask/TW, you should be able to reach 70-80k Ignites on a dummy test opener.

70-80k, perhaps you could record yourself and post how you pull 70-80k ignites on a dummy self buffed without flask/pot/TW

I find it really hard to believe that this is possible

[reflection]

70-80k, perhaps you could record yourself and post how you pull 70-80k ignites on a dummy self buffed without flask/pot/TW

I find it really hard to believe that this is possible

Can confirm this. It's even hard to get over 50k without all the raid buffs and stuff.

[Harlond]

70-80k, perhaps you could record yourself and post how you pull 70-80k ignites on a dummy self buffed without flask/pot/TW

I find it really hard to believe that this is possible

I was able to get 70-80k or even higher ignites on dummy at 525 ilvl.Now that i upgraded some of my items,sitting at 529 ilvl,it might slightly increase.It is possible if you pick a haste breakpoint and reforge any haste above that to mastery.

[Deleted]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, I've not been on my mage for some time, but would it not be optimal to go:

Bomb
Fireball until heating up
Inferno
Check bomb
Fireball until heating up (you now have a hot streak and a heating up)
Cast fireball
Hit macro: /cast Presence of Mind /cast Alter Time /cast Pyroblast
Pyro
At this point you're hoping your heating up was turned into another pyro. Which you would fire off, if not, hit your macro again
Pyro - pray for a crit for the heating up to be turned into a streak again
*Pyro
Combust

I don't have any numbers or theory to back it up. It just makes the most sense to me to do it that way :P I may be out of practice on my mage though, so correct me if I'm wrong. Potential 6 insta pyros would be better than 4, amirite?

[Deleted]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, I've not been on my mage for some time, but would it not be optimal to go:

Bomb
Fireball until heating up
Inferno
Check bomb
Fireball until heating up (you now have a hot streak and a heating up)
Cast fireball
Hit macro: /cast Presence of Mind /cast Alter Time /cast Pyroblast
Pyro
At this point you're hoping your heating up was turned into another pyro. Which you would fire off, if not, hit your macro again
Pyro - pray for a crit for the heating up to be turned into a streak again
*Pyro
Combust

I don't have any numbers or theory to back it up. It just makes the most sense to me to do it that way :P I may be out of practice on my mage though, so correct me if I'm wrong. Potential 6 insta pyros would be better than 4, amirite?

That is indeed the method, just hope for alot of crits and usually combust before last PoM pyro lands.

[Malfecto]

Potential 6 insta pyros would be better than 4, amirite?

Not if the last pyro you throw is a non-crit PoM pyro. Then your ignite gets dropped from a probable higher ignite.

Look, many factors come into play here. The one that stands most out for me is haste, like Lust or the meta gem, are going to raise your ignite to higher non-crit baseline levels faster so when you do crit, you are already rolling through a decent ignite. When you don't have haste help, you will notice that if you follow the rule of not using a pyro proc without a HU/fireball cast, even the cast time of FB becomes long enough to degrade your ignite.

Next, PoM Pyro crits are not going to do what Pyro! crits will do. What I have found works best on openers/pulls/whatever, is under lust don't even worry with using inferno blast. Just roll through fireball while your procs come up, and you will see your ignite start to plateau somewhat. By then you should have a Pyro! proc all on its own, and you can either use inferno when you see your trinkets up, or force it with inferno blast for Pyro!/HU. Then you start a FB cast, click macro, cycle through PRE-AT Pyro! and your PoM Pyro, then AT, and this is where it is important to watch your ignite meter. If you have 2 pc, you will have a mastery/haste/crit buff, so you have an even higher chance of your Pyro!/HU set to chain. Learning when your PoM is up is important because if you get good solid crits up on your Pyro! procs and your ignite is high, casting the PoM Pyro, even if it crits, will lower your ignite.

You also need to be aware of how ignite builds and degrades. If you go through AT/PoM macro with no crits (happens), then save for another Pyro!/HU set to work on a pair of crits. A pair of Pyro! crits will net you a solid combustion.

That said, don't get lost in combustion. It is better dps practice overall to simply only use Pyro! with a HU + fireball cast to chain up Pyro! than it is to fret over combustion. Yes, it can do awesome damage, but in general it is not something that should destroy your dps if you are doing everything else right.

[spaace]

a little luck.. and lots of timing..

open pull.. should have NO PROBLEM getting 150k+ ignites..
everything will proc.

Every other combustion.. you're basically fishing for luck.. a few hard crits in a row when your trinkets proc... There is no shame stopping dps for 1s to make sure you don't override that huge ignite.

When AT comes back up.. usually within 10-15s all your procs will come back too (if they aren't already up).

Also your bomb time sucked.. Pyromaniac is important (10% dmg), so if bomb falls you're gimping yourself.

recruit warrior(s) for crit banner. that helps too.

Anybody can play a mage. It takes skill to play them great.

Practice. That's why there are target dummies.

[Malfecto]

You have to understand that some fights lend themselves better to compounding ignite and therefore combustion than others:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...s=9764&e=10141

That's a good example. Its a gimmick.

I practice on the dummy, and if I can, self-buffed, get up around 60-70k ignite rolling with lust, then I feel that will translate well into actual raid for over 100k, which is what happens.

Take Jin'rokh for example. I don't see how your ignite ticks are so low unless you are spending your AT/PoM and/or combustion outside of the pool. If you are using it in the pool, then there's something fundamental you are doing incorrectly. I'll need to look at the logs closer, but you could fill us in in the meantime what you do when during the fight. I know HJin'rok is hectic, but there's plenty of time to spend your CDs properly in the pools.

[Shypanda88]

Hey guys!

So basically I wailed on a dummy for hours last night and my ignites were only get to around 50k on a dummy with only self buffs and whatever I have to utilize on my own. In raid I would spike up to 260k damage, the HUGE problem is that I'm seeing is this, maintaining that damage. Even sitting on a dummy, until my cd is up, by the second time I combust it is a lot harder to achieve a high ignite. I also don't have Alter Time up by the time my POM is up for the second time, so that gives me a disadvantage the second time. I START extremely high, but maintaining is is killing me. I'm not sure if I'm just not paying attention to certain things mid fight or what.

I am extremely embarrassed of how low my combusts are. Everything else looks fine to me and I'm getting plenty of procs to shoot out pyros. The macro is working extremely in my favor now that I am aware of how important it is to align certain things up.

So, now that I know I'm starting super strong, I seeing my combust % fall the longer I go on and try to get a higher tick again. This 'fishing' for luck thing is what I'm seeing. Still though, that's very low!!! >.<

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 06:37 PM ----------

So to record my dummy damage and post that here? Is there a way to link skada...or should I just screen shot?

My openers are really strong, I falter throughout the fight.

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 06:43 PM ----------

I take that back, with lust I do about 75k ignite. That was with perfect luck though too, all my procs being up, pyro blast and heating up proc, so 5+ pyros in a row, then bam combust!

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 06:53 PM ----------

My bomb times were really poor I noticed too.
Is the rule of thumb still bomb under 3 seconds?

When you say override, maybe this is something I'm missing. I'll have a huge ignite and accidentally cast a fireball and it will drop drastically. Are you overriding a huge ignite by casting anything afterwards or just simply waiting too long? Wow...that's something stupid I might be doing.

[spaace]

use world of logs and just log it..

play your rotation for like.. 3-4 combustion.. big opener, non AT, mid fight at/potion.
bomb refresh as close to falling off as you can.. (LB 2s or less)


you don't become pro overnight.

[Shypanda88]

I know that I won't become overnight but all the hard work I put into it, will make my frustrations go away.
I played hunter until MoP and I perfected it. I'll do the same with mage :] can't let a silly skill wreck my dps.

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 07:12 PM ----------

Thank you for being brutally honest too, I appreciate it.
I came here for that, because I need help and I do care. I don't want to be a baddie.

---------- Post added 2013-05-22 at 07:52 PM ----------

I think I'm overriding my combusts :[ I got a ignite over 90k, but I think I overrided it to a 50k ignite. That's a huge loss.