Still no Fire Nerfs and Frost Gets a New Mastery. Further updates at p22

[IsrafaelMage]

Just skipping potentially tight/dangerous phases is good enough to warrant a nerf / change, as i see it.. just napkin math - 25m raid, 10 fire mages, each bursts "only" 2M for 25 seconds (even i can do that with my pretty average gear and and only 1.5 weeks of experience of playing fire in raids after november hotfix), that amounts for 500M total damage done..

[Deleted]

... race finished after 7 days and ~8hrs, world first for an us guild with 15 fire mages ^^

[Jarion]

Nerf the top = fine.
buff the bottom = BADLY needed.

[Tarazet]

Nerf the top = fine.
buff the bottom = BADLY needed.

Yeah.. I want to play Fire. 495 ilvl. It's really slow and annoying, although the actual numbers aren't that bad.

[MrExcelion]

Yeah.. I want to play Fire. 495 ilvl. It's really slow and annoying, although the actual numbers aren't that bad.

And Proving Grounds will be 463 >< (not that PG is a big deal or anything, even though Endless Mode is addicting)

[Huevos]

Really wish Blizzard would get in the habit of making smaller changes with more iterations, enabling the community to actually provide some useful and meaningful feedback. Instead they seem to prefer spec killing nerfs that result in a sort of rotation of preferred raiding specs for dps classes, and we're just along for the roller coaster ride.

Maybe fire remains competitive, but I'd like to know where the numbers came from, and if fire is balanced after this fix, why was it allowed to be overpowered for so long without a fix?

And then you have the fun factor of fire. Combustion was about the only fun part of fire; what's fun about it now? Fire is easy, but it's incredibly boring. Disappointing Blizzard.

[Tarazet]

Really wish Blizzard would get in the habit of making smaller changes with more iterations, enabling the community to actually provide some useful and meaningful feedback. Instead they seem to prefer spec killing nerfs that result in a sort of rotation of preferred raiding specs for dps classes, and we're just along for the roller coaster ride.

Maybe fire remains competitive, but I'd like to know where the numbers came from, and if fire is balanced after this fix, why was it allowed to be overpowered for so long without a fix?

And then you have the fun factor of fire. Combustion was about the only fun part of fire; what's fun about it now? Fire is easy, but it's incredibly boring. Disappointing Blizzard.

On current live, I perform very slightly worse in Fire than in the other specs, but it's close enough that I play it anyway because I prefer it and enjoying playing it. An orc throwing arcane bolts feels incongruous, and I hate the water elemental. All of the specs are pretty much "spam your primary cast until this key trigger point where something more important has to be done" anyway, so the repetitive nature of Fire doesn't bother me so much. It's a slow spec that hurts a lot, except... without the hurting a lot part.

[Species]

The only thing attractive about fire now is Scorch. Have they fixed the combustion bug on the PTR?

[Vynestra]

So lore was on the legendary chat, and I was able to get some info if arcane is going to get nerfed.


Mod Turbo Devolore: i don't think we're planning anything as big as the combustion nerf for arcane but we're still balancing numbers


Now you can all stfu about arcane being way stronger, if it's that strong they will nerf it.

[voltaa]

So lore was on the legendary chat, and I was able to get some info if arcane is going to get nerfed.


Mod Turbo Devolore: i don't think we're planning anything as big as the combustion nerf for arcane but we're still balancing numbers


Now you can all stfu about arcane being way stronger, if it's that strong they will nerf it.

I don't doubt they will nerf it, but I doubt they will nerf it in the right place. I do not see them nerfing nether tempest, as this would nerf all specs rather than just arcane, so while they can balance our single target, we will still scale extremely well with cleave fights/add fights. As it stands there are fights where my bomb is ~50% of my overall damage done, this is the reason why arcane is so strong right now.

[Tiga]

They could change arcane mastery only to affect direct damage (non-DOTs) and that would make Nether Tempest hit the same for arcane, fire and frost. Arcane is now the only spec with a mastery that affects all spells equally. Not sure if that would make Frost Bomb mandatory for arcane, but the fix for that would be to make Frost Bomb damage count as a DOT (also solving an issue with DOT trinket procs).

[voltaa]

Frost Bomb mandatory

I'd sell my account and never look back

[Boxedwaffle]

They could change arcane mastery only to affect direct damage (non-DOTs) and that would make Nether Tempest hit the same for arcane, fire and frost. Arcane is now the only spec with a mastery that affects all spells equally. Not sure if that would make Frost Bomb mandatory for arcane, but the fix for that would be to make Frost Bomb damage count as a DOT (also solving an issue with DOT trinket procs).

No. If that's the case, it'll hit hardest with frost due to stacking haste. Fire would be second. Arcane would be a distant third. But at least arcane has a secondary that affects its direct damage more than frost, forced to stack haste because it's the best-worst option.

[Vynestra]

They could change arcane mastery only to affect direct damage (non-DOTs) and that would make Nether Tempest hit the same for arcane, fire and frost. Arcane is now the only spec with a mastery that affects all spells equally. Not sure if that would make Frost Bomb mandatory for arcane, but the fix for that would be to make Frost Bomb damage count as a DOT (also solving an issue with DOT trinket procs).

I'd be fine with that, but then they'd need to buff other spells to make up for all of that lost damage. lol


I will say soloing alysrazor it's kinda funny to see how much dmg NT does with all that haste xD...

[Drooul]

And then you have the fun factor of fire. Combustion was about the only fun part of fire; what's fun about it now? Fire is easy, but it's incredibly boring. Disappointing Blizzard.

there's not anything actually "fun" about combustion, and no mechanics are changing so if it was fun before it's still fun after, unless by fun you mean deeps -_-

[voltaa]

there's not anything actually "fun" about combustion, and no mechanics are changing so if it was fun before it's still fun after, unless by fun you mean deeps -_-

Numbers can be fun too, we all get big kick out of seeing big numbers on the screen every once in a while but I agree with you here, there was no nerf to "fun" as combustion is unchanged mechanically.

With this being said, getting a decent combustion out and spreading it to a bunch of adds or other bosses or w/e will still be just as fun and rewarding as before. Combustion is still going to be a good cooldown that does good damage, it just isn't going to do 30-40% of our damage anymore (which it shouldn't what other cooldown does that).

[Tobedeleted123]

Okay, so anyone playing around on testing numbers @ PTR, realistically, how big (or rather, how small) is the chance of frost being the FotM spec for 5.4 progression? I don't really wanna go fire with upcoming combustion nerf (yeah, I totally want my main dps cd to hit like wet noodles, fml) and I heard arcane will be pain in the butt with all the movement in siege, so I just wanna know if there's a point in subscribing for the next patch. And if not FotM, how much of a setback would that be to my raidgroup to actually go frost?

[KoolKidKaos]

Combustion Nerf isn't a big deal, the crit we will be getting within a week or two of the patch will make up plenty. With the nerf it's actually more forgiving if you do a weak combustion. For example, a really good combustion in 5.4 will be a weakish one now, the difference won't be noticed. Taking into account Frost's shitty scaling, and new horrid changes and Arcane's improved but still eh movement, fire will still be worth playing. It will take off like crazy once you get some heroic pieces.

[Species]

Combustion Nerf isn't a big deal, the crit we will be getting within a week or two of the patch will make up plenty. With the nerf it's actually more forgiving if you do a weak combustion. For example, a really good combustion in 5.4 will be a weakish one now, the difference won't be noticed. Taking into account Frost's shitty scaling, and new horrid changes and Arcane's improved but still eh movement, fire will still be worth playing. It will take off like crazy once you get some heroic pieces.

No. A 60% nerf to our second most damaging ability is a very big deal. Are you really saying another 1-2k crit rating will make up for the combustion nerf?

[Dusteyy]

Combustion Nerf isn't a big deal, the crit we will be getting within a week or two of the patch will make up plenty. With the nerf it's actually more forgiving if you do a weak combustion. For example, a really good combustion in 5.4 will be a weakish one now, the difference won't be noticed. Taking into account Frost's shitty scaling, and new horrid changes and Arcane's improved but still eh movement, fire will still be worth playing. It will take off like crazy once you get some heroic pieces.

Um, no. Just no. Not sure where this nonsense of "with the nerf it's actually more forgiving". That is utter bull. How in the hell does a 60% nerf to something make it less forgiving? Shitty combustions will still be shitty, good combustions will still be good. Everything will just do 60% less damage. Stop being stupid.