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

[Erolian]

I wouldn't be surprised to see CM get changed completely. To scale down when your crit goes up or to become a flat modifier. Say a low end mage has 30% before CM if they were to make it a flat 9% crit buff instead of a multiplier the low end wouldn't change much from how it is now but the high end would lose crit etc

[mrgreenthump]

I wouldn't be surprised to see CM get changed completely. To scale down when your crit goes up or to become a flat modifier. Say a low end mage has 30% before CM if they were to make it a flat 9% crit buff instead of a multiplier the low end wouldn't change much from how it is now but the high end would lose crit etc

Well yes, and no.. The reason for this is being:

We have a few concerns with how Fire is playing out at the moment. Fire scales incredibly well with gear, and we’re worried that they’ll end up doing way too much damage in high end gear. However, we’re trying to avoid just nerfing Fire’s scaling, as that would unfairly hurt any Fire mage who ISN’T in high-end gear.

We’re also worried that Fire is leaning too heavily on perfect cooldown usage. It’s awesome when a highly-skilled player is able to use all of their abilities to the fullest and be rewarded with a little extra damage. It’s significantly less awesome when failing to do so results in a massive loss of DPS. At the moment, Fire is extremely dependent on lining up all of your cooldowns (most notably Alter Time and Presence of Mind) to score massive Combustion damage. If you pull it off, you’re rewarded with a lot of damage. Mess it up, and your performance suffers dramatically. We’d like to tone down the differences between those high and low ends a bit.

I mean that's pretty much my argument for the past month.. And they really should just tune down combustion damage, Nerfing CM to let's say 10% wouldn't change a thing for top mages as their crit is already so high.. Only real solution for the problem lore is describing would be nerfing Combustion to 25% or 37.5% ignite value and adding Pyro dot back to it. That way we at least get more stable combustions even if we screw up our ignite. But hey I'm not a designer or developer.

[Erolian]

I'm not sure I even agree with their train of thought about toning down the difference between highs and lows based on good cooldown usage. I'm a fan of good play making a HUGE difference in performance, I can understand their point of view but it just isn't my thing. I'd rather just do horrible if I played poorly rather than having a safety net to save most of my combustion regardless of what I do. I'm sure though many people don't feel that way.

[Jaylol]

Yes and that's exactly what they've been saying for patch upon patch upon patch and everyone keeps conveniently forgetting because if you ignore this particular piece of information it gives you (not you Jay) the opportunity to attack and insult the developers and moan about stuff that's just being tested. Long live public forums. They want to test random stuff while they can. It's the people who cause problems.

Yea, I'm not bashing them for it, just noting that they are taking some pretty unique approaches to fixing some issues, despite the fact they may or may not work out in the end. Kudos to them for that much. People just need to remember it's PTR and chill.

[fearist]

If you want good play making a difference in performance, then i think its time to add some skill shots into the game. rotations/skill priorities are too easy.

[Jaylol]

I'm not sure I even agree with their train of thought about toning down the difference between highs and lows based on good cooldown usage. I'm a fan of good play making a HUGE difference in performance, I can understand their point of view but it just isn't my thing. I'd rather just do horrible if I played poorly rather than having a safety net to save most of my combustion regardless of what I do. I'm sure though many people don't feel that way.

The thing is, the problem with combustion doesn't really come down to good play or bad play. I mean sure, there's people who know how to use the macro and people who don't but beyond that, it's just heavily reliant on how lucky you can get with crits for lining up your combustion. Not to mention, Blizzard hates when a macro becomes almost mandatory for a certain class/spec so that's another reason they probably want to fix it.

[mrgreenthump]

I'm not sure I even agree with their train of thought about toning down the difference between highs and lows based on good cooldown usage. I'm a fan of good play making a HUGE difference in performance, I can understand their point of view but it just isn't my thing.

But then again, is AT+Combustion a hard mechanic to pull off? I don't really think it is, the only downfall of it is to get creedy and try to get bigger ignite and your last spell doesn't crit. But even that is luck based..

[Pyromelter]

IMO the way to do it would be to buff the base (non-scaled) damage of both fireball and pyroblast by a rather significant amount, keep the scaling on them the same, and then nerfing combustion slightly.

I wouldn't be sad if PoM went away completely, it's been causing issues since BC, with mages alternating between having it and not having it. I remember doing sick deeps for a long time without it, so having one less cooldown/macro to manage wouldn't bother me.

But until we get a complete revamp - Increase base damage of our main nukes without affecting scaling, reduce slightly the scaling of combustion, that would give us a slight nerf that we probably need and would no overnerf lower geared players.

[Erolian]

Its not difficult at all but that is another issue entirely. Sadly this is WoW and its pretty futile to even try and ask them to change something that is rng/easy by design. It just wouldn't happen lol its the wrong genre of game.

[Morpheuspt]

But then again, is AT+Combustion a hard mechanic to pull off? I don't really think it is, the only downfall of it is to get creedy and try to get bigger ignite and your last spell doesn't crit. But even that is luck based..

They're trying (not sure if on purpose) to downplay the whole lucky streak thing with the combustion changes.
Even if this isn't their line of thought, they'll tone down the damage of Combustion, meaning that having 2 crits instead of 3 won't make that big a difference.

IMO the way to do it would be to buff the base (non-scaled) damage of both fireball and pyroblast by a rather significant amount, keep the scaling on them the same, and then nerfing combustion slightly.

I wouldn't be sad if PoM went away completely, it's been causing issues since BC, with mages alternating between having it and not having it. I remember doing sick deeps for a long time without it, so having one less cooldown/macro to manage wouldn't bother me.

But until we get a complete revamp - Increase base damage of our main nukes without affecting scaling, reduce slightly the scaling of combustion, that would give us a slight nerf that we probably need and would no overnerf lower geared players.

They wouldn't think twice about nerfing fire, the issue here isn't that one. They know (GC said it not 3 days ago) that Mages are over the top and need to come down. They only thing they're waiting for is a method in which to nerf top-end without hurting low-end mages in the process.

Just redisign CM to a system where you get 20% more crit chance when a fireball hits but doesn't crit, until it does crit.

[jax]

Curious what mages think about how they got nerfed and not even 6 hours later the blues were assuring you guys that the nerfs were being reverted?

I know most every other class was astonished by the revert of nerfs in like 3 days back a few months ago but 6 hours?

Even mages have to admit that there is something seriously wonky about how Blizz treats its favorite class.

[unholyness]

Curious what mages think about how they got nerfed and not even 6 hours later the blues were assuring you guys that the nerfs were being reverted?

I know most every other class was astonished by the revert of nerfs in like 3 days back a few months ago but 6 hours?

Even mages have to admit that there is something seriously wonky about how Blizz treats its favorite class.

Since you are trolling I give ya some back, The newest blue post said Fire mages can't be nerfed or there will be no one left to carry the melee. You heard it here first.

[jax]

Not trolling at all.

Its a legit question.

Just because it brings up a painfully situation that Mage's may want to pretend doesn't exist because your so used to being catered to every patch doesn't make it trolling.

[fearist]

hes a hunter, he already made a thread about this crying on general discussions. let him cry.
dude obviously theres going to be another nerf to mages, just stop qqing and worry about your class.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Not trolling at all.

Its a legit question.

Just because it brings up a painfully situation that Mage's may want to pretend doesn't exist because your so used to being catered to every patch doesn't make it trolling.

Uh huh....

If Mages were favored. I'd say all of our specs would be OP in every spec(PVE PVP, soloing etc etc).

[mrgreenthump]

hes a hunter, he already made a thread about this crying on general discussions. let him cry.
dude obviously theres going to be another nerf to mages, just stop qqing and worry about your class.

Mm, the funny part is that GC has said it over and over again that hunter damage will get buffed.. but guess people just like to be drama queens today..

[Frost1129]

Not trolling at all.

Its a legit question.

Just because it brings up a painfully situation that Mage's may want to pretend doesn't exist because your so used to being catered to every patch doesn't make it trolling.

They are still going to nerf us. The problem is figuring out how to nerf top end fire (where it is too strong) without nerfing lower/mid tier fire (where it is in line or behind).

The nerf they just did and reverted didn't accomplish this job, it hurt all tiers of mages - which was not the intent. So it was quickly changed back.

I honestly don't know how they are going to do it. If they nerf the biggest offenders (pyro and combustion) they are always going to hurt the lower tier mages. If anything, higher tier mages are more resistant to these types of nerfs because of their better trinkets, crit rating, and flexibility to swap around for stats that lower tiered mages don't have in order to get more DPS. Having pyro! feed into the standard DPS cycle, and also be entirely responsible for ridiculous combustions is going to make the solution very difficult to figure out.

[Vynestra]

Or, or instead of fire nerfs...we could just make rune of power a rune that floats around you. and buff arcane. Lol

[Frost1129]

Or, or instead of fire nerfs...we could just make rune of power a rune that floats around you. and buff arcane. Lol

That doesn't make any sense.

[Huevos]

They are still going to nerf us. The problem is figuring out how to nerf top end fire (where it is too strong) without nerfing lower/mid tier fire (where it is in line or behind).

The nerf they just did and reverted didn't accomplish this job, it hurt all tiers of mages - which was not the intent. So it was quickly changed back.

I honestly don't know how they are going to do it. If they nerf the biggest offenders (pyro and combustion) they are always going to hurt the lower tier mages. If anything, higher tier mages are more resistant to these types of nerfs because of their better trinkets, crit rating, and flexibility to swap around for stats that lower tiered mages don't have in order to get more DPS. Having pyro! feed into the standard DPS cycle, and also be entirely responsible for ridiculous combustions is going to make the solution very difficult to figure out.

The only obvious change I can think of to help lower geared mages and nerf those in higher gear is making CM a flat %. That's a no brainer, but I don't think it's enough. Fire is going to scale well because of the reliance on crit, which is a very basic playstyle mechanic, not something they're gonna change in a minor version patch. The problem is compounded by the synergy between crit and mastery, and then obviously haste since we have such slow cast times and really no rotational cooldowns that make haste less valuable - IB doesn't really count since it's not used on CD, like Mind Blast or Lava Burst are.

I really thought the combustion change was a decent one. I don't want coeff changes because we're already not great outside of combustion. Wouldn't be surprised to see a PB nerf though, since it makes up a larger portion of damage the more gear you have.