The combustion nerf was an overkill.

[Tobedeleted123]

Maybe it was good to put fire more in line, but with growing amount of crit the value of it decreases, which means we don't scale AS good as some people would think. And I'd understand such harsh nerf, but why all on one ability? Goddamnit, our main dps cd hits like wet noodles! It's terrible, all the fun has been taken away from us, our signature ability does less than 6-7% of our damage and our cleave is really terrible now. Blizzard pls. Had to vent.

[Corruptsoul]

Looking over Garrosh logs, my fire cleave is in line with Warlocks when I'm not stuck doing engineers. LB 3 targets, dots on more than just the 5 mobs, and flamestrikes.

Oh, if you're able to get away with glyphing CoC, that's pretty good to use as well in a lot of AoE situations. Just because we were all used to face rolling to victory with combustion doesn't mean Blizzard took away all of our tools to do good damage.

[Akraen]

I don't see how in one thread we're told don't play frost because fire is much better.

Then in another thread we have a claim that fire was nerfed too hard.

Which is it?

Honestly: I think fire is just designed incorrectly. Pyroblast probably should get a nerf, and fireball a buff. Bring down the RNG but still give it a "boom" feel. Combustion should be able to spread to all targets, because frost has frozen orb and that's only right.

[Imnick]

While I agree that it doesn't feel as good as it used to, upping Combustion damage would have to reduce some other aspect of Fire's damage.
It can't be Fireball because that already hits as hard as walking up to the target and aggressively licking it, it can't be Pyroblast either because that would just reduce Combustion damage again (and also it's where most of our burst damage comes from, Fireball shows highly because we cast it a lot not because it hits for much) and it can't be a bomb spell because they are shared by all three specs.

So it has to be Combustion.

[Frost1129]

I don't see how in one thread we're told don't play frost because fire is much better.

Then in another thread we have a claim that fire was nerfed too hard.

Which is it?

Honestly: I think fire is just designed incorrectly. Pyroblast probably should get a nerf, and fireball a buff. Bring down the RNG but still give it a "boom" feel. Combustion should be able to spread to all targets, because frost has frozen orb and that's only right.

Fire is completely fine. Better than Frost on an empirical basis. i.e. Based on maximum potential DPS.

People saying crit was devaluing don't know what they are talking about. Crit isn't changing in 5.4 (rating wise). So it's impossible to know if it was de-valued or not. Decrease in DPS per ilvl compared to the 5.1->5.2 shift, if it exists, is due to massive gains in crit that occued at that point compared to now. It makes sense we gain less DPS per ilvl since we're basically not gaining crit anymore.

Also, RNG was reduced quite a bit. Combustion has a much smaller range of damage so it contributes much less. The 4PC also goes a bit of the way to smoothing RNG out by guaranteeing pyro crits (which also increases number of pyro!).

The combustion nerf is turning out to be a decent way to nerf mages now that the base ilvl is higher than ToT (which immedietly gets people far above the fire gate).

Fire is designed poorly, I agree.

[unholyness]

While I agree that it doesn't feel as good as it used to, upping Combustion damage would have to reduce some other aspect of Fire's damage.
It can't be Fireball because that already hits as hard as walking up to the target and aggressively licking it, it can't be Pyroblast either because that would just reduce Combustion damage again (and also it's where most of our burst damage comes from, Fireball shows highly because we cast it a lot not because it hits for much) and it can't be a bomb spell because they are shared by all three specs.

So it has to be Combustion.

The combustion nerf was needed for Soo with all of the cleave fights, even with the nerfs me and my fellow fire mage still finish very highly on every fight while still competing with other player's who got lucky on Ordon and have their 2pc. I was surprised to be honest but what Vykina was saying this whole time is pretty much true, even with the nerf I am very happy to say I love topping cleave fights with a 60% nerf to combustion, only imagining what it would be like without the nerf.

[Malfecto]

This is just a trail of tears that dates all the way back to rolling ignites and Blizz never really getting a good feel for how they wanted the "set the world on fire" spec to operate sanely. So many iterations to get past rolling, then ignite munching, and finally, at the beginning of this expac it looked like we traded in for a workable solution at the cost of how our dots spread. Unfortunately, that coupled with the condensation of mage abilities into a universal pool left us with fire mages having access to shatter, which was never balanced around fire. Instead of fixing that, they decided to remain stubborn, let every spec keep shatter, and dumb down fire to the point that it is so simplistic, they only have 1 or 2 dials left to tune with. Its bad development of mechanics.

IMO, nerfing an ability within an expansion just shows how poorly implemented it is in the first place. If you progress to gain power only to have it technically stripped from you at each new hurdle is just lame.

This isn't a pride thing. This isn't a continuity of design. This is just stubborn refusal to listen to the community of people that USE the game and the spec for enjoyment. I don't know what the goal has been for mages this expac, and fire in particular, but it seems like a series of lazy bandaids and putting out fires in the pve to pvp translation. Its just lazy. I'm sorry that's all it is. Nothing they have done this expac has said "Wow, they sat down and really thought about this".

But, that said, its still a usable engine. It works, its just no fun to drive the car anymore ><

[fearist]

I agree. even though I am probably still one of the highest parsing mages on malganis, I think fire needs a buff in order to compensate the nerf. I think a 5% to pyro, bombs, fireball, and combustion will make things right again. thats just me doe.

[Frost1129]

I agree. even though I am probably still one of the highest parsing mages on malganis, I think fire needs a buff in order to compensate the nerf. I think a 5% to pyro, bombs, fireball, and combustion will make things right again. thats just me doe.

If you are not trolling then you need to seriously reevaluate your priorities. I want mages to be strong, but I don't want that at the expense of every other raid DPS getting shoved to the side to make more room for us.

[PPN]

I wont give any solution suggestion. The one thing the OP is right about... Last week my combustion did 5% of my dmg on single target fights, kinda shitty for the major/only cd we have. Overall dps is fine is fine, with all the crit our dps now consists of only pyro procs.

[fearist]

If you are not trolling then you need to seriously reevaluate your priorities. I want mages to be strong, but I don't want that at the expense of every other raid DPS getting shoved to the side to make more room for us.

fire in its's current state takes no skill now. the only thing that seperates high end mages now are gear, not how you build your combustion.
like theres just no way to play fire wrong now, before you can seperate good mages and bad mages by how we use combustion and now since combustion doesn't hit for anything, its just mind numbing. im not saying combustion took a high amount of skil but still. if you disagree with me. lmao just lmao.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

fire in its's current state takes no skill now. the only thing that seperates high end mages now are gear, not how you build your combustion.
like theres just no way to play fire wrong now, before you can seperate good mages and bad mages by how we use combustion and now since combustion doesn't hit for anything, its just mind numbing. im not saying combustion took a high amount of skil but still. if you disagree with me. lmao just lmao.

What is defined as skill? Because IMO Fire right now doesn't take that much skill. Even in Cata I thought it didn't take that much skill either.

[fearist]

i think skill would be maximizing trinket procs, cooldowns, and that good stuff. micro managing, sure its not hard, but it seperates good and bads especially with raid mechanics to worry about. i mean, thats what has seperated good and bad mages ever since i can remember.
but hear me out, what if blizzard experimmented with SKILL SHOTS starting with mages in 6.0. i mean think about it, in league what makes the crowd go crazy?
AN INSANE SKILL SHOT!
IN COMPETITIVE SHOOTERS, WHAT MAKES THE CROWD GO CRAZY? AN INSANELY SICK HEAD SHOT.
i mean think about it youre raiding you know your dps is on par to become either #1 or #2 on a certain boss on world of logs, and all you have to do is land this next skill shot before the boss dies. AND BOOM! YOU LAND IT, RIGHT ON THE BOSS'S HEAD. YOU SCREAM ON TEAM SPEAK, AND YOUR GUILD MATES GO CRAZY, YOURE GOING CRAZY, YOUR DOG IS GOING CRAZY, YOUR CATS ARE GOING CRAZY. I MEAN IT WOULD JUST BE INSANE.

IM ABOUT TO GO CRAZY JUST THINKING ABOUT IT

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Umm I think you need to relax broseph.

[fearist]

im calm now. but man, i was sweating just thinking about my skill shot idea...

[Akraen]

All the skill moved to frost. Especially with high haste and 2pc.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Personally, I think if it's not fun. Stay away from my spec!

[fearist]

trust me, skill shots will be fun. i mean here is just 2 idea.
my first idea: meteor from above, your camera angle zooms very far out, and you have to aim a meteor to drop right on the boss to deal a massive amount of damage.
my 2nd idea: SUCK ON THIS: the boss becomes very small, you must aim and keep your aim on the bosses's head untill the cast ends to deal MASSIVE DAMAGE.

again thats only 2 ideas off the top of my head, think out of the box with this skill shot idea guys, be creative i think its osmething that can really work

[Aeluron Lightsong]

trust me, skill shots will be fun. i mean here is just 2 idea.
my first idea: meteor from above, your camera angle zooms very far out, and you have to aim a meteor to drop right on the boss to deal a massive amount of damage.
my 2nd idea: SUCK ON THIS: the boss becomes very small, you must aim and keep your aim on the bosses's head untill the cast ends to deal MASSIVE DAMAGE.

again thats only 2 ideas off the top of my head, think out of the box with this skill shot idea guys, be creative i think its osmething that can really work

Reminds me of Ultima. The spell that is from FF. >.>

[Phanuel]

i think skill would be maximizing trinket procs, cooldowns, and that good stuff. micro managing, sure its not hard, but it seperates good and bads especially with raid mechanics to worry about. i mean, thats what has seperated good and bad mages ever since i can remember.

I remember clearing MC and Ony (Frost) -> AQ and Naxx (Fire, roll them ignites guys! Wait, stop mage team, Thaddius is actually angry at me now for the rolling ignite, oh now I'm dead on a nearly infinite tank threat fight) and mashing 1 to 2 keys total. Clearly a load of skill involved in being quite possibly the most gear dependent / skill independent era of DPS ever.