When can i safely go fire?

[Haytur]

I am a returning mage and right now I am building up my gear, I always prefered fire I heard its not bad for SoO right now though people are saying arcane is better. I love fire though so eh, at what point in my gear can I go fire and not hurt the raid? Is there a certain crit level I should be shooting for?

[Erolian]

Personally I'd say fire is playable with basically any gear. I don't find it enjoyable however with anything under 35% buffed crit. Your dps will probably suffer big time if you're way below that amount of crit so honestly if you enjoy the spec I'd shoot for 35-40% buffed crit and go from there. There isn't really a magic number or anything more specific though

[Kosic]

I'm in the same boat with Fire, Frost and Arcane. Can't decide on either to go Fire or stay Frost for raiding.

Been reading that Fire only comes into play with around 45% self buff crit. But there's not been much information on why that number is picked, but seen it said a few times lately.

I'm worried myself that Fire just won't perform well enough compared to Arcane and Frost. I did try it a week ago with around 43% crit and on some encounters I was pulling way below my Frost DPS (Frost is my main spec with raiding ilvl 563 now). But on some great attempts my Fire dps was insane and was staying high numbers.
(Iron Jugg normal wipe due to new tank I was bursting 700k+ and sticking to 400k+ till I died roughly 30%).
(Shamans I was bursting 1.3Million on the pull sticking at 800k+ till 40-55% then we wiped. But on average pulls I was doing 400k+ sustained).



I'm tempted to go back to fire at 50% self buff, since boss levels remove 3% crit based on their higher level. 50% crit will bring out a good playing field, with Critical Mass being 1.3 ratio, meaning I'll get 65% crit with Fire spells.

But it's all down to what your raiding, if your trying to do it for the meters, doing it for fun, doing it for progression.

Meters: from the one farming run I did as fire (up to Shamans, due to using a friends tank and not our MT we wiped horribly that night). It was truly hit and miss on certain encounters. 260-285k dps (compared to 320k+ as frost) with poor RNG.
Good RNG 340-500k dps, but didn't experience much of those. Went from top DPS in the guild to fighting top with the new hunter buff, to being 2nd-4th with bad RNG.

Progression:
Fire brings out a lot more mobility making it an amazing spec for progression. Is why I'm thinking of going it for heroic mode.

Fun:
Best spec out of the 3 for me.

If your doing it for progression, casual or fun. I'd go for fire when you hit enough crit .

I'd say 38%-40% if your not raiding atm. If your raiding normal, I'd say closer to 43-45% self buff.

But compared to the two other specs. Fire isn't going to pass a good Arcane or Frost Mage.

[Pyromelter]

Personally I'd say fire is playable with basically any gear. I don't find it enjoyable however with anything under 35% buffed crit. Your dps will probably suffer big time if you're way below that amount of crit so honestly if you enjoy the spec I'd shoot for 35-40% buffed crit and go from there. There isn't really a magic number or anything more specific though

I'd say this is right, which should be in the ilvl 525 area when fully enchanted/reforged/gemmed. It doesn't really take off until 550+, but it's certainly playable at that level.

[Deleted]

IMHO, play spec which you are comfortable and spec you can play best.
I play Frost all time and 2-3 weeks ago I decided to try Fire. I was somewhere around 46% Crit self buffed with 4-set T16.
I did practice on dummies and also farmed Timeless Isle in Fire spec to familiarize myself with spec in "open world". Read also several guides about rotation and stuff.

But once I entered raid I performed waaay below I was performing in Frost spec. At some point in raid I simply switched back to Frost (even my gear was fully gemmed and reforged for Fire) and after that my performance was better.

Simply, I can play Frost better, I am more familiar with spec and I perform well with it. I checked AMR to see how would I be with Fire now and it show I can reach 47% Crit full raid buffed after boss crit suspension meaning it would be 50% full raid buff. It is something around 16,5k crit rating so in future maybe I could try Fire again but first run several LFR/Flex with it for more training of spec in raiding situation.

BTW, with that 25% Crit/Haste/Mastery buff you get on Timeless Isle Fire spec become sooooooo fun
Crits flying all around and DPS skyrocket

[FloydSummerOf68]

I would not consider fire until you can hit 45% crit self-buffed.

Unfortunately I love playing fire and have swapped to fire (full re-gem, enchant, reforge) 4 times now. Once at 37%, once at 40%, once at 44% and once now at a little over 46%.

Even now at a little over 46% I feel that it's just barely even with frost. Like someone else said, I'll probably drop fire yet again and come back when I can hit 50%. I'm 559ilvl right now.

[FloydSummerOf68]

Just as an update I still went back to frost...Fire still didn't seem to keep up at that crit level unless I had really good RNG.

[Kosic]

I had the same feeling. I'm able to get about 48% crit with gear and self buffs. But I've not had a chance to go back to fire, just fear it'll be a waste of gold and never catch up.

I'm sticking to Frost for a while, and maybe push fire a little later on into heroic progression.

[Deleted]

I had the same feeling. I'm able to get about 52% crit with gear and self buffs. But I just don't see it ever catching up to the other two specs.

I'm sticking to Frost for a while, and maybe push fire a little later on into heroic progression.

At 52% crit, you shouldn't feel that your dps is going up and down a lot due to RNG. I'm at 51% buffed (ilvl 575) and my dps is steadily on the #1 spot on every fight when it comes to single target damage. My dps rarely jumps up and down due to RNG, only in the opener if I get unlucky crits, but since I have ~65-69% crit (BBoY) during the opener, it's rare to get a non-crit.

The only time my dps differs a lot between fights is when I play Inferno Blast really well, like on Spoils, Galakras or Sha of Pride and such.

[Kosic]

At 52% crit, you shouldn't feel that your dps is going up and down a lot due to RNG. I'm at 51% buffed (ilvl 575) and my dps is steadily on the #1 spot on every fight when it comes to single target damage. My dps rarely jumps up and down due to RNG, only in the opener if I get unlucky crits, but since I have ~65-69% crit (BBoY) during the opener, it's rare to get a non-crit.

The only time my dps differs a lot between fights is when I play Inferno Blast really well, like on Spoils, Galakras or Sha of Pride and such.

I had forgotten I didn't try fire with 48% crit. Had gotten the upgrades, simcraft/askmrrobot it and didn't get a chance to test it. Last test was around 45% crit selfbuff/gear.

[Pretzul]

16k crit
Black Blood
PBoI
4p

But compared to the two other specs. Fire isn't going to pass a good Arcane or Frost Mage.

Wat

[Kosic]

Wat

When I was simming things, the dps was a lot lower, as well when I was checking WoL for the charts of mage ranks.

Was at the time Arcane > Frost > Fire. Now it seems from WoL it's Arcane > Fire > Frost then Fire > Arcane > Fire (depending on encounter) in average damage.

So that comment of mine was mistakenly wrong. As I had been trying to find out any information on when it's ok to go Fire myself. And there's little information out there.

From what you're saying. I'm now geared enough to go fire myself. 16355 crit rating, got the two trinkets and 4 set.

How comes Fire sims so low on Noxxic, Simcraft etc?

[Pretzul]

When I was simming things, the dps was a lot lower, as well when I was checking WoL for the charts of mage ranks.

Was at the time Arcane > Frost > Fire. Now it seems from WoL it's Arcane > Fire > Frost then Fire > Arcane > Fire (depending on encounter) in average damage.

So that comment of mine was mistakenly wrong. As I had been trying to find out any information on when it's ok to go Fire myself. And there's little information out there.

From what you're saying. I'm now geared enough to go fire myself. 16355 crit rating, got the two trinkets and 4 set.

How comes Fire sims so low on Noxxic, Simcraft etc?

Fire has never been able to be simmed accurately. The action list is something a monkey could write, it basically just says "pyroblast when the button lights up," while in reality you should be working up to HS+HU combo rather than pyro'ing immediately. Simc also makes no special adaptation for the 2p bonus, and how you should change your rotation around it.

Another example is in AoE situations, when simcraft prefers to do things like put mage bomb on everything immediately because its our highest DPET spell on a single target, or swap fight into AE if there are sufficient targets. In reality, you are better off doing things like saving a pyro for incoming mobs, spreading pyro right off the bat, and maximizing ignite cleave. Mage bomb is still a hugely important part of our multitarget, but its not the first thing you should turn to.

Simc also needs to have combustion on a lowish ignite threshold, or else it would never pop combustion. Players have intuition of when to hit combustion if they know they have a big string of crits coming up, or also to save it if an AoE/cleave situation is in the near future, while simc does not.

[Kosic]

Forgot to get back to this topic. Thanks for the information Pretzul, I really appreciate it.

Going to test fire again tomorrow in our raid, hopefully it'll do better than it did the other week with the few item upgrades.

[xmx]

I'm in the same boat with Fire, Frost and Arcane. Can't decide on either to go Fire or stay Frost for raiding.

Been reading that Fire only comes into play with around 45% self buff crit. But there's not been much information on why that number is picked, but seen it said a few times lately.

I'm worried myself that Fire just won't perform well enough compared to Arcane and Frost. I did try it a week ago with around 43% crit and on some encounters I was pulling way below my Frost DPS (Frost is my main spec with raiding ilvl 563 now). But on some great attempts my Fire dps was insane and was staying high numbers.
(Iron Jugg normal wipe due to new tank I was bursting 700k+ and sticking to 400k+ till I died roughly 30%).
(Shamans I was bursting 1.3Million on the pull sticking at 800k+ till 40-55% then we wiped. But on average pulls I was doing 400k+ sustained).



I'm tempted to go back to fire at 50% self buff, since boss levels remove 3% crit based on their higher level. 50% crit will bring out a good playing field, with Critical Mass being 1.3 ratio, meaning I'll get 65% crit with Fire spells.

But it's all down to what your raiding, if your trying to do it for the meters, doing it for fun, doing it for progression.

Meters: from the one farming run I did as fire (up to Shamans, due to using a friends tank and not our MT we wiped horribly that night). It was truly hit and miss on certain encounters. 260-285k dps (compared to 320k+ as frost) with poor RNG.
Good RNG 340-500k dps, but didn't experience much of those. Went from top DPS in the guild to fighting top with the new hunter buff, to being 2nd-4th with bad RNG.

Progression:
Fire brings out a lot more mobility making it an amazing spec for progression. Is why I'm thinking of going it for heroic mode.

Fun:
Best spec out of the 3 for me.

If your doing it for progression, casual or fun. I'd go for fire when you hit enough crit .

I'd say 38%-40% if your not raiding atm. If your raiding normal, I'd say closer to 43-45% self buff.

But compared to the two other specs. Fire isn't going to pass a good Arcane or Frost Mage.

a fire mage maybe cant win against an arcane mage but he will win for sure agains a frost mage of the same gear imo

[ZombiexCat]

a fire mage maybe cant win against an arcane mage but he will win for sure agains a frost mage of the same gear imo

Not necessarily true, because I play a frost mage in a 10/14H guild. The fire mage in my guild is a good 7 or 8 ilvls above me, and I will consistently pull higher dps over the course of a fight. At the beginning, he slaughters most of the time, but at the end, I'll end up on top... most of the time.

[Deleted]

Frost mage DPS is very consistent, and pretty solid. In reality all 3 specs are very close to each other.

[Glyphtics]

Not necessarily true, because I play a frost mage in a 10/14H guild. The fire mage in my guild is a good 7 or 8 ilvls above me, and I will consistently pull higher dps over the course of a fight. At the beginning, he slaughters most of the time, but at the end, I'll end up on top... most of the time.

Anecdotal evidence is useless. Considering this information, I think it's fairly evident that the fire mage in your guild is trash.

[Deleted]

Anecdotal evidence is useless. Considering this information, I think it's fairly evident that the fire mage in your guild is trash.

Your gut is not evidence either. I think it's fairly evident that you have no idea what you are talking about. The amount of people who hop on these forums thinking that fire is the only strong and/or viable spec is staggering.

Consider that in a 10/14H guild(especially if it is 10 man) the fire mage can be 574 without having a lot of crit pieces. A well-itemised frost or arcane mage could beat him easily, especially when you keep into account fight duration(198 sec for frost = brilliance in a box), which particular fight, and other contributing factors.

[Mormolyce]

When you have a full set of asbestos armour and a bucket of water on standby.