[Mage-WoD] Mage Beta Discussion

[voltaa]

Orrin, if you believe any class should be 50% stronger in dps then you are absolutely delusional.

Scorch doesn't benefit from crit protection, cool. It's not meant to be strong it's meant to be a step up from doing nothing, with ice floes now being a viable option for fire I really don't even know why we need scorch anymore. Arcane barrages on the move after ice floes runs out, frost non FoF lances, fire scorches. Seems like things are leaning in scorch's favor comparitively.

Arcane missiles does have an updated animation, I'm not sire about fireball.

[Orrin]

Orrin, if you believe any class should be 50% stronger in dps then you are absolutely delusional.

Scorch doesn't benefit from crit protection, cool. It's not meant to be strong it's meant to be a step up from doing nothing, with ice floes now being a viable option for fire I really don't even know why we need scorch anymore. Arcane barrages on the move after ice floes runs out, frost non FoF lances, fire scorches. Seems like things are leaning in scorch's favor comparitively.

Arcane missiles does have an updated animation, I'm not sire about fireball.

The missiles I saw were not much of an update. What I wanted was Wrath/Lighning Bolt level update, not 'we'll increase polygons level/particle dencity very slightly and call it an upgrade', what they did with Mage visuals in WoD up until now is really frustrating.

When I first saw Arcane Barrage in Wrath patch, I thought 'this looks cool'. I casted it just because I wanted to see this great visual. No Mage spell 'upgraded' in WoD has this cool look as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to stand near dummies casting those spells, I don't feel any excitement. Those spells look like they were upgraded at the time of BC, not 3 expansion and 6 years after Arcane Barrage.

If you believe that Hunters are 'melee' you're delusional. Let's wait for second raid tier and see what community will do and say about supermobile casters that are hunters, and what will Blizzard do.

[Polarthief]

Polar of you don't think hunter utility will be absolutely necessary for progress then you are out of touch with whats going on in mythic raiding.

Not going to lie, I've done 0 research on it because I didn't want to spoil it for myself. Only been doing Mage stuff, Garrisons, and Professions.

The raidwide movement CD alone will be so big for dps and heals, that ot overshadows what we thought our role was going to be in stacking mages for AM prior to the nerf. Hunters will be well represented.

Bringing Hunters to a raid purely for Aspect of the Fox is akin to what we did in the Dark Ages of WoW (Vanilla), where certain classes were bought to buff the entire 40-man raid and barely did any DPS (y'know, when every class had one functional spec). We're now 10 years later and Blizzard has learned quite a bit. While I don't know the exact numbers, they aren't going to keep Hunters that far down, otherwise you're essentially carrying dead weight purely for a raid cooldown, and I don't think Hunters will want to continue playing a Hunter if they're only brought for said cooldown and have shit DPS.

[Difuid]

Orrin, if you believe any class should be 50% stronger in dps then you are absolutely delusional.

Scorch doesn't benefit from crit protection, cool. It's not meant to be strong it's meant to be a step up from doing nothing, with ice floes now being a viable option for fire I really don't even know why we need scorch anymore. Arcane barrages on the move after ice floes runs out, frost non FoF lances, fire scorches. Seems like things are leaning in scorch's favor comparitively.

Arcane missiles does have an updated animation, I'm not sire about fireball.

At the current rate they should rename Scorch to Warmth a self targeted buff spell that grants movement speed and has a chance equal to your crit% to proc HU or HS. Just so you have something to do while moving other than /silly.

[Deleted]

It's clear with the scorch nerf they want the pve'rs to use ice floes which now is decent, just not as good as scorch when it hit for 63% sp, seems like the logical outcome as making ice floes too strong would have a worse effect.

On the pvp side tho scorch still functions exactly the same, however before when it was half decent damage it was good for keeping a mediocre ignite running( if the other team is not dumb enough to dipsel it!! >.< ) It gives a very nice movement buff and can proc HU, now in MoP "fishing" for procs with scorch was a sign of a bad fire mage, the way to go was IB dot up targets, play defense, do some dispelling with spell steal, kite, throw some cc out IB for Heating up then go on the offense with deep and burst with multiple pyros because of shatter.

Unfortunatley with shatter gone and no deep you can no longer rely on those chain pyros so spamming scorch is actually the only real way to do sustained damage, as good luck trying to cast a fireball!!! With rng the way it is you will be lucky to see two pyros in a row.

Here's how im doing damage for a burst cycle(Blast Wave spec), IB, spell steal kill target, CC healer, IB(HS)>Blastwave>Meteor>Scorch>Pyro>Pyro(if the scorch and first pyro crits)>Combust. Now the output of my burst and resultant combust varies a lot dependent on that scorch and pyro crit if they dont the the combust and ignite are weak if they do crit the damage is really good but all down to rng, but guess what the fucking thing just gets dispelled anyways

So sadly and due to stupid amounts of rng having to go your way it was better to spam scorch and fish for procs since it was semi-decent damage, now with it hitting like a limp dick, not only is our damage in the toilet due to offensive/defensive dispels, our main damage spell wont even do enough damage to be outhealed by one hot!!

[mrgreenthump]

Here's how im doing damage for a burst cycle(Blast Wave spec), IB, spell steal kill target, CC healer, IB(HS)>Blastwave>Meteor>Scorch>Pyro>Pyro(if the scorch and first pyro crits)>Combust. Now the output of my burst and resultant combust varies a lot dependent on that scorch and pyro crit if they dont the the combust and ignite are weak if they do crit the damage is really good but all down to rng, but guess what the fucking thing just gets dispelled anyways

That is kinda weak towards getting your heating up dispeled though.

[Polarthief]

It's clear with the scorch nerf they want the pve'rs to use ice floes which now is decent

Read: Forcing IF because the other two choices are inferior? Evanesce doesn't even work on everything and BS, well, BS is BS *ba-dum-tiss*.

[mrgreenthump]

Hmm I would still take Blazing speed as Fire in the end.. Maybe not at the start of the expansion as you can't really trust you are going to crit on this, but ye BS still feels better when you have 2-3 instants to throw in a row.

Edit: Dependant on fight ofc, on some fights others are better.

[voltaa]

If you believe that Hunters are 'melee' you're delusional. Let's wait for second raid tier and see what community will do and say about supermobile casters that are hunters, and what will Blizzard do.

Blizzard themselves have said that they think of hunters and balance them as a ranged melee, they have no more mobility in WoD than they have currently and there hasn't been a single issue (PVE wise) with hunters having this ability.

Bringing Hunters to a raid purely for Aspect of the Fox is akin to what we did in the Dark Ages of WoW (Vanilla), where certain classes were bought to buff the entire 40-man raid and barely did any DPS

Much like bringing non mage/warlock dps now, cover all of your buffs and bring as many afflocks as you can find, rarely will you see more than one spellhaste buff in a raid. This isn't like it's a re-emerging problem, it never went away.

While I don't know the exact numbers, they aren't going to keep Hunters that far down, otherwise you're essentially carrying dead weight purely for a raid cooldown, and I don't think Hunters will want to continue playing a Hunter if they're only brought for said cooldown and have shit DPS.

I agree, they won't keep them that far down, so they will not only be brought back in line (at least middle of the pack) DPS wise, but will have an added amazing utility.

This hunter utility is also a fix to our scorch problem. Like I said previously, if you are using enough scorch that it is an issue, there is a problem with your play, not the design. Between 2 hunters with Aspect of the Fox, Ice Floes and Pyro, I really don't see there being a point where there is enough movement for scorch to hurt you, and if there is, Boomkins and Spriests will be so far behind due to the movement that your scorching will be a saving grace to the raid.

[Seneca]

@Seneca, hunters aren't considered casters, they are designed as melee

Are we trying to appeal to design philosophies? Because they don't strengthen your argument.

Where is the "cannon" of the glass cannon philosophy as far as arcane and fire are concerned?

Where is this overwhelming burst and pressure which doesn't give time to healers to sit and spam smite on us until we slowly die?

//

On a related note, design philosophies, even the one you brought, are, the most of the time, never respected.

What do hunters have in common with melees? Nothing

What do hunters have in common with casters? Long range instant and cast time abilities (plus the perk of having uninterruptable cast time abilities and the perk of maintain 100% dps while moving).

and like I said it's a dps for mobility trade off, they have great mobility, but the next time you see hunters beating mages on the meters let me know. you won't

In the last decade I saw them beating mages quite often, even when blizzard made hunter autoattacks workable while moving.

Haven't you ever noticed it?

//

Ignoring the datas and infos of the last 10 years, are you claiming hunters will never top the meter because they do not lose damage while moving?

Or, maybe, the truth is that hunters are currently (beta) underpowered and will be fix by the time beta ended? I think this is more logical, to be completely honest.

Polar of you don't think hunter utility will be absolutely necessary for progress then you are out of touch with whats going on in mythic raiding.

Or maybe hunter utility will be nerfed, as they did with warlock one and AM.

The raidwide movement CD alone will be so big for dps and heals, that ot overshadows what we thought our role was going to be in stacking mages for AM prior to the nerf.

If AofF is so strong, it will be nerfed, are you really implying hunter DPS sucks but, hey, their utility button is good so = hunters fine?

Don't you think it is more close to the reality that hunter utility and dps will be brought line?

Scorch sucks? Well it's something to do at least, it can proc Pyro and if you are casting it enough for it to be a major problem to your dps, you're a bad player flat out.

Oh, I feel better now. I, "atleast, can do something".

You know what? I agree with your pov. Let's reduce Combustion damage to 1. I mean, it is off the gcd, so we'll use it anyway and we'll have something to do anyway! Yay!

Scorch should be a consolation prize

Why, again, do fire (arcane, and any other neglected spec) mages need consolation prizes and can't be developed properly?

But seriously, let's stick to the things we know what we are talking about and not try to make sweeping generalizations about things we don't understand.

I agree, noone with a basic knowledge can claim, with a straight face, that Scorch has been ruined as far as everything which is not raid related is concerned, basically 90% of what this game offers (and, I am not completely sure if it has not been ruined raid wise too).

At the same time, noone can claim in the last 10 years, hunters, and their high damage while moving (up to 100% since some exp), topped, quite often, meters.

Moreover, noone can claim the current (beta) situation, where hunter utility outshines its DPS, is in line with blizzard objectives (let alone hunter players' expectations).

Scorch doesn't benefit from crit protection, cool. It's not meant to be strong it's meant to be a step up from doing nothing

Again, if fire (and arcane) does as much DPS as balance druids, but balances have more on demand burst, more built up burst, more utility, more CCs, more survivability, offhealing, more pure mobility, more damage while moving, what's the point of bringing a fire mage?

Fire mobility tools, as far as blizzard intent is concerned, are to be the best across all casters.
Why does fire need a consolation prize as its mobility tool if, in addition, mobility is the aspect in which it shines to begin with? :O

with ice floes now being a viable option for fire I really don't even know why we need scorch anymore.

Ice floes is a talent, not a baseline fire spell. Considering it is a talent, if it is mandatory, it has to be nerfed.

Said that, what about all the other mages who, for whatever reason, do not use IF?

You can't fix spec flaws with random mandatory talents of random rows in the hope that, eventually, all mages will choose the mandatory ones (see Arcane Orb too).

Arcane barrages on the move after ice floes runs out

Related note, Ice floes is a talent for arcane mages too. Is it mandatory? Nerf it or make it baseline for the specs which need it.

You can't claim arcane mobility is high cause IF, arcane burst is high cause SN, arcane aoe CC is high cause RoF, and so on.

Arcane barrages on the move after ice floes runs out, frost non FoF lances, fire scorches. Seems like things are leaning in scorch's favor comparitively.

Well, if we consider everyone beats arcane in everything, arcane can't be considered a fair yardstick.

So what's left is fire vs frost, damage while moving wise.

I'll start by saying that I am not even completely sure 25% SP Scorch plus the fortuitous HS is better than a constant 72,36% SP IL plus 55% SP WB.

Fire: 16,6% SP as DPS + HS.
Frost: 70%+ SP as DPS.

HS has to proc, atleast, each 8ish secs just to even out Frost DPET while moving, without keeping in mind the fact frost could have stored procs or have CDs up too (perks both lacking for fire).

Considering that frost has way more on demand burst and built up burst, (let alone all the other bonuses), isn't it logical fire should be the superior one, as far as damage while moving is concerned?

Not only it is not way better, not only it is not a bit better, but it is, ironically, worse, in the majority of the cases.

Seems like things are leaning in scorch's favor comparitively.

My math could be completely wrong. Give me proof that fire is better than frost, damage while moving wise, by a relevant margin, if you can.

//

(I smell wall of text, I am gonna summarize what I want to say).

The point was not fire vs hunter, or who has the rights to claim the highest damage while moving, or hunter beta state.

//

The main point is, considering that fire was stripped in the last 10 years by almost any defining strenght it had, and considering the only strenght left was its mobility, why did they remove it too and "evened it out" (<-to be optimistic)?

If fire brings DPS, and boomkins, for example, brings DPS plus almost everything else (I've already said what it brings), what's the point of playing a fire mage?

If fire brings DPS, and frost brings it too PLUS on demand burst, built up burst, etc. etc. etc., what's the point of playing a fire mage?

If fire brings DPS, and "insert hunter/random caster spec here", brings it too plus everything else, what' the point of playing a fire mage?

Thank you Seneca for always having a spot on wall-of-text that crits everyone for 9999 but buffs us all with Enlightenment.

(Also because you can say what I want to say but never have the right words to do so)

LOL thank you! I've never being bothered to say it, but I like your posts, your politeness, and your writing style too.

Now, if only my english was as good as yours ^_*

Edit:

Blizzard themselves have said that they think of hunters and balance them as a ranged melee, they have no more mobility in WoD than they have currently and there hasn't been a single issue (PVE wise) with hunters having this ability.

I agree. I know there hasn't been a single issue with hunter "strenghts". But what was the issue with Scorch, then? What am I missing?

Much like bringing non mage/warlock dps now, cover all of your buffs and bring as many afflocks as you can find, rarely will you see more than one spellhaste buff in a raid. This isn't like it's a re-emerging problem, it never went away.

And Warlock has been nerfed, wasn't they? So we can only assume hunter utility will be nerfed too, can't we?

We should not base our argument on blizzard incompetence.

I agree, they won't keep them that far down, so they will not only be brought back in line (at least middle of the pack) DPS wise, but will have an added amazing utility.

What makes you believe AotF can't be/won't be nerfed?

This hunter utility is also a fix to our scorch problem.

Please, this is worse than fixing problems with mandatory talents.

if you are using enough scorch that it is an issue, there is a problem with your play, not the design.

Then, one can say, if Scorch uses are extremely rare, as you claim it should be, why did they bother to nerf Scorch?

If, as you claim, Scorch should be/is used one time every blue moon, why did they nerf it if it doesn't impact our DPS at all?

Between 2 hunters with Aspect of the Fox, Ice Floes and Pyro, I really don't see there being a point where there is enough movement for scorch to hurt you

As above, if we have so many tools to avoid to use Scorch (our last hope as far as moving is concerned), why were they so afraid of Scorch that had to reduce its damage to 1/3?

If noone will ever use Scorch because we will constantly be able to cast fireball while moving, why should they waste their time to nerf Scorch?

and if there is, Boomkins and Spriests will be so far behind due to the movement that your scorching will be a saving grace to the raid.

First of all, Boomkins and Spriests bring 10x more perks than fire does. Fire is just damage, right now.

Secondly, are you completely sure fire outclasses Boomkin damage while moving?

Fire: Scorch + HS
Balance: Moonfire/Sunfire spam, plus MF dot, SF dot, plus Starfall (or Starsurge, dunno their priority).

Fire: 16% SP as DPS + HS.

Balance: 30 + 16,25 + 16,25 + 22,32 = 84,82% SP as DPS (and I am completely sure I am missing something about balance rotation/priorities).

Pyros have to account for 70% SP as DPS just to even it out (and, again, I know I'm missing a lot about boomkins).

//

Maybe you didn't realise how hard Scorch was nerfed.

Scorch damage has been reduced to almost 1/3.

We are not talking about a 3% difference. We are talking about a 61% difference.

[Qck]

Much like bringing non mage/warlock dps now, cover all of your buffs and bring as many afflocks as you can find, rarely will you see more than one spellhaste buff in a raid. This isn't like it's a re-emerging problem, it never went away.

To be fair, this is a problem stemming mostly from the balance team being terrible at their job, whether it be not enough forward thinking, or whatever else. Afflocks, this tier especially, have been one of the most out of whack things this game has ever seen. Then to top it off not making any adjustments because "the tier is over" or "it might hurt guilds using many warlocks" is a really sad state of affairs.

Seemingly Mages are a tad high as well, but outside that and maybe Fury/Combat you can really make a very diverse set of DPS work. We don't need to go back to single class buffs to justify raid spots if people just do their fucking job correctly and cease being stubborn when they do make mistakes or miss something in testing.

Re-emerging or not, I don't believe it's good for the game and I'd rather class-only buffs not be used as raid spot justification.

[Puuhis]

Raiding is the ultimate focus of balancing damage in this game.

To anyone who doesn't understand what hunters are about. The design goal is to have them 5-10% behind in DPS when there's zero movement. On the other hand they should be above almost everyone else on fights like Hans'Gar and Franzok mythic.

Fire has honestly one of the best damage when moving out of all the casters. Ice flows+pyros+inferno blasts+other instant talents and even scorch. Even if scorch didn't do any damage it would still be fairly valuable just for proccing Heating up. Scorch was OP, now it's not.

To be fair, this is a problem stemming mostly from the balance team being terrible at their job, whether it be not enough forward thinking, or whatever else. Afflocks, this tier especially, have been one of the most out of whack things this game has ever seen. Then to top it off not making any adjustments because "the tier is over" or "it might hurt guilds using many warlocks" is a really sad state of affairs.

Afflocks have only been a problem in the later stages of farm and they didnt really have an impact on progress.

[Neoxx]

I testet all 3 mage specs on beta yesterday since the T17 sets are available now. Arcane is still garbage, but I was suprised how close Frost and Fire are now.

The fire 2p bonus really improved the gameplay because it helps spreading dots and getting more pyro procs. The 4p pyro machine gun proc was fun as well and is atleast good for the first combustion. It was finally fun to play fire again, at least for me. Other side of this story is that now I really think these set bonuses are needed to make fire viable. I cannot imagine to play this spec without th 2p anymore.

The frost 2p bonus is insane aswell, good synergy with the frost playstyle overall (although I really hate this playstyle). 4p bonus is bugged, but I don't think it will be strong anyways.

I queued LFR a few times to test everything. IMO frost is still the best spec for single target DPS, but fire is really close behind and gets better with more than 1 target. And yes, I don't exploit ignite bugs and I can read results from Skada correctly (aka subtract dmg on Crystal from Skada).


PS:
All Mages who are still not used to Ice Floes should really learn how to use this awesome talent. It's so good with these insane long cast times.
Cause who needs Scorch when you have Ice Floes?

[voltaa]

In the last decade I saw them beating mages quite often, even when blizzard made hunter autoattacks workable while moving.

Haven't you ever noticed it?

No I haven't noticed it, but I raid with players who know what they are doing and the DPS to class potential distribution is fairly consistent, maybe in lower skilled raids this is happening but we can't judge where a class is by those who can't play it right.

Ignoring the datas and infos of the last 10 years, are you claiming hunters will never top the meter because they do not lose damage while moving?

No, but I am saying that the designers aren't stupid, they take into account the massive mobility of hunters when balancing DPS.

You know what? I agree with your pov. Let's reduce Combustion damage to 1. I mean, it is off the gcd, so we'll use it anyway and we'll have something to do anyway! Yay!

I'm glad you can see my side, as well as bring up your own thought out and compelling argument to augment it.

Why, again, do fire (arcane, and any other neglected spec) mages need consolation prizes and can't be developed properly?

You misunderstand what I am saying, it's not a consolation for being properly developed, it's a consolation for not being able to cast your main nuke (refer back to)

Moreover, noone can claim the current (beta) situation, where hunter utility outshines its DPS, is in line with blizzard objectives (let alone hunter players' expectations).

This I agree with , though it is a bit off topic. Hunters need to be looked at more closely currently.

Again, if fire (and arcane) does as much DPS as balance druids, but balances have more on demand burst, more built up burst, more utility, more CCs, more survivability, offhealing, more pure mobility, more damage while moving, what's the point of bringing a fire mage?

Ice Floes, in the hands of a good player will mean a near 0 DPS loss while moving, people don't seem to understand that we aren't going to be moving for 6-10 casts at a time, if you are moving for more than 3 casts then refine your strategy to include less movement, it's a player issue causing a dps issue at that point, play smarter.

Your example is terrible by the way, the entire reason I brought up boomkins and spriests is that unlike us they have 0 on the move DPS tools outside of hunter utility. Their DPS depends on their dots ticking while they move, at least we have something.

But to your point, the reason to bring a fire mage? There is none, any serious progression guild will bring whatever mage spec is best, that's what being a pure is about, not every spec will always be viable or balanced for top end progress, playing the spec you enjoy is for farm. Boomkins, spriests and shammies don't have the luxury of easily swapping to the best spec (or a different spec at all in priests case).

Fire mobility tools, as far as blizzard intent is concerned, are to be the best across all classes.
Why does fire need a consolation prize as its mobility tool if, in addition, mobility is the aspect in which it shines to begin with? :O

Our consolation prize is still pretty good. I mean, they could remove scorch then there is no consolation prize?

1. It exists (this makes it better than Boomkin and Spriest already)
2. It gives an added benefit aside from pure damage, the run speed allows you to get where you need to be in less casts to go back to your main nuke
3. It can proc our largest damage spell (ice lancing on the run doesn't proc FoF)

Mobility doesn't necessarily mean damage on the move, it's also about how effective you are in a situation where you are moving, and in our case as fire, with DoTs ticking on the boss, Ice floes keeping our rotation going and scorch getting us into position faster (and potentially proccing Pyro), we are quite effective

Ice floes is a talent, not a baseline fire spell. Considering it is a talent, if it is mandatory, it has to be nerfed.

Said that, what about all the other mages who, for whatever reason, do not use IF?

You can't fix spec flaws with random mandatory talents of a random rows in the hope that, eventually, all mages will choose the mandatory ones (see Arcane Orb too).

Related note, Ice floes is a talent for arcane mages too. Is it mandatory? Nerf it or make it baseline for the specs which need it.

You can't claim arcane mobility is high cause IF, arcane burst is high cause SN, arcane aoe CC is high cause RoF, and so on.

Neither of those talents are mandatory, if there is a fight that calls for Evanesce cheese then you will take that talent, if you are learning a new encounter and uncomfortable with a mechanic you can take BS, it's the best talent...in the proper hands, in the proper situation.

Arcane Orb just plain isn't mandatory, don't know where you are getting that from (and please don't say sims, they aren't even close to being finished). And yes, arcane mobility is quite high compared to previous expansions. You can't just say that the best talent should be baseline, there will always be a best choice, you're going to have to come back to reality and face that, get over it, and move on with the fact that best (theoretically) doesn't mean mandatory.

Well, if consider everyone beats arcane in everything, arcane can't be considered a fair yardstick.

Solid point, great evidence, well thought out.

So what's left is fire vs frost, damage while moving wise.

I'll start by saying that I am not even completely sure 25% SP Scorch plus the fortuitous HS is better than a constant 72,36% SP IL plus 55% SP WB.

Fire: 16,6% SP as DPS + HS.
Frost: 70%+ SP as DPS.

HS has to proc, atleast, each 8ish secs just to even out Frost DPET while moving, without keeping in mind the fact frost could have stored procs or have CDs up too (perks both lacking for fire).

If you are moving for more than 8 seconds at a time, constantly, there is a problem with how you are playing, the encounters do not require this of you if you are doing them the way you should, not currently, not in the past, not in WoD. But assuming you for some reason are moving constantly, normal gear (665) allows you to reach levels enough to comfortably crit 1 in 4 spells on average while scorching, meaning that your every 8 seconds is surpassed at a pyro every ~6 seconds. At heroic and mythic levels this will be far better, as well taking the fire 4 set into consideration, you will be able to spam pyros while you move at times, RNG dependant.

[Deleted]

I want to try out the beta a bit to prepare myself for 6.0 and WOD. It just feels very strange with no addons. Where can I find working WOD beta/ptr addons, and how do I install them?

[Deleted]

@jimme
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/cat140.html here you will find some Addons. You install them the same way as you would do with normal addons. Extracting into Interface/AddOns directory of your WoW Beta.

[Seneca]

No I haven't noticed it, but I raid with players who know what they are doing and the DPS to class potential distribution is fairly consistent, maybe in lower skilled raids this is happening but we can't judge where a class is by those who can't play it right.

No idea what happens in lower skilled raids, I base my assumptions on the best-case scenario. In the last 10 years, trust me or not, hunters, quite often, topped world meters, and, when they didn't, the most of the time it was not a "compromise" to their damage while moving potential, more like blizzard incompetence.

I have not played an hunter in the last 10 years, so I can't remember the exact patches and the exact specs in which hunters were topping the meter. Still, they did.

Ask to your highly skilled guildmates who main hunters since vanilla.

No, but I am saying that the designers aren't stupid, they take into account the massive mobility of hunters when balancing DPS.

But they do/should take into account everything, not just hunter mobility.

The point is, every spec/class brings something unique (well, apart fire and arcane mages, as I keep saying by a lot).

For example, let's pretend 100 dps is the middle ground, this is how it should be:

Hunters do 100 dps, plus the uniquess of not losing damage while moving.
Spriests do 100 dps, plus the uniquess of offhealing/burst healing while doing damage with vampiric embrace (<- for example).

You make it sound like if it is this way:

Hunters should do 100 dps, but they have lots of mobility so they will do 70 instead.

We cannot expect, realistically speaking, that blizzard will lower, by a relevant margin, hunters dps in patchwerk-style fights, or, (but it is the same), maybe there will no be patchwerk-style fights to begin with so there's no point to argue that, theoretically, they do less DPS.

Anyway, we should focus back on mages, imho.

I'm glad you can see my side, as well as bring up your own thought out and compelling argument to augment it.

I didn't want to irritate you, I was, through irony, making my point. With irony, I made it clearer. Moreover, the irony was about Scorch, not about you, don't take it too personal ^_*.

You misunderstand what I am saying, it's not a consolation for being properly developed, it's a consolation for not being able to cast your main nuke

I see, but what's the point of being consolated when other classes/specs, which are not consolated (nothing to do while moving) do a bit less/a bit more damage (<- debatable) while moving than us?

//

Another important point is that you have to keep casting Scorch, so every gcd spent lose value.

For example, let's say we have to move for 2 gcds, frost mages could cast a FoF IL, then use Ice barrier.

A fire mage cast Scorch 2 times.

Let's pretend it turns out their damage while moving is the same. The difference is that frost mages had time to do something else which is not damage related, but still useful (using Ice Barrier), while fire mages are stuck spamming Scorch.

I rather prefer they change Scorch to something more useful, something like (numbers are placeholder) 10 sec cd, 2,25 sec cast, as much damage as Fireball, castable while moving.

//

Also, to make it worse, the DPET difference between Scorch and Pyroblast is enormous to say the least.

Scorch 25% SP, Pyroblast 500ish% SP.

This creates extremely binary situation where who is lucky enough to get HS, do not lose lots of DPS, who is not lucky, instead, will basically do less damage than a Water Elemental, in his last 2 gcds.

This I agree with , though it is a bit off topic. Hunters need to be looked at more closely currently.

I agree, let's focus back on mage, which we know most.

Ice Floes, in the hands of a good player will mean a near 0 DPS loss while moving, people don't seem to understand that we aren't going to be moving for 6-10 casts at a time, if you are moving for more than 3 casts then refine your strategy to include less movement, it's a player issue causing a dps issue at that point, play smarter.

But if Ice Floes prevents us from using Scorch, (ignoring for a moment it is a talent and should not be mandatory), why did they bother to nerf Scorch if we'll never use it to begin with?

If, pre-nerf, Ice Floes + Fireballs > Scorch (rightfully so)
Why bothering nerfing Scorch?

Post-nerf Ice Floes + Fireballs is still better than Scorch.

What did they accomplish with this nerf?

I didn't get it, do you think Scorch was OP, or that it were ignored anyway thanks to the other available mobility tools?

If it is the latter, why did they even spend time to nerf it? :O

Your example is terrible by the way, the entire reason I brought up boomkins and spriests is that unlike us they have 0 on the move DPS tools outside of hunter utility.

But don't you think my example reflects the truth?

Their DPS depends on their dots ticking while they move, at least we have something.

But what's the point of doing something if what we do is not awarded properly?

If Moonkins, with their passive damage, do as much damage while moving as us who keep spamming Scorch (debatable, I think they do more but ignore it for a moment), what's the point of having/using Scorch to begin with?

They can do their single target rotation, when they have to move, they can heal, they can use (pure) mobility tools, hell, they can use Heart of the Wild and start doing damage in Cat Form or start to do serious healing and so on, and, still, do as much damage while moving than us, mages, who do nothing but spam Scorch.

(And, as I said earlier, we are considering that fire mages will do as much damage while moving as moonkins, which is debatable, if u want my opinion).

(Also, you are making it sound as if fire mages should do as much damage while moving as moonkins, fire mages should do way more, considering it is their "strength", don't you think?).

But to your point, the reason to bring a fire mage? There is none, any serious progression guild will bring whatever mage spec is best, that's what being a pure is about, not every spec will always be viable or balanced for top end progress, playing the spec you enjoy is for farm.

Yeah, this is the truth.

Fire mages = damage.
Frost mages = damage + on demand burst + built up burst + CCs + etc.

Who would you like to have in your raid/group etc.?

Boomkins, spriests and shammies don't have the luxury of easily swapping to the best spec (or a different spec at all in priests case).

In fact, I am not saying their strenghts have to be nerfed, on the contrary, I want that mage specs have clear strenghts too.

Mobility doesn't necessarily mean damage on the move, it's also about how effective you are in a situation where you are moving

Exactly.

Fire mages can use Scorch 3x times to move to the designated position.
Frost mages can use 1 FoF IL, Blink, and use Ice barrier.

In this case, frost did more damage, travelled farer, and had not to bother to lose an additional gcd to use Ice Barrier later.

//

We have also to consider fire has no on demand CDs, can't store procs, can't store resources.

Moonkins can use up to 3x Starsurge while moving (they are instant now).

Frost has tons of procs and cds.

Arcane and fire have nothing. There's nothing they can do to prepare themeselves for the movement phase. They keep doing their single target rotation until the moment to move comes.

with DoTs ticking on the boss, Ice floes keeping our rotation going and scorch getting us into position faster (and potentially proccing Pyro), we are quite effective

Both LB and IF are talents, we cannot treat them as baseline fire spells. If you are talking about Ignite too, we cannot control it, no matter what.

Neither of those talents are mandatory, if there is a fight that calls for Evanesce cheese then you will take that talent

So do you think Ice Floes won't be taken 99% of the time in any raid? I find it harder to think otherwise.

Arcane Orb just plain isn't mandatory, don't know where you are getting that from (and please don't say sims, they aren't even close to being finished).

Mandatory in everything which is not raid related (and, we'll see how it will turn out raid wise too.)

(Also, do not forget AO boosts your mobility too, while PC and OP both nerf your mobility by a lot, so if their DPS will be the same there will be no point to not take it).

And yes, arcane mobility is quite high compared to previous expansions.

This is why I said arcane is not a good yardstick.

Arcane has never shined in anything, so saying that, right now, it has more mobility compared to previous expansions is like saying nothing.

I mean, it is true, but the point is (to make a numeric example), it had 1/10 mobility, now it has 2/10. More mobile, still almost immobile.

You can't just say that the best talent should be baseline, there will always be a best choice, you're going to have to come back to reality and face that, get over it, and move on with the fact that best (theoretically) doesn't mean mandatory.

Mandatory talents have to be 1) nerfed or 2) made baseline.

What was the point, MoP wise, to have a L90 row for arcane mages? Enlight me.

It was not "the best choice". It was the only choice. Wasn't RoP mandatory for arcane mages? Or do you think it was just "theoretically" better?

Solid point, great evidence, well thought out.

As I said above, arcane has not ever shined in anything, so claiming something is better than shit doesn't make it good itself.

I can be taller than a gnome, this doesn't make me tall.

Saying fire damage while moving is better than arcane one (which is next to 0), doesn't make fire damage while moving look good.

If you are moving for more than 8 seconds at a time, constantly, there is a problem with how you are playing, the encounters do not require this of you if you are doing them the way you should, not currently, not in the past, not in WoD.

I agree, if you had to move no-stop for 6 min, I could see fire damage while moving very good, because, you know, we can keep spamming Scorch while the other ones do nothing.

The point, as you say, is moving for 2-10 secs every x seconds.

This brings to 2 questions.

1) If we don't have to constantly move, so the use of Scorch is severely limited, both because we do not have to move for prolonged times and because there are other tools (Ice Floes etc), why did they nerf Scorch to begin with? They ruined everything which is not raid related (and, I am not even sure they didn't ruin raid performances too, time will tell). What impact did this nerf have? What positive impact, I would say.

2) Moving for some seconds foster the other casters. Frost, Balance, Shadow, etc., can release their procs, cds, resources, in this tiny moments which is necessary to move. A fire mage can't do nothing but spamming a 25% SP Scorch hoping that, eventually, some HS will proc. An arcane mage can't do anything at all. How can we claim moving for 2-10secs every x seconds justifies nerfing Scorch?

But assuming you for some reason are moving constantly, normal gear (665) allows you to reach levels enough to comfortably crit 1 in 4 spells on average while scorching, meaning that your every 8 seconds is surpassed at a pyro every ~6 seconds.

1 crit in 4 spells means 1 crit every 6 secs (Scorch wise).

Inferno Blast has 8sec cd. This means that, to get HS faster than every 8sec, 2 Scorch have to crit back to back, because we cannot use IB faster than every 8sec.

To surpass the "soft cap" IB imposes to our HS (1 HS every 8sec), the crit chance has to be way higher than 25%, because 2x Scorch have to crit back to back before 6sec passes (I hope my math is not wrong).

To everyone: how much crit chance does a fire mage need to get 1 HS, on average, every 6 secs using only Scorch and ignoring Inferno Blast (so considering Scorch crits 2x times in a row)?

[Sturmcantor]

2) Moving for some seconds foster the other casters. Frost, Balance, Shadow, etc., can release their procs, cds, resources, in this tiny moments which is necessary to move. A fire mage can't do nothing but spamming a 25% SP Scorch hoping that, eventually, some HS will proc. An arcane mage can't do anything at all. How can we claim moving for 2-10secs every x seconds justifies nerfing Scorch?



1 crit in 4 spells means 1 crit every 6 secs (Scorch wise).

Inferno Blast has 8sec cd. This means that, to get HS faster than every 8sec, 2 Scorch have to crit back to back, because we cannot use IB faster than every 8sec.

To surpass the "soft cap" IB imposes to our HS (1 HS every 8sec), the crit chance has to be way higher than 25%, because 2x Scorch have to crit back to back before 6sec passes (I hope my math is not wrong).

To everyone: how much crit chance does a fire mage need to get 1 HS, on average, every 6 secs using only Scorch and ignoring Inferno Blast (so considering Scorch crits 2x times in a row)?

Ice Floes exists. Pyro exists. Living Bomb exists. Blast Wave exists. To claim that the only thing Fire can do while moving is Scorch is silly. If you honestly think that Shadow has better mobility than Fire, I don't know what to tell you.

For the second part of your claims, you are ignoring a) Pyroblast crits and b) IB has 2 charges with our tier set, which goes a very long way towards alleviating this kind of issue. It also does a decent amount of damage as well by itself. It is irrelevant to determine crit % to have a 50% chance of getting 2 out of 4 Scorches to crit without IB because no one would ever do that for movement periods.

[Seneca]

Ice Floes exists. Pyro exists. Living Bomb exists. Blast Wave exists. To claim that the only thing Fire can do while moving is Scorch is silly. If you honestly think that Shadow has better mobility than Fire, I don't know what to tell you.

Ok, let' see:

-Living Bomb and Blast Wave are 1)talents and 2)is extremely rare they will be available/efficiently used while moving (LB should be up no matter what, BW could/should be down when you start to move).

You use them in your single target rotation so there's an extremely high possibility you can't/won't use them while moving. LB has to have 100% uptime. If, it happens that while you are moving, your 12sec duration LB ends, you, eventually, will refresh it, but we cannot base fire damage while moving on the possibility that 1) a talent of a row 2) is available while we move. Same about BW.

-Pyros

We have 0 control on our pyros. How can we say we use them while moving? We'll start by using Scorch, then, eventually, if stars align and we get 1 HS, we use Pyro.

-Ice Floes

This is, in my opinion, is the only spell you listed which strenghten your argument.

Said that, I know Ice Floes is extremely "efficient". The problem is that (which is another kind of problem btw) it is a talent. If mages work just with Ice Floes in mind, then there's some basic flaw which needs to get addressed.

If you honestly think that Shadow has better mobility than Fire, I don't know what to tell you.

I didn't say they have more mobility. The examples I brought involved Moonkins, the most of the time.

For the second part of your claims, you are ignoring a) Pyroblast crits

But, we have to manage to get HS to begin with, otherwise there will be no pyro that can crit ^_*.

IB has 2 charges with our tier set, which goes a very long way towards alleviating this kind of issue.

So we fix core problems with tier sets.

What about all the time you haven't still got your set?

What about all the other tiers which will come?

Don't you think this roller-coaster of good/bad/worse/almost available/ across all patches of a single exp have to end, or get reduced as much as possible?

It is irrelevant to determine crit % to have a 50% chance of getting 2 out of 4 Scorches to crit without IB because no one would ever do that for movement periods.

voltaa was claiming we can easily get 1 HS every 6sec. If IB has 8sec cd, how can we count it in the equation?

A fire mage is doing his single target rotation, FB crits, he uses IB, then HS Pyro, then he has to move for 4sec but IB is not available for the next 6,5 sec.



tl;dr: We cannot say that, in the best case scenario, fire mage damage while moving is impressive.

A scenario where "a fire mage is going to move, and, at the same time, he has 2x BW up, his trinket procs, his next Scorch crits, IB is up and he uses it, HS pyro crits and another Scorch crits again which brings to another HS crits" cannot be considered as a base to speculate.

The reality is more like this: LB is up, your IB is on CD and you have to move for 4 secs.

Related note:

50% chance of getting 2 out of 4 Scorches to crit

Its higher than 50%. It's not 2 out of 4 Scorches. It's 2 back to back Scorches, so it should be way rarer, so, higher than 50% crit chance.

//

Ice Floes exists. Pyro exists. Living Bomb exists. Blast Wave exists.

Well we should compare a fire full-loaded arsenal to a full-loaded moonkin (<- for example) arsenal, then, otherwise it is not fair.

To play your game: Soul of the Forest exists. Stellar Flare exists. Force of Nature exists. Starsurge exists.

The comparison you were looking for:

Shadow: Surge of Darkness exists, Shadowy Insight exists, Cascade/Divine Star/Halo exixsts, Void Entropy exists, Auspicious Spirits exists.

As far as shadows are concerned, SoD can stack up to 3, shadow orbs stack up to 5. So, on average, you can fill, constantly, up to 3 gcd with 2x Mind Spikes and 1x Devouring Plague, while moving ofc. Just 1 (improved) talent and 1 (improved) mechanic makes you able to fill 3 gcd without losing any DPS while moving, just saying.

[Komman]

Not going to tackle the issues raised between Voltaa and Seneca one by one, but my TCing experience makes me agree a bit more with Voltaa. Scorch in the previous incarnation (including MOP and WoD beta before this nerf) was extremely powerful - using Scorch, the overall rotation's DPS throughput was less than 10% away from peak throughput using fireball. Much of this was because Fireball mattered very little in terms of overall damage output, and the primary value was within Pyro generation. Let me use a few damage breakdown charts to illustrate:

This is from last night's Fire simulation of MOP live. The main point I want to draw your attention to, is that Fireball combined with the corresponding ignite still did less than 20% of overall damage. Then you include Scorch's lower cast time, increased pyro generation, and you can see why Scorch is actually considered the primary filler among Asian mages, instead of fireball.


This is from last night's internal sim, using PVP gear (Note the T17P). I use this as an example that under low crit, pretty bad gear, and even with the PVP set bonus favoring fireballs, it still doesn't exceed 40%.


And this is the real one I want to show. This sim is done with T17 Mythic gear, without any real utilization of the set bonuses. As you can see, even before we've reached anywhere near the crit levels we have on live, Fireball has once again dwindled to <25% overall contribution. This means that if you substitute your filler with the old version Scorch, the damage difference is really minimal - simply because Scorch has a shorter cast time, offering more time for generating and spending pyros.


I know what most of you are going to say - you're going to point at the Enhanced Pyrotechnics perk and say how Scorch doesn't benefit from it, therefore reducing Pyroblasts. Yes, you're correct. But the point here is that if it wasn't for BOTH missing the perk AND reducing the damage, Fire's overall rotation, the "Scorch + Pyro + Active talents" combo, ALL of which can be casted on the move, would be too close to the actual throughput of using fireballs. To quote an earlier poster: Scorch can basically do no damage, and still offer a stronger mobile DPS option than most classes claim to have.

Long story short, this scorch nerf sounds drastic, but was necessary to put Fire's mobile DPS at a suitable % of Fire's stationary DPS. I'm not saying that Fire is in a good spot - Fire needs a bit of love to be competitive. But the help Fire needs is in the form of overall damage, which includes stationary DPS, and would be in spells such as Fireball, Pyroblast, talents.

TL;DR: Scorch nerf is justified numerically because Fireball/Scorch damage was never the name of the game.