Underperforming as a Fire Mage

[Deleted]

Hello everybody, I feel as if I am underperforming as a Fire Mage. I have recently changed spec from Frost to Fire as my guild has decided to begin HC's and I feel that it was time to go Fire considering I am above 45% crit with haste at 32%. I am having trouble with all aspects of Fire right now and it's doing my head in. I've been a mage since I've started playing this game (2 and a half years ago) and loved every spec/spell etc everything about a mage.

In Frost spec I never had a problem, anything that lit up on my screen, press 2 etc... but with Fire I am messing up the opener for a big combustion... I end up casting scorch (never ideal) just to get pyro procs as hard casting fireball seems to take too long (1.6 sec cast time) and never seems to proc as many heating up procs as scorch.

So I was just searching for any CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms? The way i'm reforged, the rotation, glyphs etc... Would really appreciate the help :-)

Armory Link - http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rback/advanced

[Relapses]

First off, use AMR to reforge. It looks like you're just yoloing your reforges which is never a good idea.

You're using blazing speed which is confusing as all hell. You do realize PoM is an extra free Pyro, right?

Here's a nice macro for AT and 'zerking (since you're a troll) :

/cast Berserking
/use Presence of Mind
/cast Alter Time

Use this when you have most of your on-pull trinket procs/meta procs/whatever up. Should be about 5-10 seconds into the encounter. Tap the macro once when your buffs are high, get as many Pyro!s as you can out, then tap it again once your Pyro! debuffs are gone and do it again. (Followed, of course, by combustion.)

On your logs:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-kzh4tkf11j3duodv/

You're dead for most of the important stuff, but you really shouldn't ever be casting Scorch unless you're moving. FB cast time goes down once your 2 pc stacks up. "Hardcasting" FB is literally your rotation. Get used to it. Make sure you have an Ignite tracker and WAs to track your Meta/trinket procs. It'll help you get a better combustion.

Looking at your Sha of Pride kill, you had a sub 80% uptime of Invoker's Energy which should be much closer to 100%. 88% uptime on LB, which can be improved as well.

There's plenty of guides here to help you get a better idea of what you need to do to be a better Mage. It looks like you're incredibly new to raiding in general so you have a long way to go. Polish your gameplay and the numbers will come in time.

[Makoblade]

Your gear's a bit better than mine (I'm a casual flex baby) but I think you could fix your gem/reforge a little to get closer to 15% hit rather than the 15.5 you're sitting at (crafty gem in glove, reforge neck hit->crit).

I've found Fire mage glyphs are largely irrelevant. Combustion is the only noteworthy one in terms of damage, but it puts more weight on having a good combustion each time. Your choices here don't seem to be an issue.

You generally want PoM for your first tier talent, it's better than the other two as fire. If you need the extra mobility glyph blink for the two charges and keep PoM.

Rotation wise I'm not sure why you'd want to cast scorch at all, unless you were forced to move and did not have a pyro proc, inferno blast up or need to recast living bomb. It's basically your worst option and you don't want to cast it while standing still on a normal fight. Fireball is a slower cast, but it's damage per cast time is higher, and you want that for the ignites that are going to make combustion big.

What you want to do is living bomb, throw fireballs and use inferno blast to force the pyroblast! proc. If you've got a pyro proc up, you can pom and then throw two instant pyros. If you're using alter time, use that after you cast pom for an extra two instant pyros and then cast combustion.

[Deleted]

Funnily enough I'm using AMR for my reforges, seems reliable. Thanks for the useful tips, and yeah, on my HC kills I do appear to die right before the end half the time... Sha of pride as a normal kill and I lost my focus a bit but much appreciated for the tip. I use combustionhelper to help but honestly, either I'm not doing it right (the most probable option here) or its not working one bit..

- - - Updated - - -

Your gear's a bit better than mine (I'm a casual flex baby) but I think you could fix your gem/reforge a little to get closer to 15% hit rather than the 15.5 you're sitting at (crafty gem in glove, reforge neck hit->crit).

Aye I think there is something mischievous going on with some of my reforge options, I will relook them, thanks for the input mate!

[Relapses]

I might be in the minority, but I don't particularly care for CombustionHelper or any of the Mage addons to track combustion. I use a very simple WA which shows my ignite damage and I plan accordingly.

[AWPerative]

I'd swap Arcane Explosion with Cone of Cold for fights with tons of adds, it will increase your DPS significantly.

[Deleted]

I'd swap Arcane Explosion with Cone of Cold for fights with tons of adds, it will increase your DPS significantly.

It will increase his padding significantly, which is not really the issue now is it.

Most of the main errors have been pointed out above and fixing them will definitely boost your play but your gear just isn't good enough right now to make a real impact as fire. You should aim for Tier Legs and drop the helm or chest for Immersus or Spoils ones as soon as you can but aside from that, you can't aim for too many pieces to gain a significant advantage. The normal Garrosh trinket over the Shamans one would give you a good boost on Comb damage if used correctly but that's about it.

Do what was suggested above, take POM. create WAs, track your bombs and evo buff, in your gear only cast scorch moving or if it's to keep your 2 set up etc etc. I'd also suggest looking at the fire guides on here and reading up on openers, as it will make or break you as fire.

[Jacob Sweets]

Well to be fair one of the reason fire is avoided by the top mages I know personally is because the mass amounts of RNG needed to achieve decent numbers. You could (and probably are) getting absolutely terrible RNG which is just one of the many flaws fire has. It's total potential damage output is very random and you really cannot control it with the basic crit > everything build. Your numbers might drop a bit compared to a decent RNG build when going with a different secondary stat priority build but your numbers will be more predictable and controllable. But still probably not optimal for progression unless you are 100% sure your crit build will give poor RNG (not possible unless you're a time traveler) but in progression another spec would probably be more optimal anyways

But in all fairness if you find yourself consistently burdened with poor RNG is might be best to go frost or maybe arcane (if you really really really wanted).

[Relapses]

With higher gear levels, the only RNG that really affects Fire are your trinkets proc'ing on the pull. A comparison: The current best-performing caster, Affliction Warlock, is also completely dependent on trinkets proc'ing on the pull. RNG is a catch all phrase used by players to excuse poor gameplay.

[fearist]

glyph of inferno blast over glyph of evocation.
Also, do you find the that the WA tracking for ignite is more responsive than the addons? I tend to miss really big combustions because I dont wait long enough or something, had a 1m ignite tick earlier this week, cried so hard when i missed it.

[Relapses]

It updates just as fast as any of the Combustion add-ons, but the WA I use changes text color when it gets above a certain threshold. You can also kind of get a feel for ignite damage by gauging your outgoing damage. If you are at high stacks of BBoYS w/ PBoI up, you'll be turreting 800k+ Pyro!s and that's a pretty good indication that your ignite damage is going to be insane.

[Deleted]

Back on track here.

Either use WeakAuras or an Addon called 'ExtraCD' to track your trinket procs.


1st Combustion (pull)
On the pull with a 10 second pull timer:

6- Invo
3- Mirror Image - Potion
2- Pyro hardcast
0- Living bomb

Then you're into your spam Fireball and using Inferno blast accordingly.
Do not alter time until you have both 'Heating up' as well as 'Pyroblast!' and make sure at least BPoI has procced, preferably both trinkets, ideally every proc you have (Lightweave, Jade Spirit, Meta, both trinkets, Rogues tricks if you're getting it)

Once you've alter-timed, spam pyro until they've run out - Refresh your bomb - manually reset AT - SPam pyro. When your PoM pyro is in the air (before it hits) hit combustion.

2nd combustion
Wait for your PoM to come off CD.
Generally you'll have a 20 or so second ICD left on your PBoI so hold combustion off until that procs.

As for the 3rd just repeat the first combustion.

------------------------------------------------

Would also switch Glyph of Arcane explosion for Cone of cold/Armors depending on boss.
Would also switch Glyph of Evocation for Rapid Displacement / Inferno blast depending on boss.

Be sure to use the PoM/Alter time macro.

Note: Sometimes Alter time bugs out ExtraCD so it's not completely reliable. The ICD tracker is nice though.

[Skyefire]

Would you mind sharing your WA string for Ignite tracking? I haven't been able to make one that I like. If you could help me out I would appreciate it.

Thanks

http://pastebin.com/KNADK5Zb
This is my WA for it. It changes colour at certain thresholds but I can't remember what they are. You can change those thresholds to suit you.

Hope it helps!

[Deleted]

combustionhelper or mybigignite works pretty well imo

[Tecuhtli]

To me fire mage seems like it should do the most damage. As i play only pvp i am wondering, are fire mages viable?

[Kapadons]

Mate, if you are good with frost and have the gear with frost, just stick with frost. There won't be a single boss in the game that your group can't kill because you are frost and not fire, especially if you are better/more comfortable with frost.

[nukie]

What should i set my combustion thresholds at with gear in the low 570s? I dont get alot of time to practice as im focusing on frost for progression, so im out of touch with what these numbers should be for current content. I do want to get more into fire in the next few weeks and especially after 6.0.

Thanks!
Nukie-Kil'Jaeden

edit: combustion thresholds in relation to combustion helper, mybigignite, etc..

[Alvito]

Your reforging is off for fire and for frost which is your other spec. Also what HC are you doing 10/25? If you are a 10 person group you probably want to stay frost for added control. Nether Tempest is also a bad choice for almost every fight for both of those specs. You should probably look at the guides here since it looks like you are just guessing your way into talents, reforging and stat priorities.