What will be needed for fire?

[Deleted]

Pretty sure Combustion will have to be redesigned. It's always been problematic, bothersome from a balance standpoint and confusing for new players. It needs to go.

[Dimmak]

I enjoy how fire plays now and would rather see some tweaks to numbers.
I think some thing along the lines where our primary target takes more damage ( +25%) and all the spread damage is reduced by 33% would be a good fix.

Changes I would like for just "fun"
Remove Prismatic Crystal - tends to be too powerful and not very fun because of target swapping. I don't like the mechanic.

[Quetlock]

You overestimate the spec's dependence on crit. We need high crit only before Combustion to build up a high ignite with a chain of instant Pyros, our normal rotation is not starving for crit in a mad way - it just scales well. So tracking trinket procs (or using use crit trinkets - if there were any...) solves this kind of problem.

You also miss why fire was viable during 6.1. It was not that 30-35% crit that we could reach in 6.1 but our T17 2p; without that bonus fire would have been bad on most fights. Also note that Blizz did some huge error with frost's scaling/gearing, so fire was the default choice for any cleave fights, but not because fire was that good, but because frost was that bad - note that all better fire cleave logs were made with 2p + PC. Fire's single target dmg was acceptable only with the 2p + PC build.

Just check my old fire logs https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...0278/7/#boss=0 same setup on cleave and ST: PC+2p or 2p and cleave. Now i have 50% self buffed crit in HFC (100% when my trinket procs) so no RNG is limiting me from building high ignites on PC for the Combustion/ring and still my single target dmg is under arcane's. Fire is in a niche that 95% of boss encounters doesn't need. To make fire an optimal choice, we need: one high HP main target + mid/high HP adds/bosses within aoe range + need for sustained damage/no need for raid-wide brust. This is a very special niche and there are very few fights that follow this scheme. Even fights like Blast Furnace were unoptimal for fire (during progress phase) because of fire's low burst, it was always better to force the mages play arcane and solve the aoe with other classes that had better burst on prio adds than a firemage.

Your plan to reduce fire's crit scaling is simply ridiculus since mages with 60% base crit and 100% proc crit are still lagging behind arcane in HFC (tho we can do our job with less variance than arcane, since fire is quiet RNG-free on these crit levels). Fire needs a full rebuild or talents that "translate" its aoe dmg to ST - i made 2 suggestions in this topic above.

1. Noone is overestimating fire's dependence on crit; it is a fact that fire's dps scaling values crit more than int. This is a problem, since it means that the spec is either overtuned or undertuned, or will need buffs/nerfs every tier to keep it balanced. Further, the spec plays absolutely horrible below ~30% crit, where spamming 2-3 fireballs to get a heating up is quite common and feels very very bland and slow.

2. You say 95%, and I do not know where this number comes from. The only reason we are not playing fire this tier is because no fights require mass aoe to defeat. Incidental cleave is good if your spec can generate it, which is why frost is so good on quite a few fights involving 2 targets or adds. Fire's sustained 4+ target dmg is way higher than the other 2 specs, which means that if we had a fight like that, people would go fire for it. This is exactly what happened on tectus, when people went fire in spite of its god awful single target damage.

3. Even without the strong T17 2 set and 4 set that fire had, you would still play fire on fights like Thogar and Flamebender. This is because frosts 2+ target cleave sucks outside of a 1 minute cooldown which doesn't do much dmg to begin with. The only reason frost is blowing fire out of the water on 2 target cleave in HFC is because of shatterlance. Or rather, you could say that fire's archi trinket is so garbage that it cannot compete with frost on 2 target cleave.

Again, I reiterate : As a pure DPS class, having a spec capable of being a multi target dps monster is useful and beneficial, and makes sure we can compete with other pures on the fights that require it.

[Alvito]

It's single target damage is too low currently compared to the other 2 specs. Add in the fact there aren't any heavy aoe fights when adds are up long enough for fire to excel and it looks even worse. Fire looks worse then it is matched against the other 2 specs due to the fights in HFC. If you ran BRF it would be much closer and on some bosses would probably jump over 1 or both specs.

[Fennixx]

I'd rather get a full revamp on specs, but if I were to change fire only marginally, I'd do:

- Inferno Blast extends combustion by X seconds if it doesn't spread it to another target (not counting PC);
- 2 charges of inferno blast by default;
- New (old) ability: "Molten Fury - Inferno Blast cast against targets below 35% also grants 1 Pyroblast! proc"
- New ability: Pyromaniac - consumes x% mana to increase crit chance by y% for 10 secs
- Dragon Breath's glyph changed or removed (cause being a "melee class" as ranged sucks).
- Flamestrike becomes instant - 2 second activation time.

[Zelendria]

You overestimate the spec's dependence on crit. We need high crit only before Combustion to build up a high ignite with a chain of instant Pyros, our normal rotation is not starving for crit in a mad way - it just scales well. So tracking trinket procs (or using use crit trinkets - if there were any...) solves this kind of problem.

You underestimate the spec's dependence on crit. Look at your old logs right now. Your two highest damaging spells: Pyro (A proc from crit) and Combustion (Totally reliant on a crit streak).
Also using Tier to justify the spec isn't really ideal as they come and go. 2T17 has had its day.

[Deleted]

You underestimate the spec's dependence on crit. Look at your old logs right now. Your two highest damaging spells: Pyro (A proc from crit) and Combustion (Totally reliant on a crit streak).
Also using Tier to justify the spec isn't really ideal as they come and go. 2T17 has had its day.

I tracked my trinket procs (crit ones); that is the reason of my high Combustions. Base crit is not that important during "conserve phase", it's enough if you use your procs in a wise way - you never go blank and you only FB+Pyro if both HU+Pyro! are up, so basically you trade your procs for newer procs while your Ignite stays on a relatively low value; whenever a trinket procs OR Comb is about to come off CD you build up HU+Pyro, then FB+Pyro and burn all procs in an aggressive manner, so you end up with 0 procs but a high Ignite, then you Combust. Same logic for PC, but you cannot use IB cos you need both charges to copy Ignite twice.

So your crit streak is more or less garanteed by your trinkets (give us /use trinkets OR just track the procs) and there is no need for a high base crit - yes it is the best stat but not something extraordinary, there are many other specs that scale very well with one single stat. The fact that most players think crit is mandatory is because they never learned fire's gameplay. I admit that this is the highest skillcap spec if you want to do ST, especially with PC which is part of your rotation, and it's much harder to use it as fire than as arcane. Add the fact that we are a semi-melee class (thanks to DB became the part of our rotation) and you will understand why so few of us play fire in HFC.

Frost is not that good in HFC but since that spec has no skillcap it is very popular and overrepresented. There are 2 or maybe 3 fights where it shines (yes one is the lastboss...) all the rest (10 or 11!!!) are most ideal with arcane, and yes arcane has a ST and an AOE subbuild, so it outperforms fire/frost on fights like Xhul/Iskar...

Fennixx: no, 2x IB is a very bad idea, since it would conserve the 2xIB + PC build which is frustrating to play without /use trinkets. The crit cooldown is a good idea.

And i cannot stress how unhealthy the class-wide dps talents are. PC is a great talent, i love it as arcane, it gives a very unique gamestyle and fits very well to the conserve/brun rotation. Tho i hate the fact that i can use it as fire (or frost) cos this single talent makes the two so different specs quite similar. There is a long thread on the de-homogenzation of the mage class; seriously just make PC arcane baseline. We already have 3 so different specs with different rotations, just them perform equally in a ST situation with talents (use talents for ST/cleave/AOE) and forget class-wide dps talents, because those talents make the 3 otherwise unique specs homogene. We don't need niche roles since our 3 specs have very different gamestyles, just tune their ST/AOE; burstiness... with those talents.

Blizz made the warlock class almost perfect, they have 3 unique specs and almost all class-wide talents were eliminated (or the ones that left have no effect on the specs rotation/gameplay). I think we don't need major reworks, because the current rotations are fine as they are (maybe frost could get a full revamp since that spec is pure boredom). Blizz should rework mage talents and make mages' spec/talent systems as awesome as wlocks' currently are.

[Fennixx]

I tracked my trinket procs (crit ones); that is the reason of my high Combustions. Base crit is not that important during "conserve phase", it's enough if you use your procs in a wise way - you never go blank and you only FB+Pyro if both HU+Pyro! are up, so basically you trade your procs for newer procs while your Ignite stays on a relatively low value; whenever a trinket procs OR Comb is about to come off CD you build up HU+Pyro, then FB+Pyro and burn all procs in an aggressive manner, so you end up with 0 procs but a high Ignite, then you Combust. Same logic for PC, but you cannot use IB cos you need both charges to copy Ignite twice.

So your crit streak is more or less garanteed by your trinkets (give us /use trinkets OR just track the procs) and there is no need for a high base crit - yes it is the best stat but not something extraordinary, there are many other specs that scale very well with one single stat. The fact that most players think crit is mandatory is because they never learned fire's gameplay. I admit that this is the highest skillcap spec if you want to do ST, especially with PC which is part of your rotation, and it's much harder to use it as fire than as arcane. Add the fact that we are a semi-melee class (thanks to DB became the part of our rotation) and you will understand why so few of us play fire in HFC.

Frost is not that good in HFC but since that spec has no skillcap it is very popular and overrepresented. There are 2 or maybe 3 fights where it shines (yes one is the lastboss...) all the rest (10 or 11!!!) are most ideal with arcane, and yes arcane has a ST and an AOE subbuild, so it outperforms fire/frost on fights like Xhul/Iskar...

Fennixx: no, 2x IB is a very bad idea, since it would conserve the 2xIB + PC build which is frustrating to play without /use trinkets. The crit cooldown is a good idea.

And i cannot stress how unhealthy the class-wide dps talents are. PC is a great talent, i love it as arcane, it gives a very unique gamestyle and fits very well to the conserve/brun rotation. Tho i hate the fact that i can use it as fire (or frost) cos this single talent makes the two so different specs quite similar. There is a long thread on the de-homogenzation of the mage class; seriously just make PC arcane baseline. We already have 3 so different specs with different rotations, just them perform equally in a ST situation with talents (use talents for ST/cleave/AOE) and forget class-wide dps talents, because those talents make the 3 otherwise unique specs homogene. We don't need niche roles since our 3 specs have very different gamestyles, just tune their ST/AOE; burstiness... with those talents.

Blizz made the warlock class almost perfect, they have 3 unique specs and almost all class-wide talents were eliminated (or the ones that left have no effect on the specs rotation/gameplay). I think we don't need major reworks, because the current rotations are fine as they are (maybe frost could get a full revamp since that spec is pure boredom). Blizz should rework mage talents and make mages' spec/talent systems as awesome as wlocks' currently are.

I was under the assumption Blizzard could fix that trick. IMO 2x IB was nice when it comes to general playstile (even if you exclude the trick itself).

[Wilderness]

Tbh.. I'd like to see all the dots gone from fire. At least from raiding PoV.. I just hate delayed damage for the current design of raid encounters. Also I'd like heating up+ hot streak to go away. Not so much because I hate the concept, but I hate the crit reliance which leads to scaling problems which leads to Fire usually being underpowered at the start of any given raid.

Also I hope they do somewhat go back to Fire being good/excellent ST damage.

Why would they nerf anything if all 3 are good with the new design of focusing more on specs this expansion? If anything I would expect them to be a lot better with balancing specs this expansion due to PvP being separated from PvE and burst restrictions are gone.

They have been trying to balance 3 dps specs for all pure dps for a loooooooooong time, without success. Separating PVP from PVE is going to help overall balance I'm sure, but not balancing 3 specs from the same class. Especially in Legion, where they have said that they want more spec identity and differentiation. If all 3 are great on ST, then why would people play/gear for Arcane when Frost/Fire also bring cleave and AoE to the table in addition to ST? If Arcane is still the best ST, then you're probably going to end up with Arcane+1 depending on which other spec does well on most encounters. Maybe you could have a few encounters that are really suited to each spec's strengths (assuming that Arcane=ST, Frost=Cleave, Fire=AoE) but then that becomes a huge headache to gear for with the new artifact system and needing to use 3 specs at different times is a pain in the ass with respeccing, setting up bars, etc. I know a lot can be managed by addons but its still a lot of extra work and it means playing 2 specs with sub-optimal gear/gems/enchants rather than just your off-spec.

If all 3 specs are great at the same things and bad at the same things, then you can play what you want but our usefulness to our raid as a whole is hurt a lot. Its really not a simple problem at all to balance 3 specs and that's why it hasn't happened before, and why I'm skeptical that it will happen again. I'm fine with having 1-2 specs be the best choice for a tier as long as Blizzard's attempts to balance all 3 ends up with which specs are good rotating around. I think that will make us our strongest/most versatile each tier and provide the best benefit to our raid.

For progression it's going to be somewhat of a problem.. because the amount of relics is limited. And as relics won't transfer from your weapon to another.. well we will probably roll with 1 spec till everyone in the guild has 1x relic of a certain difficulty.

We really don't know enough about how all of that is supposed to work to say that it will be a problem yet. The information we do know does make it seem more restricted, but that's going to be a huge problem for the reason you mentioned. I don't see it going live that way, even if that is their intention now, but if it does then we can deal with those ramifications at that time.

[Quetlock]

I tracked my trinket procs (crit ones); that is the reason of my high Combustions. Base crit is not that important during "conserve phase", it's enough if you use your procs in a wise way - you never go blank and you only FB+Pyro if both HU+Pyro! are up, so basically you trade your procs for newer procs while your Ignite stays on a relatively low value; whenever a trinket procs OR Comb is about to come off CD you build up HU+Pyro, then FB+Pyro and burn all procs in an aggressive manner, so you end up with 0 procs but a high Ignite, then you Combust. Same logic for PC, but you cannot use IB cos you need both charges to copy Ignite twice.

So your crit streak is more or less garanteed by your trinkets (give us /use trinkets OR just track the procs) and there is no need for a high base crit - yes it is the best stat but not something extraordinary, there are many other specs that scale very well with one single stat. The fact that most players think crit is mandatory is because they never learned fire's gameplay. I admit that this is the highest skillcap spec if you want to do ST, especially with PC which is part of your rotation, and it's much harder to use it as fire than as arcane. Add the fact that we are a semi-melee class (thanks to DB became the part of our rotation) and you will understand why so few of us play fire in HFC.

Frost is not that good in HFC but since that spec has no skillcap it is very popular and overrepresented. There are 2 or maybe 3 fights where it shines (yes one is the lastboss...) all the rest (10 or 11!!!) are most ideal with arcane, and yes arcane has a ST and an AOE subbuild, so it outperforms fire/frost on fights like Xhul/Iskar...

Fennixx: no, 2x IB is a very bad idea, since it would conserve the 2xIB + PC build which is frustrating to play without /use trinkets. The crit cooldown is a good idea.

And i cannot stress how unhealthy the class-wide dps talents are. PC is a great talent, i love it as arcane, it gives a very unique gamestyle and fits very well to the conserve/brun rotation. Tho i hate the fact that i can use it as fire (or frost) cos this single talent makes the two so different specs quite similar. There is a long thread on the de-homogenzation of the mage class; seriously just make PC arcane baseline. We already have 3 so different specs with different rotations, just them perform equally in a ST situation with talents (use talents for ST/cleave/AOE) and forget class-wide dps talents, because those talents make the 3 otherwise unique specs homogene. We don't need niche roles since our 3 specs have very different gamestyles, just tune their ST/AOE; burstiness... with those talents.

Blizz made the warlock class almost perfect, they have 3 unique specs and almost all class-wide talents were eliminated (or the ones that left have no effect on the specs rotation/gameplay). I think we don't need major reworks, because the current rotations are fine as they are (maybe frost could get a full revamp since that spec is pure boredom). Blizz should rework mage talents and make mages' spec/talent systems as awesome as wlocks' currently are.

Ok, for the last time, I do not know why you think crit is unnecessary for fire's non-combustion rotation. Pyroblast's DPET is so high compared to any other spell (except recetly glyphed DB), that CRIT IS MORE VALUABLE PER POINT THAN INTELLECT. How do you not get this? This is a problem with the spec, and ensures that the spec will either be overtuned or undertuned at the start of a tier and will be the exact opposite at the end of a tier. If you want me to explain why this is the case, let me know and I'll break it down for you.

Further, while pyrotechnics was great as a perk, the stacking crit should have been a much higher figure if they wanted to bring down fire's crit scaling. Even at a base 15% crit, casting foreball more than 3 times on average should not happen. Ever. And if that is their design intent, they need to vastly reduce the disparity between fireball and pyro DPET for the spec's gear scaling to be brought in line with the other 2 spes.

Further, how much exactly do you think trinkets contribute to guaranteed crit? Even GSR is a proc, so outside of it, if you don't have 45%+ crit, good luck ever being even semi competitive on one or 2 targets.

[Deleted]

Blizz should start using talents to differentiate ST/clave/AOE of any given spec - of course the ST build of a given spec will no longer cleave/aoe (so fire/frost wouldn't outperform arcane). Choosing a spec for gamestyle/rp.. reasons and then customizing its damage type/burstiness/rotation, etc. via talents is the most optimal system i can imagine. In the name of the "bring the player not the class" slogen they reworked classes and made them fit to any situations/roles, but in the actual game we must admit that the specs are the new classes. I also think Blizz made a great job, since the specs are more unique than back in BC/Wotlk times. I wonder if running 2 specs in Legion will be an option thanks to the relic slots, so if Blizz keeps running the current system we all will end up playing arcane (or frost), due to fire's niche and mostly useless role.

Back in vanilla/bc/wotlk or even later a class shared a great amount of its abilities regardless of the selected spec/build, and the overall gameplay/rotation was more uniform. Now in WoD it's like playing different classes with very few shared abilities and entirely different rotations/resources. I prefer this newer system, because of the more unique gamestyles, the better spec RP feeling, etc. But i hate the fact that some specs died out thanks to their mostly useless damage type.