what spec to raid with at 110

[Deleted]

Blizzards needs to be really careful now with nerfs. People will get angry, because they have invested so much time to their Artifact.

[Deleted]

Disclaimer: I really need to check Frost and Arcane again in Beta and sustainability has been changed for all dps classes which is hard to get a good view on.

I really like what they've done with fire spec. Initially it feels like they gone the easy route and just changed combustion and did some quick tweaks. But they actually looked at it while staying with their mage design phylosphy (don't make big changes) and also changed visuals. They mostly broke old design rules and gave fire mages a lot of quality of life changes like fireblast being casting during other casts, feels odd Flame On can't do that. Their are some complaints but this is not the topic for it and I'm enjoying it for pve.

Blizzard did go and did it's frequent mistake, the things they focus on or when mages have legitimate complains about before they start working are tweaked to be at the top in performance.
While numbers can be tweaked and their is a risk that Blizzard will do a Wrath move and overnerf fire just before launch mechanicly Fire seems superior to the other specs. As someone mentioned, Fire stole the acceleration interaction Frost had in WoD. In the past fire only had this element during Combustion set-up. It's also not good to have 2 specs have the identity so i guess frost needs to find something new. Still I wonder why they didn't change frost mastery into what multistrike did for the spec. Right now, im not sure what to think of frost.

I'm really confused about what their balance phylosphy is, MoP probably had the best balance in everyone be good in all Archetypes equally than it ever has. And with these artifacts system it feels they would want that phylosphy again. I just don't see it being as good as MoP was. I'm quite confused with how fire seems stronger at more archtypes than Frost and Arcane. Admittingly lvl 100 pve performance is not relevant.

Atm I'm going to start with Fire and stick with it. If a nerf happens just before launch too many people will notice it to late and the outcry will be too big. Because of the artifact system blizzard will probably have to cave in and quickly buf fire. Fire will be less dominating compared to now though but will still be mechanicly superior. Cauterizing blink is one of the big reasons I'm going for this spec.

edit
changed my opinion slightly about frost

[Deleted]

I'll probably focus on fire getting atleast phoenix reborn and Pyretic incantations on Felo'melorn. but also trying once i get some artifact reasearch to get atleast rule of three on Aluneth.

I feel like it's inevitable that either fire get's nerfed (worst solution) or arcane and frost get some mechanical changes and or buffs to their abilities (the more favorable solution). Ideally I'd see this nerf/buff happen in the 3 weeks we have pre release or in the first week of release.

The tuning they apparantly did midway into highmaul caused alot of bad blood and tuning mid raid progression is the worst thing they could do. but seeing they haven't done any form of balance patch on the beta over the past 4? weeks does not bode well for balancing pre release.

Enjoy Fire while it lasts I guess and hope for the best.

[Tyze]

Am I the only one that thinks Fire will get heavily nerfed?

[Deleted]

Am I the only one that thinks Fire will get heavily nerfed?

Well you have to focus on where the spec is as a whole, not compared to frost and arcane. Just because it is performing better than the other two specs does not mean it needs nerfed. If it was out performing every other spec in the game, then yes nerfs will happen justifiably, however after the flame patch hotfix fire is now no longer outperforming everything else, indeed there are many other specs that are higher dps wise, warlocks and windwalkers for example.

In this instance it is that frost and arcane should be brought upto an adequate level, this should be simple for arcane with numbers however frost has scaling issues with haste and weak mastery, so it needs a more deep long term adjustment.

[Deleted]

Bit of-topic, but i dont understand why they didn't nerf archimonde trinket instead. Seem like now they just need to unnerf the talent?

[Deleted]

Bit of-topic, but i dont understand why they didn't nerf archimonde trinket instead. Seem like now they just need to unnerf the talent?

Are you aware that flame patch stacks on top of each other?

The nerf was because of how it was performing on beta, the ticking issue bug while casting was masking how over powered it was. The trinket had nothing to do with it.

[Obelisk Kai]

It seems we are all legitimately antsy about the mismatch between our three specs.

Fire is such an obvious choice we all feel it will inevitably be nerfed. BUT if we don't go fire we could end up hurting ourselves in the long run.


Since the pre-patch launched I have come to the following conclusions about our three specs.

1.) Arcane is doomed. It is always going to be the boring spec, the one the vast majority of us dread to play. I had such high hopes that this time would be different, but Arcane is just too freaking boring to ever be a real contender. I face the frightening possibility that removing the previous mastery, which I absolutely detested, may have been the only thing holding the spec back from being the utter snorefest it is now. Visually uninteresting with a bland rotation, Arcane's only saving graces are displacement and greater invisibility. But those are just bells and whistles to a spec that has never, is not and likely will never be anything other than the unpopular mage spec, the one we're forced to spend with when Blizzard makes us as it goes about balancing the game. I live in a bit of dread I'll end up forced to play Arcane this expansion at some point.

2.) Frost is fundamentally broken. The removal of multistrike has caused the return of the perennial issue which has cursed Frost since the beginning. The fact that it scales so badly off of the three main stats of Haste, crit and mastery. It has a crit cap, meaning crit has sky value until we reach x% at which point the value collapses.
It's primary stat is haste, which is pointless when you realise it's main cast spell has an extremely low cast time and that the spells that DO have long cast times have too big a cooldown for it to be meaningful. Frost needs it's mastery to be made substantially more important...the logical answer would have been scrapping lonely winter and buffing the amount of damage our pet does as a result. Maybe slow down the cast time on water bolt and allow our own frostbolt casts to speed up the Water Elemental's casts. Something like that. Except that by offering Lonely Winter, Blizzard short circuited the ability of using the pet to improve our mastery situation.
I suspect that if scaling issues cripple Frost in Legion, lonely winter maybe at risk if Blizzard tries to find creative ways of fixing the issue.

3.)Fire is amazing fun and seems to have very few flaws (Cauterizing blink and the paper Ice Barrier are my biggest complaints). Good for Fire Mages, bad for fans of the other specs. Frankly I had and still do have some reservations about Fire, but what I read about versus what I have played...Fire is balls to the wall super fun. I remain a Mage because we have Fire and Frost, my two favorite dps specs in the entire game. And because Fire is the only spec that currently works, I'll be a Fire Mage.

[Deleted]

1.) Arcane is doomed. It is always going to be the boring spec, the one the vast majority of us dread to play.

Did you know fun is a subjective term? For me Arcane has always been my favorite spec and fire without the old combustion is the less fun by far (for me) but I'd use whatever spec is best, I just want to kill bosses.

[Obelisk Kai]

Did you know fun is a subjective term? For me Arcane has always been my favorite spec and fire without the old combustion is the less fun by far (for me) but I'd use whatever spec is best, I just want to kill bosses.

I know fun is a subjective term, I forgot to include my usual disclaimer 'some people of course like Arcane' which I usually include to ward off this sort of reply. I guess my hopes for Arcane actually being fun this time have made me rusty in that regards.

But Arcane has been an issue for the whole Mage class when balancing has made it the number one spec we HAVE to play as. I'd be happy enough to let other Mages enjoy Arcane if it weren't for that. I may find myself having to play it for a six month stretch at some point and I do not look forward to that.

Given that they removed that awful mastery and that it STILL leaves me cold, and I really did want to like it this time, I have the right to allow the thought of having to play Arcane to depress me.

[gallamann]

Blizzards needs to be really careful now with nerfs. People will get angry, because they have invested so much time to their Artifact.

Also Blizzard is guilty of the opposite at the moment, specs like Frost are being "left in the dust" simply because Blizzard refuses to get their damage in line with Fire.

[Deleted]

Well you have to focus on where the spec is as a whole, not compared to frost and arcane. Just because it is performing better than the other two specs does not mean it needs nerfed. If it was out performing every other spec in the game, then yes nerfs will happen justifiably, however after the flame patch hotfix fire is now no longer outperforming everything else, indeed there are many other specs that are higher dps wise, warlocks and windwalkers for example.

In this instance it is that frost and arcane should be brought upto an adequate level, this should be simple for arcane with numbers however frost has scaling issues with haste and weak mastery, so it needs a more deep long term adjustment.

i dont think fire will be nerfed, i think frost and arcane will be brought up but it depends entirely on if the devs thinks fire is where it should be, if it is performing the role they set for it adequately, if the devs thinks it needs tweaking then they will give it, but when you compare fire with other dps as a whole then fire is performing pretty equally with other specs both for ST and aoe, so for me its logical to assume that frost and arcane will be brought up to fire's lvl but that might just be wishful thinking we'll see.

[Deleted]

Are you aware that flame patch stacks on top of each other?

The nerf was because of how it was performing on beta, the ticking issue bug while casting was masking how over powered it was. The trinket had nothing to do with it.

thanks. So many comments were about live that i missed the info about beta

- - - Updated - - -

Did you know fun is a subjective term? For me Arcane has always been my favorite spec and fire without the old combustion is the less fun by far (for me) but I'd use whatever spec is best, I just want to kill bosses.

Dam always? for a mage class I can't say i had the same favourite for entire WoW lifetime (or atleast midway TBC/Wrath as each spec got more defined). Closest thing for me would be frost but thats mainly becuase of pvp in the past and its cc utility in dungeons when it mattered back in the day. I do think mages who have the same favourite no matter what are more in love of the idea, but maybe im just being condescending now.

I'm not too judgemental of Arcane because i might not like it because it might just be the spec for those who liked the Rune of Power (the altered time folk). Their was also a moment where i enjoyed arcane where i could be bothered to optimize evocation in wrath, I probably wont enjoy that aspect anymore but it does seem Evocation function better in it. So hopefully i will try it more and see how i enjoy it.

The thing i really miss is Greater Invisibility, I loved doing the special roles and Greater invisibility alowed me to do this and have the fun aspect of standing alone. I really wish the other specs had this aswell or atleast 2 specs.

[LordAmbrosia]

It seems we are all legitimately antsy about the mismatch between our three specs.

Fire is such an obvious choice we all feel it will inevitably be nerfed. BUT if we don't go fire we could end up hurting ourselves in the long run.


Since the pre-patch launched I have come to the following conclusions about our three specs.

1.) Arcane is doomed. It is always going to be the boring spec, the one the vast majority of us dread to play. I had such high hopes that this time would be different, but Arcane is just too freaking boring to ever be a real contender. I face the frightening possibility that removing the previous mastery, which I absolutely detested, may have been the only thing holding the spec back from being the utter snorefest it is now. Visually uninteresting with a bland rotation, Arcane's only saving graces are displacement and greater invisibility. But those are just bells and whistles to a spec that has never, is not and likely will never be anything other than the unpopular mage spec, the one we're forced to spend with when Blizzard makes us as it goes about balancing the game. I live in a bit of dread I'll end up forced to play Arcane this expansion at some point.

So wait, Arcane is a snoozefest, while Fire and its literally 3 buttons is the most fun? You don't even give a reason why you think so. Just a whole paragraph of old man ranting.

2.) Frost is fundamentally broken. The removal of multistrike has caused the return of the perennial issue which has cursed Frost since the beginning. The fact that it scales so badly off of the three main stats of Haste, crit and mastery. It has a crit cap, meaning crit has sky value until we reach x% at which point the value collapses.
It's primary stat is haste, which is pointless when you realise it's main cast spell has an extremely low cast time and that the spells that DO have long cast times have too big a cooldown for it to be meaningful. Frost needs it's mastery to be made substantially more important...the logical answer would have been scrapping lonely winter and buffing the amount of damage our pet does as a result. Maybe slow down the cast time on water bolt and allow our own frostbolt casts to speed up the Water Elemental's casts. Something like that. Except that by offering Lonely Winter, Blizzard short circuited the ability of using the pet to improve our mastery situation.
I suspect that if scaling issues cripple Frost in Legion, lonely winter maybe at risk if Blizzard tries to find creative ways of fixing the issue.

Armchair developer here, the spec isn't "fundamentally broken". It works fine, and poor scaling isn't enough to pronounce it dead. Your point about Lonely Winter is weird, they aren't forcing you to take it, Frost Ray is better anyway... And haste has equal value for slow and long spells, as long as you are chain casting. It even reduces GCD so it helps for Ice Lance too, and it works amazing with Frost Ray.

[Krazzorx]

I think there are many reasons why Fire is enjoyed by a lot is: 1. It's very fast (off gcd and useable while casting FB adds to this) and has a good mix of instants and casts. 2. Procs are fun and it has lots of procs that aren't rare. 3. The heavy hitters are impactful. Combustion rotation feels "powerful" and "fulfilling."

Might not be hard, but it's fun for a lot.

Personally I plan on going Arcane though until tuning hotfixes settle down. Just love greater invis and better ice barrier.

[Deleted]

I think there are many reasons why Fire is enjoyed by a lot is: 1. It's very fast (off gcd and useable while casting FB adds to this) and has a good mix of instants and casts. 2. Procs are fun and it has lots of procs that aren't rare. 3. The heavy hitters are impactful. Combustion rotation feels "powerful" and "fulfilling."

Might not be hard, but it's fun for a lot.

Personally I plan on going Arcane though until tuning hotfixes settle down. Just love greater invis and better ice barrier.

plus the procs fire gets isnt utterly random like other specs and can be predictable through the uses of phoenix flame, fire blast, combustion and high critrates which all helps making it a more smooth spec as a whole.

[Deleted]

So wait, Arcane is a snoozefest, while Fire and its literally 3 buttons is the most fun? You don't even give a reason why you think so. Just a whole paragraph of old man ranting.

I'm really not trusting spec has x buttons anymore since it's always more than that. Fire has quite an arsenol but it's all about hotstreak where with frost you work towards 2 different mechanics.

Also have you tried melee specs, dam some feel really simple.

[Obelisk Kai]

So wait, Arcane is a snoozefest, while Fire and its literally 3 buttons is the most fun? You don't even give a reason why you think so. Just a whole paragraph of old man ranting.

First off, cut the tone. My answer was in the context of this thread and multiple threads where many of the regular posters here are familiar with the issues Arcane has. When i say 'Arcane is a snoozefest' I assume that the people reading will know I mean it's monotonous rotation, tedious mana management game and paucity of visually interesting effects. If I have to elaborate on commonly known reasons for commonly known problems each time i post then I'll be repeating myself ad nauseum.

As for fire, it is visually interesting and has a pretty reactive playstyle. Coupled with it's insane mobility and ease of cleaving, it's an extremely well designed spec that I look forward to playing.

Armchair developer here, the spec isn't "fundamentally broken". It works fine, and poor scaling isn't enough to pronounce it dead. Your point about Lonely Winter is weird, they aren't forcing you to take it, Frost Ray is better anyway... And haste has equal value for slow and long spells, as long as you are chain casting. It even reduces GCD so it helps for Ice Lance too, and it works amazing with Frost Ray.

After multiple expansions I can tell you that a spec that scales poorly is as good as dead. Only hipsters and the devoted will play it when speccing into Fire or Arcane will produce much greater returns.

My point regarding Lonely Winter is not weird, I just don't believe you got the just of what I was trying to say. I will try again.

Frost's issue is that it is crippled by scaling. This has always been it's problem. In WOD they fixed this by basing frost off of multistrike rather than haste and for the first time in years, Frost was raid viable. The removal of multistrike has revived the problem. Frost cannot be based off of crit because Frost is built around the shatter mechanic. You COULD make frost scale off crit but then it wouldn't be the Frost spec we are used to.

Frost is currently based on Haste, but Frostbolt has a low cast time anyway and ebonbolt (and glacial spike) have too long a cooldown for masses of haste to have much of an impact there. This is the heart of the scaling issue.

Since haste functions poorly as a base stat, and crit cannot be used as it would mean breaking shatter, that leaves Blizzard with the option of buffing mastery. If mastery was the number one, or even a very close number two, stat for Frost Mages it would allow them to scale immeasurably better than they currently do.

Currently, the frost mastery deals with icicles and it buffs the pet's damage output at the same time. If the mastery was designed so that the pet's damage output scaled a lot more with mastery, then mastery would become a lot more valuable to Mages without potentially over-buffing Glacial Spike. Buffing the pet through mastery seems to be the simplest way of fixing Frost's scaling issue.

However, Lonely winter circumscribes Blizzard's ability to improve the pet because they always have to design around it. They are incentivized NOT to make the Water Elemental more central to the spec because of that talent, even though making the pet increasingly central to the spec could solve a lot of it's issues. This is why I feel Lonely Winter maybe endangered. It could be cut...or it could be made clear that it's a gameplay choice that you CAN take but you are self gimping by doing so. Like that Demon Hunter talent that removes their resource builder move Blizzard has explicitly stated they are going to make non-optimal.

[GemaRawr]

snip

You keep spouting off that Frost has problems scaling with haste because Frostbolt has a fast cast time. Do you have any concrete evidence in the form of sims to back this up? Are you aware that with the new GCD cap you need over 150% haste to GCD cap Frostbolt? You will be GCD capped on instants long before you can ever dream of losing haste scaling on Frsotbolt.

[Obelisk Kai]

You keep spouting off that Frost has problems scaling with haste because Frostbolt has a fast cast time. Do you have any concrete evidence in the form of sims to back this up? Are you aware that with the new GCD cap you need over 150% haste to GCD cap Frostbolt? You will be GCD capped on instants long before you can ever dream of losing haste scaling on Frsotbolt.

In every previous expansion where Frost has scaled off haste, i.e.virtually all of them, Frost has ended up falling too far behind the other two to be worth taking in raids.

In this expansion, Frost has been returned to scaling primarily off haste.

I don't have to show diddly squat proving my fears are justified. My fears regarding frost are rooted in long term experience. Until absolutely proven otherwise, we should assume based on common sense that Frost will be crippled by scaling issues without intervention by Blizzard.

Maybe we will get a band aid fix in 7.2 or something if these fears are borne out. Like they were borne out nearly every single other time.