Fire PVP in Cataclysm thread

[zeli]

There are a couple of threads whining about frost looking to be the dominant spec for the expansion. I have a few concerns as well, one of which is that the developers do indeed seem to have devoted much more time to date towards the frost tree.

But overall, I am pleased at the way the developers seem to be leaning with the fire talent changes visible now. Obviously this is all subject to change ahead, but the changes so far do give some indication at the way they are thinking.

-Burst damage/Scorch - I'm pretty happy with the changes to scorch. The increased crit chances on scorch provided through Incinerate and Improved Scorch are just what was needed to buff fire's burst. Combined with the change so that crit chance is unaffected by resilience, scorch in cataclysm will be a true and reliable gateway to Hot Streak. We will have at least 40% talented crit on scorch, and even if this is lowered a little bit during the beta (as I think it will) it does indicate the developers are at least aware of the problems at the moment with fire burst in PVP, and are trying to address it.

-Burnout - not so happy about the +50 % crit damage removal. I like to see big numbers with my pyroblasts. All other specs have crit damage increases (Ice shards +100% and Spell Power +50%). Frostbolts currently do almost as much damage as pyroblasts at the moment, and arcane's burst damage is insane. So I see no reason to single out fire's crits for neglect. Give us back +50% crit damage.

-Fire Shield - Absorbs xx amount of damage and explodes like Blast Wave when it collapses bla bla bla. Don't do it. If I wanted that, I'd be a frost mage. Instead, give us some flat damage reduction - something like 15%, like shadow priests have in shadowform, and allow it to stack with the damage reduction from Fiery Payback. And maybe make mana shield a bit easier for mages by putting an improvement talent deep in the tree.

-Blazing Speed - Give Blazing Speed some kind of immunity to new snares when it procs - something like a 2 or 3 sec immunity to new snares. I don't know how many posts I've started about this on the official forums, and I understand others have been suggesting this on the US forums since the start of TBC. Nothing p----- me off more than having it proc against a rogue and then getting instantly re-snared. Blazing Speed is a cornerstone talent for fire mage survivability against melee at the moment. And against rogues - probably the biggest melee threat for fire mages - it just doesn't work. It's obviously not how the developers intended it, otherwise they wouldn't have designed it with a 10% proc chance. If I get a Blazing Speed proc I expect to be able to use it like the developers intended. A short-duration immunity would not be overpowered, it would primarily be directed against rogues (a class fire PVP currently has major trouble against) and wouldn't affect fire PVE in any way. I simply don't understand why this issue has been ignored by developers for years, despite repeated forums posts. And even if they decide to change it to an activated talent on a CD (which I don't want but also seems a popular choice) - my bet is it would suffer from the same problem.

-Combustion - this looks like it will be changed again, but as it stands I think I like the current version better, since it can affect living bomb ticks without eating up charges. Wait and see...

-Firepower/Critical Mass/ Flashburn mastery - are these an indication that we will be more akin to affliction locks in the expansion? I've seen this suggested before - that we have stronger DOTs etc. All I can say is, if I wanted to DOT people to death I would have rolled an Aff Lock.

-Playing with fire - fantastic, love it already. I hope they improve blast wave's knock back a bit, and an increase in the daze duration would be nice.

-Molten Shields - Some suggestions they'll change this. I hope they leave it as is, I like the RNG reflects, they're fun.

-Molten Armour - I think the crit chance buff needs to be more than 3% to make it attractive vs mage armour against casters and ice armour vs melee. Damage from it is negligible at the moment. The only good thing about it is it helps to proc Impact. At the moment, I sometimes use it against rogues and ferals, but most of the time it's ice armour. And any fire mage using molten against other casters needs to have their head examined.

-Improved Scorch - as I said above, just what we needed. A somewhat reliable gateway to Hot Streak, and real burst damage. Like Shatter provides for frost currently. I hope they retain this or something like it.

-Impact - I was hoping this would be changed to somehow not rely on fire blast. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the developers have a bit of imagination.


As far as builds go, I think a 25/51/0 spec is looking good, including PoM and maybe Improved Blink. As I mentioned in a previous thread here, it looks like PoM will be a part of fire burst in the expansion. For instance, I can see a combo such as this: polymorph - living bomb - combustion - fireball/FFB - fireblast - hot streak pyro - POM pyro - living bomb explosion. You'd have to play around with this with improved polymorph coming in to play. But that's some nice damage just there, and would give a very solid opener against any class. I do hope we don't see the return of the 2-minute mage, however. (In vanilla, a poly-pyro-pom pyro opener nearly killed most players). But I think the much larger health pools in Cataclysm will prevent this, and a combination like above shouldn't take any more than 25% of a player's health.

It looks like some some kind of elemental build will be viable also.

Overall, as long as we don't turn into Affliction locks, relying on Living Bomb, Firepower, Critical Mass and the Flashburn mastery to deliver most of our damage, I'll be happy. I hope some part of fire's current play style continues in the expansion - the kamikaze feeling, burning up melee classes in near-melee range with no ice barrier to protect us, just the Blazing Speed under our feet. Dropping below 35% health and suddenly turning fights around with 20% less damage and 1.5 sec pyro casts.

I've always felt that fire needed very few changes to make it extremely viable in PVP. Don't make us OP. Give us reliable burst and fix our survivability, and we'll be competitive once more.

Zelindar/ Bladefist EU

PS - if someone from the official US forums is reading this, I'd be much obliged if you could repost it in the forums there.

[Maku]

I'm also very excited for fire PvP in Cataclysm.

-Firepower/Critical Mass/ Flashburn mastery - are these an indication that we will be more akin to affliction locks in the expansion? I've seen this suggested before - that we have stronger DOTs etc. All I can say is, if I wanted to DOT people to death I would have rolled an Aff Lock.

It's not really like affliction warlocks though - we only have 1 dot we have to actually cast (living bom), the rest are just passive. Flashburn comes from all our firespells, while Ignite obviously comes from crits and pyroblast has a dot aswell. If you think about it, it kind of fits with the concept of fire- stuff burning.

When it comes to specs I'm thinking about something along these lines:
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#obZfV...izMusthfdhoMcR

Critical Mass doesn't really feel that useful in a pvp fire spec - pyroblast is the only spell of the 3 described in the tooltip that you will actually be using, and then the damage bonus is based on having dots up, which will probably be dispelled often.

Didn't take pyromaniac either, sure it's nice, but until we see how mana usage looks for fire I'll leave it be. And besides, your main nuke will probably be scorch, a spell with a short cast time, you don't really need more haste to get casts off.

I subspecced frost, mainly for improved cone of cold and cold snap, both will be huge boosts.
Speccing molten shields and frost warding at the same time is pretty insane versus casters, even on live. Feels like they'll probably change/remove frost warding though, it might be a bit too good.

Also chose Ice Shards in frost, seeing as ice lance will do pretty good damage without targets being frozen, ice shards will be a nice boost.
You'll have really good mobile dps - 41 yard fireblasts on 4 second cooldowns, ice lance and quick scorches being thrown in.

The only things I feel I'll miss in arcane are:
Spell impact for more scorch/icelance/fireblast damage.
Imp Blink and also Arcane Fortitude, which will be pretty good with the intellect changes.

All in all - really excited for fire pvp, it's easily my favorite spec to play

[Sunwrath]

Looks like our era in pvp is starting to reborn. Allthogh I still have some disapointments.

First of all the Scorch spell. In the first show of mage change in cata there whas this:

'"Scorch will provide a damage bonus to the mage's fire spells. Our goal is for Scorch to be part of the mage's rotation and a useful damage-dealing ability, even if someone else is supplying the group with the spell Critical Strike debuff. Scorch will provide the mage with more specific benefits, which can also be improved through talents."

It looks like they scrap that idea. Insted making Scorch a nobrainer button of Hotstreak. I allso think this is the reson why + 50% crit dmg whas removed.

Second, I feel shame that Frostfire Bolt is scrapt as fire pvp spell. It had great potentual in fire pvp. And I am convinsed that it whas made in Wrath for Fire/Shatter purpuses. It would be great and intresting spell for fire pvp, if Shatter wouldnt changed and Scorch would follow the model in the upper quotes. It would be true skill to pull of Frostfire Bolt in pvp combat using WotLK`s Burnig Determination. Todday Frostfire Bolt is just a Pyroblast analog for frost.

It seems that Blizzard today is too much lissening fire mages who can not gasp the true picture of fire mage pvp, and simply whats to spam Scorch.

[zomgDPS]

lol at fire pvp.

There is a reason the sticky on top of this forum says "Mage PvP Guide - Frost"

As long as blizzard keeps listening only to the 1 or 2 frost mages out there who have made it their goal in life to keep fire and arcane as underpowered as possible when trying to design fire and arcane pvp, that will be the only sticky on every forum as far as mage PvP goes.

trufax.

Though I guess you can have 'fun' pvping as fire if you want. It wont mean you will be successful (in fact, you will probably fail quite hard). But then again, there are people who pvp as 0/0/0 spec and get pwned every time but still think that is 'fun'. *shrugs*

[Swizzle]

the guide says mage pvp guide-frost because it was written to explain frost pvp. i could write a guide right now that says "Mage PvP Guide- Fire" or "Mage PvP Guide- Arcane" and just destroy your argument.

[zomgDPS]

the guide says mage pvp guide-frost because it was written to explain frost pvp. i could write a guide right now that says "Mage PvP Guide- Fire" or "Mage PvP Guide- Arcane" and just destroy your argument.

Try it. I dare you to do it. I will watch with pleasure as you get laughed off of these forums and pretty much any others you may post it on.

The reason that there is no guide for fire and arcane pvp is because frost is the only pvp spec there is, ever was, or ever will be for mages.

[Skarrd]

Pretty sure we've had threads on arcane and fire pvp, but nobody devoted the time to make a sticky. You're an idiot.

[Ryoushii]

Try it. I dare you to do it. I will watch with pleasure as you get laughed off of these forums and pretty much any others you may post it on.

The reason that there is no guide for fire and arcane pvp is because frost is the only pvp spec there is, ever was, or ever will be for mages.

Arcane is very viable for arena and fire is very viable for BG's. Saying neither can be used for pvp is just ignorant.

And to the OP, remember the changes are focusing on BG's now rather than arena. I believe fire will still be viable for BG's. Could definitely do with a few more changes to bring it up to par with frost, but a few of the changes sound decent.

[Swizzle]

Try it. I dare you to do it. I will watch with pleasure as you get laughed off of these forums and pretty much any others you may post it on.

The reason that there is no guide for fire and arcane pvp is because frost is the only pvp spec there is, ever was, or ever will be for mages.

just change the stats from haste to crit, and tell people to use full PvP gear, that is the only difference there would be for the guides.

[Tassir]

Pretty sure we've had threads on arcane and fire pvp, but nobody devoted the time to make a sticky. You're an idiot.

Could. Not. Agree. More.

is what zomgDPS doing considered trolling? tbh, from what i've seen in his posts, I don't see any constructive contribution to any thread that hes posted in.

[Rifee]

I'm gonna try out this spec for Cata:

http://www.wowtal.com/#k=CeqtEevKp6Zy5J.9i7.mage

Basicly I'm gonna use frostfirebolt over fireball.

the spec is for more survivability and peels, while also buffing the burst dmg of frostfire bolt and utilixing frostbolt.

-I get cold snap and icy veins (while also having the imp sheep talent in arcane)
-Once every 15 seconds (which is quite often) I get a 1,5 seconds frostbolt for peeling, seeing as fire suffers from lack of slows. This will be HUGE for fire pvp as it's balanced around NOT having huge slows.
-With the big crit chance on spells you have through gearing and talenting for fire, the talents that procs cleave snare on frostbolt crits are REEEALLY nice.
-ice shard bufss crit dmg on frostfire bolt AND frostbolt, no brainer.
-Points in frostbite for getting the best out of shatter talent.
- i didn't take frost warding as I predict it will be removed due to OP'ness in cata. If not, I'm suspecting frostbite will, and I'll just move the points then.
- Root on CoC is HUGE. And also gives shatter buffs.
- Ice lance dmg is also buffed now which basicly means with this spec fire is gonna be doing even MORE dmg while mobile.

the downside is ofc not having a blanket silence, Losing some mana management and losing some small utility talents in arcane.


I love this spec.

Try it. I dare you to do it. I will watch with pleasure as you get laughed off of these forums and pretty much any others you may post it on.

The reason that there is no guide for fire and arcane pvp is because frost is the only pvp spec there is, ever was, or ever will be for mages.

Oh wait, one of the highest rated 2v2 teams with mage is arcane.
guess that's your whole argument out the window right there.