Incomming fire talent changes

[Swizzle]

Didn't realise this could also be of use in PVE... Has the potential to be OP... are the Paladin/Rogue abilities OP in pve?

ardent defender is. the only problem is the paladin one is only for tanks and there hasn't been a sub rogue in PvE since naxx.

[Deleted]

Nice synergy between Cauterize and Molten Shields. You can cast Mana Shield and Mage Ward the same global as Cauterize procs, absorbing a reasonable chunk of the dot and giving a guaranteed Blazing Speed. The 1min ICD isn't too long, and although it's not the best talent ever to grace the Fire talent tree it's very phoenixy and fitting, a welcome addition I'd say.

[Swizzle]

the only thing that bugs me is that if you die as a mage, then there are only two options. 1)you were standing in something stupid or 2)your healers are bad. either one of these options means you're going to die again anyway. meh, i don't think i'll be getting it unless i have enough free points to warrant getting it.

[Jothrazz]

Some pretty cool changes there.

As for impact, what it allowed you to finish the dots on the target all at once (ignite, pyroblast, living bomb)

I would enjoy that quite much, make all your fire spells have a chance to proc that, give it an internal cooldown of 2 minutes or something, and make fireblast more useful than a spell we use to fill in while running if hotstreak/LB arent up.

[sidphoenix]

Im appreciating these changes hugely.

The instant, mobile scorch will definitely be useful in raids, but amazing in PVP if they keep in the 20% scorch glyph to fish for now free pyroblasts.

AD for mages? I really couldn't care less what it does to us afterwards. I can soak horrible raid debuffs, survive bad tanks more easily, have an extra 5 seconds on a boss enrage to kill him, or in pvp to cc/stun/kill someone before blocking?

mage ward w/o GCD allows us to instntly react to PVP focusing or pve danger with some instant mobility thrown in. if it burns mana, we have the scorch/pyro out to keep casting and doing damage when oom. if nothing else fire just became a ton of fun for soloing and grinding.

if much of this makes it live, my main stays the same.

[Tuvok]

ardent defender is. the only problem is the paladin one is only for tanks and there hasn't been a sub rogue in PvE since naxx.

AD is getting changed massively and is no longer passive, that puts this ablity far above AD's death cheating function in cata. With a 1 minute cooldown, and only having to heal or prevent 8% of your life in damage over 4 seconds, I find it pretty funny that people would complain about such a talent. Especially since if you are going low on life and about to die, your healers are going to know that it will be proccing, and that raises the time window a little bit more. It's a free pass on stupid mistakes in raids, it's incredible.

[Rogge]

pre-use mage ward and continue to dps while the rest of the raid runs for cover. Cauterize certainly has pve potential, depending on the fight mechanics.

Also depending on whether debuffs and such are cleared when you "die". If so, in some situations fights might get easier by just letting cauterize proc rather than outheal whatever.

[Swizzle]

AD is getting changed massively and is no longer passive, that puts this ablity far above AD's death cheating function in cata. With a 1 minute cooldown, and only having to heal or prevent 8% of your life in damage over 4 seconds, I find it pretty funny that people would complain about such a talent. Especially since if you are going low on life and about to die, your healers are going to know that it will be proccing, and that raises the time window a little bit more. It's a free pass on stupid mistakes in raids, it's incredible.

a good mage won't be dying anyway, so the talent is only so-so, though it does have an upside. also note, when i mentioned AD, i was talking on live, thus the word "is" is used, not "will be".

[rabbimojo]

...
Also depending on whether debuffs and such are cleared when you "die". If so, in some situations fights might get easier by just letting cauterize proc rather than outheal whatever.

Wouldn't expect any kind of clearing. AD/cheat death don't have that effect either.

...
or 2)your healers are bad.
...

First, consider that Blizz is adding (and promoting) a lot more "DPS: take care of yourselves!" abilities. Mechanics may change.

Second, I don't think healers have to be "bad" per se to get overwhelmed. Depending on whether Blizz returns to extreme raidwide damage as a technique to pressure healers, it's not hard to imagine dying with good healers when you weren't doing anything wrong. (Especially if they're working hard to conserve mana and someone doesn't quite account for the damage income)

Third, sometimes it's a DPS win to just endure a mechanic. It's risky, especially without knowing whether ward is enough to keep you alive (or if it even works on the damage), but you could have taken a mimiron rocket to the face and kept going.

Fourth, some mechanics are random. Even without healer mistakes, there are mechanics you're intended to not get hit by, but sometimes do due to chance (e.g., crusher tentacles). You could potentially live through them now.

Fifth, lag is the hardest boss of all, and this lets you survive some healer lag and some personal lag.

Altogether, it wouldn't be hard at all to imagine this being a solid and useful PvE talent.

[jealouspirate]

Glad to see some fire changes, looks interesting for PvP. Fire PvP improvements is really all I care about for mages >.>

[v1sper]

*Cauterize (new, 2 ranks): You have a 50/100%% chance that an attack which would otherwise kill you will instead bring you to 40% of your maximum health. However, you will burn for 12% of your maximum health every second for the next 4 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.

*Blast Wave: A wave of flame radiates outward from the target location, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for X Fire damage and are slowed by 75% for 3 sec.

*Hot Streak (the instant Pyroblast no longer costs mana)

*Firestarter (new, 1 rank): Your Molten Armor allows you to cast the Scorch spell while moving instead of reducing the chance you are critically hit.

*Critical Mass: Your Pyroblast and Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 5% and lasts 30 sec.

[Maku]

Awesome.

[Sunwrath]

*Cauterize (new, 2 ranks): You have a 50/100%% chance that an attack which would otherwise kill you will instead bring you to 40% of your maximum health. However, you will burn for 12% of your maximum health every second for the next 4 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.

Too OP and much healer dependant, I allmoust liked Fiery Payback better. At least whith FP you had some offensive utility.

*Blast Wave: A wave of flame radiates outward from the target location, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for X Fire damage and are slowed by 75% for 3 sec.

The snere durection is too low. If we compair Freeze of Water Elemental wich roots(wich you may count as 100% slow) oponents for 8 sec.

*Molten Shields (new 1 rank, Blazing Speed is a prereq): Reduces the global cooldown of your Mage Ward spell by 1.5 sec and your Mage Ward triggers the Blazing Speed effect when it dissipates from absorbing damage.

Suposly Blazing Speed is ment to counter malee oponents, so this will only work agenst frost DK. Well unless you whant to get close to some casters to cc them whith DB.

*Firestarter (new, 1 rank): Your Molten Armor allows you to cast the Scorch spell while moving instead of reducing the chance you are critically hit.

*Critical Mass: Your Pyroblast and Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 5% and lasts 30 sec.

I realy dont like how they spliting Scorch and Fireball in to pvp and pve. I would be alot intresing to play them bouth in pve and pvp.

[Champloo]

The wording for Firestarter is very odd. It doesn't say "makes scorch an instant cast", it says "allows you to cast scorch while moving"...

So whether or not it is an "instant" cast is not yet known.

As for my impression of the changes:
Cauterize does not seem to fit for our playstyle at all, why give us this? The whole point of playing a mage is to keep your distance(kite if necessary), and NOT get hit. This just seems like a horrible talent to help horrible mages get by when they're too dumb to blink the fuck out of a fire.
Pyroblast, looks like they finally caved on it costing no mana- good.
Critical Mass is great, we finally don't HAVE to cast scorch if there's no lock. With the direction they're going, scorch seems to be a "use it if you really have no other spell to use"-spell.

[Orinoco]

The snere durection is too low. If we compair Frast Nova wich roots(wich you may count as 100% slow) oponents for 8 sec. They shoud switch snere to desent knockback, so the fire mage playstyle would be less distingt from frost, BW Cd is too long anyway.

The knockback may well come in the form of a Major glyph but assuming it doesn't, at least for PvP, i would rather have the old one back. What are you on about with frost nova comparisons? And why would you want fire to be less distinctive compared to frost? Agreed on give us back the 5 second snare.

Suposly Blazing Speed is ment to counter malee oponents, so this will only work agenst frost DK. Well unless you whant to get close to some casters to cc them whith DB.

....what? Only time you are likely to take damage from a single source is in a duel and that just isn't important.

I realy dont like how they spliting Scorch and Fireball in to pvp and pve. I would be alot intresing to play them bouth in pve and pvp.

Again: what? Personally I see scorch on the move change as being aimed at PvE because it replaces molten armour's crit chance reduction effect- even if this is wrong there will be many times when moving in PvE that LB is still going and we have no Hot Streak proc up so we can now scorch on the move, for free ! Giving pyroblast this effect means that scorch is taken out of the priority list and only needs using at the start of the fight now, i'm in two minds about this change.

---

Also there is no way in hell scorch will be free and instant, the talents don't mention it AT ALL so I really don't know why anyone is discussing it, however the ability to cast it on the move and the fact that its the length of the GCD makes it very potent.

[Rogge]

The wording for Firestarter is very odd. It doesn't say "makes scorch an instant cast", it says "allows you to cast scorch while moving"...

So whether or not it is an "instant" cast is not yet known.

It's not instant cast.

In cataclysm, there's a new concept - casting/channeling while moving. Normally, moving interupts casting, but in cataclysm it won't for some spells, with the right talents/glyphs/whatever.

Spiritwalker's Grace - 85
Calls upon spiritual guidance, permitting movement while casting non-instant Shaman spells. This spell may be cast while casting other spells. Lasts 10 sec.

Inferno -
Increases the radius of your hellfire by 20 yards, and you can now channel hellfire while moving.

shaman/warlock examples of the same concept.

[Koumaru]

Also there is no way in hell scorch will be free and instant

*Improved Scorch: Reduces the mana cost of your Scorch spell by 50/100%

If you were just refering to claims that the talented Scorch would be instant, your wording was unclear. The official word at present (until they nerf it) is that talented Scorch WILL cost no mana.

I, like you, also doubt it will be instant. It'll have a cast time, but won't be canceled by movement, just like some engineering grenades and spells cast under the new shaman cooldown.

[Orinoco]

I just meant that it wouldn't be both, I know it is currently free.

[Koumaru]

But considering it's a spell that has a base cast time equal to the global cooldown, and it'll be usable on the move, it's essentially the same as an instant cast in all cases where there's not an enemy nearby with a stun/interrupt and a quick trigger finger. So maybe posters are using the term "instant" when what they really mean is "effectively instant."

This allows it to be an amazing utility for firing on the move, while not being completely OP in PvP, because a priest/shaman/mage/felpuppy/didiforgetanybody can still spell lock a kiting fire mage.

Great design for the PvP/PvE balancing act. I'm in love.

Oh, and about the Blast Wave complaints from some posters: did you notice it's a ground targeted spell (like Blizzard) now and NOT a PBAoE? Going from a knockback back to the old snare it used to have is a PvE buff, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a Glyph of Blastwave giving it a knockback effect for PvP. Or maybe glyphed Dragon's Breath will do that now in addition to the daze.

[Sunwrath]

Going from a knockback back to the old snare it used to have is a PvE buff,

CC in PvE... right. Well even in pve 3 sec snere will be even worse.

and I wouldn't be surprised to see a Glyph of Blastwave giving it a knockback effect for PvP. Or maybe glyphed Dragon's Breath will do that now in addition to the daze.

Dont be suprised if they dont.