Mage Fire Questions

[Deleted]

Hiya, I have some questions regarding mage fire in wotlk.

When is crit better than haste and the other way around?
Is mastery any good? Friend of mine was talking about some kind of bug, explain pl0x!
FFB vs Fireball without mastery?

Thanks
Newcomer

[Deleted]

crit is better than haste, no questions. if you dont crit, you dont ignite.
mastery makes you do more damage, so yes, reforge to crit where you can, and where you cant, reforge mastery (or the other way around, personal preference)
the bug most likely refers to the ICC buff, in which fire can double dip to do slightly more than 30%
keep ffb stacked 3 times and use fireball if you use glyph, if no glyph, use fb

[DirewolfX]

Err.. no.

Hit to cap.
Haste to 30.75% unbuffed, if you can reach it, otherwise to ~15%.
The rest crit.
Mastery is terrible for fire. Don't reforge to it
Fire mages aren't double dipping on the ICC buff last I checked a log parse.
The bug is probably the pyromaniac bug that causes pyromaniac to sometimes not go away (giving you an indefinite 10% haste buff).

Glyphs are currently bugged, if you want, go ahead and get all of them (Fireball, FFB, Molten Armor, Living Bomb, Pyroblast), then keep 3 stacks of FFB and otherwise fireball.

If you want to play 'fair,' use FB, Molten Armor and Living Bomb and use Fireball as your main nuke.

[Deleted]

AFAIK Ignite double dipping with the 30% buff was fixed in 4.0.

[DeathDefier]

Haste to 30.75% unbuffed, if you can reach it, otherwise to ~15%.

Isn't the extra LB tick at 37.5, not 37.75?

[Deleted]

boy am i outdated =/
fire was never my strong point, i would advise Direwolfx's words over mine!

[Deleted]

Err.. no.

Hit to cap.
Haste to 30.75% unbuffed, if you can reach it, otherwise to ~15%.
The rest crit.
Mastery is terrible for fire. Don't reforge to it
Fire mages aren't double dipping on the ICC buff last I checked a log parse.
The bug is probably the pyromaniac bug that causes pyromaniac to sometimes not go away (giving you an indefinite 10% haste buff).

Glyphs are currently bugged, if you want, go ahead and get all of them (Fireball, FFB, Molten Armor, Living Bomb, Pyroblast), then keep 3 stacks of FFB and otherwise fireball.

If you want to play 'fair,' use FB, Molten Armor and Living Bomb and use Fireball as your main nuke.

Thanks!

What does "double dipping" mean?
And what's the best way to maximize AoE damage? How many enemies should be around you for you to start AoE'ing?

[DirewolfX]

AFAIK Ignite double dipping with the 30% buff was fixed in 4.0.

It was fixed before that. I checked some logs back in 3.3.5, isolated some lone crits, and saw that my Ignite damage was roughly 20% of my previous crit's damage per tick, rather than 26% (which would be with the 30% buff). However, in a running fight, it's difficult to isolate the damage from one tick, due to the stacking mechanic, which is probably why people thought they were still double dipping.

[Micke]

You say go for 30.75% haste unbuffed, but how do you go about when you have haste procs? if those procs can make you reach another tick or not can be worth considering, e.g. perhaps with a few more haste% above 30.75 you could reach the 7th tick, it can also mean you could go below 30% haste and get that 6th tick at 37.5% through the procs aswell. ofc procs is just procs, but for example t10 2 piece proc has a very high uptime, and black magic somewhat high aswell.

Naturally this is only a consideration if you should reforge/regem/gear crit to haste or not to reach these extra tick thresholds, as haste will always be better than mastery anyway.

[notbob]

In what way are the glyphs glitched, how exactly do you use more of them, as you say?

[Deleted]

In what way are the glyphs glitched, how exactly do you use more of them, as you say?

I think what he ment was that the glyphs are a bit scrambled. I don't think our glyphs are where they are supposed to be.

[takolin]

Isn't the extra LB tick at 37.5, not 37.75?

5% haste form raid buffs will give you the extra tick so 30.75% is enough.
But I think the number direwolf quoted doesn't take netherwind presence in account.

[Micke]

without netherwind pres it is actually 30.92% haste you want unbuffed

[Blitzkrieg Says]

Err.. no.

Hit to cap.
Haste to 30.75% unbuffed, if you can reach it, otherwise to ~15%.
The rest crit.
Mastery is terrible for fire. Don't reforge to it
Fire mages aren't double dipping on the ICC buff last I checked a log parse.
The bug is probably the pyromaniac bug that causes pyromaniac to sometimes not go away (giving you an indefinite 10% haste buff).

Glyphs are currently bugged, if you want, go ahead and get all of them (Fireball, FFB, Molten Armor, Living Bomb, Pyroblast), then keep 3 stacks of FFB and otherwise fireball.

If you want to play 'fair,' use FB, Molten Armor and Living Bomb and use Fireball as your main nuke.

So...is that 30.75 haste include netherwind presence or no? I'm guessing not, 30.75(base) + 2(netherwind)+5(raid buff)= 37.75 for extra dot ticks.

[KrazyKris]

I did some testing on the dummy with my mage.

With 2 points in netherwind and no 5% haste buff I got 6 ticks of LB with 34.83 haste and got 5 with 34.71

So with the 5% haste buff + 2 points in netherwind you should only need 29.83 haste.

[Micke]

its not a straight % haste, its multiplicative

[KrazyKris]

Well i just reforged to 29.80 haste + 2 points in netherwind + Wrath of Air totem and got 6 ticks on the dummy.

[DirewolfX]

30.75 was just a number I had heard tossed around. Go test and figure out the 6 tick point--that's the haste you should gear for.

[Deleted]

5% haste form raid buffs will give you the extra tick so 30.75% is enough.
But I think the number direwolf quoted doesn't take netherwind presence in account.

30.75+2 from netherwind (because you take 3 in piercing chill) + 5 from mind quickening.

Edit for clarification:

A post on the official EU forums strongly suggests NP is giving more then the suggested 3% haste, which putting the 3rd point in that over piercing chill would be better. I can't post on those forums, as I am a US player, but you might want to gear around 29.75% haste and take the 3rd point.

[takolin]

30.75+2 from netherwind (because you take 3 in piercing chill) + 5 from mind quickening.

Edit for clarification:

A post on the official EU forums strongly suggests NP is giving more then the suggested 3% haste, which putting the 3rd point in that over piercing chill would be better. I can't post on those forums, as I am a US player, but you might want to gear around 29.75% haste and take the 3rd point.

You can't add haste buffs as they work multiplicative. That's why you you only need 30.75% haste on gear to reach 37.5% with the 5% buff. Use the haste calculator which has a link somewhere on the forum.