The Current State of Fire Mages

[Feloth]

Lots of posts on here about fire mages and mage damage in general. But I wanted to come on and really talk a couple of things:

1. My perspective of why fire mages are where they are.
2. Why Destruction locks are better positioned for success in DPS. (Yes, destro locks are the class build closest to ours in terms of structure. Or are they?)
3. Propose some kind of reasonable solution.

The intent of this is not a theorycrafting session. I've been playing a Mage since WoW launched and I was a Fire mage back in the days when fire sucked. Sucked hard. Also, let me preface this with me saying I think our damage is OK as fire right now. I am sure people can deliver some solid results. But in the end, there are other classes that are beating our pants off, and I am here to propose why that is the case.

Fire Mages: What kind of dps are we?

Traditionally, fire mages in WoW have been a direct damage nuking class. This means that we used spells like Fireball and Scorch to deliver large, long cast damage. Sure, we had a damage over time component, but that always felt like an afterthought, even with the AMAZING potential of Ignite. In Wrath of the Lich King, especand with the addition of Living Bomb, and eventually the addition of Impact and other talent changes, this has slowly started to change. Change to what you ask? A damage over time class, that uses fire dots. This seems like the direction that the developers wanted to take things. Our Mastery reflects this. Combustion. The addition of Impact and other talents that emphasize dots and spreading dots -- Pyromaniac, for example. I don't think any mage is going to argue that our aoe damage is low.

So why is this a problem? Sure, I like change a lot and I wouldn't mind changing to an "Affliction Lock" who just uses fire damage with scaling mastery % damage that increases my dots. Its a cool concept. It falls flat because we still don't have enough dots to really make this concept work right now. Fireball lost its dot component. Flame Orb, a new spell -- isn't a dot. FFB added a dot component but its a joke in terms of damage. We got NOTHING in Cataclysm that actually added to our dot damage. We still have the old standbys: Living Bomb, Ignite, and Pyroblast. Two of those, Ignite and Pyroblast are heavily crit dependent to make them stay on the target. With the gear situation the way it is now, Fire Mages are struggling to keep dots ticking -- especially in a single target encounter or with rapidly switching targets.

So what does all this mean? Essentially it means now we are playing like Affliction warlocks, who require situational procs and spells to keep our dots up on our target.

Destro Warlocks: Why are they are outdamaging us?

If there is a build that mirrors Fire Mage play closely, it is the Destruction Warlock. Direct damage fire nukes, fire dots, etc. Why are they scoring higher on the meters a lot?

Three big reasons:

1. Bane of Havoc is amazing.
2. Conflagrate is equally amazing - with good gear it can crit for 40K+ (and is instant cast -- and doesn't need to consume the immolate)
3. Their mastery is scaling fire % damage.

Any mage knows % fire damage the BEST stat buff you can directly do to improve your overall dps. Give me 2% spell damage increase in fire in a talent tree and its a no brainer to take it. Fire mage mastery is scaling % damage on our dots. Which would be fine if we had more dots! We have the Affliction Lock mastery buff, but look at how many shadow dots an affliction lock has versus what we have:

Corruption
Unstable Affliction
Bane of Agony

Edit: Removed Haunt due to it not being a dot! Thank you locks!

..and more. These are all dots that can be applied and reapplied just by clicking a button, with no conditional modifiers. If you look at my World of Logs you'll see what tops my damage almost every fight is fireball or scorch. Usually followed by Ignite and Living Bomb. So why do I have a Mastery stat that buffs my 2nd, or even 3rd highest damage spells? See where I am going with this?

You'll also see that the Destro locks, Affliction Locks, and yes even Survival Hunters are destroying or being competetive with most fire mages in Dot UPTIME. Simply said, warlocks have it great because they have Bane of Havoc to keep damage ticking consistently on more than one target, their dots are apply at will, with masteries that buff their highest damage spells.

Fire Mages: What do we need?

We need MOAR dots or something that generates more dot uptime - or we need something that buffs our highest damage sources rather than secondary ones. Here are some ideas:

1. Flame Orb is terrible and should have been a dot generating mechanic. It needs to be redesigned or scrapped for another spell.
2. Living Bomb's explosion mechanic is outdated and not very useful considering Impact's overall power in aoeing. Just remove the explosion component and increase its damage.
3. Combustion could have its CD reduced or make it glyphable to reduce its CD.
4. Don't want to give us more dots? Make our mastery scaling % fire damage like destro, or something else that directly benefits our crit % (which will improve our overall dot uptime).
5. Look at our set bonsues on T11+. Change/modify them to suit our new role as a fire dotting class.

In Conclusion

Fire is laboring right now beneath a mixed up problem of masteries not catering to our highest damage spells and abilities. Our lack of dot uptime due to poor gear and low crit % is stifling our ability to be competetive near the top of the meters on a consistent basis. Right now Fire feels about 5%-10% damage overall short of where it needs to be in terms of overall dps on most fights. Sure, in 6 months - 1 year the gear may catch up with things and we'll be back to where we want to be, but currently this is what I think plagues us and why we find ourselves not as competetive as we'd like on many fights.

Thanks for reading. My opinion may differ from yours, but this is my overall impression of the Fire Mage play experience as it currently stands in a raiding environment.

[valmorgul]

I agree with almost all of this. Unfortunately given the mechanics of most of the raid fights, the mobility afforded by fire is almost too good to pass up. I enjoy frost quite a bit, especially the survivability for progression nights, but the lack of raid synergy is really depressing. There's a destro lock in my guild and the synergy with him is just so much better as fire. What frankly annoys me the MOST about fire, which isn't addressed by the OP, is the fact that current gearing does not allow you to be hit capped and haste soft-capped at the same time, without raid buffs. When our lock missed last night's raid, my dps dropped a solid 5% without Dark Intent. Granted, it's a little unusual that we don't have a shammy or shadow priest, but alas.

[Makarena]

our t4 bonus is op tbh, the best dps bonus tbh. Regarding other things, i really agree, especially about mastery and especially about living bomb explosion

[Gloinn]

You know what's funny? Once 4.0.6 hits this argument will be irrelevant. Fire mages are simming out as the second highest dps class (behind spriests) with the current changes on the PTR. Warlocks are getting nerfed. Survival hunters? nerfed.
Before people start to QQ about ignite, Yes SimCraft does include ignite munching..maybe not as much as some unlucky people are experiencing. There should be some new dps numbers for Simcraft within the next few days due to a new ignite mechanic that was proposed for SimC.
I honestly thought the OP wasn't going to be a QQ post before I read it... I was wrong.

[Deleted]

Spot on. While our t11 might be the best, our 2 piece is crap. It's barely worth it for fire and completely useless for frost.

[takolin]

Or they can fix ignite and that way combustion can be reliably used.

Hard cast pyro for the DoT, wait a good fire crit and launch combustion.

[Pvpdinosaur]

reroll lock

[blablablablablabla]

You cannot compare fire mages to destruction warlocks, that would be like comparing bm hunters to demonology warlocks. It is completly pointless, especially when you dont seem to understand that much about locks. You singel out destruction locks mastery as a reason for them being good, when mastery is in fact terrible for destruction locks. After listing up all of afflictions dots you write "and more", there is no more, one of the spells you list as a dot, haunt, isnt even a dot. Affliction locks have three dots. And what on earth is the point of comparing mages to locks either way?

[Gloinn]

You cannot compare fire mages to destruction warlocks, that would be like comparing bm hunters to demonology warlocks. It is completly pointless, especially when you dont seem to understand that much about locks. You singel out destruction locks mastery as a reason for them being good, when mastery is in fact terrible for destruction locks. After listing up all of afflictions dots you write "and more", there is no more, one of the spells you list as a dot, haunt, isnt even a dot. Affliction locks have three dots. And what on earth is the point of comparing mages to locks either way?

^^^^^ This

[Deleted]

And what on earth is the point of comparing mages to locks either way?

they are the only 2 pure cloth dps classes but aside from that you´re completely right

[Darkmiget]

Meh, our fire mage(s) do pretty damn good in raids...could be gear but most of the time...he kicks my ass...soo

[Feloth]

You cannot compare fire mages to destruction warlocks, that would be like comparing bm hunters to demonology warlocks. It is completly pointless, especially when you dont seem to understand that much about locks. ?

I understand enough to know that locks and mages are both cloth dps in raid and raid leaders see them in the same light in terms of their roles in groups. In terms of how our class roles and spells breakout, there are many similarities between the Affliction/Destro lock and Fire Mages. BM Hunters and Demo Locks do share some in common as well -- in that they are pet-based ranged dps, but much, much less so because one is a "ranged melee dps" and the other is a "cloth caster dps". They utilize totally different mechanics, stats, weapons -- the differences are so vast, I agree that it is a stupid comparison.

You singel out destruction locks mastery as a reason for them being good, when mastery is in fact terrible for destruction locks.

They seem to be doing pretty OK with it so far? I've never known a time when scaling % damage on a spell school was ever really that bad for a caster class in WoW. If you read my post closely, my point wasn't so much that % scaling fire damage mastery was great, but that it did buff their primary damage spells -- all their spells honestly. Which for a Fire Mage, our mastery does not buff what is in most fights, our #1 damage source - FIREBALL - or Scorch on heavy movement fights.

After listing up all of afflictions dots you write "and more", there is no more, one of the spells you list as a dot, haunt, isnt even a dot.

Haunt is a DD that buffs their shadow dot damage. Six one one, half a dozen of another. It is also pretty appliable on demand. Which was my primary point.

---------------

The overarching point of this post was to illustrate not how Fire Mages will be (the Simcraft may be out there to say all of this is a non issue). It was to say that the vision of the way fire mages deal damage has changed over time, and to point out that other classes who serve the same role in raids and have somewhat similar mechanics have nicely synergized masteries that match their roles. Fire Mages, who are being labeled as a "Dot damage primary" class by their mastery, weren't given the proper tools at the launch of Cataclysm to realize this vision to its fullest. Tweaks may happen from this day forward, but that doesn't change this fundamental fact that there is a discrepancy between the two that will require constant tweaking and attention in the future.

If people are confused as to why Fire Mages aren't optimized at Cataclysm's launch -- which a lot of posts on this forum have expressed. This is, in my opinion, why it is the case. And until Blizzard either changes us to a more dot-heavy class or adjusts our mastery, this issue may continue to plague the fire mage spec.

[_Fire_]

Meh, our fire mage(s) do pretty damn good in raids...could be gear but most of the time...he kicks my ass...soo

Fire mages should be behind you unless they out gear you or its a fight with loads of adds.

[Darkmiget]

Fire mages should be behind you unless they out gear you or its a fight with loads of adds.

Yea he does outgear by a good margin...and there are A LOT of fights with adds....

[Demonidze]

haunt isnt a dot .. its a debuff, haunt does some direct dmg and thats it, no damage over time component, just a debuff.

[Ieft]

Wait until further into the expansion we'll be #1 soon enough.

If playing a mage frustrates you this much, why do you play it? Is it damage? Does you're raid struggle to beat enrage timer? If not turn off your recount and start enjoying the class.

[Stingray0011]

A good fire mage is doing competitive dps. The reason fire is being buffed is because there are so many bad fire mages. This is a post of the most recent 25 man baradin hold that my guild has done. All members on the chart you will see are of equal gear. Specs are listed numerically.




1) Affliction (me )
2) Fire
3) Mutilate
4) Fury
5) Destro
6) Unholy
7) Unholy
8) Mutilate

As you can see, fire mages are in a good place, if you know how to play your spec. Perhaps you should look into managing your stats and gear to better fit with what blizzard has given you instead of hoping for changes.


EDIT: gotta fix pic so you can actually see the dps ...
EDITx2: or just click the pic heh

[Feloth]

A good fire mage is doing competitive dps. The reason fire is being buffed is because there are so many bad fire mages. This is a post of the most recent 25 man baradin hold that my guild has done. All members on the chart you will see are of equal gear. Specs are listed numerically.

As you can see, fire mages are in a good place, if you know how to play your spec. Perhaps you should look into managing your stats and gear to better fit with what blizzard has given you instead of hoping for changes.

This doesn't prove much other than that raid's dps is low? Especially if your #1 is 18k, even in non heroic. Hitting 18-19k on Argaloth is also not terribly hard as any class who can do decent damage. You also have 0 hunters and your DKs are doing lower damage than I've seen most do in almost any fight. Oh, and you are affliction, which from my understanding (limited as it may be of locks) is the #2 raiding spec atm. If you were Destruction I am almost positive the dps gap between #1 and #2 would be bigger.

[Bawarr]

The only problem i have at the moment is the RNG in dmg we put out.
Looked at the logs between myself and an almost equally geared mage in the same fight...Argaloth as it has very little variability (TnS).
I should have ~50% crit on fireball and pyroblast from gear+buffs/debuffs, the other mage had 47.5% for the fight and i had 30%.
IMO there shouldnt be a 20% difference in % over 5 minutes. Due to this i effectively lost 3-4k dps for the fight and was down over 1/2 a mill dmg from the other equally geared mage. Being so far under your 'effective' rate is NOT uncommon at all and this is extrememly frustrating.

Oh also getting 45% crit rate on 100 fireball casts yet only 5 HS procs. So yeah, we were very RNG based in the end of wrath, but with combustion and aoe being RNG-dot based aswell makes fire currently frustrating as hell to play atm.

[Stingray0011]

Feloth I derive this from your statement:
Fire mages are doing bad compared to locks, even when there is a lock 1st, beating the mage by ~30k dmg. (literally 1 cast)
But thats ok, because all 18 of the dps are doing low dps compared to what you've seen so that is a pointless screenshot right?

Is it possible that you are comparing your numbers to those of the best and are coming up short? What kind of dps are you pulling then, if hitting 18-19k on argaloth in pre-heroic gear is easy for most dps classes? I assure you this, at the time of this screenshot the mage had just hit his 4pc the previous week, none other dps have 4pc (not saying that it makes the difference) and there is absolutely no heroic gear in the raid.

Not going to post screenshots but here is top 5 from a couple other fights with dmg done + dps(rounding dmg done). If we are able to consistently take down these bosses doing the dps I've shown, perhaps "This doesn't prove much other than that raid's dps is low?" isn't a very accurate statement now is it.

All of these are 1 shot attempt bosses on 25 man. We have zero problem with enrage so our dps must be on par with what is required for our current gear level.

Omnotron:
1) Aff lock: 8.85m, 20467 dps. (yeah soul swap ftw )
2) Fire mage: 7.5m, 17590 dps.
3) UH DK: 7.35m, 17006 dps
4) Destro lock: 7.16m, 16633 dps
5) Fury war: 6.86m, 15962 dps

Magmaw (heavy aoe for range):
1) Aff lock: 8.1m, 23270 dps
2) Demon lock: 7.69m, 22446 dps
3) Fire mage: 7.5m, 23207 dps
4) UH DK: 7.4m, 21017 dps
5) UH DK: 7.38m, 20790 dps

Maloriak (more aoe)
1) Demon lock: 10.28m, 26260 dps
2) Aff lock: 7.7m, 19472 dps (I guess I can't win them all D:<)
3) UH DK: 7.4m, 18925 dps
4) Mut rogue: 7.4m, 18754 dps
5) Fire mage: 7.3m, 18683 dps

I hope you see the point I am trying to make. A 25 man group, with equally geared members are all doing very similar dps on every fight. Movement fights, aoe fights, multi target (but none aoe) fights. INCLUDING the fire mage. Now, you can sit there and say that all the other dps in my raid are doing low numbers, but we down bosses so we must be doing something right.