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.