Still no Fire Nerfs and Frost Gets a New Mastery. Further updates at p22

[Deleted]

^^ A lot of that is true, but i guess we will see where everything stands after the number pass.

[Vynestra]

You didn't really have to raid to get it, the joke is making fun of a quote that came out of Blizzard during TBC beta used to justify extensive Mage nerfs because the DPS they saw, and I quote, "was jaw dropping". No testers ever reported this DPS, and it never appeared on live, so it's become a bit of a running joke anytime they say they see high numbers for a class that no one else can seem to replicate.

Oooooh loool.

^^ A lot of that is true, but i guess we will see where everything stands after the number pass.

And I'll agree that is true, that fights are short so fire is showing higher. But the same can be said for arcane. When we get lust, and if my rppm trinkets + alter time and arcane power etc all in lust..I do HUGE burst as well. And shorter fights I end up doing higher dps cause the fight is so short. So both specs gain from short fights. Yet fire still pulls ahead ever so slightly...in 5.4 tho...It won't be slightly.

[royals]

I'm a little confused why everyone is surprised that fire is performing so well on the PTR. In dragon soul fire was amazing, in ICC fire was amazing etc. etc. etc. The last tier of an xpac all specs that have core mechanics based of things such as crit will come out on top. Fury and their crit will probably come out gunning in t16 as well. Fire has been the highest dps in the final tier of each xpac I've played in (this is my 3rd) and I was expecting it again.

<<<< Not surprised.

Now, if they are really coming out 25-30% above all other specs, we can expect some adjustments, lets just all pray its not the "2 weeks after patch lawl your combust is 1/2 and pyro doesn't count and we nerfed fireball" nerf we had in t14.

[mrgreenthump]

I'm a little confused why everyone is surprised that fire is performing so well on the PTR. In dragon soul fire was amazing, in ICC fire was amazing etc. etc. etc. The last tier of an xpac all specs that have core mechanics based of things such as crit will come out on top. Fury and their crit will probably come out gunning in t16 as well. Fire has been the highest dps in the final tier of each xpac I've played in (this is my 3rd) and I was expecting it again.

<<<< Not surprised.

Now, if they are really coming out 25-30% above all other specs, we can expect some adjustments, lets just all pray its not the "2 weeks after patch lawl your combust is 1/2 and pyro doesn't count and we nerfed fireball" nerf we had in t14.

tbh only reason fire was high in DS was cause it got buffed like mad.. and then brought down a bit. From ICC times I really cant remember too well anymore, but fire was ok I guess, only remember LB being unlimited targets and had fun with that^^

[Deleted]

Exept we are doing this, because of the extra crit and int from our trinkets, which in next patch wont be as effective due there being better trinkets without said int procs or secondary stats on them.. And removing Glyph of combustion/nerfing combustion damage would result the exact same thing, without nerfing fire even futher for lower gear levels. Also making it so you can't switch armor as effectively might be an idea? Just saying, you are looking at this amazingly short-sightedly.. There are better options than just nerfing CM and making fire dog for a while and amazingly OP at BiS till next expansion.. Now if only we would recieve a nerf to lets say.. combustion, and we reach a point with crit that it's simply not worth to get any more, considering what 4 set next patch does for us..

Also Blizz has said over and over, that they will not balance for pure BiS, ever. They might take it to consideration, but more often than not they balance for 10-15(estimation) ilevels below BiS.

Have you even seen the trinkets on the PTR? They play so well into Fire's hands it's utterly insane. Flat Crit Damage modifier for 20s as well as a trinket that gives you stacking Intellect (higher than Wushoo's) per spell cast instead of over time. Oh, let's not forget that on said crit damage modifier you're getting 84% extra Mastery and Haste too...
Nerfing Glyph/Combustion damage in itself WILL lead to it being a dog at earlier iLvls, because without Combustion Fire is crap and without the shiny new trinkets to boost Combustion Fire will be shit at low iLvls anyway. I find it hilarious that I'm being accused of being short sighted when you're simply using current trinkets/GoArmors to constitute your argument. Even if they removed GoArmors, with high enough crit % players can abuse PoM w/ Alter Time to switch Armors back and forth happily when the times call for it. You would have to nerf Combustion damage a lot to compensate for what Fire will be capable of next patch, and if you're going to nerf it that hard might as well remove it and just give Fire a steroid CD to use because losing Combustion to that extent will simply remove the spec identity.

Even if Blizzard don't balance for BiS (for which I've read different personally but fine, w/e) they will have to balance even for normal iLvls and that will still include the normal version of the new trinkets. Unless the trinkets get changed (which is more than likely as they're OP for everyone) Fire will have to see an incredibly large Combustion nerf to get down to the same level as a CM nerf. It's always been the same problem with Fire, and most likely will continue to be.

I refuse point blank to play demo because i think its retarded to have your entire performance based around a trinket, but in regard to how strong fire is on single target in Bis gear It is absoloutely miles ahead of the other specs in the game, the biggest problem with this is the combustion glyph because it inflates your damage and therefore becomes quite uncontrollable.

There should be no glyph or trinket that is so good that any spec should consider it mandatory, i feel this is the case for Combustion glyph and for what it matters the Unnering vision of lei shen for demo (and i guess the imp swarm glyph)

Please note im not here to compare fire to a spec that i dont even play, im simply stating that fire is absoloutely monstrously overtuned on single target and i feel that the glyph is a major cause of that.

These are all your own personal opinions (regarding Demo + the trinket and "mandatory" glyphs etc), a lot of specs have "mandatory" glyphs (from a DPS PoV) - eg Warriors w/ Unending Rage, Monks w/ GoToK and Blackout Kick, Assass Rogues w/ GoVendetta, Shaman w/ GoCL etc.
Regarding trinkets, fair enough I take your point, but if you're going to argue that UVLS is only mandatory to be competitive (which I assume you are, feel free to ignore if your point was different) every spec will have that every expansion - hell, look at Feathers off Ji-Kun for Unh DKs this tier, look @ Wushoo's for Arcane this tier, etc. Every spec will always have certain trinkets from every tier that are considered "mandatory" to have if you want to be ranking on WoL or competitive relative to others of your class. Sure, Demo/UVLS perhaps takes this a bit far, but it's still the same principle.

Regarding your argument about Fire and single target. In all honesty, I'm not so sure it beats Arcane (sure, fine it's another Mage spec, but yeah) in pure-single target terms without a gimmick in the fight (Damage modifiers, etc). But then again this is a moot point as it's still another Mage spec
It does need tuning, I agree. The only question which remains is how it's going to be tuned; which is largely what mrgreenthump's discussion with me is about.

[mrgreenthump]

Have you even seen the trinkets on the PTR? They play so well into Fire's hands it's utterly insane. Flat Crit Damage modifier for 20s as well as a trinket that gives you stacking Intellect (higher than Wushoo's) per spell cast instead of over time. Oh, let's not forget that on said crit damage modifier you're getting 84% extra Mastery and Haste too...
Nerfing Glyph/Combustion damage in itself WILL lead to it being a dog at earlier iLvls, because without Combustion Fire is crap and without the shiny new trinkets to boost Combustion Fire will be shit at low iLvls anyway. I find it hilarious that I'm being accused of being short sighted when you're simply using current trinkets/GoArmors to constitute your argument. Even if they removed GoArmors, with high enough crit % players can abuse PoM w/ Alter Time to switch Armors back and forth happily when the times call for it. You would have to nerf Combustion damage a lot to compensate for what Fire will be capable of next patch, and if you're going to nerf it that hard might as well remove it and just give Fire a steroid CD to use because losing Combustion to that extent will simply remove the spec identity.

Even if Blizzard don't balance for BiS (for which I've read different personally but fine, w/e) they will have to balance even for normal iLvls and that will still include the normal version of the new trinkets. Unless the trinkets get changed (which is more than likely as they're OP for everyone) Fire will have to see an incredibly large Combustion nerf to get down to the same level as a CM nerf. It's always been the same problem with Fire, and most likely will continue to be.

Have you been to ptr and tested the trinkets? It's quite clear that the 84% trinket will get a heavy nerf, but am quite certain it will still be our BiS, together with maybe the multiplying trinket or the wushoo #2. More interestingly the wushoo #2 has lower uptime than current live trinket. But sure lets just go with the flow and say it's the same uptime as wushoo. The point I was trying to make is that with these 2 trinkets(This is simply what I think, and more testing is needed), it is simply not worth switching to mage armor anymore. The reasons being:
1. crits are even more valued now with the trinket not only taking mastery, but multiplying your critical damage.
2. You will no longer have 2 trinkets with massive instant int procs(the wushoo has a ramp up like the previous 1 which is less than ideal on starter combustions) and only 1 of the trinket's has secondary stats. So your crit will be significantly lower during pulls than atm, unless we get to silly numbers of crit rating, which I think we won't.
3. We will loose both the 1800 crit rating from 2 piece and 5% crit from 4 piece to pyroblast for our combustion timing with AT.

And you make it sound that nerfing combustion means that it will be removed from the game? No, I do not mean combustion damage should be meaningless, but I do think it should be quite a bit lower. Would it really be so silly to think that instead of 16-20% for 540+ and 10-15% for those who cant get ToT trinkets, you would do 12-15% with current gear and 7.5-11.25% with lower Ilevels.. It won't make fire unplayable any more than it currently is for low Ilevel, it just tunes down the combustion damage.

What I just fear, that if we get a simple CM nerf again, we will end up eating a combustion nerf later on. I'd much rather have less combustion damage for a while, than suffer with rng again a bit till get ~4500 more crit rating, and lets not forget that we are going to loose 4-set t15. And sure we get 100% crit to HS following IB, but that is nothing compared to 6.5% crit on our Pyroblasts. We are really lucky in ToT with the itemization(I personally have crit rating on all but 2 items as base), and we haven't even seen anything but the trinkets for 5.4, whose to say there will be as much crit on each piece? Hell we are getting a large loss to our crit just be getting these trinkets.


But I'd be happy to be wrong, prove me wrong in all of this.. Let's just make it a flame war

Edit: Oh and forgot to add my take on the on spell hit addition of the new wushoo, you still are going to need, even on the most optimal starter, use at least 5 spells to ramp it up to a point that it would be good enough to compare to our current instant int trinkets, which means either using your first HS, or spamming Fireballs or scorch, which leads to at least 5 second delay from time of proc till popping AT, but you need HU as well. It will just be problematic..

[Feii]

Would it really be so silly to think that instead of 16-20% for 540+ and 10-15% for those who cant get ToT trinkets, you would do 12-15% with current gear and 7.5-11.25% with lower Ilevels.. It won't make fire unplayable any more than it currently is for low Ilevel, it just tunes down the combustion damage.

Mate ure just wrong. I have no idea where did u get those numbers but they look kinda silly. As a 544 ilvl mage my combustions are between 10-15% of my entire dmg on a single target. So it is as you want it to be. Its true that there are some fight where fire is outstanding ( Council of Elders or Wind lord in last tier) but on the other hand there are fight when fire is usually behind the other classes ( Tortos or Maegera) and thats in my opionion fine. Would u like to see every class pulling exacly same numbers on every fight ?

[mrgreenthump]

Mate ure just wrong. I have no idea where did u get those numbers but they look kinda silly. As a 544 ilvl mage my combustions are between 10-15% of my entire dmg on a single target. So it is as you want it to be. Its true that there are some fight where fire is outstanding ( Council of Elders or Wind lord in last tier) but on the other hand there are fight when fire is usually behind the other classes ( Tortos or Maegera) and thats in my opionion fine. Would u like to see every class pulling exacly same numbers on every fight ?

Well just stating the average that I'm having atm in my logs and seeing logs of other similarly geared mages who are using mage armor on pulls, they seem to be pulling around the same. Now sure, you are correct in that no 1 fight is similar, and fairly little ammount of fights are purely single target, that doesn't remove the fact that combustion is really really strong in certain conditions. Even without spreading or damage buffs.

[Deleted]

Regarding your argument about Fire and single target. In all honesty, I'm not so sure it beats Arcane (sure, fine it's another Mage spec, but yeah) in pure-single target terms without a gimmick in the fight (Damage modifiers, etc). But then again this is a moot point as it's still another Mage spec
It does need tuning, I agree. The only question which remains is how it's going to be tuned; which is largely what mrgreenthump's discussion with me is about.

What you say about the glyph's could be considered true for sure, i was more just saying what blizzard had said about glyph's coming into 5.0 (not sure if anyone remembers this)

About arcane vs fire - I actually have very little issue with arcane, it is capable of something i think all class's should be able to do which is pooling damage for when you need it the most, it suffers because it isint a very mobile spec.

Again though we will see where the numbers go after the tuning pass, but i do think that the arguement of 'at low gear fire is bad' isint going to be just as effective this time as everyone and there dog is gna be 550+ where fire really just gets silly.

[Vynestra]

I just want to be able to do dps on par with fire mages next tier, I want to be able to do way more single target standing still, then movement will drag mine down while they still dps. Evening us out. That's my preference. Arcane should always do more than fire standing still.

[Blugatti]

lol no, fire has always been the highest mage spec, and it should stay that way. arcane should just be the spec people go to when they need to be able to quickly change targets and burst something down. sorry m8, but thats the way its gonna stay, how dare you come to these forums and try to say that arcane should be better than fire. if you don't like getting beat by fire, go fire.

[Shangalar]

lol no, fire has always been the highest mage spec, and it should stay that way. arcane should just be the spec people go to when they need to be able to quickly change targets and burst something down. sorry m8, but thats the way its gonna stay, how dare you come to these forums and try to say that arcane should be better than fire. if you don't like getting beat by fire, go fire.

"Fire has always been the highest mage spec..." except in 3.2, 3.3 until Fire mages got ICC 25 HC gear, 4.2, 5.1 and partially Heroic 5.2.

[Deleted]

Wow at the keyboard turning rage poster lol, just to help you out as you seem to be slightly high or something Fire doesnt by any means have a right to be 'top' damage, all specs should be within 5% of each other within reason and actually i would agree that on fights where you can stand still arcane should be ahead by a decent margin because fire has mobility, this is a big deal when looking at why specs are strong.

[Blugatti]

lol at keyboard turning, as if you know anything about me. you came on to these forums begging for mages to get nerfed and you think im just going to agree to it? ralph pls go. and sure we do, we're the favored class at the end of pretty much every tier.if we're not going to bring any utility to the raid we should atleast bring our god-tier dps nom'sayin?

[Polarthief]

lol no, fire has always been the highest mage spec, and it should stay that way. arcane should just be the spec people go to when they need to be able to quickly change targets and burst something down. sorry m8, but thats the way its gonna stay, how dare you come to these forums and try to say that arcane should be better than fire. if you don't like getting beat by fire, go fire.

How dare YOU come to these forums and just rage on your first post ever.

Fire has not always been the highest... Seems like someone didn't play through the beginning of LK, T11, T12, and 5.1 (T13 after nerfs)

[Blugatti]

nope didn't play any of that, played hunter back then. god-tier class right there nom'sayin? you're a fiesty one, first you were spewing bullshit about how the new blink glyph was going to be useless and now you're here... im not sure if i like you very much

Infracted.

[Deleted]

Keyboard turning was a reference to your at the time '1 Post and therefore Keyboard turner title'

[Frost1129]

lol no, fire has always been the highest mage spec, and it should stay that way. arcane should just be the spec people go to when they need to be able to quickly change targets and burst something down. sorry m8, but thats the way its gonna stay, how dare you come to these forums and try to say that arcane should be better than fire. if you don't like getting beat by fire, go fire.

You haven't played enough mage, obviously. Fire hasn't always been the best spec. And there is nothing wrong with him saying he wants arcane to be the turret spec - aka best when standing still.

Your posts are pretty "flame-y" and in general lack a baseline grammar level. I'd recommend going through them once or twice before posting if you don't want to get an infraction or something. edit - too late. lol.

[Blugatti]

i won't get an infraction for grammar errors ill get an infraction for being offensive and using lines like what i Posted above sorry grammar police it wont happen again but if it does please be sure to correct every error for me so i learn better next timE

Infracted.

[Deleted]

I just want to be able to do dps on par with fire mages next tier, I want to be able to do way more single target standing still, then movement will drag mine down while they still dps. Evening us out. That's my preference. Arcane should always do more than fire standing still.

Agreed, Arcane should also have the highest burst.