Favorite expansion for Fire?

[Kanariya]

Fire has changed a lot over the years. From being the top DPS spec in game, miles ahead of anyone else in Vanilla with rolling ignites, to finally talenting into Pyroblast in Wrath, the (second, if you were around long enough to remember the first) Combustion revamp in Cataclysm, and finally the Fire of today.

At the heart of it, we're still chain-casting fireball, but the spec has received quite a number of changes over the years. I'd like to find out when you guys personally preferred fire spec.

My favorite time periods:
Vanilla because of the massively overpowered 5-stack Ignites and having the mages roll you all the way up KTM to your death.
Wrath which gave us Hotstreak (making Pyroblast a talent we finally stopped skipping) and Living Bomb, in addition to bringing our crit damage bonus up to 175% instead of 150%. Can't forget about the iconic Frostfire Bolt specs (LB/FFB & CS/FFB) either that unfortunately went away. Only time in the game where Fire had three viable talent builds.

[Bathory]

Vanilla. Fire was ridiculous. POM + Pyro days, mmmm so OP.

[Seneca]

LOL! I was going to write exactly what you did, Kanariya, even the Frostfire Bolt part, coincidences? I DON'T GUESS SO :P.

Vanilla was good, I mean, even though it was still the first time blizzard dealt with spells/talents/rotations, it was fun and "relatively engaging", I must say. Moreover, PvP wise and in a lot of other situations, you were really free to use lots of variations (like the one Bathory said, for example), thanks to the fact that you were not locked to just one spec, but could "hybridize" your talent choice. (I kinda miss this aspect, tbh).

Wotlk wise, apart from the well accepted FFB period (RIP FFB, we'll never forget you, my dear old useful spell), fire was "positively" unstable as hell. The fact that your crit chance was really high coupled with the fact that Pyroblast was a significant part of your arsenal, made it a very "reactive-compulsive" spec. I can say it was more fun and engaging than it had ever been, even if still simple, but this was just blizzard third try and, anyway, fire looked more solid than ever, so I was generally pleased.

Vanilla or Wotlk, give me more time!

Edit: Oh, multiple choice pool, I had not noticed it .

Related note: I am afraid that in WoD fire could potentially be a lesser version of Wotlk fire.

[LocNess]

WotLK. Maybe just nostalgia, but I loved having the huge crit amounts and liked how Combustion interacted with it, plus tons of DoTs from your spells. Just seemed to flow better for me.

[Polarthief]

1. Barely played in Vanilla
2. Played lightly in BC; didn't become my main until late 2.4.3 (Sunwell)
3. Wrath was awesome. Huge crit levels, as well as having "two" specs for Fire: Fire and Frostfire
4. Cata was even more awesome (but I voted for LK too), but only during DS (the worst raid ever >.>) where Fire was actually competitive. Spreading Combustion to all the adds on Yor'sahj and just how Fire felt was pretty nice. The RNG of HS sucked obviously, but it was still fun.
5. And then MoP came and ruined EVERYTHING. LOL ALTER TIME COMBUSTION LET'S NERF EVERYTHING INVOCATION IS SO FUN HAPPY FUNTIME YAAAAAAAAY. (seriously not a fan of MoP for ANY of our specs)

[mrgreenthump]

Vanilla.

Mm. Although the end of WotLK was kinda awesome, but the start kind ruins it for me, overall though Vanilla is still nearest in my heart for how fire was, usable in PvP, very good in PvE and while solo somewhat lacked a slow back then, it still worked pretty well with good gear.

Fire has never been super awesome fun all through the expansion. It has always suffered from something, be it the lack of +hit during WotLK or just plainly too low crit. MoP was the first time they tried something else, and it very nearly worked awesomely, but they ruined the exp with poor execution. But yes, theis ain't a whine thread.. So that's all from me

[DeathDefier]

Vanilla rolling ignites was cute back in the day, but ultimately it goes to this expansion because of how much the quality of life has increased for the spec this expansion.

[Teebu]

TBC! "Jaw dropping damage!" Oh wait.. For me it was classic purely for the PvP aspect. Polymorph-> hardcast a Pyro into PoM Pyro = free kill. Poly-Pyro was still respectable damage so you weren't useless in killing situations without PoM.

[Deleted]

The beginning of Cataclysm for me in The Bastion of Twilight. That first room and the add pulls; dem Combustion ticks.

[Feali]

I started playing mage in BC so I can't talk about Vanilla but my favorite expansion for fire (or in general for that matter ) was Wrath. Just more choice. It felt more fun and combustion was just insane

[Deleted]

id say wotlk

[MrExcelion]

Vanilla. Fire was ridiculous. POM + Pyro days, mmmm so OP.

Dat Toep + ZHC stacking. And if you got 8pc Netherwind...yeah. Insane lol. PVP aside, it sucked how so much was immune to Fire damage and we didn't really go full Fire until AQ (ooze boss aside) and Naxx. TBC wasn't a great time for Mages, but still solid. I gotta give an edge to Fire for Wrath. Cata was all about Arcane for me, but Fire still topped the meters on many bosses. MoP we were OP most of this expac, and the AT combo has been fun. So I'd say as a whole:

Wrath > Vanilla (rolling ignites and pom pyro) > MoP (5.4 aside) > Cata (first tier aside) > TBC (Sunwelled, fights were amazing though)

Fire PVP was pretty fun last expansion, will say that, but not so much anymore with everything scaling down. Does look like its starting to get viable at 550 ilvl.

[Pyromelter]

Wrath > Cata > BC >>>> MoP with vanilla abstaining due to the fact that I've never played vanilla wow.

Cata can arguably be seen as better than wrath due to the fact that fire was pretty awesome the whole expac, whereas fire was up, then down, then completely OP during icc, but to me the entire package of the entire game was so much better than cata that I'd have to give wrath the edge.

[Constraint]

Mage was my first main, and as such will always have a soft spot in my WoW-heart. My thoughts:

Mages kinda sucked in Vanilla - IF you were in a guild incapable of making it out of BWL. If you did.. Ahhhhhhh, good times. Nothing could touch us, except possibly a godlike deep Destruction Lock or an insanely geared Warrior.

TBC, nothing really stood out, and with much easier specs providing more raid utility and more damage.. yeah. Not too much point to bringing one, unless you didn't have enough decurses for Kalecgos somehow.

WotLK was genuinely fun. The last expansion with proper talent trees. Awesome scaling, awesome spec diversity. I prefer TBC as an expansion, but not as far as Mages are concerned.

Cata... Mm, was devastated to see the talent trees halved in size, and diversity completely gone. Kinda liked Combustion still, but not as much. Competitive but nothing special, and borderline unplayable on Heroic Spine.

MoP? My main for more than half the expansion. Holy fuck I hate Invocation. How that shit made it past even the most rudimentary testing is beyond me, same for Rune of Power for Arcane. May I ask how it's fun or skilful to just stop dps every minute and pointlessly channel a cast that you might have to break or be knocked back etc through, or have trinket procs etc expiring? Yeah. Fun. Engaging. Oh and they actually REMOVED talent trees. You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Leveling is now about as interesting as mowing the lawn without blades. Choices are more or less zero. Actually they're pretty much zero. There's one rotation to do. There's one way to spec. It's kinda sad. This obsession that Blizzard has with absolute balance and absolute parity with raid utility has butchered the fun of not only this class but most others, for me at least. Who cares if one spec does 5% more than another? Who cares if it has a higher skill cap? Just give everyone a reason to be taken to raids and be done with it - we don't all have to be exactly the same. *misses WoW when it wasn't so homogenized =(*

[Deleted]

Wrath/Cata - Combustion was just plain awesome and I loved every moment, especially in pvp.