7.1.5: Fire completely wrecked

[Rylalai]

I got bracers from flaskataur and pyro were critting for 1.6 mil, also i might be wrong but it seems you need a lot of haste to fit hardcast pyro into Pyretic Incantation

Well, PI lasts 5sec and Pyro without any haste has 4.5sec cast time. It's possible to hardcast it, when you're fast enough.

[Shangalar]

I don't play Fire so I'm going to chime in with something more generic since the conversation veered off in that direction recently.

I've discussed this with a few other people and we've concluded that the forum community is in a crisis-like state. Since Legion came out we've seen significant changes in multiple aspects of forum posting, primarily a reduction of posts that have well thought out and mathematically sound arguments and answers for people. A lot of players who were very active in providing these answers are too busy playing the game because there is so much to do in the game, especially with players who engage in the top endgame. This leaves a lot of complaints and questions addressed less often and with less quality than we had in previous expansions.

On top of that, this 7.1.5 PTR cycle has been stressful on the community for a few reasons - 1) the developers haven't exactly been forthcoming with explanations and 2) the community is extremely passionate about what happens with their preferred specialization and class. I'm fairly certain that a significant chunk of this conversation (and others) would have been entirely absent if the developers had just posted their vision of changes in advance instead of when everyone had already exploded. This now left us with a polarized community - a set of players who feel that Fire is being damage beyond repair, a set of players who trust that the developers will fix everything throughout the cycle, a set of players who keep asking for help, but almost nobody is able to provide proper answers, and of course a set of players who either silently dislike or approve of changes based on their personal preferences.

That means that a lot of negativity made its way to the surface, some specifically about mages, some about other relevant game systems like Artifact weapon traits. While moderation can't really be discussed publicly, it's relevant to mention that our job as moderators here is to ensure that things don't go out of control and to stop it in the rare cases that they do. Yes, we could be more strict with what content we allow, for example punishing anyone who comes with a negative opinion on mages or who thinks we should be grateful because other classes have it even worse. Those arguments are irrelevant both for our class and for our forum, but people are allowed to make this opinion. Sometimes there's a fine line between opinion and bashing/flaming, and we have a policy to stay on the lenient side. If you at any point feel that you want to discuss this further, don't hesitate to use private messages.

Moving back to the topic of mages - the PTR cycle is incomplete. More changes are being prepared, both in terms of item scaling and spell scaling. Being pessimistic about the changes is ok, but giving good feedback is more complex than people think. Opinions and feels are sort of bad feedback because they don't answer the how and why questions. For example, the title of this thread is already negative and doesn't help the discussion, especially since it was made on day one of the PTR. Saying "I do 100k dps less than on live" doesn't really mean anything at this stage and just further fuels heated arguments. That thread Fire: Perception vs. Reality is an example of good feedback. While I do not agree with some of its content, it's a good way to give feedback that garnered a lot of attention and definitely wasn't overlooked by the developers. Nevertheless, it was too early in the development process to make such feedback. I constantly advise and propose patience because there are multiple variables that haven't yet been fixed or implemented on the PTR, both with game systems and mages. Let's see what happens in the next build or two as I'm sure that we won't be left behind. And let's be nice to each other while properly discussing things. Again, if you want to discuss some of these non mage related things in more detail, we're here in private messages.

[shaft4783]

Everyone will have time to gather gear for other specs and to put AP into other weapons. If you're not preparing for a spec change, you're doing it wrong. Maybe fire won't be that bad when 7.1.5 hits, or maybe it's the worst of the specs. Either way; you should be preparing another spec.

If fire is shit come 7.1.5 my arcane set and weapon are ready to go.

[ultramini]

Moving back to the topic of mages - the PTR cycle is incomplete. More changes are being prepared, both in terms of item scaling and spell scaling. Being pessimistic about the changes is ok, but giving good feedback is more complex than people think. Opinions and feels are sort of bad feedback because they don't answer the how and why questions. For example, the title of this thread is already negative and doesn't help the discussion, especially since it was made on day one of the PTR. Saying "I do 100k dps less than on live" doesn't really mean anything at this stage and just further fuels heated arguments. That thread Fire: Perception vs. Reality is an example of good feedback. While I do not agree with some of its content, it's a good way to give feedback that garnered a lot of attention and definitely wasn't overlooked by the developers. Nevertheless, it was too early in the development process to make such feedback. I constantly advise and propose patience because there are multiple variables that haven't yet been fixed or implemented on the PTR, both with game systems and mages. Let's see what happens in the next build or two as I'm sure that we won't be left behind. And let's be nice to each other while properly discussing things. Again, if you want to discuss some of these non mage related things in more detail, we're here in private messages.

There is no such thing as ''patience'' or ''it will be fix'' or ''it's just PTR''. It's public test realm, this isn't a development server where programmers test all sort of crazy stuff.It's a stable and very well though release. Dev have work on this for weeks and months.

These changes are no longer in the development servers, they have been push to the PTR. Which mean that these change have been validate several times and should be ready for production with very little adjustment.This is how it used to be and how it should be.In the end, the final version of the PTR will be push on live. If we don't speak now, it will be too late. Hell it's already too late.

What is even more worrying is that balancing on PTR is like jiggsaw. Which mean that their though process don't rely on solid calculation. It's like they are throwing dice...they just try thing and see what players like or not.

Marquee Bindings of the Sun King : 300%, 200%, 250%. How could they have made a 50% miscaculation ? This is impossible...

[Geldor]

While it's the public test realm, it's also the public test realm. And the dev's stated multiple times that they put something on to test it publicly. Just today again they wrote the exact same thing about a change they made to Shadow Priests. They are really testing these things.

I can understand where you are coming from, and things like the changes to the bindings are baffling as they already knew from beta that 200% is not enough.

Besides the problem of a lag of communication that Shangalar mentioned, there is also a lag of trust into the class dev team at the moment. I understand why you feel you can't just wait and see what happens. I'm really worried about fire too, as they make drastic changes in what is a tight schedule.

And if you look at the talent changes, there is nothing exciting in there, or anything that would change what you have taken all the time. Not sure if they understand why certain talents are not taken (such as meteor in pve, or Controlled Burn).

But still, hopefully we see some positive changes in the next build. I doubt they have much more to nerf left (Flame On, maybe : ) ), so we might see some good things.

[Elboba]

PTR just updated
Gained a bunch of INT (spells hit around 5k harder since last patch)
Gained about 5% crit, still 6% behind where i was
You can oblit gear to 865 so may catch that up
If i can regain the crit i lost, ill be hitting like a truck

[Geldor]

PTR just updated
Gained a bunch of INT (spells hit around 5k harder since last patch)
Gained about 5% crit, still 6% behind where i was
You can oblit gear to 865 so may catch that up
If i can regain the crit i lost, ill be hitting like a truck

This is because the added the new stats weights for items, or because they made any changes to spell coefficients? Anything else new? : )

[TyrianFC]

Marquee buffed to +275% next pyro.

[Shangalar]

As I said, this is what we've been patiently waiting for. After the stats on items and all the things with secondary stats / talents / legendary items are done, which seems like it might be in this PTR update, then we can start actually playtesting and analyzing numbers for all three of our specs. Historically, Blizzard have always been very protective of their talent changes and mostly follow their own design goals or plans, sometimes with some private feedback from specific people. That's one of the reasons why people feel that their feedback on talents and abilities isn't being heard. It's being heard, but it's also being ignored on purpose because they want to see how their ideas play out.

But when this is all done, the numbers become relevant and we can be much more useful as players at this point. Testing talent combinations, testing gameplay, testing damage done. Once the next PTR build is officially out, then we can compare numbers.

[Charge me Doctor]

I've got ~7% crit back. Still about 10% less than on live, but at 50% crit it's quite manageable

[Elboba]

Yeah with the change to my Lego Helm, my burst feels just as meaty as it did before.
Im happy with how hard im hitting, also im glad i didnt start dumping too much into frost.
Im doing higher damage with fire in my current gear than I am with frost.
So keen for empowered spellblade!

[Deleted]

The massive crit reduction makes standing there for 4seconds with the bracers casting only to see pyro hit non-crit for 900k feel bad, especially as no ice floes means you could stand there for almost the whole 4.5seconds, then have to move at the last moment, and take a massive dps loss.

I am sure Blizzard thinks this is "interesting gameplay" due to "interesting choices". Yeah the choice is I won't use the bracer in a raid environment.

[Fenzha]

Koralon's Burning Touch - Scorch deals 350% increased damage and is a guaranteed Critical Strike against enemies below 30% health.

I might actually use its effect now.
The way its worded, does that mean always 350% and gains the crit at 30% or gains both effects at 30%? Going to assume both below 30%.

[Fayolynn]

Koralon's Burning Touch - Scorch deals 350% increased damage and is a guaranteed Critical Strike against enemies below 30% health.

I might actually use its effect now.
The way its worded, does that mean always 350% and gains the crit at 30% or gains both effects at 30%? Going to assume both below 30%.

I think both effects only take place on a sub 30% target.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah with the change to my Lego Helm

What change?

[Deleted]

that belt buff is disgustingly good

[Elboba]

What change?

Sorry, not a change, but a talent to make it 100% crit and procs heating up.

[Deleted]

I really dont think fire is wrecked in the new build. Arcane got a decent nerf ! And if you were lucky to get the legendary belt. Just pick incanters flow and play a nice execute phase.
Maybe with Dragonsbreath Legy u wont pick Flame On anymore. But thats something you gotta try out.

have fun boyz, fire is still alive

[Deleted]

Yeah guys, just drop one specific legendary item to not suck, no biggie, they drop like candy so it shouldn't be a problem.

[deadman1]

Arcane got a decent nerf

Pretty sure that was a tooltip fix.

[Deleted]

I really dont think fire is wrecked in the new build. Arcane got a decent nerf ! And if you were lucky to get the legendary belt. Just pick incanters flow and play a nice execute phase.
Maybe with Dragonsbreath Legy u wont pick Flame On anymore. But thats something you gotta try out.

have fun boyz, fire is still alive

Arcane wasn't nerfed. They just reverted the last change which was a tooltip bug.
https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...73777985187840

11/30 The datamined change to the increased mana costs from Arcane Charges is also a tooltip bug; it will remain at a 125% increase per charge.