What's wrong with the fire mage damage profile?

[Lodravel]

I've recently returned to fire, after having played a filthy rogue for ages. So I'm used to only doing damage during cooldowns like Shadow Dance.

But holy moly, what went wrong with fire's damage?
Awesome during combust but total wet noodle outside of it. Damage is pathetically low. The cherry on top being that pyroblast actually does less damage than fireball baseline, its only saving grace being able to spam it during combust.

Maybe fire isn't for me after all but it feels so disheartening, especially in outdoor content or PvP. I know most people don't care about the latter but the former is kind of a requirement. Tickling mobs isn't part of mage class fantasy, or so I thought. Yet here we are.

And while we're at it, why is RoP still a thing?

[Stickiler]

The cherry on top being that pyroblast actually does less damage than fireball baseline, its only saving grace being able to spam it during combust.

Just to be clear, do you mean Pyroblast does less damage per second over Fireball? Or does your Pyro seriously hit for less than your Fireball?

For comparison, my Fireball hits for 2.4k, and my Pyro hits for 4.1k

Maybe fire isn't for me after all but it feels so disheartening, especially in outdoor content or PvP. I know most people don't care about the latter but the former is kind of a requirement. Tickling mobs isn't part of mage class fantasy, or so I thought. Yet here we are.

I certainly haven't had this experience, mostly due to random crits and Fireblast allowing for mini-crit chains that basically nukes anything I'm fighting on a short cooldown.

And while we're at it, why is RoP still a thing?

RoP gives opportunities for good Mages to differentiate themselves, by placing it in intelligent places and timing it correctly around mechanics. It can certainly be frustrating, and I definitely don't use it optimally, but on a base level, I don't really see a problem with it.

[Caprias]

That's pretty much the price for having one of the best offensive cooldowns in the game, even though the prepatch and ignite talent made consistent damage a bit better.

The way you work around that in the open world is A: don't level as fire, especially with low-ish gear and B: pull as much as possible and bomb it down with combust.

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RoP gives opportunities for good Mages to differentiate themselves, by placing it in intelligent places and timing it correctly around mechanics. It can certainly be frustrating, and I definitely don't use it optimally, but on a base level, I don't really see a problem with it.

Eh... it was better in Legion when it had charges so you had more flexibility when to use it for maximum damage gain outside of your cooldowns (which you also needed to keep in mind to save one up for.)

Now it's pretty much use with sunkings/pyroclasm as close on cooldown as possible.

[D3athsting]

The only problem i see now with fire is that with legendary and talents there's a lot of pyro hardcasting

[Caprias]

The only problem i see now with fire is that with legendary and talents there's a lot of pyro hardcasting

Shimmer or icefloes are you best friend.

[Stickiler]

Eh... it was better in Legion when it had charges so you had more flexibility when to use it for maximum damage gain outside of your cooldowns (which you also needed to keep in mind to save one up for.)

Now it's pretty much use with sunkings/pyroclasm as close on cooldown as possible.

The whole "2 charges, but may as well be 1 because you need 1 for your CD" is why they just ditched the 2 charge system and made it auto-cast when you hit Combustion. Especially given it's a 1.5sec cast that you don't need to pre-cast for your Combustion now, it makes it a much smoother process to Combust.

[Lodravel]

RoP gives opportunities for good Mages to differentiate themselves, by placing it in intelligent places and timing it correctly around mechanics. It can certainly be frustrating, and I definitely don't use it optimally, but on a base level, I don't really see a problem with it.

That is... true. I usually welcome opportunities to differentiate myself based on skill, optimizing can be very fun.
In this case, the thing you need to do in order to play optimally is doing something that is decidedly not fun.

It's bad design in my eyes. Do a thing you don't want to do in order to gain a bonus and hope getting that bonus feels good enough to outweigh having to do that thing. If it would be a quest, it would be called a chore.