Fire DPS too low? I don't get it...

[aragorn1ring]

Let me start off by saying that this is not my first rodeo. I've been playing the game for about 4 years now, I consider myself very aware of rotations, priorities, and combination mechanics. Although I'm new (Cata only) to the mage class, the DPS overview isn't that complex.

My problem: I've always, since day 1 of hitting 85 felt my fire DPS was too low. My guildies assured me it was just a gear problem and as I got closer in ilvl with other other players my DPS would increase accordingly. Now I'm Ilvl 349 and I'm still way behind most of my fellow raiders. I'm moderately casual but ive spent a bunch of time trying to acquire better gear and level 2 very expensive professions to maximize DPS. Yesterday I was in a heroic with a guildie who is Ilvl 346 an Enhancement shaman. He blew me away on dps both overall and on all boss fights by 10% I cant see how this is possible. I've have played with this guildie for many years and hes never out DPSed me on my Death Knight or my Warrior before that.

The rotation/priority I use:

Scorch for critical mass -> Living Bomb -> Flame Orb -> Orc Racial + Mirror image -> fireball spam -> Hot Streak procs -> combustion with 2 or more DoTs -> Keep living bomb up -> Flame orb on cooldown

My Spec and gear:

I did all the research on Elitist Jerks

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...medes/advanced

As you can see I have reforged all my gear for haste as elitist Jerks says to do. I made sure I am hit capped and I gemmed for mostly int except for a nice bonus here and there.

All of this translates to 10-11k DPS in heroics and in raids. I've never out dpsed a guildie. I'm playing a Mage because my 10 man needs a ranged DPS. I really like the utility and the versatility of a mage, but looking at recount is very very depressing and makes me wanna reroll a lock or something.

Any help, ideas, or criticism would be welcome. L2Play is not.

[dethloc]

I can't see your armory to give you suggestions right this second.. Do you happen to have a log of your damage? This would help tons. What raid comp are you part of? You maybe missing some important buffs that will really help your dps.

[hagar4172]

1: can't click on the link just gives a 503 error

2: while haste is nice what is ur crit % cause fire is still a very crit reliant spec.

[Revik]

I wanted to let you know that I am in the same boat as you. I am at ilvl 350 pulling in about the same DPS as you sometimes less. I am regularly out DPS'ed by shamans, warriors, rogues, hunters, etc. I am at a loss to as to how to improve my single target damage.

At this point I dont think there is a way to improve my damage. People say the same that it is a gearing issue which is fine only that in order to be at all competitive you need to be FULLY geared out which leads me to think WTF is the point then? Once you're geared out you don't need to raid anymore.

In any event you have my condolences as a fellow mage.

[Bignag]

Haste is only better than crit at a certain gear level, also you shouldn't use combustion unless you have LB, pyro, and a nice big ignite crit up at the same time.

[Revengance]

I wanted to let you know that I am in the same boat as you. I am at ilvl 350 pulling in about the same DPS as you sometimes less. I am regularly out DPS'ed by shamans, warriors, rogues, hunters, etc. I am at a loss to as to how to improve my single target damage.

At this point I dont think there is a way to improve my damage. People say the same that it is a gearing issue which is fine only that in order to be at all competitive you need to be FULLY geared out which leads me to think WTF is the point then? Once you're geared out you don't need to raid anymore.

In any event you have my condolences as a fellow mage.

Same here.I made a thread last night for advice. Could be useful for you

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Fire-DPS-issue.

[HotDate]

1: can't click on the link just gives a 503 error

2: while haste is nice what is ur crit % cause fire is still a very crit reliant spec.

Ignite munching is a huge problem and makes crit less desirable. See the elitist jerks link he posted above^

Haste is best secondary stat for most mages atm

[Aciied]

My guildie fire mage with less than 350 avg. ilvl is mostly doing around 14-15k dps in our raids .

I don't know much, but i can say one thing, that is general for ALL classes. Get some proper trinkets! Always pick trinkets with INT as its main stat, since primary stats (such as int) is much stronger than secondary stats. Even hit, since you can reforge secondary stats to hit instead of missing out on your primary stat because you are using a hit trinket.

[Lollis]

Ignite munching is a huge problem and makes crit less desirable. See the elitist jerks link he posted above^

Haste is best secondary stat for most mages atm

Ignite munching is, or has, been fixed as far as i am aware.

[Revengance]

Let me start off by saying that this is not my first rodeo. I've been playing the game for about 4 years now, I consider myself very aware of rotations, priorities, and combination mechanics. Although I'm new (Cata only) to the mage class, the DPS overview isn't that complex.

My problem: I've always, since day 1 of hitting 85 felt my fire DPS was too low. My guildies assured me it was just a gear problem and as I got closer in ilvl with other other players my DPS would increase accordingly. Now I'm Ilvl 349 and I'm still way behind most of my fellow raiders. I'm moderately casual but ive spent a bunch of time trying to acquire better gear and level 2 very expensive professions to maximize DPS. Yesterday I was in a heroic with a guildie who is Ilvl 346 an Enhancement shaman. He blew me away on dps both overall and on all boss fights by 10% I cant see how this is possible. I've have played with this guildie for many years and hes never out DPSed me on my Death Knight or my Warrior before that.

The rotation/priority I use:

Scorch for critical mass -> Living Bomb -> Flame Orb -> Orc Racial + Mirror image -> fireball spam -> Hot Streak procs -> combustion with 2 or more DoTs -> Keep living bomb up -> Flame orb on cooldown

My Spec and gear:

I did all the research on Elitist Jerks

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...medes/advanced

As you can see I have reforged all my gear for haste as elitist Jerks says to do. I made sure I am hit capped and I gemmed for mostly int except for a nice bonus here and there.

All of this translates to 10-11k DPS in heroics and in raids. I've never out dpsed a guildie. I'm playing a Mage because my 10 man needs a ranged DPS. I really like the utility and the versatility of a mage, but looking at recount is very very depressing and makes me wanna reroll a lock or something.

Any help, ideas, or criticism would be welcome. L2Play is not.

Also, way too much haste. reforge it into crit ^^

[dethloc]

OK i got your armory to come up.. Issues i see so far,

1 Get the new meta, 54int 3% crit damage
2 Do not match all your socket bonuses unless its a very good bonus. IE your gloves, use the straight 40 int gem
3 Dont just blindly reforge everything to haste, change your hit gems in excess to int gems and reforge mastery into hit ie your cloak ( of you look at the mage talent hotstreak, with your current crit levels you are still under the first tier of it, you want to be moving to the second tier of it. Get your crit above 20%,then worry about haste. Simcraft and RAWR are your friends use em to see how to better optimize your gear.
4 Get the darkmoon card trinket, Best in slot for mages, if you dont have the cash get your guild to help out as they had you re-roll
5 As said before make sure you pop combustion with a BIG ignite dot ticking, its a waste any other way.
6 also noticed a couple of enchants, gloves use the 28 SP, I believe +63 sp is better than hurricane untill higher gear levels
7 You have tailoring, get the tailoring legs big upgrade there also.

Last edit i promise ><

I disagree with the glyph of pyroblast, even on single target I tested it last night and my numbers from the raid support this for me, Living Bomb is the way to go, especially at lower gear levels.

Also make sure your eating the correct food, +90 int and flasks in raid.


If you can post a log of your dps, it will help to see if there are other issues

[sylverfox]

from elitist jerks:

Haste now has a higher relative value compared to Crit/Mastery. Ignite Munching devalues Crit and Mastery considerably. Please remember that the relative values listed here are for very geared 372 players. Haste might be slightly weaker than crit with lower levels of gear. You need to run Rawr / Simulationcraft with YOUR character - to find out whether Haste is slightly better or worse than crit for YOU.

your gear ilvl is just 349. "haste might be slightly weaker than crit with lower levels of gear" /emphasis

[Gnomity]

Ignite munching is, or has, been fixed as far as i am aware.

you are woefully unaware then. Ignite munching is a bigger issue now than it has been in years. Take a look at EJ forums for a detailed explanation, its too long to effectively post here.

[prphet337]

I would take that haste reforge and put it back to Crit. Fire mages are built around Crit Rating the higher CR u have the more chances you will proc your hotstreak which in turn equals more DPS.

[Ano]

Yes, haste > crit only at highest levels of gear. You want 12.5% buffed haste first, then at least 30% buffed crit, then haste slowly starts to be better again.

[Exera]

Your gear is not even close to validate reforging stats into haste, you should actually be reforging haste and mastery to hit and crit, not reforge crit into haste and hit.

[Eggimannd]

from elitist jerks:



your gear ilvl is just 349. "haste might be slightly weaker than crit with lower levels of gear" /emphasis

^ This!

It pains me greatly to see people in 340-350 gear reforge all their stats to haste thinking it will boost their dps while in fact it probably won't. For the most part EJs theory applies to people with higher level of gear (And if you ask me the defining thing that would make me go haste is when I get my 4 piece bonus to get Fireball at a ridiculously low cast time).

Don' just go around saying "Haste>crit now" like ignorant fools. Because it isn't true. The best way way to actually see what would be best for a peron would be to download SimC/Rawr and tweak your stuff.

[Champloo]

^ This!

It pains me greatly to see people in 340-350 gear reforge all their stats to haste thinking it will boost their dps while in fact it probably won't. For the most part EJs theory applies to people with higher level of gear (And if you ask me the defining thing that would make me go haste is when I get my 4 piece bonus to get Fireball at a ridiculously low cast time).

Don' just go around saying "Haste>crit now" like ignorant fools. Because it isn't true. The best way way to actually see what would be best for a peron would be to download SimC/Rawr and tweak your stuff.

Help me out here, because I must be doing something terribly, terribly wrong...

Running my character through Rawr and Simc tell me to constantly get rid of crit in favor of haste, even as low as ilvl 348. I've since re-forged to crit because, in practice, it's giving me MUCH better dps, even though rawr/sim suggests the contrary.
Champlew - Scilla - US

[Potato Bus]

Help me out here, because I must be doing something terribly, terribly wrong...

Running my character through Rawr and Simc tell me to constantly get rid of crit in favor of haste, even as low as ilvl 348. I've since re-forged to crit because, in practice, it's giving me MUCH better dps, even though rawr/sim suggests the contrary.
Champlew - Scilla - US

Did you select the proper raid buffs? It's possible that it may be trying to get you above the haste soft cap for +1 LB ticks with your own gear if you did not select the proper raid buffs. Also try to keep in mind that (especially now with the ignite munching simming "better" in Rawr/SimC) these tools are merely guides, and any changes you make based on their advice should be tested for accuracy.

[Champloo]

Did you select the proper raid buffs? It's possible that it may be trying to get you above the haste soft cap for +1 LB ticks with your own gear if you did not select the proper raid buffs. Also try to keep in mind that (especially now with the ignite munching simming "better" in Rawr/SimC) these tools are merely guides, and any changes you make based on their advice should be tested for accuracy.

Yes, I have the right buffs.

Rawr pushes me way, way beyond 812 haste(2nd tick of combustion)- in fact, it has had me as high as 1100. When I look at the stats page, I'm well, well over 15% haste and hovering around 28% crit. I feel like bringing haste back down to 812(or as close to it as my gear allows without going under) has given me much better dps.