Fire Mage Guide

[Deleted]

Quick Update; details at eleven...

Jin'Rokh Heroic 25-Man was cake, even though I got hit with six of those idiot lightning balls. RNG still hates me, but with the Mastery over Haste build, using Living Bomb, it seemed to be all right.

Horridon and Council were Normal, as our guild is still progressing. We switched to Heroic for Tortos, and I stayed with Living Bomb, as the Whirl Turtles are usually too far apart for Nether Tempest to be truly effective.

25 wipes later, with tempers flaring, I was having an opening pull averaging something over 210K DPS (I know, but I'm still learning how to get Ignite/Combustion to really work for me), which dropped down to about 147K until we wiped.

Tomorrow evening (Saturday), we'll be trying it again, and I've reforged to the way that Spaace has suggested, with heavy Haste.

I'll post my findings and let everyone know what happened, and I'm hoping that there will be a big enough difference to help me to decide which is best for my play style.

Again, thank you to everyone!

210K seems awfully low on tortos. I don't wanna bash or anything but you should burst 600-700k if you're spreading to first set of turtles which I hope you are? If not start doing that it's very very good and the turtles just melt, atleast in 10M where everyone plays a bigger part of the overall dps

[mrgreenthump]

210K seems awfully low on tortos. I don't wanna bash or anything but you should burst 600-700k if you're spreading to first set of turtles which I hope you are? If not start doing that it's very very good and the turtles just melt, atleast in 10M where everyone plays a bigger part of the overall dps

It ain't if you need to tunnel the turtles 24/7 due to nobody doing their job properly from ranged, or if the number of ranged is low.. Now sure perfect combustion spreads should make it so you should have at least 250k dps even if tunneling turtles, but that would need gear, which he really doesn't have yet.

[spaace]

532 ilvl and you say he doesn't have gear yet?

please enlighten me, because you seem to know everything.

every strat is different. our guild kites bats, kills ALL turtles(every dps is on first set of turtles after cd's drop off opening burst), then moves to boss. only at around 40% and stacks of turtles we turn to dotting them, and focusing boss.

[mrgreenthump]

532 ilvl and you say he doesn't have gear yet?

please enlighten me, because you seem to know everything.

every strat is different. our guild kites bats, kills ALL turtles(every dps is on first set of turtles after cd's drop off opening burst), then moves to boss. only at around 40% and stacks of turtles we turn to dotting them, and focusing boss.

Well, when I went from 532 to 540+ my dps went up like hell.. Sure 532 is somewhat geared, but considering 6k valors is it now, that goes to 12 full upgrades on your gear.. which means 6 itemlevels, which in turn means 526 ilevel, which is 4 heroic items only. Or in his case, no heroic items at all.

[voltaa]

Well, when I went from 532 to 540+ my dps went up like hell.. Sure 532 is somewhat geared, but considering 6k valors is it now, that goes to 12 full upgrades on your gear.. which means 6 itemlevels, which in turn means 526 ilevel, which is 4 heroic items only. Or in his case, no heroic items at all.

Heroic items or upgraded normals, 532 is 532

[mrgreenthump]

Heroic items or upgraded normals, 532 is 532

Yet ~18 ilevels behind our true BiS counting upgrades and thunderforged.. Guess everyone has their own opinnion abt what geared means, but for me, 532 really aint that geared considering how well mages scale atm.

[voltaa]

Yet ~18 ilevels behind our true BiS counting upgrades and thunderforged.. Guess everyone has their own opinnion abt what geared means, but for me, 532 really aint that geared considering how well mages scale atm.

By comparison, no he isn't super geared, but my point was that pre 5.3 532 was enough to pull good numbers, so that shouldn't change post 5.3, dps potential increased, but dps at certain gear points remained constant

[spaace]

The only MAJOR changes we see from 530 and up, is the overall spell power we get, which in turn is the biggest gains..

Well, when I went from 532 to 540+ my dps went up like hell.

Ofcourse it fucking did.. 8 overall ilvls is huge. Did you think it was going nowhere? You may have only gotten like 1% more crit, 1% more haste or whatever.. but your int gains were through the roof..

voltaa has almost 4000 more spell power then me.. Even if I play perfect and he fucks up, he will still shit all over me.
Hell.. just bomb dmg alone over a 6 min fight will be embarassing..

[mrgreenthump]

210K seems awfully low on tortos. I don't wanna bash or anything but you should burst 600-700k if you're spreading to first set of turtles which I hope you are? If not start doing that it's very very good and the turtles just melt, atleast in 10M where everyone plays a bigger part of the overall dps

Aand now pulling it back to where this conversation actually started.. The comment I reacted to was abt somebody doing "only" 210k dps on Tortos heroic. Now sure it is low if you do it perfect, but for progress and if you get handed the "shitty" jobs with 532 gear, it's perfectly acceptable.

[Vaelkder]

I'm still trying, and I mean TRYING, to learn how to play Fire optimally. I've only played Fire since the third week of 5.3 (been Arcane since day 1, about a year ago) and I'm having problems wrapping my mind around how to spread the Combustion to the Whirl Turtles when they first appear. RNG is still not my friend, and I have to admit that a lot of my ilvl came from that 600 cloak that I worked so hard on to get.

I'm assigned to burst at Tortos at the very beginning, and then to focus on the Whirl Turtles, with perhaps the occasional hit at Tortos if there is a free second or two. Because of all of the great comments and help which I've received here in the Forums, I'm improving on a daily basis, and it's pretty measurable. Last week, after the burst, my average DPS on Tortos was 85K, whereas this week it flew up to 147K, and I will say that it is entirely due to the people HERE who contribute to MMO-Champion.

I'm hoping that this evening's attempt will produce better numbers (I reforged to the numbers which Spaace suggested [Hit-5108; Crit-16260; Haste-7159; Mastery-1852 and Spell Power-29243/34763] and we'll see what happens), but I will always keep working on it, because I really don't know what I'm doing in comparison to everyone else here.

Again, THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who has put in their time and effort here! I appreciate it all greatly!

Cheers!

[Kytal]

Aand now pulling it back to where this conversation actually started.. The comment I reacted to was abt somebody doing "only" 210k dps on Tortos heroic. Now sure it is low if you do it perfect, but for progress and if you get handed the "shitty" jobs with 532 gear, it's perfectly acceptable.

Except he was referring to 210k off of his opener, and dropping down to ~147k when he died. 210k is a perfectly fine number on Heroic Tortos sustained to the end. 210k as a fire mage opener with combustion spread to the initial whirl turtles is not.

532 is fairly well geared and will be competitive with other DPS.

[mrgreenthump]

Except he was referring to 210k off of his opener, and dropping down to ~147k when he died. 210k is a perfectly fine number on Heroic Tortos sustained to the end. 210k as a fire mage opener with combustion spread to the initial whirl turtles is not.

532 is fairly well geared and will be competitive with other DPS.

Competitive if the other dps are the same ilevel..

And yes my mistake if it was only his openner.

[Kytal]

Competitive if the other dps are the same ilevel..

....duh? Obviously we're not trying to compare 532 mages to 549 warlocks/rogues/etc. If someone in your group massively outgears you clearly you will fall behind. What was the purpose of even pointing that out?

532 is plenty of gear to pull consistent, solid numbers as fire. You don't need to be 540+ to be competitive in a heroic raid group.

[spaace]

By the time you're doing heroic raiding... dps should not be an "issue"

[Vaelkder]

Well, folks, it's time to laugh at me for the Nth time...

Last night was an unmitigated disaster. My RNG was so bad that the "best" opening pull I could manage anywhere had an Ignite of only 109K when I hit Combustion. The logs all showed that I was not performing at all well, and that my average DPS was perhaps 126K, where the other Mage (who has been playing Fire for 7 years and has an ilvl of 527) had bursts up to 385K and averaged 175K on the longer fights.

I understand that there was a lot of lag everywhere for everyone, due to a background download for some type of patch which hit this morning, but that does not excuse the fact that I do not comprehend how to get things to work as a Fire Mage.

I had used the reforging which Spaace had suggested earlier, and I thought that it ought to help with the overall performance, but the evening was filled with so many mis-steps on the part of the entire raid that I can't say if the Mastery-heavy or the Haste-heavy reforging was preferable. As a compromise, this morning I reforged again to the numbers which Mrgreenthump has suggested, and I'll run dungeons, LFRs, scenarios and target dummies as preparation for next week's guild raid.

I'm not certain why my Ignites are so very low; there was one pull where things seemed to be going perfectly. Time Warp was up, ALL of the procs had hit and were running (Wushoo was at 9 when I hit POM/Alter Time). I actually had SEVEN Pyroblasts in a row, with LB ticking madly away. The problem was this was the only time that I was at an ignite which was above 100K, where I thought that it ought to have been at least 250K.

In all honesty, I know that my ilvl being 532 is due to the 600 cloak (upgraded to 608). If I didn't have the cloak, I would be at 526. I'm not sure if this has any impact, but I have been looking at everyone's Armory, as well as pulling them up on AMR, to see what reforges and gemmings are in place and to try to learn more.

I work hard at everything, running dailies, LFRs, Scenarios, Dungeons and everything else possible to learn how to play Fire, but there is something missing, and I can't for the life of me discover what that might be, to help me progress from a low-level player into at least an average player. The suggestions and help here are incredible, yes, but I must be missing something in the fundamentals.

I'll keep studying and practicing, and with luck and some decent RNG, perhaps I'll manage to progress.

Thanks again for all of your collective help.

[onemanaleft]

good thing to review is to look at a log of that burst you thght was good, and check what your largest ignite was, if done properly this should equal your combust crits (since combust does base ticks of 50% of ignite)

so say your highest ignite on that epic burst of yours was 190k, but your combust crits were 120k, this can be a timing issue. sometimes you get punished for being too greedy, say you had all the hot streak crits in a row, finishing it off with the cherry on top of a 440k crit of your final pyro, and perhaps this was where your 190k ignite occured. but say during that time you still had pom up from after the alter time, and your wush 10 stacks fell off along with breath, suddenly you drop 25k spellpower, and you thought "well poms up, more pyros are better" when in fact the most you can ever benefit from is about 6 with gcd cap. at this time your ignite just ticked off again, then you hit that pom pyro and it was a non crit 120k. this right here can murder your ignite and drop it down lower despite being another instant pyro and youve deluded the ignite.

however if your log shows that your highest ignite matched your highest combust crit then im not sure what to tell you, maybe you didnt re-apply your mage bomb before the burst for the pyromaniac or the alter time was not done correctly. perhaps you waited for the full 6s duration of your alter time rather than canceling after your lsat pyro ran out, im not sure

[spaace]

You just need practice, and to learn to watch what procs, and when to "hit" it, essentially..

It might take all xpac before you're fully comfortable with knowing yourself...

Hell, there are PLENTY of times where we all fuck up those opening combustions... just after a while, you learn your "sweet" spot (especially when you get 2 trinkets that LOVE to pair up)

[lydude]

Quick question: Is it worth it to switch over to Fire with about 33% crit self buffed? This toon is my 3rd alt, and I'm at 503 ilvl and currently gemming and reforging into int/haste as a frost mage. Fire is my favorite mage spec, so I've made attempts to switch over to Fire when I was sub-500 ilvl and the results were kinda shitty. Couldn't get the procs I needed. I do decent DPS as frost, but I just enjoy playing fire more so I am constantly debating switching over, but I have to completely reforge and re-gem just to play fire so I can't really switch between the two specs very easily.

I just got my 2set (even if it is LFR), so I have the nice 1800 haste/mastery/crit buff after Alter Time expires. I'd appreciate some input/suggestions on this before I go ahead and make the switch

[Methusula]

You're still a bit low on crit for Fire. For reference, I have over 41% crit self buffed and I'm just now feeling like I'm getting enough crits.

[lydude]

You're still a bit low on crit for Fire. For reference, I have over 41% crit self buffed and I'm just now feeling like I'm getting enough crits.

Crap, 8% to go Thanks tho!