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10.2.5
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10.2.6
What ilevel/crit chance would be a good time to switch to fire?
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Post by
idkfaceroll
I've been back to WoW after a 7 month hiatus and have been surprised to find that mages of all flavors are running around the PVE scene. Even more so that I myself have resorted to raiding as frost over my fire spec that I favored for nearly all of cata. I like frost because it seems to do the best at lower levels of gear but I would like to go back to fire at some point, so my question is this:
At what point would my gear be good enough to switch to fire? More specifically what would be a good amount of crit before the rotation smoothes itself out? I attempted fire early in my MoP career and it was abysmally far behind my frost (I loathe arcane and refuse to use it) and have been too intimidated to try it again.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/bladefist/Brelly/simple
Ignore the talents on the fire spec, I'm aware they are sub optimal for pve
Post by
Darkwraith01
Unfortunately, after patch 5.1 hotfix, which applied a major nerf to Critical Mass and Combustion, the Fire spec is pretty damn broken. To give you an idea: my dps that week dropped from a constant 70k dps to about 59k, so we are talking about a 15% overall dps reduction, which is pretty harsh.
If you check
Simulcraft
, you'll that Fire went from being number 1 DPS to 14th place.... I have been running a few Simulcraft simulations myself these past days, going from anything like Patchwerk style fights to Helter-Skelter, Light Movement and Heavy Movement fights, and so far Fire is still way behind Arcane and Frost (I`m talking like 15k - 20k dps behind), with my ilvl of 487.
I have heard that at VERY high ilvl (505+) the gap gets a little better, but I haven't had any solid proof of that.
My advice is: stay with Arcane or Frost, whichever you like most, and forget Fire until its fixed.
Post by
idkfaceroll
I was afraid of something like that. I was invited to join a raid with a potential new guild and they had a fire mage who was always in the top 3 chart positions. That mage was also monstrously ahead of me in gear so I assumed it was the natural case of fires force multipliers showing major dividends at higher gear levels.
I guess I'll stick with frost since I'm already familiar with the rotation and the patch notes for 5.2 looks like it'll be getting a slight buff. It's a little disappointing that fire is falling out in terms of viability AGAIN, which is weird because I was under the impression mages were at least easy to balance.
Post by
792025
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Darkwraith01
Yeah, I posted something similar to your comment on WoW Insider a few weeks ago. That is exactly my point, they could have nerfed the damage of Pyroblast! by 10% or so, or reduce the crit damage range for it. There was even a suggestion to make CM have diminishing returns based on ilvl, which would allow people to level as fire and at the same time people with very high ilvl wouldn't get a 7-instant-pyro sequence very often. Or even reduce the benefits of CM for PvP.
It all started when Ghostcrawler, who is NOT a mage fan, said that mages were getting 7 continuous instant pyros in a row, and it was impossible to PvP against them. It's a bunch of crap, and the worse part is that they tested the fire spec all throughout the PTR of patch 5.1, and only AFTER it went live they decided to fix it (by fix it I mean break it).
What REALLY pisses me off is that Fire seems to be people's most loved spec to play (there was even a WoW Insider discussion about that) and it got hit hard (went from #1 to #14 in the dps scale in Simulcraft) and there is nothing being changed about it in the next patch!
Sad, just sad. I went Arcane for a few weeks but it's boring as hell, then quit playing my mage (main) and started to level my DK tank and created a new toon (Afflic warlock) for PvP. Probably won't get back serious on my mage until Fire is fixed, or Arcane becomes interesting (i.e. more mobile, like it used to be back in the beginning of WoLK).
Post by
tyron2000
Yep... fire is performing rather poorly... really gets on my nerves... I've always played fire, enjoy fire, but now I'm always getting out DPS'ed by frost and arcane... which leaves me in an agitated state in which I search for colorful expletives which will convey the intensity of my displeasure!(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##ElhonnaDS##DELIM##
Don't bypass the profanity filter. Also, please make sure that the imagery you use in your future metaphors is non-vulgar and appropriate for the forums.
Post by
Darkwraith01
This might come as an update:
Back when Blizzard applied the 5.1 hotfix that really, really, really, nerfed Fire, they mentioned that with gear scaling from the subsequent patches that would be eventually fixed. Although I am not a big fan of that strategy (because it means that the spec won't be completely feasible for leveling, for example), that statement seems to be true.
If you check the Noxxic website, they have ran some realistic and top damage simulations in which fire seems to be very well placed at high ilvls (ilvl 522 +).
Although I completely agree that no simulation can represent the real life, the fact that noxxic lets you see the damage based on ilvl helps a lot to see spec progression.
Realistic damage for Fire, for example, with ilvl around 468 is garbage, currently listed in 17th place. It stays horrible from ilvl 483 till 496 (from 20th to 21st place) and picks up significantly later on, at around ilvl 522 (4th place). With BiS gear, it's 2nd place.
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