Hello all! This thread contains some remaining issues, feedback and suggestions for Fire Mages and their hero trees. This feedback is split into initially hidden subsections for better readability.
Fire Mage feedback
Fire Mage while being better mechanically than it was pre-TWW is massively undertuned - it does much less damage than other specs, sometimes even on the level of tank. It needs a significant damage boost and addressing of some of its remaining issues (like Living Bomb, undertuned / too niche talents and PVP issues).
1. Living Bomb issues
Currently Living Bomb is severely undertuned - its proc chance and damage have been nerfed so much that in most cases it is better to ignore its talents and take something else. Similar issue was in Dragonflight, but there it was 2 talents and now it is 7 and it also renders almost all reworked right side of Fire tree useless and it is unlikely that developers that spent time on making it want that. The solution is actually simple - significally buff its damage and proc chance, but remove the spread mechanic to compensate. This spread mechanic has caused too much balancing headaches for several expansions (not even years - expansions) and is not even that thematic, since original Wrath of the Lich King Living Bomb did not even have it, so removing it might be for the better. Without spread and square scaling to number of targets damage and proc chance of Living Bomb can be safely buffed and decently tuned both against 1 enemy (via Convection value for Fire and Excess Fire value for Frostfire Frost) and multiple enemies.
2. Dragon’s Breath vs Supernova issues
This choice node can be harmful for Fire and to lesser extent Arcane who have output increasing talents attached to Dragon’s Breath (like Alexstrasza’s Fury), Supernova (like Arcane Spellslinger’s Unerring Proficiency) or even upgrade talents to both that are available together and this choice node blocks one of their effects (like Fire Sunfury that has access to both Alexstrasza’s Fury and Gravity Lapse). This node is both harmful and not balanced enough (it is a choice node between full crowd control effect and singular disruption effect), so could be changed with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make Supernova a choice node with Blast Wave instead. Such choice is not harmful for potential output of both Fire and Arcane, makes much more sense (it is a choice between knockback effect and knockup effect similar to many other classes) and is potentially better balanced between the options.
3. Undertuned / underused / too niche / not competitive enough talents
Fire Mage still has multiple talents in tree that provide too low or too niche value and could be looked at. Aside from Living Bomb talents mentioned above, these include:
Inflame - boosts Ignite damage only for Hot Streak affected spells and provides lower Ignite value than some other talents. Needs a boost.
Controlled Destruction - provides too low value with too many stacks and even its total value is comparable to value that some other talents provide near instantly. Could use less stacks with bigger value per stack to become more competitive.
Fevered Incantation and Fire’s Ire - provide too low value for cost of 2 third gate talents (comparable to Wildfire that is a 1 point investment second gate talent) and limit build diversity, since after taking mandatory central talents and picking a tree side Fire Mage players are unlikely to spend 2 talent points on mostly weak effects to take even one liked talent from other side the tree. Fevered Incantation also has been bugged and provided 1 point investment effect even with 2 points investment. Consider just reducing both to 1 point investment to address all these issues, especially since lately there are multiple spec trees that contain only 1 point investment nodes.
Pyromaniac - not reliable enough and undertuned, since on average it provides 3% damage increase to Hot Streak affected Pyroblasts and Flamestrike, which is lower than other talents like Surging Blaze. It also has little to no synergy with Hyperthermia to which it is a prerequisite to (does not trigger from its non-Hot Streak spells). It could be buffed for competitiveness with all that in mind.
Suggestion: Buff its proc value (to make it more reliable) and duplicate percentage (to make it more competitive with other throughput talents) and make it also trigger from Hyperthermia affected spells.
Hyperthermia - provides too low value and its RNG nature can make it redundant or even harmful in some cases. To address most of its issues it could just become an active off-GCD ability with X seconds duration and Y seconds cooldown - that would allow players to have better control over it and use when needed and not use when it is redundant / harmful and would improve its synergies with other capstones, since its guaranteed crit abilities can be used to hasten building of next Sun King’s Blessing or Unleashed Inferno Combustion. While it is an addition of active ability, it would be tied to an optional capstone, so people who like it can play it and people who don’t like it or don’t want an additional ability could skip it and take some other talent and with proper tuning remain competitive.
Deep Impact - lost value after nerfs to both cooldown reduction and Living Bomb and makes Meteor’s base cooldown desynchronize with pretty much everything else. That makes it badly competitive for Sunfury and could be addressed.
Suggestion: Revert its cooldown reduction to 15 seconds.
Firefall - can provide decent output increase, but has design issues where it is located in AoE part of tree and triggers an AoE ability, but procs exclusively from single-target abilities and it has no synergy with Scorch that can become primary builder ability during execute phases. These issues could be addressed.
Suggestion: Make Firefall also stack and trigger from Flamestrike (for AoE situations synergies) and Scorch (for its execute phase synergies).
Glass Cannon PVP talent - makes Fire Mages pay a PVP talent and 15% of health tax just to deal comparable output to other specs in PVP (which they get for simply existing), provides negative impact for PVP gameplay of both Fire Mages and healers that need to heal them and is just excessive, especially since Fire Mages are already generally undertuned and lost Flamecannon PVP talent. Consider just removing Glass Cannon and tuning Fire Mage’s PVP output without it.
Fire Sunfury feedback
Currently this spec is quite undertuned and even if buffed would have other issues that can push players away - weak defensive node, bad utility node, immobile Phoenix that can be outranged in both PVE and PVP, Spellfire Sphere generation issues etc. This hero tree in general still needs work and could have following issues addressed.
1. Spellfire Sphere generation issues
Spellfire Sphere generation out of combat is currently too slow - it is once per 50 seconds, not aligns with both Combustion and Arcane Surge recharging, sometimes does not passively generate more than 3 spheres with Rondurmancy taken and can require Sunfury either ask raid to wait some time for sphere generation (time loss) or enter combat with reduced output (performance loss). Both of these situations are not good, so this issue could be addressed.
Suggestion: Reduce period of out of combat Sphere generation and reduce further if Rondurmancy is taken. For example base period could be 30 seconds (so would require 90 seconds to generate 3 spheres that decently align with both Arcane Surge and Combustion) and with Rondurmancy taken it could be reduced to 20 seconds (100 seconds to generate 5 spheres that still decently align with Combustion and Arcane Surge).
2. Immobile Phoenix
Since Arcane Phoenix cannot move from spot it was summoned to, that can cause issues and output loss if enemies are moving (like pack chasing the tank in PVE and enemy players in PVP) and getting out of its initial range. That should be addressed.
Suggestion: Make Arcane Phoenix capable of moving and follow its target(s) if any or Mage that summoned him if there are no such targets.
3. Undetuned throughput nodes
Fire Sunfury currently has massively undertuned nodes - its Spellfire Spheres, Lingering Embers, Burden of Power bonus for Pyroblast and Mana Cascade stacks all provide half value of Arcane version. Since Spellfire Sphere generation for both specs was brought in line and Fire Mage is significally undertuned, there should be no more reason to keep Fire’s versions of these significally weaker than Arcane versions and they should be brought in line.
4. Defensive node
Sunfury’s defensive node is both undertuned and niche - its Avoidance boost often does not help much (like against single-target damage focused enemies) and its Leech value is both low and has very limited uptime (when some other classes get higher Leech value from base tree talents or Leech permanently). It needs a boost to be more in line with defensive nodes of other hero specs and even then would remain niche, so could become a choice node with other defensive option like both other Mage hero specs have.
Suggestion: Buff values or duration of Merely a Setback and make it a choice node with other defensive node. For example that could be Cauterizing Blink from Legion artifact traits - it is generally useful, already Sunfury themed (was attached to weapon of Kael’Thas) and fitting for Arcane + Fire hero tree as cauterizing is a Fire effect and Blink / Shimmer is an Arcane spell.
5. Utility node
Both options for Sunfury utility node were overnerfed and are too niche or undertuned now. Lessons in Debilitation provides up to 2 additional Spellsteals every 60-90 seconds that can have no value if there are no dispellable effects to steal or Mage wants them for himself / herself. Gravity Lapse is often worse than Dragon’s Breath / Supernova it replaces (has target cap, does not prevent hardcasting for affected enemies while Supernova does, has delayed damage than can break crowd control effects applied while it is active etc) and taking it can be a downgrade opposed to supposed upgrade. Both options still need work.
Suggestion: Make Lessons in Debilitation have some additional effect (instead of removed earlier crowd control spell cast) and revert Gravity Lapse to a stun effect and if needed reduce its target count and / or increase cooldown to compensate. Stun effect for Gravity Lapse is thematic (it is a stun ability in Heroes of the Storm), fitting for an ability that upgrades existing crowd control effect (with stun it would pretty much just extend Supernova’s duration from 1.5 to 3 seconds and make it also prevent instant cast abilities) and is even in line with other hero spec talents like Mountain Thane’s Storm Bolts that is also an AoE stun and an upgrade to existing crowd control ability.
6. Undertuned, not competitive enough or improvable talents
Fire Sunfury also has several talents that are not competitive enough with their choice node alternatives or have clunky mechanics that could be improved. These involve:
Glorious Incandescence - as its Meteorite fall is very delayed it can occur when enemies already left its area (like pack chasing the tank) and have big part of value wasted. That can happen without Mage’s fault (like tank needs to kite to survive) and controlling enemies with Ice Nova or Gravity Lapse to keep them within area can disrupt tank’s pack positioning or gathering, so should still be addressed.
Suggestion: Reduce or remove delay before Meteorites from Glorious Incandescence fall.
Sunfury Execution - provides too low value compared to alternative (which also better synergizes with Improved Combustion and Memory of Al’Ar) and could use a boost for competitiveness.
Suggestion: Make Sunfury Execution in addition to current effect also increase damage of Scorch against enemies below 35% of health by X%.
Codex of the Sunstriders - its tooltip should also mention that Lingering Embers have 10 seconds duration and it is refreshed on getting a new stack to prevent player’s confusion.
Ignite the Future - is not competitive enough with Rondurmancy, provides too low value and needs a boost.
Suggestion: Make it in addition to current effect also increase damage of Phoenix exceptional spells by X%. That would keep its theme as “Phoenix focused node” opposed to “Mage focused node” Rondurmancy and would make it more competitive.
Rondurmancy - aside from issues mentioned above it also has issues with in-combat Sphere generation for Fire Sunfury specifically. They can often recharge Combustion in combat much earlier than they can generate 5 spheres again and than leads to either delaying next Combustion (not good) or using it with reduced amount of spheres (also not good). To address that, consider making Rondurmancy also reduce number of Hot Streaks required to generate a sphere by 1 to make generation of 5 spheres and next Combustion in combat more aligned.
Frostfire (Fire) Mage feedback
This hero tree is also undertuned currently and has several gameplay issues that could be addressed. Its proc visibility and overlapping issues and general issues were already covered in Frostfire (Frost) Mage feedback post linked in this thread, but there are also issues specific to Frostfire (Fire) Mage too.
1. Frostfire Bolt issues
Fire’s Frostfire Bolt has several issues remaining even after the latest bugs and bugfixes that could be looked at. These involve:
- Frostfire Bolt still does less direct damage than Fireball it is supposed to upgrade. Its cast time is faster, but that still can cause issues with some effects like Flame Accelerant which drop cast time of both affected spells below GCD and make affected Fireball deal more dps than affected Frostfire Bolt. Damage of Frostfire Bolt should be increased more.
- Frostfire Empowerment does not apply its damage over time effect to cleaved enemies. While that might be intentional it is definitely strange that same frostfire explosion applies damage over time effect to main target and does not apply it to others.
2. Undetuned or not competitive enough talents
Frostfire (Fire) Mage also has several talents that are undertuned or not competitive enough with choice node alternatives and could be improved. These involve:
Excess Fire - for some reason its Living Bombs deal much less damage than Frost version. Even if that was made to account for Living Bomb upgrade talents that Fire has access to, the difference is still too big - Fire has to spend some of its talent points to pick them so accordingly if doing so its Living Bombs should be stronger. As a result, Excess Fire Living Bomb value could be buffed for Fire too.
Flame and Frost - is not competitive enough with Elemental Affinity that both provides more casts of opposite school spells and is not attached to a major defensive effect that likely would not be wasted just to trigger the CD reset of Frost spells. It could be boosted and redesigned with that in mind.
Suggestion: Attach CD reset from Flame and Frost to casted Combustion instead (so only manual and not from Time Anomaly and Sun King’s Blessing to prevent getting too many resets) and make it affect only abilties that have 45 seconds and lower base cooldown to compensate. Such change would make this effect more usable (attached to a major offensive cooldown that should be used anyway), competitive (its number of opposite school spell usages would be more in line with Elemental Affinity with different pros like on-demand reset and cons like less usages of low cooldown Frost spells) and more generally useful.
If you have some additional suggestions, you can post them in the comments. Thank you for reading!
Links to other Mage specializations feedback posts:
Frost Mage - 11.0.5 Frost Mage Feedback And Suggestions
Arcane Mage - 11.0.5 Arcane Mage Feedback And Suggestions