I’m happy for everyone who’s a pro firemage <3
I just kind of wanted to vent since I find it ridiculous that I basically HAVE to get those bracers from mech and trinket from EP.
I was wondering, I do quite a lot of damage as frost currently (around 60k in nya) at 468 ilvl. Will it make a huge difference if I’m fire?
The frost rotation is a lot more simple and pleasant to me as well.
I’m currently 4/12 mythic on my main.
Now if I were to switch to fire, is it a “must” to use arcane rune? If it’s a ~1k dps increase I won’t (further) complicate my life using that talent as well…
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You do not necessarily need the trinket from EP although it is a boost take a look at my gear I have no problem bursting for 150k + and do pretty well in m+ 5 mans. I wish i was a bit more lucky with some +% to mastry corruptions i do have some gear in my bags ill switch to once i get the last lv on my cloak
Frost is pretty good in Heroic, though a bit corruption dependent. Unless you’re planning on finishing up Mythic on the Mage, you’re fine to just play Frost.
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I do plan on getting through mythic! 
You can do fine in mythic raid without Font trinket. If you’re looking to parse higher then a 95 however, Font/Badge, bracers, lucid dream and a good combustion opener on top of some %mastery corruption gear will help immensely.
My raid has me focus on pure single target with 10sec pull timers and I still parse alright - nothing to write home about but my burst on single target is well over 200k.
Same with keys - Font is amazing if your tank will work around it. Many pugs even around 3000io won’t keep track of your cool downs unfortunately. I usually replace my Font unless i’m pushing with friends.
Rune of power is actually quite easy and thankfully every on use trinket you’d be interested in lines up with your CDs.
If i were to play without rune of power, would my output be significantly worse? I wouldn’t mind sacrificing 1-3k dps if it means I get a less nitpicky rotation
The TLDR - Line up rune/combust with adds every 2mins for big fotm fire mage cleave damage.
If you’re not using rune/combust, just play frost noIL build. It would probably be better single target damage at that point.
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And be advised that even if you have all the gear you still need pretty good reflexes to execute the burn phase properly.
If you’re like me and have the reflexes of the average banana slug, expect to be at the bottom of the meter whenever you try fire spec.
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Nice to know I’m not alone!
I actually do very good damage with frost using TV and lonely winter.
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Nice.
We spent the entire raid last night wiping on mythic Vexiona. We’re pretty close… 8% on best attempt.
I was at or near the bottom of the meter for dps on just about every attempt. 
- I main spec arcane, but that fight has lots of adds and cleave, plus periods of heavy single-target. It’s awful for arcane.
- I suck with fire spec and tend to flub combustion. But even when I don’t my dps with fire is unexceptional. The other mage is mainspec fire and he does better, but not by much.
- I find frost Packed Ice build to be fairly straightforward. It has single-target, cleave and AOE all with the same spec and the rotation is easier to execute than fire. Downside is dps output is pretty consistently bad in all circumstances.
- It doesn’t help that to play frost optimally, I would need to stand way back from the target. But that isn’t an option on that fight, where the iron adds suck the backmost people in, and everyone stands on the melee for healing.
Meanwhile the 3 hunters were pretty consistently the top dps on every attempt. Probably averaging twice my dps.
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I’m running Arcane as main with Fire offspec for cleave fights. We just reached 5/12 mythic last night. You could do something similar with Frost.
In my fire set, I run Worldvein major with Kindling and Vision of Perfection minor, so a combustion every 1 minute. It actually works out pretty nicely for a fight like Hivemind where it’s up for every drone phase. Also, you don’t need to worry about the Azshara trinket with this build. I’m not sure you can get away with running Incanter’s Flow, though.
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Yes, sadly. Fire is heavily dependent on its 10s combustion window. That’s where those big ignites come from, which is a very large portion of your overall fight damage. While people may tell you that you don’t have to run RoP, bracers and a top on-use trinket realistically you’re not going to break 50% parses in which case just play Frost.
If you’re doing OK damage as Frost and executing mechanics well, I don’t think it will be an issue for most of Mythic. There are 12-13 other DPS in the group, so unless it’s a hard carry it’s a non-issue.
Except when you get to Mythic Maut…you can’t cast a Glacial Spike during his shield phase or you will die…the No Ice Lance build is really bad for this fight lol…
Well then I’d suggest playing more than one spec and playing the superior one if there’s a large discrepancy; this will future-proof you and make you more flexible as a raider. The tier’s going to be very long so there’s plenty of time to gather Azerite/Corruption and run multiple specs for fun and variety. Mage fundamentals are not changing significantly going into Shadowlands, so the opportunity to learn all three specs by the time the expansion releases makes flexibility more than worth the effort.
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Bracers are definitely a must in my opinion. Font… is nice to have, but is in no way necessary. We killed carapace last night, and my best font is 430. I didn’t see a big difference in output between using my 430 font and using my 475 psyche shredder. So I just stuck with the psyche shredder in the end. Still pulled more than acceptable dps. Will have to see how it plays out for N’Zoth as to which I use. I will also state that using font is… really really annoying. It’s fine when mechanics and timings are predictable, but when they’re not… It’s infuriating.
Yes… In my opinion it’s 100% required for fire mages (assuming you’re talking about rune of power). It really isn’t too bad to use though. Just make sure you have one up for combustion, have one up for your 1 meteor you cast between combustions, and don’t let it hit 2 charges. I used to hate it, but at this point… it’s fairly standard and easy to use.
Something else to note… it’s ground buff is WAY larger than the ground graphic. Put it on the ground and inch away from it, and you’ll see what I mean. You can be well off the ground graphic and still have the buff from it.
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That build is fun but its a subpar build compared to the basic Fire/Meteor build
Fire mages rotation feels way to much of a hassle for the payoff compared to most classes that i haven’t really ever played it other then dinking around on legion. I like the idea of burning things but this little combustion chain you have to do and hope RNG of your procs and the fight are in your favor you really sit on a razors edge.
Other classes can just mash a few shiny buttons and really get up there in DPS. Not saying fire mage can’t get up there but the skill ceiling sits so high up there and it rely’s on RNG to align right and not have something happen. If their combo gets broken their DPS drops so badly that its hard to recover and being that raid teams rely on logs so much you could get a few bad spots that where out of your hands.
I don’t want fire simplified but it needs to be retooled so that it doesn’t kill your DPS.
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Fire is heavily gear dependent. It’s one of the top dps specs once you get it.
No it doesn’t. I’m sorry just because something is hard, does not mean it’s broken and needs to be fixed.
Its ok for some specs to have higher risk/reward than others (and fire being a high risk/reward spec fits well with the RP aspects of the spec. I.E playing with fire). If you don’t want to deal with that roll a DH and hit 4 buttons. Problem solved.
I hope you can appreciate the absurdity of asking to retool a spec others like, because you aren’t willing to practice enough to get good at it. There are like 20 something other dps specs to choose from, why should fire get changed because you don’t like the risk/reward nature of it?
Also, fire has a high skill ceiling yes, but also doesn’t really rely on RNG that much? So not sure what you’re talking about there? Frost is way more RNG based.
Fire relies on you being able to nail your rotation, while also managing cooldowns and knowing boss mechanics to maximize your dps output. To me that sounds like the basic skills that use to be required to be a successful raider? (just came back to wow in 8.3 after not playing since wotlk so I guess a lot has changed hahaha)
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I think he’s confusing RNG with the combust rotation being interrupted by fight mechanics.