For the love of all that is mage can we have a fire mage that isn’t at the bottom of the barrel for all of the raid/m+. It doesnt need to be meta but at least make us competitive right now we are at the bottom across the board on Raid and M+. I’ve been waiting since the xpac launched to hear something relevant for fire its the only mage spec I like playing.
7 Likes
I have been on a crusade trying to push for this. We will be heard. In this lifetime or the next.
4 Likes
I dont even want it to be meta I just want to not be at the very bottom of everything.
2 Likes
I am tired of waiting for blizzard to address the fire issue, my game time ends in 19 days and will just let it run out. I said I would give midnight a try for a month and gave it longer to see if blizzard would say anything or something and it looks like they just don’t care so I don’t either. having more fun with windrose anyways.
1 Like
“the only mage spec I like playing”
I’m so glad there’s similar mindsets to my own. I outright, openly, HATE frost and arcane. I’ve been playing Fire since Wrath and I can’t stand the other specs. Blizzard needs to get it through their thick troglodyte skulls that not everyone is a meta-chaser.
Their so-called pHiLoSoPhY on ”Bring the player; not the (class/spec)” is the biggest lip-service they ever tried to sell players and it SHOWS.
3 Likes
Bring the player—unless they’re on Mage.
Fixed.
2 Likes
Yeah Fire Mage is just… not good. I wish Blizzard would share their thoughts at least, Fire got so many complaints through Beta and was ignored patch after patch, then they tossed Scorch back in and apparently called it a day.
They even nerfed the Tier set (8%→6%, nerfed fireblast CDR too) so if anything they thought Fire was TOO good, even though it’s been resting at the bottom of DPS charts since then.
Which is a big shame because I wanted Fire Mage to be my “main” and yet I can’t justify the time/effort put into practicing a character if they’re this bad. I switch to Frost and immediately perform better barely knowing what my buttons do, it shouldn’t be like that. Buff Fire.
2 Likes
As an Arcane Sunfury Mage suffering at the bottom of all the DPS specs right there alongside Fire Mages, I support my Fire Mage brothers and sisters, and I stand with them in solidarity. Buffs for Fire Mages please!!
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Arcane mage says “hi.”
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The primary reasons why we are not seeing changes to fire are this:
Blizzard admit that Fire has high damage output during Combustion phases, and they are focusing on that. Running any basic SIM would show them the overall damage is acceptable. They are not thinking outside of this mindset, because in reality, the spec as it is, is simply unplayable.
Fire deaths are not as high as Frost or Arcane. The reason for this is because of Fire’s Cheat death, and added that almost none are playing it in high content. Players repeatedly argue (and I would have to say Blizzard likely agrees) that Fire isn’t as bad because of the lower deaths, which is a fallacy based on misunderstanding the data.
The excuse being tossed around is that players need to wait to get the full builds. Since the start of the expansion, we’ve been told to first get the Apex talents, then you need the full tier set, then you need gear specifically tailored for extreme Haste, then you need Emberwing talisman and heck Final Stare in order to optimise your Combustion. Now? I’m guessing we need to wait for the next borrowed power in 12.0.7.
Conclusion: The fact of the matter is that the current design of Fire is unfun and needs a hard look and review. At this point, I’m hoping that Fire simply gets a rework for Season 2.
2 Likes
The devs excuse I imagine is that it’s viable (PI and baby sat) however players don’t often take what’s viable - (unless you’re a content creator; flist; glist) groups build around what’s optimal and most likley to succeed
The higher the reward the less risk anyone will take on viable - that’s proven in practice and data.
Yeah Arcane is terrible too but I’m more interested in seeing something for fire its been in a horrible state all of the expansion its kinda surprising they have left it this bad. It’s not just because frost is good either, but I guess that applies to both fire and arcane.
1 Like
Overall, I am very satisfied with the design of Fire. I think it is very fun to play, especially in Sunfury. I find Frostfire a little less interesting.
That said, I have a few suggestions for improvement.
- While I love that we are back to high-highs and low-lows, I think the low-lows are too low. I think having some sort of positive feedback loop outside of combust that is both engaging & rewarding would go a long way in both the feel of the spec, as well as bringing it in line with other specs damage. Ultimately, I think this loop should be external to the heating up-hot streak mechanic, to avoid conflicting incentives to pool fire blasts for combust and use them for this. It would also be good if it can be relatively quick to execute, in order to help bring Fire up to par in open world/delve content (i.e. don’t tie it to ramp ups like ignite).
- Defensively, I find it a weird choice that Frost gets 2 barriers and Arcane/Fire get 1. I think it’s fine for Frost to have two Ice Cold charges compared to 1 for the other two, but the barrier charges seems bizarre to me. Give Fire/Arcane 2 charges too.
- The visual for spellfire spheres continues to be my biggest issue with the game. Please let me disable the visual.
Me personally I think they need to completely remove combustion from the game and start with something new. They have trouble balancing 100% crit. Every version of ignite either ends up being too overpowered or completely useless.
3 Likes
They could remove the 100% crit from combust and during combustion every direct spell damage you deal gives you heating up.
They could do the same with fire blast.
I’m ok with that, but honestly its been several expansions now of combustion and its either way too overpowered or just completely useless its the same issue with ignite. It’s time to go back to the drawing board and do something about the spec. Heating up is cool but right now you would think crit is the most important stat but its basically the worst. Considering th is spec is based on getting crits. The damage is ok in dungeons nothing too special but the single target is so horrendous outside of combustion it makes your damage profile look so bad in dungeons.
3 Likes
I’d be happy to see a rework but removing the guaranteed crit and replacing it with guaranteed heating up makes it so fire can actually scale with crit.
Anytime a secondary stat is weighted so low like crit is for fire there should be alarm bells going off at blizzard. Even more so when that secondary is part of the theme of the spec so much that the spec has crit amps and crit talents.
Having a secondary weight very low like this cause major gearing issues.
You can’t always get your best stats and anything with crit on it is basically useless compared to items without crit.
2 Likes
For what ever reason the crit spec doesnt care about crit seems like a design flaw.
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Frost is the same way though. Frost has haste and haste amp talents and Frost’s stat priority is crit>=mastery>haste>vers.
Maybe when DR kicks in frost will want haste but I doubt 10% DR will do that but maybe.
That would just make the spec unquestionably worse lol. There is nothing untenable about combustion. Pretending it is difficult to balance is weird.