Hello all! After reading several different topics of Fire Mage tree feedback and seeing no changes to Mage trees in the latest builds, I decided to create a separate topic that would contain concrete and visualized possible changes to Fire Mage tree. The suggested design is not mandatory, but it is fitting - it keeps the tree split into mostly single target damage branch (left), mostly crit / Fire Blast / Combustion based branch (middle) and mostly AoE damage branch (right). However, it is WIP, so you could post your feedback about it and that might lead to changes in the suggested design.
Current issues of Fire Mage tree:
- Same playstyles as current: most talents are just a remix / reskin of Shadowlands legendaries, conduits and abilities.
Solution: Suggested design adds new playstyles - Mastery based playstyle that can spread Ignite easier and manipulate it depending on the situation, AoE sustained damage playstyle that can adapt to melee / ranged / movement situations better etc. It also contains improvements to sustained damage playstyle of Tempered Flames that promote its less Combustion uptime and Pyroblast spamming etc. - Many 2 point nodes in the tree that limit build variety. Also, some of them are not worth the 2 point investment.
Solution: Suggested design removes big amount of 2 point talents and compensates that with many new nodes addition, making the builds more customizable and varied. - Many talents have a single prerequisite that reduces build variety or makes people pick some talent they might now want, but need to get the wanted.
Solution: Suggested design increases amount of prerequisite options for some talents to give players more choices and freedom to customize their build.
Here is the visualized talent tree (described order is from left to right in it). As I do not have 3rd level of trust (that is what you get for being a EU main here), somebody with it please post the link in the thread, so that people can see the draft without necessity to follow this link:
imgur.com/a/RNwBGIp
Numbers after the names mean point investment.
Tree has totally talents for 53 points, giving players access to around 60% in their build (similarly to most other classes). Third part is organized the way to let people pick only 3 of 5 end talents simultaneously, providing build diversity and matching the aforementined value.
Full list of nodes*:
*Do not search for Dragon’s Breath, Blast Wave, off-GCD Fire Blast and Meteor here - they are suggested to be kept as general tree talents.
Row 1:
Pyroblast (1): Hurls an immense fiery boulder that causes X% of Spell Power Fire damage.
Row 2:
Sudden Blast (1):
Blasts the enemy for X% of Spell Power Fire damage. Castable while casting other spells. Replaces baseline Fire Blast.
Blazing Soul or Heat Weapon(1):
Blazing Soul: Casting Blink ignites a Blazing Barrier around you.
Heat Weapon: Make weapon of selected enemy scorch its wielder, disarming him for X seconds. Instant. 45s CD.
Comment: This talent is not mandatory, that would depend on Fire Mages state in Dragonflight. However, Blazing Soul is quite important for Fire Mage’s survivability, so could be kept. For people, who want more glass cannon and CC based playstyle, there could be an alternative talent - a ranged disarm that fits Fire Mage thematic.
Flamestrike (1): Calls down a pillar of fire, burning all enemies within the area for X% of Spell power Fire damage and reducing their movement speed by 20% for 8 sec.
Row 3:
Scorch (1): Scorches an enemy for (44.25% of Spell power) Fire damage. Castable while moving.
Comment: This one has a specified value instead of variable. It is the value it would get if Searing Touch damage increase would be incorporated into the base Scorch and removed from Searing Touch. This should be done, as baseline Scorch is extremely weak and its dps is greatly outclassed even by Arcane Explosion, which is a spammable AoE ability.
Hot Streak (1): Getting two direct-damage critical strikes in a row with Fire spells will make your next Pyroblast or Flamestrike spell instant cast, and cause double the normal Ignite damage.
Improved Flamestrike (1): Flamestrike cast time is reduced by X seconds and its radius is increased by Y%.
Row 4:
Searing Touch or Firestarter (1):
Searing Touch - Scorch is a guaranteed Critical Strike when the target is below 30% health.
Firestarter - Your Fireball and Pyroblast spells always deal a critical strike when the target is above 85% health.
Comment: Firestarter is suggested to be buffed, as it is already outclassed by Searing Touch and will continue to be so if does not receive a small buff.
Enhanced Pyrotechnic (1): Each time your Fireball fails to critically strike a target, it gains a stacking 10% increased critical strike chance. Effect ends when Fireball critically strikes. Also reduces cast time of Fireball by 0.25 seconds.
Comment: Renamed to the old name to not be confused with normal Fireball ability in the database. The addition allows to make it a bit more generally useful.
Empowered Fire Blast (1): Fire Blast always deals X% increased damage.
Comment: As Fire Blast rank 2 is planned to be made baseline by Blizzard for Fire Mages and is suggested to be moved into general tree and auto filled for Fire, it is replaced by a simple improvement talent.
Conflagration or All Will Burn (1):
Conflagration - Ignite does X% more damage and passively spreads to nearest enemies every Y seconds.
All Will Burn - Flamestrike does X% more damage and can be casted while moving, but movement speed is reduced by 50% while it is casted.
Comment: Conflagration is weak and RNG, so it is replaced by a first major choice node between Mastery playstyle (Conflagration) and non-Mastery playstyle (All Will Burn). Conflagration increases damage over time (AoE as well) and helps with Ignite spread. All Will Burn increases direct damage of Flamestrike and makes it castable while moving with slow attached to compensate and helps to address one of biggest issues of Fire Mage AoE rotation - long and too stationary hardcasts.
Row 5:
Improved Scorch (2): Casting Scorch on targets below 30% health increase the target’s damage taken from you by 2/4% for 8 sec, stacking up to 3 times.
Additionally, successfully casting Scorch increases your movement speed by 15/30% for 3 sec.
Comment: The changed thing is that Scorch no longer requires a crit to provide the movement speed boost, making this talent a mix of dps and mobility gain, but less dps gain than competing talents to compensate.
Fulmination (2): Critical damage done by Fireball, Fire Blast and Scorch is increased by 10/20%.
Comment: A new talent that follows Searing Touch / Firestarter choice node and synergizes with both of them, providing a full dps following talent for people, who want to min-max or do not want to take Improved Scorch.
Critical Mass (2): Your spells have a 8/15% increased chance to deal a critical strike.
You gain 5/10% more of the Critical Strike stat from all sources.
Comment: Its effect is too powerful for single talent investment, so it is kept as 2 point. This also allows to keeps path from Firestarter choice node to Phoenix Flames balanced, as all 3 following talents that open it (Critical Mass, Fulmination and Improved Scorch) are 2 point investments.
Cauterize (1): Fatal damage instead brings you to 35% health and then burns you for 28% of your maximum health over 6 sec.
While burning, movement slowing effects are suppressed and your movement speed is increased by 150%.
This effect cannot occur more than once every 5 min.
Comment: The only single-point investment in this row, it is kept so to provide better competition with other talents in this row, as they are all decent dps gains.
Flame On (2): Reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 1/2 seconds and increases the maximum number of charges by 1/2.
Comment: Even though it could become a 1 point investment, its effect is just too powerful for that. This also allows to keep talents of this row point investment balanced.
Chain Reaction (2): Flamestrike creates an additional Flamestrike with 12/25% effectiveness 1 second later in the same area. Additional Flamestrike does not trigger Flame Patch.
Comment: Need even more explosions for Fire Mage? This talent is right for you! It also improves ranged AoE damage opposed to its neighbour talent Fire Explosion that improves melee AoE damage instead and has slightly bigger modifier, as tank can pull enemies out of the first Flamestrike zone 1 second later, so second explosion might miss some of them. Bigger modifier compensates for that.
Fire Explosion (2): Arcane Explosion is replaced by Fire Explosion that deals Fire damage, contributes to Hot Streak, is affected by Mastery: Ignite, costs X% less Mana and does 10/20% more damage.
Comment: This talents serves several goals - gives more usage for Arcane Explosion in Fire AoE rotation, provides a mobile AoE that contributes to Hot Streak rotation (with melee range to compensate) and allows to better adapt to melee situations, where hardcasting a long cast on a major school might be not the best idea…
Row 6:
Phoenix Flames (1): Hurls a Phoenix that deals X% of Spell power Fire damage to the target and reduced damage to other nearby enemies. 3 Charges.
Comment: As Ebonbolt provides its full value for a single point investment, so should Phoenix Flames, as they are both the artifact abilities moved further in the expansions.
Combustion (1): Engulfs you in flames for 10 sec, increasing your spells’ critical strike chance by 100%. Castable while casting other spells.
Flame Patch (1): Flamestrike leaves behind a patch of flames which burns enemies within it for X% of Spell Power Fire damage over Y sec.
Row 7:
Focused Flames (1): Phoenix Flames does X% more damage. This bonus is doubled if Phoenix Flames hits only one target.
Comment: This in a replacement for 1 additional charge talent that got incorporated into baseline ability. It simply improves Phoenix Flames, making it a better AoE and to bigger extent a better ST damage spell.
Alexstrasza’s Fury or From the Ashes (1):
Alexstrasza’s Fury - Phoenix Flames and Dragon’s Breath always critically strikes and Dragon’s Breath deals 50% increased critical strike damage contributes to Hot Streak.
From the Ashes - Increases Mastery by 2% for each charge of Phoenix Flames off cooldown and your direct-damage critical strikes reduce its cooldown by 1 sec.
Firemind (1): Consuming Hot Streak grants you 2% increased Intellect for 12 sec. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
Comment: Now a single point talent, which allows to keep this row talent point investment balanced and matches the effect.
Tempered Flames or Improved Combustion (1):
Tempered Flames - Pyroblast and Flamestrike have X% reduced cast time and Y% increased critical strike chance. The duration of Combustion is reduced by Z%.
Improved Combustion - Your Combustion grants Mastery equal to 50% of your Critical Strike stat and its duration in increased by 2 seconds.
Comment: Reduced Combustion duration hurts AoE damage too, so Flamestrike should get a compensation buff as well.
Blaster Master (1): Fire Blast increases your Mastery by X% for 5 sec. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
Comment: Suggested to become a single-point investment talent to keep the row point investment balance and its duration is suggested to be increased to 5 seconds to make it more manageable.
Incendiary Eruptions or Molten Skyfall (1):
Incendiary Eruptions - Enemies damaged by Flame Patch have an X% chance to erupt into a Living Bomb.
Molten Skyfall - Damaging an enemy with X Fireballs or Pyroblasts causes your next Fireball to call down a Meteor on your target. Hitting an enemy player counts as double.
When Fire Explosion is used, you receive 1 stack of this effect.
When Flamestrike is used, you receive 2 stacks of this effect.
Comment: This talent is suggested to be extended to AoE rotation as well, making it more useful and fitting for the AoE part of tree.
Living Bomb (1): The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking X (80?)% of Spell Power Fire damage over 4 sec, and then exploding to deal an additional Y (40?)% of Spell Power Fire damage to the target and reduced damage to all other enemies within 10 yards.
Other enemies hit by this explosion also become a Living Bomb, but this effect cannot spread further. 20-30s CD.
Comment: This talent needs a dps boost, a it currently does less / equal damage against 1-3 targets than spammable Arcane Explosion. With Incendiary Eruptions taken into account, the boost might be limited and compensated with increased cooldown.
Row 8:
Phoenix Reborn (1): Targets affected by your Ignite have a chance to erupt in flame, taking X% of Spell power additional Fire damage and reducing the remaining cooldown on Phoenix’s Flame by Y sec.
Comment: It is suggested to be moved to the end left part, so that it would become an optional talent and people who do not like it can skip it.
Pyromaniac (1): Using Hot Streak gives you a stack of Pyromania. When you reach 10 stacks and use Hot Streak, Hot Streak is immediately reactivated and the stacks are consumed.
Comment: This talent is suggested to be moved under Improved Phoenix Flames and become a talent that leads to SKB branch alongside Phoenix Reborn. This would make it more optional, so that people who do not like it can skip it. Its mechanic change allows to make it more controllable, reliable and synergizes decently well with SKB, which is the reason it is one of its prerequisites.
Controlled Destruction (1): Pyroblast’s initial damage is increased by 10% when the target is above 70% health or below 30% health.
Comment: Now a 1 point investment talent, as its effect is too weak for 2 points. It also helps with keeping talent point investment balanced in this row and is compensated with new talent nodes additions.
Molten Mass (1): Pyroblast an Flamestrike have 5% increased chance to critically strike and 10% increased critical damage.
Comment: This is a new talent that follows Tempered Flames choice node and improves its playstyle. It is also useful for Combustion builds (as it also increases critical damage of Pyroblast and Flamestrike), giving them an option to take if they do not want to play with Tinder and Wildfire.
Tinder (1): If you have not cast Fireball for 8 sec, your next Fireball will deal X% increased damage with a Y% reduced cast time.
Comment: Its effect is too conditional for 2 point investment, so it is suggested to become a 1 point talent. This also keeps this row talent investment balanced.
Wildfire(1): Ignite deals X% additional damage. When you activate Combustion, you gain 10% Critical Strike chance and up to 4 nearby allies gain 5% Critical Strike chance for 10 sec.
Comment: Buffed to become more useful and competitive.
Master of Flame (1): Ignite deals X% more damage while Combustion is not active. Fire Blast spreads Ignite to 4 additional nearby targets during Combustion.
Fire Control (1): Pyroblast, Fire Explosion and Flamestrike deal X% more damage while Combustion is not active.
Comment: This talent is generally useful, but also promotes Tempered Flames playstyle, giving it a bit bigger benefit.
Withering Bomb (1): Living Bomb does X% more damage and reduces healing received by affected enemies by Y%.
Comment: This is suggested to be an optional node to the end right. It is an improvement talent to Living Bomb that would make it more useful in PVE (as would give Fire Mages a unique niche opposed to Frost Mage roots / slows) and in mass PVP.
Row 9:
Sun King’s Swiftness (1): While Combustion from any source is active, your Haste is increased by 10%.
Comment: This is a prerequisite talent to SKB and synergizes decently well with it - more Haste during its Combustion allows to utilize stacked Fire Blasts and Phoenix Flames a bit better and with less vulnerability to disruptions.
Fired Up (1): After consuming Hot Streak, cast time of your next Fireball or Pyroblast is reduced by X (20?)%.
Comment: This is a prerequisite talent to Pyroclasm. It is generally useful, even for Tempered Flames playstyle and synergizes decently well with Pyroclasm, allowing to cast it faster, making this style less subceptible to mechanics in PVE and more competitive in PVP.
Fevered Incantation or Kindling (1):
Fevered Incantation - Each consecutive critical strike you deal increases critical strike damage you deal by X%, up to Y%.
Kindling - Your Fireball, Pyroblast, Fire Blast, and Phoenix Flames critical strikes reduce the remaining cooldown on Combustion by 1.0 sec.
Comment: As Kindling synergizes quite well with Fiery Rush (Kindling gives more frequent Combustions and Fiery Rush gives more Phoenix Flames charges for them), it is suggested to allow both of them at the same time and instead make Kindling a choice node with Fevered Incantation. This is a logical choice - players pick between more powerful Combustion and more frequent Combustion and can customize it the way they would like more.
Intense Burning (1): Intensify your Ignite on selected enemy, making it deal damage X% faster for Y seconds. Z seconds CD.
Comment: New Ignite management talent for Mastery builds, it would provide them a tool for some burst damage and possibility to utilize their stacked Ignite better against enemy that is close to dying.
Warming Up (1): Using Pyroblast, Flamestrike or Fire Explosion directly after another one increases its damage by X%.
Comment: Another talent that supports sustained damage builds, making Pyroblast (Tempered Flames build) or Flamestrike / Fire Explosion (general sustained AoE damage build) spam more rewarding and more competitive with Combustion based builds. Also synergizes decently well with following talent Fire Frenzy.
Row 10:
Sun Kings Blessing (1): After consuming X Hot Streaks, your next Pyroblast within Y sec grants you Combustion for Z sec.
Comment: Opened by Sun King’s Swiftness to prevent it from being too easily accessible.
I suggest to let any Pyroblast trigger this, so that both instant cast builds and Pyroclasm builds can use it more effectively.
Pyroclasm (1): Consuming Hot Streak has a X% chance to make your next non-instant Pyroblast cast within Y sec deal Z% additional damage.
Maximum N stacks.
Comment: Opened by Fired Up to prevent it from being too easily accessible.
Fiery Rush (1): While Combustion is active, your Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames recharge X% faster.
Comment: No longer a choice node, as it synergizes decently well with both Kindling and Sun King’s Blessing.
Flame Expulsion (1): Make your Ignite on enemies in selected area explode, instantly dealing X% of its stored damage to its victims and removing Ignite from them. Y seconds CD.
Comment: An additional tool for Mastery builds, it would give them access to some burst damage and possibility to utilize stacked Ignite on multiple enemies (like a dying pack in Mythic+) better.
Fire Frenzy (1): When Hot Streak activates, you have a low chance to cause all Pyroblasts and Flamestrikes to have no cast time and be guaranteed critical strikes for X sec.
Comment: Opened by Warming Up to prevent it from being too easily accessible.
This sums up the list of my suggestions. Feel free to add your feedback and suggestions about what could be added or changed in Fire Mage talent tree design. Thank you for reading!