Fire in M+, halp

Classes Mage
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I get that Fire is supposed to be great, but I’m not getting it (and I’d like to).
I main Arcane, and I’ve got that down. And when I hit the AoE dummies as Arcane I can sustain like 450k+ for 5+ minutes. But when I do it as fire I can only manage around 300k over 5+ minutes, mayyyybe 350k. I’m doing the ignite build and managing/tracking Sunfury & all those fun buffs. And basically doing the ST rotation with the flair of meteor during combust. The only thing I could think that I’m missing is using living bomb outside of combust/at all.

So what am I missing, what’s the secret? Is it just that from pull to pull Fire will be more consistent and have a quicker setup? Since add pulls aren’t likely to last 5 minutes and it’s more about how you do from one pull to next, I could see it averaging out.
Or should I be hitting that same 450k I do as Arcane and I’m just screwing something up? I don’t think it’s a gear/stat-weight thing either, I copied the gooder fire mages.

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You should use living bomb with 6+ targets but otherwise fire needs the tank to cordinate with combustion and the mobs to live long enough for ignite to build up and spread. So you need to be doing higher keys or everyone else needs to be doing dps slowly enough for the ignite to build.

I run ignite because I dont like how clunky flame strike build is. One too many buttons for how fast the playstyle is for me, but thats just me. Im sure others like it.

Been thinking about swapping to frost myself because of how much easier it is to play than arcane and fire even though I love fire and thats what I want to play.

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I thought I would piggy back on this thread with some fire questions. Currently playing flame strike build I believe and just started playing mage a few weeks ago to bring to my guild raid. I main 3200 Veng DH so familiar with pulls and mythic+.

  1. When I sim on raidbots, it looks to hardcast pyroblast or flame strike during combustion once I empty fire blast. Why not phoenix flames which has a shorter cast time?

  2. Do you only cast phoenix flames outside combustion on multi target?

  3. What’s the target min for flamestrike where it makes more sense to pyroblast?

  4. Is there a cap on haste due to diminishing returns or go as high as I can get with haste and crit barring ilevel?

  5. Should you hold sun kings blessing for combustion windows? If so, for how long. I find if I hold it it slows down my ability to generate hot streaks to ramp but it definitely seems to hit harder during combustion.

  6. Single target seems ok. But in aoe I only seem to do well in large pulls. Anything like 5-6 targets I get blown away by a lot of other specs like ret and demo locks.

  7. As a Veng main, I’ve only seen a few good fire mages all season. When I say good, they are top DPS. Most are very low on DPS so much so that I try not to take them unless I’m desperate for a lust. Is this the case of just not being good or is this spec really hard and unforgiving? I feel I’m starting to get it but it’s definitely a challenging build to play right. Frost seems a lot easier.

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1-You are only hard casting pyro blast for 2 reasons. 1-you have firestarter talented and its 3 seconds prepull. 2-You have blessing of the sun king proc. You will use the proc immediately with or without combustion as to not munch hot streaks. The idea is for the game play to flow into itself. By the time you are done with the combustion window, you should have, or be close to having, another skb.

You should empty fireblasts, then weave in phoenix flames until you are out of both, and then scorch unless under the effect of double time warp. You can use fireball at that point.

2-For the flame strike build, you may freely use phoenix flames to build up instant flame strikes or pyros as you see fit. Just be aware, your single target will suffer if you go into a boss without them.

3- 3

4-5100 roughly is when it starts to lose value.

5-Already answered but no. You use it asap to not munch hot streaks.

6-Flame strike is set up for constant aoe and will accel in this. Single target will suffer as a consequence. This is why its great in lower keys and the hybrid build is better mid keys. Ignite better in high keys.

7-In my opinion, its the second hardest ranged dps to play after Arcane. Aff lock isnt even as hard with all of its piano keys to press. Frost is absolutely the easiest mage spec to play.

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Thank you for the quick response. I was confused when I did a sim and looked at the sequence and it appears during the combustion window there is a hard cast of pyro at around 3 or 4th hot streaks, at which there is about a 2s cast window. It does not weave in phoenix flames.

I will say that weaving in phoenix flames feels better and flows better because I can move while casting.

Thanks about clearing up holding skb. It makes sense to not munch procs so burn it when it’s up! Pun intended.

I forgot a question. When and where are we using fireball. In mythic+ I feel scorch is better and more mobile. Plus I can target a mob that drops to 35% for a heating up proc.

I guess between all of the combustion windows I’m finding I rarely cast fireball. When I look at the simulation log, it swaps between scorch and fireball as a filler but they are far and few between.

Thanks and appreciate the feedback. Watching the MDI it looks like lock and spriest were crushing the fire mage in overall but barrier lust and Intel are big for high keys too.

Edit: reading method fire mage guide and I might be misreading the raid bots log. Looks like opener is fireball then combust, double fire blasts which gives two insta pyros some how and he says weave in phoenix flames too. Complicated!

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A simulation cannot account for player variance due to mechanics.

Fireball is used when outside of combusion windows to build up heating up to get instant pyro or instant flamestrikes.

Scorch is used if talented for the execute bonuses after the target is sub 30% for 100% crit chance or the vulnerability stacks if talented into. Im doing keys in the 20 range, so im using fireball much more frequently than say sub 15 level range. Fire fluctuates quite a bit depending on the talents, key range, and output of your party members.

Very complicated. Needs some rough edges smoothed out for sure.

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People seem to think they should see ignite fire mage at the top of the damage meters. This is nearly never the case. They are your priority target burner. It’s just the way it goes. You can watch a vod of nearly any high key and mage will NEVER be the top.

if you insist on playing ignite build, to judge your performance I’d probably just look to see when your prio target is dying in comparison to the rest of the pad AoE. Think of the large trash pull before the first boss in TotT-- is the sentinel dying before, or at the same time as the rest of the trash? if yes, you’re probably doing alright.

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Thanks both of you. New perspective on it. I have a 2800 ret too and play havoc so used to looking at overall as a measure. I’ll watch power adds and boss damage when I got a fire mage as a tank now.

I’m not playing ignite, I’m playing flamestrike build. Always read ignite was for 25+ keys which I won’t see this season.

In reference to the sentinel pull, should I be pyro bursting it or flamestriking it with the adds? Always kind of looked at rogues as priority burst specs never thought of fire as that.