Was trying to search for answers and decided to come here. I recently subscribed (have not played since BC) and went Mage. I remember how awesome they were with insane DPS.
Well I went Fire spec and mastered my rotation. Combustion is always active, so is rune, and mirror image, and I am really good at hot streaks. At ilvl 177 I was just 1.5 million DPS behind a DPS druid. And really almost all instances, never have I been on top of DPS charts.
I am night fea renowned 18, ilvl 177, have great rotations, never any down time, and my DPS is around 2.3k when hitting the test targets. Yet I see monks and hunters pulling insane DPS, some AEO stuff 14k and 8k+. I am no where near that, even the dang tank out DPS me a lot of the time.
I really don’t think I am doing something wrong? Waiting for hot streak makes game not fun, really stinks cause I grinded hard to get to 60 and now I feel like it was a waste of time.
Is there any hope, or are we actually right now just a bad class until Blizzard releases a patch?
You should watch a Fire Mage guide. It sounds like you probably don’t have the proper combustion rotation. Mirror Images alone is a waste of a GCD as it is an entirely defensive ability. Also item level can play a part in it, along with trinkets, and conduits.
Edit:
Also Fire can really shine in AoE situations—it’s a bit more dependent on how many adds there are, how long they will be alive, and if your tank keeps them in talented Flamepatch—however this assumes you are doing the AoE Combustion rotation correctly, which is a bit different than the ST one and has variance dependent on the Covenant.
Additionally you posted on an alt. Your itemization could be a problem as well. Fire is pretty forgiving as long as you can get through your combustion.
Unfortunately you didn’t give us much to work with because you just insisted you did everything right but did low dps. Fire is quite capable of doing a butt load of damage. ilvl could be your problem, could be your talents, and it could be your rotation or conduits. Its probably a mixture of all 3.
Normally when people are low dps and say they aren’t doing anything wrong it usually means they did something wrong…fire is unforgiving if you mess up combustion…what is your combust rotation like?..post on your main…or give us logs to look at, something lol…
Not to be rude, but this is not the class. Look up any of the top Mythic+ or Raid meters and you’ll see fire is competitive in pretty much everything, and stupid broken in high M+ keys… You need to watch some video guides and work on your play to improve.
According to Warcraftlogs statistics, Fire spec is actually quite strong right now. Within the top 5 specs for raid dps at heroic and mythic difficulty, and for mythic+ dps.
If you’re only getting 2.3k dps with it, you’re probably not doing something quite right.
I sympathize. I suck with fire and do pretty lousy damage with it.
Same unfortunately…I could use work but i’m being lenient with myself because i’ve not played fire since Legion lol…i’m still trying to learn stuff…however my dps is still way better than when I was frost…
It would actually be helpful if you posted on your mage so we could check if you were doing something obviously wrong like running an outdated BFA spec. You say you mastered the rotation, but based on what? Did you even read/watch a guide with current information? Are you overcapping Fire Blasts? Are you holding Fire Blasts appropriately for Combustion? Are you delaying Combustion for some reason?
177 is low for a lot of content, but most of us are doing just fine with Fire in both raids and M+.
I suggest trying it. I was Arcane for a very long time. Bit the bullet in 8.3 and went Fire. It took a bit to actually learn it and even more time to learn the nuances of it for certain encounters. However, it was a very refreshing spec after coming off the heels of Arcane. I hate admitting that, but it legitimately just felt like a modern spec compared to Frost’s broken and degenerate NoIL and Arcane’s half baked, tiredness.
I will say that the 9.0 Fire feels a bit worse, but is similar in many respects. Obviously the transition from BFA to SL Fire was going to be felt, but I’m slowly getting used to it. The AoE combustion is a bit awkward when getting the hang of it. ST Combustion I still mess up at times because of muscle memory from 8.3 Fire aka forgetting that Phoenix Flames comes before your third Fireblast haha.
Overall it suits my playstyle more now than ever. I am really opposed to an over-reliance on RNG procs—which is why I hate Frost. Arcane’s main burst has moved more towards a focus on procs in SL, the CD’s are out of whack, and it just feels off instead of clean like it did in BFA and Legion. Fire’s overall damage is influenced by procs, but it has bad luck protection, and it is really only a big deal during its downtime—the damage of the spec isn’t really directly tied to an RNG factor—rather procs are synergistic (especially when taking kindling for the CDR).
Thank you everyone for the posts! I did some research and learned something, my single target rotations were on spot. But my AOE rotations were very bad. I started paying attention to M+ runs and realized others with higher DPS are good knowing when to drop AOE damage on trash mobs.
During boss fights I am high on DPS and #1 plenty, and now working on my AOE rotations on trash.