Fire Mage; Talent balance

Classes Mage
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Another patch, another fire mage complaining session.

First two weeks are done, fights have been seen, timings worked out. And surprising no one that has played this spec, Sun King’s Blessing continues to dominate- and not by a small margin.

Going to ignore the fact that fire (and mage as a whole) is under-performing in raid, here’s hoping that the promised tuning to come December 5 remembers us. The issue I’m tired of seeing and playing is SKB. We got a beautiful rework, added a lot of cool build potential to our kit, and even got exactly what we were asking for back- A burst option, the way fire played for years before SKB. Reading Unleashed Inferno, you’d think it’s an insanely strong talent- and you’d be right. In a vacuum it’s incredible.

Unfortunately, during the 10.1.5 rework, Pyroclasm was merged into Sun King’s Blessing. This effectively killed any illusion of choice between the two. SKB is a two-for-one special that just can’t be beat. Even a talent as incredible as UI just stands no choice against it. Even on fights like Smolderon (and with a tier set based around buffing the 12s Combustion window) - a high movement damage check with a damage amp, UI is in the gutter. The timings don’t line up, SKB just always has damage when you want it, and to try and make UI work would fall on very luck-based talents like Hyperthermia (which never procs when you need it) and Temporal Anomaly.

There’s a few ways to approach fixing this- you could say buff UI to the moon. Napkin math says an increase to 75% while retaining the CDR would make it close to competitive, or 100% and removing the CDR aspect.
You could nerf SKB- via removing the clasm effect, reducing it substantially (and I mean a LOT), or even increasing the number of stacks required to activate an SKB.

Even doing any of those would still keep SKB as a mandated talent for mythic plus, considering UI has zero interaction with any Flamestrike based build for whatever reason.

My personal preference would be for clasm to be removed from SKB, and placed back into the tree as a choice node with Kindling, replacing either Deep Impact or Hyperthermia. This kills the synergy of SKB and clasm, allows Fire mages to pick a variable damage cadence, and hopefully returns combustion to an actual cool down instead of a gas pedal you’re constantly trying to step on.

This constant cycle of chasing SKB to lower combustion via kindling to chase more SKBs is exhausting and I’m just frankly over it. We’re sitting in a similar position (if not quite as drastic) as Frost was prior to the rework with their IP/TV uptime issues. We have a little more flexibility because we can delay an SKB if needed for ~30s, but it still ain’t fun to me.

Anyway, off the soapbox,
xoxo
-Degen

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Combustion is no longer a cooldown. It’s a passive damage stance. When I practice fire mage the first thing I check is my uptime on combustion and hope it’s pushing 55%+. What the hell man?

You know why I started playing fire mage in BFA? It’s because I was in a freehold key with a mage and seeing them pop combust was just cool. Combustion was the alpha cooldown and you knew that guy was pumping. It was a rush to press the button and it truly made it feel special.

Where are we now? combustion means nothing. it’s been watered down to obscurity and isn’t special at all. SKB has slaughtered the fantasy of the cooldown, and Blizzard has actively chosen to balance unleashed inferno like trash.

I don’t want sun king’s blessing deleted. It is fun, but so is ice cream. Too much ice cream is vomit inducing, and skb is making us vomit right now.

For christs sake dude, buff unleashed inferno already. All I know is that mage gets dumps of effort from blizzard, and in between these dumps of effort it seems to get nothing, I’m tired of playing only 1 version of fire that gets more and more watered down. The fact that fire mage is no longer a burst spec is a war crime. It was literally the fire identity for how many years?

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Pretty sure you raised this exact topic a few months ago, along with the same exact buff suggestion (75% with CDR, 100% without).

I’ll give credit for not repeatedly vomiting your suggestion all over the forum, unlike another topic that shall remain unmentioned, but I still don’t entirely agree with it.

Like you I will leave aside the overall mage balance in current tier and come back to the same response I gave when you first raised this topic: passive talents like UI are supposed to be weaker than active ones like SKB. People in general will always default to the most output for the least effort. If you make the passive choices equal in strength to the active ones, that removes any reason to ever take the active talent.

Could they be a little closer? Maybe. Could they design encounters where UI is the stronger option? Possibly. But all other things being equal, SKB should maintain a significant edge over UI.

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I would love to see UI buffed to make it within a few percentage points of SKB. I think my only points of concern would be: (i) having virtually nothing to do between Combust cycles, to the point where we’re still just chasing Combust uptime via CDR (should the CDR remain); and (ii) more incentive to hold Combust for the right moment (outside of coordinated groups), leading back to (i). At the end of the day our only real mechanic is Hot Streak/Combust (and ultimately Hyperthermia is just RNG Combust with a different paint job).

I’m all for having the option of keeping Combust as a major 2m CD, but I’d love to see some additional DPS mechanic(s) beyond spamming FB/FS in the interim. Ideally (to me) the current SKB playstyle and relevant talents would occupy one side of the tree, and the UI playstyle - with some additional flavor, be it beefing up ignite or doing something interesting with Phoenix Flames/Meteor - would occupy the other.

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Yeah this is just not a healthy game design. UI is not a passive either. It’s a different active play style. It has different skill sets and skill caps. Back in the day when combust was actually strong, you had short powerful combusts. The skill cap was target selection, combust timing, and group cooldown planning. You could have wildly variant damage outputs by different people based on the skill cap of timing the cooldown.

SKB is harder to play than UI on a training dummy yes. In real fight scenarios, there are timing and coordination skill caps with UI that you ignore by incorrectly calling it a passive. We shouldn’t have game design that chooses the most mechanically difficult rotation on a dummy and punishes every other play style to the point where serious players will ignore the talent entirely.

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Time anomaly and hyperthermia give a random mini game between combusts that bides the time in my experience when I’ve played around with UI.

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You say tomato. It’s a passive buff linked to an active talent (Combustion). I get what you’re saying but I think it’s semantic.

No less true of the SKB build.

And on every current encounter to my knowledge. Again, I’m sure they could design a fight where the damage windows are more conducive to UI than SKB. But as far as I know in my admittedly limited experience, that fight has yet to appear. And even if it did exist we’re talking about a limited use case for UI.

I don’t agree with this characterization. There are valid reasons why SKB is tuned higher, just as there were valid reasons why Rune of Power had a higher ceiling than Incanter’s Flow. The more difficult talent should have more potential, full stop. Call it bad design if you want, but there is logic to it that’s hard to refute.

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We can all agree that it makes sense in theory for a more complex rotation to generate more output, but the issue is really what the variance between the two should be - as it stands, the margin between UI/SKB is far too wide for one to even consider opting for the “easier” rotation. Were it a lot closer, one could feasibly choose ease over pure optimization without feeling like dead weight. E.g. choosing AF over a point in FA isn’t going to completely tank your output even though the latter sims better in ST.

At the same time, this philosophy doesn’t at all hold between specs (certain classes/specs are doing way better despite having an arguably far easier rotation), so it feels kind of silly to clamor for a higher output/complexity weighting within our own spec until that standard is generally applied across the board.

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Dead talents, regardless of playstyle, are bad game design. Talents should have the opportunity to shine in their specific niche. UI does not do that.

In addition to that, SKB is not difficult. It is not a skill ceiling, it’s counting to 8 with the help of a weak aura because the baseline blizzard UI does not enable its tracking in any useful way. You send it on proc, there is rarely any gaming of it. The goal is to press it as often as possible.

UI is more simplistic in design sure, but it’s difficulty comes from A) timing it for effectiveness, and B) maximizing your globals within a finite time window. Neither are difficult, they are two opposing play styles. One is punished by downtime and is agnostic to group play, the other cares less about downtime and highly encourages coordination to maximize the effect.

Pretty sure you raised this exact topic a few months ago, along with the same exact buff suggestion

I absolutely did. And will continue to do so. And those numbers haven’t changed because tuning hasn’t changed. And they’re accurate as well. UI doesn’t need to be SKBs equal or even better than it, the gap between them needs to be closed to make it a viable choice. The whole point of these talent trees is to have choice and to fit your build to the playstyle and encounter. Fire does not currently do that.

Base SKB: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/d6TmVE8o5twedaNxvnibZv
Base UI: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/wzgykyi3QarCALHKaViAQM
75% UI: https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/xioTsS33Fx5uQPKtsKAYUA

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If the topic is reheated its because it still hasn’t been fixed! And I hear what your saying here but they need to just go back to buffs and not nerfs in this game because nerfing crap only pisses people off but buffing things to bring other classes in line with things works wonders for people wanting to come back to their favorite classes.

I don’t think they need to nerf sunkings or change it I would not wanna play my mage personally at all after that and not because I only play fire mage.

They need to buff the crap out of it and make it god tier again then do the same for great builds with other classes before people leave. They keep pulling classes back that hit like trucks then wonder why a few hundred people unsub and don’t return even with the announcement of a new xpans.

Currently sitting blizz has announced a xpans and hit no where near the numbers they expected with prepurchases and are wondering why. >.<

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This is a good discussion (as it was the last time it came up). Kudos to everyone for keeping it on topic and respectful. A refreshing exception to most of the threads on these forums.

This is a fair point. Ideally the “higher complexity = higher ceiling” should be consistent in its application across the board and I agree with you that it’s not.

That depends on what you think UI’s niche is. Here are my questions on that: One, does every talent have to be viable and intended for use in instanced content? And two, at the end of the day if the boss dies and the group lives, how much does it matter where UI puts you on the meter?

I use UI when I’m out doing open world content, simply because SKB has little value in that space. I don’t think that means UI is a “dead talent,” I think that’s it’s niche. Also, because I’m about as casual as you get, I’m pretty sure I could run UI in the content I’m doing and bosses would still die. I do understand though that people want to maximize performance even at the LFR level and so feel forced into SKB, but the truth is that the majority of players could get by with UI if they really hate SKB that much but still want to spec Fire.

I agree but based on comments here anyway not everyone shares that opinion. And it is possible to screw up on SKB as I can personally attest to.

But that’s true of Combustion even if you don’t take UI. Maybe UI increases the importance of those aspects, but all Fire Mages need to do those parts well for maximum effectiveness. Point is that proper cooldown timing and maximizing globals is inherent more to Fire itself rather than a scenario created by UI.

I believe your math. And I’m never going to say no to a Mage buff if they decide to hand one down. I just think that in a vacuum SKB should have more potential.

Again, good discussion. Y’all are making good points. Well done.

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This is right on the money! Frankly, at this point I think it might be time for a truly radical solution like overhauling the entire spec to have instant spells and substantially reduce their damage to compensate. And then Combustion can become a normal cooldown that just increases damage. Anyone would be lying if they said they enjoy playing Fire outside of the Combustion window and everything Blizzard have done to address this is to only keep increasing Combustion uptime. Might as well make it permanent at this point.

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But that’s true of Combustion even if you don’t take UI. Maybe UI increases the importance of those aspects, but all Fire Mages need to do those parts well for maximum effectiveness. Point is that proper cooldown timing and maximizing globals is inherent more to Fire itself rather than a scenario created by UI.

That right there is the issue though. Fire is ‘suffering from success’. With SKB and it’s supporting talents (Kindling, FR, Fervent Flickering, Phx Reborn) ect ect, the globals no longer matter in the grand scheme. Of course mistakes add up, but when you’re in a cooldown for 55-60% of a 5 minute fight, the globals aren’t impactful in your combustion. In a finite window like UI combustion, where all of your damage is happening there, a mistake is punishing. In SKB’s fire, it will maybe slow you down by a single HS from getting your next SKB, reducing your Combustion uptime from 58 to 57.9. It just doesn’t matter.

Timings don’t matter for SKB, because your goal is to just always be in combustion. When you press it is determined purely by when it comes off cooldown. With UI for example, you would coordinate a large pull every minute or so and it’s your time to shine, 12s of you carrying the group. With SKB that doesn’t matter, you just always have damage.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t want SKB in the dirt, I want a competing option.

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I don’t think these statements are entirely accurate (you’re slightly oversimplifying SKB) but I take your point about the increased importance of UI timing. With that said…

My recollection of “minute mage” was that it was almost universally disliked by the Mage community. Periodic shining peaks interspersing abysmal troughs. Like you say, in M+ scenarios where you can coordinate large pulls when Combustion is ready it’s great. But on longer ST fights it’s quite unfun especially when you mistime it (conceding that fun is subjective). It’s akin to why RoP was also almost universally despised.

Having “12 seconds of carrying the group” followed by 48 seconds of being effectively AFK doesn’t feel great. But maybe that’s just me.

I can appreciate that. I don’t want UI in the dirt either. It has its uses.

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SKB/pyro just needs to be baseline. That is a fire mage now

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It is less true than a SKB build. I don’t know your fire mage experience, but holding or timing skb in any way is a major damage loss. You send it immediately in almost all cases and all rotational choices are mindless. You simply perform the skb rotation…it’s why we call it an uptime spec.

On smolderon there is a 100% damage amp phase and UI simply can’t keep up because it requires too tight of a cd timing window. Gnarlroot also has a damage amp that ui cant use either. UI is criminally under tuned compared to SKB.

SKB and UI have use cases built in that will be apparent even if UI was tuned higher. UI does not affect flamestrike, and by default would lose in any scenario flamestrike or a more consistent damage profile SKB would be better. An equally tuned UI would almost never be used in m+ while gaining raid niche use.

It’s not ok to have one talent be so dominant for 5 consecutive tiers that drastically changed the fantasy and style of one of the games most iconic spells. That is the crux of my argument. SKB is so monstrously overtuned that its completely throttling any ability to deviate from it. There’s an argument to be made that SKB should be made baseline its that much of an auto pick.

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In a perfect world? yes. In a realistic world? no. The gap should be smaller than it is though.

This argument dies when you leave LFR. People care very much how much they contribute, and this is a team game. You don’t want to be dead weight to your team. Imagine just not playing defense in basketball because it’s not your style…as long as we win the game right? Even if you won the game your team would hate you and a reasonable person wants to do the best they can.

That’s the thing…we LOVE skb. It’s such an elegant design for solving downtime boredom. We WANT it. What we also want is variety and choice. We don’t want SKB every time we log in for every scenario damage profile pve content boss and situation. It’s so dull when the counterpoint and answer is literally on the tree as a choice node in the game already.

Wrong. SKB has no timing consideration at all. Any attempt to time it is a damage loss.

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I have thousands of hours on a training dummy as a fire mage, hundreds if not thousands of keys, and have played fire for every mythic end boss since nyalotha. Trust me when I say he is right. Every second you try and time your CDs with SKB in all content is a damage loss. SKB makes hot streaks which makes SKB which makes hot streaks which lowers combust cd which makes hot streak which makes skb…its all about momentum and up time.

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I assure you I am not. I spend a lot of time on this nonsense, including contributing to the fire APL and theorycrafting. It is dead simple. Gas pedal, send on CD or bleed dps.

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I mean, yeah, I get that. I feel it too. I had crappy parses myself just last night and I am annoyed by it. But again though, I am in a guild that lost most of its core raiding group and barely gets through normal these days if we can even field a team. No one I raid with really cares about individual performance as long as we get in there and the bosses die, which they did.

I know you’re not wrong, I’m just saying it’s somewhat a perception vs reality thing for a lot of players who, like me, don’t do content where it actually matters.

I’m not questioning the expertise of either of you, and I wasn’t so much saying that we should try to “time” SKB as I was that you still need some situational awareness to use it to maximum effect. Knowing what your stacks are, having instant cast spell charges available for it when you get to 8, etc. I thought that simply saying “just use it when it comes up” was leaving a little bit of the detail out of it. That’s all. I wasn’t suggesting it should ever be held or timed for something.

Then again, maybe part of the reason I’ve had less than stellar parses lately is because I’m overthinking it.

Absolutely fair enough.

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