Ignite refreshing debuff incorrectly

WoW Classic WoW Classic Bug Report
1

A mage in my guild has been telling me ignite is working incorrectly in classic and I think we found an issue with how the debuff current refreshes in classic. I think in general, it might be worth checking the reference client against classic with the way the debuff refreshes.

Current Behavior: Each fire crit from a mage in classic causes the ignite duration to reset to 4 seconds.
Intended (1.12) Behavior: Each fire crit from a mage should bring the ignite duration to the nearest 2 second marker. This means if a crit happens after the first tick of ignite, each crit will only reset the duration back to 2 seconds rather than 4.

Caveat: Our vanilla evidences might be because of UI lag / bad internet etc.

Evidences from vanilla gameplay: https://youtu.be/bekISmnrsrI?t=189

@ 3 minutes 9 seconds - Ignite debuff increases from 1 to 2. At this moment, the mage is 1.3 seconds into his scorch cast.
@ 3 minutes 11 seconds - Ignite debuff falls off the target. This is shortly after the mage had finished his scorch cast.

Second example - same video

@ 3 minutes 19 seconds into the video -

He crits his scorch at 19:39:03 on his combat log - He owns the ignite
His first dot tick is at 19:39:06
The second stack of ignite is added
His second dot tick is at 19:39:08
Ignite falls off the target.

Based on current classic mechanics, the crit that added the 2nd stack of ignite would have refreshed the duration to 4 seconds.

Other things I’ve found:

The Burning Crusade Patch 2.0.1 (2006-12-05):
No longer limited to one Ignite per target. All mages now get their own Ignite debuff.
Ignite no longer gains stacks from subsequent critical strikes.
Ignite will now reset the DoT duration when reapplied.

It seems like the resetting of the DoT duration was changed in patch 2.0.1 and was not a 1.12 mechanic.

Hopefully this helps you take a look at ignite!

4 Likes
2

Ignite will refresh the timer back to 4 seconds. really wish that there was a detailed combat log to go along with that video. Have watched it a few times in slow motion. the first part you are talking about at 3min9sec looks like the ignite debuff was pushed off by another debuff (hurrah 16 debuff slots).

the second part at 3min 19 sec.

19:59:03 Scorch crit
19:59:04 ignite shows on boss
19:59:05 second stack ignite showing
19:59:06 ignite dot
19:59:08 fireball hit (no crit to refresh)
19:59:08 ignite dot proc
19:59:08 ignite show off boss (fell off due to no crit?)

Again without having the actual detailed combat log to look into it this is what i am seeing from the video (slowed it down to 0.25% speed)

This is why crit is so critical (hehe) for fire mages and why some guilds may have a mage do nothing but spam scorch to try to keep the “rolling ignite” going for the higher dps mages. The entire reason that blizz had this debuff “stack” was due to the debuff cap. That is why they changed it in 2.0.1 to make it none-stackable and each mage getting their own.

Prior to [Patch 2.0.1, Ignite stacked up to 5 times. This was due to the now removed debuff limit, and consequently only one Ignite could exist per target. Once an Ignite was triggered on a target, any mage talented into Ignite could add stacks to and extend the duration of the Ignite on the boss, “rolling” the Ignite until it expired due to a lack of critical strikes or was forced to expire due to threat generation (all damage and threat generated went to the mage that triggered it). Ignite did not recalculate its damage, it simply dealt damage based off the spell that triggered it. Consequently this made Ignite the highest damage spell in the game, due to the fact that it could deal up to 200% damage of a spell critical strike for as long as it was “rolled.” The term “Rolling Ignite” comes from this era.

1 Like
3

It never ever ever worked that way

What you’re seeing is lag (spellbatching) … unless you think a 1111 crit can somehow created a 500+ ignite tick.

1 Like
4

It clearly works differently in Classic than it did in Vanilla. In that video posted you can see that an ignite falls off 2 seconds after going from 1 -> 2 stacks at 3:09 (stack change occurs at 3:09, ignite falls off at 3:11, which is not a 4 second ignite window). In Classic that wouldn’t happen, when you crit in classic the ignite is refreshed to 4 second duration.


At any rate Blizzard has the reference client should be able to easily tell whether ignite is working as intended or not by testing the ignite window in the reference client vs how it works in classic.
6

No hotfix on ignite yet with AQ around the corner, hoping this gets looked at soon since pretty much every mage is going to be specing fire in AQ and this is a pretty significant bug.

Here is a video of Curse’s Loatheb kill from a fire mage’s POV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMWKNeIISmo

At 3:49 a crit happens and the ignite goes from 3 stacks to 4 stacks and then at 3:50 it goes from 4 stacks to 5 stacks. Then at 3:52 it falls off.

At 3:59 he gets a crit and the ignite falls off at 4:02.

At 5:05 he crits and the ignite falls off at 5:08.

At 5:20 the ignite stack goes from 4 stacks to 5 stacks and the ignite falls off at 5:22.

At 5:28 the ignite stack goes from 1 stack to 2 stacks and the ignite falls off at 5:30.

At 5:43 the ignite stack goes from t stack to 2 stacks and the ignite falls off at 5:45.

We see in these videos that crits should not extend the ignite duration to +4 seconds. The +4 seconds refresh on the ignite duration on crits was a change made in TBC when mages no longer shared ignite. In vanilla the refresh window was way shorter as you can see in this video. Outside of the first ignite tick (this is a special case since the ignite is guaranteed to tick at least twice from the first crit), you needed to get at least one crit before the upcoming ignite tick in order to roll the ignite. This basically means you need to get at least one crit in between ignite ticks. The ignites tick every 2 seconds so essentially you need to have a crit occur every 2 seconds to keep the ignite rolling. In classic you need to crit every 4 seconds which makes it significantly easier to keep an ignite up.

1 Like
7

With the recent patch notes I noticed the ignite fix was not mentioned. I hope this gets fixed before AQ since pretty much every mage will be fire spec and this is a really game changing bug. Here is another video with time stamps showing the ignite duration should not be refreshed to 4 seconds when a crit occurs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqtBpR3DijA

Ignite gets 5 stacked at 0:14, ignite falls off at 0:16.

Ignite gets 4 stacked at 0:33, ignite falls off at 0:35.

Ignite gets 3 stacked at 0:43, ignite falls off at 0:45.

Ignite gets 2 stacked at 0:50, ignite falls off at 0:52.

Ignite gets 2 stacked at 0:58, ignite falls off at 1:00.

At 2:58 he gets a 1400 crit and you can see his combat log. In his combat log his crit occurs at 7:10:25, the first ignite tick occurs at 7:10:27 however before the first tick another crit occurs, the ignite is updated to 2 stacks but the first tick does 1088 damage meaning that the second crit occurs before the first tick otherwise the tick damage would have been less. His 2nd tick occurs at 7:10:29 in his combat log and the ignite falls off right after the tick, this is important since it shows that the 2nd crit did not refresh the ignite timing since the crit occurred before the first tick.

Ignite gets applied at 3:22, Ignite gets 2 stacked at 3:26, ignite falls off at 3:28. The crit that caused the 2 stack here must have occurred just before the 2nd ignite tick and resulted in rolling the ignite to tick one more time. The ignite ticks at 3:28 and falls off since no one crit to keep it rolling. If a crit did occur then it would have fallen off at 3:30 since that’s how it worked back then crits didn’t refresh the ignite duration to 4 seconds, they just made it so the ignite would tick one more time before falling off.

At 3:54 he gets a 1920 crit, the ignite debuff shows up at 3:55. The timestamp from his combat log shows the crit happens at 7:11:20. The ignite gets 2 stacked at 3:56 and the first ignite tick happens after the 2nd crit from his combat log the first ignite tick occurs at 7:11:23 and ticks for 1136. The ignite ticks again at 7:11:25 and falls off, the time stamp is 3:58 in the video.

At 4:22 he gets a crit to start the ignite. He gets another crit at 4:25 and the ignite is 2 stacked. He gets another crit at 4:28 and the ignite gets 3 stacked. At 4:29 the ignite is 4 stacked. The ignite falls off at 4:33. This sequence is interesting since you can see that the 4th crit occurs after the 3rd tick here’s a layout of how the sequence played out.
4:22 – 2025 Crit occurs, ignite is applied, this crit ensures that the ignite will tick at 4:24 and 4:26.
4:24 – ignite ticks for 512, (512 = 2025 * 0.2 * 1.1 * 1.15)
4:25 – 2609 Crit occurs, ignite is 2 stacked, this crit allows the ignite to “roll” and tick at 4:28.
4:26 – ignite ticks for 1173, (1173 = (2025 + 2609) * 0.2 * 1.1 * 1.15)
4:28 – he crits for 2772 just before the ignite ticks (see combat log order) and the ignite ticks for 1476, however the damage doesn’t add up here, if his crit counted towards this ignite tick then the ignite should tick for 1873, (1873 = (2025 + 2609 + 2772) * 0.2 * 1.1 * 1.15). Instead it ticks for 1476 which would imply someone else crit for the 3rd stack with a scorch which would have done 1197 damage and that his crit and that the crit occurred before the 3rd ignite tick which allowed the ignite to “roll” to 4:30.
4:30 – ignite ticks for 2177, (2177 = (2025 + 2609 + 1197 + 2772) * 0.2 * 1.1 * 1.15). This implies that his 2772 crit was counted for AFTER the ignite tick that occurred at 4:28, since it is counted after then that means it “rolls” the ignite to tick at 4:32.
4:32 – ignite ticks for 2177 and falls off since there were no crits between 4:30 and 4:32.

Ignite gets applied at 4:37, ignite gets 2 stacked at 4:38. Ignite falls off at 4:41.

Ignite gets applied at 5:46, ignite gets 2 stacked at 5:47. Ignite falls off at 5:50.

Ignite gets applied at 5:59, ignite gets 2 stacked at 6:03, ignite gets 3 stacked at 6:05, ignite falls off at 6:06.

Ignite gets applied at 6:13, ignite gets 2 stacked at 6:13, ignite gets 3 stacked at 6:16, ignite falls off at 6:19.

Ignite gets applied at 6:32, ignite gets 2 stacked at 6:35, ignite falls off at 3:38.

I think the way ignite works in classic is an oversight from the TBC ignite. Here’s the patch note on ignite imgur .com/kyPMnBK (it won’t let me post links but you can also google wow ignite and click the wowwiki page and scroll to the bottom to see patch note changes made to the spell overtime). It says that All mages now get their own Ignite stack per target and that Ignite now resets the DoT duration when recast. This second part is how ignite is working in classic at the moment. Considering the wiki page says this was 2.0.1 change I don’t think it should be in classic since classic is on patch 1.12.1.

1 Like
8

Multiple examples you claim to be proof are actually a result of ignite being pushed off by the debuff cap, because unfortunatley ignite is not a high priority debuff.

At 2:58 he gets a 1400 crit and you can see his combat log. In his combat log his crit occurs at 7:10:25, the first ignite tick occurs at 7:10:27 however before the first tick another crit occurs, the ignite is updated to 2 stacks but the first tick does 1088 damage meaning that the second crit occurs before the first tick otherwise the tick damage would have been less. His 2nd tick occurs at 7:10:29 in his combat log and the ignite falls off right after the tick, this is important since it shows that the 2nd crit did not refresh the ignite timing since the crit occurred before the first tick.

Like this one … where the debuff was pushed off by winters chill

9

I tried to make sure that ignite was not pushed off in all these examples but if you find any let me know I can double check and I can remove them.

In the example you are referring to WC isn’t applied when ignite falls off at the 3:02 minute mark. When debuffs override each other they are applied instantly, I’ve never seen a debuff knock something off and not immediately take the debuff slot.
You can also see in his combat log that right as the 2nd tick happens it falls off since no one crit to ensure that it stays up.

There is no new debuff applied when the ignite falls off. At 3:03 the fireball debuff is applied and then after that WC is applied, this sequence means that WC is applied AFTER the fireball debuff and since the fireball debuff cannot knock off ignite that means that ignite was not knocked off by WC. Also if you pause the video at 3:02 right when the ignite falls off you can see that the frostbolt projectile has not hit patchwerk yet.

edit: 7/28/20, the hotfix fixed the bug.