The buffs to Frostfire Fire were much needed and I applaud Blizzard for listening to the community in regards to gameplay and class balance. That is the intention of this post.
Fire as a spec could be so much better and I feel like a few small adjustments to Phoenix Flames could really improve the gameplay, damage, and fun of the spec.
Our 2 main builders for Heating Up and Hot Streak are Phoenix Flames (PF) and Fire Blast (FB). These 2 spells are core to the spec, although I could argue having 6 charges of Fire Blast and no PF at all is significantly better. With the Call of the Sun King talent - these are both instant cast and they both always crit. FB feels great to cast and it’s synergy with Pyroblast during the Heating Up/Hot Streak combos feels like how Fire is supposed to play. FB is clearly the better spell to cast in all situations – why? Isn’t PF supposed to provide the same function as FB? So what is the point of PF?
Every time you cast FB, you can instantly cast a Pyroblast. That feels great. Every time you cast PF, you need to wait for the travel time and GCD before casting Pyroblast. This feels clunky and is not a fun button to press. This design choice behind PF is very strange and in my opinion it makes Fire very awkward to play. The travel time on PF requires you to either be in melee range so it hits the target instantly or be at ranged and deal with the GCD awkwardness. Mage is a RANGED caster class so the idea of being forced into melee range where you can easily die is not a core fantasy gameplay to the class.
Some ideas to fix PF and make it better to use:
1 – Make PF function exactly like FB - should be instant cast, always crit, off the GCD, and instantly tag the target. This minor change would make a WORLD of difference for the feel of the spec. With talents, adjust the recharge time or charges on both spells so that during Combustion, you always have something to press. If keeping PF is in the developer’s gameplan for the spec, it needs to be just as good as FB but also have some other use or synergy with your toolkit.
2 – Create some synergy between PF and FB so you need to rotate them between each Pyroblast. A proper rotation would be FB>Pyro>PF>Pyro and that cycle repeats. Whether baseline or through talents make it so that your FB and PF spells buff each other. Maybe when you cast FB, your next PF within 3 seconds takes a portion of your Ignite and does an instant AoE explosion which has a chance to apply Living Bomb to all enemies at 30% effectiveness or something. I’m sure there can be something added for synergy here and make it a fun mini-game between these spells and Pyroblast.
3 – If using the Frostfire hero talents, PF is now changed to Frost Phoenix which gives a stack of Frost Mastery.
As for general feedback, this post is about the Mage class but this goes for all classes and specs. I think once you choose a spec you should get the core spells at baseline without needing to use talent points on them.
Fire Mages should all get Fire Blast, Pyroblast, Scorch, Living Bomb, Meteor, Flamestrike, and Combustion at baseline. The talent trees should then be used to make those spells better or interact some way with each other and the Hero Talent you’ve chosen. What Fire Mage isn’t choosing Combustion? What Arcane Mage isn’t choosing Arcane Surge or Touch of the Magi? What Resto Shaman isn’t choosing Spirit Link? What Disc Priest isn’t choosing Pain Suppression? Make them baseline and use the talent trees to build around your playstyle.
Choice nodes can be added to make spells focus on AoE or Single Target so you can have different builds based on the encounters. Other choice nodes can be added to change how the spells play or interact with your other spells or Hero Talents. Give us some more agency and choice with how we use our core spells instead of giving us talents that feel required.