It actuality really does satisfy expectations. I had first missread that the season 2 set bonus caused Essence Burst to cast a living flame at 150% effectiveness. I applauded the changes, not only for making good use of living flame and the talents associated with it, but for what looked like a more sophisticated version of the season 3 Essence Bomb build, where expending your essence bursts can generate it’s own essence bursts, creating a feedback loop. Adding alot of Single Target damage to Pyre without adding more unnecessary AoE (which it’s already doing more than enough).
I had calculated a panoply of different build options and I was elated. Even the return of clipped Disintegrate would have been possible, the damage would not be not that dissimilar than letting it finish. You would just be trading more Essence Burst proc effects for less empower spells and consume flames damage. I then realised after reading the official blue post that it was the preservation evoker set bonus, not the devastation one. Booourns… but it’s not all doom and gloom though.
As it stands the season 1 set actuality allows you use a pyre build since the set bonuses allows the rotation to never run out of steam, which is what is required from a pyre build. You’re not starved for essence or essence bursts, which is the only way to make pyre work. There’s no wiggle room though, you need every singlet alent point where it is, particularly Event Horizon this season, (even though it’s always essential to make pyre work either way). Again it’s the engine, as long as your not starved you never peter out.
Even with the recent nerf to feed the flame it’s still fesable. They’ve now changed the mechanism where the 6th pyre no longer counts as the first in a new series. Meaning it will drop a Firestorm every 6 pyre instead of 5 (functionally).
But, even with the feed the flame talent nerfed, given you have the essence to cast unlimited pyres (just pyres alone, no empowers, nothing but pyres) versus just disintegrate (with scintillation) you be doing only 9.52% less damage on a single unmoving target. Now if you were to factor the scorching embers buff of 25%, you’re actually doing 13.10% more damage. Crazy I know! Considering it’s on practically all the time. Keep in mind that’s not counting Arcane Intensity, since a Flameshaper Disintegrate build would have to forgo it (or other talents that are just as valuable) if you want to make it all the way to the top of the apex talents. Either way you’d have to miss out of something good and you’d be doing less damage.
With a pyre build you also get an evenly tied cooldown for Eternity Surge (unless you stack alot of haste, which you shouldn’t do this expansion since crit is king again), though not for Firebreath. I know it wouldn’t appear so on face value given that causality works so well for Disintegrate, but pyre builds use Event Horizon instead of Eye of Infinity so it’s baseline shorter by 3 seconds. Also, the instant cast of pyre means your save at least an extra second or 2 by casting Eternity Surge immediately when it’s on cooldown, where disintegrate will take longer to cast. Add the 2 super buffed Azure Sweep at 856.72% spell damage (single target) plus and extra 20% from Iridescence (pyre builds are guaranteed to use both charges on Azure Sweep) that’s 1228.06% spell damage each. Long story short, the pyre rotation gets more bonus damage from this season’s set bonus then disintegrate does.
As it stands (with the season 1 set and the exact talents) pyre’s full damage rotation on Single Target is flush with disintegrate. Again that ONLY if the target never zones out of the Firestorm.
Which is why i suggested many times that they reduce it to a 6 second Firestorm every 3 pyres at 60% total damage instead of 10 second one every 5 pyres. But they’ve must have changed again this week or the last cause it’s functionally 6 pyre now (even the wording changed from “Every 6 pyres ” to “After 6 pyres” meaning your 6th is no longer counted as the 1th in a new series. So I’m thinking a 5 second Firestorm at 50% total damage (that’s 0.8481% Disintegrates (factoring scorching embers)) every 3 pyres, instead of a 10 second Firestorm at 100% total damage (1.6962% Disintegrates) every 6 pyres. This would maintain Firestorms dps rate aswell as the damage ratio of each individual pyre. Nothing would change except the duration and frequency of the Firestorms. It would just prevent us from wasting too much damage. I love Firestorm but there’s alot of eggs in that basket and it feels bad to drop it on a moving target or freshly dead one.
The rework of dragon rage with the apex talents alone goes a long way though. A pseudo engulf it may be, but it’s not too overpowered, it’s well balanced with an emphasis on Essence Burst. Great for the rotation, great for the identity of the spec.
It’s still early to tell if a pyre build will work as well next season once we lose the set bonuses. Unbound Flame might compensate enough with 4 cooldowns dealing dealing fair damage, each of which generating essence bursts. It’s still hard to tell if it’ll be enough to feed the engine, but I think it might just be. However, with the upcoming buff to Disintegrate’s Consume Flames effect coupled with the upcoming set bonus, Disintegrate will pull ahead slightly.
They definitely need to find a better way to work living flame into the rotation though. As it stands, you don’t often get the chance to cast it (even when it’s instant) let alone get the full 3 stacks of ruby embers (which is an obligatory talent for pyre builds). There are so many other priorities spells, particularly with this season’s set bonus. I’d like more of a reason to use living flame and to make use of the talents associated with it. It feels underutilized considering it’s supposed to be our main generator.
All in all, I’m fairly content.
