Dear mage developers,
I want to offer my honest feedback regarding the posted upcoming changes to fire mage in 11.1, and I would like to start by saying that I really can’t believe that any fire mage would enjoy casting fireball more. The buttons I want to press are “hot streak” pyroblast, fire blast, and phoenix flames. Those spells are fun. Replacing pressing these spells with fireball is not fun. Stopping to cast fireball to fish for heating up procs is boring. Not to mention that even when I find the heating up proc, (after these proposed changes) will I have the FB or PF to actually convert it, or is this during my window of conserve all my instants because combustion is about to come off CD? My point is that it always felt super bad to not be able to convert hot streaks and use them at will. That is the old way this spec used to play , and ,please, I don’t wish to return to it, and I can’t imagine other fire mages do either.
I don’t understand why a spec that has it’s fantasy and mechanical functionality based around instant cast spell, is being condemned for only pressing instant cast spells. If given the choice, no one is going to press fireball, and I don’t feel like we should have to if we don’t want to. IMO high mobility and fast paced game play are the main reasons to choose to play fire. Again my opinion but the way the spec plays right now in TWW is the BEST it has ever felt. The flow and the fun factor are both A++ To me it feels even better than corruption did at the end of BFA ,because I am getting to do what I’ve wanted to do as a fire mage and basically just spam pyroblast. Hot streak is our thing, and we are getting it more than ever and it feels great.
I understand if you wanna tweak some things to see if you can get it to feel better. However, these proposed changed ,as stated in the post, are a sledgehammer to the flow and enjoyment of this spec, and if this is what you think fire mages want, I believe you are sorely mistaken. I don’t think anyone is asking for these changes. Please reconsider them and keep this spec fast and fun.
Thank you,
One lowly mage
8 Likes
Agreed, they keep making drastic, un-thought out changes to fire for no reason. Nobody asked for these changes.
3 Likes
The devs need to bring back the Tempered Flames passive ability. It reduced pyroblast cast time by 30% I think. Without it, the cast time is ridiculously slow regardless of your gear. By the time you finish casting, the enemy may already be dead. Bring it back Blizzard.
1 Like
Omg yes! I love current fire mages instant casts. Why does every caster have to play the same? Why does every caster have to cast their basic lame spell? I don’t want to cast fire ball. I’m so with you on this!
3 Likes
Casting fireball more is a good thing. Blizzard is right.
Why is it a good thing? Please give some good reasoning
Pyroblast is usually if not always the first spell in my rotation for my fire mages.
That talent was garbage, especially since it competed with a Combustion talent. You don’t need to hard cast Pyroblast ever other than activating SKB and for that you still have Flame Accelerant that makes it a really fast cast.
Because the way we are at the moment, we’re practically red BM Hunters. Too many instant casts mean they need to deal very low damage to balance it out. When you have Ice Lance doing almost as much damage per hit as a Pyroblast then you know something is very wrong. Less resources means our “spenders” can deal more damage to compensate.
It also helps with lowering Combustion uptime a bit (less instants means less CDR via Kindling, etc.) since we were already getting it to ridiculous levels, meaning Combustion was watered down to compensate. Less uptime means Combustion will be more impactful.
3 Likes
Definitely agree.
I am not enjoying these proposed changes for mage in general, but the frostfire and fire changes are just not good, especially fire.
I also didn’t like the proposed changes to freezing wind, though the spell slinger and winter’s chill changes are good.
I also think the sunfury changes looked nice.
But the fire changes? Big no thank you.
Like I get this argument - we’re 100% just BM hunters right now, infinite resources and whatnot - but why is it necessarily a bad thing that there’s a fully mobile caster spec? You can argue it’s “healthy” to have to weave in Fireballs but no one with a straight face can say it’s actually fun. And right now both hero specs are fun - after having been the literal worst dps in the game (under a shoehorned-in bard spec) for the majority of a season. I dunno, I don’t see any good reason to screw with something enjoyable.
1 Like
The easiest answer is because of damage. Like I mentioned, by having too many resources available all the time and stupidly high Combustion uptime, our actual spells are bound to do little damage to offset it.
I mean, I don’t want to spam Fireball, hell no, but I want Pyroblast to do actual damage and Combustion to be impactful. Frostfire was approching what, 60% Combustion uptime? That’s kinda ridiculous tbh and the sheer amount of procs it had to juggle was kind of absurd as well, and to compensate for that Pyroblast’s damage was close to Ice Lance’s.
If beastmaster hunter is ALL instant casts, why can’t fire nage? Gatekeeping fire mages down to force to cast is absurd.
If that’s the case, then be equal about it and make beastmaster hunter stand still and cast a 2.25 second skill.
1 Like
I am playing FF mage and I love casting Frost fire bolt. but hey that’s just me.
Putting power back into combustion via this fireball change is excellent.
If you don’t understand why these changes are for the best, you need to wait and see.
Like someone else pointed out when you have THIS many procs and instant casts everything needs to hit very weakly to justify the number of procs and casts you have. It waters everything down significantly. You cannot have exciting moments if you have no boring moments. If every moment you have every proc, nothing can truly be exciting in your rotation. Blizzard is correctly identifying that fire mage has literally no “boring” moments. They are introducing some boring hard casted fireballs to make space to allow combust to breath and be at least a little more exciting. When combust and pyroblast are rarer, they can hit harder. When they hit harder, they become more exciting.
Let’s not exaggerate though. Fire mage will still be among the most mobile and instant heavy specs in the game. We’re just no longer going to be tied with BM hunters.
Because instant cast everything on a caster is toxic and non sustainable. If you can’t use shimmer/ice floes to get that 2.25 second cast off while moving then well something something skill issue.
Patently false. …you’ve never been on one of my LFR runs and seen the absolute mayhem unleashed for no reason and all consequence. It’s never good, to be clear, but also never boring.
introducing more “boring” moments doesn’t sound like engaging gameplay to me but hey what do I know
4 Likes
Fireball is a quintesential mage spell across many genres, games, and media. NOT casting fireball just feels strange. Full disclosure: I don’t like the spastic playstyle of Fire. But putting aside my dislike of the playstyle, I can see why others like it. My biggest argument against it is that it shouldn’t have been Fire that was given a bunch of instant casts, but rather it should have been Arcane. Fire should have been Big Cast, Big Impact. Arcane should have been Insta Cast, Death By A Thousand Stings. Frost should have been a heartier spec. The strongest shield, the most control, Cast time openers, a couple of instant cast finishers. Basically Frost is perfect the way it is.
My biggest disappointment is that Fire, which should be even flashier than a Ret Paladin with Wings, is nowhere near as awesome visually as Arcane.
1 Like
Nah, I dislike the current version of fire mage and cant wait for it to swing back to the version of fire mage i fell in love with. Lots of hard casting in between the few combustion windows you got per fights. If you don’t want to cast any spells and you just want to press buttons and run around, try melee or a hunter.