Replacing Conflagration

Classes Mage
1

This is a weak talent in terms of numbers, but also in terms of design. It just adds an AoE component to an ST spell’s DoT. It’s a very convoluted and bad talent, and would probably be better if it simply made Fireball and Pyroblast explode… but, even then, I’d rather have something that synergizes with our AoE spells: Flamestrike and Living Bomb.

DF seems to have taken inspiration from Heroes of the Storm for the new Incendiary Eruptions talent, that applies Living Bombs to targets hit by Flamestrike.

So, instead of Conflagration, what about another talent also inspired from Heroes of the Storm. A choice node with these would be very cool:

Fury of the Sunwell: Flamestrike hits again 0.5 seconds later.
Master of Flames: Living Bombs spread from explosions can now also spread Living Bomb.

We had double Flamestrike in Legion, it’s just a basic AoE buff. Definitely more useful than adding AoE to Fireball’s DoT.

Exponential Living Bomb spread would be very good for massive pulls, making it a powerful button for M+, or battlegrounds. This would be perfect in terms of talent positioning as it would apply to Living Bombs placed manually, or placed from Flamestrike.

Other cool things we should DEFINITELLY borrow from Heroes of the Storm / Warcraft are the two ults: Greater Pyroblast (currently a PvP only talent), and Phoenix (bring Fire mage back to its WC3 roots! Frost has Water Elemental, why can’t fire get Phoenix?)

We could also have the long range Dragon’s Breath back, from Legion.

There are a lot of cool and interesting options we could have had… instead of choosing the most boring talents, or spreading out basic passives, like Phoenix Flames only having 2 charges, to add the extra charge later. Or, well, pretty much half the tree being such an uninspired mess.

2

While it may be visually cool, not sure this idea is feasible. Two choices:

  1. It’s a permanent pet which I don’t think there is an appetite for. Mage isn’t a pet class outside of non-LW Frost builds and I’d suspect few players would want us to be. Play Frost (or Warlock) if you want a pet.

  2. It’s a cooldown like Fire Elemental or Infernal, which isn’t a good idea. We already have too much of our damage tied up into cooldowns. Maybe people would like it if it replaced Rune of Power but that of course isn’t Fire specific.

3

Third choice (and the way it’s done in HotS):
3. It’s an AoE spell. A turret you place on a reticle and just fires at anything that comes in its range for the 7 second duration.

That’s where fire needs help right now, in AoE.

And yeah… please, replace ROP with anything. I’d take a 2% mastery buff over it any day.

1 Like
4

Ah, so like Hydra in Diablo. Or at least that’s how I picture it anyway since I don’t play HotS.

It being an AOE doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a cooldown though. The Destruction Warlock’s Infernal shows up and AOE pulse damages everything in the immediate vicinity and generates shards, but he’s still a cooldown spell around which the rest of the Lock’s rotation is balanced.

5

yeah, exactly like a hydra, just a bird instead (more thematic to WoW’s fire mages). And a CD for AoE is not a big deal depending on the CD duration. For example, Comet Storm is a 30 sec AoE CD. It’s up almost all the time.

But again, that’s just one more idea. Infinite spread Living Bomb could also solve the ‘boring’ AoE issue. Or even, putting Meteor in that spot, and making it NOT divide the dmg per targets hit.

6

Conflag always struck me as odd. It was just a little extra damage for ST and in most cases in the past was so weak that you could take the aoe talent without issue. My guess is that when it was first implemented it was a placeholder because they ran out of time to think of anything else, and it just sort of stuck around like so many other wastes of talent space.

Be careful what you wish for, remember that because Frost was strong on M+20’s when tanks pulled 4000 mobs it got nerfed out the rats. All it would take it one top player to do something stupid on stream with LB and Fire as a whole could get gutted. The idea of a second (possibly weaker) Flamestrike though seems fine.

As for Phoenix, what if it worked like other games (visually I’m thinking like Tina’s Wonderlands) where it shoots out in a straight line for X yards, does damage and possibly applies a burn. Functionally it would become the “Fire” version of FOrb/AOrb but with a bit of different flavour.

2 Likes
7

lol, yeah. Agreed.

Hopefully, they’d just nerf the talent if that happened.

Very cool idea. I love it.

8

So you want it to be a searing flame totem like what Shamans used to have.

9

kind of like that, except place it where you want (not at your feet), with a longer range, high dmg, AoE splash attacks, and most importantly… awesome looking.

Essentially, Phoenix could be a better Searing Totem designed as an AoE CD.

10

Problem is blizzard had such and issue with getting searing totem that they chose not to return it to us in SL after they said they would. Sorry talking about this from an Enhancement shaman main as thats what I have been but looking to change.

I dont know why they can’t figure out how to get it to not attack what isn’t in combat but that is an issue Searing totem had. Now if you want aoe then that had 2 versions one where the totem would pulse and do aoe flame dmg to an area and then there was one that took a few moments but it would basically explode once and die but doing more damage than the other aoe totem.

Either way I do not see this happening as the fact as blizzard did away with totems like that do damage like what you want.

When i envision a phoenix I see something that is with us and would either with like pyro would shoot forward and hitting our target or getting close and casting an explode spell or setting them on fire, then would return to us. This is how I envision it.

Just give us something as Arcane has arcane familiar and frost has the water elemental which seems that all of a sudden no one likes so they use lone winter to get a spell damage boost from it which is garbo but that is just my opinion

11

Not really how “I” want it. I simply said how it’s been done in WC3 and HotS, the places where fire mage has a phoenix ult.

It’s also trying to be a little different than just a water elemental for fire. But, all ideas are valid IMO, I just want a phoenix for AoE to solve 2 issues: bad fire AoE, and more interesting aesthetic / iconography.