Sorry for the wall of text
With the development notes given alongside the 11.1 PTR, the main point of changes regarding fire mage was to reduce the situation present with current levels of resources. Namely, Phoenix Flames and Fire Blast (mostly the former). To promote a healthier gameplay experience, several talents related to Phoenix Flames (PF) were adjusted with the intent of reducing its frequency of use… To list a couple:
- 3rd charge for PF → 15% PF damage
- 2 free refunds on a semi-frequent proc → 1 free refund
- Proc that gave us instant scorches that behaved like execute → same functionality but not instant and +10% damage
- Some other changes that are not relevant to the current hero talent combination that prioritizes SKB heavily. It is worth noting though that those changes affect the other build (Unleashed Inferno) which faces similar issues as SKB.
The desire was to push us towards a healthier position regarding the distinction between our filler ‘phases’ and our burstier ‘phases’ (combustion). To incentivize the shift to fireball, a talent which gave bad luck protection to fireball crits was doubled in power. This particular change is great and is enjoyable to play with (even as someone who does not usually like using Fireball). However, the inspiration which motivated the changes has been left unspoken for by the practical changes implemented. Let’s break down the situation and why:
Currently, PF charge overflow is driven by a number of mechanisms which seems like a necessary force given the nature of fire’s simplistic toolkit. As such, many of our spells have to focus on the more basic elements - with PF taking the center stage for a lot of them. As an example, we have 5 talents that empower phoenix flames:
- Call of the Sun King (guaranteed crit + formerly 3 charges, presently 15% damage)
- Ashen Feather (50% damage to isolated targets and 150% ignite amp for PF
- From the Ashes (15% damage and 1 sec CDR per direct-damage spell instance)
- Phoenix Reborn (25 direct-damage spell instances = refund a PF charge on use, 200% extra damage for that same use).
If you include Frostfire, the primary hero talent for SKB (seemingly by design):
- Excess Fire (Granted by Meteor, Casting Fire Blast with the buff grants 10 sec of PF CDR)
- Excess Frost (Granted by using Excess Fire, Use PF to do flat damage and 10 sec Meteor CDR)
- Excess Fire and Frost also granted by Frostfire Bolt proc (very common)
As a result of these, we end up in a situation where we have so much power built into our Phoenix Flames, both in raw damage value and in an incentivization to cast it often (Excess Frost). This is further made problematic because of a few feedback loops created within the spec. Using Excess Frost reduces Meteor CD, which grants Excess Fire, which in turn grants Excess Frost. As a result, there is an inherent incentivization to cycle these buffs often and quickly. This is made even worse by the fact we have a very common proc in Frostfire Empowerment (instant Frostfire Bolt) which grants BOTH, meaning that you actually get two excess frost procs due to fire granting it as well upon consumpion. Now that we have understood the context, here are some feedback points which we can situate within said context to understand why they are misguided.
Meteor and Excess Buffs
Tying Excess Fire to Meteor seems like a good move because it places an inherent incentive in casting it, which compliments Frostfire’s fantasy, but this vision becomes extremely problematic when we allow for Firefall to also proc Excess Fire. Firefall is a passive meteor spawn that occurs every 15 Fireballs/Pyros. On average, we get about 15 of these in a 5 minute encounter. This leads to 15 more excess fires, and 15 more excess frosts, which further contribute to the feedback loop, causing an exponential increase in the frequency of both buffs from their natural sources. This is not healthy. Having to worry about random sources of Excess buffs goes against the deterministic nature of Frostfire and further contributes to the situation of excess resources (ironic pun…) As someone who enjoys having a lot of resources and not casting Fireballs, even I find this interaction unhealthy and plead that it cannot remain.
Excess Fire/Frost Feedback Loop
By creating a situation in which Meteor grants Excess Fire, which in turn grants Excess Frost, which in turn grants Meteors (and so on and so forth), we incentivize the rapid churning of these buffs to take advantage of their circular nature. The issue is that such a consumption pattern cannot ever be fulfilling or enjoyable. From a psychological perspective, it is either the case that it is the only thing you care about and it takes over your gameplay in a degenerate sense, or it is something that is there but you do not have the resources to take advantage of it - creating a sensation of waste. Furthermore, Meteor has turned into a spell that does a lot of damage and feels good into one that is too abundant in the rotation to be meaningfully satisfying and frankly create likely issues with tuning. This is quite contrasting to the fact that Meteor is only good because of the fact it spawns Comet Storm via Frostfire.
Instead of the current model, I suggest one of two things: A conservative change which would simply make Excess Frost cause Phoenix Flames to instead grant cooldown reduction on Fire Blast, and making Phoenix Flames less abundant in general through other changes described below. As a more radical change, I offer the idea of decoupling Excess Frost from Meteor, and instead have it interact with Frostfire Bolt to further push the Fireball narrative. As an example to what this might be: “Consuming Excess Frost causes the next cast of Frostfire Bolt to reduce the cooldown of Combustion by 5 seconds”. Other alternatives are possible, but simply pushing us towards incorporating the iconic Frostfire Bolt further would be beneficial. As an aside - Meteor cooldown should be reduced baseline marginally to account for the removing of extreme amounts of Meteor CDR. The talent could also just use help in general.
Fire Spec Talent Feedback
The removal of Phoenix Flames 3rd change does not achieve meaningful reduction in it’s availability by itself. Instead, it does so in virtue of the fact that a 2-stack cap artificially limiting the amount of CDR you can effectively receive in a given window of time. With current design, it is extremely easy to go from 0 charges to overcapping on PF charges despite what otherwise would have been an intuitive gameplay sequence that lead to the overcapping. This creates the constant feeling of choosing between the lesser of evils and unclear gameplay goals. The 3rd charge’s removal being reverted would be nice to allow for more intentional decision making regarding PF’s usage and storage but is not necessary.
Phoenix Reborn’s change to grant one charge but have it be twice the power is a good change and I have no qualms with this one as it does well what it set out to do. However, the identity of these two talents should be altered. I suggest removing From the Ashes, shifting Phoenix Reborn up, and creating a new complimentary capstone in which the refunded Phoenix Flames also grant a certain amount of Fire Blast charges or Fire Blast CDR. This is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Fire Blast by itself is not something Fire Mages press in a vacuum. It requires the presence of Heating Up or a complimentary Phoenix Flames. Given this, Fire Blast usage is contingent on Phoenix Flames abundance, a crit which is only reliable in Combustion, or a Fireball crit. Since this is the case, reducing the abundance of Phoenix Flames but increasing the abundance of Fire Blasts actually increases the desire to cast Fireballs to facilitate Heating Up generation to compliment Fire Blast. Furthermore, this brings a different set of pacing to the gameplay in Combustion. Having extra Fire Blasts that are usable in rapid fire succession is what makes Combustion feel good while being distinct from filler gameplay. All in all, removing Phoenix Flames CDR from From the Ashes reduces its abundance but given the alternative talent presented would make people happy while distinguishing between the two gameplay phases and solving the problem of overreliance on abundant resources to skip filler gameplay.
Scorch and its Role
At the onset of this post, I highlighted several talents that exist only to flesh out PF due to the limited nature of our toolkit. One specific problematic area in our current design is the situation with Scorch and its lack of identity. I will keep it simple: Scorch does absolutely no damage, and the talents that buff it do not remedy the problem any further. To rapid fire this:
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Scald and Improved Scorch have to be merged together even if Improved Scorch has to be nerfed. These talents are extremely unfun to play around baseline and leave the fantasy of Fire being an execute spec completely neutered. As it stands, Improved Scorch makes Scorch mandatory to press to refresh it, but not fun to do, even outside of combustion. In fact, currently, for non SKB builds, maintaining Improved Scorch is often times not even worth it due to the extremely low damage Scorch does, negating the benefit of maintaining the damage amp.
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The change to Heat Shimmer is nothing short of laughable. I’m usually quite sympathetic to game design and always try to see the mission for what it is but Heat Shimmer’s change is missing the mark completely. Considering Scorch is a global cooldown’s worth of cast time, making it instant (or removing that part) does absolutely nothing to the power of the talent - especially considering its cast while moving. Perhaps the intent was to help facilitate interactions regarding Scorch and Heating Up generation. If this was the case, then that maybe admirable but cannot be the end of the story. A 10% damage buff to Scorch makes it go from doing 10% of an average spell’s damage to 11%. It’s damage is not why we cast it. Instead, Heat Shimmer should be reworked to once again incentivize Fireballs in a way. For example, it should be changed to be something like: “Casting Fireball has a 10% chance to cause your next Scorch to deal damage as though your target was below 30% health.” This way, it becomes a non-mandatory but powerful talent, pushes Fireball, while also introducing complexity to the gameplay. Frankly, I am OK with the new Heat Shimmer if Improved Scorch and Scald were merged but I think in the spirit of the 11.1 changes, introducing a Fireball element creates an incentive to maintain that state of affairs.
If you made it this far, you must really care about fire. Thanks for reading!
EDIT: I forgot: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make consuming Fury of the Sun King (SKB full stacks) grant Frostfire Empowerment regardless of whether Combustion is already active or not. Currently, we waste SKB stacks just so that our SKB hardcast finishes after combustion ends just for Frostfire Empowerment. It’s REALLY unintuitive and unfun.