There’s no arguing. You’re mistaken entirely and seemingly have made it up out of the blue or fallen for the common and disproven scaling misconceptions that plague spec and class discourse. Fire not only scaled quite poorly with gear nearly every tier post-EN(including this one,) but Frost has scaled phenomenally in multiple recent tiers. You are either out of the loop entirely or purposely spreading misinformation. Either way, that’s wack.
Scaling is not a good tier-to-tier predictor of class balance and not something anyone should worry about. Specs live and die by class tuning and %aura, and anyone who relies on ‘scaling’ to change the spec hierarchy is misleading themselves.
I agree that no one knows how it will play out as far as scaling goes, or what will scale.
Going back tho.
Vanilla wow- Fire was the best mage scaling spec. Couldnt be played at start cuz fire immunes.
TBC-Fire was our best scaling Spec.
Wotlk-Fire was the best spec in the game, or atleast top 3.
I didnt play after that much.
To say fire hasnt scaled well in previous iterations of this game is silly. Frost was typically better at lower gear, then fire took over once gear levels spiked, this isnt made up or an opinion, its been that way for most of the game.
Seems to even be the case in xpacs i havent played based off what people are saying here.
I hope they buff the mage specs, im a frost main, i just went fire now because frost is so bad.
They wont be tuning anything anymore until the race is over tho.
No one cares how the spec scaled over a decade ago when almost every mechanic was different from the modern design. Legion-era Fire is the current generation, and there is no reason to bring up ancient history. Either way, you’ve chosen to ignore the context entirely.
“Fire not only scaled quite poorly with gear nearly every tier post-EN(including this one,)”
‘Damage go up’ is not the same thing as scaling. Your cited sources only prove you don’t know the definition of what you’re trying to prove the relevance of.
Scaling(with stats) is not the same thing as synergizing with systems additional to the stat values on our gear. Drawing conclusions with only a rough idea of how the class works and has worked is why the statement ‘Fire scales with itemlevel’ persists.
The statement persists because it is true. Just taking BFA as an example, firemages adding on mastery were gaining more gains in dps than frost mages were (noil). It may or may not have been intended but it sure as hell was how it played out.
If you mean was completely broken because of Ignite (which is gutted) and its interactions with Masterful + the gain from Bracers/Lucid Dreams. Then sure Fire scaled well. The same could 100% be said about Frost and GS. The difference was GS wasn’t a DoT that continued to tick and had spread cleave.
Per point of Mastery in a direct comparison between Frost and Fire, you’re just simply wrong. Mastery was often twice the value of any other stat for Frost, but just in line with most stats for Fire’s ST. Masterful wasn’t even strictly Fire’s top ST corruption until you stacked Mastery on every piece of gear, meanwhile Masterful for Frost was nearly twice the value of any other corruption for NoIL with a lightly Mastery-stacked gearset. Scaling is simply not what made Fire strong at the end of BFA
You’re comparing Fire to Frost, one being the single highest scaling spec at the end of BFA and the other being one of the worst scaling specs at the end of BFA. The dynamic is the complete reverse of your assumption, and their scaling factors are on polar opposite sides of the spectrum.
The difference in scaling between Fire and Frost was so outlandishly opposite of your assumption I can only assume you’re purposely misleading others and baiting. If you aren’t, simply ask any of the AT Experts who handle the SimC front and back-ends.
Scaling is not a tier-to-tier predictor of balance. Stop trying to use the concept to validate perceived patterns in the overall spec hierarchy when the fight mechanics and required damage profiles combined with tuning almost entirely dictate relative viability.
This is correct. It was Haste/Vers and Vers became outweighed by Mastery at ludicrous levels only then did Mastery start outperforming for ST and AoE. On top of that you have to also take into account with 8.3 logs, double on use with Font. I didn’t have a Font and it became glaringly noticeable in comparison with other Fire Mage’s on Mythic Carapace and N’zoth. I’m not addressing you when I say this, Gym, more of everyone trying to use 8.3 as a comparison. The amount of systems in place and gimmicks in 8.3 will severely skew data. You have Fire benefitting from Double on Use (Font), Mech Bracers, Lucid Dreams/Kindling/WV or Lucid Dreams/Meteor. If anything I’d say go back to EP, but even then you still have the systems in place outside of Corruption. Like Gym said, Masterful only became huge once you reached a certain threshold the likes of which we won’t see again.
One nice thing about end-tier Nya’lotha was 1min Mage with Badge+Vita for insane haste and clean 1min lineups. I don’t know if you tried it, but that was easily the most fun Fire has been since probably BRF, and Vita was comparable to a +10 Warforge Font. Really nice for people unfortunate enough to miss EP.
I don’t get how people think fire doesn’t end up with better scaling? All the stats can be useful and work with each other in some way. Further more you can increase the proc chance of getting what you needed through specific stats as fire.
Frost on the other hand has a mastery that only works with 3 spells. Offering a small boost in static damage in the form of icicles and an average buff to orbs damage. This has no interplay with the actual class, and results in mastery being a pretty worthless stat overall for frost.
Crit is great until you reach shatter cap in which its benefit becomes so low you never want it.
Vers is vers offers a small damage increase to main spell and mastery just like it does with any other class.
And haste only allows you to cast more times, The other big issue with frost is unlike fire who can increase the chance of getting its procs to occur. OR reduce the time it takes to force a proc. Frost gains nothing in this regard. It has a static proc chance on 2 different abilities that can also STILL munch each other.
The argument of needing Icy Propulsion to be higher up to make it good is also a sign that this isnt a good spec. Saying you need to get to the point where you can have your 30% haste buff up all the time to even have a hope of being high on the meters shows there is an adherent issue with the spec. Further more this will also become useless eventually as once you get to the point were you can get your next ice veins up before the previous one ended. Any further levels in that conduit will yield no power gain as you already have the buff up.
The issues with spec stem from stagnant proc generation, a mastery that doesn’t really work or support the class, weak cooldowns, and stats that fall off quickly and offer little interplay with the spec as a whole.
Id honestly aim a change at the mastery first to try to address this. Ive stated in another thread, but am happy to repeat it here. I feel they need to look at what they think to means to be a frost mage. Slowing and shattering are pretty big. So id rework the mastery to increase the critical strike damage of your spells by X % based off your crit strike rating while also increasing your Proc generation rates by X% amount ( this would be a much smaller amount). This would hopefully address some concern with crit becoming worthless and mastery having no benefit to the spec at all.
Honestly over all I feel like the whole spec needs a rework, but we wouldn’t see something along those lines until a expansion comes around.
Thats what one of the biggest things on why fire out scales it, mastery is actually useful and crit isnt wasted in the sense that combust turns crit into mastery.
Fire as a whole on what it actually DOES with its stats, out does frost on a whole other level.
I just dont see frost scaling, and even more so out scaling fire, the specific stat thats bad is Mastery for frost, it doesnt do much of anything, the orb damage bonus is just 15% damage to orb, mastery doesnt increase it beyond that, Icicles arent good.
Fire on the other hand gets a massive bonus from mastery, then ontop of it going over on crit isnt a huge deal either as it gets turned into mastery during combustion.
I played Minute Mage. Closer to the end it was possible to do Minute (WV+Lucid Minor) w/ Badge + Font. Lol it was fun being the only one out of four Mages on my guild’s CE kill that didn’t have Font
I’m not sure what anything you have said changes the fact that fire mages stacking mastery were doing more damage overall than frost mages stacking mastery at the higher ilevels last tier. You said earlier that fire scaled poorly in recent tiers and that is just plain wrong.
