Redesigned fire, made SKB so powerful that we never untalent it. Literally every split of logs has 100% skb usage.
When are we going to get an actual competitive choice to skb?
Due to how Skb works it will likely always be the better choice just because of how it works.
You can buff UI to 75% or drop the cdr and buff it to 100% to get it on the same level. It wouldn’t affect any other part of the kit honestly…just needs a little buff
Why the hell did the forums make me post on that toon lol. Either way…just gotta buff ui. its just tragically undertuned.
1 Like
The issue would be comparing ui being a combust potency tool versus Skb being a uptime tool
The passive choice isn’t supposed to be on the same level as the active choice. SKB should always do more damage when used properly because it requires interaction from the player. I guess we can debate just how much the disparity should be but if UI were equal (or too close) to SKB we’d have the opposite problem: no one would take SKB when they can do the same damage for less effort. I understand what you’re saying but the difference between the two has to be meaningful for SKB to be a viable choice.
I use UI in my solo build. SKB has little use fighting open world mobs where the fights are solo and last seconds instead of minutes. To me that’s what talents like UI and Time Anomaly are generally for. Sure, you can still use UI in a raid setting if you just want a more relaxed experience. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that but you shouldn’t expect to be on par with SKB users.
2 Likes
Yeah thats fine if you want there to be a disparity, but right now that disparity is 10%. If you run skb you are top third of the raid balance wise. if you run ui you are literally the worst in the game. that gap needs to tighten up a LOT.
That’s not how actives and passives work. Passives will always be a dps loss
This sounds hyperbolic to me but admittedly I haven’t actually run the numbers. But for the sake of discussion let’s assume it’s true. My two questions then are:
-
How much of a disparity is there for comparable active/passive choice nodes for other specs/classes? And…
-
So what?
People have said that same thing for years, but it hasn’t necessarily been the case. There were plenty of passives in Arcane, Fire and Frost, not to mention other classes, where the passive was significantly stronger than the other options. This is both before, and after, the new talent trees. Probably the best example of this was Frost - where there were so many passive talents that boosted damage and the active talents were so massively undertuned that it was a dps loss to run them.
That said even if the active talent does have to be stronger (and literally no one is asking for UI to be stronger than SKB), there’s no reason the passive has to be that far behind. ROP was the classic example, where because of the gap between it and alternatives, it was actively a 10-20% loss not to pick it and as such it was getting near 100% play. Had IF been within 5% of the gains from ROP, it would not have seen even close to that level of play.
Why not allow something like SKB to still be the strongest option, but UI to be not that far behind it to the point where the only ones who will realistically notice are the sweaties pushing for 90+ parses in Mythic.
1 Like
I agree. Like a 5 percent diff or something
Is that still the case? I haven’t messed with Frost this expansion so I honestly don’t know.
I don’t think I said anyone was. But neither should it be equal.
This actually is a good example of why there needs to be a distinction. ROP was only 10-20% better than IF if played perfectly. Players who couldn’t use ROP consistently well would actually have done better taking the passive choice. Theorycrafting and sims are all well and good but they assume proper play.
Again I’m not dissing the passives. ROP could be annoying to use and I begrudged no one who just didn’t want to bother, which sometimes was me. But I also think there should be a price for making that choice.
No doubt. But that wouldn’t necessarily have been a good thing. Again I think the difference needs to be meaningful or players will simply default to the path of least resistance. I don’t think that’s good design.
In ROP’s case I think they did the right thing just scrapping it altogether.
C’mon man. The learning curve on SKB isn’t that high, especially now that they extended the buff duration. I’m not and never will be a “sweatie pushing 90+ parses in Mythic” and neither are most players. But SKB is very accessible even to the casual player, as I definitely am. I maintain that UI isn’t meant to be comparable. It’s there for when SKB isn’t needed, like when you’re just putzing around doing dailies or whatever. Where is it written that every option has to have raid utility?
With that said, if hard casting Pyro isn’t fun to you even in raids, that’s fine. But that should be a meaningful choice.
Eh, I have fun with UI in my heroic guild. Sure, if you’re pushing mythic, SKB is the way to go, but for the majority of the player base, UI is fine as-is.
Mistclique is my mage. Usually have purple parses, whatever that’s worth. I also run Hypothermia, because I like to go brrr.
I’ll say it again, but I (personally) wish that UI added some additional gameplay element outside of Combust, however minor. I get that it’s supposed to be the S1 SL minute-mage and that a lot of people are into that, but some additional flair to make every other minute slightly more engaging wouldn’t be so terrible. I dunno, something like building up stacks that shoot out a flame cone / Gpyro type thing when you hit Combust (thereby actually unleashing an inferno)?
a 10% dps loss is so large that running it is actively trolling. That gap is too big. We can tighten that up and make it so that situationally you choose skb or unleashed inferno.
I don’t know about other specs. And it matters because this talent was supposed to provide variety against the same talent build we’ve run for 4 consecutive tiers with no variation in any content. This was a stated goal of the rework. They failed getting any competition or variety whatsoever for skb entirely because of tuning
1 Like
Yeah that. Make the gap 3-5% at most.
SKB fire even in the post rework game is one of the most difficult specs in the game. It is no longer the most difficult, but saying it isn’t hard is very naive. Mechanically doing it is simple, but doing it well is still very hard.
You run hyperthermia and time anamoly with UI. These provide exactly that.
1 Like
I’ll take your word for it. I won’t pretend I’m an expert in other classes or specs, or even Fire Mage for that matter. I don’t find SKB to be onerously challenging, but I’m also an average player at best that raids with an uber casual guild and I’m fine with that. Do I play Fire well enough to succeed at the Mythic level? Maybe not. I’ll likely never know and again I’m fine with that. With all that said. I maintain that making an “easier” build of Fire on par with the so-called “meta” build isn’t a good idea.
Leaving spec and class and all other factors aside, just a general question: shouldn’t a “harder” build’s potential be greater? Commensurate with the degree of difficulty? That’s gotta be a yes, right?
And then if we accept your premise that SKB Fire is one of the most difficult specs to play well, shouldn’t its potential reflect that? If the difference between UI and SKB was only noticeable to a min-max player as has been suggested here, what incentive would there be to learn and improve while using the harder build?
1 Like
You are right that when two specs fill the same niche the more difficult one should do more dps. You would be wrong if you said that SKB and UI fill the same niche. UI does not affect flamestrike. If UI was buffed to be within a few percent of SKB in single target, you would have a situation where you would play skb in M+ because UI is not meant for aoe while you played both SKB and UI in raid depending on the damage profile you wanted.
By simply making the hardest spec the best in all content, you’ve reduced an entire talent tree down to one talent. That is a problem. It has been a problem for fire for 4 tiers running. UI should be buffed to a place where you have to make a conscious choice between them in single target. This would provide fire with much needed variety while keeping SKB in the majority use case despite its increased difficulty for little gain. You would have a healthier and more diverse fire spec suddenly.
Buffing UI isn’t even difficult. Change it to 75% increased damage in combust. Alternatively, remove the CDR and change it to 100% damage increased. Either of these would put UI in a place near enough to SKB to be competitive but not the best if played well in ST.
I have to say that’s a refreshingly well reasoned reply for this place.
What you’re saying has merit but I’m still not on board with giving a passive that much power, at least not in a vacuum. I hear what you’re saying about providing a conscious choice and I’d be more inclined to agree with that if there were some fights in which UI is the clear leader and others where SKB is. Not sure that’s the case this tier, although again with the grain of salt that my current guild does content where I could probably throw darts at the talent tree and play by headbutting the keyboard and still do okay.
There is nothing inherently wrong with “set it and forget it” type talents or builds, and you’re right that different builds should have different niches. I think UI has its niche now, which is non-group content. I know you’d prefer a different niche for it and that’s a perfectly valid opinion. If they want to buff UI’s burst and then build some encounters that take advantage of that (such that SKB would be a clear liability) I’d have no problem with that.
1 Like