Current State:
In 10.0.7, Fire mage is not in a bad place overall. We exist in our niche of virtually unlimited AOE, with the incredibly powerful ability to do so with zero loss to our ST profile. The issue with this is that it is very limiting, particularly in the content the majority of mages aim to play in. Blizzard cannot allow us to have unreigned ST, as our AOE would increase in parallel to broken extents. While this is fine at a higher level of content, for mages just entering the end-game of Dragonflight are becoming rapidly discouraged at their ability to keep up in the very front loaded meta that exists.
This is amplified by the continued homogenization of the mage damage profiles. The addition of Sun King’s Blessing to our talent tree forced Blizzard to tune our damage around an increased uptime of combustion- what was previously a powerful cooldown window on a one to two minute cooldown, has become a lackluster pseudo-uptime dependant cycle where we are forced into farming our next SKB, to reduce the CD on Combust, to build towards the next SKB ad nauseam. This results in a much flatter profile, more akin to a Frost mage than any previous iteration of Fire. Napkin math says it takes a Fire mage ~27 seconds to get off a full ‘burst’- that is, a Combust into Sun King’s Blessing, and the ~9 seconds for ignite to tick down.
In higher content, this isn’t an issue. We have time to complete that sequence, and begin building towards our next SKB to bring into the next pack (while also reducing the CD on combust). In the content the majority of players complete, this is crippling- they never finish their ‘burst’, they don’t have time to build and chain, and they’re punished numerically for this. In some form, all three mages suffer this way- Arcane can’t complete a burn, Frost loses uptime and drops Icy Veins.
Issues:
I’ll preface this by saying: I am aware a meta will always exist. There will always be an optimal talent or equipment option for a specific scenario.
a) In its current state, Sun King’s Blessing is a mandated talent to be competitive, in every single situation. We are tuned around this, and thus must play it. SKB is restrictive;
it forces management of stacks on a relatively unforgiving timer. When the eighth stack is procced, we have 15 seconds to hard-cast a pyroblast and activate the buff before it is lost. Losing it creates a cascading effect where you are stuck in filler longer, rebuilding a new SKB while attempting to Kindle a new combust. A Fire mage in filler is the equivalent of a car without an engine; we do less damage than a Restoration Shaman.
Similar buffs do not expire or have much lengthier periods for use; see Arcane’s Harmony stacks, Balance’s Pulsar, or Destro’s Ritual of Ruin.
-A simple fix to this situation is to make SKB a choice node with a Infernal Cascade style talent; choose burst vs flat.
b) Because we are taking Sun King’s Blessing, we also take Pyroclasm. In Shadowlands, Pyroclasm was on a talent tier where it’s competing option was Kindling. We now have both of these accessible at the same time. This results in A) Lower combust timings; B) More frequent hardcasting; C) Again, a flatter overall profile. When these talents were essentially a choice node, mages made a choice: do you want a burstier 2 minute profile, or a slightly more flat profile with a smaller combust every 60-70 seconds.
-Once again, the solution is to introduce a choice node with Kindling vs Pyroclasm; choose burst vs flat damage.
c) A single build: With the exception of Fevered Incantation, the entire right side of the talent tree is so woefully under-tuned as to never be selected, no matter the target count or damage profile required. To get a functional Flamestrike, you not only have to spend the talent point for Flamestrike, but an additional two points to take Improved Flamestrike and Flamepatch. This means we must forgo a substantial amount of Single Target and general functionality talents like Flame On and Critical Mass; which in theory is fine. However, current tuning of Ignite vs a Flamestrike build means we lose damage in both AoE and ST doing so. The remainder of the talents on the right side may as well not exist. We can’t drop additional talents without completely neutering our already lackluster Single Target damage. A single Living Bomb does roughly the equivalent damage of a an Arcane Explosion or Ice Nova, on a 12 second cooldown.
Timewarp: An homage to the Legiondary, Timewarp is an incredibly powerful spell. It’s positioning below Greater Invisibility; our single strongest personal defensive, makes it all but mandatory. On fights where Bloodlust is used on pull, all three mages are able to fully capitalize on this power. However; any encounter designed to encourage a later bloodlust will hamstring this ability. A simple fix of adding an additional keybinding to trigger a personal Timewarp (without effecting the group) would solve this, however I am personally against being tuned around a 5 minute cooldown.
Shifting Power: A battered and tarnished version of it’s former self, only taken because the other option of Meteor is laughable at best. This talent should have died with the Jailer- it does not fit the class fantasy, and any fond memories of it are quickly extinguished by the fact it is the base, unconduited, legendary-less version of its former self.
Cauterize as a talent: Fire mages are now having to choose to spec into their defensive. Which would be fine, if it was in the Class tree like Greater Invisibility. Our Specialization tree is already over crowded and with limited choice. Make it a choice node with GI, make it baseline, whatever; it needs to be out of the Spec tree.
10.1 Tier:
Numerically, the 10.1 Fire mage tier is strong. Early sims place it somewhere in the 12-14% range, a large increase over the 10.0 set. It’s play style however is extremely punishing. It adds two additional buffs on a timer to be tracked (In addition to SKB, Pyroclasm, and FtB). This makes Fire MUCH more difficult to play: again, not an issue to competitive players, but it further increases the skill gap for the average Wow player.
I’m just a dude, but I don’t want to be a maintenance spec. I want to be the bursty, combusting glass cannon.