Hello all. In the recent PTR they nerfed Fire Mage Tier 4 set bonus from 100% to 50% recharge rate bonus to FB and PF. While the nerf itself maybe was warranted, it is definitely overkill:
Without Tier 4 during Combustion (14s duration with Tier 2 bonus) you get 1 additional Fire Blast (8s CD with 25% Haste) and 0 additional Phoenix Flames (25s CD)
With pre-nerf bonus during Combustion you can potentially get 3 Fire Blasts (4s CD with 25% Haste) and 1 Phoenix Flame (12.5s CD) which all can be used to proc Hot Streak. The bonus was powerful, but it was also compensated with 28% of your maximum health loss during Combustion.
With post-nerf bonus during Combustion you get 2 Fire Blasts (5.33s CD with 25% Haste) and 0 Phoenix Flames (16.7s CD), so you only get 1 additional FB + Pyroblast combo and pay 14% of your maximum health for that.
However, this still seems too big of a nerf. I’d suggest to partially revert / reduce it so that you receive more power bonus than just 1 additional Fire Blast + Pyroblast combo for losing 14% of your maximum health or remove the burn damage. What do you think about the nerf? Also, please try keep the thread constructive.
EDIT: They removed the burn damage so that at least the set bonus is less arguable. Cheers!
While that could be useful, losing 14-28% of your health passively was still usually more harmful than useful.
Either way, I think the bonus should still be buffed. For some reason, they even nerfed it in PVP (to 0.6 multiplier), which is strange. I understand that 50% increased CDR of Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames sounds scary, but what it actually does is just adds 1 FB + Pyro combo closer to the second half of Combustion when it is often already CCed / purged. 2 point bonus is almost worthless for the same reason - when you reach 13th second of Combustion, in PVP it is usually already purged / CCed / LoSed etc. Phoenix CDR also makes little sense to me as it adds zero additional PF during Combustion as you would still prefer to start it with all 3 charges ready and 30-50% CDR increase is still not enough to recharge even one of them while Combustion is active, so PF CDR should be buffed.
Additionally, to receive these arguable bonuses you would need to sacrifice 3 Haste / Versa items (as tier items would get their PVE secondary stats which are usually Crit / Haste or something like that) making your Combustion goes weaker to make it longer duration and get 1 additional FB + Pyro closer to the second half of it. This by itself makes 2-4 tier set very arguable in PVP, especially with the mentioned nerf. If their goal is to make Tier useful both for PVE and PVP, they should revert the PVP nerf and buff Phoenix Flames CDR and / or put Haste / Versatility on several more Tier set items.
They need to make PF interesting in the first place. Right now (for me at least from a pvp pov) it’s a “last resort” type of spell. I get zero satisfaction when I use it and the Ignite spread is just meh. The travel time is quite slow, so I’d rather it was 1 or 2 casts, and it did something exciting with that name. So much potential and possibilities…some examples:
The ground at which it travels is engulfed in flame. Blinking along this rout empowers and resets DB without disorientating
The further it travels the more potent it becomes and the stronger the ignite spread.
Gain an enhance to PB
Something to do with Flame Wind (stackable?) which burns target travelling towards you
etc etc etc…
It’s lazy design. Tbh I feel the same about Meteor, just not interesting enough
Phoenix Flames was much better when it was a guaranteed crit. In PVP it could be helpful as it would give you an additional tool to create Hot Streak procs outside of Combustion and help with Fire’s sustained damage. I would gladly take it back even if that means that it would need to get slightly lower damage and 30s CD back as it was earlier.
Maybe they actually should change it to a guaranteed crit in 10.0 even for PVE sake as Shifting Power will be gone and there won’t be a Combustion ready for almost every pack, so Fire Mage might start struggling with AoE output and PF crits for Hot Streak / damage output would help to address that issue.
