It’s such a bad design that they nerf a talent (which will stay in it’s form for years) because they are adding a trinket that will last one tier.
They buffed it for 9.0. This nerf reverts it how it was in 8.3.
Also I think they removed that trinket.
I get your point, but why would we need 5-6 more ilvls (at least, and god knows how gear is this xpac) to get back the same damage and play style we have now ? Just feels wrong.
Fire was already Middle of the pack single target. Now the only reason to pick it is m+, plus its high tankiness and int buff.
I guess its because how combustion works. Since combustion can be used for single target or AoE, nerfing IC and Kindling affected ST as well.
How would you address the extreme AoE damage output without touching ST damage? And no, i believe that if you buff pyroblasts base damage would break PvP into pieces.
copium much
We won’t get combustion back to 60s this patch without hero or PI. Just do the math.
During combust we get 14 crits, that’s 21 seconds cd restored with old kindling. Sum it up with dotg for around 20 seconds. We then have around 48 seconds to get the remaining 19. 19/1.5 it’s around 12.6. So we have 48 seconds to score 13 crits to get combust to 1 min cd.
Now with nerfs from combustions we get same 14 crits, so 14 seconds of cdr. A bit less from dotg too cause the fireblasts will only restore 1 seconds instead of 1,5, but let’s leave it at 20.
So we have 48 seconds to reduce cd for 60-14-20=26. That means we need to score 26 crits in 48 seconds that’s more than double the crits we need now.
So even with more crit I don’t see it happening. Remember we also have diminishing returns now so we can’t just stack crit.
Revert all nerfs except flamestrike/Flame Patch damage
You’re welcome
Well this expansion Fire Mage is using different abilities for AOE and ST, so it’s actually extremely simple to nerf AOE without touching ST. They can nerf AOE without touching combustion simply by nerfing Flamestrike.
Also, the following changes were made for Arms Warrior:
- Mortal Strike damage increased by 10% in non-PvP situations.
- Deep Wounds damage increased by 10% in non-PvP situations.
So Blizzard are clearly able to nerf/buff abilities for PVE only without changing anything in PVP. So your argument that buffing pyroblast for PVE would break PVP is just not valid.
I mean, it’s not difficult for Blizzard to realize this was waaaaaaay too much of an overkill. Look on warcraftlogs, fire mage this week is basically the last spec or one of the last specs of all, by a very good margin. If this goes live for the mythic week I think it is clear to everybody that Blizz doesn’t care about the balance of the game, this is astonishing and irritating.
TBH, it is clear like the sun that the spec needed a capped AOE or a nerf to AOE but definitely not this. Investing in a char and a spec for 8 months and then this is so frustrating.
Frost and Arcane are not bad, this doesn’t mean that they are justified in destroing the “ok” side of a decent spec in raid, because of m+ op-ness
The issue here is Infernal Cascade, which amplifies both single target and AoE, so touching it in any way will affect both single target and AoE.
Perhaps they could have went with buffing either pyro directly, or buffing the conduit for it to increase its potency, but I have a feeling that they want to let the spec keep its niche, which is on demand, relatively low CDish good bursts, while they are lackluster outside of cooldowns.
Again, they could easily have nerfed Fire Mage AOE without touching ST by nerfing Flame Strike only. It’s not a complex problem.
The problem is that Flamestrike hits hard on its own because it is supposed to be a long casted spell. 55% of Spell Power means that with current gear stats and without ANY multiplier it hits for arround 1k (non crit) on every enemy. If you add Infernal cascade (226ilvl 28% damage increase) RoP (40% spell power increase) + any on use trinket you might have and the fact that you have 100% crit chance it means that every single target inside your flamestrike is hit by an absurd damage. I think i’ve seen videos of fire mages hitting 9-10k per mob with flamestrike.
Clearly that needs to be toned down. Can they nerf RoP? I guess not because its a talent that is shared to both other specs. If they only nerf Flamestrike’s base damage by 10% as you suggest it wont change much. Personaly i beleive that not even current nerfs will be enough to tone down the AoE damage.
Anyway, its really hard, to nearly impossible, to balance fire mage’s AoE damage without touching ST damage simply because the things that makes AoE damage absurd (Combustion, Infernal Cascade, RoP) are shared with all of ST abilities.
They can just make dimishing return on Flame Strike. It’s not that difficult. Or change Flame Strike so it’s a target ability and make it hit all other mobs in range for 30-50% of the target damage. This would also allow Fire mage to have some priority damage during AOE.
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What do you mean by DR? First cast full damage second cast 50% third cast 25% damage?
So primary taget gets hit for 9-10k damage and all others for 4,5-5k. It would still be 10 times more damage than the average AoE spell of all other classes. I think you really can’t understand how powerfull combustion+Infernal Cascade+RoP is.
Unless they change something between Combustion or Infernal Cascade, there is absolutely no other way to tone down AoE damage of fire mage.
My personal suggestion would be that the 100% critical chance of combustion would exclude flamestrike. That way Flamestrike will have normal crit chance and i think the overal damage of AoE would be significantly lower. Without touching ST damage ofc which i also beleive it would rather see a buff than a nerf 
No I mean by the number of targets hit by Flame Strike.
What are you on about… If they made Flame Strike hit for 50 % on secondary targets it would practically be almost a 50 % nerf to Flame Strike compared to 9.0. That would be a huge AOE nerf and it would definitely not do 10 times more damage than other classes/specs. Have you seen the damage that WW Monk, Frost Mage, Destro lock etc. can dish out?
It would be a 50% damage nerf to the BASE damage of flamestrike. As i already said, the absurd damage comes from combustion, infernal cascade and rop.
I do play a frost mage so ye, i kinda know how much aoe they can dish out. Most classes can do arround 18-20k dps. Where fire mages and boomkins can go 40k+
Monks can do alot as well but not on every pull like mages
Mate… if you nerf the Base damage by 50 % then you also nerf damage with combust + ROP + IC by 50%.
The damage from combust + ROP + IC is based on a percentage of the base damage so if you reduce the base damage by a factor 2 then you also reduce the end value by a factor 2.
The problem is IC, we didn’t need another way to funnel power into combustion. Unless they change it fire is going to be so hard to balance in all content.
Pulls will be bigger this patch in m+ with the dungeon changes, fire can still shine in m+. Maybe a big dmg buff to fireball can help things out.
Simply buff Pyro and Fireblast damage. But honestly I’d just revert kindling nerf.
IC and flamestrike nerf are enough to make fire in line with other good specs in m+.
In raids fire was never op. The timings and fights were just very well suited to it in Nathria.
Doesn’t appear to be the case in SoD.