Almost everything else with this spec feels really good. I really like Fire. It has solid dynamic mechanics overall, but the base spell Fireball feels like Im hitting breaks while driving a car for no reason.
Another thing is Flamestrike which feels kinda clunky. Think both Fireball and Flamestrike should have baseline dot too that is not tied to Mastery.
Also really glad we get some decent snares back in Shadowlands. If I get access to Cone Of Cold too someday and Fireball feels little less unrewarding to cast Fire will infinitely remain my favourite spec.
Maybe tone down Fireblast damage and put more damage to Fireball. Now it feels like flying dying ember.
Fireball dmg is because of the current meta build, fire is traditionally a crit spec which puts a bit more into it. The whole thing is going to feel very different in 9.0.
How is it going to feel any different in exception of adding Phoenix Flames baseline which we press when we want to spread dot damage, which requires addon to track the highest possible Ignite, which is a clear design mistake already?
You wont need an addon, you’d just pump everything into it then pf. Anyway I meant with low secondaries, no azerite traits, no essences and no corruption… the different between fire from 8.0 to now is huge, it’ll be a different spec in shadowlands.
Yeah, it’s Blizzard’s fault, when Legion dropped the cast time was doubled from 2 to 4 seconds. It was okay at the time because Flamestrike had a lot going for it: -
50% snare (currently 20%)
World in Flames PvP talent reduced the cast time by 2.5 secs and increased the damage by 30% (currently 1.25 secs and 20% damage)
Blue Flame Special trait - 15% damage buff (removed)
Phoenix Flames was baseline for extra Hot Streak procs (currently a talent that no one uses).
Aftershocks trait - casts itself again at the same location 1 second later at 20% power (removed)
Flame Patch lasted for 15 seconds (currently 8 secs) - this was totally broken and led to people using Flamestrike + patch on ST fights.
As you can see, the cast time remains the same but everything else that made the spell feel powerful has either been nerfed over the duration of Legion or outright removed with BFA, with 0 replacements.
It was definitely originally 15 seconds, but I think you’re right, they nerfed it’s duration so that no one bothered with it, then buffed it’s damage so that it was broken OP, before nerfing its damage again so that it was just average.
The first nerf to flamepatch happened in the prepatch, I think. People with that Archimonde trinket which spawned flamestrikes upon fireblasting were doing crazy-high damage, so they felt the need to tone it down by a lot.
That trinket was mad. Even after the nerf, it made the first half of Legion leveling incredibly fast, but then it sucked so hard as it gradually nerfed itself the closer you got to cap .
I seem to remember that it also drained mana like mad because the Flamestrikes weren’t free for some reason.
Because fireball is garbage. Its a filler spell to proc pyro.
You do a 1.75 sec cast to get 10k damage hit at ilvl 475.
Its also not even worth to hardcast pyro because its garbage as well, and waste of time if its not instant.
Its so lame.
I hate that blizz built this entire spec around combustion.
A newb mage will do 20k dps on gear that could allow for 100k dps, because the newb mage doesnt know when to fireblast to proc a pyro, and just casts 10k fireballs and uses fireblast on cooldown.
They didn’t. The current playstyle was made by players searching for the best dps they could get from an underpowered spec. It was an accident of azerite traits, essences and overpowered items. Traditional fire is a crit spec which puts a lot more power into standard rotation and less into combustion.
That being said there are 3 builds for fire mage atm. ‘Minute mage’ is build around giving you a combustion every min and the 100% crit build is the newest which is so not about combustion you play IF.
100%crit build is not even 100%crit, and it is subpar to mastery.
Dont know what you are even trying to prove with ‘minute mage’, when the entire style relies on getting combustion more often.
It was an accident of azerite traits, essences and overpowered items.
Accident? Considering how much more powerful it is than any phoenix flames spec i am pretty sure it wasnt an accident, but bad design.
Also, I see you are playing frost? well i hope you enjoy playing it even though its considerably worse to fire.
100% crit build is indeed 100% crit, you also have unlimited movement. It is maybe a little behind the mastery builds and there’s less burst but it still pretty new. Preheat has a vid on it, you should check it out. It was doing great dmg in raid. Personally I don’t enjoy managing BM stacks.
Yeah minute mage is about combustion more often but its less about the one big combustion.
Pheonix flames spec? Pheonix flames has nothing to do with combustion. Although if you mean BM killed that talent row your absolutely right. OP azerite traits killed loads of stuff on different specs.
I play fire and frost, been playing so much fire lately it’s nice to mix it up. Don’t be fooled into thinking frost is weak just because fire is op. 3 flash freeze, a couple of on use trinkets and all the mastery from your fire set and those glacials do insane dmg. Try it out in KR, it’s better than fire in there!
I struggle to see how is that a bad thing. It shows that the spec requires skill to play and there’s almost always room to improve, unlike with, say, demon hunters.
it means if you are unlucky with crits as a pro-mage u are actually doing 20k dps probably even dipping to even 10k dps during the fireball spree with no crits because the whole spec is one rng fiesta outside of combustion.
Enhanced Pyrotechnics gives Fireball an additional 10% critical strike chance each time it fails to crit
Forgive the bolds it was copy and pasted. My base crit is about 30-40% just from fire’s base crit, neck and cloak. The odds of going past 4 fireballs without criting are huuuge!
Also i reckon fireballing a target and nothing else does over 30k dps, don’t forget about ignite off it.
You should try playing frost and waiting for brain freeze.
.