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My rant about fire mages
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Post by
344551
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
delani
I've been having loads of fun with mah pyromanical gnome mage in PvP over the last few days. I haven't been too disappointed with Hot Streak, but I was thinking that instead of relying on 2 consequetive crits, either scorch/fireball hits/crits could give you a buff (1 stack per scorch, 2 or 3 per fireball) that when stacked a enough times gives Hot Streak.
You mean, what the current t3 hot streak does now? The math on it basically says that when your under 34% crit, any other fire spell you cast has an increased chanced to give you that instant pyro blast. Over 34% and that chance drops, but the t4 hot streak goes up. Once you hit i think its like 45% crit, the t3 hot streak doesn't proc at all, but the t4 hot streak procs quite a bit more.
There are ways to force a hot streak proc, you just have to ignore elitist jerks, and grab improved fire blast. 8% crit on an instant cast spell that can proc hot streak will give you MUCH more instant pyros then burning soul will save you on spell pushback, especially if you have a pally healer in your heroic/raid giving you concentration aura.
Also, ALWAYS make sure critical mass is up, have fireball, molten armor AND pyroblast glyphed, and you'll be golden. RNG is still RNG, but there are plenty of ways to make it work in your favor. If you can't get to 45% crit, but your getting like 36% crit, you may be better off swapping crit out for haste, so that the t3 hot streak procs more often then the t4 procs and you'll get more instant pyros, plus the haste softcaps adds another tick to your DoTs, so your DPS will increase that way.
Post by
storyr
You seem to forget that EJ is giving advice for raids. Feel free to Fireblast your little head off in heroics all you want. But if on raid bosses you are using fireblast for anything other than cleaving dots, you're retarded.
Post by
delani
You seem to forget that EJ is giving advice for raids. Feel free to Fireblast your little head off in heroics all you want. But if on raid bosses you are using fireblast for anything other than cleaving dots, you're retarded.
Explain exactly how its retarded? I'm not saying use ONLY fire blast, i'm saying an additional 8% crit is a pretty nice way to get more pyroblasts, especially in lower quality gear, which is what the entry raid gear is.
Movement fights, fire blast has more crit then scorch, so you might as well use it, in addition to scorch especially if an unavoidable AoE is coming up (which DBM will tell you) that will cause spell push back. A global cooldown spent getting a pyroblast proc instead of spent dealing with spell pushback seems like a much better idea. Scorch is free, but does less damage then fire blast, and has a lower crit chance assuming you picked up improved fire blast. And we all know crit is what makes a fire mage happy.
If your gonna complain about RNG hating you, yet your going to throw away 8% additional crit, which can be use to get more free pyroblasts, then maybe, just maybe elitist jerks isn't something you want to follow.
Post by
storyr
lol, are you actually serious?
Let's look at the math here.
Fireblast
21% of bast mana
Improved Scorch
0% of base mana
Mana = dps, every bit of mana you save by scorching on the move means more fireballs, more fireballs means more DPS.
21% of base mana PER Fireblast in order to HOPE for a crit to proc HS while you're NOT spreading dots is retarded. There is no argument here. It's not about whether or not EJ thinks it's correct, it's about a mage (me) who has gone through all the current raid content trying to tell another mage in non-heroic dungeon gear (that's you) that he is wrong.
Post by
delani
Improved Scorch can also proc clear casting, which it can't burn off, and even the EJ spec's are saying 1 point in arcane concentration is a DPS increase.
So, you use your clear casting procs on fire blast... Mana issue solved. Clear casting is a 40% chance per spell on a 15 second Internal cooldown, even with 1 point put in the talent...
And fireblast does more damage then scorch, with a higher crit.
more damage = DPS
higher crit = DPS
Higher chance for hot streak = DPS
Again, why is it retarded?
Post by
Magnerz
Fireball vs Fireblast - which SHOULD you use on an arcane concentration proc?
Hint: It's not fireblast
Post by
storyr
Again, you're argument about clearcasting is completely moot.
You wouldn't burn a clearcasting proc on a Fireblast JUST because you happen to be moving. You burn it on a Fireball when you stop moving...
Post by
Magnerz
Delani, I see what you are trying to say, but the truth of the matter is, it has been proven to be a DPS loss.
The mana is simply better spent on a fireball.
If you know for a fact you will have extra mana left at the end of a fight, by all means use fireblast > scorch, but at current levels of gear its unlikely you will be able to chain cast fireball for the duration of a fight.
Post by
delani
Delani, I see what you are trying to say, but the truth of the matter is, it has been proven to be a DPS loss.
The mana is simply better spent on a fireball.
If you know for a fact you will have extra mana left at the end of a fight, by all means use fireblast > scorch, but at current levels of gear its unlikely you will be able to chain cast fireball for the duration of a fight.
Where has it been proven to be a DPS loss? While, the mana is better spent on a fireball, due to fireball having a higher spell co-efficient then fire blast, with the changes on the PTR, fireball is dropping down to 9% base mana, which will make fireball chaining pretty much a no brainer for non movement based fights.
Which leaves open mana to spend on fire blast during movement fights to take advantage of the higher crit rate that Improved Fire Blast would give, especially with Master of Elements refunding 1/3 of the mana cost of a crit, and hot streak pretty much being based on crit and crit alone.
Again, I'm not saying to only use fire blast, im just saying if you need to fish for a hot streak proc, improved fire blast is the way to do it, as the talent gives such a high value of crit, which stacks with everything else. Fireball, even glyphed still has 3% LESS crit then improved fire blast.
Now, if your able to chain fireball and manage to have enough hot streak procs to keep critical mass and the pyroblast DoT up all the time, then my point is moot, but with so many threads, and so many people complaining about RNG, the cheap easy solution is to just use all available crit, which includes improved fire blast.
The reason Burning Soul is so valuable (at lest according to EJ) is that pushback is such an issue in raid encounters that having the 70% reduction is pretty much required. If you just use scorch with its quick casting, and fire blast which is instant cast during those things where pushback would be an issue, then you'll even up with higher crit rates overall, which could lead to higher hot streak procs, and in turn up your DPS. Especially if your fireballs keep getting pushed back.
In my 'Burning Soul' thread Archibolt pointed out that burning soul was basically saving him 2 fireballs, due to the reduction in pushback. If he would have just used a scorch->fireblast instead he would have suffered 0 push back, and could have gotten a pyroblast proc out of it, which is the main reason fire has such high DPS to begin with, instant cast, free pyroblasts.
Post by
storyr
Frankly, I am done trying to be delicate with you. If your gear level is any reflection of you as a player, which in cata seems to be 10x more true than it was in Wrath, then no one should be taking advice from you.
On top of it you have hard time understanding simple math (MANA DIFFERENTIAL/DPS LOSS). 21% of base mana and a global cooldown...THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO MAKE YOU REALIZE IT'S A STUPID IDEA.
In a raid environment you don't fish for hotstreak procs, you follow a rotation (which currently excludes Fireblast to output maximum DPS), if HS procs yaay for you, if it doesn't, bummer. I understand that you don't ONLY use Fireblast but once again that's completely moot to your argument. You don't need pyroblast to keep critical mass up, you throw a scorch in if you don't get a HS proc for 30 seconds. Quit trying to make something that is inherently simple into something way more complicated.
You are not a theorycrafter, if you were, instead of asking us to show you numbers you would have run them in a sim yourself and came to us with PROOF that it was better. Just because you THINK something works better for you does not make it so.
Again, since I am done being delicate, you are nothing new. Mages in bad gear who have never seen more than the first two bosses of any raid until they well outgear it show up all the time spouting off about how THEY think something is better because it makes more sense to THEIR individual play style. They come around and say "Don't listen to the guys at EJ because they have no idea what they're talking about" and blah blah blah, like you have any clue. You come in here talking about raids like you have experience, hell you barely have cata heroic dungeon experience.
When it boils down to it, the people on here that you're trying to convince are people that could care less about dps increases in heroic dungeons because we're doing raid bosses where everything changes. Experience matters, I don't need to run numbers about Fireblast in an attempt to humor you because I can guarantee you that using it in a raid encounter is a dps loss due to its high base mana cost. The ONLY time it becomes a DPS increase is if you are cleaving DOTs.
Do 10 people need to disagree with you for you to wrap your head around the simple concept we are trying to explain to you? I am not sure what needs to happen here for you to realize that Fireblast in a raid environment IS A DPS LOSS IF YOU ARE NOT CLEAVING DOTS.
Post by
Zakkhar
Cba discussing this. If 10 people need to back storyr on this, add me to the list.
Add
them
too.
Post by
delani
Frankly, I am done trying to be delicate with you. If your gear level is any reflection of you as a player, which in cata seems to be 10x more true than it was in Wrath, then no one should be taking advice from you.
On top of it you have hard time understanding simple math (MANA DIFFERENTIAL/DPS LOSS). 21% of base mana and a global cooldown...THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO MAKE YOU REALIZE IT'S A STUPID IDEA.
In a raid environment you don't fish for hotstreak procs, you follow a rotation (which currently excludes Fireblast to output maximum DPS), if HS procs yaay for you, if it doesn't, bummer. I understand that you don't ONLY use Fireblast but once again that's completely moot to your argument. You don't need pyroblast to keep critical mass up, you throw a scorch in if you don't get a HS proc for 30 seconds. Quit trying to make something that is inherently simple into something way more complicated.
You are not a theorycrafter, if you were, instead of asking us to show you numbers you would have run them in a sim yourself and came to us with PROOF that it was better. Just because you THINK something works better for you does not make it so.
Again, since I am done being delicate, you are nothing new. Mages in bad gear who have never seen more than the first two bosses of any raid until they well outgear it show up all the time spouting off about how THEY think something is better because it makes more sense to THEIR individual play style. They come around and say "Don't listen to the guys at EJ because they have no idea what they're talking about" and blah blah blah, like you have any clue. You come in here talking about raids like you have experience, hell you barely have cata heroic dungeon experience.
When it boils down to it, the people on here that you're trying to convince are people that could care less about dps increases in heroic dungeons because we're doing raid bosses where everything changes. Experience matters, I don't need to run numbers about Fireblast in an attempt to humor you because I can guarantee you that using it in a raid encounter is a dps loss due to its high base mana cost. The ONLY time it becomes a DPS increase is if you are cleaving DOTs.
Do 10 people need to disagree with you for you to wrap your head around the simple concept we are trying to explain to you? I am not sure what needs to happen here for you to realize that Fireblast in a raid environment IS A DPS LOSS IF YOU ARE NOT CLEAVING DOTS.
So, getting more instant pyroblats is a DPS lost, when pyroblast has the highest co-efficient of any spell available to a mage?
While following a rotation IS the best option, sometimes (like in movement fights) that is not an option. During spell lockout periods, it is not an option, during times where you are suffering large amounts of spell pushback, is it not an option.
Just because you looked up my armory and my current gear isn't raid gear doesn't mean i don't know what i'm talking about. The current gear level (even RAID GEAR) has lackluster crit, especially if you maintain your softcap on haste, and keep the cap on hit. Crit suffers for it, and the reason fire has the highest DPS currently is due to Pyroblast. Really, try to tell me otherwise. The reason mages are currently saying 'well, sometimes i do 8k, and other times i do 15k' is due to the RNG gods giving them more instant, free pyroblasts.
Mana = DPS only to the point where mana is an issue. We aren't arcane mages here, our mastery isn't based on our mana pool. And we're getting a MASSIVE buff on our main nuke (fireball) in the current PTR, where is going down to 9% base mana. Which leaves open a LOT of available mana. Which you can then use to spend on fire blast to get more pyroblast crits, thus increaseing your overall DPS, as pyroblast is the bread and butter of the higher end fire mage DPS.
So you don't have to be delicate. the math speaks for itself. 8% crit > 5% crit, and if you have the mana available, you might as well use it. Especially if your moving or about to be interrupted, as fire blast can not be interrrupted.
So keep making jabs about my gear, because we all know gear > skill right? Oh wait.. its not, thats why the term 'wrath baby' came from. The only difference between a heroic boss and a raid boss is increased HP and different mechanics. And those mechanics aren't too difficult to understand. Its not a totally different game, its just a bigger bag of hit points that has a new bag of tricks.
People are already saying that in higher gear levels scorch weaving isn't as required, and thats without the current PTR changes. This means people have more mana available to spend, which opens up the door to use fire blast to get more instant pyroblasts, as hot streak is based around crit. Heck, if you have the mana to spend what are you losing? a global cooldown? which with large amounts of haste is like 1 sec worth of time? possibly even lower? Your not going to lose much at all by throwing in a fire blast every now and again if you know it'll crit, and if your raid buffing to upwards of 40% crit on your stat sheet, then your really getting closer to 50% on the boss and if you throw another 8% on top of that your can pretty much count on getting a crit. Master of elements cuts the mana cost by 1/3 on a crit, so now that fire blast only cost you 14% base mana, and it just got you a free instant pyroblast, which boosts your DPS up even higher as already previously stated.
Post by
storyr
3% extra crit on a spell that does less damage that fireball anyway does not make losing a GCD or wasting 21% of base mana worth it.
Stop trying to argue about it, you're not helping yourself. We've been over this, the
ONLY
way fireblast is situationally better is if you are cleaving DOTs.
Is gear a sign of a good player? To an extent yes. Is your character history and raid achievements a sign of how far into raiding you've actually gotten? You're damn right it is. You are not a raider, no one gives a &*!@ about your opinion if you don't raid.
That's my point. You are wrong, stop arguing when you have no idea what you're talking about.
I don't care if
you
think it's better, there is solid proof that it IS NOT BETTER. So shut the hell up already. You are not creating some newly found information for mages that is going to revolutionize the way we play our class. As I said before, people like you sprout up every once in awhile thinking they're bringing something new to the table. You're not, this data has been analyzed and been gone over in the past and present of the best theorycrafting mages out there,
AND YOU ARE WRONG
Post by
delani
3% extra crit on a spell that does less damage that fireball anyway does not make losing a GCD or wasting 21% of base mana worth it.
Stop trying to argue about it, you're not helping yourself. We've been over this, the
ONLY
way fireblast is situationally better is if you are cleaving DOTs.
We
haven't been over this at all,
You
have just told me its been said before, but didn't link anywhere. I've gone over the Elitist Jerks site with a fine tooth comb. The fireblast question has been asked, but not answered, and the only mention of fire blast in the fire mage thread is about the increased range, not the application of the crit.
If the data isn't on elitist jerks, then where is it? Where has it been posted that Fire blast is a DPS lose, when it has a higher crit chance, thus an increased chance for hot streak, thus more pyroblasts, thus higher DPS.
Lets try some math shall we?
Fireball
is currently 16% base mana, (12% with the hotfix, 9% on the PRT) does 892-1136 damage base, and casts in 2.5 seconds base (haste can bring it lower, but not much below 2 seconds) and has to suffer from spell pushback. Its spell coefficient is 100% as of the last time it was checked, and i think it wasn't changed much in cata.
Glyphed this spell gets an inherent 5% crit.
Fireblast on the other hand does 21% base mana (a current difference of only 5% to fireball. the hot fix makes it a 9% different, and the PTR makes it a 12% difference) does 955-1131 damage, which is on par with what fireball can do at base and its instant cast, which means it only burns a GCD, which for a mage, especially during movement fights, what else are you going to burn it on? Its spell coefficient is 42.86% as of the last time it was checked, and again i think it wasn't changed much in cata.
With improved fireblast this spell can have the same range of fireball, and has 8% inherent crit.
Fireball would do more damage due to the spell coefficient being higher, but fire blast would do the damage faster, due to being instant cast, where fireball has a cast time. Fireball is affected by spellpush back and has the ability to be interrupted, where fireblast does not. Fireblast is limited by a 8 second (or is it 6) cooldown, so you can't spam it non stop like you can spam fireball.
Scorch costs 0 mana, but has a base cast time of 1.5, haste probably bringing that number down to about 1.0 and does 670-796 amount of damage at base. Due to its quick cast time, it also burns a GCD, but does quite abit less damage then fireblast. It to has a cast time thought, so it can be interrupted, and is affected by spell pushback.
It has no inherent crit values, but it can apply the critical mass debuff, which increases crit by 5% on the target. This debuff can also benefit both fireball and fireblast.
In the choice between fireball and fireblast, pick fireball, its going to crit for more damage, and unless you have an infinite amount of mana, its not worth the mana to use fireblast, unless you know for a fact it will crit (say ~70% crit on fire blast, where fireball would only be hitting ~60%) then its a gamble.
IF
fireblast crits, and fireball doesn't crit then its a DPS increase, due to pyroblast being used right away.
In the choice between fireblast and scorch, it would be more effective to weave fireblasts in with your scorches so that you overall crit will be increased. Even if your not cleaving DoTs. The amount of mana your saving on scorch and any inherent mp5 you gain while casting will more then make up for the mana spent on fireblast, and if fireblast does crit your refunded 1/3 (or 7% base mana) of its cost and get your instant pyroblast.
Your arguing that mana is so much of an issue that its not worth casting fire blast unless your cleaving DoTs, my arguement is that mana is not that much of an issue, and adding an additional 8% crit into your mobile rotation will increase your DPS over all.
Heck its even easy to prove. Stand in front of a target dummy and spam 400 scroches, which is about a 10 minute fight. Record the number of hot streaks you get. and the DPS you get.
Now do the same thing, but only cast about 350 scorchs, and 50 fire blasts, or 1 fireblast every 5 scorches, which should also be about 10 minutes. record the number of hot streaks you get, and the DPS you get. Also record how much mana you spend, as your actually spending mana now, compared to just spamming scorches.
Post by
storyr
Keep it up man, I am done explaining myself and the simple math to you.
The original discussion isn't about fireball, it's about using fireblast on the move vs using scorch on the move. Whether fireball or scorch you are still wrong.
Post by
delani
Keep it up man, I am done explaining myself and the simple math to you.
The original discussion isn't about fireball, it's about using fireblast on the move vs using scorch on the move. Whether fireball or scorch you are still wrong.
You mentioned fireball, and how using mana for fire blast is better spend on fireball. And I never mentioned using one or the other, I mentioned using both. Using scorch and fire blast on the move will get you far higher hot streak procs then not weaving fire blast at all, and it is about the same from a mp5 aspect, so mana isn't an issue.
Your saying its not, and its been proven. So prove it. Because I can go right now in my gear, and prove that I'll get far more hot streaks with fire blast then without it.
Plus achievements on one character does not a player make. Just FYI. But thank you for pointing out that my mage doesn't have all the achievements, because of course that means I (as a player) haven't done them...
Post by
752192
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
delani
Storyr and others haven't realy given any insight into how to improve my mages performance outside of 'Your doing it wrong, lrn2raid'
Which is fine a dandy, and completely expected. But the theory works. Mana is becoming a non issue for fire mages, thus mana is more available to use, and you might as well use it to get more crits, and when a spell has a higher crit chance then another, it will proc more crit based talents, such as hot streak.
Gear and achievements don't really matter when the math works out. Storyr's agruement is that mana is such of an issue that casting fire blast will be a DPS lose due to running OOM so quickly. With the changes on the PTR, and proper scorch weaving (which even Storyr has mentioned he doesn't need at higher gear levels) going OOM on a fire mage just won't happen anymore.
Once mana is a non-issue why not focus on improving your chances for hot streak, thus cycling in a fire blast once in awhile. Thats all I'm saying. Its not a 'all mages should do this because I'm a newb and I say so' Its 'The math supports this, assuming mana isn't a problem'
Post by
752192
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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