Fire Mages In Cataclysm

I have been playing around with a fire mage for some time now and i have yet to find any class/spec combo that can out do me in burst or sustained dps. This has lead me to belive that fire is now superior to the arcane spec.

I recently got into a DPS race with an equally if not better geared arcane mage, and i came 200-500 dps higher then they did after the instance was completed. On each boss my lead in total damage deal only increaced and by the end of the instance the REcount showed that i had 38.9% total damage dealt to the arcane mages 26.4%.

I have also noticed that in terms of dps the closest runner up is a Retribution paladin. Coming in within 100-200 dps at any given time.

So what i am wondering here is: Am i just that well speced and familiar with the new rotation that i can out dps most players sho are properly speced? Are the other players simply poorly geared/speced? Is it that fire has simply been made better then many other dps classes? Or is it that the dps range on the Fire mage is simply unbalanced against the current dps curve? And is fire the new raiding spec?

Now for the other point of this thread. I am also wondering:
Fire triggers most stuff off of critical hits: Is Crit my #1 non primary bonus after SP? And how much haste should i aim for with the spec considering that most of my spells in the rotation are instant or become instant.

Haste is important in order to get another tick of LB. The amount of haste you should go for depends on hiw close you are to gettinf another tick of LB.

That is interesting. But lifeblood does not "tick" any more it is a 5% haste boost when used. However i do have it. You seemed to have left out over half the thread. Haste is not as big when 5/6 spells in the rotation are 0.0 sec cast time. And you did not answer any of the questions other then the one pertaining to the importance of crit. As i said i am FIRE not ARCANE. About the only spell that i use that would require haste for any thing other then GCD is Scorch. And after that i don't use fireball or Frost fire bolt. I do still use combustion when i get a decent dot on a boss and living bomb whenever applicable.

LB = Living bomb. I'm sorry for the confusion. Haste now affects how often a DoT spell ticks. Fireball is still primary mage spell and will do more damage than any other spell. Fire is still very dependent on crit but the new Hot Streak talents mean its a lot less reliant on crit RNG. Whether crit is better than haste depends on how close you're getting to another LB tick.

Comparing yourself to others in a heroic matters very little. I would use that as a basis of how skilled or geared or specced you are.

Ok That makes a lot more sense. However i have compared my scorch to my fireball and my scorch seems to have a higher dps. My character is only 71 and holds no less then a sustained 1400+ dps and can go as high as 1600+ if i get lucky on crits. (which is what i am currently stacking) How many extra ticks would you say i should aim for on living bomb. I also favor scorch over fireball because of itst cast speed and lack of mana cost. More Casts=More proc ops. And considering my scorch does slightly less then 1/2 of my non-crit pyroblast (around 2.5-3.5k damage [crit for 5-7k] for pyroblast) i have favored it because it can also be cast on the move which will preserve a lot of dps in raids when you have to move during a boss fight light marrogar, Putricide, and cindrigosa.

You probably aren't gonna get enough haste to get another tick of LB. I'd just put on whatever gear, stat values are gonna fluctuate so much that I see little point getting that concerned about it. All my statements were assuming you were at max level, with epic so they may be very off for leveling.

I worte this thread so that i could get an idea for when i hit lvl cap with him in Cata because he is going to be my Raiding Alt. However we could spend quite some time disscussing the variability of how useful crit over haste is when it comes to the proc of effects and such. I have a boomkin that was previously badly gemmed and now that his gems play into improving his dps purely. (ask not how he got icc geared) i wanted to get some proper information about that i need to stack in order to avoid having to spend a lot of money in the end to get the right gear after messing up because i would rather get it right the first time.. I do however realize that as i get more haste scorch will have a diminishing return against fireball when it comes to how greatly the dps on the spell is improved. d

At 80, right now in the game, arcane blows fire out of the water. Not really contested. I can get over 20k dps on a boss on a heroic by pressing 1 button. Not tough.

In cata, it is a horse of a different color, though. Arcane appears to be the lame duck [1] at the moment with frost and fire taking over in the raiding environment for different roles[1]. ALL classes want haste. For a mage, haste is your top priority after hit cap and int. For a fire mage your stat priority would be: Hit Cap, Int, Haste (until you get the extra tick on your dots), then crit.

Fireball is your top spam nuke, however you will run out of mana at the 3 minute mark like all mages do [2], to combat this you can either spam talented (free) scorch, or switch over to glyphed mage armor for the regen.

| Fire | Frost | Arcane
Single Target DPS 4 4 4
Multi Target DPS 5 3 1
Mobility 5 3 1
Burst DPS 3 5 5
Survivability 3 4 4

Is the table straight off EJ thinktank. I think you might want to read there for a while anyway just to get a better feel for the class as it appears you might not know some of the mechanics that well. Some of the things you say don't really make any sense to me and I apologize for that, I just have trouble understanding people for whom english was not their native language.

To address level 85 issues, fire pve rotates around getting hot streak procs and crits on your instant pyros. Crit ratings with current gear make crit so low that it is very difficult above 20~%, keeping that in mind here is another direct quote for you.

"Use Hot Streak whenever possible, recast Living Bomb after every explosion, use Flame Orb whenever possible, and spam your filler nuke in between. Filler nuke can be Scorch, Fireball, or Frostfire Bolt. Fireball is the highest dps, but you will not have enough mana to use Fireball at all times.
Mana management is an essential part of Fire dps. Fortunately this is not overly difficult with free, high damage Scorches. Single target rotations using Scorch do about 90% of the damage of a Fireball rotation at a fraction of the mana cost."

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Originally Posted by GladiatorW07f

I have been playing around with a fire mage for some time now and i have yet to find any class/spec combo that can out do me in burst or sustained dps. This has lead me to belive that fire is now superior to the arcane spec.

I recently got into a DPS race with an equally if not better geared arcane mage, and i came 200-500 dps higher then they did after the instance was completed. On each boss my lead in total damage deal only increaced and by the end of the instance the REcount showed that i had 38.9% total damage dealt to the arcane mages 26.4%.

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This is meaningless, since fire takes a clear lead over arcane in any fight with multiple mobs.

Look at the boss only parses, and if your arcane mage had any clue how to play he should have left you in the dust by 5-7k on bossfights. Since bossfights are the only thing that means anything at the end of the day, you probably didn't win.

In any case, there's a thead on this in this forum at the top. It's updated for 80 towards the end, but not 85 yet. We'll update when we get there on the live servers.

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Originally Posted by Goros

Since bossfights are the only thing that means anything at the end of the day, you probably didn't win.

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Yes, because in most dungeons, you spend a lot more time fighting bosses than you spend fighting trash!

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Originally Posted by Goros

This is meaningless, since fire takes a clear lead over arcane in any fight with multiple mobs.

Look at the boss only parses, and if your arcane mage had any clue how to play he should have left you in the dust by 5-7k on bossfights. Since bossfights are the only thing that means anything at the end of the day, you probably didn't win.

In any case, there's a thead on this in this forum at the top. It's updated for 80 towards the end, but not 85 yet. We'll update when we get there on the live servers.

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I was about to post this... and then realized the OP is level 71 and that it was strange he was posting about DPS at all.

i appreciate the help. You have good advice and i like that. I will look into the 85 rot...perhaps a balance of swamping fireball and scorch every other cast would prolong a higher dps range with molten armor up while still providing a 95% of pure fireball rotation, and extending the effective dps range further then either rotation alone?

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Originally Posted by Martie

Yes, because in most dungeons, you spend a lot more time fighting bosses than you spend fighting trash!

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Rule #1 - don't spec for trash.

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Originally Posted by Goros

Rule #1 - don't spec for trash.

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That's a silly dogma, though.
Do you really want players to spec out of crowd control talents?
In Wrath 5man content, trash was easily 75% of the instance - is speccing to make the entire instance go faster bad?

I think you should spec for the content you are doing. If you are seriously raiding, then yes, speccing for trash is silly. If, however, you are doing 5man content, speccing for trash is usually a smart thing to do.

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Originally Posted by Goros

Rule #1 - don't spec for trash.

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that is a given...fire just has very good trash dps anyways. From what i have seen Fire out lasts all but frost for full rotation sustainability because arcane is exponentially costly on mana. The use of arcane missiles will prolong the dps but not as long as fire can hold normally. While it is true that arcane out burst dps's fire. Fire has a higher sustainability for boss fights longer then a minute or 2 making it the more viable raiding spec. I have seen this as even in heroics or just in general an arcane mage has to evoke about 1 min into a boss fight. While a fire mage has to evoke at the 3 - 5+ min marker depending on if they used pure FB, FB+scorch flip, or pure scorch for dpsing. I will admit an arcane mage in short fights is amazing fire just lasts longer. I have an 80 raiding toon and i was seeing fire mages even before the patch holding their own against other classes like priests, shamans, and some bad hunters. After the patch fire was holding a sustained dps close to that of a pre patch lock, hunter, or even rogue.

Pre patch fire was the highest dps spec other than fury warriors wirh shadowmourne

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Originally Posted by Sky

Pre patch fire was the highest dps spec other than fury warriors wirh shadowmourne

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You mean pre-4.0.3.

Arcane smoked the crap out of fire for bossfights in ICC10 & 25, but most people we're seriously raiding with it to play the numbers game on WoL.

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Originally Posted by GladiatorW07f

that is a given...fire just has very good trash dps anyways. From what i have seen Fire out lasts all but frost for full rotation sustainability because arcane is exponentially costly on mana. The use of arcane missiles will prolong the dps but not as long as fire can hold normally. While it is true that arcane out burst dps's fire. Fire has a higher sustainability for boss fights longer then a minute or 2 making it the more viable raiding spec. I have seen this as even in heroics or just in general an arcane mage has to evoke about 1 min into a boss fight. While a fire mage has to evoke at the 3 - 5+ min marker depending on if they used pure FB, FB+scorch flip, or pure scorch for dpsing. I will admit an arcane mage in short fights is amazing fire just lasts longer. I have an 80 raiding toon and i was seeing fire mages even before the patch holding their own against other classes like priests, shamans, and some bad hunters. After the patch fire was holding a sustained dps close to that of a pre patch lock, hunter, or even rogue.

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Using the burn phase/conserve phase on boss fights allows Arcane to literally cast forever. It's true you can't maintain your highest DPS rotation as long as the other specs, but in current heroic level gear I can can alternate between 2 and 3 stacks of Arcane blast. Clearing at 2 then 3, (as clear stacks with MB if it procs Arcane barrage if not) I am totally mana neutral. My blue bar stays around 85%+ until evocate is back off cd. Then it's back to the burn phase. Read more about the burn/conserve strat at EJ, and refrain from taking to heart any numbers you see before 85. They are anecdotal at best, and very misleading at worst.

Interesting that fire and frost mages may be up for a buff.


http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1829962

however the one thing that you have to remember is that the same concept can apply to the other specs in terms of conservation. As each spec has a trick that will prolong their anti oom...fire has free casts, frost has low costs. (on certain abilities). I feel that fire is an alternative raiding spec for fights where mobility is the primary concerns as opposed to arcane which need to remain still to cast.