Fire Mages In Cataclysm

[Goros]

Arcane is a waste of time in a raid now, pretty much 100%. This thread is really outdated since it pertained to level 80 specs and output. 80 = 85? No. Different conversation completely now.

Arcane is the weakest in burst, the weakest in overall dps, and the weakest in mana conservation vs the amount of dps output you can sustain. Hence blizz looking to fix it, because NO ONE WITH A CLUE is playing it.

From a mage that raided through CoT and ICC HM's as arcane, I won't go back - I rolled fire, despite the fact that frost is the #1 DPS spec for raiding right now. The added survival and mobility more than make up for the difference in dps (about 2%, unless RNG hates you) but for consistent, steady raid damage frost is the way to go.

If you can't hit ~17k average in fire and frost on bossfights, you're doing it wrong. (or if you're fire, the RNG might just hate you. Them's the breaks.)

[GladiatorW07f]

Thanks a lot. You gave a valid point to what i was trying to learn. But frost at top is kind of weird though. Well them's the breaks i guess. And yes yes yes i love fire so much more now.

[Wampire]

Hello

If you want to play whit fire you have to learn to how and when to use combustion to max out your dps, and that can be a little diffecult,
but when used at the right time you can hit 27k+.

[GladiatorW07f]

any tips on when to hit combustion? I would really like to know because i would like to practice it for when i hit 85.

[Wampire]

The best time to hit combustion is when you have LB, Ignite,Pyroblast, and Criticat mass on your target, and i would recoment using Combustionhelper.

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-a...ionhelper.aspx

[Sky]

Fire is still the best spec in raids. Critical Mass does not do damage, it's just a debuff on a target.

I really should go update the mage guide, but I've been so busy. Will do so soon though.

[Goros]

The guide has been DELETED!

well, here at least.

Let me know why you're ready bluesky and i'll help any way I can. Loyal fire dude now, not looking at arc seriously until it can beyond a shadow of a doubt outperform fire for bossfights.

mmmmm....mobility, and dps...and at the same time. How can anything else compete?

[Kazeyonoma]

its not deleted, it got unstuck and therefore fell off the front page

[Goros]

aaaaaaah gotcha.

[Rekkr@Garrosh]

Goros,

I spec'd Fire and ran into serious issues with Living Bomb and splash damage on CC'd targets. I'm not sure if it this is bugged, but mobs were breaking CC from more then 10 yards away.

Any suggestions other then "have the tank pull the mobs further away?"

[Tschus]

Refresh LB before it explodes.

[Goros]

Refresh LB before it explodes.

This, unless you are unwilling to lose the extra dps from it blowing up. Basically, the tanks need to pull them back farther.

[Rekkr@Garrosh]

This, unless you are unwilling to lose the extra dps from it blowing up. Basically, the tanks need to pull them back farther.

Thanks, that is what I figured. I tried your fire spec and did a clean 9.5k dps last night without much rotation practice (iLevel 335). Now, I have been playing my mage for 5 years so I was already aware of the subtlies of fire, but I will still impressed.

[Goros]

Right now we are using a bugged spec which gives us and extra 5% haste full time from having only 1 point in pyromaniac. expect the dps to go down when and if they hotfix it. It has helped immensely with the RNG dependence we have as fire to do good dps on a sustained and regular level.

Without it, you'd see a varaince of ~2k dps plus minus depending on how many hotstreak/pyroblast! combos you were lucky enough to get (gone entire heroic bossfights with just 1)

[Sky]

The mana cost reductions for fire is pretty significant, although I'm not sure why they're buffing fire in the first place.

Shouldn't complain though...

[GladiatorW07f]

1: flame orb was shooting critters and costing all mages dps
2: It was a dead spec since nilla
3: WE DESERVE IT

[Sky]

Fire (ignoring warriors with Shadowmourne) was the strongest spec in ICC25, which lasted for a year.

[GladiatorW07f]

where were you in WOTLK. Arcane was the raid spec then.

[Sky]

I suppose that's true, if a mage was in mostly iLvl 251 gear.

[Goros]

No, I raided in all 264/277 gear in Arcane for 10&25 and would routinely beat fire mages in all 277 gear. I'm definitely the exception however, as fire was the cookiecutter ICC raidspec because even fails could do massive dps with it once they got carried to enough gear.