Fire Mage 5.2 (109 replies to this topic)

This thread is for comments about our Fire Mage guide for Patch 5.2.

A solid guide to the basics of the new fire mage. However, there are a few internal inconsistencies, for example, in the rotation-section:

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But following the link to that macro, gives you:

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(Yes; using PoM to cast Pyroblast is the better dps option). While on the topic of macros;

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Not correct. Because "the current spell", generally assumed to be a fireball, has a flight time it is very easy to toss in Inferno Blast while it is in flight, forcing the Hot Streak proc before that Fireball lands, and potentially starting a new heating up, as said previously in the guide:

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Edited by Nitiga, 28 August 2012 - 09:37 AM.

Thank you for these two valuable comments. I fixed the Fireball mention (regarding Presence of Mind) and I removed the Inferno Blast macro

You can refresh Living bomb right after the second last tick without losing the explosion or a tick.
Just confirmed this on the beta.
This will increase dps and will make the rotation slightly more forgiving.


(This goes for all specs of course)

Edited by Aprentise, 28 August 2012 - 12:46 PM.

That's very interesting. Thank you for reporting this. I've just tested it myself and it looks as if refreshing before the last tick actually triggers the last tick and the explosion. Can you confirm?

Yes, it seems to act like any 'normal' DoT if you clip it.
The Explosion part is instantly triggered when you recast LB

EDIT:
LB ticks 5 times for me + one explosion on the last tick
If i refresh it after the explosion i get a total of 10 ticks +2 explosions
If i refresh it right after the 4th tick it triggers the explosion and i get a total of 10 ticks + 2 explosions.
If i refresh it right after the 3th tick it doesn't trigger the explosion and i get a total of 9 ticks + 1 explosion

Edited by Aprentise, 28 August 2012 - 01:04 PM.

I'm updating the guide on the site, thank you again

That's really interesting, you're saying we can basically treat Living Bomb like Nether Tempest and intentionally clip it before the last tick to still achieve the explosion and always have Living Bomb applied to the target. Are we sure this is not a bug, it mentions nothing of this in the tooltip

markstamos, on 28 August 2012 - 01:36 PM, said:

So late in the beta, it would be surprising if something so obvious had not been fixed. For now, I will assume that this is the intended behaviour. I agree that there is no mention of this in the tooltip, but at the same time, there is nothing in the tooltip to let us think that this is an unintended behaviour.

It might be a bug introduced by fixing something else.

I've made a post on the EU forums about it, hoping for a blue to step by.
I can't post on the US forums though so if anyone could ask it there we would have double the chance!

(My post: http://eu.battle.net...ic/5207772098#1)

Edited by Aprentise, 28 August 2012 - 01:54 PM.

I remember that, in the past people had argument if haste or critical strike rating is the better for a fire mage.

Is this still a question in 5.0.4 or critical strike rating is now obviously better than haste rating?

Oltier, on 29 August 2012 - 04:33 PM, said:

As it looks, Critical Strike Rating is clearly ahead. The weights I obtain in Simulation Craft give me Critical Strike Rating being 45% more valuable than Haste Rating.

That said, there might be times when you want to reforge a bit to haste. For example, when you are really close to getting an additional tick of Living Bomb or Combustion. I'll put up a table with Haste Breakpoints in the days to come.

I was wondering if it would make sense to include Frost Nova or Frostjaw in the AOE rotation (since bosses can't be frozen) to gain shatter benefit for pyro's?

hey!
sorry for the double post

but yea .. i've managed to get a decent dps the last two weeks .. and now ..
all is different and the new talent tree and all that .. i am so damn lost ..

can someone tell me what  talents to use and what glyphs so it's almost like the old style
or tell me what the best settings are for fire mage? ..
a mate of mine, he´s like doing 70k dps on bosses and .. i dunno if tha´ts possible, 200k on the end boss ..

i´d like to be good again

cheers

Damien, on 30 August 2012 - 02:13 PM, said:

Thanks for your answer!

Another thing what I think is worth mentioning in the guide is that, if you score a non-critical hit while you have Heating Up! proc, it seems to me that you lost the Heating up!. So, using a stopcasting macro on Inferno Blast might be a good idea.

If you macro PoM to Pyroblast what is to stop it from activating PoM during a Hot Streak cast. If that were to happen it would benefit the next cast time spell which more than likely will not be Pyroblast. It makes for a great opener but the macro is almost completely unreliable in a normal encounter without staring at your buffs all day just to watch and see when PoM appears.

Regarding suppressed warnings in macros, I found the following useful to stop the audio warnings:

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
***cast stuff
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1

I am wondering if it would be viable to use Frostfire Bolt in conjunction with Glyph of Frostfire Bolt instead of Fireball as your primary spell. From what I can tell the only difference between the 2 spells is the slowing effect since they removed the Glyph of Fireball giving Fireball an extra 5% crit.

I have done some tests on the training dummies (on live) and it seems like both spells are doing around the same amount of damage and have similar chances to crit.

It seems like if you don't mind using a glyph slot you will gain a nice slowing effect which would be helpful for levelling to 90 or when fighting a slowable enemy.

dear damian,

In your guide you say to use inferno blast as soon as your heating up is up. Does this have a big influence then yust hope on a 2nd crit for fireball? And you say crits, but for example if i use Combustion on my main target and spread it out does a crit from the dot also have an influence on the Heating up stacks? i got 15% haste when i don't be buffed with any raid buffs but is the first increase of combustion at 15% and the 2nd one at 25%?

Hope you can help me get that last part i'm doubting about fixed


greetz
Michael

Edited by MichaelTheys, 02 September 2012 - 01:08 AM.

Vladamyr, on 30 August 2012 - 05:57 PM, said:

I don't think so. In my experience, your Frost Nova or whatever freezing spell you would use would be broken by damage from your fellow raiders or party members before you get a chance to benefit from it

kuraigu, on 30 August 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

Kuraigu, please make a new thread in the mage forum for that

Oltier, on 30 August 2012 - 10:08 PM, said:

If you are casting while Heating Up! is up, then you are most likely casting Fireball. When you are done casting it, you can simple use Inferno Blast immediately. It will hit your target instantly, before Fireball, which has a travel time. By doing so, your Heating Up! will be transformed into Pyroblast! and you are good to go.

We used to have a macro for Inferno Blast, until someone mentioned in the comments what I've just explained.

Sacridfire, on 31 August 2012 - 09:24 AM, said:

I will edit the text to mention both the Fireball and the Pyroblast alternatives

BrightBrown, on 01 September 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

Yeah, but not everyone might like that, as it disables ALL the special effect sounds while you are casting.

I think you can disable the error sounds in the Sound menu.

Screndar, on 01 September 2012 - 04:27 PM, said:

It makes it viable indeed, at the expense of locking one of your Major Glyph slots. Here is an extract from the talent page of our Fire Mage guide:

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MichaelTheys, on 02 September 2012 - 01:07 AM, said:

I didn't quite get the first part of the question. For the second part, none of your period damage spells can proc Heating Up. Regarding the haste values, I will add them in the guide next week, but it's 15.00874% for a second additional tick and 25.0782 for a third.