Fire spec viability

[Klooher 0]

Hey, recently I have passed the il 540 mark on my Mage and finally switched to spec I wanted, Fire. Sadly, my dps dropped by a lot compared to Frost (arcane too i guess). 

With Arcane Brilliance, Molten Armor, flask and food I barely get 39% spell crit, as only about half of my items orignally have crit on it. I only just start running normals, and as Fire i only went to LFR so far (switched yesterday) so it might be just me not quite getting the spec yet (it's quite complicated compared to how super simple frost is) but I am not sure if the amount of crit fire needs makes it just impossible to catch up with other specs before getting like every single item with crit on it. I only have 3 tier pieces right now, and i don't have legendary cloak yet (currently on secrets of the empire step and really struggling to get them, this week only got 4, and the whole ToT only gave me ONE UHHH!). 

I have few questions regarding the spec so I can try bit more and maybe decide the dps loss is small enough not to go boring frost again.

 

1. How to make a good combustion, and how important is it? I only started lately so haven't experienced it myself but heard it was overnerfed, is it still worth trying hard to make a good one, like waiting with the cooldown for some crazy proc (like the Toxic Totem one)? I am not quite sure if I understand how Ignite works. It says it 'adds the remaining damage to the new ignite', so it constantly grows right? As you always hit the target before the ignite is finished, so some of the damage always is left on it, and it's added to the new one, with it's duration refreshed, it gets bigger and bigger over the course of the fight? Or is it not working like this?

 

Anyway, should I wait until I get few pyros in the row, then with the Pyroblast! activate PoM, hit the 2 pyros and combust? And if the Alter Time is up, activate it before casting the pyros so I get at least 4?

 

2. I also find keeping the living bomb up harder than in Frost or Arcane, as it directly increases my damage from the other spells thanks to Pyromaniac. Like let's say I have a Pyroblast! and the Heating up! and am casting Fireball when the living bomb finishes, what do I do? If I don't cast Pyroblast immediately after fireball I lose Heating up!, but If I do, my Pyro won't benefit from Pyromaniac :/ 

 

I wish fire wasn't that crit dependent as it's far more enjoyable then Frost is. I also like arcane but for some reason I find myself doing horrible dps on some of the bosses (namely Thok, although I have only got to him on Flex so far)

[Kver 65]

Getting a good combustion? Combustion is negligible, the damage gained from the very high damage streak of pyroblasts is essential however. Also, Ignite is basically an average over 4 seconds, so it doesn't grow increasingly stronger after those 4 sources. 

 

Generally what you should do, at least at pull, is have the 4 set bonus up, together with a Heating Up! proc and a Pyroblast! proc and both your trinkets, then activate Presence of Mind, Alter Time, start sidestepping and throw the pyros. For more information I'd like to refer to Vykina's guide to Fire Mages, since that's(Despite him being annoying) still the best guide around. 

 

Also keep in mind that Pyromaniac is only 10% damage. On a pyroblast crit that is like 30k damage. If a Pyroblast crit does more than 30k damage, then pyroblast > living bomb :P. Strive to keep living bomb up though.

 

And I personally feel that Fire is way too crit-reliant, even on very high gear levels.

[Ceraius 34]

Lets see if I can graphically illustrate Ignite.

 

|----I----I----I----|

0       1       2       3      4

                   |----I----I----I----|

                   0       1       2       3      4

 

Ok, so lets say the first line there is an Ignite from a spell that landed on the 0 mark of the line which "procced" the Ignite, and lets say the ignite is worth 100 damage per second. Which would mean that over that 4sec duration its damage would be 400 in total.

 

The second line is another spell that procs "another" identical Ignite on the same target. And as we see, it hits the target around that halfway mark of 2sec of the first one. Which means the first one has 200 damage more to deal plus the new 400 from the 2nd spell's Ignite.

 

So if I understand the Ignite mechanics correctly, the ticks 1 and 2 of the second Ignite deal 200 damage each and the ticks 3 and 4 deal the normal 100 after the first Ignite "wears off."

 

So to build a high Ignite you want to overlap as many of those lines as you possibly can. That would (assuming no travel time or same travel time) max out at 5 lines on paper if GCD capped, but realistically I think we can talk four lines as the practical maximum. And that would be where you'd want to land your Combustion when a single Ignite tick is at its highest value.

 

 

Disclaimer! I do not have a max level mage yet. This is just from what I understand from what I've read.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Ceraius

[Klooher 0]

Okay, that makes more sense, from the tooltip I understood it worked quite differently, I thought that the damage from previous ignite is added to the new one, and divided evenly among the ticks, but I guess it would be too strong in long fights ;d

[Ceraius 34]

Indeed. That way it would just keep growing and growing :D

 

I'd still wait confirmation from someone who has more experience from the field of mages, but I firmly believe that is how it works :P

[drumsmani 47]

I had similar doubts over Ignite when I started leveling my mage few months back. The following link was suggested in these forums at the time and had a good explanation of how Ignite works.

 

http://lhiveras-library.com/compendium/ignite