7.1.5 PTR Notes

[Mushmouth]

The worrying part of all those blue responses was the part where it said that they feel that the cries of "Fire is dead" are largely exagerated based on the current changes.

It basically means - yes there is a nerf, but it won't be as big. But a nerf, yes.

The thing is, did fire need to be nerfed? Changed maybe, but nerfed?

[Sosaria]

The thing is, did fire need to be nerfed? Changed maybe, but nerfed?

Changed, maybe. Nerfed, no.

But what we're seeing on the PTR is nerfs. Nerfs everywhere. Nerfs to the point where I'm scared when it become lives even after it's "tuned".

The argument is that Fire has issues down the road, such as people reaching close to 100% crit by the time Nighthold comes out or after, in which case the Fire spec is basically just throwing Pyros.

There's too much reliance on the crit stat. So they're putting in these "mechanical" changes to the spec but in doing so completely screwing the spec (as of the current PTR) for single-target damage which essentially means it's a NERF.

This is all before the secondary stat changes, and who knows what else it will do to the Fire spec.

The biggest gripe is that the majority of mages are specced into fire, with 30+ levels into their artifact AND geared for fire 3 months into the expansion and already in guilds that may/may not ask for highest dps possible for raid progression.

The fact that these changes are kicking in that drastically changes the mage rotation and damage output (100k dps loss as of the current PTR) is what getting my panties flared up.

The fact that I'm sitting here wondering whether I should start pooling AP for a different spec and whether I should change my loot spec to Arcane or not is frustrating me. Because we're waiting on number "tuning".

Blue posts state that players shouldn't play "FOTM" classes, but raiding guilds tend to look for classes that do high DPS. If I have to change my spec to Arcane because it does more dps than fire then so be it.

Blizzard doesn't give us any warning. We consider what we see on the PTR as the WARNING to change specs if we see that it's going to be bad. Right now it's horrible.

I am predicting that even after the number tuning that the changes is still a big nerf to fire mages after the number tuning. And what I'm seeing on the Arcane mages at the moment on PTR? Time to make a switch.

/END RANT

[createk]

Seems really bad for ptr. I was expecting ST buffs for fire and bracers nerf in 7.1.5

[kaywiz]

They have said this is not the final pass, for all we know we could be getting sustain dmg buffs.

[Eyliria]

They have said this is not the final pass, for all we know we could be getting sustain dmg buffs.

These are the same people that let Warlocks go live in that state, and left a bunch of other specs in the toilet (like elemental shaman), despite months and months of feedback pointing it out.

Your faith is much greater than mine at this point.

They've said it, Fire is being brought down. I don't know where from, since we are already midpack for ST...

I guess M+ is bleeding over into raiding.

[Pyrominator]

I think we will change specs depend on bosses. On fights like Helya fire and on boss like Nythendra arcane.My arcane weapon is 25 fire 31,but all my gear is based on crit...i have like 14k crit 3.6k mastery and 2.2k haste and a little of versa. I hate arcane but the bigger problem is that now i will have to collect two gears now. Also the off hand traits(5% dmg increase ) what start at weapon trait 35 will be very difficult to upgrade for both specs. Also that 6% pyro nerf was really needful? Without the bracer(i don't have it) i hit on avg like 500k is that really a big number compared to 1.5 mil mortal strike and 1.1 mil execute? On avg both mortal and execute hit 800k . Why they didn't nerf from the start the legendary...maybe 5% of the players have it, instead they nerf all fire mages. Also fire mage isn't in the top 4-5 dps now, lock,sh priest,retri pala and on some fights arms warrior are better... I know this changes are not 100% i just don't want to farm more artifact power,gear ... crypostend

[Syana]

I was messing around with replacing Pyroblast with Flamestrike+Flame Patch on ST with the exception of our combustion and decided to sim it with the latest nightly.



Even if no further changes where made to the PTR, which I highly doubt, this would be extremely situational. And I merely wanted to get a visual representation of how broken our ST damage is in the current PTR iteration.

Can you link your current ST sims in Live for us to compare please. Thx!

It's using the T19M fire mage profile from simulationcraft, so it sits at 400k+

[Dutchmagoz]

The worrying part of all those blue responses was the part where it said that they feel that the cries of "Fire is dead" are largely exagerated based on the current changes.

It basically means - yes there is a nerf, but it won't be as big. But a nerf, yes.

The thing is, did fire need to be nerfed? Changed maybe, but nerfed?

I strongly believe it does not need a nerf on live, at all, for raiding.

Are mages strong in 5 man content? Yes

Are mages strong in raids? No. They're middle of the pack overall. Slightly above middle of the pack on aoe, and below middle of the pack on ST.

[lowska]

Don't worry guys, the whine brigade on the forums is working on an uproar.

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752335041" target="_blank even got a CM reply, not that that means much (and what he says is nonsense in a large part, listening to trade chat to see if mage is 'OP')

Either way, from what he said the legendary bracers are currently facing a nerf to 250% instead of 200%, ice floes (why do so many people misspell this as icy floes?) might be made baseline, which is a good thing imho, and he reassured the community that the patch notes aren't final.

Flamestrike being used as part of a ST rotation made me puke in my mouth a little. Clearly that can't go through QA and balancing as final.

[Marsellus]

I started pooling my AP in case I need to change spec with 7.1.5, even if I doubt that the PTR will go live as is. Anyway, my question is, where would you spend your AP, if not on fire? Arcane or frost? In my guild we have mages who are leveling frost and show nice numbers in ST. But my feeling is that Blizzard will always make Arcane better suited for PvE than Frost. Is there a general consensus on what should be the spec to level together with Fire for 7.1.5 and onwards?

[Bjert]

I started pooling my AP in case I need to change spec with 7.1.5, even if I doubt that the PTR will go live as is. Anyway, my question is, where would you spend your AP, if not on fire? Arcane or frost? In my guild we have mages who are leveling frost and show nice numbers in ST. But my feeling is that Blizzard will always make Arcane better suited for PvE than Frost. Is there a general consensus on what should be the spec to level together with Fire for 7.1.5 and onwards?

From what i've been told, frost actually got hit really hard as well in the current PTR build, less consistant finger of forst and therefore less uptime on icy veins. I tested the frost build myself some and it doesn't really perform that well either, but it's pretty early to tell anyway

[iRyusa]

Well, I think removing Ice Floes is a bit too much.

Why they don't add a downside effect like increase cast time of the casted spell by a flat amount like .5 or 1s ? Or reducing by 5/10/20% the damage of the casted spell ? Why not add a debuff to avoid using them all at once with that increase given value (.5/1/1.5s cast time or 5/10/20% dmg reduction).

[Eyliria]

Honestly, I'd been OK with ice floes being nerfed in some capacity (less charges, for instance), and having scorch buffed so it isnt such a giant dps loss when we have to use it - ice floes shouldnt be the no brainer choice every time, but it would be a talent to have for meshing with the pyro bracers.

The thing is, scorch as is right now, either needs to be massively buffed (it does 1/4 of a fireball's damage, and takes 66% of the time to do so, and behaves weirdly due to it having no travel time), or it needs to GO.

Problem is, if scorch were to go, they'd have to work around that legendary as well, and artifact traits, and the new talent... therefore, it's safe to say scorch isnt getting pruned, so lets hope it gets buffed to being useful.

[Eyliria]

Don't worry guys, the whine brigade on the forums is working on an uproar.

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752335041" target="_blank even got a CM reply, not that that means much (and what he says is nonsense in a large part, listening to trade chat to see if mage is 'OP')

Either way, from what he said the legendary bracers are currently facing a nerf to 250% instead of 200%, ice floes (why do so many people misspell this as icy floes?) might be made baseline, which is a good thing imho, and he reassured the community that the patch notes aren't final.

Flamestrike being used as part of a ST rotation made me puke in my mouth a little. Clearly that can't go through QA and balancing as final.

The more infuriating part of that blue's post is when they point out the reply above them ("So are we not FotM anymore?") as evidence that mages needed tuning - and it's infuriating because it makes it seem like Fire is getting the chopping block treatment, along with the much needed mechanical rework.

The spec needs scaling help, it has issues, we know that... but none of those issues stem from "too much damage". All excessive damage outliers involve specific situations, hardly the type of thing that warrants the nerfbat treatment.

Still, I have faith that so long as the community hammers hard on the numbers, we will be better overall in the end.

[lowska]

To be fair I have been consistently beaten by a BM hunter (by 10-20%) in both dungeons and raid, but aside from that I'm usually top 3 in my raid group (not the hardcorest crowd though). He is one of the top 100 geared hunters west though, while I'm top 3k.

That said, I feel that we're in a decent spot as we are, and definitely don't need pre-emptive tuning. Having a burst phase and a conserve phase, like the old (WoD HFC) arcane is what the spec has been built around, I don't understand how this is suddenly 'not intended' and has to be changed by blizzard. They had at least a year with nothing to do but churn out legion content, and almost 8 months of beta balancing time, how were these issues not resolved, if they are considered issues at all?

[kazamski]

As for pooling AP, ah good luck. I have always enjoyed frost a little more than fire and dont enjoy arcane at all. Frost was just starting to get the needed numbers to enter raid and not be horrible. But they seem to be nerfing frost DPS and survivability! They are removing cauterize one of my favorite mage survivability traits from frost and arcane as well as hitting frost with serveral DPS nerfs. Why they need to nerf a spec few play and was far from op is beyond me. If someone smarter than me can explain it please do!

I prefer frost however I do enjoy fire, but without the fire bracers its almost impossible for me to reach top performance for my fire mage. I excepted a nerf to the bracers and a buff to the class but these across the board nerfs seem to want to move mages below mid pack in raid for fire and even below that for frost. HELP!

[Yelloweyedemon]

I'm sorry but did a professional said he's gathering info from general chat discussions?!? And WoW requires a sub (mostly)?!

Why they don't add a downside effect like increase cast time of the casted spell by a flat amount like .5 or 1s ? Or reducing by 5/10/20% the damage of the casted spell ? Why not add a debuff to avoid using them all at once with that increase given value (.5/1/1.5s cast time or 5/10/20% dmg reduction).

Maybe because there's nothing wrong with the spell the way it is? Especially when it's the only way mage can keep up with facerolling melee? Why do they need to mess with stuff that do not need fixing? If they want to revamp the class, they can do it Xpac launch. Not mid-xpac that requires heavy time-investment.

[iRyusa]

Maybe because there's nothing wrong with the spell the way it is? Especially when it's the only way mage can keep up with facerolling melee? Why do they need to mess with stuff that do not need fixing? If they want to revamp the class, they can do it Xpac launch. Not mid-xpac that requires heavy time-investment.

Apart from RoP & Fireball ( + pyro if wrists ) we have all of our shit instant ( Pyro / LB / Combu / FB / PF ).
Honestly without the wrist, I barely use Ice floes in Fire. Shimmer provide, almost on its own, enough mobility for almost every mechanics on EN even in ToV.

Ice Floes is way too good in its current state right now : no downside, no gcd lost & can be use while casting + very low cooldown and 3 charges.

But it doesn't need to be completely removed from the game.

[Yelloweyedemon]

Maybe because there's nothing wrong with the spell the way it is? Especially when it's the only way mage can keep up with facerolling melee? Why do they need to mess with stuff that do not need fixing? If they want to revamp the class, they can do it Xpac launch. Not mid-xpac that requires heavy time-investment.

Apart from RoP & Fireball ( + pyro if wrists ) we have all of our shit instant ( Pyro / LB / Combu / FB / PF ).
Honestly without the wrist, I barely use Ice floes in Fire. Shimmer provide, almost on its own, enough mobility for almost every mechanics on EN even in ToV.

Ice Floes is way too good in its current state right now : no downside, no gcd lost & can be use while casting + very low cooldown and 3 charges.

But it doesn't need to be completely removed from the game.

We can't keep up with top dps classes even if we use all ice flows perfectly; and there ARE mechanics where it's necessary in every single type of content. EN, in numberous cases, all 3 bosses in ToV, volcanic mythic+, etc... How is it OP? The added the spell for the exact reason of helping mage mobility that was suffering, but suddenly it's OP because "there are concerns about mages in general chat" ?!

[iRyusa]

We can't keep up with top dps classes

It's a matter class tuning, not Ice floes. Fire mage isn't that bad it's just in the middle of the pack and is really good in some fight. I think those nerf are overkill atm if they don't provide anything to help with our sustain damage.

and there ARE mechanics where it's necessary in every single type of content.

It's not "necessary" it's helpful. Shimmer allows you to do almost exactly the same when you're using it right. We don't lack of mobility, it's just at this point we have too much shit to move around freely. Ice floes tuning is necessary, now I disagree with the complete removal of it

but suddenly it's OP because "there are concerns about mages in general chat" ?!

I think you're missing the point of what Ornyx want to say. You should read his next post. 7.1.5 is still missing the secondary stats change that will probably improve the current state of Intel vs Crit and will probably buff our base dmg from most of our spell. W&S for next PTR build until then.