Fire mage guide for 6.2 by Dutchmagoz!

[coldim]

I dont really understand your stat priority. Considering i play fire only on cleave/air shouldn't I gem enchant haste to reach 900plateu?

[Dutchmagoz]

You should indeed get 900 haste if you got 4pc.

[Kurii]

How is this guy able to cast 5 instant-Pyroblasts in a row? https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/n4 ... iew=events" target="_blank

Code: Select all

00:00:08.659 Alzim begins casting Pyroschlag 00:00:08.659 Alzim casts Pyroschlag on Franzok 00:00:09.686 Alzim begins casting Pyroschlag 00:00:09.686 Alzim casts Pyroschlag on Franzok 00:00:10.672 Alzim begins casting Pyroschlag 00:00:10.672 Alzim casts Pyroschlag on Franzok 00:00:11.662 Alzim begins casting Pyroschlag 00:00:11.662 Alzim casts Pyroschlag on Franzok 00:00:12.685 Alzim begins casting Pyroschlag 00:00:12.685 Alzim casts Pyroschlag on Franzok

Also, when using Living Bomb, I generally use Living Bomb Global Cooldown (GCD) as a buffer to see if I need to use Inferno Blast or not.

Example 1, I have 0 Pyroblast! charges, and 0 Heating Up charges. I start casting Fireball and spam Living Bomb (LB) if it needs to be refreshed on the target. During the GCD, I see if the Fireball critted or not. If it did not, then I continue normal Fireball rotation for Fireball - Inferno Blast with Heating Up charge. Else, I cast Inferno Blast to have 1 Pyroblast! and 0 Heating Up chargs without wasting Activity Time, and spreading LB.

Example 2, I have 1 Pyroblast! charge and 0 Heating Up charges. I start casting Fireball and spam Living Bomb (LB) if it needs to be refreshed on the target. During the GCD, I see if the Fireball critted or not. If it did, then I spam another Fireball-Pyroblast rotation. Else, I cast Inferno Blast to have 1 Pyroblast! and 1 Heating Up charge without wasting Activity Time, and spreading LB.

I don't see this strategy mentioned in any fire mage guides at all that I've read; it was just something I came up with. Am I doing this wrong?

[Wilderness]

How is this guy able to cast 5 instant-Pyroblasts in a row?

4-piece proc.

I don't see this strategy mentioned in any fire mage guides at all that I've read; it was just something I came up with. Am I doing this wrong?

I don’t think its really a strategy, just common sense. Anytime you have a GCD due to using an instant spell, you would of course be looking for what procced or didn’t and adjust from there.

[kazamski]

Hi all,

What does the 900 haste point do? Is that 900 un-buffed or with raid buffs?

I currently play fire for all the cleave fights so 5/10 and most progression fights. I am at 775 haste un-buffed.

thank you
Kazamski

[Zyrachiel]

From my understanding it's to lower the GCD enough for you to get 5 pyroblasts off on the 4pc proc. If you have under 900 you'll only get 4.
Also it's 900 purely from items, unbuffed.

[TLTeo]

With that amount of haste you can fit in 3 pyros instead of 2 assuming pyro procced from an instant like IB, certainly not 4 or 5. That's calculated with full raid buffs since it's all that really matters; you need to have ~13-14% total haste, and which comes down to about 800-900 haste.

The precise number isn't set either; depending on reaction time and latency you may need more or less. Of course by having more you will more consistently and easily always get 3 pyros. In fact, in the sims i ran robomage is playing perfectly, so the value for haste relative to the other stats has a peak at around 720ish rating (here are my results http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic ... 370#p13029" target="_blank). For the real world 900 is just a good point to aim for.

[Soulcrafty]

Quick question about the combustion opener. In the OP, it says to reach a point when you have both HU + Pyro! buffs, THEN cast fireball. While that fireball is in the air, cast your Pyro! proc (so immediately after). Then meteor. Then cast any extra pyro procs you get (usually 1, sometimes 2). Then combust.

When you cast that initial fireball + immediate Pyro!, which hits the boss first? If the fireball hits BEFORE the pyro, you could think of the pre-combustion chain as fireball-pyro-meteor-pyro-combust. This is assuming you get 1 extra Pyro proc. If not, it's fireball-pyro-meteor-combust.

However, if initially the Pyro! hits first, then your combustion chain looks like: pyro-fireball-meteor-combust. This is assuming no additional Pyro procs.

I assume that this has been tested and fleshed out, and that the correct answer is the former, where fireball hits first, netting you a combust based on pyro-meteor-pyro. My question is whether you should go ahead and combust if you fail to generate any additional Pyro! procs after that opener. If all I can generate is a fireball-pyro-meteor chain, with NO additional pyro procs, is it still worth it to combust? Or should I wait until I can chain together at least 2 pyros in a row?

[TLTeo]

I'm pretty sure that fireball and pyro have the same travelling speed, so pyro always hits second

[aznxk3vi17]

Has anybody done any actual theorycrafting as to why spreading LB via IB should only be done on Heating Up procs? The LB dot portion does more damage than the explosion part (though I understand it is the explosion portion that adds dps to the main target), and by waiting even a few seconds for the proc, you're losing a lot of damage on the adds. Is the gain from the extra Pyroblast! procs really worth the loss of damage from the dot?

Additionally, either way, the explosions are going to go off onto the main target, so I don't see how a few extra Pyroblasts can make up for the loss of dots on all the adds.

[Wilderness]

The dot from LB really doesn't do as much damage as you think it does - it is the explosions going off and hitting all targets that make LB valuable with adds, not the LB dot ticking. Since you're going to be spreading it anyway through your normal rotation, it is generally wasting an IB that can be used with HU if you spread it early without a HU proc. To give you an idea, this is a link to a 4-target cleave for done for heroic gear levels: http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/ ... H_AOE.html" target="_blank

If you scroll down to the fire mage section, you'll see that the dot from LB does 5.1% of the dps, but the explosion does 14.6%. So the important part is getting the explosions off on all available targets, not the dots ticking. I don't know how the math works out for however many seconds of LB dot you miss out vs the extra HS, but I think that you think the dot does a lot more damage than it does. Since its so weak, it would make sense that the extra HS procs would be more valuable.

[Komma]

The dot from LB really doesn't do as much damage as you think it does - it is the explosions going off and hitting all targets that make LB valuable with adds, not the LB dot ticking.

To give some numbers on this, for X number of targets, every 12 seconds:
- The maximum DOT damage is 100% * X
- The maximum explosion damage is 80% * X * X

One grows linearly, while the other is quadratic. This means that if you have 7 targets, you will see 700% DOT damage at most, but 3920% explosion damage. That's more than 5 times the DOT damage, even if you had perfect spread timing. This gap closes as the number of targets goes down. At 3 targets, where you see 300% DOT damage and 720% explosion damage. The explosion damage is still more than twice the DOT damage.

This is why you always see emphasis on not delaying explosions, instead of spreading early for more DOT ticks.

[Dutchmagoz]

The dot from LB really doesn't do as much damage as you think it does - it is the explosions going off and hitting all targets that make LB valuable with adds, not the LB dot ticking.

To give some numbers on this, for X number of targets, every 12 seconds:
- The maximum DOT damage is 100% * X
- The maximum explosion damage is 80% * X * X

One grows linearly, while the other is quadratic. This means that if you have 7 targets, you will see 700% DOT damage at most, but 3920% explosion damage. That's more than 5 times the DOT damage, even if you had perfect spread timing. This gap closes as the number of targets goes down. At 3 targets, where you see 300% DOT damage and 720% explosion damage. The explosion damage is still more than twice the DOT damage.

This is why you always see emphasis on not delaying explosions, instead of spreading early for more DOT ticks.

Completely agree with what komma said, would just like to add though: spreading the dot is obviously still important; but it's simply not worth losing a lot of pyroblast procs over. (Since pyro procs = high ignite = more spread damage as well)

[Seatoo]

Hi all,

What does the 900 haste point do? Is that 900 un-buffed or with raid buffs?

I currently play fire for all the cleave fights so 5/10 and most progression fights. I am at 775 haste un-buffed.

thank you
Kazamski

Came here to ask this, also is it now only this if you have 4pc?

[aznxk3vi17]

Completely agree with what komma said, would just like to add though: spreading the dot is obviously still important; but it's simply not worth losing a lot of pyroblast procs over. (Since pyro procs = high ignite = more spread damage as well)

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I wasn't thinking properly about the explosion aspect of Living Bomb and how each explosion hits every other mob (whereas the dot only ticks individually). However, Simulationcraft appears to spread Living Bomb instantly almost every instance in all of my sample sequence tables.

I'm not great with Simulationcraft tweaking or math, but this leads me to believe that whoever created the action sequence for Fire believes that, due to the Living Bomb explosion going off regardless as to when you spread it (i.e. upon Heating Up or as soon as you apply Living Bomb), the guaranteed full-length dot offsets the loss of a few Pyroblasts.

If I'm not reading my sims correctly, I'd love for someone to point it out.

[Komma]

However, Simulationcraft appears to spread Living Bomb instantly almost every instance in all of my sample sequence tables.

I'm not great with Simulationcraft tweaking or math, but this leads me to believe that whoever created the action sequence for Fire believes that, due to the Living Bomb explosion going off regardless as to when you spread it (i.e. upon Heating Up or as soon as you apply Living Bomb), the guaranteed full-length dot offsets the loss of a few Pyroblasts.

That's not the case. It's just that the current action list format is simpler and less prone to error. Robomage does not actively spread LB as long as there are ticking LBs on all targets. When adds have short lifespans, making sure every target has an active LB for explosions is much more important than preventing minor duration extensions during latter IB usages. Unless a full-fledged AI is developed for SimC, minor optimizations such as these are unlikely to be included due to the high complexity cost in the APL.

[Garrod]

My sim is telling me to go all out on crit now for some reason, along with ignoring the haste breakpoint with 4pc.

/confus

[TLTeo]

Can you post results for stat scaling as well as an armory link please? It might be a case of you having too little crit and too much haste and mastery.

[Garrod]

I will when I get off work. I even ran a sim with all crit enchants/gems and it still weighted crit slightly over Mastery. Armory link is in my signature.

[Seatoo]

Soooo it's still crit&mastery > all?


Edit: Sorry this haste thing has me all screwed up, can I get a TLDR? The more I read the more WTF moments I have