Fire Mages are alive again (Updated for 6.2.3)

[Unbearievabl]

Dont looking at the current arcane but:
Is this not was fire was allways. Only the median is a little bit lower currently. Thats why no one was playing it at progress because it lacks steadiness.

Well Arcane isn't exactly a steady spec either, especially in AoE. That said, you need significant gear to reach the crit cap with trinket procs which I consider to be mandatory to make the spec steady. As I previously posted, Fire is actually very steady IF you can get Sandman's to proc without too much hassle.

On that note, I thought of a potential solution. When trying to get Sandman's to proc we should consider switching to Scorch, Inferno Blast, and Pyroblast as our primary damage output to have the best shot at quickly proccing the trinket. I'll play fire again next week on most of the bosses and see how that goes, I don't think it will be too costly in damage since we do very little outside of burst phase.

[Unbearievabl]

I have a special note regarding Mythic Iskar. Our guild saves all CDs for the adds at 70% and then we wait to push the next add phase until the ring is up for the last 2 add phases. This would line up perfectly if the trinket would proc at 70%. So I decided not to attack the boss until about 72% to get the trinket to proc and a PB/HU. This resulted in me going from literally zero damage to the top and a great amount of damage on the Phantasmal and all adds. Your mileage may vary but I think it's perfectly okay to take this route if you're playing Fire for this fight and your guild wants to save CDs for the adds.

[Unbearievabl]

Something else to consider. It was stated earlier that the crit cap you need to aim for is based on the boss's 103 level. However if you're running Prismatic Crystal you may only need to aim for the crit cap based on the its 101 level since you should be building on the Crystal barring some other crazy circumstance.

[Alzer]

Something else to consider. It was stated earlier that the crit cap you need to aim for is based on the boss's 103 level. However if you're running Prismatic Crystal you may only need to aim for the crit cap based on the its 101 level since you should be building on the Crystal barring some other crazy circumstance.

I'm not 100% sure on how crit suppression on prismatic crystal works, but crit still sims strong for me until I reach 79.23%, so I went with that.

[Methusula]

Crit is still the engine that drives fire's damage. Pyroblast and ignite outside of combustion windows is still vital, and the Phoenix will proc more regularly with more pyro casts. Crit is essential way beyond the relatively low Sandman's "soft cap".

[Alzer]

Even on ST, crit falls behind mastery for me once I pass 79% crit, therefore I don't see the point in further increasing my crit past it.

The extreme case (which is only really possible if you are controlling the ring and if you don't mind your entire guild hating you when you pop the ring 14 seconds into the fight) of only popping your CDs when sandman's pouch proccs, shows these stat weights for 2 targets:

[yungg]

makes sense, tbh. From some experimentation with fire, a lot of your damage is from pc + combust + ring burst, it's pretty similar to arcane.

[Fleks]

I have a special note regarding Mythic Iskar. Our guild saves all CDs for the adds at 70% and then we wait to push the next add phase until the ring is up for the last 2 add phases. This would line up perfectly if the trinket would proc at 70%. So I decided not to attack the boss until about 72% to get the trinket to proc and a PB/HU. This resulted in me going from literally zero damage to the top and a great amount of damage on the Phantasmal and all adds. Your mileage may vary but I think it's perfectly okay to take this route if you're playing Fire for this fight and your guild wants to save CDs for the adds.

Just equip your trinket prefight to trigger ICD so it proccs around 74-70%~ (needs obviously timing,knowledge of your dps aswell as being in charge of the pulltimer)

[Unbearievabl]

Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Would that trigger the entire 2 minute CD or 30 seconds like on use?

[Alzer]

It will trigger a 1min 55 sec ICD.

I've been unsuccessfully trying to convince my guild to use 70 sec pull timers on iskar : >

[Unbearievabl]

RIP, I'll have to try and game it, maybe I'll have some luck. Maybe I can get some damage on the pull and then just stop since it doesn't appear to proc on anything but direct spell casts.

[yungg]

Looks like the preproc goren soul for 20s trinket opener doesn't work anymore. I got it to proc, it was stripped on boss combat and it didn't proc again until 7s(!) into the fight.

[Unbearievabl]

Looks like the preproc goren soul for 20s trinket opener doesn't work anymore. I got it to proc, it was stripped on boss combat and it didn't proc again until 7s(!) into the fight.

Yeah I heard about that. Just another nail in the coffin for a ridiculously RNG trinket in a Legendary Ring world.

[Fleks]

Looks like the preproc goren soul for 20s trinket opener doesn't work anymore. I got it to proc, it was stripped on boss combat and it didn't proc again until 7s(!) into the fight.

Tested today? because i did some testing last week and it still worked fine.

[yungg]

noticed it in a boss fight yesterday, and there are similar reports on mmo-c warlock/druid forums of trinket procs being stripped on combat.

[PYR]

The biggest problem is getting your raid group to accept playing fire on mythic progression. The hyperbole that fire is useless from when HFC first hit is intense and regardless of weighted damage, they'll cry real tears if your priority target damage is even 1% less than arcane/frost. It's a "have a bad pull? switch specs immediately" world out there. Regardless, i'm still gearing towards fire and just playing frost when the tears flow =D

Edit: GSR is getting stripped on pre-cast PB for me and it takes forever to proc again.

[Glitzerbling]

blizz wants you to swap T17 trinkets for T18. But instead of buffing a trinket for Fire (f.e. classtrinket to something useful), so its worth replacing GSR/Sandmans with it, they nerf GSR instead (which is kind of an indirect nerf to fire and I cant find an official post about it, so its a ninja nerf). Well played blizzard, well played.

[Unbearievabl]

I doubt they were even thinking about Fire Mages but if you're planning on playing GSR for a fight because times don't line up with Sandman's, you should probably play Arcane or Frost. That might not be a popular thing to say but you're absolutely relying on RNG to see you through with GSR and if it doesn't work out then you're going to be Gladiator Warrior level of useless except on maybe Xhul and Iskar.

[yungg]

Blizzard should let us use intuitions gift. It's basically a categorically better sandman's pouch!

[Unbearievabl]

Blizzard should let us use intuitions gift. It's basically a categorically better sandman's pouch!

That exact trinket was why Fire was set to be a top tier spec going into HFC again. Then they changed to spirit which wasn't a huge deal. Then they took it away. Very frustrating. It would solve basically every problem that exists with current fire including the cyclical DPS and RNG on Sandman's procs.