[7.1.5] Fire mage guide for Legion, by Rinoa

[Xenost]

Plus you can't cast PF at the end of a fireball to confirm a hot streak. (I did a lot of tests and it often munch the proc)

[minigavrin]

To all that contributed to this article and Rinoa for you putting it all together you have my gratitude. Great job!

[Xenost]

Is it worth to start the combustion sequence with Cinderstorm to get 5 PI stack before the rest of the sequence (like Rop->Phoenix Flame->Combu<->Fireblast->Cinderstorm->Pyro... ) ?

[whisperingsage]

If anything, you'd want to cast Cinderstorm, then Combustion as the cast is about to complete, wasting as little time of the buff as possible. Combustion can be cast while casting other spells, and PF and blast have guaranteed crit anyway, no reason to waste buff time on them.

[Mortiferus]

Is it worth to start the combustion sequence with Cinderstorm to get 5 PI stack before the rest of the sequence (like Rop->Phoenix Flame->Combu<->Fireblast->Cinderstorm->Pyro... ) ?

It's a good thought, but I see problems with both examples of how to make this work.

First example: If we Hot Streak -> RoP -> CiS (Combust) -> Pyro -> normal, we have desynced RoP & Combust, wasting the CiS cast time and ensuring that the tail end of Combust doesn't benefit from +50% DMG, which is huge.

Second example: If we Hot Streak -> RoP (Combust) -> CiS -> Pyro -> normal, we are wasting both RoP and Combust time on the CiS cast time.

With how critical the Combustion window is to Fire DPS, I believe we can extrapolate the following two rules:

• Only cast Instants during Combustion; if none are available, cast Scorch
• Align RoP and Combustion as closely as possible; generally, this means casting Combustion at the end of your RoP cast (ideally with a Hot Streak in the bank)

This begs two questions:
1) Can we obey those 2 rules and still use CiS to guarantee max stack PI going into Combustion? I believe the answer is no. Other (better) minds need to weigh in.
2) Does breaking the rules to use CiS to guarantee max stack PI result in higher DPS, thus proving our rules wrong? I believe the answer is no. But has anyone tried this APL yet?

Edit: In Discord, per Dutch, this was tested and CiS during Combustion is only a DPS gain when at least 5+ targets will be hit. TL;DR: No way to make this work, so long as RoP is a thing.

[Xenost]

In the opener described Phoenix flame is casted right after rop>Combu, I miss to see why do we use combu before PF since PF will always crit we waste a GCD on the combustion active time.

[Mortiferus]

In the opener described Phoenix flame is casted right after rop>Combu, I miss to see why do we use combu before PF since PF will always crit we waste a GCD on the combustion active time.

The opener assumes you want to immediately start your "burn"; some examples of why you would want to do this include: Bloodlust on pull, trinket procs, fight mechanics at start are favorable to a perfect DPS rotation, etc.

Under this assumption, your first order of business is to get RoP & Combustion going. Keep in mind that this also sets you up to maximize your Combustion & RoP uses for the duration of the fight, by putting them both on recharge/CD at the onset.

If you can guarantee that you won't lose a RoP use or a Combustion use, then, all other things being equal, it's better to go into Combustion with a Hot Streak, but all other things are rarely equal.

[fize]

Hey,

New to this site, since deciding to main mage for legion. Thanks for the guide.

One question,

You suggest Cinderstrom as the talent in both Priority ST, and AOE.

All these sims are with hitting all 6 cinders, which seems to me even with practice pretty impossible in a raid encounter situation. Alot of time priority adds/etc are tanked separately and therefore CiS would lose value. In this case would it not be more beneficial to go kindling? Or am I wrong in thinking CiS is hard to use and just need more practice?

Overall unless it is 4 Target stacked AOE, with little movement I feel that kindling will almost always be the better talent?

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

[Druidskull1]

Great guide and excellent formatting. Thanks for the good read and advice

[Juravieal]

I'm having an issue with hot streaks being munched, but I cant tell what exactly is munching it. I want to say its when Conflag fires off....can it crit? I thought there was a 200ms protection added to keep it from happening with 2 spells hitting at the same time, but something is definitely starting to take it away instantly. I barely have time to register the alert popping up and its gone.

[300kg]

I'm having an issue with hot streaks being munched, but I cant tell what exactly is munching it. I want to say its when Conflag fires off....can it crit? I thought there was a 200ms protection added to keep it from happening with 2 spells hitting at the same time, but something is definitely starting to take it away instantly. I barely have time to register the alert popping up and its gone.

Could this by any chance be the traveltime of Phoenix Flames? It is slower than Pyroblast so would make sense why you can't get a HS with a PF chained after a fireball.

Looks to me like you don't want to chain a PF after a non-instant spell.

EDIT: Also, I think HS is only affected by direct-damage spells, and not dots.

[Pkm]

Looks to me like you don't want to chain a PF after a non-instant spell.

EDIT: Also, I think HS is only affected by direct-damage spells, and not dots.

Does that mean it's ok to use during combustion? Since you are using instant casts, but then it always crits anyway.

[Xenost]

Yeah, you definitely want to use PF during combustion and probably during other RoP. I don't know how many stacks should we keep for combustion, Is 1 enough?

[Juravieal]

I'm having an issue with hot streaks being munched, but I cant tell what exactly is munching it. I want to say its when Conflag fires off....can it crit? I thought there was a 200ms protection added to keep it from happening with 2 spells hitting at the same time, but something is definitely starting to take it away instantly. I barely have time to register the alert popping up and its gone.

Could this by any chance be the traveltime of Phoenix Flames? It is slower than Pyroblast so would make sense why you can't get a HS with a PF chained after a fireball.

Looks to me like you don't want to chain a PF after a non-instant spell.

EDIT: Also, I think HS is only affected by direct-damage spells, and not dots.

I thought maybe it was travel time of something as well, but I am getting it out in the world without even using PF. I thought the whole point of the buffer was to keep travel time from playing that much of an impact? When it happens its literally too fast to interact. I will get a quick flash of the hot streak icons and then they are gone, extremely quick.

Its quick enough I wasnt even sure I was seeing it correctly at first, but I have seen it enough now to know for sure. I will see if I can get it caught on a damage log.

[Exothermic]

I'm having an issue with hot streaks being munched, but I cant tell what exactly is munching it. I want to say its when Conflag fires off....can it crit? I thought there was a 200ms protection added to keep it from happening with 2 spells hitting at the same time, but something is definitely starting to take it away instantly. I barely have time to register the alert popping up and its gone.

Could this by any chance be the traveltime of Phoenix Flames? It is slower than Pyroblast so would make sense why you can't get a HS with a PF chained after a fireball.

Looks to me like you don't want to chain a PF after a non-instant spell.

EDIT: Also, I think HS is only affected by direct-damage spells, and not dots.

I thought maybe it was travel time of something as well, but I am getting it out in the world without even using PF. I thought the whole point of the buffer was to keep travel time from playing that much of an impact? When it happens its literally too fast to interact. I will get a quick flash of the hot streak icons and then they are gone, extremely quick.

Its quick enough I wasnt even sure I was seeing it correctly at first, but I have seen it enough now to know for sure. I will see if I can get it caught on a damage log.

What's your ping like? Even though there's that window to help with this sort of thing, if your ping is a bit high, it might fall outside of the window.

[Juravieal]

What's your ping like? Even though there's that window to help with this sort of thing, if your ping is a bit high, it might fall outside of the window.

Outside of the DDOS issues when they were going on, my ping is a pretty steady 25-30ms.

[Bôw]

Kindling is very strong, gives us more Combustion casts.
Cinderstorm is strong on any number of targets, ensure they are already affected by Mastery: Ignite.

So could we say :

1 Target : Kindling as efficient than CiS
and
Multiple Target : CiS more efficient than Kindling

?

[lwqyt]

singletarget must stand Kindling i guess maybe he messed up, but lets see what he says to it

[Kypes]

Hello fellow mages,

I really like the current state of (fire) mages but I find myself lacking DPS on dungeon trash groups.
I would like to know the correct way on using AOE.

You say we should start using flamestrike at 10+ enemies. IcyVeins or more over Furty stated we should use it while beeing on a group of 3+ already.

Rather, when a certain number of targets are present (3 or more), you will switch from spending your Hot Streak Icon Hot Streak procs on Pyroblast Icon Pyroblast to Flamestrike Icon Flamestrike.

Right now I think 3 is just not enough, but is there some kind of simcrafting for this?

Best regards

[willemh]

I would like to get some more discussion about AoE situations in dungeons.

A typical pull in dungeons involves like 15-20 mobs and you usually have very little time before the majority is dead (20 seconds orso). Say your tank just pulled 20 mobs and is tanking them and you just arrived. What do you cast?

I would think:
Living bomb>FBx2>RoP>combust>DB>instant FS>FO>2x FB>instant FS>PF 2x>instant FS>PF1x+FB1x>instant FS>hardcast flamestrike untill <10 mobs remaining (PF+FB on cooldown for extra instant FS) then switch to normal rotation?

Also switching to casting fireballs when there are 9 or 8 low HP mobs remaining feels so wrong, but as far as I read the guide this is optimal play.

Does the above make sense?