7.1.5 PTR Notes

[Sosaria]

I hate to bring this up, but look at how long the Elemental Shammy and Warlock had waited before their fixes came in.

Blizzard will release the final PTR patch with turning to the fire mage changes, no doubt, but their history of patches suggests that it's still a significant nerf to the fire mages.

Seriously, tell me one time when there wasn't a PTR nerfbat to a class, but was "tuned", but it still didn't end up being a dps nerf to said class when finally released.

So, when this PTR build is finally live, fire mages are living with the nerf and ----still dreading the secondary balance patch because we don't know if it's going to nerf us again, or make us stronger since the fire mage build revolves around the CRIT stat -----

Ergo, Fire mages may need to wait for at least 2 PTR builds to see where they finally end up.

Still trying to decide whether to loot for Fire or Arcane... as PTR Arcane testing suggests that stat preference at the moment is Haste > Crit = Mastery > Vers

[BlizzStopPls]

Here is my rant:

1. FIre mages currently sit at mid/top dps, no where near outrageous OP that some people are exaggerating.(Look up Warcraft logs)

2. Mages are a pure dps class where if shlt hits the fan with nerfs, we cant switch to tank/healer to be useful in raids.

3. The sheer amount of investment in AP, Relics, and Gear and getting it nerfed to BOP of DPS doesn't seem fair.

4. It's a popular class and spec, there is nothing wrong about that. Blizzard is trying to force feed every fire mage to swap specs when we don't want to (in the name of diversity).

5. It's early PTR iteration, I get it, but another nerf to fire mage in general is not necessary.The other specs can already outpace fire if geared and specced correctly. In almost all sims, fire is the lowest, but people play fire because it's the most consistent and the most comfortable sine they've been playing it from the beginning.

[Pank]

Hey, the initial trade chat blue response was just funny and sad at the same time. But he is just the messenger who poorly expressed himself and is now paying the price with the most popular theme on battle.net forums and his head on the chopping block. He doesn't have anything to do with balancing but he was sent to the mage forums to calm the unsub storm that was about to happen. And that's fine, a lot of people are playing fire hence a lot of people got pissed as hell. Ion and devs assured us this wasn't going to happen and it kinda did. We were kinda forced to play fire on the prepatch and after a few million ap invested they are redoing us now.

Apart from that, at least from my extensive reading into every patch note and watching every video from blizzard ( devs, game director, blizzcon ) there are more justified reasons far fetched as they may be.

1) PvP mobility with 2x blink and 3x ice floes ( regardless of the low dmg you can produce with movement, there is also sheep etc. ) Not taking into consideration that most of the raiders don't do pvp. Those two major aspects of the game shouldn't be so connected since balancing one is hurting the other by a lot.

2) Mythic + performance is also probably hurting us with the incoming nerf since we are good on cleave and extreme burst which is kinda the way to go for most of the mythic (2-8). Above nine it starts to show there isn't as much sustained single target dmg but we are still fine on trash.

3) Some fight mechanics making us better and a lot of padding if we do cheese ( most of the people do ofc ), for example xavius's dreaming with time warp ring, wriggling sinew, pyro bracers etc. Those mages can be competitive but it's a joke if they are saying that those top 1% are the only benchmark for the spec.

[Yelloweyedemon]

It's a matter class tuning, not Ice floes.

I meant it as a mobility issue. We can barely keep up with melee in this expansion, on mythic + and even EN/ToV. Take our #1 mobility skill away and see how it turns out...

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.

Do you really wanna go on with the shimmer excuse? Throw a RoP down and move out with shimmer. See how it turns out for you. Not to mention that shimmer alone is obviously not enough for stuff like Volcanic or Odyn. In terms of DPS we are nowhere near the top and that is WITH perfectly using ice floes. Take it away or nerrf it in some way and see how much further down the dps falls.

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.

He wasn't even trying to say something. He was just hopping in because of the shitstorm they created with releasing such notes. An obvious and expected thing to do in order to ease some of all those "sub canceled duuur" threads. Unless you really believe that a blizzard employee would talk balance in a thread starting with "YOU STUPID IDIOTS".

[iRyusa]

I meant it as a mobility issue. We can barely keep up with melee in this expansion, on mythic + and even EN/ToV. Take our #1 mobility skill away and see how it turns out...

I mean, you're telling me that, as of today our DPS on fight without any mobility is fine ? I can't agree with that at all. As of today Wrist are mandatory to be somewhat competitive. This is not an healthy spec until this is fixed : wrist should provide a significant dps upgrade but shouldn't be mandatory to be competitive. + most of good parse of high geared mage cheese some mechanics to have a decent DPS.

Do you really wanna go on with the shimmer excuse? Throw a RoP down and move out with shimmer. See how it turns out for you.

Do you really wanna go on with the "i'm not aware of any mecanics that can fuck my dps up so i should place my ROP now and delay it for 5s" excuse ? Like come on. RoP is our best cooldown among combustion. You don't need blizzard to baby sit you up because you can't find a 10s window to use it properly with minimum movement.

He wasn't even trying to say something. He was just hopping in because of the shitstorm they created with releasing such notes. An obvious and expected thing to do in order to ease some of all those "sub canceled duuur" threads. Unless you really believe that a blizzard employee would talk balance in a thread starting with "YOU STUPID IDIOTS".

As he said, PTR is far from finished, it's missing some talent, lot of specs are unplayable with those change right now.

Things I don't like is shimmer is now move on T30 meaning that if blast wave is really good you'll have to sacrifice a lot, and Firestarter is a still useless in PvE situation where 10% of the boss is almost done during our first combustion.

[Eiein]

People are mad about the response because it is insulting. The first blizzard justification for sweeping nerfs and removals of crucial abilities should NOT be, "because Thunderfury and Mankrik's wife told me so." Give us a reason that is justifiable. "Mages are overperforming on X mobility metric and these situations,"for example.

I do want to have rational discussion with developers on reworking the areas they are targeting though. Cool down stacking has always been core to the mage playstyle, however it seems to be getting out of hand. As of right now we are stacking Time Warp, Potion, Racial, Rune of Power, Combustion, Ring use effect, and trinket use effect; which corresponds to a very large percentage of our damage. If anything goes wrong in that 10 second window our damage is neutered.

This can be addressed by targeting rune and combustion, which they have done. I am happy to see change coming for those abilities. I think that Rune should be changed even more though, to mitigate its reliance on immobility. This will be exacerbated by the removal of Ice Floes. So how can this be compensated? We as a community should be brainstorming solutions to fix the problems with rune. It's much easier to have a discussion about solutions to problems than just pointing at something that is broken.

I propose that Rune should be made larger, much larger; so large that you can be on one edge and blink to the other edge and still be within the buff. It should also not obscure ground aoe, such as the volcanic affix.

Incanter's Flow should be buffed and its dynamic range should be compacted. That would circumvent having to wait for optimal strength for cool down stacking, which I already mentioned is problematic.

[Eyliria]

From a blue post, earlier today, regarding 7.1.5 design changes.

Fire Mage:
While Fire was mostly in a good place, we’re looking at two related issues in 7.1.5; the degree to which critical strike dominates other stats, and the overly high amount of damage concentrated into Combustion. Focusing on critical strike’s very strong contribution to the damage of Combustion, as well as that of Pyretic Incantation, addresses both of these. We'll be adjusting the damage of Fire’s core spells to leave its total damage similar to what it was before these changes. We're also giving Fire its own element-themed shield, as with Arcane.

--

This is good news, in a sense...

However, given the difference in % from fireball and pyroblast, and how high our crit rates currently are (70%+ crit on Fireballs and Pyros) and how this affects the chances of more instant pyros... the 7.1.5 changes are going to drastically change the make up of our damage, purely by virtue of the composition changing...

I don't see them massively buffing the damage of Fireball. I don't see them buffing enhanced pyrotechnics (because of 2pc).

2pc Nighthold will be necessary to maintain our current damage composition.

[Syana]

That blue post made me more worried, not less...

The current changes on the PTR has done nothing in my eyes to actually reduce the importance of crits. We only have to get even more of it, as with every patch where they reduce crit. I feel like they need to take a look at our need to chain crits together to deal damage which, due to the nature of RNG, results in crit always being valuable. If we don't crit back to back we lose massive amounts of damage.

The only thing I feel this patch has achieved is to reduce our mobility and lessen our survivability.

[isaac2314]

Out of curiosity, what buffs have we seen, after the Combustion/RoP/etc nerfs back at the very first PTR patch notes?

And just an additional note - wanting to brainstorm for the developers is a good thing for all of us, but I don't see why WE have to be doing it. We're customers - making the game good should be the responsibility of developers, not us players. That is, when game designs are bad, we shouldn't be asking players to make it better.

Of course, developers generally aren't and aren't willing to be held accountable by us players (and I can't say I blame them: would you, as a well-salaried professional, be willing to listen to the demands of whoever the loud players are? Maybe arrogant, but pretty normal), so I also can't blame people for asking players to step up.



EDIT: and I still wish they'd improve the Blazing Soul talent along the lines of this post.

[gurudox]

From a blue post, earlier today, regarding 7.1.5 design changes.

Fire Mage:
While Fire was mostly in a good place, we’re looking at two related issues in 7.1.5; the degree to which critical strike dominates other stats, and the overly high amount of damage concentrated into Combustion. Focusing on critical strike’s very strong contribution to the damage of Combustion, as well as that of Pyretic Incantation, addresses both of these. We'll be adjusting the damage of Fire’s core spells to leave its total damage similar to what it was before these changes. We're also giving Fire its own element-themed shield, as with Arcane.

What I take away from this is that they will be reducing the bonus damage from critical strikes, while increasing the baseline damage of all fire spells. This gives fire a more consistent sustained DPS, while being a little less bursty. It also allows weighting of other secondary stats - perhaps the mastery bonus to ignite will become more valued this way? It seems to be an ideal direction to go, by making itemization a little easier to do.

[Erosis]

Post updated to reflect changes to Blazing Barrier and Ice Block. Added the recent blue post as well.

[Eyliria]

Interesting change to Norgannon's boots... looks like that's going to be the 'new' ice floes...
Stand still for 5 seconds, gain casting while moving for 5 seconds.

They just turned it into one of the must-have legendaries.

edit: Turns out this might be getting slightly tuned. Unsure on the new effect yet, but something along these lines.

I'm... I don't know how to feel.

[OccamsRazor15]

I'll say it, maybe it makes me a terri-bad, but I won't miss Ice Floes. Hate the spell, always have. And I don't like that the bracers are mandatory for optimal DPS. I liked the belt giving me a reason to cast scorch again, I'd love the bracers to make hard-casting pyroblast a viable option, but I didn't like that I needed that item to be considered "viable". But that sentiment is no less reactionary than much of the hyperbole being espoused currently in this thread. The fact is that they have said tuning changes *are* in progress. This insistence that they won't happen seems premature at best. And I think it's important to remember that there are other opinions out there. I played fire in Vanilla and loved it. I rekindled my affection during this expansion. I am confident that we will remain viable, and I hope that people don't feel compelled to spec-change, but I am also not concerned with the mechanics changes they are planning. If this costs me a bit of DPS, I'm fine with it as I will enjoy the play style all the more.

[Eyliria]

I don't think Ice Floes is interesting at all... I think what worries people is to have to go from ice floes to scorching, when scorch is such a drastic reduction in DPET.

If there is no adequate compensation, its removal becomes a defacto nerf.

[OccamsRazor15]

Absolutely, I would agree. But I think it stands to reason that the nerf to the belt artifact seems likely to be in preparation for a buff to the damage of the base spell. Not *guaranteed,* but it seems likely.

[lowska]

Well, at least right now you can just pick another talent than ice floes if you hate it so much.

I don't get people who hat ice floes tho. I mean... why? Oh no, you have to (more or less passively) manage the CD, and it helps you deal damage while avoiding it. The real gift is being able to cast it during spellcasting, so you don't have to cancel, that was always the real DPS killer. Sure we have shimmer now, but blinking 20 yards can be very detrimental (from one fire to the other) if you miss the proper direction, or if another piece of fire spawns beneath you just as you land.

Do you find having to press another button hard? Cos scorch is gonna be another button to press. Same thing, just with a dps loss, really. Oh, and casting interrupt.

[Lahrast]

Absolutely, I would agree. But I think it stands to reason that the nerf to the belt artifact seems likely to be in preparation for a buff to the damage of the base spell. Not *guaranteed,* but it seems likely.

i would agree, a 100% buff for scorch damage would seem rational with it being utilized more since ice floes are gone, 350% bonus would have made it hit like a freaking truck, loaded with tons of rock (crits for over 250k now, imagine the numbers ...^^)

[Eyliria]

Well, that legendary bonus is changed on the PTR.
It's not +350% damage anymore, it's guaranteed critical strikes on scorching under that % of HP.

If they were to buff Scorch baseline damage so that it wasn't a big DPET difference compared to Fireball (think 80% of Fireballs DPET, compared to 35% that it is now), that belt would introduce an execute phase for mages - which I think would be something interesting.

[magictricks]

Absolutely, I would agree. But I think it stands to reason that the nerf to the belt artifact seems likely to be in preparation for a buff to the damage of the base spell. Not *guaranteed,* but it seems likely.

i would agree, a 100% buff for scorch damage would seem rational with it being utilized more since ice floes are gone, 350% bonus would have made it hit like a freaking truck, loaded with tons of rock (crits for over 250k now, imagine the numbers ...^^)

No you are wrong, it doesn't hit like a truck at all, it hits about the same as fireball without any of the additional bonuses. IE horrible.

Scorch doesn't affect kindling, nor does it get the 10% crit stacking buff, nor can you fire a pyro at the same time and get the protection from losing your hs like you can with fireball,
It would honestly need the 350% damage boost baked in to make it worth anything at all.

[Eyliria]

magictricks' post reminded me of something that might be considered silly, but would actually be a buff for scorch
"* Scorch now has a travel time."

Scorch should also affect Kindling. Unsure why it doesn't.