Regarding fire's single-target DPS after 7.1.5

[Bradaek]

Did a full clear of Nighthold normal and a few heroics, and I have to say: my single target DPS seems downright abysmal. I've tried various builds that look promising in the sims but nothing seems remotely competitive with most of my raid, particularly our frost mage.

I can completely dominate particular AOE fights but it seems like a really poor trade-off to be exceptional in a handful of the fights and really terrible in a handful of fights.

What are your experiences? How has your single target DPS been?

My armory if you're curious: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/a ... aek/simple" target="_blank

[Beave]

Yup. I'm not as geared as you, but I pulled 600k+ on Skorpiron and a few add fights. Get to Star Augur and I'm working my butt off to parse over 400k. The bracers and a stat stick trinket really help for single target. Even the few adds who pop late aren't enough to justify any multi-target skills. Getting the right trinkets is apparently a big deal for single target, and those weren't good ones pre-7.1.5.

[Bradaek]

Yup. I'm not as geared as you, but I pulled 600k+ on Skorpiron and a few add fights. Get to Star Augur and I'm working my butt off to parse over 400k. The bracers and a stat stick trinket really help for single target. Even the few adds who pop late aren't enough to justify any multi-target skills. Getting the right trinkets is apparently a big deal for single target, and those weren't good ones pre-7.1.5.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat on ST fights. Swap all my talents and work my ass off just to be near the bottom of our DPS - a place I've never been in the history of raiding in WoW. Seems to be a purely a mathematical problem, and I would instantly switch specs if it weren't for artifacts, but alas.

[Eyliria]

This has been my experience as well. Fights like Skorpyron I can pull 1.2M+ (there are some questionable people in my guild that tend to get knocked out of the inner circle... leading to more cleaving).

Spellblade Aluriel was also a fight that I did really well, because of the insane amount of cleaving/multi=targetting of adds.

Now we've begun working on Star Augur and it's exactly as it is said here. I have to work what feels like overtime just to hit 430-440k. (SimC puts me at 453k). This is running a pure ST spec (MI, UM - and i've tried both meteor and CiS, which didn't produce a big difference, honestly, so I've stuck with CiS due to the last phase adds), while other classes (rogues, rets, frost dks, warr) all seem to comfortably coast around 500k without much of a hassle.


I've pretty much resigned myself to accepting that my pure ST will just be garbage, because if they ever buffed this, they would have to hit us on the cleave exceptionally hard.

It also doesn't help that i have neither Bindings nor Koralon's... I have 940 Darckli's and a 910 Sephuz (my other legendary - i only have 3, is norgannons).

[kaNEt]

1. u need to cast meteor BEFORE you poping combustion (so with the delay falls in combustion) that will boost a bit your opening and put you in a better place for all the fight.
2. i feel like playing conflagation on ST in 7.1.5
3. use prolonged power with MI.
4. use well your blasts and pi so u have ALL CHARGES for the combustion phases
5. use only stat flat trinkets
6. use SIMC and change a lot of your crit for haste

i was near the bottom on ST before 7.1.5 im near the top at 7.1.5.

[Quorgyle]

Seems to be a purely a mathematical problem, and I would instantly switch specs if it weren't for artifacts, but alas.

Not even artifact is a problem, as you can farm AP with WQ and M+. Getting to 35 isn't that bad. But legendaries are a problem and people who have them will always pull more dps.

[GamerBeast]

My guild did NH normal last night, and we got to Star Augur Etraeus before calling the 3+ hour raid night.

As said before, on Skorpyron and some AoE/ Cleave fights we do okay, but on the ST fights, we are on the bottom of the DPS charts , hanging out with the tanks.

From all the mages in the raid team (3 of them), I was mostly on top with pretty sub par gear, and only getting my 2nd legendary today (the day this post is written). I was really hoping for some ST buffs in the hotfix for next week, but I guess that isn't happening. I have Sephuz, Norgannons and Belovir (will have Sephuz and Norgannons equipped) and this is my armory.

[Marlernx]

I managed to get some decent go's on st fights in NH with my highest st being 619k on augur norm and best parse 591 on gul'dan. I have two considerations: Legendaries matter a lot for fire st, seeing as my dps got affected alot by pyro procs, while the scorch belt gave me some noticeable creep on bosses like Gul'Dan that have lots of hp. Second thing is stats this patch. I had to swap around A LOT of my gear and right now my highest simmed dps with the gear combinations I have is only rocking 44% crit, but 18% haste(with 2p set, I made these changes after the raid btw). I even equipped a haste/mastery ring only 5 ilvls above my old crit/haste ring. Fire mage stats are weird and very gear/legendary-dependent this patch, so if people havent simmed themselves, I'd recommend getting started on that right now. Generally, getting that high item level gear out of your bank and equipping int/stat stick trinkets seems to be the way to go(was for me at least).

Still, just a rough judgement over the other specs st performance definitely hints to both being better than fire at st, so the future might be fire for add fights, frost/arcane for st.

[leo6diam]

6. use SIMC and change a lot of your crit for haste

so u suggest for ST to drop a huge amount of crit for haste?i did this and droped to 47% crit and my rotation is meh,its like i never crit.

[Mybull]

1. u need to cast meteor BEFORE you poping combustion (so with the delay falls in combustion) that will boost a bit your opening and put you in a better place for all the fight.
2. i feel like playing conflagation on ST in 7.1.5
3. use prolonged power with MI.
4. use well your blasts and pi so u have ALL CHARGES for the combustion phases
5. use only stat flat trinkets
6. use SIMC and change a lot of your crit for haste

i was near the bottom on ST before 7.1.5 im near the top at 7.1.5.

I have been trying to cast Meteor before combustion.

Now this is what I get.

Rotation:
Cast Fireball till HU is up
Phoenix Flame to get Pyro up
Meteor
Cast Fireball (1.6 sec cast)
Combustion (when Fireball is halfway caring time)
Normal combustion rotation

What I found out is that Meteor is NOT guaranteed to crit.

Theoretically, Metoer has a 3 sec delay. While Metoer is somewhere in the air (within 3 sec time frame), combustion should make give you 100% crit. But this is not happening.

I have gotten may times my Meteor doesn't crit after I cast Meteor, < 2sec later I Combust.

Is anyone having the same situation?

Full Raid Buff I have 48% crit 21% haste.

[Mybull]

I managed to get some decent go's on st fights in NH with my highest st being 619k on augur norm and best parse 591 on gul'dan. I have two considerations: Legendaries matter a lot for fire st, seeing as my dps got affected alot by pyro procs, while the scorch belt gave me some noticeable creep on bosses like Gul'Dan that have lots of hp. Second thing is stats this patch. I had to swap around A LOT of my gear and right now my highest simmed dps with the gear combinations I have is only rocking 44% crit, but 18% haste(with 2p set, I made these changes after the raid btw). I even equipped a haste/mastery ring only 5 ilvls above my old crit/haste ring. Fire mage stats are weird and very gear/legendary-dependent this patch, so if people havent simmed themselves, I'd recommend getting started on that right now. Generally, getting that high item level gear out of your bank and equipping int/stat stick trinkets seems to be the way to go(was for me at least).

Still, just a rough judgement over the other specs st performance definitely hints to both being better than fire at st, so the future might be fire for add fights, frost/arcane for st.

First of all, I have to agree strongly that fire spec now is very gear/legendary depending.

However, With 7.1.5, fire spec has couple different build depending on which legendary item you have and talents to fit into your current gears.

I am not a pro in SimC but this is what I have found out after many EN and M+ runs.

I am lucky to have the legendary bracers:
The most ideal stats with all the unlucky gear drops for me.
Crit around 46-50%
Haste >21%
Mastery 12%
880 cronoshard
880 urn
Set gears from Arc and CoS. 875 helm and 885 Amice.

I know my stats is baseless without a SimC report.

I haven't try NH raids yet. Let's see how this current settings perform and will post a feedback again.

[Xarct]

1. u need to cast meteor BEFORE you poping combustion (so with the delay falls in combustion) that will boost a bit your opening and put you in a better place for all the fight.
2. i feel like playing conflagation on ST in 7.1.5
3. use prolonged power with MI.
4. use well your blasts and pi so u have ALL CHARGES for the combustion phases
5. use only stat flat trinkets
6. use SIMC and change a lot of your crit for haste

i was near the bottom on ST before 7.1.5 im near the top at 7.1.5.

I have been trying to cast Meteor before combustion.

Now this is what I get.

Rotation:
Cast Fireball till HU is up
Phoenix Flame to get Pyro up
Meteor
Cast Fireball (1.6 sec cast)
Combustion (when Fireball is halfway caring time)
Normal combustion rotation

What I found out is that Meteor is NOT guaranteed to crit.

Theoretically, Metoer has a 3 sec delay. While Metoer is somewhere in the air (within 3 sec time frame), combustion should make give you 100% crit. But this is not happening.

I have gotten may times my Meteor doesn't crit after I cast Meteor, < 2sec later I Combust.

Is anyone having the same situation?

Full Raid Buff I have 48% crit 21% haste.

It's not critting becaude you're trying to cast fireball with it. It's already hard to cast Meteor > MI Combust and you're making it harder on you're self. Abother thing is you should be using fireblast to get your Hot streak not phoenix flame.

[Eyliria]

1. u need to cast meteor BEFORE you poping combustion (so with the delay falls in combustion) that will boost a bit your opening and put you in a better place for all the fight.
2. i feel like playing conflagation on ST in 7.1.5
3. use prolonged power with MI.
4. use well your blasts and pi so u have ALL CHARGES for the combustion phases
5. use only stat flat trinkets
6. use SIMC and change a lot of your crit for haste

i was near the bottom on ST before 7.1.5 im near the top at 7.1.5.

I am already doing all of these.

Specially #6. Crit remains my highest valued stat (after intellect). Unless there is some huge haste breakpoint somewhere that I am unaware of, and that I am far enough away from, that SimC isn't showing it to me.

My stats are 57% crit, 13% haste, 15% mastery, 2% vers.

Legendaries are Darckli's and Sephuz (I have 3, third is Norgannons).

SimC puts me at 453k ST. I've tried changing things around (haste rings, norgannons), etc in the past, but, it just came at a big dps cost (drops me to 430k ish).

I dnt know if there~s something fundamentaly wrong that i am doing (and I don't think it's a rotational issue, since I can hit my SimC mark), or that I just dont have either bracers or koralon's.

[Marlernx]

I managed to get some decent go's on st fights in NH with my highest st being 619k on augur norm and best parse 591 on gul'dan. I have two considerations: Legendaries matter a lot for fire st, seeing as my dps got affected alot by pyro procs, while the scorch belt gave me some noticeable creep on bosses like Gul'Dan that have lots of hp. Second thing is stats this patch. I had to swap around A LOT of my gear and right now my highest simmed dps with the gear combinations I have is only rocking 44% crit, but 18% haste(with 2p set, I made these changes after the raid btw). I even equipped a haste/mastery ring only 5 ilvls above my old crit/haste ring. Fire mage stats are weird and very gear/legendary-dependent this patch, so if people havent simmed themselves, I'd recommend getting started on that right now. Generally, getting that high item level gear out of your bank and equipping int/stat stick trinkets seems to be the way to go(was for me at least).

Still, just a rough judgement over the other specs st performance definitely hints to both being better than fire at st, so the future might be fire for add fights, frost/arcane for st.

First of all, I have to agree strongly that fire spec now is very gear/legendary depending.

However, With 7.1.5, fire spec has couple different build depending on which legendary item you have and talents to fit into your current gears.

I am not a pro in SimC but this is what I have found out after many EN and M+ runs.

I am lucky to have the legendary bracers:
The most ideal stats with all the unlucky gear drops for me.
Crit around 46-50%
Haste >21%
Mastery 12%
880 cronoshard
880 urn
Set gears from Arc and CoS. 875 helm and 885 Amice.

I know my stats is baseless without a SimC report.

I haven't try NH raids yet. Let's see how this current settings perform and will post a feedback again.

Yes thats what I meant in my post as well. I have no doubt I'm simming so high with low crit because I have koralon's and 2 piece, and I simmed a fellow mage from guild who still has crit as his highest weight. Hence the importance of simming individually and trying to sim different gear setups you have available.

[Mybull]

1. u need to cast meteor BEFORE you poping combustion (so with the delay falls in combustion) that will boost a bit your opening and put you in a better place for all the fight.
2. i feel like playing conflagation on ST in 7.1.5
3. use prolonged power with MI.
4. use well your blasts and pi so u have ALL CHARGES for the combustion phases
5. use only stat flat trinkets
6. use SIMC and change a lot of your crit for haste

i was near the bottom on ST before 7.1.5 im near the top at 7.1.5.

I have been trying to cast Meteor before combustion.

Now this is what I get.

Rotation:
Cast Fireball till HU is up
Phoenix Flame to get Pyro up
Meteor
Cast Fireball (1.6 sec cast)
Combustion (when Fireball is halfway caring time)
Normal combustion rotation

What I found out is that Meteor is NOT guaranteed to crit.

Theoretically, Metoer has a 3 sec delay. While Metoer is somewhere in the air (within 3 sec time frame), combustion should make give you 100% crit. But this is not happening.

I have gotten may times my Meteor doesn't crit after I cast Meteor, < 2sec later I Combust.

Is anyone having the same situation?

Full Raid Buff I have 48% crit 21% haste.

It's not critting becaude you're trying to cast fireball with it. It's already hard to cast Meteor > MI Combust and you're making it harder on you're self. Abother thing is you should be using fireblast to get your Hot streak not phoenix flame.

First of all, it is not hard at all with this rotations. The only time it is hard is when the Meteor has line of sight aiming.

I guess i should rephrase my question in the post. Does Meteor crit rating calculated base at the time it is cast OR when it lands?

Reason i am not using firebalst to get my hotstreak is because i am using FO talent. With 3 charges and at 28% haste,
i can cast a meteor after i have finish up my 3 charges and FP my 4th fireblast is up and another Pyro again.

And depending on my 2pc set from Arc/Cos and Chronoshard procs, i can have another Pyro into the combust.

Let me log tomorrow's raid and we can discuss more if u like

[Rabona]

1. u need to cast meteor BEFORE you poping combustion (so with the delay falls in combustion) that will boost a bit your opening and put you in a better place for all the fight.
2. i feel like playing conflagation on ST in 7.1.5
3. use prolonged power with MI.
4. use well your blasts and pi so u have ALL CHARGES for the combustion phases
5. use only stat flat trinkets
6. use SIMC and change a lot of your crit for haste
i was near the bottom on ST before 7.1.5 im near the top at 7.1.5.

No offence, but I don't think that's likely unless you've got an edge over your other raid members in terms of gear or skill.
Imho Krosus and Augur are the two encounters which reflect ST performance the best in NH and for both WCL-stats paint a rather grim picture.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics ... dataset=99" target="_blank

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics ... dataset=99" target="_blank

I chose 99er %ile mainly because I think it better reflects the potential of less popular specs, but even if you go down to 95 it looks basically the same.

[Tschebu]

im playing almost same build like in 7.1
Just with Meteor, so RoP + Meteor, still Sinew and Helya Trinket with Crit 880.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/dM ... amage-done" target="_blank

SimC tells me that RoP is simmed higher than MI on my character, even if i take Infernal Writ instead of Sinew to sim MI, still gets outdealed by RoP, lul?
But yea as you can see in that Krosus Log, you are still competitive on ST, even with Rune.

Edit: Regarding the kill speed, 10 Seconds to Combustion + Sinew etc. was left, so there was potentially much more damage.

[Xarct]

It's not critting becaude you're trying to cast fireball with it. It's already hard to cast Meteor > MI Combust and you're making it harder on you're self. Abother thing is you should be using fireblast to get your Hot streak not phoenix flame.

First of all, it is not hard at all with this rotations. The only time it is hard is when the Meteor has line of sight aiming.

I guess i should rephrase my question in the post. Does Meteor crit rating calculated base at the time it is cast OR when it lands?

Reason i am not using firebalst to get my hotstreak is because i am using FO talent. With 3 charges and at 28% haste,
i can cast a meteor after i have finish up my 3 charges and FP my 4th fireblast is up and another Pyro again.

And depending on my 2pc set from Arc/Cos and Chronoshard procs, i can have another Pyro into the combust.

Let me log tomorrow's raid and we can discuss more if u like

So you're opener is beyond wrong.

1. It is better to have Fireblast on cd than it is to have Pheonix flame. Pheonix flame is 45 cd and get's lowered by ignite by 10 seconds.

2. When you get Hot Streak, you cast Meteor > MI > Combust or Rune > Meteor > Combust. If you are using Meteor inside combust you're doing it wrong. The crit rating is when the spell lands not when you cast it.

3. Kind of a side note and idk your gear. I'm sitting on 15k crit and i feel thats low, yea haste is better on single but its better than mastery and barely and i mean barely better than crit. You shouldn't be at 45% crit to get more haste.

[Solarian78]

2. When you get Hot Streak, you cast Meteor > MI > Combust or Rune > Meteor > Combust. If you are using Meteor inside combust you're doing it wrong. The crit rating is when the spell lands not when you cast it.

If you hold your meteor a couple seconds into combustion you will get the auto meteor crit WITH 5 stacks of pyretic incantion. Def worth holding imo.

I just save a fireblast charge to use while I am using a gcd on meteor so I'm not losing out any practically any time.

[jahrastafari]

If you hold your meteor a couple seconds into combustion you will get the auto meteor crit WITH 5 stacks of pyretic incantion. Def worth holding imo.

I just save a fireblast charge to use while I am using a gcd on meteor so I'm not losing out any practically any time.

Better check your math there. You're still losing a GCD. Don't think that extra Meteor damage is worth the GCD.