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So, where's fire advantageous?
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In raids and dungeons, I excel as Arcane. Hard hits, focus magic buffs for other casters, mana gems that increase my intellect and spell power, and a buff increase for the entire raid or party.
In PvP, I almost always see Frost. ... Scratch that... I *always* see Frost. Arcane and Frost are my specifications. A friend of mine insists I go fire, but I'm not convinced. Would I see any damage output increase as fire? Chances are, I'm thinking not. Ultimately, I don't see a reason to switch to something I'm not familiar with. |
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Arcane is fine for PvE in most situations, as far as I can tell. Fire DPS is really gear based, and even then it's subject to RNG.
In PvP, Frost is really on top, but Fire is doing good/great as of right now. |
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Fire is all about mobility. Fire is great in PVE and it is also great in PVP. The joy i get in pve is that you cant always tell what your next move is going to be. Its similar but not always the same rotation. Like the above poster said its RNG based. You never know when your going to get that amazing 50k+ crit, you may get it often or you may get it that one perfect time. Either way a smile will escape your lips when your dps climbs and soars past everyone elses.
My favorite is when Warlord casts a mana void. While people are out of mana us fire mages can just scorch weave and maintain an average dps while its down. Its just something that makes me feel unique from everyone else as if i have an advantage and they don't. |
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In a BG you should be doubling your damage as fire compared to frost, unless you're turreting one healer 24/7; Or you're doing it wrong.
Spread dot dmg > Single target damage. |
1. That's Yor'sahj. 2. Life Tap says hi. |
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OP, Looking at your personal progression, I understand what you are saying.
Even against Ultraxion, you'll be fine as arcane, but perform better as fire frankly because you don't have to worry about stacks dropping. and here's where you'll gonna be wishing you were fire: Blackhorn. On normal, it's a chaotic fight with tons of movement that is almost non-stop. Then back to arcane for Spine, and then: MADNESS. Probably doable as arcane (haven't been there yet myself), but I am quite certain that DPS is MUCH greater as fire during this fight due to all the adds & cataclysm. |
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In raids and dungeons, I excel as Arcane. Hard hits, focus magic buffs for other casters, mana gems that increase my intellect and spell power, and a buff increase for the entire raid or party. Honestly, all I got from this post was.... Ignorance on your part. Try it. It is the most fun spec in the game. Blow things up. |
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Blackhorn. On normal, it's a chaotic fight with tons of movement that is almost non-stop. Not really... MADNESS. Probably doable as arcane (haven't been there yet myself), but I am quite certain that DPS is MUCH greater as fire during this fight due to all the adds & cataclysm. All the adds? Do you mean the regenerative bloods...? And why would Cataclysm benefit fire more, really? |
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Edited by Talthoss on 2/22/12 3:59 AM (PST)
In PVE raiding: Anytime there are short duration interruptions. Anytime there are adds that stay up for more than a couple seconds. Anytime cleave damage is possible.
In PVP arena: Any time your team needs pressure while being trained. Anytime your team needs control and team wide burst when not being trained. Anytime your team desires long CC chains that do not suffer diminishing returns quickly and are AoE. In PVP RBG: Anytime your team wants the same control frost gives but with 5x damage. |
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Edited by Rentrenus on 2/22/12 7:03 AM (PST)
Blackhorn, you are moving because of twilight onslaught a lot, not to mention the little ones (though less important than T.O.). Also, adds go down faster with good impacts. And you can even begin hitting the drakes before the adds drop. Also, moving because of shockwave is another example of movement. Lots of movement and adds = go fire in my books. There is an exception IMO: Ultraxion. Pressing the button can cause you to lose your stacks, which means less DPS and damage. Whereas with fire, things just continue to tick. Madness; I'm thinking of the end of the fight, the elementium fragments, and also of 100k ignites. Prior to the end, I can see the two specs as pretty competitive, but a fire mage will come out doing more damage. Nevertheless, I think you could be arcane in madness and do well. |
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have you seen any hansol of darkspear's youtube videos of fire mage pvp? it basically show what a fire mage is capable of. once you learn to shatter as fire, you can pretty much setup your burst whenever. and fire's aoe ability with impact dot spreading is crazy good.
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In raids and dungeons, I excel as Arcane. Hard hits, focus magic buffs for other casters, mana gems that increase my intellect and spell power, and a buff increase for the entire raid or party. Fire has a lot of utility. Cauterize is an amazing cooldown for fights like HM-Ultraxion and HM-Warmaster. It also provides the raid with the Critical Mass debuff. Scorch allows you to DPS on the move, whereas arcane only has Arcane Barrage, which sucks. That being said, if you like arcane, play arcane. It's very viable right now. But for mages who were forced into playing arcane during T11 and T12, fire is a nice change of pace. |
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Blackhorn, you are moving because of twilight onslaught a lot, not to mention the little ones (though less important than T.O.). Also, adds go down faster with good impacts. And you can even begin hitting the drakes before the adds drop. Err... I have done the fight (many times more than you, actually). And... No, not really. There's not much in the way of movement on normal, unless your strategy is flawed. Certainly not enough to make a big difference between fire and arcane. |
Because fire can double dip. Our crits are bigger because of it, making combustion bigger. And then combustion is made even bigger again. |
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Is fire really that much better than frost for BGs?
How does it far relative to frost at killing a single target in speed and/or ease? |
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Fire's advantages in PVE compared to arcane:
1. Much more mobile - can maintain nearly full dps even while moving by substituting scorch instead of fireball. This is handy for fights like heroic Morchok where you're constantly running from stomp to crystal and back. In a fight with lots of running around fire's theoretical dps is higher than arcane's. 2. Much less mana dependent - can dps effectively even with zero mana using scorch and hot streak. Can sustain its normal rotation for quite awhile with minimal mana, such as that provided by 1 mana gem. This is handy for fights like the mana void on Yorsahj. 3. More survivable - Cauterize is a get out of jail free card once a minute. Arcane has nothing comparable. Cauterize can also be used to cheese various fight mechanics, such as on heroic Ultraxian where it can be used to help tank hour of twilight. 4. Cleave damage - fire excels at fights where you have multiple high-health targets tanked close together. Using impact, fire mages can spread their dots to multiple targets. Extra effective when a combustion is impacted. This can put fire far ahead of arcane. Good for fights like the add packs adds in heroic Yorsahj and for most trash mobs between bosses. 5. High end-fight damage - fire gains +20% damage against targets below 20% health.... a critical time of the fight for many encounters. |
The stacks lasts 6s, long enough if your latency isn't high. And you can have Presence of Mind to help you anyway. The cast of AB is shorter than fireball as well, and more damaging than scorch. MADNESS. Probably doable as arcane (haven't been there yet myself), but I am quite certain that DPS is MUCH greater as fire during this fight due to all the adds & cataclysm. Fire doesn't have much of an advantage here, the Regenerative bloods take high damage to Kalecgos' Spellweave, making a quick AoE preferable. Arcane Explosion with a 1s gcd works great here, even without stacks of Arcane Blast. Same for the tentacles at the end of the fight. Cataclysm doubles the damage caused by the players, arcane mages can time their burst here to top charts if they want to. The Blisterings aren't harmed by AoE damage and are rather fragile, you must hit them with single-target spells, where arcane does better due to the ease for target switch that the arcane blast allow, compared to the dot dependance of fire to get equivalent dps. What keeps fire dps here is that it can keep dots on the arm/wing tentacle while casting at the blisterings.
As far as I know, frost is better than fire for single target killing due to burst on demand every 25s at most (Freeze). It is somewhat less prone to see damage loss to defensive dispels than fire. |
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Edited by Aowyn on 2/22/12 12:50 PM (PST)
Also:
The mana void is a blessing for an arcane mage, you just have to spam AB before the mana void for maximum dps, throw a flame orb, mana gem or arcane torrent to get mana and missiles going on the orb. When it is detonated, you just gained a free 100% evocation. More survivable - Cauterize is a get out of jail free card once a minute. Arcane has nothing comparable. On the other hand, arcane is more friendly with the mana of your healers and less spiky in damage taken due to Mage armor and Prismatic Cloak. It also rewards the good use of Mana Shield/Mage Ward for your dps, while these are dps loss to fire. For use of Mana Shield, better when during a int proc, so you don't end with a significant mana loss when it ends. High end-fight damage - fire gains +20% damage against targets below 20% health.... a critical time of the fight for many encounters. Arcane's version of Molten Fury is Arcane Blast Spam, to the point where the boss is dead exactly when you are oom. You get even more dps than specs that actually have talents specific for these moments when you do it. And fire gains 12%, not 20%. |
