2P T17 Nerf?

[gameorg]

I have read alot of concerns and complains about the future of 2P T17 here. If unchanged, we most likely would play 2P T17 in the next patch aswell, because how strong it is. Most Mages here expect a nerf to 2P T17 in the future and so do i. But once again it looks like Blizzard doesnt foresee the situation and would do it in a quick hotfix when they actually realize whats going on.

This is a chance for us mages, to make blizzard aware of the situation beforehand and ask for some different approach other than a Nerf. As mentioned in other threads, 2P Spreading is mandatory for fire to be competetive in Single Target situations, and it synergizes really will with PC. Personally, i think its a completly different playstyle when you have 2x Inferno Blast. Its way more challenging but also alot more fun to play. I dont want that double Spread gone. I would not care if they nerf the overall damage in exchange (especially AOE) and thats exactly what iam asking for.

Balance fire around the 2P Spreading. The mechanic is genius, and alot of fun to play. Its a different way of playing fire.
Examples for a fix could be: Add double Inferno blast in General or add a glyph (or an additional bonus to the current glyph). In Exchange nerf some of the Aoe Damage.

How do you guys feel about it?

[Valounette]

Adding it as a glyph yes. As for nerfing damage in exchange, I disagree in random compromises like that. Sure, rebalance around the glyph, but any nerfs/buffs should be carefully weighted around the upcoming changes.

We also have to consider that if it was a glyph, we're already facing draw-backs to our potential utility glyphs. For example, on an AoE fight with lots of adds being up for a long time, we pretty much have to take Combustion, Inferno Blast(6 targets) and Inferno Blast(2 charges).

This means that we no longer have spare slots for double blink or ice block immunity, or other utility, if we want to DPS optimally. Could this indirect nerf be enough to balance, instead of nerfing overall damage? I'm not sure.

Another option could be to make the two Inferno blast glyphs exclusive, meaning you have to either choose between 6 target spreads or double spreads. Though this would likely simply make the prior useless, since even on fights like Darmac/Thogar, we would want two spreads simply for living bomb.

[Komma]

I think it's a bit too late for this discussion already. I have doubts they are going to opt for anything other than a simple change to the set bonus that removes this ability. It would be nice if they decided to do something more complex to preserve some of the gameplay value, but there is no history of them spending much time on any old tier bonus.

I also think that double-spread leads to bad and unintuitive gameplay. It's a gimmick, and a spec should not be based on a gimmick. There is nothing particularly "fun" or "engaging" about the double spread mechanism. The outcome depends on many factors that are out of our control, such as ignite tick times. It creates a huge disparity between Prismatic Crystal and other talents on single target. It puts us in absurd situations where we gain more single target damage from having a secondary target. It is a high-risk-high-reward playstyle that has no "plan B", has no "fallback", and this leads to the highest DPS variance levels ever recorded by a class. Mythic mastery-fire simulations have nearly double the variance of the second highest variance spec - BM hunters. This also means that it is extremely inconsistent. The abuse of Ignite mechanics hurts the integrity of "stoking a fire", instead making us put a lot of emphasis on bizarre "IB charge/spread management". Each of these reasons alone would justify removal, and I will not miss this playstyle when it happens.

Remember how Fire was balanced around POM-AT-Pyroblast chaining in MoP? 5.4 Combustion was nerfed from 50% to 20% of Ignite ticks, as a result of that. The same will happen here if double-spread stays. We will be balanced around the expectation of the double-spread gimmick being used. This is not a scenario I would like to see.

The "depth" of 2 charges of Inferno Blast should not be about double-spreads. It should be about addressing IB from being too "busy", because of both spreading and proc management (Heating Up --> Pyroblast). For example, if they preserved the 8 second recharge and 2 charge cap while adding a cooldown of 4 seconds (similar to 6.1 PTR nova spells), most of the design value would stay.

[Valounette]

For example, if they preserved the 8 second recharge and 2 charge cap while adding a cooldown of 4 seconds (similar to 6.1 PTR nova spells), most of the design value would stay.

I could appreciate this. When I think of 2 ib charges being gone, my main sadness comes from not having the freedom of spreading ignites/living bombs ontop of upgrading HU whenever I like. 1 charge is a whole lot more restrictive and sometimes clunky

[Emerys]

Already nerfed on ptr. Instead of 2 charges it will be "cooldown reduced by 2 sec"

[Quetesh]

They just don't want us using old set items in the new tier.

[gameorg]

ugly change . The challenge to double spread in a hectic fight, to play way more aggresive with your inferno blast charges. It is/was so much more fun. Now the fire rota is so pretty damn straight forward and too simple again.

There is really not much challenge/fun to play fire without 2x Inferno Blast.

[Dutchmagoz]

Sad but completely expected nerf. They never want people to use previous tier into the next tier. Hopefully we'll get it baseline next xpac or something.

[Bashlow]

Whole double ignite thing totally went out of control, making fire #1 singletarget and >>>> everything else on multi, this had to stop for obvious reasons. I am just wondering why they actually never changed it within the tier, maybe too busy think it was never intended by their class designers to make such a big wave...

[Caimion]

I agree with Komma, I'm glad it's gone - but I'm also not glad that pyro camping will be back. It was fun to manage DoT spreading (and T18 looks like more of the same, in terms of cleave/AoE prevalence) instead of just needing to camp all day.

[voltaa]

I also think that double-spread leads to bad and unintuitive gameplay. It's a gimmick, and a spec should not be based on a gimmick. There is nothing particularly "fun" or "engaging" about the double spread mechanism. The outcome depends on many factors that are out of our control, such as ignite tick times.

On the contrary, fire really as a spec is already based on a gimmick, combustion. The bread and butter of fire, is just a big gimmick and really not the most intuitive thing. And while you can do your best to try to maximize your combustions at the end of the day whether you are spreading it from the crystal or not, there's nothing particularly fun and engaging about it...on paper.

Regardless of how fun or engaging it seems when spelled out, people enjoyed this gameplay (yes others didn't but that can be said about every thing this game has) and I would say that it definitely adds another level of gameplay to a spec that has been plagued for years with "the boring". Seeing this spec bonus added baseline or as a glyph would possibly be the best fire change made since combustion was reworked for Cata, but I really don't expect we will see that.

[Preheat]

When I first saw the change I was happy I would no longer have to worry about double-spreading my ignites. Finally, no more added stress about setting up my combustion!

Then I played on the PTR as fire, and it was bizarre. Setting up my combustion was just too easy. I just couldn't shake the weird feeling that I was missing something. The gameplay really is a lot more interesting as it is now. I hope it somehow makes a comeback, but I seriously doubt it.

[Quetesh]

When I first saw the change I was happy I would no longer have to worry about double-spreading my ignites. Finally, no more added stress about setting up my combustion!

Then I played on the PTR as fire, and it was bizarre. Setting up my combustion was just too easy. I just couldn't shake the weird feeling that I was missing something. The gameplay really is a lot more interesting as it is now. I hope it somehow makes a comeback, but I seriously doubt it.

It is less interesting on PTR but we can't forget that double-spred Ignite is't intended gameplay. We will loose some dmg by this change, but we will get more consitent dmg

[gameorg]

When I first saw the change I was happy I would no longer have to worry about double-spreading my ignites. Finally, no more added stress about setting up my combustion!

Then I played on the PTR as fire, and it was bizarre. Setting up my combustion was just too easy. I just couldn't shake the weird feeling that I was missing something. The gameplay really is a lot more interesting as it is now. I hope it somehow makes a comeback, but I seriously doubt it.

It is less interesting on PTR but we can't forget that double-spred Ignite is't intended gameplay. We will loose some dmg by this change, but we will get more consitent dmg

Well my initial thought on this thread was not about the Damage we lose, but more what preheat mentioned, that we lose a playstyle which most fire mages really liked. The fire rotation is really simple without double spread, you cant really excell anymore with perfect execution. You will still rely alot on 4P or Trinket to set up good combustions, so RNG for fire is still as relevant as before and fire is by no means consistent. Removing Double inferno Blast feels like you remove a core part of a really well rounded spec. It had such a good interaction with all our spells, not just combustion. Creating Pyroblasts, more aggresive spreading of ignite Damage...

There would be alot of easy approaches to fix fire AOE Dmg (single target was still balanced with 2P). Negate the double spread, by not allowing to spread the same damage instance twice. Or just nerf other parts of the AOE Damage. Make Combustion weaker the more targets you spread it too. Its really easy to find an approiate fix, other than removing double spread entirely.

Unfortunately it seems like not everyone here is that enthusiastic about the 2P playstyle, that enough mages stand up and make a request for a different solution than removing Double Inferno Blast from the game.

[Komma]

There would be alot of easy approaches to fix fire AOE Dmg (single target was still balanced with 2P). Negate the double spread, by not allowing to spread the same damage instance twice. Or just nerf other parts of the AOE Damage. Make Combustion weaker the more targets you spread it too. Its really easy to find an approiate fix, other than removing double spread entirely.

I think you underestimate the difficulty by a large margin. There really isn't any "easy" approach. Let's go through some of your suggestions.

"not allow spreading the same damage instance twice" - how do we even recognize "the same damage instance"? The ignite you spread the first time and the ignite you spread the second time isn't even the same value, or same DOT. It's a recomputed, reapplied new ignite. Also, what's stopping you from spreading A to B, and then B to A? Even if you somehow solved all these issues, you would still hurt the integrity of Ignite spreading - the expectation that whatever Ignite damage is remaining on your target, spreading it should do that same amount to neighbors.

"nerf other parts of the AOE Damage" - much easier said than done. What can you propose that wouldn't hurt single target damage? The only obvious candidate is Living Bomb, but that talent is already a DPS loss to use single target. It's a "trap spell" for new players already.

"Make Combustion weaker the more targets you spread it to" - the only AOE cap in game works on single hit spells, not DOT spreading. There is no detection for how many active Combustions a player has running. How do you propose reducing Combustion damage when on multiple targets? What happens when one of the targets dies? What happens when one of the targets is immune? Do all Combustions hit for the same damage? If they don't, how do you decide the order of which ones hit harder?

No, it is definitely NOT easy to find an "appropriate" fix.

Unfortunately it seems like not everyone here is that enthusiastic about the 2P playstyle, that enough mages stand up and make a request for a different solution than removing Double Inferno Blast from the game.

I've mentioned it before - double spread is an absurd gimmick that increases single target damage only when two targets are present, and cannot be used when there is only one target. I believe this really hurts the integrity of "single target damage", and is reason enough to remove it. I also disagree with Voltaa's belief of Combustion being a gimmick. The in-game execution doesn't seem intuitive, but it fits a standard fantasy - "stoke the flames until it burns red hot". Combustion layers on top of that, and rewards you for a "well stoked flame" - a big Ignite.

The same "some people enjoyed this gameplay" has applied to many things in the past, such as DOT snapshotting. Some Warlocks enjoyed summoning a million imps by doing snapshotting a UVLS proc well. It made things more "interesting". The same can be said of many other things, such as Warriors using Heroic Leap in melee for a DPS increase. This does not mean those were engaging, well designed gameplay. The devs ultimately made the decision to cut them.

Again, I refer back to POM-AT-Pyrospam. When it became popular to be standard fare, we were balanced around it. Any Fire Mage not using POM and AT for this trick suddenly became far under-par. All the other level 15 talents became obsolete. The value of using AT for any other purpose such as survival or positioning, all became obsolete. The margin was so extreme that for any player unable to get the crits to sustain a barrage of instant pyroblasts, Combustion barely did any damage. Players considered Fire spec "unplayable" until 570++ itemlevel. Even to this day, a lot of casual mages believe "Frost was the only viable spec" because they never reached the level where they could raid as Fire. All of these undesirable effects came from them not removing the overpowered, gimmicky POM-AT-Pyrospam, and attempting to balance around it.

Removing double-spread Combustions was absolutely the right thing to do. Whether we'll see 2xIB make a 7.0 return in some way, remains to be seen.

[Frosted]

7.0 beta is really the only realistic place we'll see them attempt to do it. It requires completely re-balancing fire from a single target and AoE standpoint.

[Trustbucket]

The mechanic is genius, and alot of fun to play. Its a different way of playing fire.

It's a pretty simple mechanic to use in my opinion, and only adds to DPS variance. Not sure why people like it and I personally would rather not have the tier set in the game to increase the value of crit so the spec isn't as RNG dependent as it is now.

[gameorg]

The mechanic is genius, and alot of fun to play. Its a different way of playing fire.

It's a pretty simple mechanic to use in my opinion, and only adds to DPS variance. Not sure why people like it and I personally would rather not have the tier set in the game to increase the value of crit so the spec isn't as RNG dependent as it is now.

Gotta try to play Fire with PC on Thogar then . Anyway, thread is done with the nerf.

[Quetesh]

Good time for big changes is with new expansion. Removing double spred ignite is best what thay could do right now. I realy liked 2 charge IB, but for different rasons - e.g. casting FB with Heating UP and IB going out of CD 0.5s after Fireball and loosing that Heating Up felt just wrong because of that bad time sync .

Maybe in new expansion will be Combustion based on mastery directly and Ignite will be just required to Combust the target - i know that it is more boring but it would make fire a bit more consitent (i just want to do +/- same dps all the time, because wiping on 1% because our 2 of 3 mages didn't have good procs realy isn't fun).