Fire July 20 Hotfixes

[Searix]

Mod edit: Split to its own topic. Stop derailing threads!

Fire
Dragon’s Breath damage increased by 150%.
Flamestrike damage increased by 50%.

Weird aoe buffs. I'm assuming Flamestrike mage trinket is still trash? And Dragon's Breath buff, can we afford to use the glyph?

[Komma]

The weirdest thing about this hotfix is that it makes Dragon's Breath hit so hard, that we actually want to glyph and use it in a single target rotation now. At 86% * 2.5 * 2 = 430% spellpower with the glyph, it is hitting harder than Blast Wave on your current target.

The flamestrike buff is probably targeted at the class trinket. Unfortunately, it's not enough.

[Searix]

yah i ran the numbers too. Dragon's breath definitely into the single target rotation (but if it's single target only why are you fire?) at the cost of being melee and following the boss... which is generally a dps loss in HFC. Also don't forget Dragon's breath isn't affected by mastery/ignite.

Did napkin math on the HFC fire mage trinket too, flamestrike will do ~30kish in heroic gear maybe 40k with mythic gear with (less the % chance it has to hit), which every 8 seconds is maybe 5k, still significantly less than other trinkets will bring though.

Interesting thought: It may be worth using on fights like Xhul where you dont have enough adds to flamestrike itself, but the flamestrike hitting ~3-4 targets it mayyyy be useful

[Komma]

I don't think things change much for Flamestrike or the trinket. Dragon's Breath is pretty big though, especially on Fire fights such as Xhul'horac. This changes means you definitely want to use Dragon's Breath on the imps, as often as you can.

[Komma]

Using Dragon's Breath on PC, one can do 989% spellpower per cast. Cold Snap resets the cooldown on Dragon's Breath, allowing you to do that back-to-back. Simulations suggest that with T18H, Dragon's Breath can crit for up to ~128K on the boss, ~166K on PC.

Making robomage use Dragon's Breath as part of his rotation was fairly straight forward. Using BW/RoP/PC, it has resulted in a 6-7% increase in single target damage in Patchwerk simulations, over the old APL that had nothing to do with DB (ie. ~60K --> ~64K for T18H).

This Dragon's Breath business is one of the most absurd ways of increasing DPS that we've seen so far.

[somajs]

I wonder how this will affect the DPS on Fights with 2-3 Targets (compared to Frost & Arcane) and if PC ist still better for 2-3 targets than Kindling?

[Fleks]

worst try ive seen in a long time to make a specc viable again.

[Mortiferus]

Related to the topic title, if not the topic content: Affliction Warlock buffs now put it up above Frost (and just below Arcane) in ST, Patchwerk dominance.

The good news, though, if you're looking to protect your meters ranking—most warlocks in your guild will probably still insist on playing Destruction/Demo.

Anyway, for those who play Fire, this change does mean you'll be standing in and around melee a lot more than usual. On some fights (and with some strategies), this may pose a problem that negates the full impact of the Dragon's Breath buff. I believe the Dragon's Breath cone radius/range is 12 yards.

[Methusula]

worst try ive seen in a long time to make a specc viable again.

It's pretty obvious these changes were to solidify fire's place on multi target fights. With pof, arcane was encroaching on that territory. The single target buff seems like a byproduct that still won't push it above either of the other 2 Specs.

[somajs]

I just hope that fire catches up on 2-3 target fights... can't take frostmage...

[nickseng]

And Dragon's Breath buff, can we afford to use the glyph?

What else would you glyph for? We only had 1 mandatory glyph (Combustion), 1 situational (Inferno Blast), ..... and that's it

[Fleks]

worst try ive seen in a long time to make a specc viable again.

It's pretty obvious these changes were to solidify fire's place on multi target fights. With pof, arcane was encroaching on that territory. The single target buff seems like a byproduct that still won't push it above either of the other 2 Specs.

A proper buff for fire´s aoe would have been reducing IB cd or buff Ignitescaling(bad idea tho) imo,not buffing DB to a state where it is a dps gain on ST

[Methusula]

There are a lot of things they could have done. This is what they did.

[Velerion]

worst try ive seen in a long time to make a specc viable again.

It's pretty obvious these changes were to solidify fire's place on multi target fights. With pof, arcane was encroaching on that territory. The single target buff seems like a byproduct that still won't push it above either of the other 2 Specs.

A proper buff for fire´s aoe would have been reducing IB cd or buff Ignitescaling(bad idea tho) imo,not buffing DB to a state where it is a dps gain on ST

The thing is in a lot of these fights adds aren't necessarily up long enough to make dot spreading an optimal way of staying competitive in aoe situations. That's what leads me to believe that they buffed the two direct damage aoe spells to keep the spec that's only good for aoe in line with the other big aoe specs.

[mido]

I used dragons breath with the glyph on xhul last night and it was the 2nd highest dps spell at the end of the fight. I was stand in melee though, I would use it immediately after a dk would pull the imps in.

[Rabona]

Imo Fire's problem is that its exponential damage increase with additional targets prohibits it from having good single target damage. While at the same time HFC's encounters pretty much all have a very heavy single target focus. Thus I don't think the spec is fixable at all for HFC, at least not by playing around with some spellpower coefficients.

I haven't had the pleasure of mythic Iskar or Xhul yet though, so I might be completely wrong

[mido]

It could be fixable by adjusting a talent or 2 to improve our single target DPS. updating kindling, to additionally to its current effect, if the combustion is only present on a single target then the target is more likely to receive a critical strikes from you (for the 20 seconds). This should sufficiently give you an additional buff and provide the much needed burst damage that a fire mage requires.

Or even doing something like that with living bomb.

[Komma]

Let's keep this thread on topic with regards to the Dragon's Breath and Flamestrike buffs. If we want to discuss possible Fire changes, a new thread would be a better place to do so!

[Glitzerbling]

funny thing. now that we're standing in melee for DB, we might aswell rightclick the boss to get a few white hits in inbetween instant casts. Also we can be in charge of the Leg ring now :3

regarding the flamestrike buff. which trinket would you even replace for the classtrinket? GSR and have shhit opener or Gaze and lose the synergie between darklight ray and an additional aoe dot.