Blue Updates are located at the bottom of this post 12/22
Talent Swaps/Replacements:
Cauterize and Cold Snap have been replaced with Blast Wave and Blazing Soul in Row 2, respectively.
Alexstrasza's Fury has replaced Blast Wave in Row 4.
Frenetic Speed has replaced Ice Floes in Row 5.
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Talent Changes:
Conflagration has been damage buffed to 45% of spellpower (up from 40%).
Firestarter now causes both Fireball and Pyroblast to crit on targets above 90% health (was 85%).
Blast Wave now explodes around yourself instead of the target. Scaling has been nerfed from 200% spellpower to 100%. (Replaced Cauterize)
Blazing Soul refills your Blazing Barrier [see spell below] by 40% of damage dealt. This cannot exceed the max shield provided by Blazing Barrier and only functions when the shield is active. This talent does not refresh the duration of Blazing Barrier. (Replaced Cold Snap)
Rune of Power has been nerfed to 40% increased damage (down from 50%).
Alexstrasza's Fury causes Dragon's Breath to always crit and contribute one charge towards Hot Streak. This is a passive buff (bugged tooltip shows 45 second cooldown).
Flame On now reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 2 seconds and increases charges by 1. This is a passive buff (bugged tooltip shows 45 second cooldown).
Controlled Burn has been improved to a 20% chance to activate Hot Streak after gaining heating up (up from 10%).
Frenetic Speed increases your movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds after casting scorch. (Replaced Ice Floes - Now Frost Only) Considering keeping Ice Floes. http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topi ... 7#post-127" target="_blank
Flame Patch has been damage buffed to 400% of spellpower (up from 200%).
Cinderstorm has been damage buffed to 65% of spellpower (up from 58%).
Meteor has been damage buffed to 1,100% of spellpower and burns for 280% of spellpower (up from 562.5% and 150%, respectively).____________________________________________________________
Baseline Changes:
Secondary Stats - Values have been nerfed as follows:
- Critical Strike requires 400 rating per 1% bonus (up from 350)
Haste requires 375 rating per 1% bonus (up from 325)
Mastery requires 400 rating per 1% bonus (up from 350).
Versatility requires 475 rating per 1% bonus (up from 400).
Passive Damage Aura - As of build 23194 (12/7), fire has received a hidden 15% damage buff aura to all abilities. http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=137019/fire-mage" target="_blank
Blazing Barrier - New shield that absorbs 700% of spell power for 60 seconds. Deals 50% of spellpower as damage back to melee attackers. Has a 25 second cooldown. Replaces Ice Barrier. Does not prevent spell pushback from damage. NOTE: Molten Skin artifact trait has been modified and now requires an active Blazing Barrier for the physical damage reduction bonuses. They have been buffed to 5%, 10%, and 15% to compensate (up from 3%, 6%, and 9%). Image of the new shield: http://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screensho ... 589012.jpg
Cauterize - Cooldown increased to 5 minutes and is now baseline (up from 2 minutes).
Critical Mass - Now provides 15% passive crit and increases crit by 10% from all sources. It no longer gives additional crit scaling (1.1x) for specific fire spells. Molten Armor has been completely removed.
Pyretic Incantation - Nerfed to 2% increased critical strike damage per consecutive crit (down from 5%).
Combustion - Nerfed to provide 50% of our critical strike stat as mastery for the duration (down from 100%).
Phoenix Flames - Buffed damage to 330% of spellpower on target and 110% splash (up from 300% and 100%, respectively).
Fireball - Buffed damage to 200% of spellpower (up from 175%).
Pyroblast - Buffed damage to 420% of spellpower (up from 376%).
Flamestrike - Buffed damage to 230% of spellpower (up from 207%).
Scorch - Buffed damage to 60% of spellpower (up from 50%).
Fire Blast charges have remained unchanged. Buffed damage to 160% of spellpower (up from 140%).
Ice block now has a 4 minute cooldown (down from 5 min). Ice Block now also properly resets among your cooldowns after wiping on an encounter.____________________________________________________________
Legendaries:
Kil'jaeden's Burning Wish - Int/Crit/Haste/Mastery trinket with the following effect: 'Use: Fire a vortex of destruction that seeks your current enemy. When it reaches the target, it explodes, dealing 862,800 Fire damage to all nearby enemies within 10 yds.' Has a 1.2 min cooldown. http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/144259-kilja ... rning-wish
Pyrotex Ignition Cloth - Crit/Haste gloves with the following effect: Phoenix Flames reduces the remaining cooldown on Combustion by 6 sec. http://ptr.wowdb.com/items/144355-pyrot ... tion-cloth
Koralon's Burning Touch - Effect buffed to: Scorch now also deals 350% extra damage and is a guaranteed Critical Strike below 30% health (up from 25%).
Marquee Bindings of the Sun King - Nerfed from 300% increased pyroblast damage to 275%. 
Norgannon's Foresight - Effect changed to: Standing still for 8 sec grants you Foresight, allowing you to cast while moving for 5 sec. This duration begins when you start moving.
Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus - Effect changed to: Every 30 sec, gain an absorb shield for 25% of your maximum health for 30 sec (up from 15% maximum health and no longer requires avoiding damage). New secondary stats are crit and haste (changed from crit and mastery).
Sephuz's Secret - Effect has been buffed. Interrupts and dispels are now included as activators and the haste bonus has been increased to 25% for 10 seconds (up from 15% for 10 seconds).____________________________________________________________
Important Blue Posts:
Bracers Testing
Hey all, as a quick example of the "in flux" status of 7.1.5, we are currently testing a change to the Marquee Bindings that would bring the damage down to 250% instead of 200% (down from 300% on live). Keep in mind that the PTR is NOT FINAL and we are still testing numerous changes to various specs and items.
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topi ... 6#post-105" target="_blank
Ice Floes
I've passed the feedback along that Ice Flows is one of the the things that player's feel are hurting the spec. As said, we are still iterating, so I'll update you guys as things come to me.
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topi ... 7#post-127" target="_blank
Smoother DPS
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. http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topi ... age=14#268" target="_blank
Developer Q&A 12/7 Paraphrasing:
Rune of Power should be a situational talent for low-movement fights. In the long term, the talent will be reworked by possibly changing the cooldown and its duration. For 7.1.5., the team will balance the other talents in the row to make them appealing. https://www.twitch.tv/warcraft/v/105899941?t=0h48m22s
Specific legendaries will continue to be balanced if they offer too much of an advantage. The drop rates of legendaries will also be increased as the expansion continues to allow for new players and alts to catch up and dedicated players to continue finalizing their collection. https://www.twitch.tv/warcraft/v/105899941?t=1h01m02s
Big Changes to Legendaries
As we mentioned this during the live Q&A last week, we feel the biggest shortcoming of the current Legendary system is that, for some specs, there are some items that are clearly better than others in nearly all situations. As a result, players who have received a different Legendary item feel unlucky, as they didn’t receive the “best” one.
So, we’re making some fairly substantial changes to Legendary items intended to bring them more in line with each other. Items that give a raw throughput increase (without significant situational restrictions or drawbacks) are having their overall power reduced, and we’re taking another pass at several of the more niche items to make sure that, when they’re usable, they feel powerful.
Essentially, we feel that if a Legendary is only usable in certain situations, it should feel extremely valuable in those situations. Conversely, if a Legendary is nearly always going to increase your overall performance, that increase should be relatively smaller. Up until this point, we’ve made the mistake of allowing several items to be both extremely impactful AND always useful, which has made other Legendaries feel “bad” by comparison. It’s also caused some specs to feel as though they need a particular Legendary in order to compete. Those are the issues we’d like to solve.
We’re actively working on these changes right now and expect to have them ready for the next PTR build. We’ll be doing additional class tuning where necessary as a followup, once these changes are in place. https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/top ... 046#post-1" target="_blank
