Regarding fire's single-target DPS after 7.1.5

[Eturnus]

Honestly at this point I'm ready to drop the mage and either go play a demon hunter or stop altogether.

I have 4 legendaries (helm, norgannons, sephuz and pyrotex... do i get a moment of silence?)
I do well on AoE fights (helm + Alextrasza's Fury is godly).

But I have to sweat REALLY hard to hit 550k DPS on ST.

I'm at 897.8 ILVL. Running Simcraft, if I were to swap the bracers in as the 2nd legendary, I would instantly go up to 620k.

I don't get how we are supposed to be balanced around this, while not having a way to target this legendary. It's beyond nuts.

I feel like all this time spent on the mage has been wasted, since now legendaries are going to be much more spread apart...

Get on my level......Sephuz, Prydaz, Belo'Vir's, then Norgannons. If there was ever a moment of silence to be had I'd get one.

There has never been something make me want to quit Wow more than this series of legendary drops. It makes me want to put my circa 2004 created mage on the shelf.

[broedrost]

Honestly at this point I'm ready to drop the mage and either go play a demon hunter or stop altogether.

I have 4 legendaries (helm, norgannons, sephuz and pyrotex... do i get a moment of silence?)
I do well on AoE fights (helm + Alextrasza's Fury is godly).

But I have to sweat REALLY hard to hit 550k DPS on ST.

I'm at 897.8 ILVL. Running Simcraft, if I were to swap the bracers in as the 2nd legendary, I would instantly go up to 620k.

I don't get how we are supposed to be balanced around this, while not having a way to target this legendary. It's beyond nuts.

I feel like all this time spent on the mage has been wasted, since now legendaries are going to be much more spread apart...

Get on my level......Sephuz, Prydaz, Belo'Vir's, then Norgannons. If there was ever a moment of silence to be had I'd get one.

There has never been something make me want to quit Wow more than this series of legendary drops. It makes me want to put my circa 2004 created mage on the shelf.

I had the exact same leges and then I received me fifth: pyrotex hands. I bought a new mage )))

[Eyliria]

Honest to god question, since we've gone a month or so since our dmg has been touched in hotfixes.
How do you guys feel about Fire Mages these days?

I'm not bottom of the pile, but that's got more to do with the fact I've got my 54 traits and most of my guild doesn't, so I can hang around top 5 for AoE fights (I have the helm, but it's very difficult to catch the frost dks). The only fight I really shine is Tichondrius, and Skorpyron (due to massive add dmg).

Every other fight I do what I think is quite poor (I'm ilvl 899, most of my guild is a good 3-4 ilvls behind), and on ST fights I'm still struggling with the DKs, the hunters... and on single target even on elemental shaman who seems to just wreck everything, and the fury warrior and the assassination rogue.

ST fights I'm lucky to break top 6, despite the traits and the ilvl. I can't compete with people doing 620k+ ST. I peak at around 580k if I don't botch anything about it.

I feel forever hindered by not having bracers.

[Makz]

The thing with Fire is they can only really buff Fireball. They can buff bracers, but then all people without Bracers will be behind. They cant substantially buff Pyro without putting Bracers over the top.

Incanters Flow has been on my mind for a while, I feel if they made it something like 20-40-60% bonus dmg rotating on 4 seconds could be nice. RoP has no value when Combustion is super weak, MI are nice and all but you will be massively behind if fights dont end at the 2 minute marks. The way I look at MI is if a fight is under 2 min 40 sec, half value and you lose massive % of dmg done every time the boss does not die when your MIs are ending.

I am running Bracer and Helm on most fights which usually gives me an easy 90+ in a Heroic fight, but im also 4pc, Guldan hc trinket, 915 wep @50 and 900+ overall, but i will struggle to beat an 897 rogue.

My only dream now is since i got 4 fire leges to get the trinket while fire specced, then go Frost and optimize TV for that legendary 800k+ ST Dps in simc

[Imaskar]

Well, since I got bracers things started to go relatively well. I managed 1st place on starboy, 2nd on the bridge and elly. But this is on a scale of loosing my 3/3-times-guilds-top-dps crown. So I'm still upset with my performance.

[Eyliria]

I'll never understand the design decision of having a legendary item like the bracers existing. They are more than a 10% dmg increase for me (12.7% on SimC).

It would put me well in contention for top dps on ST.

But I don't, so I'm relegated to the bottom half of the pile.

[carrybag]

I'll never understand the design decision of having a legendary item like the bracers existing. They are more than a 10% dmg increase for me (12.7% on SimC).

It would put me well in contention for top dps on ST.

But I don't, so I'm relegated to the bottom half of the pile.

Sadly blizzard would probably just end up nerf'ing the legendaries rather than buffing fire as much as it needs.

[Eyliria]

I'll never understand the design decision of having a legendary item like the bracers existing. They are more than a 10% dmg increase for me (12.7% on SimC).

It would put me well in contention for top dps on ST.

But I don't, so I'm relegated to the bottom half of the pile.

Sadly blizzard would probably just end up nerf'ing the legendaries rather than buffing fire as much as it needs.

I would be ok with that avenue simply because I think that it is a reason why we are in the state we are at.
Alternatively I'd just like to get the bracers because I want the hardcast pyros as part of the rotation as well.

Koralon's execute phase is also a gameplay changer that i'd love to have.

[Hellflames]

Don't think bracers and belt will let you top skada on krosus and augur unless you play with really bad melees

[Eyliria]

Don't think bracers and belt will let you top skada on krosus and augur unless you play with really bad melees

Personally, that's fine, I just don't want to be a waste of space for those fights.

[broedrost]

Don't think bracers and belt will let you top skada on krosus and augur unless you play with really bad melees

Personally, that's fine, I just don't want to be a waste of space for those fights.

Even with BiS legendaries mages are one of the worst classes for those fights anyhow

[Eyliria]

Don't think bracers and belt will let you top skada on krosus and augur unless you play with really bad melees

Personally, that's fine, I just don't want to be a waste of space for those fights.

Even with BiS legendaries mages are one of the worst classes for those fights anyhow

According to blizzard, and to a lot of the community, this is the most balanced classes have ever been.
I'd really like to take a look at their data. Fire mages are a solid 7-8% behind the top performers.

[Shitbird]

I think there's an illusion of better class balance due to multiple factors like BiS trinkets and warforge/titan forged, and legendary RNG, but mostly artifact traits. If a guild has a mage at 54 traits and some BiS legendaries/trinkets and nobody else has that many traits or is that well itemized , the mage is going to top damage within their raid. Then anyone in that guild now thinks "oh mages are fine they don't need buffs."

Stuff like that. Our guilds fury warrior is the only one at 54 traits, and that combined with him having a titanforged draught of souls makes him top damage on our single target fights by a huge margin. From just that it would lead our guild to believe fury is OP.

What really tells the story is the rankings on Warcraft logs which lets us know that mages are in a pretty bad spot relative to other pure dps classes. If there was a way to filter out all parses where guilds were cheesing for high numbers on fights like botanist and skorpyron, the overall nighthold rankings would look even worse for fire mage.

[Eyliria]

I think there's an illusion of better class balance due to multiple factors like BiS trinkets and warforge/titan forged, and legendary RNG, but mostly artifact traits. If a guild has a mage at 54 traits and some BiS legendaries/trinkets and nobody else has that many traits or is that well itemized , the mage is going to top damage within their raid. Then anyone in that guild now thinks "oh mages are fine they don't need buffs."

Stuff like that. Our guilds fury warrior is the only one at 54 traits, and that combined with him having a titanforged draught of souls makes him top damage on our single target fights by a huge margin. From just that it would lead our guild to believe fury is OP.

What really tells the story is the rankings on Warcraft logs which lets us know that mages are in a pretty bad spot relative to other pure dps classes. If there was a way to filter out all parses where guilds were cheesing for high numbers on fights like botanist and skorpyron, the overall nighthold rankings would look even worse for fire mage.

We're nowhere near the top for Botanist, either.
Fire is bottom of the pile atm for most of NH, with a huge gap to the top tier of performers. That's just the way the data is -- hence why i'd love to see blizzard's internal data, because, obviously they are satisfied with the way things are.

[illwil]

I think there's an illusion of better class balance due to multiple factors like BiS trinkets and warforge/titan forged, and legendary RNG, but mostly artifact traits. If a guild has a mage at 54 traits and some BiS legendaries/trinkets and nobody else has that many traits or is that well itemized , the mage is going to top damage within their raid. Then anyone in that guild now thinks "oh mages are fine they don't need buffs."

This is huge. I run with a casual guild and have more traits than most of the dps as well as bracers. I'd also say that I'm in general more experienced than a lot of them so even on single target fights I will be in the top 3 dps if not the top dps on most fights even though I only parse 80-90% typically. The only dps that usually beat me are the ones I run with for M+ so they are obviously more geared and skilled as well and some of those classes are the ones at the top of the current meters. I can't even talk to a lot of the guild about dps balance because they see those guild meters and take that as fact.

[Delynni]

Which one should I do for single target:
- Bracers/ belt legendaries with 54 trait artifact
Or
- Glacial frost with 43 trait artifact

I ask because I was gearing frost until I got the bracers today. Frost is really strong.

[Eyliria]

Which one should I do for single target:
- Bracers/ belt legendaries with 54 trait artifact
Or
- Glacial frost with 43 trait artifact

I ask because I was gearing frost until I got the bracers today. Frost is really strong.

Sim your character.
That being said, I'd be shocked if Frost somehow came out ahead.

In the meantime, keep beefing up Ebonchill

[Spookytooth]

I have almost exactly the same issue as you illwill. But my mythic + buds are a havoc demon hunter and a frost death knight so I still get destroyed in raid every fight and at the same time told I'm third dps get over it! I put in exactly as much time and effort and perform at the same purple/orange parse level and yet legendary, titanforged, and baked in raid rotation rng included with the current state of mages makes me look like I suck. It's super demoralising to have so much out of your own control.

[Kasc]

I'm really disappointed with Fire at the moment. We're progressing on Augur and for the most part, I'm at the bottom. Sometimes good RNG can catapult me to the top but these happen every 1 in 10 pulls.

I bust my balls timing everything as perfectly as I can and after combustion has ended I can still be at the bottom. It is so disappointing.

I have wrists and belt with decent gear and BiS trinkets. I can get good percentiles and from a rotation perspective, Augur is super easy. Fire doesn't even have the best cleave, I don't get why Blizz are happy with us having dumpster tier ST.

[Falq]

I'm really disappointed with Fire at the moment. We're progressing on Augur and for the most part, I'm at the bottom. Sometimes good RNG can catapult me to the top but these happen every 1 in 10 pulls.

I bust my balls timing everything as perfectly as I can and after combustion has ended I can still be at the bottom. It is so disappointing.

I have wrists and belt with decent gear and BiS trinkets. I can get good percentiles and from a rotation perspective, Augur is super easy. Fire doesn't even have the best cleave, I don't get why Blizz are happy with us having dumpster tier ST.

On Augur it's huge deal to have burst for last phase, and with good set of legendaries Fire Mage is one of the best choices there because of Belt + Bracers/Ring. We are not good for ST overall but we are good for crucial tactic points. Same for Elisande, first 2 mins of the fight is huge dps race and mage is in good spot for topping it, sure we fall behind afterwards but our job is done at this point