What's the best M+ Setup(s)?

[Katsumi]

Hey everyone,

Since making the switch back to Fire in M+ I have been wondering about which setups to run. I spent about two weeks of reading guides, swapping around gear, simming, running dungeons and then doing the same all over again. Still, I feel a bit lost.

Whereas the stat and talent compositions for Frost seem straightforward to me, for fire there seem to be huge swings in stat weights depending on the chosen legendaries, talents, and fight conditions. There seem to be several viable options, but pinpointing an optimal composition still eludes me. I'm planning for two sets to regularly swap between trash/bosses with the aim to play keys beyond 20.

I am in possession of all legendaries, T19/20 mythic raid gear to flexibly adjust 4pc/2pc around it and enough off-set items and trinkets to take away all compositional restrictions. So far I ran haste/mastery - belt/Sephuz - Flame patch on trash and switch to crit/balanced - belt/bracers on bosses. However, it seems that for dungeons such as Lower, BRH and EoA you might get more out of Living Bomb, which would require a different trash setup. My other relevant talents are currently Conflagration, RoP, Flame on and Kindling.

Generally there are many possible synergies and anti-synergies between our talents and legendaries. For example, Darckli's goes well with AF, which in turn isn't preferable when it comes to bosses. The belt devalues crit overall, but a low crit outside of the execute phase affects the bracers negatively and makes for sluggish pack openings. Gloves and Head each break up the set bonuses, which have different value depending on your stats. Gloves benefit from a high-crit single-target focused setup, which the combination of belt/Flame patching would again devalue. Flamestriking does solid AOE damage but reduces the value of Kindling. The list continues.

What's your opinion on this problem? How do you minmax fire in M+? How do you configure your simulations to get reliable and transferable results?

I'd greatly appreciate your help.


Thanks,

Katsu

[Katsumi]

Reserved for a guide based not on one person's opinion or experience, but on the insights of the many in our community.

[Boog]

Hey Katsumi,

I don't do +20 keys but for +12keys and more, i've tested lots of things.
I have all legendaries, and what i felt was best (for me, i'm no saying this is the best on overall) was to go bracers/belt (even on thrash) with a heavy haste oriented gear (in fact i'm using practically the same gear i use on ST fights, with 4p T20), and those talents :
- Flamepatch (unless your tank takes 10+ mobs/pull, then take LB) : very strong with lot of haste
- IF (or RoP if you know what you're doing)
- Flame on : since i don't play with head legendary
- Firestarter : this one is a personal choice. I always manage to grab 1 to 3 crits from it at each mobs pack, it means a "free" flamestrike at each pack, and i find it more valuable than Conf for this reason, especially with flamepatch (maybe i'm wrong). And for bosses its a must,.
- Kindling/Meteor/CiS : I like meteor but kindling may be better. I don't like CiS.

I use legendary bracers for bosses and to exploit firestarter on thrash (yeah its not uncommon to cast a buffed pyro on +90% health mobs, like precasting it while your tank moves to next pack). A five millions pyro is like a dragon breath on 5 mobs with legendary head.
I use belt for mobility, lots of free crits/free flamestrikes, and its the must for bosses

With that set-up, i do 1M to 1M5 dps overall on +15 keys for example. I don't know if it's a lot, maybe you're doing more with another set-up. The advantage with this one is you don't have to constantly switch gear/gameplay.

My 2 cents, good day sir

[Katsumi]

bump

[Xentros]

The most important thing for fire mage, is to take a look at the specific dungeon and m+ level. Things can change depending on where you're at, how difficult it is, and what your group is going to pull/can handle. Ask yourself certain questions like...
What are the affixes? Teeming? Fortified? Maybe maximize your AoE with DB helm and Kindling/gloves.
Tyrannical? Focus on more ST talents.
What is your group makeup? What are your groups weaknesses? Need more AoE or ST?
What is the instance? Halls of Valor? Nelth Lair? Where 1-3 target cleave is the extent of your AoE, Flame on pulls through.
or Arcway, BrH where there are large packs constantly.

Anyways, here is a cookie cutter suggestions on what I use.

Talents

Assuming you're pushing hard keys where your tank is not going to pull 3-4 packs at a time (m15+), I'd run...
Conflag(fortified), Firestarter(Tyrannical)
IF for either. Unless you're really comfortable with ROP. (Personally I get better results with IF, even if ROP is better on paper).
Flame On for either. Even if fortified, this contributes to your Flamestrike spam and makes your quality of life on 1-3 packs.
Flame Patch for either. Very, Very, Very, strong with t20
Kindling(fortified), Meteor(Tyrannical)

T20 4p changed the way I approach mythic+, making flamestrike spam much better than Living Bomb in most situations. There is the occasional super large packs (think rats in arcway, bats in BRH, etc.), but most of this damage is cheese damage anyone and you're stealing a few seconds of dps from your group on adds that would die fast anyways.

Legendary Setup
This is kind of subjective. If really high keystone with fortified and kindling the gloves can actually be really good.

Tyrannical - Belt/Bracers for boss. Belt/Trinket for trash.

Fortified - Belt/Bracers for boss. Belt/Helm for trash.

[ezekielyo]

I wrote some info about m+ here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4453#p37163 if you are interested in reading my opinions.

[Katsumi]

Good stuff, did you update that post? Didn't see it before.

[Meltenaio]

Hey, i read through the post and have to point out that your group is heavy important on what setup is most suited, when in doubt go single target. Next is affixes like bursting where you cant go all out on aoe without Killing the group. The next thing is the orb affix where you have to switch a lot on trash if the tank cant handle it. I think there is some barely mentioned gap between theoretical simdps and realworld m+ dps on different affixes that you need to consider too, especially on random runs. Many grps take 3 st classes on fortified and 3 aoe classes on tyrannical, on grpsetups like this even your best balanced gear isn't of that much matter. Just my oppinion from another pov.

Regards crazychriss

[Xinder]

Hey, i read through the post and have to point out that your group is heavy important on what setup is most suited, when in doubt go single target. Next is affixes like bursting where you cant go all out on aoe without Killing the group. The next thing is the orb affix where you have to switch a lot on trash if the tank cant handle it. I think there is some barely mentioned gap between theoretical simdps and realworld m+ dps on different affixes that you need to consider too, especially on random runs. Many grps take 3 st classes on fortified and 3 aoe classes on tyrannical, on grpsetups like this even your best balanced gear isn't of that much matter. Just my oppinion from another pov.

Regards crazychriss

Do you have those flip flopped? 3 ST for Tyrannical(bosses have more hp/dmg) and 3 AoE classes for Fortified(Trash has more hp/dmg)? I can't imagine a group for tyrannical weeks taking an AoE heavy comp and the same for Fortified weeks taking a ST heavy comp.

[Meltenaio]

Just pointing out, that even the best personal setup for the current setup is group depended. if you wanted to do 10-15 2 weeks ago you had a harder time than doing 16-20 I guess many readers don't go for the highest keys, so it's worth mentioning that it makes sense to have several gear setups to switch if ST or AOE dmg of the grp is other than awaited.