Fire Azerite Traits - Post Nerf

[ruemenzo]

Anyone have an idea for how the Traits shape out post the Nerf of Duplicative Incineration?

I am sure Duplicative Incineration is still pretty good, I just feel it might be talent specific. I am think about this in terms of Raid Boss fights, so it is hard to gauge those fights since all the Dungeon fights are so short. Personally I will be looking to take the Searing Touch for the Execute potential whenever possible, also allowing for nearly free movement <30%.

My issue with Duplicative Incineration is that there is many phases of fights where I won't be casting Fireball and getting the benefit. Mainly my Combustion Phase when I really want to pump out as much damage as possible. And <30% if I go Searing Touch.

For most Boss fights I am likely going Flame On, unless there is a heavy AoE that calls for Phoenix Flames. I don't see many scenarios where I am not casting Fire Blast as many times as I can per fight. I am casting it with Scorch <30%, and during Combustion. So I would think Blaster Master would be a general ideal trait to go for, as it should always be applicable and not interfere with talents or play style much.

Beyond the Fire Traits of Duplicative Incineration and Blaster Master, I would tend to target the General Traits that apply in the most situations, without impacting playstyle too much.

I generally look to min/max by talents/gear applicable for each boss fight. Since we will be limited in our gear choices for a while once we get into raiding, I would target traits that are applicable with multiple talent builds and encounter types. Also since in M+ we will need to pick a single Talent Build / Gear Set for the whole run.

Just trying to start a discussion. Simming is great, but out in the real world encounters vary, rotations vary. So what traits / talents do you want to use, and when do you want to use them?

[Saharez]

My read on duplicative incineration is that it will get worse and worse as we get better and better geared, due to the fact that it doesn't scale with our fireballs raw damage, in addition we will be casting fewer fireballs as we get better gear.

But for our progression fights in Uldir, I still firmly believe duplicative incineration will provide the best single target damage we can find on azerite gear, aslong as we are running firestarter as a talent.

If you go with Searing Touch over Firestarter, it will be far less attractive and you are probably correct in going for other Azerite traits in that case.
Dagger in the back would synergize well with the slightly spammy playstyle of scorch in the execution phase.

I would probably skip master blaster, as a fire mage.
Single target is our strength, AoE is an added bonus and something it looks like we won't be truely good at in this expansion regardless of how we gear and spec.