Specializations in BRF

[Farsighted]

So I've gone through several weeks of raiding only using Fire for every boss, and done pretty good DPS (42k on Heroic Blackhand in 690 iLvl for reference). My off-spec is Arcane, though at this point, now that I've practiced Fire with PC, I feel like having Arcane is unnecessary. Just curious as to peoples' thoughts on keeping Arcane or maining Fire with Frost as a fun PvP/random off-spec.

[Wilderness]

There’s nothing wrong with just playing Fire if that’s what you want to do. Fire on single-target puts out good numbers (just not as good as Arcane) and is obviously great on cleave/AoE. If your raid isn’t dying to boss enrages then keeping and playing Arcane on certain fights is likely not an issue.

From a pure min/max perspective Arcane is the better choice on some BRF fights, but like I said Fire is more than competitive against most other classes/specs. If you aren’t having issues (that could be solved by more single-target dps on some fights) and your raid doesn’t care, then just play Fire if that’s what you want and don’t bother with Arcane.

[Komma]

There's an increasing number of mages running Fire for everything including single target fights. I've also heard a number of high profile players claim that Fire is superior for single target, although I question what they're basing the claim on. I also think they're in for a surprise when the 2T17 bonus receives an expected nerf with patch 6.2 and the introduction to T18 bonuses. If it's not for the tier bonus and abusing double-spread combustions, Fire is not even competitive when compared to Frost, much less Arcane.

If you're running a spec "for fun" though, it honestly doesn't matter what you play. There isn't much to discuss in that case - just do whatever pleases you.

[Breaktheice]

A good RNG streak would probably benefit Fire the most out of the mage specs. I can definitely see some Fire mages out DPSing both Frost and Arcane on ST with amazing RNG. But Arcane on a strong RNG of Missile procs is no joke either, so it's hard to say.

I think the issue is that Fire's 2 PC is broken and has become a playstyle rather than just a bonus at this point. It's absurdly good. Arcane's 2 PC isn't bad, but it's just that - a bonus. And really there's no "abuse" to it. I think it's fair to call it a slip up from the Devs side of things. Same with the Frost 2 PC, it was just unfortunately too lackluster and undertuned.

If they don't nerf Fire t17 2 PC I actually don't see any reason why Fire mages now would break their 2 PC going into T18.

Mod: Please stay on topic. This is a discussion on it it would be ok to play 100% Fire, not a chance to moan about the state of Fire set bonuses.

[gameorg]

There's an increasing number of mages running Fire for everything including single target fights. I've also heard a number of high profile players claim that Fire is superior for single target, although I question what they're basing the claim on. I also think they're in for a surprise when the 2T17 bonus receives an expected nerf with patch 6.2 and the introduction to T18 bonuses. If it's not for the tier bonus and abusing double-spread combustions, Fire is not even competitive when compared to Frost, much less Arcane.

If you're running a spec "for fun" though, it honestly doesn't matter what you play. There isn't much to discuss in that case - just do whatever pleases you.

The Peak DPS in Simulations of fire and arcane are very close single target according to the results on simulationcraft.org (Check the Variance). We kinda see the result on warcraftlogs already, where firemages with insane combustions are close or ahead (oregorger, gruul) of arcane. On average, arcane is the best single target dps spec right now.

[Valounette]

Fire has the higher maximum parse, Arcane has the higher average parse.

I'm of the opinion that people playing Fire for ST are either casuals who don't care to be competitive, or competitive people who are only playing it for the chance at getting a top rank with some RNG, while fully knowing that on average they will deal less(sometimes significantly less) DPS.

So, it depends on what kind of player you are. Do you pray to RNGAllah and not mind if you have a ton of inconsistent pulls, just for a chance to get the odd insane pulls? Then sure. If you care about the best consistent ST spec? Then go Arcane. Don't give a fuck? Play whatever you find fun.

[Komma]

I'm of the opinion that people playing Fire for ST are either casuals who don't care to be competitive, or competitive people who are only playing it for the chance at getting a top rank with some RNG, while fully knowing that on average they will deal less(sometimes significantly less) DPS.

This isn't the case, and that's what puzzles me. Some top guild mages are proclaiming that Fire "is the best single target spec past X ilvl", and are planning to use it full time for all encounters. This simply isn't true, and will be even more misleading with the changes to set bonuses along with current PTR tuning.

[gameorg]

I'm of the opinion that people playing Fire for ST are either casuals who don't care to be competitive, or competitive people who are only playing it for the chance at getting a top rank with some RNG, while fully knowing that on average they will deal less(sometimes significantly less) DPS.

This isn't the case, and that's what puzzles me. Some top guild mages are proclaiming that Fire "is the best single target spec past X ilvl", and are planning to use it full time for all encounters. This simply isn't true, and will be even more misleading with the changes to set bonuses along with current PTR tuning.

I would deny that aswell. Maybe if the fight duration synergizes perfectly with combustion, but even then id be doubtful that fire would pull ahead consistently right now.
Oregorger and Blackhand logs are also a bit missleading. On oregorger you can get more active dmg time with fire in the rolling phase (aswell as spreading to crates) and on blackhand you can abuse the steam tank to create insane combustions.

So there is really only gruul for proper comparisons. I sometimes play fire on those farm bosses, but thats just for fun and variation. (I also have a mage Twink with Frost Spec )

I guess i go full fire the next ID to get some more logs.

[Zelendria]

Are the crates close enough to spread? They look too far apart to me.

[Chev]

Are the crates close enough to spread? They look too far apart to me.

I'm guessing he means when Oregorger rolls over / past one that has yet to be destroyed.

[Unbearievabl]

I have been playing fire for every fight in M BRF for several weeks now. The last fight I played arcane for was Kromog. In truth it would be more beneficial for my guild if I played arcane for that fight as my pillar damage is... unpredictable.

But we started BH progression and after playing around with both arcane and fire I felt that fire would be about as good ST if I made one change to my gear. So I gemmed and enchanted crit on all my gear so that my opener is much more reliable (I believe I have ~95% crit chance during opener) at the cost of being optimized for both specs. According to my sims this has definitely increased my ST damage but has also drastically reduced the variance in my damage.

Yes, I'm still going to be afflicted with poor RNG in all important opener from time to time but I enjoy the spec so much more and I feel it offers much better casting on the move (we're running only 2 hunters) as well as unmatched cleave. I've started to take advantage of the slagged siege engines in BH progression to get the really juicy combustions and my P1 damage ranges from 1st to 3rd based on RNG (the other 2 are hunters that get a pre-pull to build frenzy stacks.)

All of this said, fire on every fight is totally viable with proper gear. At 690 I don't believe you'll have the crit to get the reliability you like in your opener and you'll still be plagued with bouts of poor RNG. But with the 2pc it's something that can work for most fights. Do your guild a favor if you're doing M Kromog progression, go arcane. My guild is at the point where I can be carried through some bad RNG on the pillars but that would not be the case during progression.

Edit: just realized how old this thread is, I feel stupid D=

[Unstable]

I'm on the opposite boat, I really like Arcane's playstyle and I play it very efficiently, but I don't want to play fire for some reason. I make excuses for myself like "You need single target for Primal Elementalists" or "Killing individual maidens faster in p2 is more important than recount epeen", but I don't really know how real they are. It's really hindering on fights like Hans&Franz with the heavy movement and no downside to cleaving. And it looks like HFC will also have primarily add or cleave fights, so I honestly don't know what to do.

[Quetesh]

I'm of the opinion that people playing Fire for ST are either casuals who don't care to be competitive, or competitive people who are only playing it for the chance at getting a top rank with some RNG, while fully knowing that on average they will deal less(sometimes significantly less) DPS.

This isn't the case, and that's what puzzles me. Some top guild mages are proclaiming that Fire "is the best single target spec past X ilvl", and are planning to use it full time for all encounters. This simply isn't true, and will be even more misleading with the changes to set bonuses along with current PTR tuning.

Most of these rummors come from early HC PTR testing when Intuition's Gift was usable by mages and 2pt17 wasn't changed. People are just repeating old truth.

[Carwey]

I'm on the opposite boat, I really like Arcane's playstyle and I play it very efficiently, but I don't want to play fire for some reason. I make excuses for myself like "You need single target for Primal Elementalists" or "Killing individual maidens faster in p2 is more important than recount epeen", but I don't really know how real they are. It's really hindering on fights like Hans&Franz with the heavy movement and no downside to cleaving. And it looks like HFC will also have primarily add or cleave fights, so I honestly don't know what to do.

It's not really an excuse. You can't go wrong with Arcane since single target damage is always extremely important. Fire shines at killing unnecessary targets and AoE isn't usually needed unless your guild has no warlocks or warriors. Only fights where Fire is clearly superior to Arcane are Hanz and Franz and Thogar during progress. Nowadays Men at arms or other adds shouldn't be a problem at all so fire is pretty much all padding.

On other bosses it highly depends on your raid comp. For example my guild had 3 warlocks and 2 warriors on progress so we never had any problems with burst AoE(Flamebender, Thogar). I started as fire for a few pulls on flamebender but switched to Arcane soon after and topped boss damage by miles instead. On Thogar the men at arms were so important that Fire was just superior IMO, although I don't think Arcane would be bad either.

On Maidens all damage before 20% doesn't matter. After that Arcane is 8 times better at bursting down Marak and isn't even that much behind fire on cleave. If you are unlucky as fire and don't get a good combustion you might even fall behind Arcane on cleave, let alone single target. Consistency is also key on progress.

Blast furnace is mostly a single target fight and I'm actually pretty surprised that so many people play fire on it. If Security guards/Engineers/Firecallers are your biggest problem Fire is better, otherwise Arcane. With my guild we even had too much cleave in P1 because Engineers were dying too fast so Fire would've only been a negative. Consistently doing extremely high damage to Primal elementalists is also extremely important.

[Daiceman]

Something I think. Many people gloss over is that going arcane/fire allows you to have superior damage on ANY fight with the same gearset.

I've been going mastery>>>>>>crit>haste>multi>vers priority and it lets me do very good single target as arcane and very good aoe as fire.

Epically during progression if I was fire only, it would be hard to justify building a single target and aoe gearset. Being able to have a dual spec with little to no additional gear required is a huge boon, and is totally worth the negligible dps loss from having a crit over haste priority.