Fire Mage Rework Out on Alpha! Are ignite and SKB dead?

[TylerJBrown]

Stoked you're releasing this video! Some of my initial thoughts:

1. Yeah like you mentioned, WAY too many capstones. I do appreciate how they all are meaningfully different though, but of course it'll always just come down to tuning. I'm interested to see the numbers of Meteor + Firefall vs Charring Embers + 2/2 Fevered Incantation

2. Also you did mention it, but it does feel like the LB / Lit Fuse talents will feast or famine based on whether LB can stack or not. If it can't, then even if you lean super far into Lit Fuse, the Blast Zone capstone all the way on the right seems like it would only be chosen for like... TGP-level pulls. I can only think of a handful of dungeons where that would ever even get any value in pugs.

3. I've coached a couple people "zero to Hero" style, and the person who was playing Fire Mage would have benefited greatly from Spontaneous Combustion, because the FB and PF pooling before Combusts seems like it's incredibly hard for a new player to balance, so giving them the option to say "hey don't worry about it and just spend everything on CD", then having a scripted Unleashed Inferno rotation seems easy. I personally wouldn't take it, but I appreciate that it's there

4. I like the optional lean towards more instant damage: Flame Patch / Quickflame choice node, LB options, etc, just because it'll alleviate the issue of Fire being quite bad in sub-10 keys where classes like Ret who have omega front-loaded damage can basically ruin your own overall - even if it's just a perception issue and the key gets done in the same time, that issue is felt by people in pugs who aren't very knowledgeable about damage profiles

5. I'm curious to see where Flamestrike ends up here. There are _so many_ Lit Fuse talents, and in some ways it's more simple to play (no @[cursor] macro needed), that assuming they're tuned equally I can see folks just leaning towards Lit Fuse purely because of simplicity? Maybe I haven't thought this through enough though

[Swtch]

Very happy as a non fire player that pushes m+ with these changes. Going away from ignite cleave being broken will completely change fires "perfect m+ damage profile" identity. It'll be more like frost and arcane where if you want more overall you'll have to actually sacrifice prio damage to get that (whereas before you still did nuts overall while doing essentially only ST). This should help even competitive mage spec representative in m+.

Although if fire is still the only spec with access to cauterize, the same m+ problem that happened in DF (essentially fire only) might occur in War Within.

[btm]

With all the nodes at the bottom of the tree, having 2x 2 point nodes either side of kindling just feels bad especially with how strong fevered incantation is. You'll always take 2x fevered and the skb/ui node which really limits your choice on all those other nodes

[snuggoe]

does majesty of the phoenix buff hot streak flamestrikes by 20%? or is it only for hardcast flamestrikes?

if its the former, the math does math out nicely
phoenix flames > buffed flamestrike > fire blast > buffed flamestrike > phoenix flames

[agathoorr]

hey, is Fire mage guide for S4 in your plan, would loe it :D

[alexis]

All good aside skb nerf. And how phoenix reborn works is also an issue

Nerf the damage amp, not the stack count if you're gonna nerf something.

As for phoenix reborn make the proc based on hot streak used, rather than some random debuff.

[dASTROnaut]

sorry for offtopic, but will there be any retail season 4 content from your side?

[bluey]

I kinda hope they get rid of charred embers and somehow just make the 4 set a thing. No-one really likes being forced to use so many phoenix flames when they can't crit baseline. Maybe the real solution is to make alexstraszas fury baseline

[Defocus_]

let me know when sun king gets removed

[dmsephiroth]

The fact they use all their ressources to recreate fire is no good sign.
For me its a sign they are happy with the boring frost gameplay..and awful glacial :((

Rly hope they redesign it and bring the perma-pet back! Only 1 playstyle is stupid boring.