Consuming the DOT does make Combustion weaker, but it's not a wash when consuming ignite. Ignite lasts for 4 seconds, but Combustion does equal dps over a much longer 10 seconds, essentially giving you 2.5x the damage of the ignite. You can also form another Ignite while Combustion is up. This is of course assuming the new 'reworded' tooltip works in the same DPS way as detailed in the OP and I am understanding it all correctly.

I got my fancy new spec, glyphs, gems and tried it out on a dummy, it sure is fun.
However i'm still a bit curious about Mastery for Fire, is it really worth Reforging your Crit/Haste into Mastery at level 80?

Sorry if this has been covered before, i have not seen any answer as of yet.

We recently killed some bosses in ICC and I have to say - just as "Narub" - that the new fire spec is AMAZING.
In my opinion, it is extremely fun to play and you can get insane damage by spreading your DoTs.
You don't even need to do this with combustion, just focus any add and use impact when you got a nice ignite such as in a hot streak.
Works perfectly for trash, marrowgar, deathwhisper and saurfang.
Furthermore, it feels more... dynamic to play. I really enjoyed it.
If you do it right, you will have a huge dps increase.
However, it is really frustrating if you don't have any luck with imapct procs, e.g. at saurfang when adds spawn and you do not get any proc. nevertheless, you still do much damage while just spamming fireball and pyro when it procs.

In regards to FFB. I tried the FFBx3 -> FB rotation for the first couple bosses of ICC and it felt very clunky. The dot is only 12 seconds, with ~2.2sec cast + travel time. Between that and the GCDs of LB and PB I almost never casted FB. Also if the stacks fall off (which they do a lot when switching to adds/bonespikes/etc) it takes 3 FFBs to get the dot back up to full, which in most cases was all the burn time allowed before needing to switch targets again. I then dropped FFB from the rotation and it felt much more consistent as far as dps.

On a side note fire AoE is ridiculous!! I got up to 106k dps on the whelps before sindy in 10 man.

Did anything like this ever get made?

It could be quite usefull, not only for combustion but also for impact.

How much mastery was you going for?

I've been fiddling around a bit with finding a balance between haste crit and mastery, it seems like too much mastery gimps you a little too much (35% ish crit is really noticeable) - So was just curious what numbers you was able to put out and using what.

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=18169#info A couple pages back.

Do you happen to have the character sheet crit values for these tests? That would help. That being said, the data you've got appears to line up nicely with Maje's data.

Seeing as how this is essentially a bunch of binomial distribution problems, I've calculated confidence intervals for each data point, and our linear formula lines up beautifully within a 95% confidence interval for all the data points except for one of Maje's data points (the one at (0.2281, 0.307)).

As for your formula, it seems to be pretty bang on, that is

The current mechanic of Living Bomb being able to refresh itself, but removing the original without an explosion in the process, is very frustrating. Accidently slipping of LB reapplication a split second too early now is not good. I'm using the Combustionhelper mod linked above, which is great, but still this design leaves a sour taste.

This isn't news, it's been like this a while. But do people feel this is the intended (frustrating) mechanic? If Blizzard didn't want LB to be chain-refreshed to trigger successive explosions in the process, how about a mechanic that said something like "If Living Bomb is refreshed with less than 3 seconds left on the current one, the explosion will still still occur and your new LB will apply". But if you attempt to chain refresh, you won't get explosions. This would be a good middle ground.

I'm really enjoying a lot about the new fire mage, but LB isn't one of them for both that, Tyrian, and because of the "Pyromaniac requires dots on three targets but LB can only be up on three targets" aspect.

I've been going back and forth with myself, whether I'm just whining and wanting things perfect or not, but I don't think so. It just doesn't feel very elegant right now, either aspect, and it made the class feel slightly frustrating.

LB refreshed under 3 seconds causing an explosion is good (since right now it's heavily penalized for an early refresh, which is the opposite model of every other dot in the game), and either increasing LB to four targets or decreasing pyromaniac to dots on two targets would feel far better. (of the two problems, the early-refresh problem on LB is the bigger issue in my mind, just bringing up the other one because it also bugged me about living bomb last night.)

Another note from last night: some very very very long dryspells in terms of not getting hotstreaks. It was a taste of things to come at 85 and definitely induced a slight sense of forboding, since we rely on crit for ignites for combustion, for dots for pyromaniac, for stuff to spread with impact (since LB isn't effective as something to spread), and for our mana regen -- on top of "for the fun and variety of the spec."


4.x fire at level 80 is a blast and easily the best spec I've played in the game (has nothing to do with the damage output) -- I was actually giggling with glee several times last night during raid. I wish I was equally confident about things like fun and mana viability at 85.



(edit) speaking of DPS:

Class balance as of Oct 13, 2010

You could also say that Fire's pretty hot right now. Or Fire is the bomb.

But yes, it's important we're mindful of the state of the spec. Although there are some mechanics we'll refer to as 'frustrating' or 'counter-intutive', and hope are changed - the spec itself is in burning shape. Pun intended. I feel like i'm arguing over icing on the cake, in comparison to pressing issues other classes have. At a glance, the key issues i'd note with fire now are:

- Pyromaniac. It's a great talent which thematically fits Fire beautifully. But it's still a dangerous talent balance wise, very powerful when it's up. Could potentially cause problems in future.
- Living Bomb. Refreshing LB removing the current one without an explosion. Frustrating
- Living Bomb. Affects 3 targets. Some people would prefer the target cap to be increased slightly, but not too high to the point where Impact could make it ridiculously OP, as it was in Beta.
- Reliance on crit VS Expected Combat ratings at 85. As Kyth said, much of Fire comes back to crit. We'll need to be mindful of what changes this will bring as combat ratings are slashed. Even if said changes refer to intangible or subjective concepts such as 'fun factor'.
- Combustion. In the latest beta build, it appears to consume DOTs again, even though currently it doesn't. If they implement this, it'll be a step backwards because consuming DOTs caused a few issues.
- Mana Viability. We're not sure yet how fire will cope at lvl 85 mana wise, especially with MoE being less effective.
- Ignite. Still has some bugs.

So the best list of problems I can think of with Fire, comes down to just a few points. An a few of them are just points to be mindful of in future, not necessarily problems yet. It's a clear sign of design success on Blizzard's part.

Does anyone else have points they would like to add? I'm going to include a "Current and Potential Future Fire Concerns" list to edit into the OP soon, if we can garner consensus. This will include items that are current problem (LB refresh issues) and potential problems in future (Effect of reduced combat ratings on Fire at 85).

Cauterize: Last night, when playing around in Naxx, I pulled agro on Razuvious and took an unbalancing. Ignored Sapphiron Frost Bombs. Didn't bother to move from a void fissure on Kel'thuzad. No problems, just keep DPS'ing and giggle while everyone else complains at why Mages got this type of talent. Yes, it's only Naxx, but if you can find ways to aggressively use Cauterize in Cataclysm like this - you'll be laughing. One day in Cataclysm there might even be a "Creative Uses of Cauterize" thread, similar to the old Amplify/Dampen magic type ones. Optimal play for future encounters may involve using Cauterize like this.