Moderator bump.

Can anyone explain to me please, how to keep up my ignite to grow, and how much can it grow maximum ?

Im getting this problem:
Im doing my rotation with fireball, pyro on proc and IB, and i get my ignite sometimes to 14k, 17k and then it suddenly drops.
Most of the times however i get to 9k dps on ignite and the buff resets on ~1200 and i have to build it up again and thats just from spamming fireballs.

How do i keep it up ?

Ignite only lasts 4 seconds, so you have only that amount of time to build up a good one to Combust with. The trick is to use Presence of Mind and Alter Time to throw out a bunch of instant Pyroblasts and use Combustion with those.

IB still cleaves Ignite/Pyro/Combust to 3 targets, 4 with the glyph. We still lose a ton of damage from no LB spread though.

Doing some brief testing:

When casting pyroblast at a training dummy which is deep frozen, then impacting the resulting pyroblast dot onto an adjacent dummy, the impacted dot retains the shatter crit modifier of the original dot.

When casting pyroblast at a training dummy, deep freezing an adjacent dummy, then impacting the pyroblast dot onto the frozen dummy, the impacted pyroblast dot appears to gain the shatter crit modifier, continuing to crit after the freeze wears off.

This hints to the mechanic having been changed along with dot snapshotting changes for mages. An impacted dot appears to snapshot the target's conditions when the dot is applied regardless of the conditions of the original target.

However, another test shows that your conditions don't affect the impacted dot.

Casting pyroblast on a target while standing in rune of power results in a dot that ticks for a specific amount. Stepping out of the rune, then impacting the dot, causes the impacted dot to continue ticking for the original dot's amount despite you not having the rune buff any longer.

Thus, impacted dots appear to continue to be exact duplicates of the original dot in both duration and buff modifiers, but are affected by the target's relevant debuffs when applied.

Thanks for testing!

I will go with a check and store buffs on cast and check debuffs on impact/tick, and copy the dot state when spreading. Combustion is now spreading this way.

However, to make things more complicated, for ignite/pyroblast, we can already have one of those dots on the target. I'd assume that it then refreshes the dot with the added damage and recalculates ticks/haste based on your current stats.. Any chance you can check for that?

Ignite is unaffected by haste or crit and ticks at a fixed duration / frequency regardless of what amounts you have. It is only affected by mastery. If ignite is refreshed, its tick amount is calculated by the amount the fireball/pyroblast/inferno blast that created it hit for. Those spells are affected by crit, spellpower or haste in their respective ways, but unaffected by mastery. Ignite is applied, then its tick damage is increased based on your mastery when applied.

Pyroblast's dot does not "bank" the way ignite does, if the pyroblast dot is reapplied, the dot overwrites the old one and gains whatever crit or haste modifiers you had at the moment it was reapplied, the same way most other dots ingame will.

I need some quick help understanding Alter Time and how to best use it effectively.

Here's my current interpretation of AT: I'm dps'ing a single target and I get Pyro and HU! procs while I have combustion available. I pop AT, which in 6 seconds, should bring me back to this current state of Pyro, HU!, and combustion. I then fire off pyro, IB, pyro, and combust, assuming that once I complete those, the 6 seconds should be up and I'll be returned to that previous state, ready for more pyro! and a combustion once the current one ends.

Since that hasn't been happening, I assume I'm interpreting AT incorrectly. How should one optimally use it? Thanks!

AT does not reset the cooldown of spells used. What that means is that if you get a Pyroblast! and HU proc you would pop: AT, Pyro, IB (for the HU proc), Pyro, AT (second time to reset procs), Pyro, Combustion. You will be left with a HU proc however IB will not be off cooldown again.
For the biggest bang take the Tier 1 talent Presence of Mind and use the following sequence once you have a Pyroblast! proc: PoM, AT, Pyro, Pyro, AT, Pyro, Pyro, Combustion

Ok, that makes a lot more sense. I do have PoM, so in that last example where the rotation is:

PoM, AT, Pyro, Pyro, AT, Pyro, Pyro, Combust.. where would I activate trinkets/other procs? Before the first AT? From reading the OP, it seems like AT is best used when procs/lust/etc are already rolling, meaning the optimum rotation (given procable trinkets) is:

Trinkets/Lust/etc, PoM, AT, Pyro, Pyro, AT, Pyro, Pyro, Combust. Right?

What addons/techniques do you use to determine when the optimal time to combust is? Does CombustionHelper tell you when you have the largest rolling ignite?