I understand why the nerf had to occur. There is no denying when Hot Streak was procing enough to make pyroblast almost an unending instant chain, it was a problem. The problem for me comes in the idea that they chose to give fire some semblance of AOE ability versus giving us competitive single target dps. Other than the gimmicked fights mentioned above the general rule of thumb for pve is boss damage is worth more than trash damage. Living bomb is too expensive to cast on most trash, and that is before the fact that things like FoK kill most aoe trash before 12 seconds is up anyway.

To me a viable solution to up our single target dps would be to change living bomb to function as the glyph allows it to function now. Than in turn, make the living bomb glyph allow Hot Streak to proc off its dot crits. This gives us flexibility that blizzard wants us all to have and it allows our single target dps to be increased.

Alternatively, you could make Combustion work along these lines. It goes without saying that Combustion is long in need of a buff.

Like I said, the problem is not the need for AoE damage, its the need for single target.

Some of the posters here, like on the WoW forums, are conflating "multi-target living bomb" and "living bomb procing hotstreak."

Multi-target living bomb is the arguably overpowered one in terms of either pvp or meterwhoring (both of which tend to annoy other classes), although I would be very unhappy if they removed it since I think it adds some very key flavor to the class that has been missing.

Sit down and map out for yourself (I did this on the wow forums for some trolls) what kind of time you have available in, for example, a 4-target living bomb situation to "spam" pyroblasts. You'll discover that you really don't.

The pyroblast was a minor buff to mobility on ~2 target fights, and a minor buff to dps on single-target fights.

Once you get into 3-4 targets, you're spending too much of your time on maintenance and, consequently, on munching hotstreak procs for it to be some vastly overpowered mechanic.


Overall this is just a very odd change with very odd, handwavy justification.


Regardless this has strong echoes back to 3.0.8, where they patched in mage changes at the last minute and then reverted/nerfed them quickly. I certainly would be happier if they'd put some of the level of attention to detail in that goes into some other changes to help reduce such a....rich history of recent buff->immediate-nerf cycles.

I agree with Kyth that the overpowered part was the multi-target Living Bomb only when the number of Living Bombs were more than 2 or 3. I think they didn't realize how wonderful these two changes were (both in single target and 2-3 target fights) and what a gameplay experience they gave us... for one night. It's a common idea that capping the number of Living Bombs at 3 would solve the problem. I share this PoV. But even if it's not enough there are a few more ways to nerf it: Make Critical Mass or Piromaniac not to effect LB DoTs (which "works perfectly" with World in Flames), and the number of HS procs will decrease. (Yeah, that's a single target nerf too, but at least we'd still have the mechanic). So it was a hasty and dumb change.

We can all agree that the Living Bomb change was a much needed boost in keeping the mage class in an at least excellent state on a handful of fights, but where does that put us in the future? Is Blizzard going to design future encounters with this mechanic in mind? Will it be nerfed? Re-vamped? Is this just another "FOTM" moment like Arcane was? We shall see.

My main concern is how long this is going to last. There's plenty of cheap tactics using Living Bomb to excel your damage far beyond what would be deemed as "normal" for a fight. That's where the complaints start to roll in and Blizzard turns to us and "tones it down."

heck make it easier..

As was mentioned above, make the base LB work like the glyph. Then have a glyph that allows for LB Crits to proc HS.

Ran a Crusader heroic tonight, dotted up everything in site with LB.. then looked at my mana.. (eye roll) the mobs died before the explosion, and the tick damage is not worth mentioning. I am 0/53/18 and Blizzard would have done more AOE. MAYBE in a 25 man raid instance the mobs would live long enough to apply multi stacks, such as Naxx DK Wing trash? but even then, Blizzard or FS mows em down now, seldom get a second full blizz cast before the melee DPS trashes them all.

Other than pvp.. and some select fights with high HP mobs, would it even be worthwhile to dot everything up with LB? So, we were given a very situational "buff" that allows us to put a dot on multiple targets.. weeeeeeeee!!!!!!! Man I feel the love now!

We now have a use for spirit.. at the expense of crit from molten armor and glyph... at the end of the day, I was able to gear around it, for a small net gain in crit. Why should I have to? We deserve a bone at some point, give us something nice for a change. I don't expect to be 10% higher dps than everyone else, but a a pure DPS class, I would hope to be able to realistically run top 5 every trip, instead of having to faceroll the keyboard to stay even with lesser geared hybrids.

As for my play style and the group makeup I usually run with, Multi-Target LB really isnt worth the mana cost, unless somebody can do the math in such a way as to make it viable against trash, but I dont see it from real world testing so far.

All "older" mages here know the history of mage class about which people tend to say it's the most QQed class in the game and has always been that way. I tried really hard to not think about the good old "someone there hates mages and will make sure they keep on being hated?" but this kinda comes in as a punch in my face with this yet another change which right before the patch or a bit after (at most 1 week) getting reverted or nerfed, because it was deemed to be too powerful.

It sounds like the same "we've been on this ride before" but they're still giving it to us again and so on.

The too powerful case is only true in a battleground of high size like alterac valley or the new isle of conquest, where you can actually dot and keep it maintained to be able to get 1-2 chains of pyros to kill fast 1-2 players. On top of that the other case of this would be heroics where (only if) you have the tank to pull the "whole instance" and LB things down really fast and/or leveling where again you can get yourself back into the pre 2.2 aoe leveling. Other than this 3 select cases LB proccing HS and being multi targetable would add a little buff to single target dps (which they specified that it's no longer influenced by being "the king of AoE") and wouldn't even get close to actually be called a very good buff, let alone too powerful.

Overall I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few days LB being multi targetable would get reverted back to 3.1 state since this will still provide some "too powerful" scenarios such as LBing 5-6 targets in a pvp setting and them all getting a Mass Dispel from a "clever" priest and all being blown to the heaven and back.

It seems to me the solution should be easy, revert the LB change and alter the glyph of living bomb so that it removes the ability to be cast on more than one target. That would help the single target DPS issue as well as pulling LB back in line with other spells in the situations where it still is a little overpowered.

In addition, it would at least make using the glyph an actual choice rather than the no brainer it currently is.

I agree. It's really the fact that the HS procing off LB dots was ''thought to be overpowered' and changed accordingly, whereas if you actually play with the mechanic a bit, it's obvious it's difficult to get much utility out of it for the reasons you mention.

I was in a 10 man Ulduar last night trying to LB as many multiple mobs as possible and it's obvious that by the time you apply LB to enough mobs to make chain procing HS off of LB dot crits a viable outcome, you've probably reduced your dps overall due to the equal number of GCs you need to wait for - every time I used LB on more than three targets at the start of the fight, I would do less overall dps than just one or two LBs and FS, Blizzard (and if a HS procs while you are casting Blizzard, you are not going to interrupt to use it).

And apart from a very situational PvP scenario where it could potentially be overpowered, it's a nice buff to fire specced mages who are crying out for PvP buffs anyway.

What I don't understand is how they decided the best way to buff mage DPS was through Living Bomb. Don't get me wrong, it's a neat spell that I like a lot, but it was already very good. There are other talents that are really hurting but I think they could be buffed without creating balance issues. Combustion and all the low tier arcane talents, for example.

I think if the devs had spent time on those instead of Living Bomb they could have found some more viable solutions for everything they wanted to accomplish for mages in 3.2 without having to go back and undo the changes one day after the patch ships.

Edited for spelling.

The thing that pleases me the most about this is that the change follows the heels of the Mage Q&A which stated the following:
1) We don't want mages to be the AOE class. Mage AoE is fine.
2) We don't want mages to be like locks.

So what do they do? Give us a crappier version of Seed of Corruption.

Nail on the head. Now if the devs include the scorch debuff into fireball the conversion will be complete.

I disagree with this. There were a lot times in a decent number of fights where one could find himself wasting GCDs. These include Ingis, Auriaya, Mimiron, Freya, etc. What multi-target living bomb + proc meant was we had something to fill in these gaps. Dotting up random adds while you can't do anything else is slightly beneficial to meaningful DPS but more importantly, it opened doors to real mobility (At least in my mind). If you had 2 or 3 adds dotted up, there is a reasonable chance you are going to see hot streak procs fairly often which means less overall down time while moving and more DPS on the move.

The primary problem with such an idea is mana. Living Bomb is expensive and you can only dot up so much crap before the blue bar starts to disappear. Regardless, where it was possible to do, it seemed like it would provide a decent (Albeit, still RNG) answer to mobility.

I disagree. It will make it so you carry stacks of living bomb glyphs and swap it in and out frequently.

The multi-target is a good change, a very good change. It gives the class a unique strength, it gives mages something more to do (almost every class has a multi-target *something* now, we were lagging behind), and it allows, again, stronger mages to get stronger dps because you're introducing a skill factor: being in range of two things and keeping your dots up without losing time to target switching.

Remember, the major differentiator once you get past the "is your gear right, did you turn your computer on" between DPS'ers is three things:

(1) how well do you handle movement
(2) how well do you handle target switching
(3) how consistent are you in always using every second to dps (i.e. pressing '2' hard enough)

Multi-target Living bomb now makes all three of those more interesting/challenging. I know it's not the "in" thing on EJ to say it, I should be saying "lol it's easy if you have a problem you're a scrub", but I don't agree with that: I truly think they did something very good for the class, and especially for skill differentiation, by making this change.


In fact, I actually agree with Blizzard to a point: IF you accept the statement that one of the two needs to be nerfed, I'd have nerfed hotstreak from living bomb.

I just disagree that either has to be nerfed, because they primarily buff different scenarios. Multi-target living bomb quickly overruns hotstreak-from-living bomb in usefulness. Pretty much the main reason hotstreak is useful in that scenario is because fireblast is so terrible (range/damage) so it gives us another instant to weave in right before a living bomb refresh.

I think the 'amg! chain cast pyros!@' idea came about from pvp QQing. In pvp, continuously dotting up players, then as soon as the first HS procs, picking a target and casting just on them was pretty ridiculous burst damage. Getting 4 instant pyros in a row, even if you stop applying LBs and switch to fireball/scorch/fireblast when the HS stop coming, you could pretty easily burst down any target.

In PvE, it wasn't as crazy. As Kyth said, keeping LB up on more targets ends up causing you to spend less time dpsing a specific target. So, in fights like Gormok (really the best relevant example at this point for pve), you could LB on him and 1-2 snobolds, then try to burst the current one down. You had to juggle the uptime on your 2-3 bombs and focus fire the current target. If you were the scorch bitch (as I am), it seemed to mostly just offset the dps loss from having to scorch and fireball dot resetting HS. I mean, I fully expected to be topping some meters with these changes and was surprised to see that while I had closed the gap a bit, the same people were still generally beating me (feral druids and rogues especially).

It's entirely possible that the play style of dotting multiple mobs and keeping track of their uptime was just foreign to me, and required a bit of an adjustment that I didn't have time to make. Meaning, I sucked at it, and didn't have time to get it right, but I've heard similar stories from other mages about our "night of glory" not being all that OP for PvE. If they could find a way to balance the changes for PvP, I think giving us both LB tics proccing HS and multiple LBs wouldn't be unbalanced in PvE, with the exception of AE trash pulls like Hodir trash (but even then, other classes are pretty damn close). Especially if they take those changes into consideration for future encounters. Most of the coliseum encounters seem to be 2 targets or less for most of the encounter. In those situations it's really just enough of a dps increase to make us competitive for the top spots, but not blowing anyone away.

In some ways the multi-LB mechanic adds in more of an affliction lock/feral druid dps rotation flavor. You have priorities and the optimal rotation depends on the ability to maintain the dps priorities. ie LB stacks > Hot streak > fireball. Admittedly it's not as complex as aff or feral druids since we only really have to watch LB ticks and, to a certain extent, mobhealth.

I welcome the added complexity and awareness required but I'm flabbergasted that the problems with both multi-mob LBs+critting LB ticks procing HS weren't addressed in the PTR.

The questions that I have now are: given the the # of mobs how many LB targets should we maintain for optimal dps, and given the length of a fight how many LB targets for optimum dpm?

Intuitively, I would think 2-3 lb targets are best, with the priorities given to the highest health targets. I've run some heroics and my dps really suffered when the mobs died before the LBs could explode. If anything I'd like LB to explode upon mob death. Anymore than 3 and my dps dropped significantly compared to aoe or even single target LB+fireball.

I’m not going to QQ about getting nerfed. Essentially this hotfix brings us back to where we were in 3.1. I was excited for the change because it would compensate for the upcoming loss of 4PT8 as it relates to the number of pyros I cast, and smooth out a little of the RNG aspect of our damage.

I know a lot of what I’m going to say has been said, but I might as well add to the pile.

Blizzard has not specified whether the new LB mechanic was nerfed because it was OP in pvp, pve, or both. The mechanic as it was on 3.2 release day was a buff, a good one, for both pvp and pve but IMO this was not a bad thing and here is why.

Ill start with pvp:

It has been said for some time by developers that they wanted to increase Fire’s viability in pvp. This would have definitely made it more fun, but it was still only a gimmick buff to Fire pvp. Frost would still be much more practical for serious pvp mages. If anything it would have made pvp Fire somewhat dangerous, but still require a lot of skill to play well (no survivability). The pre hot fix mechanic would have lessened, but not eliminated, the ridicule Fire pvp mages get when looking for an arena team. Unfortunately, the world will never know.

As far as pve:

Yes, this was a DPS increase. More instant pyros = more DPS. But the issue of mana management should have kept abuse inline. Plus this would have increased the skill requirement for mages to play their class optimally. Which good mages welcome.

Multi-target LB in pve is a load of crap:

I have personally tested the pve aoe damage output of multiple LBs on trash pulls, and I must say it’s a joke. First off, who cares about trash? Second the trash dies so fast that Flamestrike->Blizzard is better DPS.

On bosses with more than 1 target its still a joke. Good examples are Kologarn and Mimiron. Even if you tab target and dot up all 3 targets, not all of them are fully debuffed therefore lowering effective damage. You’re still better off single targeting.

Relative to other pure classes:

Personally I do not believe that mages are as far behind other pure classes as some others QQ about. However the numbers speak for themselves:

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay

Mages own 2 fights; General Vezax and Hodir. What do those fights have in common? They have gimmick buffs that inflate our damage, specifically against melee classes. Look at the class representation for the top DPS on Ulduar fights. You can see how mages lack representation, while rogues are all over the boards. If the “5%” pure class benefit to DPS really existed then why are there any hybrid classes on the boards at all? This is a very large sample size and appropriate for analysis.

To sum up:

I like the idea that someone had here to make the multi-target and HS procable mechanics optional and mutually exclusive, through a glyph or something. I agree that having both is OP, but atleast give us the option to choose one or the other. Pvp mages would prolly go for the mulit-target and forgo the HS procability, while pve mages would choose the mechanic that buffs single target DPS.

Glyph of Living Bomb: The periodic damage from your Living Bomb Spell can now crit and therefore proc Hot Streak, but can only be cast on one target at a time.

PS. I still love my mage. This will not keep me from melting faces.

This reminds me of those commercials where they give kids a real pony or a remote control truck, then take it away and provide them with a plastic horse or a cardboard cut out of a truck. Kids (and mages) know when they are being had.

I think we should stop this idea of a glyph fix to this. This is bad. Maxing dps then becomes a case of glyph swapping as some fights it will be more beneficial to have one glyph over the other - and it will be a significant difference so therefore worthwhile.

I think Bliz just needs to readdress this whole change in the cold light of day rather than this knee-jerk reaction to a 'potentially overpowered' scenario.

LB dot crits procing HS and multi-target LBs will not make fire mages overpowered.

I do not mind them stopping the ticks from so many living bombs from proccing hot streak, in pvp this was pretty OP. Any mage who entered a bg experienced godhood for the brief time it was active, spam living bomb on several enemies and be able to chain pyros, you were a glass figure, but for those moments of life you were also the left hand of god made flesh.

I get it, too strong in pvp. The negative part is that the single target dps boost this patch promised for mages has been stripped from us completely. I am surprised so many seem unaffected or bothered by this.


Here is a solution that would make everyone happy, if reasonable. Recode the spell mechanics to only count the first living bomb application to proc HS of the periodic damage, and all subsequent living bombs behaved like the old and now current living bomb.


Problem solved. Multi living bombs do NOT get OP in pvp as you will not get endless chain pyros due to every living bomb out there, and we maintain the single target dps boost that the living bomb on our first target or boss brings.

I don't understand the resistance to a "glyph fix". Mages already routinely respec (in the process reglyphing at times) to best adapt to the encounters we are working on. I know I already carry around stacks of imp scorch and fb glyphs for the situation where I need to scorch alone.

I will be the first to admit it's less than ideal, and in a purely PVE environment the changes weren't particularly overpowering. That said, PVE is not the only lens blizzard views these changes through. Changing the glyph would fix the PVP balance issue, and give us some flexibility to fix one of two areas we tend to have problems in on any given fight.

Would I prefer they revert the changes? Absolutely, other classes have had similar "OPness" in battle grounds for a long time I fail to see why now that it happens to be mages it's time to run around hotnerfing willy nilly. Just like I would prefer not to reglyph scorch when the situation called for it. Sadly, pushing for those types of fixes has left us coming up with gooseggs historically.

Fixing a glyph might be sub ideal, but its a simple easy compromise that would result in an improvement in our current situation without overpowering us in PVP. Unlike the other changes more involved (and I admit ultimately better) changes we normally propose, I think a glyph change at least has a chance of happening, and happening relatively quickly if Blizzard were so inclined.

The buff being reverted just doesn't make any sense at all, it just looks like a lazy ass excuse of not having a quick fix for FFB/FB dot bug.
It being too good is basically only true in mass pvp where you can endlessly spam living bomb and have constant hotstreak procs, but then again, firemages are one of the worst specs in pvp and AV has always been biased towards certain classes.
In pve however the buff was something we could have definately used, it gave us quite bit more mobility, more quick damage and a higher skillcap.
The only fights where my dps went up by a great amount was XT hardmode while being on spark duty, which was good thing because we were in a pretty bad shape for fights like that.
Even on an multitarget optimal fight like kologarn and basically a dream for multiple living bombs my dps only went up by 700, from 7000 to 7700 still behind rogues and deathknights on that try. This would have probably been a bit more if my mods were working properly but to me it showed that it wasn't overpowered in near optimal conditions.
I just think it's bit sad that a class is considered too powerful and gets an instant nerfs while they were still not quite on par with other classes like rogues and warlocks who are apparently balanced.
But it's not all bad, we're still a lot better off than we were in sunwell and invisibility works fine now

This LB change does a few things for the mage class. First of all, it adds more of a play style. Good and bad mages are going to be separated even more between each other, because this makes us have to think more in depth about the boss fight and how many LB's would produce the most sufficient DPS if there are multiple targets. Just something to think about.

I think they could have solved the problem with multiple living bomb + ticks proccing ignite/hot streak being to good with a glyph which did something like 'Your living bomb can now be used on multiple targets, but ticks will no longer proc hot streak and ignite'.

However from what I've seen so far since 3.2 mages aren't in a bad state, in our first raid after the hotfix me and our other 2 mages were always very high in the meters, even top 3 for a couple of fights, to cries of 'nerf mages!!'.