Ok, so maybe 'sucks' is a bit strong.... But my question is - Is fire good for anything other than raids?
I re-specced to Fire when I hit 70 and have tried various builds from deep/full fire to arcane/fire etc abut find that for anything other than instances/raids they completely suck.
For farming Primals, PVP or daily quests anything other than full frost is useless.
With Fire you have very little means of survival. With no shield (Ice Barrier) except Mana Shield which is a joke and no means of slowing the mobs before they reach you, mobs at level 70 + take loads of damage from my health meter. And without 'Artic Reach' my Frost Nova is very weak and Ignite usually breaks it after about 2 seconds anyway.
When full Fire I had a variety of stuns such as Blast Wave which does 'daze' the mobs but only at close range. Dragon's Breath, the last talent in the Fire tree, is fairly weak in my opinion. 3 seconds is a measly amount of time to stun a target especially when attempting to fight 2 mobs at one time, which usually results in a dead Mage when I Fire specced.
I usually hit my trinket and start with either Pyro or Fireball (using Combustion if it's not on cooldown) and follow it up with another Fireball, then a Firebast. When the mobs is in range it's then a Frost Nova and back away and another Fireball and another Fire Blast (improved cooldown thru talents) to finish, or a Dragon's Breath to daze the target and another Fireball to finish.
After killing just 2 mobs I have usually lost nearly half my health and at least 3rds of my mana. Even with talents such as Master of Elements and Clearcasting in the mix. I there is no hope of taking more than 2 mobs on at one time without losing pratically all health and mana and Mages are mean't to be king of AOE spells!
With Frost I can grind away for 10 + kills before having to drink or use Evocation. Using frost spells and Ice Barrier when needed which is rare I lose ZERO health when taking on a mob. I easily take on 2 mobs or even 3 using my Elemental and reset all my cooldowns including the Elemental and Ice Block using Cold Snap! And best of all Ice Lance becomes a deadly force in the hands of a Frost Mage! With talents like Shatter and Winter's Chill and Ice Shards I am sure to crit (usually over 4k combined) with a Frostbolt and Ice Lance on a frozen target almost everytime when in comparison using Ice Lance when specced Fire or Arcane is a total waste of time.
So my question is why bother with Fire for anything other than for raiding etc when Ignite and Improved Scorch are great for the extra damage? Get aggro and your chance of survival is next to zero as a Fire Mage and trying to AOE even trash and non-elite mobs solo in an instance without Improved Blizzard to slow attackers is not an option.
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Ziggle wrote:
For farming Primals, PVP or daily quests anything other than full frost is useless.
You wouldn't believe how much of a difference the time you've spent as the playstyle makes. I've been frost before, I know how to play it and I'd like to think I used to be really good at it(was frost from the time I started until TBC came out, when I went Fire).
But I respecced one evening to play around and knock out some quests involving fire immune mobs(plus I was getting nostalgic for the old ways). Long story short, I'd almost die if I got an add on the mobs in freaking Skald(BEM). After a few hours, I got better and better. The movements returned to me. All the ingrained skills I had came back. And I found myself doing just fine.
When to use abilities isn't just something you can study and know. It's a whole set of ingrained responses and muscle memory. Having never done fire, I wouldn't say you've reached that zone until you've been fire for at least a week of multi-hour questing sessions.
In the end, while I enjoyed my stint back as frost, Fire was my new happy home. I am now a fire mage through and through. I still miss the old days. And if I ever need to kill something that requires kiting, survivability, and control, I'll be right back to frost. But I am a fire mage.
So, what I'm trying to say is that, yes, you've had some experience with both, but you haven't REALLY had the full experience. Don't knock it when you don't TRULY know it.
i'm not sure what your fighting but uhh.. i'd have a gear check if i were you. I'm 40/21/0 and here's how my mob fights go. We'll say i'm doing the ogri'la dailys and killing the hounds. Pyro followed by a fireball... dead mob if either crit. If not then fireblast/AM till dead. If i pull 2 mobs then 1 will be dead before they get to me, frost nova, fireball, fireblast, AM spam till other is dead. For me it really only gets hairy on a 4 mob pull of lvl 70 or higher. AP/PoM/Pyro/fireblast will kill 1 right away.. then its just about kiting the rest.
It's really easy to get around 800 fire/arcane damage if your a tailor right at 70.. toss in a few BG parts and your up to 900. The point of fighting as a mage is to not get hit. Frost does it buy slowing down the mob so you can get a few extra shots in. Fire does it by only needed 2 or 3 to kill them.
It's really easy to get around 800 fire/arcane damage if your a tailor right at 70.. toss in a few BG parts and your up to 900. The point of fighting as a mage is to not get hit. Frost does it buy slowing down the mob so you can get a few extra shots in. Fire does it by only needed 2 or 3 to kill them.
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I have played both frost and fire extensively, though the frost was pre-BC.
Fire is definitely very very viable in PvE Soloing and questing. I haven't been able to kite in a long while with my fire mage, and so I'd concede that there are certain elite mobs that a frost mage could take down that a fire mage just can't handle.
But I'm a mediocre-geared fire mage (a slight slight bit higher than questing blues, my only epic is the PvP bracers) with lots of play time (casual RP guild on RP server), and I do loads of soloing (farming mats for guildies). With less than 550 spell damage and about 30% fire crit, I can take down most same level mobs pretty easily, even two of them. It's very possible for me to Trinket+Pyro Crit, Fireball Crit, 1st Ignite Tick and then they're dead, on level 70 mobs. For two mobs, what I simply do is Pyro on one, and while that's casting, I switch my target to the other one, and the split second that Pyro is casting, I polymorph the other. Then I switch back and Scorch, maybe Scorch again, Frost Nova and then blast it down.
For mobs that can't be Polymorphed, or for mobs that jump me (like the arrakoa when doing the Skettis prisoner quest), after the first nuke on one mob, I Blast Wave -> Dragon's Breath -> Frost Nova, and then burn down each one at a time.
With the Sporregar mushroom that gives mana back per kill, plus Master of Elements, my 8.5K mana goes a LONG way while soloing.
Obviously, not every fire is a double crit pyro and fireball. For those, you can put a second fireball or a scorch or maybe a fire blast, and they should really be about dead then. If not, I wand or scorch. One thing is that you should always have a feel for how much of that health bar each spell generally takes off of the particular mob's health bar. I always know when to use the fire blast versus the scorch versus a wand (wand is always a sliver of health, though, you all know when to use that).
As far as grinding goes, I think you need to just use fire more and get to know it. I farmed Motes of Life (and herbs (and sporregar rep)) from the level 62 Bog Lords (and 62 Bog Giants (but not the 61 Bog Giants, because they were gray and gave +3 rep instead of +15)) and after 30 minutes of grinding them with absolutely no downtime, I finally hit 25% of my 8.5K mana. The mana efficiency of (my variation of) 10/47/3 (I actually have 13/44/3 as a slight "Low-Instance-Farming" aspect (though my true low-instance-grind spec is even more in arcane)) astounds me oft.
Fire is definitely very very viable in PvE Soloing and questing. I haven't been able to kite in a long while with my fire mage, and so I'd concede that there are certain elite mobs that a frost mage could take down that a fire mage just can't handle.
But I'm a mediocre-geared fire mage (a slight slight bit higher than questing blues, my only epic is the PvP bracers) with lots of play time (casual RP guild on RP server), and I do loads of soloing (farming mats for guildies). With less than 550 spell damage and about 30% fire crit, I can take down most same level mobs pretty easily, even two of them. It's very possible for me to Trinket+Pyro Crit, Fireball Crit, 1st Ignite Tick and then they're dead, on level 70 mobs. For two mobs, what I simply do is Pyro on one, and while that's casting, I switch my target to the other one, and the split second that Pyro is casting, I polymorph the other. Then I switch back and Scorch, maybe Scorch again, Frost Nova and then blast it down.
For mobs that can't be Polymorphed, or for mobs that jump me (like the arrakoa when doing the Skettis prisoner quest), after the first nuke on one mob, I Blast Wave -> Dragon's Breath -> Frost Nova, and then burn down each one at a time.
With the Sporregar mushroom that gives mana back per kill, plus Master of Elements, my 8.5K mana goes a LONG way while soloing.
Obviously, not every fire is a double crit pyro and fireball. For those, you can put a second fireball or a scorch or maybe a fire blast, and they should really be about dead then. If not, I wand or scorch. One thing is that you should always have a feel for how much of that health bar each spell generally takes off of the particular mob's health bar. I always know when to use the fire blast versus the scorch versus a wand (wand is always a sliver of health, though, you all know when to use that).
As far as grinding goes, I think you need to just use fire more and get to know it. I farmed Motes of Life (and herbs (and sporregar rep)) from the level 62 Bog Lords (and 62 Bog Giants (but not the 61 Bog Giants, because they were gray and gave +3 rep instead of +15)) and after 30 minutes of grinding them with absolutely no downtime, I finally hit 25% of my 8.5K mana. The mana efficiency of (my variation of) 10/47/3 (I actually have 13/44/3 as a slight "Low-Instance-Farming" aspect (though my true low-instance-grind spec is even more in arcane)) astounds me oft.
Celcio wrote:
(hrm, I may have revealed a bit about my mental state there...)
Well I must admit Fire is more fun and getting those big crits are amazing satisfying. I definately agree with what you guys say about practice and playstyle. I'll probably give Fire another go at some point soon...
Yeah it's hugely different in style, but more or less equally effective.
I was a frostie most of leveling and went fire after hitting 70. The transition was a bit rough at first because the playstyle strategy of frost cazn get very ingrained if you have been playing it a lot -- you get used to controlling the situation and having a lot of defensive options. When you first switch from frost to fire, you can feel kind of naked defensively, which can be off-putting, but in reality what you need to do is max out your fire damage potential and just burn things.
If are a tailor, then craft Spellfire gear. With that and a few other pieces you should be able to get 900 or more + fire damage. At that gear level, you can burn things really fast. My fire mage in elemental plateau, for example, typically either 2 or 3 shots a mob down -- pyro, then fireball and, if needed, fire blast. If there are two, the first one is dead before they can reach me, then FN and strafe and kill the second one pretty quickly as well --- or you can simply start the fight by polying one, killing the other, keeping at range and then killing the second. Either way, it's not hard to do because of the damage bonus for your fire spells.
In PvP, it depends on the venue. The arena right now seems to be the realm of the frostie, given how things tend to play out there. But in BGs, I have a ton of fun with my fire mage -- get a nice location and just burn people up ftw!
I was a frostie most of leveling and went fire after hitting 70. The transition was a bit rough at first because the playstyle strategy of frost cazn get very ingrained if you have been playing it a lot -- you get used to controlling the situation and having a lot of defensive options. When you first switch from frost to fire, you can feel kind of naked defensively, which can be off-putting, but in reality what you need to do is max out your fire damage potential and just burn things.
If are a tailor, then craft Spellfire gear. With that and a few other pieces you should be able to get 900 or more + fire damage. At that gear level, you can burn things really fast. My fire mage in elemental plateau, for example, typically either 2 or 3 shots a mob down -- pyro, then fireball and, if needed, fire blast. If there are two, the first one is dead before they can reach me, then FN and strafe and kill the second one pretty quickly as well --- or you can simply start the fight by polying one, killing the other, keeping at range and then killing the second. Either way, it's not hard to do because of the damage bonus for your fire spells.
In PvP, it depends on the venue. The arena right now seems to be the realm of the frostie, given how things tend to play out there. But in BGs, I have a ton of fun with my fire mage -- get a nice location and just burn people up ftw!
Look, I didn't read that wall of text, but fire's fine.
You may not have much survivability, but if you know how to play, you'll have plenty of time to do major damage.
Fire is an all-out dps spec, so you shouldn't expect to endure focus fire with it.
On a side note, I tried 2v2ing together with a holy priest yesterday, both raid specced (so that's 10/48/3 for me). Went better then I thought tbh, we played 10-8 and ended at 1649 rating. Fire really has the damage a frost build can't keep up with. Rolling out 3.5k crits + ignite with 30% chance is pretty insane to outheal, even for pve geared pallies. Also, kiting is still pretty easy. We made a warrior + pally match last for about 15 minutes using rank 1 frostbolt, poly and nova (and 1 pt into blazing speed). And then got out about 12k damage for about 1k mana.
Basically, if you play right, and spec right, there's nothing wrong with the fire tree. I'd suggest speccing into a 10/48/3 spec for pve, since it does massive damage and is very mana efficient.
Don't let this post fool you into thinking fire is even viable for arena pvp btw, it's not, and it won't be after 2.3.2 either.
You may not have much survivability, but if you know how to play, you'll have plenty of time to do major damage.
Fire is an all-out dps spec, so you shouldn't expect to endure focus fire with it.
On a side note, I tried 2v2ing together with a holy priest yesterday, both raid specced (so that's 10/48/3 for me). Went better then I thought tbh, we played 10-8 and ended at 1649 rating. Fire really has the damage a frost build can't keep up with. Rolling out 3.5k crits + ignite with 30% chance is pretty insane to outheal, even for pve geared pallies. Also, kiting is still pretty easy. We made a warrior + pally match last for about 15 minutes using rank 1 frostbolt, poly and nova (and 1 pt into blazing speed). And then got out about 12k damage for about 1k mana.
Basically, if you play right, and spec right, there's nothing wrong with the fire tree. I'd suggest speccing into a 10/48/3 spec for pve, since it does massive damage and is very mana efficient.
Don't let this post fool you into thinking fire is even viable for arena pvp btw, it's not, and it won't be after 2.3.2 either.
Kapot wrote:
Look, I didn't read that wall of text, but fire's fine.
You may not have much survivability, but if you know how to play, you'll have plenty of time to do major damage.
Fire is an all-out dps spec, so you shouldn't expect to endure focus fire with it.
On a side note, I tried 2v2ing together with a holy priest yesterday, both raid specced (so that's 10/48/3 for me). Went better then I thought tbh, we played 10-8 and ended at 1649 rating. Fire really has the damage a frost build can't keep up with. Rolling out 3.5k crits + ignite with 30% chance is pretty insane to outheal, even for pve geared pallies. Also, kiting is still pretty easy. We made a warrior + pally match last for about 15 minutes using rank 1 frostbolt, poly and nova (and 1 pt into blazing speed). And then got out about 12k damage for about 1k mana.
Basically, if you play right, and spec right, there's nothing wrong with the fire tree. I'd suggest speccing into a 10/48/3 spec for pve, since it does massive damage and is very mana efficient.
Don't let this post fool you into thinking fire is even viable for arena pvp btw, it's not, and it won't be after 2.3.2 either.
You may not have much survivability, but if you know how to play, you'll have plenty of time to do major damage.
Fire is an all-out dps spec, so you shouldn't expect to endure focus fire with it.
On a side note, I tried 2v2ing together with a holy priest yesterday, both raid specced (so that's 10/48/3 for me). Went better then I thought tbh, we played 10-8 and ended at 1649 rating. Fire really has the damage a frost build can't keep up with. Rolling out 3.5k crits + ignite with 30% chance is pretty insane to outheal, even for pve geared pallies. Also, kiting is still pretty easy. We made a warrior + pally match last for about 15 minutes using rank 1 frostbolt, poly and nova (and 1 pt into blazing speed). And then got out about 12k damage for about 1k mana.
Basically, if you play right, and spec right, there's nothing wrong with the fire tree. I'd suggest speccing into a 10/48/3 spec for pve, since it does massive damage and is very mana efficient.
Don't let this post fool you into thinking fire is even viable for arena pvp btw, it's not, and it won't be after 2.3.2 either.
Fire is a great spec, when you get used to using it. I find that the 10/48/3 build that I use is very viable with soloing, while a raiding frost build really is not as you don't have all of the frostbite/shatter as it is mostly useless against boss fights.
I have to disagree with you there, Kapot, he should go for 10/48/3 when he has around 900 firedamage (unbuffed) before that he should probably use a 40/21/0 build to make up for it with some arcane damage as his fire spells will hit for a fairly small amount.
I just have to add my 2 cents. I'm a frost mage. I was farming fire elementals and there was a fire mage farming as well. He was doing air elementals. I was clearing out 3-5 fire elementals at a time using my water elemental and cold snap. I would tag all the spawned and then kill them all. without taking very much damage.
He decided to try and while he could kill them it was slow going and definetly 1 at a time. When I farm water elementals it's definetly harder than fire elementals, but not nearly as difficult as it was for the fire mage with the fire elementals.
Plus, it is really fun doing all those mobs at one time.
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Quel%27dorei&n=Varilhigh
He decided to try and while he could kill them it was slow going and definetly 1 at a time. When I farm water elementals it's definetly harder than fire elementals, but not nearly as difficult as it was for the fire mage with the fire elementals.
Plus, it is really fun doing all those mobs at one time.
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Quel%27dorei&n=Varilhigh
as said a times over, it's all your play style and what you're used to. I started my mage as casual alt have have been arc/fire since day 1. Slowly working towards the 40/21/0 ish build. (stupid for lvling i know but, i had fun with it) now as a 68 almsot 69 fire mage with not very good gear I can easily take on 2-3 mobs. 3 can be pushing it depending on what type it is but 2 is never a problem. (lots of downtime though)
So play fire, for more than 2 days, figure out rotations, what you can do/ can't do, and you'll see the crazy potential fire actually has. I 2-3 shot most mobs if I crit and i'm standin at about %30 fire crit.
So play fire, for more than 2 days, figure out rotations, what you can do/ can't do, and you'll see the crazy potential fire actually has. I 2-3 shot most mobs if I crit and i'm standin at about %30 fire crit.
i was frost from 40-60 but now i thought i would go back to fire mostly for group dmg but its helped in pve too i kill 4-5 mobs befor going oom and can take 2-3 mobs my level at a time my crits can hit from 1500 to 2k and everythings great...
Scholar
33 posts
I was a devout fire mage while leveling, but since hitting 70 and doing more BG's I have switched to Frost. In my experience Frost is the way to go for PVP.
For pvp:
Can anyone say poly, pyro, POM pyro, fireblast, arc missiles?!?
Edited, Jan 11th 2008 3:55am by beebsman
EDIT: Nevermind, I managed to misread about half this thread. Wee reading comprehension!
Edited, Jan 11th 2008 11:54pm by lsfreak
Edited, Jan 11th 2008 11:54pm by lsfreak
I'm 37/24 at the moment, and i have no idea what you're talking about. With 1248 +spell damage and ~33% crit, things die way before they reach me, at least non-elite mobs. Farming primals, outside of primal fire is awesome, only problem is i have to run to the corpse to loot because they usually die in 3 spells before they reach me. I can't farm primal fire, but i just farm primal air, buy fire and sell the airs. Same ******* thing.
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