Fade wrote:
The fire tree has undergone some rather radical changes lately, and yet I think mages are still left wondering: how should we be thinking about this tree in terms of endgame purposes?
No longer can the fire tree be said to have great single target damage capabilities when compared to the other two trees. Neither can we dismiss it as 'the pvp tree' because that holds absolutely no merit, again, when compared to either of the other two trees.
The one thing we can say, is that fire has more talented PBAoE abilites than any other tree, so the theme seems to be getting into melee range, and putting down AoE.
The question remains, where is this going to be useful? It feels a bit disingenuous to suggest that the endgame of WotLK will be so full of AoE opportunities that the deep fire mage will be a great asset to his allies, as there is no place in the game from 1-70 where speccing for max AoE damage is worth more than speccing for single target, and picking up AoE duties when necessary without the need for changing spec.
This doesn't seem particularly likely to change, as even in the heaviest of AoE encounters, arcane explosion is a very strong spell that doesn't require much talent investment to make potent.
Will AoE encounters be so prevalent, and the power of Fire AoE spells so much greater that deep Fire will be a valid spec? Frost and Arcane can AoE quite well themselves, as can the trees for many other classes. Why give up the extra tools and single target damage of Frost or Arcane, in order to spec fire?
I have seen some very candid discussion on these forums about roles and intentions, and I think there is a good opportunity here with the Fire tree to put some questions/concerns to rest for the mage class.
Any chance we might hear about hopes/plans/goals for the Fire tree?
Blizzard wrote:
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/4/8765577343-where-are-we-headed-with-the-fire-tree.html
There are some significant Fire changes coming in an upcoming build, I'll see if I can get the web team to update the calculator.
Fire is intended to do compelling single target damage, as it's traditionally been. When first designing the classes, we always intended the Mage to be the king of AOE and for AOE to be an important part in the game. Living Bomb, and other talents in the tree are intended to bring the Mage back in line with our original vision. Part of what pegged the Mage down a notch was Seed of Corruption, which ended up being better than we anticipated.
That said, again, we do want Fire to be a strong single target DPS spec along with Frost and Arcane. Frost is not intended to be the Mages "PvP spec" and Fire isn't intended to be the "PvE spec," they only turned out that way because of unintended factors. We're trying to make Frost more viable in raiding by allowing you to effectively freeze the target without having to nova it, allowing you to throw in some "shatter combos" in your rotation. Arcane, Frost, and Fire (and a mix thereof) should all more or less be viable in as many aspects of the game as possible. Where they should be different is in playstyle and gameplay differences (stacking Scorch vs. freezing and shatter etc.).
AOE will be more prevalent in encounters in the game, yes. However, Fire mages are assuming they're being converted into a pure AOE spec, which is not the case. We want the strong AOE to just be a feature of the Fire Mage. The Fire Mage doesn't need a new single target DPS nuke or ability as a 51-point talent in order to continue to be a good single target DPS class.
There are some significant Fire changes coming in an upcoming build, I'll see if I can get the web team to update the calculator.
Fire is intended to do compelling single target damage, as it's traditionally been. When first designing the classes, we always intended the Mage to be the king of AOE and for AOE to be an important part in the game. Living Bomb, and other talents in the tree are intended to bring the Mage back in line with our original vision. Part of what pegged the Mage down a notch was Seed of Corruption, which ended up being better than we anticipated.
That said, again, we do want Fire to be a strong single target DPS spec along with Frost and Arcane. Frost is not intended to be the Mages "PvP spec" and Fire isn't intended to be the "PvE spec," they only turned out that way because of unintended factors. We're trying to make Frost more viable in raiding by allowing you to effectively freeze the target without having to nova it, allowing you to throw in some "shatter combos" in your rotation. Arcane, Frost, and Fire (and a mix thereof) should all more or less be viable in as many aspects of the game as possible. Where they should be different is in playstyle and gameplay differences (stacking Scorch vs. freezing and shatter etc.).
AOE will be more prevalent in encounters in the game, yes. However, Fire mages are assuming they're being converted into a pure AOE spec, which is not the case. We want the strong AOE to just be a feature of the Fire Mage. The Fire Mage doesn't need a new single target DPS nuke or ability as a 51-point talent in order to continue to be a good single target DPS class.
I'm, as usual, interested to see what they do to change the fire tree or other trees