Getting the most out of Fire

[Frosty 0]

I played fire during cata but have been frost since Panda's dropped, so I'm a tad rusty on fire. I've recently gotten a few upgrades, so I decided to try fire again. As frost - I can pull 120+k dps on most fights, but in LFR have seen fire mages pulling 160k+ dps. As frost, for instance, I pulled 190k dps on Jin'rokh which is a damage buff fight. I've been in a LFR recently with a fire mage that pulled 240k+ dps on this fight.

I use Combustion Helper and My Big Ignite to help me manage my stuff. Armory is http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/zuljin/Fr%c3%b3st%c3%bf/simple

My normal single target rotation for fire is (Obviously assuming I've evocated and am keeping bomb up):

Fireball till HU procs then blast to proc pyroblast!.

Fireball then pyroblast!

Continue Fireball and casting Pyroblast as they proc until Inferno blast resets.

When I get trinkets proc'd - I get my alter time macro ready which basically casts POM and alter time after I get a Pyroblast! and HU proc. This allows me to cast 2X instant pyroblasts and possibly a third if it crits, cancel alter time and cast 2-3 more. Pop combust and blast if needed (if there's adds).

Continue single target rotation keeping bomb up and evocate as needed.

Here's my problem:

1) I can't seem to get a sexy combustion. My average ranges from 15-20k. I've seen 2 300+k crits hit and pop combustion and it's never as good as it seems like it should be.

2) Even though my crit is fairly high, it still seems amazingly RNG. I can pop alter time and not crit with all 4 pyros....

any help would be awesome

[Oltier 471]

From what you have written down, your rotation seems to be fine.

As you mentioned, I can also only think of the RNG that causes your Combustion to be low, thus making your overall DPS lower.

You should optimize your gear, by using the gems suggested in our guides:

https://www.icy-veins.com/fire-mage-wow-pve-dps-gems-enchants-professions-consumables

For further in assistance, please present us with a world of logs logfile, so we can have a clearer insight what might cause drop in DPS.

You should also keep in mind the Heating up! trick :)

1.1. Heating Up Trick

When upgrading Heating Up to Pyroblast! with Inferno Blast, do not use the instant-cast Pyroblast just yet. Keep casting Fireball until you get another Heating Up. When this happens, cast Fireball again immediately followed by your instant-cast Pyroblast. Fireball and Pyroblast will land on the target at the same time and if any of them is a critical strike, then your current Heating Up will be upgraded and will give you another instant-cast Pyroblast.

[Frosty 0]

Thanks for that tip - will do. I've gemmed according to askmrrobot.com which suggests optimizing crit for fire. Is that wrong?

[Oltier 471]

AMR for me on your character suggests different from what you have now.

Try to click on update from armory button. I'm pretty sure you should be using more crit gems than crit ones. :D

If it still shows the same, I will post what it shows to me, but you cannot get too wrong if you just use our gemming guide... ^^ Our guides are written as a baseline for players. :)

[Frosty 0]

So, I checked armory - it has int in red slots which i'm switching to crit/int. besides that all yellows are pure crit.

[Frosty 0]

played with target dummy. Rotation as follows (Bomb and evocate as needed):

Fireball till HU proc, blast, fireball till HU proc again, fireball/Pyro at same time - continue ad nauseum.

When I had a Pyro/HU ready to go, pop POM and alter time, PyroX 2 cancel Pyro X 2. Looking for combustion helper to report a big number at some point........ still waiting for that. Biggest I saw was 26k.

I regemmed as well to give a tad more crit.

[specialk 3]

Fire is crazy crazy RNG... you need a rediculous amount of crit to have a higher chance of a proper combustion. I have ~44% raid buffed and I still only get 50k(ignite) combusts. generally only my very first one (when all my trinks pop + prepot) do i get 150-250k combustions.

Its not a great spec for progression raiding... so inconsistent.

Definetly try and collect some more crit gear. (trinkets are super important in my experience) and give it another go when you can reach ~40% buffed (remember if you are using amr it reduces your crit by 3% - due to boss crit mitigation)

[Oltier 471]

Frosty, I haven't forgotten about your topic, however I am still waiting on the world of logs file that you have promised.

[Fyz 1]

I apologize if this is thread jacking, but, I figured this question relates to "getting the most of fire" so I'll add it here...

I am totally new to fire (new mage in MoP and have been frost the whole time). I'm just now learning and have the basic rotation down well enough. What I'd like to know is how people determine their Combustion Threshhold for addons like Combustionhelper.

How do I determine what's right for me?

[Oltier 471]

I apologize if this is thread jacking, but, I figured this question relates to "getting the most of fire" so I'll add it here...

I am totally new to fire (new mage in MoP and have been frost the whole time). I'm just now learning and have the basic rotation down well enough. What I'd like to know is how people determine their Combustion Threshhold for addons like Combustionhelper.

How do I determine what's right for me?

If you use Glyph of combustion, (which you actually should), you can line up your combustion with your alter time, and with that you can use 4 pyroblasts in a row. Even more. So considering this, it's really meaningless to get a treshold, because your highest ignite will always be after these 4 lined up pyroblasts.

[Fyz 1]

That makes sense.

I do have glyph of combustion but I figured I must be missing something.

[Oltier 471]

That makes sense.

I do have glyph of combustion but I figured I must be missing something.

Well, you can also post a world of logs combat log here to let us have a look at your fights: ) And your armory as well.

[Vladamyr 169]

So considering this, it's really meaningless to get a treshold, because your highest ignite will always be after these 4 lined up pyroblasts.

That's not exactly right. It's a good place to start if you aren't getting good ignites. Rarely does it work out that my highest ignite is after that 4 pyro string. Procs affect the values more until you are high enough ilvl to really limit missed crit strings.

I use myBigIgnite to track my ignites and usually set the intermediate threshold to about 75% of optimal ignite. I set my optimal ignite based on lfr or raid testing (currently I have it at about 35K). myBigIgnite also will track Ignite statistics for you that you can go back and look at to tweak your thresholds.

It's mainly practice at seeing what your threshold gets to. You don't want to delay for too long to get the perfect ignite but you don't want to waste your combustion on a weak one either.