Fire Mage Need Serious Help

[BorgPokerPro 0]

Hello, I guess I am coming here as a last resort to see if maybe someone can give me some advice to make me fall in love with the game again cause at this point I am about to walk away from something I have played and loved for almost 13 years. When I say last resort its just I honestly did not know about this website until someone told me.

Brief background I have been playing this game since Vanilla. I am 39 years old almost 40 and I spent the first 7 years raiding as a healer (Priest/Druid) then I played the next two as a warlock then I fell in love with my mage and discovered where has it been all my life and love the class. I currently run a guild and raid team where we are pretty solid. Right now we ranked 11th on server currently 7/7 N and 3/7 H so we do alright. But I am not holding up.

First off let me say I am a clicker. I know GROSS. But I have been doing it for 12 years and even though I own a razer Naga I just can not get comfortable with the buttons on the side. Plus I feel my issues are ALOT bigger then that. I mean most have told me clicking my drop me 15k off the pace. But I am like 70 to 80 k off the pace.

I am currently raiding and just counting boss encounters I am averaging I would say about 140k. I have my pulls where I am around 210 or even 225. But most pulls are down around 140k and sometimes even lower. I can not figure out what is wrong. I am fire spec. I seem to open all pulls strong. I open with my set rotation, pop m cooldowns , hit my procs, my fireblast, phoenix yada yada yada And I will come out the gate at 350k or even 400k. Then it seems when I am waiting for everything to come back around and I am casting fireball and nothing else cause everything is on timer I fall off a cliff like watching the titanic sink. I feel like maybe I will never be able to play at a level that does not make me feel like I am too old to game. I look at logs at other guilds on my server and their mages and they are same spec, same talent in most cases less geared then I am but in logs they doing 210k or more on boss encounters. So please if you can help me, teach me, I am willing to learn I want to not lose the game I love for most of my life in computer gaming.

Here is a link to my profile so you can see my talent choices and such...

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dalaran/Diâmond/simple

Here is a link to our raid tonight

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/fT ... amage-done

I am willing to take any tips I can get to play the class I love. Thanks for being willing to listen and try and help in advance.

[Valks 2,375]

Looking at this now. Will update shortly.

[Valks 2,375]

General Notes:

• Neck enchant, get one ASAP. You'd be amazed just how much damage this can help with.
• You've only used 1 potion. I assume this is because of the gold cost, but it's something to note. Pre-potting and having another one during the execute phase can really help.

Rotation Notes:

• It looks like you are using Combustion and then.. doing nothing on your 3rd cast of it? I'm really not sure why. It looks like you have popped Combustion and then just kind of waited. This is a big problem, since Fire Mage revolves around peaking high during Combustion. If you're wasting that, you can say goodbye to decent DPS.

This is the portion from the guide that talks about Combustion:

Quote

 Combustion should be used on cooldown whenever possible. You should always overlap  Combustion with other damage boosts that allow for a large overall  Ignite, such as  Rune of Power and  Flame On.

Before activating  Combustion you should generate a  Hot Streak. You should also try and save at least one charge of  Fire Blast, though preferably both charges will be available. Then follow this list of actions.

1. Place your  Rune of Power (if talented) and immediately activate  Combustion as this cast finishes.
2. Consume your  Hot Streak with a  Pyroblast cast.
3. Immediately cast  Fire Blast and  Pyroblast again.
4. Cast  Flame On and  Fire Blast.
5. Cast  Pyroblast and  Fire Blast.
6. Cast  Pyroblast.
7. Cast  Phoenix's Flames.
8. Cast  Pyroblast.
9. Cast  Phoenix's Flames.
10. Cast  Pyroblast.

If you have a fraction of a second left on  Combustion and no  Hot Streak, you should cast  Dragon's Breathif you are in range

• Between 1:30 and 3:30, did you get 0 crits? Why did it take you so long to cast Combustion again? It happens again straight after that one, from 3:50 to 5:40. You actually miss a full window of another Combustion being used.
• Is there a reason why you use so few Phoenix's Flames? It looks like you cast 19 in a 7 minute fight. Comparing it to a much higher parsing Mage, they cast 14 in a 4 minute fight.
• I also feel like you are casting Living Bomb way too many times. Are you using it when there is only 1 target that it will hit?

[Valks 2,375]

Also, tagging @BorgPokerPro. Can't edit for some reason.

[BorgPokerPro 0]

Blainie. Thank you for looking into this. Do you have a suggested rotation on a boss pull? I always try and pop a pot of deadly grace on pull against a boss. AS for combustion I usually try and wait until 2 fireblast and my phoenix flames are up. Is that wrong>? I can tell me timing is all of and I find myself spending chunks of the fight looking around for something to cast other then fireball and having no options.

[Kreegan 1]

25 minutes ago, BorgPokerPro said:

Blainie. Thank you for looking into this. Do you have a suggested rotation on a boss pull? I always try and pop a pot of deadly grace on pull against a boss. AS for combustion I usually try and wait until 2 fireblast and my phoenix flames are up. Is that wrong>? I can tell me timing is all of and I find myself spending chunks of the fight looking around for something to cast other then fireball and having no options.

You say you're saving but it doesn't show at least in this fight. Like Blainie mentioned, you didn't do much of anything on your 2nd combustion. On your 3rd combustion you did 3 fireballs (which doesn't even make sense considering they should all be crits), followed by pyro, fireblast, pyro, living bomb, then started another fireball. Living bomb on 1 target is a dps loss, and during combustion just makes me sad :(

Also, use RoP because it's a pretty big dps loss right now to not. 

Edited September 30, 2016 by Kreegan

[BorgPokerPro 0]

4 hours ago, Kreegan said:

You say you're saving but it doesn't show at least in this fight. Like Blainie mentioned, you didn't do much of anything on your 2nd combustion. On your 3rd combustion you did 3 fireballs (which doesn't even make sense considering they should all be crits), followed by pyro, fireblast, pyro, living bomb, then started another fireball. Living bomb on 1 target is a dps loss, and during combustion just makes me sad :(

Also, use RoP because it's a pretty big dps loss right now to not. 

 

When I pop combustion what should always follow it? And if I have no fireblast or phoenix ready should I hold off using it or no?

[Lily 23]

Quote

When I pop combustion what should always follow it? And if I have no fireblast or phoenix ready should I hold off using it or no?

You should prepare yourself, when Combustion comes off cooldown. You have to keep an eye on it to hold PFs, RoP and Flame On.
The situation, that you could use Combustion but got nothing else has to be avoided!

 

Just get a feeling for saving your stuff till Combustion :)

[Valks 2,375]

As Lily says, it's all about thinking ahead. If you're only focusing on what is happening right now, you're going to be doing much worse DPS. You need to plan your spells to make sure they line up well.

[frischdad 0]

I am not sure why you are trying to line up phoenix flames with combustion.  Combustion gives you 100% chance to Crit and PF always crits.  You need to just make sure your using those with rune of power. Personally on my opener after I get through combustion I drop another rune of power and then try to use my Pheonix flames as fire blast alternating in instant pyros.  

[Lily 23]

Quote

and then try to use my Pheonix flames as fire blast alternating in instant pyros.  

This is exactly why you should use PFs with Combustion. You get more Pyros compared to casting Scorch while bursting.

[Hammish 0]

20 hours ago, frischdad said:

I am not sure why you are trying to line up phoenix flames with combustion.  Combustion gives you 100% chance to Crit and PF always crits.  You need to just make sure your using those with rune of power. Personally on my opener after I get through combustion I drop another rune of power and then try to use my Pheonix flames as fire blast alternating in instant pyros.  

It's still higher burst (and overall DPS) to use them at the tail end of combustion after you've spent your initial four fire blasts.  During a normal burst phase you should be able to manage at least 6 HS pyroblasts (your held HS pyro, four fished using FB, one fished using PF).  If used in conjunction with Heroism/Bloodlust/Timewarp you can manage 8.

Might also be worth noting that once you have Phoenix Reborn unlocked on your weapon you can afford to be a lot more free with the PFs because the proc is going to lower the cooldown on it substantially, especially if the fight has any incidental cleave.

[Woofikins 3]

With your crit, it may be hard to get that initial hot streak going for hope initial burst. Your item level is about 10 higher than mine, and with a draenic intellect flask and 225 crit food i pull high 600k in the initial burst with just under 250k sustained damage afterward. This is on fights where there are some adds and i have been trying living bomb (eye ball/dragons/spider bird). In order to get yourself started in the fight, try going rune>phoenix>fire blast>Pyro chain. You will lose out on a pyro blast having to spend a FB like that. But that will get you spamming spells at the instant of pull.  Especially with the Phoenix reborn trait you will be swimming in Phoenix charges so as long as you use them on your rune and to make a hot streak you're good. 

Due to being on mobile i can't load your log correctly, so I'll just throw out some advice on combustion.  There is never a point that you will be without something to chain pyros on combustion. UNLESS you let it happen that way. You want a rune,a couple of Phoenix charges, 2 FB and flame on. That is your max damage potential. Now it takes some preparation for that.  Combustion has a 2 minute cooldown. This is going to be lowered by kindling. A lot.  Without it you'd get 2 flame on casts in the window,one during combustion and one without it. With it,you're going to be at a point where the 45 second cooldown will not sync up with combustion coming off cooldown. So you save it for that point. With high enough crit, you just save it for combustion because your fireball, FB, and Pyro are critting like crazy and chipping those 2 minutes down. That being said,always save your flame on for combustion and learn at what point you need to not cast it during combustion's cooldown. Same thing goes for fire blasts. Stop using them if you will not hit 2 charges by the time combustion is up. 

Last thing, I promise. With rune of power you want to have a charge for combustion saved up, but what can you do with that extra charge? with mine I will make mini Pyro chains.  If I am capping on PF charges and have 2 FB charges and have a hot streak, that's when I will try to get as many Pyro blasts as possible in that 10 seconds. It doesn't have to be a perfect thing, you might end up casting a fire ball or whatever. All that matters is that you're using it. Rune of power at full charges just sitting there is a waste. Sorry for the novel but I hope this helps.