[Fire Mage] Haste versus Mastery

[Cfing 0]

Relevant links and logs to this post:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/qJLcmfNjVMPxD97b#fight=1&type=damage-done

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/nemesis/Barkley/simple

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/nemesis/Radøuken/simple

So, I've been wondering for 2 weeks now why my (Barkley) damage was low compared to other fire mages, specifically this one guy (Radouken) on the group I joined. I've checked my rotation, spell casts count, damage per cast and the conclusion I've been getting to is that the reason this guy pulls 50~60k ahead of me on every single fight is that he has 20% mastery to my 10%, while I have 20% haste to his 10%.

The stat ratings must be horribly wrong everywhere to rank mastery so low compared to other stats. I mean, I haven't ran the numbers but the number of damage sources we have that don't benefit from mastery aren't significant enough to devaluate it so much. And I mean it for single target fights too, look at the log for the Nythendra kill I provided and you will see that I managed to squeeze 8 more casts of fireball than he did and that can barely hold a candle to the 10 MILLION damage more that his ignite did.

Any clue as to why haste is ranked so highly on sims? Maybe they're applying haste to ignite, or count it reducing Phoenix Flames cooldown, I don't know.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Cfing
White wall behind text for some reason

[Thraundil 0]

The main reason I think haste is (or should be?) superior to mastery on single target is simply the fact that our big big damage comes from pyro fishing and combustion. Haste lowers the recharge time on fireblast, giving more pyrofishes. Haste also gives you more spells per minute, giving you more crits per minute, knocking a couple of seconds off combustion cooldown. 

Now, I can think of 2 primary reasons why his ignite damage is monstrous compared to yours. I agree, that does seem like a massive difference! And particularly annoying since ignite is "passive damage", whereas you actually outperform him on "active damage". 

1. He could have relics that boosts ignite / pyro, which maybe you do not have? I cant figure out how to see relics on the character link. This alone should not make the difference, though. 

2. He has more critical strike % than you do. Combustion increases mastery by a % equal to your critical strike rating, meaning the true ignite spike comes during combustion - where he gets 9% more bonus mastery via his crit than you do. And since insta-pyro doubles mastery value, thats really 18% more ignite damage than you during combustion. 

 

Furthermore, try to view both yours and his logs, and tick to show damage during combustion aura. On your first combust, you spike 900k, but on your 2nd and 3rd you spike just below 400k. Whereas his three combustions, he spikes around 800k all three times. If you also tick "ignite dps only" for the both of you, this is also shown. Your ingite dps during combustion is significantly lower (of course, given that ignite is simply a percentage of direct dps). 

 

My conclusion is that you have to nail your combustion rotation. Make sure you line it up with rune of power, and make sure flame on is available and phoenix flames has 2-3 charges. I cannot stress how important the 10 seconds of combustion burst is to total damage. 

Edited October 28, 2016 by Thraundil

[Cfing 0]

Yeah, haste seems better on paper than it is on practice, that's my take. To be honest with the amount of haste that I have I find myself losing on some Pyro procs during BL, because when one fireball hits and crits, I'm already finishing the cast of the second one, so I have to resort to Fire Blast while the second projectile is mid air and try to fish on the next cast. Because of this I find myself casting an extra Fire Ball and even might lose some dps, because if the second Fire Ball doesn't crit, it will reset my Pyretic Incantation stacks and reduce the damage of my Pyro big time. Also, with enough crit, the Fire Blast CD reduction becomes somewhat less relevant, because you might hit lucky streaks of fishes and not have to cast it for 10 seconds or so, end up with all charges up and lose on some of that CD reduction.

And yeah, I've been screwing up with my Combustions from time to time, mainly because I don't know for how long I should hold my cds for it. Should I hold up Flame On for 30 seconds if Combustion is coming up? Should I stay capped on RoP charges if I know the one I'm about to cast will delay my Combustion for 15~20 seconds and I have all my other CDs up? This is probably just a lack of experience and familiarity with the class, since the last time I played a mage it was during WotLK.

Also, I would just like to add that I didn't gear for haste, it kind of just happened. When you drop something that is 30 ilvls higher than what you're wearing and the main changes are -100 Crit, +300 Int and trading mastery for haste/versatility you pretty much have to take it, even if the increase over what you're using isnt that significant.

[Thazi 4]

Cfing, simply looking at his gear, he beats you by pure crit alone.  His haste is way below yours.  Mastery isn't all about secondary targets either.  It directly affects the total number that ignite is placed on the boss.

 

Now, you also need to take into account weapon relics.  He may have some good relics that reduce the cast time of Fireball, talents alone amount to like 9% with Fire At Will.  You can stack that up to 3 times using relics, I am at 12% right now, I spread it out between that, Pyro damage and Critical Damage.

That being said, you need a ton more crit.  Period.  32% isn't going to cut it.

 

[Cfing 0]

1 hour ago, Thazi said:

Cfing, simply looking at his gear, he beats you by pure crit alone.  His haste is way below yours.  Mastery isn't all about secondary targets either.  It directly affects the total number that ignite is placed on the boss.

 

Now, you also need to take into account weapon relics.  He may have some good relics that reduce the cast time of Fireball, talents alone amount to like 9% with Fire At Will.  You can stack that up to 3 times using relics, I am at 12% right now, I spread it out between that, Pyro damage and Critical Damage.

That being said, you need a ton more crit.  Period.  32% isn't going to cut it.

 

You are taking in account that Armory values don't add in class bonuses right? We have another 20% crit on top of that from Molten Armor, plus racial bonuses. And Armory has updated since the log with drops from that raid. In reality if I'm not mistaken, fully buffed on that night our crit %'s were about 56%x50%.

Also, as I mentioned before, I didn't exactly gear for haste, and had to make some compromises like trading crit for a shitload of Int.

Anyway, the whole point is: if haste is "better" than mastery on single target, 5~6% crit difference shouldn't account for that much damage difference.

[Thazi 4]

4 minutes ago, Cfing said:

You are taking in account that Armory values don't add in class bonuses right? We have another 20% crit on top of that from Molten Armor, plus racial bonuses. And Armory has updated since the log with drops from that raid. In reality if I'm not mistaken, fully buffed on that night our crit %'s were about 56%x50%.

Also, as I mentioned before, I didn't exactly gear for haste, and had to make some compromises like trading crit for a shitload of Int.

Anyway, the whole point is: if haste is "better" than mastery on single target, 5~6% crit difference shouldn't account for that much damage difference.

 

What I was saying accounts for the actual stats.  You still are far lower in crit than he is.  Haste and Mastery are nearly identical on Single target, meaning Mastery is better overall due to most clear fights.