wow Fire Mage Changes in War Within Alpha: April 25th

[Staff 1,488]

Blizzard have detailed the changes coming to Fire Mages in this War Within build, as we as their intentions behind them. There are many talent tree changes, with new talents aimed at more choices being available, especially in the AoE department.

Fire (Source)

Hello Mages!

We have a lot of Fire Mage changes hitting the Alpha today, and we want to take some time to go over what changes were made and why. As mentioned in our update post last week, we have a few goals that span all mage specializations. These are:

• Allow you to acquire each specialization’s core gameplay with less talent point investment.
• Simplify rotational complexity.
• Provide new nodes that can help you adapt your damage profile to better match a given encounter’s demands.
• Provide competitive choice nodes that let you opt-out of complex gameplay.

Since we’re talking about Fire only, we can get a bit more granular:

Fire’s AOE
The biggest issue we were looking to address with this iteration was giving you more ways to adjust your talents and rotation to better suit different profiles, which goes hand-in-hand with increasing the effectiveness and excitement of Flamestrike, Phoenix Flames, and Living Bomb. We’re excited to see what Fire Mages can cook up with the new talents. Our goal with these changes is to push Ignite-spreading out of the default playstyle in higher forms of content, especially above 3 targets-- but retain and add talent support for it so its still exciting to utilize when it makes sense.

Sun King’s Blessing
Sun King’s Blessing is a powerful and exciting capstone that Fire Mage players have been utilizing heavily for quite a while. We like the Sun King’s Blessing / Unleashed Inferno capstone choice node, but recognize that Unleashed Inferno still has some gaps to close, particularly in AOE.

By increasing the stack requirement of Sun King’s Blessing to 10 and increasing Unleashed Inferno’s effectiveness in AOE, we’re hoping that the two talents can better coexist as a meaningful choice when going into an encounter.

Maintenance Buffs
Fire’s array of maintenance buffs has been a sore spot in Dragonflight, and its something we’re looking to address moving forward-- especially given the addition of the Aberrus tier set as talents in the Fire tree.

Firemind is our first removal, but we’re also being sensitive to the fact that Firemind didn’t require you to play around it very much, so its removal might not be doing much to simplify the landscape of Fire’s maintenance buffs.

We’re also simplifying Improved Scorch’s damage amplification effect to be less punishing when its dropped, but also allowing it to be opt-in complexity. Fire Mages who want increased execute damage without the addition of another maintenance buff should look towards Down in Flames, a new choice node against Improved Scorch.

Feel the Burn is on our radar, but its output is impactful enough that it serves as a great way to express skill for Fire Mages who have mastered its gameplay. New talents along with effects from the Frostfire and Sunfury trees are increasing player’s access to Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames, so keeping Feel the Burn up should be easier than ever before.

That’s all for this update. We’re excited to read all of your feedback on the new Fire talents!

And here are the specific changes from the development notes:

Fire (Source)

• Fire
  • Fuel the Fire is now baseline
  • New Talent - Lit Fuse: Consuming Hot Streak has a small chance to grant Lit Fuse. Lit Fuse makes your next Phoenix Flames apply Living Bomb to up to three targets. Living Bomb explodes after 2 sec, dealing damage to the target and up to 5 nearby enemies. Up to 5 enemies hit by this explosion gain Living Bomb, but this effect cannot spread further.
  • New Talent - Explosive Ingenuity: Consuming Hot Streak has a higher chance of granting you Lit Fuse. Living Bomb damage increased by 50%.
  • New Talent - Down in Flames (Choice node with Improved Scorch): Scorch deals 300% damage to targets below 30% health.
  • New Talent - Quickflame (Choice node with Flame Patch): Flamestrike damage increased by 25%.
  • New Talent - Focused Fury: Living Bomb deals more damage the fewer targets it hits, up to 300% at 1 target.
  • New Talent - Mark of the Fire Lord: Flamestrike and Living Bomb apply Mastery: Ignite at 100% increased effectiveness.
  • New Talent - Spontaneous Combustion (Choice node with Improved Combustion): Casting Combustion refreshes up to 3 charges of Fire Blast and up to 3 charges of Phoenix Flames.
  • New Talent - Charring Embers: Phoenix Flames applies Charring Embers to all enemies it damages, increasing their damage taken from you by 5% for 12 sec.
  • New Talent - Fire’s Ire: When you’re not under the effect of Combustion, your critical strike chance is increased by 2.5%. When you’re under the effects of Combustion, your critical strike damage is increased by 2.5%. Two-rank talent.
  • New Talent - Explosivo: Casting Combustion grants Lit Fuse. While under the effects of Combustion, consuming Hot Streak has a substantially increased chance to grant you Lit Fuse.
  • New Talent - Blast Zone: Lit Fuse can now apply Living Bomb to up to five targets. Living Bombs can now spread to eight enemies.
  • New Talent - Ashen Feather (Choice node with Majesty of the Phoenix): If Phoenix Flames hits only one target, it deals 50% increased damage and applies Ignite at 100% effectiveness.
  • New Talent - Majesty of the Phoenix (Choice node with Ashen Feather): When Phoenix Flames damages 3 or more targets, your next 2 Flamestrikes have their cast time reduced by 1.5 sec and their damage is increased by 20%.
  • Fervent Flickering has been redesigned: Now reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast by 2 sec
  • Controlled Destruction has been redesigned: Damaging a target with Pyroblast increases the damage it receives from Ignite by 2%. This effect stacks up to 25 times.
    • Developers’ notes: This talent is currently stacking past 25. This is not intentional and will be corrected in a future update.
  • Improved Scorch has been redesigned: Casting Scorch on targets below 30% health increases the damage the target takes from you by 5% for 12 sec. This effect stacks up to 2 times.
  • Flame Accelerant has been redesigned: Every 12 seconds, your next Fireball, Flamestrike, or Pyroblast has a 40% reduced cast time.
  • Unleashed Inferno has been redesigned: While Combustion is active your Fireball, Pyroblast, Fire Blast, Scorch, and Phoenix Flames deal 50% increased damage and reduce the cooldown of Combustion by 1.25 sec. While Combustion is active, Flamestrike deals 25% increased damage and reduces the cooldown of Combustion by 0.25 sec for each critical strike, up to 1.25 sec.
  • Convection has been redesigned: When a Living Bomb expires, if it did not spread to another target, it refreshes its duration. A Living Bomb can only benefit from this effect once.
  • Pyromaniac has been redesigned: Casting Pyroblast or Flamestrike while Hot Streak is active has an 8% chance to repeat the spell cast at 100% effectiveness, but the copied spell cannot contribute to Hot Streak. This effect counts as consuming Hot Streak.
  • Phoenix Reborn has been redesigned: When your direct damage spells hit an enemy affected by Charring Embers 20 times, the damage of your next 2 Phoenix Flames is increased by 200% and they refund a charge on use.
  • Call of the Sun King is now in Gate 1
  • Searing Touch has been removed.
  • Searing Touch’s critical strike threshold functionality is now baseline to Scorch.
  • Improved Scorch’s movement speed increase is now baseline to Scorch.
  • Incendiary Eruptions, Firemind, and Tempered Flames removed.
  • Firestarter, Intensifying Flame, Inflame, Controlled Destruction, Wild Fire, and Flame Accelerant are now in Gate 2.
  • Flame On is now 1 point and no longer reduces the cooldown of Fire Blast.
  • Critical Mass is now 1 point.
  • Wildfire is now 1 point.
  • Conflagration has been removed.
  • Fevered Incantation is now 2 points
  • Sun King’s Blessing now grants Sun King’s Fury after consuming 10 Hot Streaks.
  • Hyperthermia now has an activation overlay.