Nice guide!
I would just like to add something regarding the AoE rotation of TTW fire mage.
After several tests I came to the conclusion that the best way to deal AoE dmg is as follow:
- On 2-4 mobs spread LB on each and then attack a single target.
- If more than 4 mobs are stacked and have high health use FS9 - FS8 - FS7 - FS6 - FS5 - repeat
- If more than 4 mobs are stacked and have low health just spam flamestrike rank9 (deals more dps than blizzard)
- If multiple mobs are too spread for flamestrike just spam LB on all of them.
Flamestrike rank 5 (initial dmg+dot) deals still more dmg than the initial dmg of Flamestrike rank 9 or two ticks of Blizzard.
Therefore rotating between "FS9 - FS8 - FS7 - FS6 - FS5" deals more AoE DPS than rotating only between FS9 and FS8.
- If more than 4 mobs are stacked and have high health use FS9 - FS8 - FS7 - FS6 - FS5 - repeat
Incorporating FS 7 and below to the exclusion of everything else (like Living Bomb) seems counter-intuitive. I would've guessed that LB would place right after FS 8, unless there were enough mobs that AoE caps would be a factor.
- If more than 4 mobs are stacked and have low health just spam flamestrike rank9 (deals more dps than blizzard)
The thing about just spamming FS 9 is you keep resetting the tick timer of the ground-based dot it leaves. You would, in effect, be completely forgoing the DoT component of FS's damage if you just spammed the same rank of FS. Since 1x full Flamestrike + 6 ticks of Blizzard does more damage than 4x Flamestrike casts that only use the direct damage component, which it quite likely would unless your crit chance was unrealistically high, using Blizzard as your choice of AoE filler to pick off low HP mobs with seems vastly more preferable when you also take into account the enormously increased area you're covering. Tanks are moving mobs all the time and FS with its pathetic radius is gravely sensitive to that. Overall, I wouldn't advocate putting that much stock in FS without stressing the caveats of its minuscule radius.
Incorporating FS 7 and below to the exclusion of everything else (like Living Bomb) seems counter-intuitive. I would've guessed that LB would place right after FS 8, unless there were enough mobs that AoE caps would be a factor.
FS rank 5 initial plus dot dmg appears to be higher than the dmg of the LB explosion.
The thing about just spamming FS 9 is you keep resetting the tick timer of the ground-based dot it leaves. You would, in effect, be completely forgoing the DoT component of FS's damage if you just spammed the same rank of FS. Since 1x full Flamestrike + 6 ticks of Blizzard does more damage than 4x Flamestrike casts that only use the direct damage component, which it quite likely would unless your crit chance was unrealistically high, using Blizzard as your choice of AoE filler to pick off low HP mobs with seems vastly more preferable when you also take into account the enormously increased area you're covering. Tanks are moving mobs all the time and FS with its pathetic radius is gravely sensitive to that. Overall, I wouldn't advocate putting that much stock in FS without stressing the caveats of its minuscule radius.
Its only worth spamming FS 9 when the targets are already at low health so they don't life long enough to take advantage of the dot effect.
If this is true then this quite surely suggests that downranking penalties aren't properly implemented yet, if they exist at all.
I don't know the math behind the downranking penalties. I can only tell u what I have tested ingame and rotating from FS9-FS5 appears to deal the most dps.
I tested FS 7 all the way down to FS 1 and it definitely seems like the downranking penalties to the sp coefficients aren't applying. The same is true of other spells like Fire Blast and Fireball. So your conclusion that FS 7 and below are viable for the time being is probably correct.
Though even with the bug, my LB explosion alone still did about the same damage as a full FS 5. Are you factoring in differences in cast times? LB has only 0.75x the cast time due to the 1.5 sec base GCD, as opposed to the 2.0 sec base cast-time of FS. Accounting for the cast time difference seems to put the DPS of LB's explosion just under that of the currently bugged FS 7.
Though even with the bug, my LB explosion alone still did about the same damage as a full FS 5. Are you factoring in differences in cast times? LB has only 0.75x the cast time due to the 1.5 sec base GCD, as opposed to the 2.0 sec base cast-time of FS. Accounting for the cast time difference seems to put the DPS of LB's explosion just under that of the currently bugged FS 7.
U are right about the longer cast time of FS. I forgot to take this into account.
That should make LB deal more dmg than the lower ranks of FS unless u are badly over the 1 sec GCD cap with ur haste.
Well, I guess in this case "FS9 -> FS8 -> LB spam" or maybe "FS9 -> FS8 -> FS7 -> LB spam" should deal more AoE dps.
Got around to making a bug report based on this discussion about Flamestrike (https://www.warmane.com/bugtracker/report/62119). If and when that gets fixed, FS 7 and below will be mostly obsolete.
Edit: Nevermind, it seems like they already pulled in a fix from TC since the time we had the above discussion. Ergo, FS 7 and below are now probably quite obsolete.
Got a question. after testing it out, having extra haste makes no difference at all on LB ticks/ final damage. Therefore under bloodlust effect or PI, wouldn't be just better to skip living bomb and just spam FB/PB?
LB is still affected by SP buffs, it will give you (most of time) and additionnal free PB during your burst, moreover it deal a lot of damages for a minimum casting time (1 GCD). To mind mind it's a dps loss to do not use it during you burst phase. And you should remember that haste actually reduce the casting time of the LB by reducing the time of the GCD!
I hope the answer suit you, if you want more detail just take a look on the payback of the 1sec GCD (under haste CDs) of the LB in terms of damages