2.8 Pyromancer - PTS

[Kervik]

Hey all,

Here's a new thread for discussion of the Pyromancer updates currently out on PTS. For anyone not familiar with the previous thread, these changes will be going out with the 2.8 update.

The main purpose of starting a new thread is to condense the feedback to comments from when the updates were actually available to play. From feedback and concerns from the earlier thread I have a few changes that are on their way out to PTS. These should be included with the next PTS update:

• Internalize Charge charges are now consumed on cast instead of on damage.
• Scorch is now correctly set as an interrupt. It will no longer generate “Silenced” floater text.
• Increased the damage of Fireball by ~20%.
• Fire Storm, with a point spent in Smolder, will now attempt to spread Countdown with each tick of damage. (This may end up needing a different PTS update in order to function correctly.)
• Fiery Concentration now also reduces mana cost for Fire abilities by 3/6/10%.
• Pyromancers can now move while channeling Fusillade.
• Heat Wave now reduces mana cost for non-Instant Fire abilities by 30%.
• Updated the description for Accelerant to indicate the damage buff only affects the caster’s damage.
• Accelerant now increases damage from the caster by 4/8/12%. Up from 3/6/9%.

To answer some of the comments from the previous thread, I do not have any intentions of giving any way to instant cast Fireballs. At the moment I also only intend Heat Wave as the only way within the soul to bring Fireball below a 2s cast time.

[evantide]

I'm still not sold on fireball damage being worth its 2s cast. It just went from "complete and utter crap" (50% of firebolt/CDs damage over its GCD) to "not as crap" (60%). It's still dead-last in priority compared to throwing all your CDs at stuff first. The only time fireballing would be worth it is when heatwave is active.

EDIT: Admittedly, this isn't account for Fusillade damage boost. Any chance the fireballs from Fusillade can be under a different name? Hard to parse out each skill damage as-is.

[ConclusionTheFirst]

Paging Mr. jones, Paging Mr. Jones...

[Tookmyjob]

None of these changes address the concerns of Pyro's PvP viability.

The most puzzling of which was putting an interrupt and a stun into one single ability.

[paschl]

I mean the numbers probably do need some tweaking but one thing id really like to see is a change to pyromancers vengeance stacks.
10 seconds is just too low consindering we have a 2.5sec channel a 3 sec channel and fireballs casttime is 2sec. So if the fireball casttime isnt about to change id love to see the stacks last somewhere between 12-15sec.

[evantide]

Oh, for wildfire. I've always felt that the proc duration should at least be equal to its ICD. Any chance Wildfire can be extended to 30s to match? Especially with all these channels and how rare the proc would be now since fireballs the last spell you want to ever cast.

[Burninalways]

Fiery Concentration now also reduces mana cost for Fire abilities by 3/6/10%.
Heat Wave now reduces mana cost for non-Instant Fire abilities by 30%.

While looking into different Archon specs I found that the 12% mana reduction that you got from Auras wasn't enough and only increases your time on a dummy from 2 minutes to 3 minutes. While if you had 18% mana reduction you could last longer than 5 minutes.

So while the 10% full time and 30% on Heatwave is nice, I don't think it would be enough; you would need to increase the 10% or have mana regeneration back to pyromancer.
Though as this new changes aren't up on PTS yet I can't test, so I could be wrong.

I did find that 40 Archon, 36 Pyromancer is still the better spec, with that one point in Spark and a doubt that these changes will affect that.


My past suggestions:

Change Fireball to a 2.0s cast time.
Increase Pyromancer's Fury %.
Accelerant lasts longer than Combust, and maybe applies to Mage instead.
Internalize Charge damage is increases to 3/6/9%
Inferno damage is increases.
Remove Spark's reduction cost of instant abilities.
Spark reduces the cost of Fire abilities by 20%.
Fusillade consumes stacks of Pyromancer's Fury.
Flame Volley consumes only 1 stack Internalize Charge.
Searing Bolt triggers Countdown on use.
Searing Bolt has a cast time of 2.0s.
Put Backdraft into the root at 16 points.
Tie Fire Shield into Pyromancer's Armor.
Pyromancer's Armor increases the Mage's mana regeneration by 5 or 10%.
Increase Pyromancer's Fury stacks to 10 and/or have them apply to the Mage every 3s.
Increase the range of Fusillade by 5 meters.
Fix Heatwave's tootip.

First off change Pyromancer's Armor to a 30% chance to affect Cinder Burst.
Second remove Pyromancer's Vengeance.
Third move Pyromancer's Fury to a 6th Tier Talent, cost 2 points.
Fourth a new 7th Tier Talent that increases max stacks by 5 and causes the Mage to gain one Pyromancer's Fury stack every 3s, cost 1 point.
Fifth a new 8th Their Talent that causes each Cinder Burst to reduces the cooldown of on Fire abilities by 10s, does not affect Cinder Burst cooldown, cost 2 points.

The all Fire abilities bit could be changed to just Fulminate, Fusillade and Flame Volley to keep the rotation simple, I'm not to sure about having Heatwave in there too.

[Ianto Jones]

Spark is not that important for Pyrochon. Most of your damage comes from the cast-time spells that are longer than the 1.25s GCD.

Paging Mr. jones, Paging Mr. Jones...

How can I help you?

While looking into different Archon specs I found that the 12% mana reduction that you got from Auras wasn't enough and only increases your time on a dummy from 2 minutes to 3 minutes. While if you had 18% mana reduction you could last longer than 5 minutes.

Harb only lasts ~3 minutes. There's also Verse of Joy and Resuscitating Chant to factor in. Heat Wave is a 1 min cooldown and I think the intention will be to move Fireball up the priority order during Heat Wave. We'll see though.

[Kervik]

As an additional note, I don't intend this to be anything like a final pass on the soul. I have some additional changes in mind that I'll be working on adding later this week, but I wanted to get at least the ones posted on their way.

[Otts]

Increasing base dmg of Fireball isn't good idea, it will only cause problems in low level pvp while still being meh against r90 toons. Instead of buffing base dmg of Fireball can you consider adding bonus dmg to Fireball from the soul gift? let say each point spend in Pyro will increase dmg of Fireball by 0.5% (+30.5% with 61 points).

Such change would increase the dmg for 61 Pyro while keeping it more balanced in low level pvp.

[Morwath]

Increasing base dmg of Fireball isn't good idea, it will only cause problems in low level pvp while still being meh against r90 toons. Instead of buffing base dmg of Fireball can you consider adding bonus dmg to Fireball from the soul gift? let say each point spend in Pyro will increase dmg of Fireball by 0.5% (+30.5% with 61 points).

Such change would increase the dmg for 61 Pyro while keeping it more balanced in low level pvp.

I don't think its good idea, because it would force us to play 61 Pyro.
And many of us would like as much hybrids as possible.

[evantide]

Increasing base dmg of Fireball isn't good idea, it will only cause problems in low level pvp while still being meh against r90 toons. Instead of buffing base dmg of Fireball can you consider adding bonus dmg to Fireball from the soul gift? let say each point spend in Pyro will increase dmg of Fireball by 0.5% (+30.5% with 61 points).

Such change would increase the dmg for 61 Pyro while keeping it more balanced in low level pvp.

You do realize that even the buffed fireball proposed in this change still makes fireball (without fury) be weaker than current live fireballs, right?

[Morwath]

Imho Pyro need mobility to be viable in PVP.
Idea: What about toggle buff that makes FB instant cast but reduces it damage?

[Allmightyone]

Idea: What about toggle buff that makes FB instant cast but reduces it damage?

Here's what happened when we suggested that for Stormcaller...

In all seriousness Pyro doesn't need more mobility to be viable in PvP but I do agree it will need something more.

[Nnnxia]

How about the ability to cast fireballs while moving. I'm sure after years of casting fireballs pyromancers have perfected the art and improved it to that point.