On the other hand, the sustained dmg went to crap. Sure, you can go for firebirds' 6 set bonus to get sort of the same affect (but then again, getting to 3000% burn damage = the same as 18 casts, or under 10 seconds of attacking) - but this leaves us extremely much weaker. Let's say we no longer need mirrorball in that case so you get a free piece. Here's the alternatives:
Firebirds boots - no major downside (apart from ice climbers).
Firebirds legs - no major downside with the changed depth diggers. - both together could be 8% IAS from cains in most cases.
So that's 3 of 6 pieces.
Firebirds shoulders. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds helm. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds chest. <--- locks you out of cindercoat.
Firebirds gloves. <--- locks you out of magefists.
Ring of royal grandeour. <--- locks you out of unity (if solo).
So all in all, this is a *major* nerf. Firebirds bonus seems strong on paper, but remember, it forces us out of multiple other extremely strong single-pieces.
I am with this guy. Firebird items are inferior, they need special affixes like the ones mentioned above. It is a set designed for "fire" yet does not even have any fire skill dmg other than the orb. When you replace your cindercoat with FB Chest you are already giving up lots of dmg, same goes for gloves, helmet, shoulder, damn everything.
3000% is a cool number when you first see it, but i don't think it is that good since you have to give up all of the items that makes fire element strong in this game.
On the other hand, the sustained dmg went to crap. Sure, you can go for firebirds' 6 set bonus to get sort of the same affect (but then again, getting to 3000% burn damage = the same as 18 casts, or under 10 seconds of attacking) - but this leaves us extremely much weaker. Let's say we no longer need mirrorball in that case so you get a free piece. Here's the alternatives:
Firebirds boots - no major downside (apart from ice climbers).
Firebirds legs - no major downside with the changed depth diggers. - both together could be 8% IAS from cains in most cases.
So that's 3 of 6 pieces.
Firebirds shoulders. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds helm. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds chest. <--- locks you out of cindercoat.
Firebirds gloves. <--- locks you out of magefists.
Ring of royal grandeour. <--- locks you out of unity (if solo).
So all in all, this is a *major* nerf. Firebirds bonus seems strong on paper, but remember, it forces us out of multiple other extremely strong single-pieces.
I am with this guy. Firebird items are inferior, they need special affixes like the ones mentioned above. It is a set designed for "fire" yet does not even have any fire skill dmg other than the orb. When you replace your cindercoat with FB Chest you are already giving up lots of dmg, same goes for gloves, helmet, shoulder, damn everything.
3000% is a cool number when you first see it, but i don't think it is that good since you have to give up all of the items that makes fire element strong in this game.
So what if some of the individual set pieces are inferior? The marauder's pieces take up the slots of those strong individual items as well, but you don't see demon hunters complaining. You obviously haven't tried the Firebird set if you're saying this. The Firebird 6 piece bonus is way, way stronger than the little bit of fire damage cindercoat and magefists gives you.
On the other hand, the sustained dmg went to crap. Sure, you can go for firebirds' 6 set bonus to get sort of the same affect (but then again, getting to 3000% burn damage = the same as 18 casts, or under 10 seconds of attacking) - but this leaves us extremely much weaker. Let's say we no longer need mirrorball in that case so you get a free piece. Here's the alternatives:
Firebirds boots - no major downside (apart from ice climbers).
Firebirds legs - no major downside with the changed depth diggers. - both together could be 8% IAS from cains in most cases.
So that's 3 of 6 pieces.
Firebirds shoulders. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds helm. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds chest. <--- locks you out of cindercoat.
Firebirds gloves. <--- locks you out of magefists.
Ring of royal grandeour. <--- locks you out of unity (if solo).
So all in all, this is a *major* nerf. Firebirds bonus seems strong on paper, but remember, it forces us out of multiple other extremely strong single-pieces.
I am with this guy. Firebird items are inferior, they need special affixes like the ones mentioned above. It is a set designed for "fire" yet does not even have any fire skill dmg other than the orb. When you replace your cindercoat with FB Chest you are already giving up lots of dmg, same goes for gloves, helmet, shoulder, damn everything.
3000% is a cool number when you first see it, but i don't think it is that good since you have to give up all of the items that makes fire element strong in this game.
So what if some of the individual set pieces are inferior? The marauder's pieces take up the slots of those strong individual items as well, but you don't see demon hunters complaining. You obviously haven't tried the Firebird set if you're saying this. The Firebird 6 piece bonus is way, way stronger than the little bit of fire damage cindercoat and magefists gives you.
It's possible, sure. Sadly ptr is too derpy ATM to test it for me. That said, "little bit" doesn't really cut it here - for a solo player, it'll remove shoulders, helm and gloves (as they'll want a unity+SoJ combo), along with feet/pants and source. It gives you more burst, as already stated, but your sustained damage severely gets gibbed, which sucks in greater rifts. Put it like this - to reach 3000% weapon damage as fire through magic missile with +2 mirrorball, with 2 attacks/second, you need to hit the target for about 2.5 seconds (510% per application, 2 applications per second, plus ticks of the dot).
To reach 3000% weapon dmg as fire through magic missile with +2 in the current patch, you need to hit for about 9 seconds (165% per application, 2 applications per second.
So in a scenario where the mob dies between 0-9 seconds, it is true that this is a buff. In a scenario where the mob lives for longer than nine seconds, it is a nerf.
Now add to the fact that you probably won't have a mirrorball (using firebirds source for the set bonus and +%dmg), so you're stacking it up with something weaker than 3xMM, and you can probably add another second or 1.5 to that. Still a buff in the 9 second timeframe. Still a nerf at +9 and counting.
Then, once again, we get to the point where removing aughilds, magefists etc comes at a pretty severe loss (which I guess is partially reimbursed from the firebirds eye) - both in survivability and damage.
So yea. We get burst on easy-to-kill elites and whites. Hurray. Just what we needed. As if we weren't already 1 shotting them.
That doesn't matter like... At all. The issue isn't the initial damage of Magic missile. The issue is the nerf to the stacking damage component. It doesn't matter if missiles do 170%, 210%, or 315% damage per, when the damage they stack up is capped at 390% either way.
On the other hand, the sustained dmg went to crap. Sure, you can go for firebirds' 6 set bonus to get sort of the same affect (but then again, getting to 3000% burn damage = the same as 18 casts, or under 10 seconds of attacking) - but this leaves us extremely much weaker. Let's say we no longer need mirrorball in that case so you get a free piece. Here's the alternatives:
Firebirds boots - no major downside (apart from ice climbers).
Firebirds legs - no major downside with the changed depth diggers. - both together could be 8% IAS from cains in most cases.
So that's 3 of 6 pieces.
Firebirds shoulders. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds helm. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds chest. <--- locks you out of cindercoat.
Firebirds gloves. <--- locks you out of magefists.
Ring of royal grandeour. <--- locks you out of unity (if solo).
So all in all, this is a *major* nerf. Firebirds bonus seems strong on paper, but remember, it forces us out of multiple other extremely strong single-pieces.
I am with this guy. Firebird items are inferior, they need special affixes like the ones mentioned above. It is a set designed for "fire" yet does not even have any fire skill dmg other than the orb. When you replace your cindercoat with FB Chest you are already giving up lots of dmg, same goes for gloves, helmet, shoulder, damn everything.
3000% is a cool number when you first see it, but i don't think it is that good since you have to give up all of the items that makes fire element strong in this game.
So what if some of the individual set pieces are inferior? The marauder's pieces take up the slots of those strong individual items as well, but you don't see demon hunters complaining. You obviously haven't tried the Firebird set if you're saying this. The Firebird 6 piece bonus is way, way stronger than the little bit of fire damage cindercoat and magefists gives you.
It's possible, sure. Sadly ptr is too derpy ATM to test it for me. That said, "little bit" doesn't really cut it here - for a solo player, it'll remove shoulders, helm and gloves (as they'll want a unity+SoJ combo), along with feet/pants and source. It gives you more burst, as already stated, but your sustained damage severely gets gibbed, which sucks in greater rifts. Put it like this - to reach 3000% weapon damage as fire through magic missile with +2 mirrorball, with 2 attacks/second, you need to hit the target for about 2.5 seconds (510% per application, 2 applications per second, plus ticks of the dot).
To reach 3000% weapon dmg as fire through magic missile with +2 in the current patch, you need to hit for about 9 seconds (165% per application, 2 applications per second.
So in a scenario where the mob dies between 0-9 seconds, it is true that this is a buff. In a scenario where the mob lives for longer than nine seconds, it is a nerf.
Now add to the fact that you probably won't have a mirrorball (using firebirds source for the set bonus and +%dmg), so you're stacking it up with something weaker than 3xMM, and you can probably add another second or 1.5 to that. Still a buff in the 9 second timeframe. Still a nerf at +9 and counting.
Then, once again, we get to the point where removing aughilds, magefists etc comes at a pretty severe loss (which I guess is partially reimbursed from the firebirds eye) - both in survivability and damage.
So yea. We get burst on easy-to-kill elites and whites. Hurray. Just what we needed. As if we weren't already 1 shotting them.
It still looks to me like the MM conflag build is stronger on PTR than it was before now, as long as you have Firebird set. I made a video of myself killing Ghom on t6, using just MM. One kill on the live server with MM still stacking infinitely, and one on PTR using Firebirds. Counting the time when I start attacking until I kill ghom, on the live server the fight took 36 seconds. On the PTR using Firebird's, the fight took 26 seconds. The fight is longer than the 9 seconds you mentioned, yet the fight was a full 10 seconds quicker using Firebirds instead of the old gear.
I show my gear at the end of each kill, but for the normal server I had on 3 piece aughild's, cindercoat, magefists, SoJ, and unity. For the PTR kill, I had Firebird's and aughild's with RoRG.
You guys aren't thinking about the true reason for the nerf. MM/conflag combo with 6 piece Firebird = face roll T6. The new firebird set allows you to stack up to 3000% fire damage. And when you reach 3000% the enemy just gets 1 shot. combine that with a piercing capability and Mirrorball. You will have the strongest build in the game. This nerf to to balance the firebird buff coming in patch 2.1
You guys aren't thinking about the true reason for the nerf. MM/conflag combo with 6 piece Firebird = face roll T6. The new firebird set allows you to stack up to 3000% fire damage. And when you reach 3000% the enemy just gets 1 shot. combine that with a piercing capability and Mirrorball. You will have the strongest build in the game. This nerf to to balance the firebird buff coming in patch 2.1
MM unlimited stacking was slightly overpowered for rift bosses. Not overpowered in the sense that no other class can compete (some easily outperform MM/conflag), but overpowered for a spammable, free spell.
As is often the case with Blizzard, the main problem is that a build gets nerfed without a viable alternative, as all our fire spenders are still lackluster.
MM/Conflag will remain a very good filler, but no longer a main source of damage, so we'll have to find viable alternatives. I can see EB (with Woh) + Black Hole working very well up to a certain point, especially with the huge EB buff in the last build, but toughness will be a problem very quickly. Hydra with Serpent Sparker seems to work quite well right now, but the damage doesn't proc the new Firebird 6p, I hope that's a bug. I'm not sure Meteor will be viable in a pure fire build, especially w/o the Tal bonus.
Despite being nerfed, MM - conflag is still by far the most powerfull signature spell we have. Getting 100M+ dps dots from a signature spell was just silly.
The new MM-conflag is a spell that we should stack up and try to keep rolling by recasting it once every 3 seconds.. Exactly how signature spells should work.
Despite being nerfed, MM - conflag is still by far the most powerfull signature spell we have. Getting 100M+ dps dots from a signature spell was just silly.
The new MM-conflag is a spell that we should stack up and try to keep rolling by recasting it once every 3 seconds.. Exactly how signature spells should work.
I agree, I think this post was made out of haste after reading notes and not really giving it a try on the ptr, mm conflag is still very strong and firebirds new t6 is very good now from personal experience from the test server today.
I think people are just jumping to conclusions, this thread is a massive kneejerk.
It's the same when DOTs were changed to deal average damage based on chc and chd instead of being able to crit on all ticks, all Jade Harvester WDs cried rivers but the change didn't kill the build, Jade Harvester is still one of the strongest.
Sure MM-Conflag got nerfed, but Firebirds got buffed and together both are great, you only need to stack your conflag 3 times and then can refresh the dot duration with AP spenders instead, which means more build diversity instead of spamming MM 24/7.
Chance on hit effects now proc on the extra magic missiles , also there's a primary spender gem. Combine chance on hit legendary gems with the primary spender legendary gem and it could become insanely strong. It's probably why they nerfed depth diggers because that gem most likely scales to become even better than depth diggers.
What I don't like about the Depth Diggers change is that the other classes still has it except for WD, why can't WDs and Wizards use Depth Diggers when DHs can?
Gem + Depth Diggers on a class that can use both is going to be really strong.
Chance on hit effects now proc on the extra magic missiles , also there's a primary spender gem. Combine chance on hit legendary gems with the primary spender legendary gem and it could become insanely strong. It's probably why they nerfed depth diggers because that gem most likely scales to become even better than depth diggers.
What I don't like about the Depth Diggers change is that the other classes still has it except for WD, why can't WDs and Wizards use Depth Diggers when DHs can?
Gem + Depth Diggers on a class that can use both is going to be really strong.
I can't believe so many people complain about this... Can't you see it would be completly broken and op if wizards and WD could use it ? They have the best primary skills by a MILE AND have op legendaries to buff them further. Imagine an explosive toad WD with this ? or the new overbuffed spider/spider queen ? or a MM Wizard ???? (Mirror ball is already +200% damage on top of +200% procs on ptr)
People need to stop acting stupid andadmit they new it was gonna be completly OP, and that's why they're crying now.
Wizards got a ludicrous (but needed) buff to firebirds and WD don't need anything (yet many primaries were buffed). Having MM/EB or toads as the only damage dealers is not happening, too bad right ?....
I'm not complaining that I can't use MM as the only damage dealer, I'm glad that I can't.
I'm complaining that other classes can use their Primary spells as the only damage dealers because of the legs.
If you tried the firebird set on the ptr, you would see why they needed to remove the infinite stacking of MM conflag. It would be insanely overpowered combined with firebird set. The damage from the firebird set was ticking for over 45 mil, and it takes less than 2 seconds to get it stacked to max with MM and mirrorball. 2 casts is enough to get it that high. Currently on the live servers, by the time I get MM ticking for 45 mil on a t6 rift boss, he's almost dead already. The MM conflag build does waaaaaaaay more damage now, even with the nerf to MM stacking. People need to try firebirds now before they say everything is horrible now.
OMG no way! 45m damage! So we were still doing less than every other class. Cool. People really need to stop comparing wizdog to itself. This thread has a lot of people seemingly crying/mentioning over the fact that we could sometimes get 100m damage dot up. That is incredibly rare. I've seen it once, never solo. It's quite common amongst other classes.
On the other hand, the sustained dmg went to crap. Sure, you can go for firebirds' 6 set bonus to get sort of the same affect (but then again, getting to 3000% burn damage = the same as 18 casts, or under 10 seconds of attacking) - but this leaves us extremely much weaker. Let's say we no longer need mirrorball in that case so you get a free piece. Here's the alternatives:
Firebirds boots - no major downside (apart from ice climbers).
Firebirds legs - no major downside with the changed depth diggers. - both together could be 8% IAS from cains in most cases.
So that's 3 of 6 pieces.
Firebirds shoulders. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds helm. <--- locks you out of aughilds.
Firebirds chest. <--- locks you out of cindercoat.
Firebirds gloves. <--- locks you out of magefists.
Ring of royal grandeour. <--- locks you out of unity (if solo).
So all in all, this is a *major* nerf. Firebirds bonus seems strong on paper, but remember, it forces us out of multiple other extremely strong single-pieces.
I am with this guy. Firebird items are inferior, they need special affixes like the ones mentioned above. It is a set designed for "fire" yet does not even have any fire skill dmg other than the orb. When you replace your cindercoat with FB Chest you are already giving up lots of dmg, same goes for gloves, helmet, shoulder, damn everything.
3000% is a cool number when you first see it, but i don't think it is that good since you have to give up all of the items that makes fire element strong in this game.
So what if some of the individual set pieces are inferior? The marauder's pieces take up the slots of those strong individual items as well, but you don't see demon hunters complaining. You obviously haven't tried the Firebird set if you're saying this. The Firebird 6 piece bonus is way, way stronger than the little bit of fire damage cindercoat and magefists gives you.
It's possible, sure. Sadly ptr is too derpy ATM to test it for me. That said, "little bit" doesn't really cut it here - for a solo player, it'll remove shoulders, helm and gloves (as they'll want a unity+SoJ combo), along with feet/pants and source. It gives you more burst, as already stated, but your sustained damage severely gets gibbed, which sucks in greater rifts. Put it like this - to reach 3000% weapon damage as fire through magic missile with +2 mirrorball, with 2 attacks/second, you need to hit the target for about 2.5 seconds (510% per application, 2 applications per second, plus ticks of the dot).
To reach 3000% weapon dmg as fire through magic missile with +2 in the current patch, you need to hit for about 9 seconds (165% per application, 2 applications per second.
So in a scenario where the mob dies between 0-9 seconds, it is true that this is a buff. In a scenario where the mob lives for longer than nine seconds, it is a nerf.
Now add to the fact that you probably won't have a mirrorball (using firebirds source for the set bonus and +%dmg), so you're stacking it up with something weaker than 3xMM, and you can probably add another second or 1.5 to that. Still a buff in the 9 second timeframe. Still a nerf at +9 and counting.
Then, once again, we get to the point where removing aughilds, magefists etc comes at a pretty severe loss (which I guess is partially reimbursed from the firebirds eye) - both in survivability and damage.
So yea. We get burst on easy-to-kill elites and whites. Hurray. Just what we needed. As if we weren't already 1 shotting them.
It still looks to me like the MM conflag build is stronger on PTR than it was before now, as long as you have Firebird set. I made a video of myself killing Ghom on t6, using just MM. One kill on the live server with MM still stacking infinitely, and one on PTR using Firebirds. Counting the time when I start attacking until I kill ghom, on the live server the fight took 36 seconds. On the PTR using Firebird's, the fight took 26 seconds. The fight is longer than the 9 seconds you mentioned, yet the fight was a full 10 seconds quicker using Firebirds instead of the old gear.
I show my gear at the end of each kill, but for the normal server I had on 3 piece aughild's, cindercoat, magefists, SoJ, and unity. For the PTR kill, I had Firebird's and aughild's with RoRG.
The reason your ptr-firebirds kills him quicker is because MM itself was buffed heavily (from 170 to 210? weapon damage - or something in that ballpark), basicly making 3x hits feel like 4x on live. You also aren't really losing anything from switching out your crimsons (cool down reduction for a magic missile build?) compared to cains (8% IAS). And last but not least, you're giving up 100% toughness from your unity to get that 6 set, which on ghom doesn't matter (he won't hit you because lolGHOM). Can't read the exact stats due to 360p etc :/.
Ok, I'm gonna stop quoting that because it's getting outrageously long lol. But anyway, I had the crimsons equipped because before I made the video, I was wearing all Vyr's / cooldown reduction gear. I didn't have anything else to equip and didn't feel like making cain's. Second, I just threw the unity on since it was an item being mentioned as superior to RoRG that you would lose out on if you wore Firebird's. Personally I almost always play in a group, so I would never be wearing it anyway.
In the end I still think my point stands though. You called this a major nerf, since you get locked out of Cindercoat, magefists, Aughild's, and unity if you use Firebirds. But I used Firebird's, didn't get locked out of Aughild's, and I still killed Ghom quicker than when I used those previously mentioned pieces. I fail to see how this is a major nerf. Another thing to mention is that in greater rifts lvl 30 and higher, you need to kite a hell of a lot more, and your MM stacks would constantly drop off enemies the way they are on live right now. With the new firebird set, you can kite and never lose that big DoT from ticking.
Ok, I'm gonna stop quoting that because it's getting outrageously long lol. But anyway, I had the crimsons equipped because before I made the video, I was wearing all Vyr's / cooldown reduction gear. I didn't have anything else to equip and didn't feel like making cain's. Second, I just threw the unity on since it was an item being mentioned as superior to RoRG that you would lose out on if you wore Firebird's. Personally I almost always play in a group, so I would never be wearing it anyway.
In the end I still think my point stands though. You called this a major nerf, since you get locked out of Cindercoat, magefists, Aughild's, and unity if you use Firebirds. But I used Firebird's, didn't get locked out of Aughild's, and I still killed Ghom quicker than when I used those previously mentioned pieces. I fail to see how this is a major nerf. Another thing to mention is that in greater rifts lvl 30 and higher, you need to kite a hell of a lot more, and your MM stacks would constantly drop off enemies the way they are on live right now. With the new firebird set, you can kite and never lose that big DoT from ticking.
If you don't understand it, that's not equal to it not being correct. The fact that you always play in groups means you have no clue about how important unity is for solo play, which may be why you aren't overly fussed about this.
I also never said you got locked out of all of it - you can still get aughilds (through bracers+helm) if you wear a RoRG; but again, that's not an option if you want to wear a unity as you do in solo play. That you skimp on defences in order to get the fastest kill time to skew the result in your favor because Ghom doesn't actually hit you, doesn't make it a buff. It just means you sac about 10M toughness for more dps >.<.
And you completly neglect the fact that our skills on the PTR have been severely buffed compared to live. Familiar does more damage. Magic missile's initial hits does more damage. But you are choosing to ignore this altogether for some akward reason?
So to recap:
You're giving up unity, which to you, a group player, doesn't matter fuck all, and on Ghom, has no visible effect. In reality, that's half of your survivability for a solo player, and you're counting that as basicly not a loss.
You are wearing un-optimised magic missile gear (attack speed was one of the best stats you could have for live-conflag builds due to building stacks up faster) that gives absolutely zero benefit to your ghom kill speed, while much better options are around, and are changing it for items that are actually stronger comparable (due to 500 int from 2 set, wearing firebirds boots+pants would have been stronger on live than your crimsons).
You're comparing live-damage to PTR damage, completly neglecting the fact that the base spells have been severely buffed, causing you to achieve a faster kill despite of firebirds/change to how conflag works. If you'd tested it before the PTR patch, you'd have gotten a much quicker kill than on live aswell because *gasp* your abilities were buffed baseline.
Basicly, you're stacking the odds in your favor - you are changing things that are un-optimised for the build, for new "optimised" items for your current build (EG, firebirds as it is the only option).
I never said that firebirds isn't neat for kiting - it may very well be a quite good option. I said this is an overall throughput nerf because it caps our DPS potential - and a quite heavy one at that.
Last I can only say, if you're losing MM stacks due to kiting, your stutter stepping needs some work.
Guys, Firebird was buffed, together with mm conflig its overall an buff. STOP crying, find something somewhere to whine about. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SOMETHING, someone gets pissed about. Even if no nerfs, there will be something else. Get over it, go test yourself, its still AT LEAST as strong as it was before, only difference is, you'd now need Firebird set. So please, everyone who hasn't even TRIED IT OUT YET, just stop trash-talking.
Except it's not an overall buff. I've provided you with basic math that proves otherwise - it's a buff for the first nine seconds of an encounter, and a nerf thereafter. How you "feel" it's doing has nothing to do with actual math. Please provide factual evidence of your claims.
But was it a intentional buff? Or is it a bug? Because the way I read it they made a cap on the stacks for MM-Conflag right? Is Firebird supposed to remove that nerf to that? With MM-Conflag & Mirrorball & Firebird it's one shot and wait for it to die. I just don't feel that is the way it's supposed to be.
This change is very disheartening. Yesterday I was enjoying the debate in the other thread about using Firebird vs. non-set items, and what situations each would be superior in. That's the kind of decision making I enjoy; several viable options, each superior in some ways and weaker in others. I was looking forward to using the host of interesting non-set items like the new Depth Diggers, Cindercoat, Magefist, etc. Others were looking forward to adding Hydras to their build or perhaps even dumping MM/Conflag all together for Hydra/ET or something else unique.
Today I look at the patch notes and Conflag has been neutered, Depth Diggers now has some illogical caveat, Hydra doesn't proc the new Firebird bonus, and despite that Firebird seems like it may be the only viable option for a fire spec (though it's still a bit early to say). I honestly feel quite gutted.
Before we even address the question of why these changes in particular were chosen, I'd really like to know why any of this was necessary in the first place. I'd particularly like to echo the sentiment of the others in this thread that have reminded us it's not sufficient to look at the Wizard class in a vacuum; it must be looked at in comparison to the other classes as well. With that said, does it really matter if the new changes allowed us to farm t6.. like every other class can do as well? Our numbers on the PTR were not in any way out of line in comparison to the other classes, nor were wizards seeing any particular success in greater rifts compared to anyone else. Honestly though, that is all beside the point. Even if MM/Conflag was completely out of hand, what made it so destructive that the only option was to completely gut it?
If the combination of conflag + the firebird bonus was problematic why not simply change that interaction (e.g. disallow them from proccing each other)? That type of change isn't exactly elegant but it is a simple fix that likely will not alienate anyone. If Magic Missile itself was too powerful why not simply revert the damage buff they gave it in the prior build? Why did the changes have to be some that will in all likelihood remove the build as a viable option? I cannot imagine this was the only way to address whatever the perceived problem was.
To summarize, my issue is not the changes themselves but the logic Blizzard has taken in making changes. This is not a subtle effort at increasing the number of viable builds. This is a strong message that they do not want MM/Conflag to be a viable build. Whether you liked the build or not, I do not see any harm in leaving it as an option. If it was too close to feeling like the "mandatory build" then address it as such and bring it more in line with other options (or more better yet, bring the other options in line with MM/Conflag). This brings me to my next point.
Our other options still suck.
Hydra is clunky and its inability to proc the new Firebird bonus is likely the nail in the coffin for the build if it's not a bug. Energy Twister is too situationally dependent to be a reliable primary source of damage. Lightning and Cold are still just awful. WoW builds were buffed, but already face significant issues in harder content. Channeling spells were buffed, but face the same issue and being encouraged to stand still for 3+ seconds to take advantage of the new mechanics will certainly not help that.
What does that leave us?
To be clear, I do not mean that rhetorically. I really just feel like our class is running out of options. I would love to hear what people are finding success with in this new build.
Hydra is clunky and its inability to proc the new Firebird bonus is likely the nail in the coffin for the build if it's not a bug. Energy Twister is too situationally dependent to be a reliable primary source of damage. Lightning and Cold are still just awful. WoW builds were buffed, but already face significant issues in harder content. Channeling spells were buffed, but face the same issue and being encouraged to stand still for 3+ seconds to take advantage of the new mechanics will certainly not help that.
Exactly my thoughts on the matter.
Like I said earlier, MM isn't dead - I just don't see any reasons to use Mirrorball anymore.
But my biggest concern right now is that all fire spenders are kinda crappy - either low DPS, or clunky mechanics (WTB the ability to spawn ET under the cursor!), and most of them are expensive, hence Cindercoat is almost mandatory. Hydra + fire tornadoes + mirror images build is a perfect example of all that: I know it can deal massive damage, but its playstyle is far from enjoyable.
I am with this guy. Firebird items are inferior, they need special affixes like the ones mentioned above. It is a set designed for "fire" yet does not even have any fire skill dmg other than the orb. When you replace your cindercoat with FB Chest you are already giving up lots of dmg, same goes for gloves, helmet, shoulder, damn everything.
3000% is a cool number when you first see it, but i don't think it is that good since you have to give up all of the items that makes fire element strong in this game.
To reach 3000% weapon dmg as fire through magic missile with +2 in the current patch, you need to hit for about 9 seconds (165% per application, 2 applications per second.
So in a scenario where the mob dies between 0-9 seconds, it is true that this is a buff. In a scenario where the mob lives for longer than nine seconds, it is a nerf.
Now add to the fact that you probably won't have a mirrorball (using firebirds source for the set bonus and +%dmg), so you're stacking it up with something weaker than 3xMM, and you can probably add another second or 1.5 to that. Still a buff in the 9 second timeframe. Still a nerf at +9 and counting.
Then, once again, we get to the point where removing aughilds, magefists etc comes at a pretty severe loss (which I guess is partially reimbursed from the firebirds eye) - both in survivability and damage.
So yea. We get burst on easy-to-kill elites and whites. Hurray. Just what we needed. As if we weren't already 1 shotting them.
I show my gear at the end of each kill, but for the normal server I had on 3 piece aughild's, cindercoat, magefists, SoJ, and unity. For the PTR kill, I had Firebird's and aughild's with RoRG.
Edit: I put both kills into 1 video now, instead of them being separate links. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVb57Ubkxc&feature=youtu.be
THEY HATE US, CUZ THEY AIN'T US
As is often the case with Blizzard, the main problem is that a build gets nerfed without a viable alternative, as all our fire spenders are still lackluster.
MM/Conflag will remain a very good filler, but no longer a main source of damage, so we'll have to find viable alternatives. I can see EB (with Woh) + Black Hole working very well up to a certain point, especially with the huge EB buff in the last build, but toughness will be a problem very quickly. Hydra with Serpent Sparker seems to work quite well right now, but the damage doesn't proc the new Firebird 6p, I hope that's a bug. I'm not sure Meteor will be viable in a pure fire build, especially w/o the Tal bonus.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Taliesyn-2517/hero/66020932
The new MM-conflag is a spell that we should stack up and try to keep rolling by recasting it once every 3 seconds.. Exactly how signature spells should work.
It's the same when DOTs were changed to deal average damage based on chc and chd instead of being able to crit on all ticks, all Jade Harvester WDs cried rivers but the change didn't kill the build, Jade Harvester is still one of the strongest.
Sure MM-Conflag got nerfed, but Firebirds got buffed and together both are great, you only need to stack your conflag 3 times and then can refresh the dot duration with AP spenders instead, which means more build diversity instead of spamming MM 24/7.
Edit:
Don't need the quote anymore then.
Gem + Depth Diggers on a class that can use both is going to be really strong.
I'm complaining that other classes can use their Primary spells as the only damage dealers because of the legs.
In the end I still think my point stands though. You called this a major nerf, since you get locked out of Cindercoat, magefists, Aughild's, and unity if you use Firebirds. But I used Firebird's, didn't get locked out of Aughild's, and I still killed Ghom quicker than when I used those previously mentioned pieces. I fail to see how this is a major nerf. Another thing to mention is that in greater rifts lvl 30 and higher, you need to kite a hell of a lot more, and your MM stacks would constantly drop off enemies the way they are on live right now. With the new firebird set, you can kite and never lose that big DoT from ticking.
I also never said you got locked out of all of it - you can still get aughilds (through bracers+helm) if you wear a RoRG; but again, that's not an option if you want to wear a unity as you do in solo play. That you skimp on defences in order to get the fastest kill time to skew the result in your favor because Ghom doesn't actually hit you, doesn't make it a buff. It just means you sac about 10M toughness for more dps >.<.
And you completly neglect the fact that our skills on the PTR have been severely buffed compared to live. Familiar does more damage. Magic missile's initial hits does more damage. But you are choosing to ignore this altogether for some akward reason?
So to recap:
You're giving up unity, which to you, a group player, doesn't matter fuck all, and on Ghom, has no visible effect. In reality, that's half of your survivability for a solo player, and you're counting that as basicly not a loss.
You are wearing un-optimised magic missile gear (attack speed was one of the best stats you could have for live-conflag builds due to building stacks up faster) that gives absolutely zero benefit to your ghom kill speed, while much better options are around, and are changing it for items that are actually stronger comparable (due to 500 int from 2 set, wearing firebirds boots+pants would have been stronger on live than your crimsons).
You're comparing live-damage to PTR damage, completly neglecting the fact that the base spells have been severely buffed, causing you to achieve a faster kill despite of firebirds/change to how conflag works. If you'd tested it before the PTR patch, you'd have gotten a much quicker kill than on live aswell because *gasp* your abilities were buffed baseline.
Basicly, you're stacking the odds in your favor - you are changing things that are un-optimised for the build, for new "optimised" items for your current build (EG, firebirds as it is the only option).
I never said that firebirds isn't neat for kiting - it may very well be a quite good option. I said this is an overall throughput nerf because it caps our DPS potential - and a quite heavy one at that.
Last I can only say, if you're losing MM stacks due to kiting, your stutter stepping needs some work.
Except it's not an overall buff. I've provided you with basic math that proves otherwise - it's a buff for the first nine seconds of an encounter, and a nerf thereafter. How you "feel" it's doing has nothing to do with actual math. Please provide factual evidence of your claims.
Today I look at the patch notes and Conflag has been neutered, Depth Diggers now has some illogical caveat, Hydra doesn't proc the new Firebird bonus, and despite that Firebird seems like it may be the only viable option for a fire spec (though it's still a bit early to say). I honestly feel quite gutted.
Before we even address the question of why these changes in particular were chosen, I'd really like to know why any of this was necessary in the first place. I'd particularly like to echo the sentiment of the others in this thread that have reminded us it's not sufficient to look at the Wizard class in a vacuum; it must be looked at in comparison to the other classes as well. With that said, does it really matter if the new changes allowed us to farm t6.. like every other class can do as well? Our numbers on the PTR were not in any way out of line in comparison to the other classes, nor were wizards seeing any particular success in greater rifts compared to anyone else. Honestly though, that is all beside the point. Even if MM/Conflag was completely out of hand, what made it so destructive that the only option was to completely gut it?
If the combination of conflag + the firebird bonus was problematic why not simply change that interaction (e.g. disallow them from proccing each other)? That type of change isn't exactly elegant but it is a simple fix that likely will not alienate anyone. If Magic Missile itself was too powerful why not simply revert the damage buff they gave it in the prior build? Why did the changes have to be some that will in all likelihood remove the build as a viable option? I cannot imagine this was the only way to address whatever the perceived problem was.
To summarize, my issue is not the changes themselves but the logic Blizzard has taken in making changes. This is not a subtle effort at increasing the number of viable builds. This is a strong message that they do not want MM/Conflag to be a viable build. Whether you liked the build or not, I do not see any harm in leaving it as an option. If it was too close to feeling like the "mandatory build" then address it as such and bring it more in line with other options (or more better yet, bring the other options in line with MM/Conflag). This brings me to my next point.
Our other options still suck.
Hydra is clunky and its inability to proc the new Firebird bonus is likely the nail in the coffin for the build if it's not a bug. Energy Twister is too situationally dependent to be a reliable primary source of damage. Lightning and Cold are still just awful. WoW builds were buffed, but already face significant issues in harder content. Channeling spells were buffed, but face the same issue and being encouraged to stand still for 3+ seconds to take advantage of the new mechanics will certainly not help that.
What does that leave us?
To be clear, I do not mean that rhetorically. I really just feel like our class is running out of options. I would love to hear what people are finding success with in this new build.
Like I said earlier, MM isn't dead - I just don't see any reasons to use Mirrorball anymore.
But my biggest concern right now is that all fire spenders are kinda crappy - either low DPS, or clunky mechanics (WTB the ability to spawn ET under the cursor!), and most of them are expensive, hence Cindercoat is almost mandatory. Hydra + fire tornadoes + mirror images build is a perfect example of all that: I know it can deal massive damage, but its playstyle is far from enjoyable.