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.
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.
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.
New bonus looks a bit underwhelming. With 1.25M DPS, 90% fire damage, 43% elite damage it only ticks for ~44M when fully stacked (tested on T6 Ghom). Not sure why, but I was expecting more from it as a compensation for all the nerfs we've got.
How long did it take to reach max stacks? Is there any kind of an indicator to let you know when you've reached it?
It takes like 2 casts of MM with mirrorball to reach max stacks. I was getting it stacked to max on everything I hit in under 2 seconds. After attacking twice, I was able to stop attacking and the dot wouldn't go away.
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.
Yeah, just tested it out a bit on my t5-t6 geared character, and I agree it's still terrible. Unless I'm mistaken and was looking at the damage for something else, it was ticking for about 2.5 - 2.8 mil. Still has a really small explosion radius, and it won't go off unless fire damage killed the enemy. So if thunderfury proc or black hole kills the enemies, it doesn't work. And like OP said, it helps kill weak stragglers which you don't need help with, and it's horrible against bosses.
A bit off topic, but as someone who can't stand archon, I'm extremely disappointed about everything they've done with wizard in 2.0.5 and now 2.1.0. Wizards are easily the weakest class now in my opinion, it would be nice to see blizzard give some significant buffs to wizard without nerfing anyone else.
What do people think about alternative weapons? I have a thunderfury, a sunkeeper with 2100 dps and 28% dmg to elites, and a burning axe with just over 2k dps and 16% fire damage. I can't decide which one is best. Sunkeeper obviously hits way harder on elites, but does the proc on tf and it's faster attack speed applying the dot from magic missile faster make up for doing less damage per hit?
Not to be a jerk or anything.... but of course torment 6 would become really easy when you're being carried by jade harvester and fetish witch doctors.
"Hey, this isn't so bad. I don't know what all the fuss is about. Lighting the beacons and raising the catapults was actually kinda easy. Act 3 has been surprisingly less difficult."
"Alright, time to start this third quest inside the keep. I've been progressing well, maybe now I can finally get a decent rate of progression going on.... wait, wha"
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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.
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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
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A bit off topic, but as someone who can't stand archon, I'm extremely disappointed about everything they've done with wizard in 2.0.5 and now 2.1.0. Wizards are easily the weakest class now in my opinion, it would be nice to see blizzard give some significant buffs to wizard without nerfing anyone else.
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"Alright, time to start this third quest inside the keep. I've been progressing well, maybe now I can finally get a decent rate of progression going on.... wait, wha"