Class Discussion Scorch, what do you feel now?

Scorch, what do you feel now?

So its been a while since scorch got changed, what do you feel about it now that you have battle tested it (or not) ? I'm really thinking of dropping it out next time I respec, or at least had been thinking about it until today, I rarely use scorch anymore, it was nice and the little bits of extra dmg were fun.

Now if in a group the mob doesnt last long enough for me to cast much more than 2 scorches and a fireblast (so only one scorch and the fireblast get any boost) on a bit higher end elites of the group maybe 3 scorches and a fireball, but I dont feel it is pulling its weight in the talent build, I mean 5 points could do lots of things.

But today I had a revelation, running an instance, just having fun, on the boss I tossed up 5 scorches and then a combusted pyro.... See that warm feeling is what I really liked... Now while its nice and it makes me smile, I ended up doing most of my dmg AEing groups of mobs, and Scorch was only cast about 40ish times vs a few (4) hundred fireballs... I dont know if its just ME that is casting it wrong, that if I cast scorch more often it would end up evening out as a boost in dmg or if its just a talent bliz killed off (except for the huge crits)?

As a side note has anyone else who still has it done this in pvp? Hit target from long range with 5 scorches in a row, blinking and frosting them as nececarry, then sheep them, combust pyro them? Its a good bit of work but it can draw grins.

Anyway what do you guys think of scorch as it is now?

F3

scorch used to be a bread and butter nuke for me as i grinded up to 60, but with the change i don't use it much at all. have only respeced twice and haven't felt the need yet to drop it, but i eventually will. if i am looking to do a smaller amount of damage to finish off a mob quickly i just hit coc more often than not...

Improved Scorch use to be a weapon of choice when fighting Rogues as it was a fast casting DoT. Now Improved Scorch is useless for fighting Rogues and I have not found the new talent to be useful for any purpose that I need. Almost anything in the Fire tree would be a better use of those points.

In a different thread someone brought up an interesting point, however: Fireball may not be useful in places like Zul'Gurub due to the fact that it has a built in DOT component that duplicates for every person using the spell. Mages may have to settle for using our second highest DPS nuke, Scorch - however, only one Mage will need to have the talent to get out of it all that can be got out of it.

Right, i forgot to mention that... but seriously, a talent (and an early one at taht) that is only good for one mage in the raid....

F3

Sorry, could someone explain what Scorch was like and what it is now? I have only recently gotten Mages higher than 20th, so hadnt used Scorch at all until recently.

Thanks,
Mal

Improved Scorch used to leave a 4s DoT on the target, with increasing damage on the DoT as you put more points into it.

Now it has a chance to make the target more vulnerable to fire damage, similar to shadow weaving, but weaker.

In a fight where you're limited by mana, Improved Scorch will mean you do a bit more damage.

But how often does that matter? On a raid, chances are you can mooch the debuff off of somebody else.

I think it can be a good talent IF your main problem is running out of mana in a PvE environment. Improved Scorch won't allow Scorch to quite catch Fireball for DPS, but it should be "good enough" and is way more efficient.

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with increasing damage on the DoT as you put more points into it.

But NOT stacking DOT damage, so casting Scorch multiple times on the same target was a waste of talent points.

As it is, Scorch is still a Mage's second best spell for DPS and the best for DPM, and Improved Scorch promises to be a major boon to raids in fire-vulnerable instances (Zul'Gurub and Ahn'Qiraj are both on the horizon). However, the talent suffers from the fact that most non-raid fights don't last long enough for the 10% damage to build up and have any sort of meaningful effect.

I'm not sure it's a big loss that we can't use Scorch as a stealth-preventer now - after all, doesn't we have Arcane Explosion for that?

Ahhh. Honestly for the way I play this is MUCH better. DOTs are pretty useless to me. The stackability works pretty well for me so far.

But now youve introduced a problem for me. I have been toying around with playing a pair of Shadow Priests. I only two box. I have a couple destruction specced warlocks, that I like, but needed a break from. Tried out a couple Fire Mages that are really sweet as Engineering/Alchemy Trolls (goggles are everything for Trolls).
But mentioning the Shadoweaving talent has me convinced I need to try out a pair of them.

The first character I played seriously was a shadow priest, but soloing was too slow. But, I figure a pair of priests could do decent damage. Two shadowbolts, two PWPain and Mindflay should drop a mob before it gets to me I figure. Plenty of security with two rezzers, two healers, two insta fears, two PWShields.
And the thing Im looking forward to the most, two Vampiric Embrace. Hehe. 40% of damage done to mob is returned to us! (20% from each goes to all party members). OHHHH, the mobs are soooo dead.

Great. Now Im back to starting two new characters, and they arent even mages.

Thanks,
Mal

Malleable are you... whats his name.... oh damn it the guy from EQ that had 4 wizzys a chanter and a cleric and 6boxed. Anyway you seem a bit like him : )

As for scorch on raids if one guy has it then all the other firemages are boosted... If the damage boos stacked (it doesnt for obvious reasons) it would be very nice.

On PvE if I'm low on mana starting to cast scorch for me is not on the top of my to do lists, I will try to go for a fireball crit (the extra damage wont really help as I have to cast more than once to start to feel the dmg boost) If that fails lvl 1 frostbolt and leg it out, maybe try to run him in circles but a fight that is so close that you need to chainscorch to get the mana in... drink up and try again in 30 seconds.

F3

At the moment, I find it to be pretty much useless. The only time I really use it is on King Gordak who I haven't done in weeks. And really, I barely notice an overall difference and constantly having to refresh it is a pain in the ass. If I were to ever respec, I'd take Improved Fireblast or Impact over this.

Thats my current aim, was wondering if anyone thought it was nice...

F3

btw Ikeya, nice sig

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Originally Posted by Fqubed

Malleable are you... whats his name.... oh damn it the guy from EQ that had 4 wizzys a chanter and a cleric and 6boxed. Anyway you seem a bit like him : )
F3

No, unfortunately its not me. The best I ever did was 4 computers in DAOC. Three Runemasters and a Pacification Healer. Usually I only ran three in DAOC though. (And please dont mention EQ - lying, thievin, stinking Verant!)

Now if my third computer hadnt broke, Id probably be running three characters!

In fact, if I have time, I might just try and put one of my old ones back together. Yeah, I think three characters is a nice mix to run with.

Mal

I really liked the original version of Improved Scorch, and when they changed it, I played around with the new version for a while. Stacking up 5 Scorches and then casting anything meaningful just took too long though. I'd rather use 5 talent points for something that's always going to benefit me, rather than something that's useful for only 3-4 mobs in the game (right now).

Looking to the future and raid zones that aren't fire immune, maybe it'll be beneficial again. For the time being, I wouldn't bother though.

I'd never buy it. There was a big justification for 1 point in it when it added a DoT, but if I suddenly had more points to spend in fire (and only fire) I'd grab Impact.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fqubed

Malleable are you... whats his name.... oh damn it the guy from EQ that had 4 wizzys a chanter and a cleric and 6boxed. Anyway you seem a bit like him : )

Sam Deathwalker I'm guessing?

The new talent just isn't worth it, things die too fast for that bonus damage to really do much, so my talent points are best spent somewhere else. Was upset that they nerfed my 1 point in imp. scorch to apply a quick DoT to rogues, giving me time to fireball for a longer one.