1) Is 61 Pyromancer as a viable spec?
Is a fun spec! The first impression most people tend to get from this spec seems to be omg so many Combust consumers and so little time! It feels clunky to say the least. However, with some patience, we can create a fluid rotation for the spec and give it competitive ranged DPS output (note I say ranged, Harbinger variants are in a league of their own at this time). It is not the best at target switching, but its passable(ish)
Some reference of where it places with other Mage specs right now:
Pyrobinger (41 32 2): 12,700
Pyrolock (44 32): 11,200
61Pyromancer (61 10 5): 11,200
Defilemancer (40 36): 11,000
Here is a typical breakdown of 61 Pyromancer
Stats: 4440SP 1706SC 581CP, damage proc trinket
This spec may not be the absolute top DPS, but I believe it can be competitive, and I feel that after spending some time trying to perfect it, it would be a waste to not share what I have learned so far:
Note that this is a single target DPS spec. It is not intended for solo play.
2) The concept of 61 Pyromancer
The spec revolves around the timing of powerful cool-downs and buffs and rotating them in an efficient way, alongside maintaining and using Combust to fuel these cool-downs. The tricky part that most people do not realise is that timings REALLY matter for this spec, you can not just blow everything at once without any thought, as it will not result in good damage output in the long term.
3) Point spread
61Pyromancer 9Archon 6Harbinger Synergy crystal: Pyromancer
Reasoning:
This subspec gives the most damage output. 2 points are arguable - I prefer Flowing Sand and 4% movement speed as both can be very precious during raids.
4) Rotation spells
The entire spec revolves around Combust. Combust is a DoT which has a 60% chance to be applied by Fireball, 100% from Flame Bolt, or max stacks added by Prime. Combust stacks 5 times. It is a DoT (damage over time) effect. However, several Pyro abilities and talents are amplified by or consume Combust.
Combust appliers:
-Fireball is our basic filler casted spell. With the 61point armour Pyromancers Aegis, every 5 seconds Fireball will double cast. 60% chance to apply Combust Awesomesauce
-Flame Bolt is a hard hitting instant cast which applies/refreshes Combust. Fireball casts have a 30% chance to give us a Wildfire proc, which is 3 Flame Bolts to use
-Prime adds 5 Combust. Best used at the start of the fight, on target switching and to re-apply Combust after using Flame Sigil
-Withering Flame also adds Combust. However the spell isnt used for this reason
Spells boosted by Combust:
-Countdown is like a time bomb. It ticks down from 8 seconds and explodes. Upon exploding, it deals more damage with more Combust stacks. Ideally you want to have 5 stacks of Combust active whenever Countdown explodes. Dont get confused, Combust only has to be on when Countdown finishes, not when it is casted
-Fulminate: A finisher type spell. Requires and consumes 100 charge to cast, deals 25% more damage per Combust stack on the enemy. Using this spell without max Combust up is very wasteful
-Withering Flames is a channel which deals up to 5 hits (once per second). Each hit applies/refreshes Combust, however we only want to use this spell at max Combust stacks as its damage is increased by a massive 40% damage per stack of Combust. Each tick consumes 15 charge, hence you should make sure you are above 75 charge at minimum to cast. A tip: Make sure your Countdown is refreshed before casting this, to avoid downtime on your most powerful filler spell!
-Extinguish - a new spell to Storm Legion. It consumes your Combust, and gives you instant cast Fireballs equal to how many Combust were consumed. This spell is very nice, is good DPS or can be saved for movement phases. We are nearly using this spell on cool-down. Note that although it consumes all Combust, Fireballs, along with the high likelyhood of proccing Wildfire, will get your Combust back to 5 very quickly
-Fusillade - Most people struggle to fit this into a rotation. And for good reason. It consumes all of your Combust, doesnt hit harder than Fulminate, and leaves you with no Combust and making your rotation very MEH as you struggle to re-apply the lost Combust. HOWEVER, although it cant be set into a fixed rotation, it is a DPS increase to use it right as you get a Flame Bolt Wild Fire proc. The key is to get Wildfire (4 Flame Bolts to use), cast Fusillade and then immediately regain 4 stacks of Combust with Flame Bolt. It gets trickier however, never use Fusillade right before Countdown is expiring (as you dont want to consume Combust and gimp its damage)
-Flame Sigil, rather than being a direct damaging spell, is a buff. It consumes all Combust stacks, and places a stacking buff on the Mage, increasing damage by 2% per stack for 20 seconds. This means 5 Combust = 20 seconds of 10% damage. There is a trick however: Casting Heatwave to reset the cool-down of Flame Sigil allows you to double stack it and achieve 10 stacks (20% damage) during your Heatwave. Flame Sigil should always be used with Prime (to reapply the Combust it consumes)
Other rotational spells of note:
-Flame Volley is a Channeled spell, hits like a truck, make the most of it
-Inferno, available to use when enemy is below 30% hard. Instant, hits hard, prioritise it high
-Searing Vitality gives 700 health, a powerful Fire DoT. It should be worth it for DPS, but it cannot generate a free Fireball, so I tend to only use it to tighten my rotation. For example, if Countdown is about to expire in 1 second, rather than casting a Fireball, I will do Searing Vitality > Countdown to have less downtime on Countdown
-Cinderburst is a hard hitting nuke, chance to be procced instant. Use it, but dont prioritise it over Fulminate. It triggers a temporary 5 second cool-down with Fulminate once used. This change was implemented long ago as a PvP nerf to reduce burst damage in Chocolate Rift
-Pillaging Stone - Used pre-fight via trash mobs or duel to boost your Intelligence/Wisdom. Cast it once per 5 minutes in the fight t maintain the buff. Its an annoying spell, since it has to be casted 5 times for 5 stacks of the buff.
Buffs/toggles/cool-downs:
-Heatwave - halfs the cast time of Fire spells, RESETS THE COOLDOWN OF FIRE SPELLS. This means it resets Fulminate, Flame Volley, everything
-Internalise Charge is your basic charge toggle. It consumes 10 charge on toggle so you cannot spam it. It drains charge slowly. You basically use this when youre not planning to use Fulminate or Withering Flame any time soon
-1hour buffs to keep active: Pyromancers Aegis (chance to proc instant Cinderburst, Fireball generates an additional Fireball once per 5 seconds); Glyph of Power (15% more damage while stationary). Flaring Intellect (intelligence buff) does not stack with raid bard buffs, though its good for solo/smaller group play
Ok so after reading all of that Combust stuff, especially if youre new to Pyro, your head must be in a mess. Rofl, good luck.
5) Key concepts of the rotation
Im going to post some key points before posting the rotation, so that it might make some more sense.
Our cool-downs hit hard and give a lot of DPS. Heatwave resets our cool-downs. Hence we try to use most of them before using Heatwave. Simple right?
This goes for Flame Sigil too. We gain 5 Flame sigil stacks from using a normal Flame Sigil. Heatwave must always be used to overlap Flame Sigil stacks, so that when Heatwave resets Flame Sigil cool-down, we can reapply Flame sigil for double the amount of buff stacks to benefit Heatwave (Heatwave is a massive burst damage spike which we should take advantage of as much as possible)
HOWEVER, Heatwave having a 2 minute cool-down, and Flame sigil being on 30, you wont be able to simply overlap Flame Sigil with your second Heatwave unless you delay a Flame Sigil by roughly 5-10 seconds. Ive experimented with putting this delay of using Flame Sigil in different parts of the rotation and I believe it is best to just wait after the first Heatwave ends for the most fluent rotation...
One last important concept: This rotation is designed to fit in all of your big nukes into Flame Sigils without delaying any cool-down. I.e. being efficient with your buffs, cooldowns and timings to create a fluid, non-clunky rotation for optimal DPS.
^ You look as confused as her? X)
6) The opening and Heatwave rotation
Preface: This is what I have found best for me. Its probably not the most 100% perfect optimal rotation created by Jesus, but its what Ive put together from the jiggzle puzzle so far. Take it for what you will
*Note: FILLER= Countdown>Cinderburst>Inferno>Flame Bolt> Fireball (priority in that order, Flame Bolt first if Combust will drop soon)
Start on full charge by using Firestorm pre-pull. Also pre-stack Pillaging Stone stacks via duel or trash mob
[Fireball as the tank is running to the boss mob]>
Opening:
Flame Bolt > Prime > Fulminate > Flame Sigil > Countdown > Fireball/Flame Bolt/Countdown/Cinderburst proc (filler) > Flame Volley (with Internalise Charge IC) > filler until Flame sigil is on 0-1seconds remaining
> Heatwave > Flame Sigil(now at 10 stacks if done properly) > Prime > Keep Flame Bolt/Countdown Refreshed through Heatwave > Fulminate > Fusillade > filler > make sure Flame Bolt is refreshed before 1s on Heatwave
> Flame Volley(with IC) when Heatwave is on 0s > 1x instant cast(Cinder/Countdown/Flame Bolt/Searing Vitality) > Withering Flames(with IC) >
Ok so, now I want to explain why this works. We want to make use of Fulminate cool-down before resetting it. It sucks to use it on 0 Combust, and takes too long to build up Combust with a Flame Sigil (youll end up being charge starved during Heatwave and Flaring Power), hence, we start with Prime > Fulminate to make the most of Combust, and then consume the Combust to create a Flame Sigil. For the next 20 seconds of Flame sigil we simply work on building Combust back up with Fireball/Flame Bolt procs, and keep up Countdown/use Cinderburst procs/ use up Flame Volleys cool-down. Note that it is a DPS increase if you can fit in a few instant Fireballs with Extinguish during this first Flame Sigil. Though to do this requires a lot of luck from a fast Wildfire proc, so I dont list it in the main rotation.
Heatwave starts, we Flame Sigil again for double stacks, Prime to get back to 5 Combust. Fulminate comes as soon as possible. It is very, very important that you dont delay your Fulminate in this Heatwave/Flame Sigil, or you will mess up a lot of timings for both charge and cooldown timings. Fusillade is ok to use after Fulminate during Heatwave since we will regain 5 Combust stacks VERY fast while spamming Fireball. Fireball/Countdown spam (and maintaining Flame Bolt) will get us back to full charge by the end of Heatwave...
It is very important that Flame Volley is used at 1 or 0 seconds left of Heatwave. This is because the double Flame Sigil lasts 20seconds, and Heatwave lasts 15 seconds. It would be wasteful to use Flame Volley during Heatwave because it wont benefit like Fireball spam will from the half cast time during Heatwave. But we do want it to gain the benefit of two Flame Volleys. Hence we use it just as Heatwave is ending. We have 5 seconds remaining of FS remaining after HW expires, meaning thats time for a 3 second Flame Volley channel, followed by 1x instant, followed by Withering Flames.
It is important that Flame Sigil is ended (1-0 seconds) with Withering Flames, because channels take a snapshot of current buffs at the start and keep it applied for the rest of the channel. Withering Flames hits like a truck, and takes 5 seconds to channel. Hence were effectively extending our uber Flame Sigil stacks duration by another 5 seconds.
7) The mid Heatwave rotation:
(Heatwave ending, finishing channeling Withering Flames to 10-20 remaining charge) >
Refresh Countdown/Flame Bolt/Cinderburst proc >
Extinguish > Fireball x5 with IC (weave in Wildfire procs/1x instant cast minimum during all Fireballs) > IGNORE FLAME SIGIL COMING OFF COOLDOWN >
Filler to gain charge > You should reach full charge as Fulminate is coming off cool-down > Flame Sigil > Fulminate > Filler > end Flame Sigil with Withering Flames
Explanation of above follow up rotation:
There is no point saving Extinguish to use with Flame Sigil after using Fulminate. There wont really be charge to spare since we will be building it to end this Sigil with Withering Flames (Withering Flames will come off cool-down roughly 5 seconds before the end of Sigil). However there is spare charge to IC right after finishing the first Heatwave rotation to give Extinguish Fireballs 19% damage from IC rather than 10% mid Sigil hence we use it earlier.
Note with using Extinguish: Remember that Pyromancers Aegis can only proc a double Fireball once per 5 seconds. 5 instant Fireballs from Extinguish take 5 seconds and can only get one free Fireball from the instant casts. Just weave in at least one instant cast (or preferably multiple Flame Bolt procs to build up Combust faster) between them and you will get more free Fireballs from your instant Fireball casts.
The delay of using Flame Sigil until Fulminate is coming off cool-down servers a couple of functions. Firstly, it is a necessary delay in the rotation to ensure that the second Heatwave smoothly overlaps to create a double Flame Sigil. Leaving the delay later in the rotation makes it clunkier and doesnt benefit piercing your cool-downs together very well as well as leaving excess charge in awkward timings x_x
Continued:
After ending this second Withering Flames... > Filler >
Flame Sigil > Flame Volley (with IC) > Extinguish > build up Combust with Flame Bolt procs/ spend Extinguish Fireballs > use 4rd Fulminate before Flame Sigil ends > filler > Flame Sigil > Withering Flames (just coming off cool-down, Heatwave is off cool-down now) > build up charge > Heatwave once full charge > double Flame sigil and repeat rotation!
Ok so now without all of the notes inbetween: Rotation:
Flame Bolt > Prime > Fulminate > Flame Sigil > Countdown > filler > Flame Volley(IC) > filler > Heatwave > Flame Sigil > Prime > Keep Flame Bolt/Countdown refreshed > Fulminate > Fusillade > filler > Flame Bolt refreshed > Flame Volley(IC) > 1x instant cast > Withering Flames(with IC) > Refresh Countdown/Flame Bolt > Extinguish > Fireball x5 with IC (weave in Wildfire procs/1x instant cast minimum) > Filler to gain charge > Flame Sigil > Fulminate > Filler > Withering Flames > Flame Sigil > Flame Volley (with IC) > Extinguish > Extinguish Fireballs > Fulminate > filler > Flame Sigil > Withering Flames > Heatwave > repeat from Heatwave rotation
Now obviously you wont get anywhere following that, I typed it for the lols. Hence I tried to show the details which actually make the rotation understandable ^^
Remember that Infero goes into your filler priority system when the mob is below 30%. Inferno is much better DPS than Fireball.
Macros!
We got some UBER useful ones here:
#show heat wave
suppressmacrofailures
cast heat wave
cast flame sigil
cast prime
#show flame sigil
suppressmacrofailures
cast flame sigil
cast prime
Note that Prime must be on its own button, you cannot always start with Flame sigil if there arent 5 Combust there yet
9) Karuulalert screeny
http://riftrunners.eu/pages.php?s=&page=5 Karuul set codes here
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