#1 - Jan. 16, 2016, 2:39 a.m.
Level 15 - I like Pyromaniac here, it will be the go-to for single-target and may stay competitive for multi-target depending on how Ignite ends up scaling. Conflagration may be able to beat Pyromaniac on multi-target depending on how it is tweaked and how much Pyromaniac splash damage helps our AOE. Fire Starter is kind of a lame talent, and will probably become even less relevant as we gear up and are casting more Pyroblasts and fewer Fireballs.
Level 30 - Mages were probably due for a nerf to their invulnerabilities, so it makes sense that we only get to choose one survival talent instead of having both Iceblock and Cauterize/Greater Invis. I can't envision many scenarios that Shimmer will be useful, especially considering that we won't have another big survival talent anymore. I think that Shimmer either needs a lower CD or a 100% proc chance to ever feel viable, and even then I don't know how much I'd even use it. I'd love to see Temporal Shield make a return as a talent choice in place of Shimmer. It would be neat to have a smaller, shorter CD defensive to choose from in this row versus the two big long cooldown talents.
Level 45 - Happy with this row. I enjoy how the new RoP interacts with the other damage cooldowns available and I don't feel tied down to stand in one place for the entire encounter anymore.
Level 60 - Very happy with Flame On being a talent choice. I had commented to other mages that I hoped to see double inferno blast make a return because I enjoyed the game-play. I just hope I don't have to drop it for the other talent choices since I enjoy how the gameplay feels with it.
Level 75 - I'm guessing that 99% of mages will just run Ice Floes in this talent row. If you wanted to add some actual choices, Alter time or Blazing Speed might fit well in here.
Level 90 - When I was playing, i don't believe that Living Bomb was actually being spread by Inferno Blast. I hope that gets fixed since that is actually one of my favorite fire interactions, and could become quite interesting when combined with Flame On.
Level 100 - Cinderstorm doesn't feel very satisfying.
What I like: Fire feels like it may be in a much better place than the feast-or-famine that has plagued it for some time. By decoupling the reliance on Combustion that made both its single target and its aoe so strong, it can probably be scaled to do some reasonable single target without worrying that our aoe will be ludicrous. The interactions between RoP, Flame On, and Combustion retain the old feel of our burn-phase and is honestly quite enjoyable.
What I don't like: This may be a case of wanting to have my cake and eat it too, but I am concerned that fire may lose its aoe niche and ultimately fall by the wayside if arcane and frost outcompete it on single target and 2-3 target cleave. I really hope that living bomb continues to be spread by Inferno Blast, which could be especially satisfying gameplay with Flame On and could help us hang onto our aoe niche.
Although the new Combustion is fairly interesting, the old iteration was probably my favorite ability in the game. It was probably a necessary evil to change it so that fire can be more consistently viable. That said, I was thinking about the talents and I think I may have thought of a solution: could the old combustion be made into a talent choice that would replace the new one? I think it would fit very well in the level 15 row, replacing Fire Starter. It would take some careful tuning and might need to be a watered-down version of what it used to be, but I think it would be interesting to tune it to be behind Pyromaniac as a single-target talent but stronger than it for AOE. The level 15 talent row could serve as the lever that allows fire mages to switch between single target and AOE dps.
