Master of Flame or Spellstorm Mage?

vheraun · December 2013

Being a Wizard newb, I only now started a spellcaster character. I ask you now, which Paragon path do you think is better? Pros-cons?

shadow5930 · December 2013

Slight delay in responding, hope it helps:

Initially, I recommend going with spellstorm. Eye of the Storm is an amazing tool. That and storm spell will make leveling from when you get them to 60 a breeze. It's lots of crits and also helps you learn how to look for procs and time them.

Once you do have some time at 60 doing whatever your preference is doing, then I'd advise switching to the test server and try out Master of Flame. You don't have the easy street crit-fest that is EotS. However you do have a constant, heavy pressure that quickly makes things dead from the scorch and rimfire. My personal use is with Oppressor, which stacks chill on just about everything. Any crit with that, means it burns them AND chills them, switching to rimfire. If you keep them chilled, it keeps them burning. Anyone who has played a dot spec anything in other MMOs (coughwowcough) will know that DoTs ramp and kill pretty quick. It also adds very well to the boss. Especially if they do the add fest. Use scorching pillar to cause initial burn, fan the flames onto the boss, watch them burn all the more, for every add that has burn in range. Win win there, in general.

So.. TL;DR - Storm to start, MoF after some practice at 60.

hiddenfate · December 2013

I prefer spellstorm because I like having lots of crits and the abilities of the master of flame really disappointed me (the encounter is quite weak when compared to sudden storm). Now if master of flame gave you fireball on At Will and Delayed Fireball Blast on encounter...that'd be a completely different story

shadow5930 · December 2013

Fanning the flames looks just like what fireball would be. It's a sudden burst that effects everyone within it's range. I thought the devs did a good job on grabbing the essance of that.

Why would I want a delayed blast? I realize thinking 4e type, it does more dice. However, it'd be a 2 button push to set off and when time is everything, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, to put in game.... now Wall of Fire would be nice.

slushpsycho · December 2013

Spellstrom. Almost everything from Flame Path receive no benefit from armor pen atm, so yeah you lose 20% overall DPS, go figure...

shadow5930 · December 2013

CW has not had armor pen working for so long that most won't notice the difference. Plus, all the ice spells that armor pen DOES work on are still usable by the MoF. So I would like to politely disagree and stand by my original statement. Spellstorm until use to mage, then test out MoF.

hiddenfate · December 2013

shadow5930 wrote: »

Fanning the flames looks just like what fireball would be. It's a sudden burst that effects everyone within it's range. I thought the devs did a good job on grabbing the essance of that.

Why would I want a delayed blast? I realize thinking 4e type, it does more dice. However, it'd be a 2 button push to set off and when time is everything, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, to put in game.... now Wall of Fire would be nice.

Fanning the flame doesn't really work in a large radius, it's strong against single target but frankly I don't see flame as a controlled sniping power. Delayed fireball blast doesn't have to be a two key combo, remember that it explodes when the enemy walks into it or on hit (player choice). So At Will would be a weaker fireball which explodes on impact and the encounter would be either a trap or a bigger, stronger fireball.

kidbs · December 2013

shadow5930 wrote: »

CW has not had armor pen working for so long that most won't notice the difference. Plus, all the ice spells that armor pen DOES work on are still usable by the MoF. So I would like to politely disagree and stand by my original statement. Spellstorm until use to mage, then test out MoF.

It's not worth losing EoTS and Sudden Storm. A spellstorm Mage will wipe out all the trash while you are still waiting for your smolder to tick.

shadow5930 · December 2013

Let's be frank. Any mage will wipe out the trash before much of anything would tick from any skill.

SS has a cool down. Smoulder is indefinite once it's turned into rimfire. Rimfire takes chill and I always do chill. So while SS is a nice damage boost, being able to constantly dot the boss is priceless.

I've also acknowledged that EoTS is a wonderful tool. The clutch crit is a sweet thing, especially if you use skills that cause higher proc rates. That is in part the reason why I say to go with spellstorm to start with. To get the feel for how that works. Those with better gear and more time than I have proven that the damage output between SM and MoF are on the same level. So anecotical evidence is just that.

@hiddenfate - Fireball is a 20' radius. FF I believe is 30'. At work so forgive me if inaccurate. On top of that, it adds the burn and makes the target burn harder for all those clumped up. It's a massive spike damage if any AoE thing that's been used has started the burn. As for the walking into it.. it creates a marble sized sphere that flies to the point and stays there. So if it is stepped on? I don't really see something walking into that. Again, I could be wrong. My concept is 3.5e, not 4e.

hiddenfate · December 2013

In this game Fanning the Flame is single target unless you use it with spell mastery. It's a very powerful single target spell which feeds off large numbers of enemies (with smolder applied on them) but single target nonetheless :P So even with a range of 20' fireball would be bigger.

shadow5930 · December 2013

Ahh, so in mastery it IS a fireball. It's just as non-mastery it's a single target sniping ability with fire?

Yeah, FtF is a burn the boss down type of move. In PVP when people cluster, you pop one scorch pillar, then target the DC/CW/HR and make em burn.

I'm going to have to switch Icy terrain out on tab with FtF just as I want to experiment with the burnafication.

daswooly · December 2013

I can say this, I tried experimenting with master of flame with two good spellstorm mages and didn't get a chance to do anything.

joeydope · January 2014

shadow5930 wrote: »

Ahh, so in mastery it IS a fireball. It's just as non-mastery it's a single target sniping ability with fire?

Yeah, FtF is a burn the boss down type of move. In PVP when people cluster, you pop one scorch pillar, then target the DC/CW/HR and make em burn.

I'm going to have to switch Icy terrain out on tab with FtF just as I want to experiment with the burnafication.

all im saying is hit em with ur black hole daily, while being pulled hit a few chill moves onto em then right as they get sucked into the black hole together hit em with spell mastery fanning flame. daily causes smolder on all hit by it, then fanning hits them all again, and any with chill get refreshed and hit more, and just saying whatever target u initialy hit with ur ftf will be dead from all the smoulder around him ticking him more. dosnt hurt to use ur at will fire hit too righty after ftf while there still clusterd, hit em all wit smoulder again

tick tock dead

Master of Flame or Spellstorm Mage?

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