I was a tamer and fire spec, but in this case, to optimize the tamer spec, you need to be wearing the tamer gear, which really nerfs my fire, or doesn't allow its full potential anyhow. It would be the same if I used my fire gear, it would not use my tamed pet to full potential. I am looking at a different spec to support my fire spec. Currently I am trying life, but not sure I like it that much, simply being that in many cases, it is easier for me to just chug a bottle. I haven't decided against life as the second spec completely yet but leaning that way. I am considering Sun for the damage bonus it can give my fire, plus it contains some mor spells that align pretty well with my fire build. It won't be as powerful as my fire, due to my gear is all in on fire, but it would directly support my fire spec more than life would. Also considering Air as my second, because of the stun aspect. Issue here is that it can be resisted, and it's best suited for high dex, where my fire is best suited for high int. Just looking for opinions from other mages that use some of these combos.
I think I have settled on Sun as the supporting spec, I am liking the extra spell damage, and spells that aline with my build, that I get from it.
I found light armor spec to be the most useful for fire (but only if you stack your glyphs manually). The bonus to dodge makes you nearly unhittable in most cases. And the draw speed bonus you get from Flurry makes it possible to stack your skills extremely fast. It makes fireball very deadly. Sun is decent, but the crit bonus you get is kind of wasted on fire, because you are focusing on damage over time and crits do not apply to that damage.
I didn't realize flurry helped with draw speed, I thought it was purely related to attack speed. Good info there. I didn't realize that Crit didn't work on dots, I had thought I had seen some crit damage pop up on my dots. I actually have considered light armor spec, for the defense, since I need to try and get mobs to be near my immolation and fire rings so often.
Crits can occur with the initial hit of a skill that applies a damage-over-time (DOT) effect, but the subsequent damage from the DOT effect does not produce crits. For example, if I use rend, the initial strike can crit, but subsequent damage from the bleed effect will not crit. If you use a program to show damage stats (such as OCX tools), you will see that skills that apply a DOT will often have some crits (but the crit rate is low because the few crits that occur on the initial strike are far outpaced by the many DOT damage ticks that cannot crit).
The dodge is not as good as he says it is. You will still get hit most the time, even if you focused your build around a ton of dodge...
Flurry only gives that boost when you have the spec. Otherwise it is just attack speed. Buffed up defensive stance with charged dodge can be very effective. The big bonus lasts quite a while and can help when you want to be up close for immolation. But i always found the draw speed increase to stack fireball faster was the real reason I used it. Fireball can be devastating on targets with a lot of HP.
Dodge is actually awesome. If you dodge then you take zero damage. On top of that, you can dodge most magic that is not AOE. [edit] If you dodge then you also avoid secondary effects like burning, bleeding, stun, etc.
Yep. When i tested ignite weapon, it only seems to crit on the initial fire damage of the DOT. So, it seems that not only does the attack that applied the DOT have a chance to crit, but also the first damage tick of a DOT may also have a chance to crit (but, the crits all still seem to be related to the initial aspect of the attack). As far as i can tell, the rest of the DOT damage can't be a crit. I have not tested all the DOT skills, and shroud has lots of inconsistencies...but so far, this has been my experience.
