Fyr'alath Legendary Axe Revisited Post-Hotfix - Assessing Its Improved Performance

Last week, we discussed the legendary axe known as Fyr'alath the Dreamrender and brought attention to several issues that were hindering its effectiveness. However, a recent hotfix has made some improvements to the legendary and its active ability, Rage of Fyr'alath. In this guide, our expert writer Mandl will delve into the impact of this hotfix and address the remaining concerns surrounding Fyr'alath the Dreamrender.

Fyr'alath the Dreamrender Legendary Axe Overview

In our previous article, we identified a number of shortcomings and potential bugs associated with Fyr'alath the Dreamrender. One key issue was that Mark of Fyr'alath, a crucial component of the legendary, lacked the ability to benefit from haste and critical strike. Thankfully, the recent hotfix has rectified this problem somewhat by allowing Mark of Fyr'alath to be hasted and have the potential for critical strikes. While this is a step in the right direction, there are still lingering issues that need addressing.

Hotfix Impact

At first glance, the hotfix appears to be a simple damage buff to Mark of Fyr'alath. However, when combined with the channeled on-use ability, Rage of Fyr'alath, complications arise. Previously, if Mark of Fyr'alath could not be reapplied during the channel, the ability's damage would be a straightforward calculation based on bonuses from haste and critical strike. Despite the positive changes, certain issues surrounding the application of the marks still persist. For instance, Frost Death Knights using Obliterate will still only apply a single mark. Nevertheless, the hotfix is a significant improvement and provides a noticeable damage increase in both single-target and AoE scenarios.

As shown in the table above, the impact of the hotfix is even more significant in AoE situations. If you'd like to compare your own simulations to the pre-hotfix state, you can use the following overrides:

• override.spell_data=spell.414532.attributes=-173
• override.spell_data=spell.414532.attributes=-265

New (and Old) Issues

While the hotfix has improved Mark of Fyr'alath, it has inadvertently increased the opportunity cost of using Rage of Fyr'alath for players who have gear with haste rating. When activated, Rage of Fyr'alath consumes all active marks to enhance its damage by up to 50%. However, the marks cannot be reapplied during the channel. This creates a problematic interaction between Mark of Fyr'alath and Rage of Fyr'alath which penalizes players with high haste ratings.

For example, a Blood Death Knight showcased this issue in a combat log where they consumed 7 marks and then spent 3 seconds channeling Rage of Fyr'alath. Previously, the channel had a fixed cost of at least two marks per target afflicted. However, with the addition of haste to Mark of Fyr'alath, the damage loss during the channel increases based on the amount of haste the player has.

To highlight this point further, let's examine the log. The Blood Death Knight had numerous haste-increasing effects such as Primal Rage, Unholy Ground, Empower Rune Weapon, Improved Bone Shield, and 4.3k haste, resulting in a total of 116% bonus haste. With Mark of Fyr'alath ticking every 1.4 seconds, the channel cost them 14 ticks of the mark's duration. Additionally, they lost 4 GCDs during the channel, as the channel itself is not affected by haste. This issue becomes even more pronounced in AoE situations, as Rage of Fyr'alath scales slower compared to other similar abilities.

Hasting Mark of Fyr'alath has introduced another problem: the more haste a player has, the greater the damage loss from channeling Rage of Fyr'alath. This is due to the consumption of marks and the delay in the mark's reapplication after the channel. As a possible solution, it would be beneficial to make Rage of Fyr'alath have a fixed 2 GCD cost by hastening its duration and tick interval. This would mitigate the negative impact of high haste ratings and allow both Mark of Fyr'alath and Rage of Fyr'alath to benefit from haste, critical strikes, and versatility.

Furthermore, it would be ideal if Rage of Fyr'alath could only consume up to 5 marks instead of consuming any number of marks, even if they don't actively increase its damage. This adjustment would help streamline the interaction between the two abilities and prevent unnecessary mark consumption.