Fyr'alath Legendary Axe Revisited Post-Hotfix - How Much Better Is It Now?
12.12.2023 - 15:21
/ wowhead.com
After our analysis of the new Legendary Axe, Fyr'alath the Dreamrender was hotfixed late last week to allow Mark of Fyr'alath to benefit from haste and critical strike. Our guide writer, Mandl, details the impact of the latest hotfix and the effect it's had on the Legendary's active, Rage of Fyr'alath as well as other remaining issues.
Fyr'alath, the Dreamrender Legendary Axe Overview
Last week, we covered Fyr'alath the Dreamrender and highlighted a number of shortfalls, potential bugs and unwanted interactions hampering its potential as a worthwhile legendary. Mark of Fyr'alath was subsequently hotfixed to be hasted, and for its damage to be able to critically strike. While this is nice, the biggest hurdle on this legendary remains, and as we will explain, this causes a likely unwanted interaction between Mark of Fyr'alath and the active on-use channel, Rage of Fyr'alath.
But first, let's cover the differences.
Hotfix Impact
The hotfix looks at first to be a very simple damage buff to Mark of Fyr'alath, and if it weren't for the channeled on-use, it would be as simple as averaging out a bonus (1+haste%)*(1+crit%) damage per target afflicted by Mark of Fyr'alath. It is a very welcome change, particularly considering the stats on the legendary (critical strike and haste). This applied effect remains passive and, unfortunately, as far as we can see, certain application-related issues remain. For Frost Death Knights, for example, Obliterate still only applies a single mark.
That said, the change is a very welcome one. To put it in perspective, on BiS simulation profiles on single target, this amounts to the following:
Specialization Before After Relative % Change Blood Death Knight 148 616 151 167 1.71% Frost Death Knight 247 025 248 849 0.74% Unholy Death Knight 238 877 240 606 0.72% Arms Warrior 242 266 244 166 0.78% Fury Warrior 246 799 248 464 0.67% Retribution Paladin 243 698 246 297 1.06%
This, obviously, has a bigger impact on AoE. If you would like to run your own simulations to compare to before, you can use the following overrides to revert Mark of Fyr'alath to its pre-hotfix state:
override.spell_data=spell.414532.attributes=-173
override.spell_data=spell.414532.attributes=-265
New (and Old) Issues
This hotfix may be all rosy just yet. Specifically, this has increased the opportunity cost of Fyr'alath the Dreamrender's on-use effect, Rage of Fyr'alath, for players wearing gear with haste rating on it.
When used, Rage of Fyr'alath consumes all Mark of Fyr'alath present on any targets to buff its damage by up to 50%, and these marks are impossible to re-apply during the channel. You can see a textbook example of this on this log, where the Blood Death Knight consumes 7 marks to then spend 3