I was just wondering, mostly in regards to TBC builds, if there's a list somewhere of which talents apply post gear, and which apply before gear.
For mages for example i think Firepower is applied after +dmg gear, while i think arcane instability is applied to base spell dmg, before the gear is added.
But really not sure, seeing i am a mage i was ofc mostly wondering about the mage ones as i see all 3 41pointer as .. not so good.. builds which can get firepower and arcane instability would be possible.


So is anyone aware of a list? Or happens to know this for all mage talents?

Moonfury is currently applied before gear. You also have oddball exceptions, like darkness applying before gear for mindblast (and mindblast only). Check your local friendly wowwiki.

As always, anything that can change, will.

^ is alot more accurate.
Wowwiki though? :S

Less than what actual spells are affected in certain ways, I'd like to know the reason for the oddball exceptions. Are they for balancing reasons, or code malfunctions?

All talents that increase damage by x% should be applied after damage gear, but I'm quite certain not all of them do. Improved Drain Life and Improved Curse of Agony are two talents that spring to mind that only apply to base (and being terrible as a result), though this may be because Drain Life also heals and they only managed to get Curse of Agony to work correctly 2 patches ago.

I haven't tested this yet, but my understanding is that talents that increase damage of all spells by a % are applied after gear, but those talents which only improve the damage of a single spell are applied before spell damage gear, generally.

At least, I've seen other folks claim as much. As always, for claims of this nature, you are better off seeing for yourself. When I can log in I'll check cone of cold and report back here with what I've found. Not that that would be particularly illuminating.

Edit: Just read the description of moonfury. I suppose the distinction would have to be between all damage spells (or all from a single school) vs. a list of named spells only. Obviously I don't offer this as a justification for how things are, just as a general rule of thumb if you have to make assumptions about how something will work without being able to first test it out.

Moonfury is a commonly touted +% talent that only affects base, and I know because our balance druids always whine about it (ugh).

For mage talents specifically, it's pretty easy - all empowered spells affect +dmg base before +% modifiers, which affect both base and modified +dmg. Pretty sure Joink has it right.

the empowered ones are clear.
But for example Arcane Instability, Playing with Fire arent.

I'm fairly sure that the 6% in Frost tree specificly affects before gear. I'malso not aware of any talent on self which increases healing after gear, with the exception of Healing Way (which affects on target).

If you can find some logic for the structure I'd love to know it.

I'm pretty sure the Paladin healing talent does *not* stack with gear. Makes it a rather lame talent on anything but r9 HL.

I'm not familiar with Arcane Instability, but I'm fairly sure that both Firepower and Piercing Ice are after gear. If it were just base, I'd have, with + 545 Frost, a 545 - 589 + (545 * .814) = 988 - 1032 Frostbolts, provided max rank and a build with just Piercing Ice. Yet, if it were the total, it would be (515 to 555 + 545*.814)*1.06, which comes out to 1016 - 1058, which coincides with my observations. (And ofc, no screenshots to prove it.). Firepower is probably done along the same lines and the calculations aren't that hard to pull off.

And I think that Spiritual Healing and the likes are before gear, but I don't have the link handy at the moment.

I had a pretty good dispute going with someone at the time about whether or not it did so I checked this on the test realm when the mage patch went in and it actually does affect the +dmg you get from gear. However it's one of the rare exceptions.