I originally became interested in modeling these things because I found myself wondering what types of stats I should be focusing on given my current build - knowing that the more crit I had, the more additional +dmg and +hit would help my DPS, I was wondering if I had passed the threshold at the returns to these other stats would be greater than stacking more crit. According to the spreadsheet the answer is "yes", but like I said, it's a bit cumbersome to make this comparison given the current interface. Also being able to adjust the comparison based on slotmod (eg. compare 1.2 +dmg to 1 crit rating, since crit is more expensive to itemize) may be useful.

Well, more choices won't confuse us that much. :P I'd suspect that mixing in fireblasts would raise the DPS of a Scorch build by 10% or so, as well as lowering its efficiency. It'd just be nice to be able to be sure.

Yea, I imagine that there's a margin at which it's no longer useful. But trinkets can still be modeled usefully in a very simplistic manner - eg. if a trinket with a 2-minute CD gives +150 damage for 15 seconds, this averages out to 150/8 +dmg in the long run, and that conversion could be factored in to calculations. Some trinkets like the Lightning Capacitor, Mark of Defiance, etc. probably have a rather significant effect on DPS or efficiency and deserve to be factored into consideration somehow, if only in an over-simplistic manner.

Oh yea, and I should've added a 5th suggestion to my previous post: Threat per second. Should be relatively simple to include, and... seems useful?

[Edit]

Also, one other comment... the Vampiric Touch flag seems to based around a static amount of Shadow Priest DPS. It would be nice if it were adjustable, since I imagine that it's default level may be rather high compared to what I'm used to..

New version is out - v2.5. You can get it from the same place as usual (see my signature) and you can delete the mage_dps_gear.xls copy that's been floating around.

I finally got around to merging the gear selector with the main sheet and actually making it useable. Big thanks to Kalman (Laplace) for writing up all that data!

The way it outputs your stats is a little different now with the gear selector in place. There is a yellow section in the 2nd column that will show your stats, depending on whether you opt for gear selector or manual stats. There is also a big, friendly yellow option right at the option that lets you toggle between the two.

Gear selector is now the second page, instead of manual talent selector.

I'll be looking at some more of the feature suggestions in the future. Thanks for your support everyone!

Might want to add a note about the manually editing talents option.

Also, the gear selection doesn't seem to update school specific dmg, and manually setting school specific dmg adds to both the manual section's stats and the gear specified stats.

I'll let you know if I see anything else.

First off, thanks a lot for this effort in making the mage spreadsheet look more like the rogue one, I've alllllways wanted that so I could make multiple gear swaps and see the results.

Now to the feedback, first thing I noticed was the lack of items to choose from, I have like 4 items that are not in the spreadsheet, Frostfire Robe, Ring of the Eternal Flame, Neltharion's Tear and Nethekurse's Rod of Torment, I tried adding those myself manually but it didn't work out, they wouldn't show on the drop downs, nor did my leet +5 spirit enchant to boots (hardcore pver lawl), it also doesn't seem to check to see if you have the right gems to give you the socket bonus and most of the trinkets don't seem to be modeled but I'm sure you'll do that eventually. I think that's all, if I notice anything else I'll let you know.

ps: /w vont go get minti vont.. DO EET

The new spreadsheet is uploaded, you can get it now. I put in a few premade cycles like Fireballx2 Fire Blast, or Scorchx3 Fire Blast.

Now that it's possible to enter gear and with all the AB cycles available I decided to make a comparison what results I get compared with my spreadsheet. This is for a pure arcane build and I was surprised that ABx3+AM+Scorch was preferred compared to ABx3+AMx2 that my spreadsheet prefers. Now granted the difference is not that big, about 870 vs 890 dps, but it was enough to pick my interest in trying to dig down where the actual difference materializes. I'm not sure I found it, but the best explanation I can make is that the benefit of AMx2 cycle comes from higher proc rate ability when used with Shiffar's Nexus-Horn, The Lightning Capacitor and similar gear. I'll stay tuned and am looking forward to make some more comparisons when some of the proc abilities are implemented.

You do not benefit from debuff overlap if you use 2 waves of arcane missiles.

That doesn't really make sense. The overlap is such a powerful mechanic, as soon as I started modeling it every non-overlap mechanic pretty much dropped off the radar. I can't be sure how you got that result without seeing the calculation. Keep in mind my cycle builder is not just for dps, it meets mana consumption restrictions as well.

I know how it works, I've been digging through it . My spreadsheet optimizes the spell mix as a linear program. So it's similar in that you specify all parameters of the fight like duration, resistances and so on. Except I don't match mps with going oom manualy, but just let the LP solve the problem for me. But that aside in my calculations the ABx3+AMx2 vs ABx3+AM+Scorch I get the first one dominating the other in both dps in dpm, comparing in a similar way to how you've done your cycle builder.

Actually now that I've done some more tests it seems that the more important factor is different miss rate between arcane and fire. I've disabled the trinkets and still get AMx2 ahead, but AM+Scorch is ahead if I don't have resists. This makes me wonder since you model this part as to where the discrepancy is. I'll try to figure out what's going on and let you know what I find.

I found one minor bug. In gear sheet for Int you multiply with gnome racial in C91 and then again in Calculations!G19. Also when I have two pieces of T4 equipped it enables a bunch of set bonuses in the bottom. This is not the real problem though so I'll keep looking...

EDIT: It turns out it was a bug on my side. I had a mistake somewhere in the AM+Scorch cycle and after fixing it I get the same results, about 20 dps difference in favor of AM+Scorch. I'll have to try it out in practice.

New update 2.5.3. I fixed a few things. Arctic Winds talent option wasn't working correctly from manual select. Also forced master of elements and clearcasting to account that the spell must hit the target in order to proc. This slightly increases the mana conservation from hit gear. I made a few other various fixes I don't remember.

Oh and, I also removed the "glancing" type resist penalty for frostbolt due to discussion in the mage theorycraft thread. This increases frost dps by about 6%.