While I usually do have those, the real reason I included them was to give the sextant the advantage and still show that it loses.

I wanted to post this earlier but forums weren't responding for me for some reason:

serpent coil: 225X15/120=28.125 damage but in very long fights you'll go out of gems, which is when you really need the extra mana from it it loses damage in return which sucks. When mana isn't an issue, it prevents use of healthstones and flame caps. In short fight ignoring the fact you could use stuff instead of mana gems, it gives 12X1.32=15.84 damage from hit, 21.9 damage from the 30 crit so adds up to average 65.865 damage in best case scenario for it with a bit of added mana which isn't even needed in the best case scenario for this trinket. It's far from a bad trinket though, but with icon of the silver cresent and quag's eye I wouldn't bother.

I don't understand how it's the fault of the Serpent Coil that Flame Caps and Health Stones share a cooldown with Mana Gems. Presumably you are using these gems with or without the Serpent-Coil, so the only thing that matters is how it ties into the damage bonus.

There are definitely disadvantages to the Serpent Coil compared with Icon of the Silver Crescent. You can use Icon pretty much right away, possibly giving you an extra use of it during the fight even if gems don't run out. Additionally, as you pointed out, gems can run out on long fights and then the Serpent Coil won't trigger anymore.

Quag's Eye, OTOH, is now only 15% haste down from 30%. The short buff duration combined with the internal cooldown makes Quag's less than appealing to me. I've had one for a while and I think Crusade and Icon are both better.

In either case, though, the Serpent Coil is going to give you about 800 mana on fights where all 4 gems are used. The main appeal of that to me is possibly using one less charge on my Mana Potion Injector. Additionally I'm not at the hit cap yet so being able to get hit from a very viable trinket is also appealing.

yes, 24 for fireball (terrible) and 50dps on scorch (terrific).

I've already taken the nerfed haste and internal cooldown on quag into account if you look through my calculations.
And the sharing cooldown is an issue when you wouldn't have been using mana gems if you didn't equip the trinket - which on many fights I find myself not using. Of course more fights than not it will get the FULL effect I listed (aka use gem every 2 mins) but it will still not be better than the icon+quag.
I already took the hit into account on the serpent coil - converted into spell damage using my character sheet. If you have different values of damage:hit conversions feel free to recalculate with them, but I can tell for sure that you won't get results that are different enough to make or break the trinket.

The lightning capacitator: Average 105.45 damage per fireball with 37% fire crit and 28% all spell crit (it can crit for 1.5x damage based on your crit afaik). So the DPS is 150.45/3. With my ~1250 theoretical DPS on my spreadsheet it's a 2.81% DPS increase - and to get the same increase via spell damage I require 20.5X2.81=57.6 spell damage. So for fireballs that trinket is 57.6 spell damage equivalent. For scorches it's slightly more than double (with same crit chances), so makes it a very good trinket for a scorcher, however with OR without the trinket, scorch spamming isn't a very good DPS strat... If you're scorch spamming this is THE trinket for you, however it will not make scorch spamming be worth using if it isn't worth using without - at least not with my gear and spec nor if I would spec 33/28 fire dps with my current gear (and I wouldn't swap dmg for crit with that either because I would still get 1 crit rating being slightly under 1 spell damage). For frostbolts (and missiles/AB if you actually use those...) you'll have to do your own math but I've already showed how. However as you can see to figure that trinket out you HAVE to know crit chance, non-fire crit chance, cast time, DPS without the trinket and how much of other stats you would need to get the same DPS benefit as the trinket gives you.

For me it looked like it benefited from +crit, but not from +hit.

These would be multiplicative, btw, not additive. Fire Powered nukes on a CoE+Fire Vuln target do 42.945% more damage than normal, not 38% more.

Well, I can only say that's the most common mistake made on these boards. 1 more +hit is simply NOT worth more than 1 more +crit for a firemage with normal equipment. I believe the mistake may be in calculating from a "naked" mage - If you have 0 crit rating and 0 hit rating, 1 hit MAY be worth more. As for the "item budgeting" argument, I've always failed to see the relevancy. You simply have to evaluate each item as they come, and compare to what you have. It's not like we can build our own full equipment set from blank... But as I say, those calculations are entirely dependent on DrDamage being correct. Which I personally do not really doubt.

ebbv: your note about TLC's crits being 150% are of course totally correct, my mistake. As for my math being "unnecessarily complicated", that's because I need to break down each trinket to stats for my spreadsheet, I can't operate on a flat +DPS. I'd like to add that I personally do not see the calcs as very complicated, but it's very hard to present them clearly on this forum.

I think the confusion arises from the fact that

+1% crit > +1% hit

+1 hit rating > +1 crit rating

This is because 1 hit rating is worth 0.08% hit whereas 1 crit rating is only 0.045% crit.

That may be where people get mixed up. Just a guess.

1% hit is very close to 1% crit, the better one kinda depends on your gear. However 1 hit rating is way better than 1 crit rating and even better than 1 spell damage, but once you equip the eye of magtheridon the value of your +hit drops a bit below that of 1 spell damage as while it increases DPS it also loses some of that DPS back in the form of procs lost. But not enough for you to ditch everything with hit and get spell damage instead.
Also I was never calculating a naked mage. The opposite, everything I do is based on my current stats, so the closer you are to my stats, the closer your ratios between different stats would be to my ratios of 1 hit = 1.33 spell damage and 1 crit = 0.73 spell damage. This is rating, not %. The value of 1% is almost completely irrelevent, and anyway you can convert the % to rating and then the rating to spell damage if it really inetersts you (for example, for checking value of the shaman totem of 3% crit 3% hit, you get the crit rating and hit rating you would've gotten and convert it to spell damage so you can compare it with other stuff if it interests you).

Just to preface - I'm currently running with a Deep Frost Spec (10/0/51 for that fight) with 22% crit base. So the numbers are based on 37% with WC stacked and the 5% from empowered frostbolt (which coincidentally is the crit percentage shown on the parse)

On the parse from our last Void Reaver I show the Capacitor as doing 11970 damage over the fight. I did 296,203 damage with frostbolts, 77 hits and 45 crits. The Capacitor fired 14 times and averaged 865 damage. There were 11 hits at an average of 763 and 3 crits with an average of 1191. It "missed" 8.1%, which corresponds pretty well to my hit % without EleP.

For comparison the Icon (if calculated out as if it was a constant 69 damage) would have added 10373 damage to the 122 frostbolts cast. If CoE had been on Void Reaver it would have added 11410-11721 damage depending on if it was talented or not (it wasn't up so doesn't apply on that fight anyway). So the Capacitor narrowly beats out the Icon under those circumstances for a deep frost spec.

I may try to put even more hit gear on (I think I have a couple of blue pieces in my bank with more hit) and see if the resist rate changes in response. It is worth pointing out that on that fight my elemental had a 17% resist rate over 35 waterbolt casts, while the capacitor's miss rate was substantially less then that, although it was over a much smaller sample.

Curse of Elements really should be up. But that aside, don't forget the Icon would have increased your Elemental's damage as well.

I tend to use my Mana Agate after ramping up Improved Scorch and activating Combustion just like one would to with another "clicky"-trinket like the Icon.
You should also note that you can conjure and consume additional gems during a fight without losing (much) mana. Only your DPS will lack for those couple of seconds.

I used to run trashmobs with Braid and always re-conjuring some lower gems like Agate or Citrine to consume them right after some casts. Though your postings about the Capacitor make sense - I think I'll give it shot again with some Scorch/Fire Blast-spam on trashmobs. Never really considered it after the damage-nerf...

How do the numbers for Neltharion's Tear look for you guys? Since I'm still struggling a bit to reach the hit-cap (~12,5% from gear right now) I'm still using it on bosses. Never really bothered using anything else as long as my +hit is not at 16%, putting Quag's, Icon, Scryer's, Capacitor etc. into my bags. Not reasonable at all?

Hit Rating 112
Spell Dmg 1007
Crit 24.30 With fire.

10/48/3

This is my boss gearset, I need to work up my hit. I have Icon and Quag. Im guessing Scryers bloodgem is needed, since I dont have nefs tear, so should It replace Quag or Icon?

Your hit rating isn't that bad i think. If you factor in elemental precision and totem of wrath you are almost maxed out already. The "new" veiled noble topaz gems could be an alternative too.

Assume 30% crit, 98% hit (i.e. 2% miss chance), 5/5 Ignite, and a 2-roll system.
Let's assume 3k Fireball hits (this number is actually irrelevant), those will crit for 4.5k + 40%*4.5k (=1.8k) = 6.3k with Ignite.

30% crit, 2% miss => Of all casts, 2% are misses, 29.4% crits (30% of the 98% hits), 68.6% hits (the other 70% of the 98% hits).
Average damage: 0 + 1852.2 + 2058 = 3910.2

Add 1% crit (~22.4 crit rating)
31% crit, 2% miss => Of all casts, 2% are misses, 30.38% crits, 67.62% hits
Average damage: 0 + 1913.94 + 2028.6 = 3942.54, 1.54 damage per rating

Add 1% hit (~12.6 crit rating)
30% crit, 1% miss => Of all casts, 1% are misses, 29.7% crits, 69.3% hits
Average damage: 0 + 1871.1 + 2079 = 3950.1, 3.16 damage per rating

So, 1% hit adds more damage than 1% crit, and adds more than twice as much damage per rating point.

The spell hit is about useless if you don't face level 73 mobs, but it's huge against bosses that tend to matter more.
This is coming from a person who changes spell hit in an out depending on fights.

You lose a fireball cast (3-4k damage) to conjure the gem to gain a 225 spell power buff (~135 DPS) for 15 seconds.
No, just no.

Serpent Coil Braid is a very strong trinket if you get the damage buff every cooldown AND make full use of the extra mana you gain AND fight only level 73 mobs to make use of the hit.
That means the fight mustn't be too long (before you run out of gems), mustn't be too short (otherwise you wouldn't have needed the extra mana), and must be an intense immobile burn fght (otherwise you wouldn't need those absurd amounts of mana).

Damage wise, it's Neltharion's Tear with about another 5 damage and 15 mp5 built in, assuming that you pop gems every cooldown. Mind you, I found myself using mana gems not every cooldown, to keep the cooldown free for healthstones.

A great Patchwerk trinket, and I'm sure you can make it work nicely in many BC encounters. I'm not too fond of it, but preferences should differ, shouldn't they

Against at least 66% of the mobs I face I have maxed out hit chance. So I am compelled to reduce my base +hit rating value to 33% in my calculations. I'm not looking for boss-only equipment, I'm looking for something that works great overall for soloing, 5mans, 10man and 25man. Myself I'll freely admit I've never been in a 25man, so hey, maybe I'm just a noob

I am wondering a lot about the critical multiplier you are using in your examples, it appears to be 233% (~225% in your second example?). 5/5 ignite should give 190% crits, am I missing/misunderstanding something?

Other than that your math seems solid and I'm getting the same result for DPS. I will certainly take another pass over my calculations in light of this.

However, as I have stated several times already, my numbers are based on the DrDamage addon (which may or may not be in error), and my "valuing" of a stat is not based on pure DPS. I'm taking into account DPS, DPM, and total damage over full mana pool adjusted for assumed fight length, as they are computed with DrDamage. Hence, as it currently stands, I believe the greater value of +1% crit over +1% hit I see with that addon may be due to the Master of Elements talent.


Lastly but far from least important, I resent comments like "How is 2 not > 1 in your opinion?", which seems to me obviously derogatory. I am a "truthseeker" like hopefully everyone else here, and I'm happy to admit that I may be wrong and re-evaluate my ideas. I am NOT trying to prove I am better than anyone - I had hoped for better on these boards. If I have offended anyone, I am sorry. The OP did ask for "personal preferences".

Okay then, that's why I questioned it. Instead of saying that there's some common mistake you should specifically state, in the future, that you value +hit as a non-raider, as that would be much clearer, because to a raider you are the one making a mistake.

For a raider, they're not going to care about their damage on trash at all, and the only thing that reduces the value of +hit is fights with adds, which are certainly nowhere near 66% of your damage dealt. (plus you can change your gear for such fights if you really want to optimize them, ofc)

Of course the value of the relative %s mean nothing in a vacuum, because you have to give up significantly more other stats to get 1% crit than 1% hit, which is why the cost of the stat matters.

Although this thread is derailing quite a bit, I think these are very interesting points... I do consider myself a raider, seeing as I do Karazhan four times a week, and that's really the most important bit of the game for me. I am certainly among the most "PVE hardcore" in my guild. Still, I am miles from any kind of raiding elite!

However, I do question if having everyone in the raid stacking +hit to the hit cap really is beneficial for the raid in total? Not caring about damage on trash at all seems absurd to me... In a normal raid day at least we spend a lot of time clearing trash, and surely doing this faster must have a good benefit?

All in all though I will indeed review my hit rating value. Something like 80% (rather than 30%) may be more appropriate. Seems I haven't been hardcore enough Thanks for the enlightenment.

Ideally, you'd need two set of gears. Another with ~165 hitrate, and another with ~40, but quite a bit higher +dmg and +crit. The by mixing these, you can find the optimal gear for any situation. If you have elemental shaman in your group with ToW, you can go with ~120 hit rating and be maxed etc.

If you clear trash, you'll equip your trash gear with lower hitrate and for bosses that don't have adds you'll go for hit-gear. For add-bosses, the most optimal gear is hard to calculate and depends. For instance against Curator I max my hit regardless, while it's cool to get a ~12k crit with trinkets up, it's also very much uncool to get 2x full resist in a row. I rather take sure 3x 5k hits and a fireblast on top of that and a tiny little bit lower dps to adds.

For your case, I'd probably just go to Scryer vendor and get the Bloodgem. I'm usually equipping Bloodgem + Icon if I don't have elemental Shaman in my group, but I don't have Quags eye. (Curse you slave pens and Quagmirran!)

It seems like you're using 2-roll table with hit/lvl-based-resist on first roll and crit/resistance-based-resist on second roll. However, the "official" combat mechanics 3.0 thread states "The spell hit roll determines whether you hit, miss, or crit. The miss chance and crit chances computed below are measured out of the total number of casts, and to not overlap. The remaining probability defines the ordinary "hits.". Which one is correct?

And while I'm being off-topic; is it possible to get partial resist on a target with 0 resistance?

Yes, if said target is higher level than you. To a boss you will always lose around 5% dps due to partial resist that cannot be overcome with spell penetration/curses.