I think you are looking too far into it. Anything that is activated on cast (MSD / Clearcasting) or by the user (Hex Trinket / IV) will take effect immediately. Anything that that is activated on spell hit (ATOI / AB debuff / Sextant) has to travel from server which is where it is activated to user. In that time a new spell can start casting without the benefit of those procs. In most cases spell damage buffs like sextant will still be seen in the numbers, because they don't get considered until the actual cast takes place. Haste, on the other hand, affects the start of the cast which will already have executed by the time the buff reaches the user.
The only possible fix I can see for this is to dynamically change cast speed depending on incoming buffs during cast. This may or may not be a welcomed change. You'd actually get your X seconds of haste, but no squeezing in extra casts at the end of the buff. A solution to AB debuff might be to simply apply the debuff on cast regardless of what happens to the spell (resist, evade, etc.), but that may bring in more problems.

I didn't put much thought into those buffs. I just clicked on Vontre's link. Before when I was importing my armory stats I always got strange results for arcane spec so I was a bit surprised to see it work ok for that stat set. I just imported my armory then without changing any buffs to see if it was fixed and that's what I linked.

From the numbers I'm looking at for 2.4 it looks like Pendant of the Violet Eye is a a good trinket. I'd put it right next to Hex and TLC. It's better for short fights, TLC winning on longer. I never had one so I'm not sure if I'm making the right assumptions. I'm assuming it can stack indefinitely, stack disappears at 20 sec, each AM tick procs it. If any of this isn't true then it's a bit less good.

For anyone that is interested I'm porting my spreadsheet model to Rawr. I'd say it's in alpha state right now, most things work, just have to add some more complex cycles and more trinket effects. You can get it at Rawr - Home. It's not in a public release yet, so you'd have to compile from source if you have Visual Studio. I guess I could upload the binaries if someone wants to do some alpha testing.

Can someone explain something to me?

I used the magegraf for the first time today, but have been using the spreadsheet for a while now. However, according to the spreadsheet, my Frostbolts (40/0/21 spec) has 1500 DPS while using [Quagmirran's Eye] and 1475 DPS while using [The Lightning Capacitor]. However, according to magegraf, my arcane/frost spec has a 1561 effective DPS using QE and 1711 effective DPS using TLC. Is the graph assuming that I would be using 2T5 when I am specced 40/0/21? Whereas the spreadsheet knows exactly which pieces of gear I am using?

It's capped at 20 stacks (420 mp5). It used to proc from every AM tick (6 total per cast), and I'm quite sure they removed that in the MSD/TLC adjustment patch.
I had it for a while, but DE'ed it when it became useless.

I only remember that trying to drink to full in Hyjal with a 15k mana bar was futile ...

In that case it's only about as good as Icon. And yes drinking with 15k mana is an art, you have to sneak every sec you drop out of combat to drink and often refresh so that you get full 30 sec of drinking while in combat.

When you drop combat, swap serpent-coil-braid, eat a max rank gem, swap back dps trinket, then drink.
Before a boss in hyjal, as soon as youre oom in the wave before the boss, invis -> go drink.

And maybe they won't let coe off anymore since it will affect their own dps ;-)

I'm not sure thats realistic. Why would a warlock go fire spec given that it has pretty much the same dps as shadow spec (minus no fire-dmg-only gear) and no raid synergy? Maybe the new lifetap changes will make them consider firespec for the better dpm, but somehow I doubt that's adviseable given that that would imply less heals/mana from the shadow priest.

The fear of that supposed ISB nerf is whats causing the all the TC

No it's not. The confirmation of 10% haste buff from talents to Incin is what's causing it. That, and fire's 5% more damage income from Misery and Scorch rather than Misery Shadow Weaving. And a further 10% from talents.

It will be extremely hard to model the DPS shift due to the odd nature of ISB. It would make sense if the shift coincides with the alleged "your ISB only affects your dmg", as then we'd see: (a) No more non-CoE raids, (b) more mage utility, (c) reduction in SP utility as Firelocks are more efficient and SP mp5/damage go down.

Notice how cunningly SP I5SR regen goes up at the same time that (possibly) their DPS (and hence VT mp5) go down. Everything falling neatly into place like so many jigsaw pieces randomly tumbling to the floor in the right order.

One thing I honestly don't get though... the majority of the game's classes have a "reduces cast time by 0.x sec" talent. It's the staple "improve spell" talent. Why in God's name is Incin getting a 10% haste buff instead of a 0.25sec time reduction? Is this force-injecting lesser utility? Because 10% haste on a 0 haste spec will be the same as 0.25s reduction but as haste from gear increases it loses value compared to a flat -0.25s does it not?

I was under the impression (assumption) that the talent would be taken into affect before any other modifiers, since that's how talents are now (iFB, whichever one, for example); in either case, unless I'm mistaken there's no difference between -10% combined with 10% haste if the haste is applied first or the -10% (both net 2.04545 cast time). It also leaves room for a little bit of scaling, if Blizz decides to bump it up to a 3-sec cast or something.

Potential spriest damage nerfs suck, we've said for ages that we'd gladly drop VT to 3-4% in order to get more raw damage output. In Sunwell gear we're capped off about 1850dps in theory, while it appears a fire mage will be a full 700dps higher >.<

EDIT: Wait, yea, I did/understood that wrong. More haste being stacked means the talent is worth less and less. A straight -25sec would have netted 2.0227sec cast, in my example.

Looks like a Lightning Capacitor glitch. Thanks for beta testing this thing everyone, by the way, I do appreciate it. =)

[e] Lightning Capacitor was incorrectly returning mana. This has been hotfixed.

Hello Vontre!

Is it possible that you add the Scryer's Bloodgem to the trinket selection in your simulator?
I'm still in need of some spell hit rating so i'm bound to using this trinket.

What it is:

• It is an optimizer. Given the stats, buffs, talents and fight information it will optimize spell selection and cooldown stacking to maximize total damage done.
• It models 5 second rule. Mana regeneration is dependent on exact timing of spell sequences.
• It balances between Mana Potions and Destruction Potions and between Mana Gems and Flame Caps. It can balance between using Evocation and dpsing.
• When you import your character from armory it will load all gear and talents. If you match the buffs from armory in Rawr then the displayed stats will match those on armory. If you find any discrepancies let me know, but keep in mind that it is a 2.4 model, so not everything will match.

What it is not:

• It is not a simulator. The results will not be 100% accurate. While most on use effects are accurately modeled, most proc effects are averaged out.
• It is not a discrete optimizer. When it has to balance for example between mana gems and flame caps it will make gradual transition, meaning that it might tell you to use half a mana gem. Use common sense when interpreting this kind of results.

How does it work:

• It is using LP (Linear Programing). It describes a number of constraints to model mana consumption and cooldown stacking. It then uses an LP solver to optimize total damage done given those constraints.

Known issues:

• Not all on use effects are modeled at the moment. If your favorite item is missing let me know and it will be added.
• Sometimes you might notice that the cooldowns are stacked in an impossible way. It is very hard to model all the relationships of cooldowns because of restraints of the LP model. If you find something that looks strange let me know and I'll do my best to try to find a fix.
• Currently it includes only fixed cycles (in respect to given stats/buffs, if for example haste changes the cycles will adapt). It does not currently include dynamic cycles that change based on passive procs such as switching to AM on clearcasting. I might add some special cases if there is demand, but probably no general framework.

Installation:

• You first need to install Rawr b11.
• If you had previous installations then you should delete ***Cache.xml files to force new xml files with new data to be generated.
• Extract Rawr.Mage.zip in your Rawr location and overwrite Rawr.Base.dll.

Rawr.Mage Download
Rawr b11 Download

Kavan: Will people need to manually import in all the gear? When I fired it up, looks like all the optional gear was still druid gear. Either way, much thanks for your work.

Edit: Nevermind, played around some more and found the Load possible upgrades from WoWhead


Edit2: Although I can not find a way to add additional gems to the program. I would like to play around with socketing some +int gems for a Deep arcane build for 2.4. And the new Haste gems for Deep fire would be fun too!

Vokzhen: SPs are not pure damage classes. There are a few clear distinctions between (let's say) hybrid damage dealers and pure damage dealers. The latter can only deal damage irrespective of spec and (technically) have (a) more damage potential and (b) an aggro wipe. While I have no intention to get into a "your class should do this" argument, I honestly believe that the bigest boon a SP brings is mp5, Shadow Weaving and Misery.

It would seem slightly too much cash on one pony if being a non-pure damage class you offer raidbuffing much in excess of a warlock's and add competitive, top-tier dps to that. However, I do agree your game mechanics are dull, unoriginal and uninspiring, as well as your scaling rather bad. You need a bit of a "rethink" more than a change, but I think you'll have to wait for 3.0 for that.

Other News: New PTR build includes the following breath-taking changes:

IV now does the haste thing and adds 100% interrupt resist for it's duration instead of 10% extra frostbite.
Imp. Blink now causes you to gain a buff for 2/4sec which reduces the chance you're hit by melee/spells by 25%. It's cost is also reduced to a shattering 224 mana. The graphic and sound effect is the same as when you channel Invis: A little swoosh and a semi-translucency.

Apparently, Life Tap will also be changed to be a fixed % of player health into mana. MMO Champ states 16% health, so napkin math would show it won't change much at all for top tier locks, unless I'm missing something fundamental. (it does gain 80% shadow doesn't it?)

Edit: Now that I saw it again, it said "converts 16% max life into 16% max mana" if this is the case, it's a monster nerf. It would mean locks in fact lose Life/Mana ratio when they spec demonic embrace. How horribly ironic.

Really nice news for some events like ROS and Gurtogg Bloodboil fel rage... Especially for 40/0/21 :o

Yea galz. It puts locks into a rather curious position where their LT will only scale with Int. Which for their gear, doesn't go up much at all. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is fantastic. Because aside of SP and Life Tap there's no other mana-regen mechanic that scales. And given mana consumption over time doesn't change for, well, anything, it does seem rather "consistent" that mana sources shouldn't scale either.

the new improved blink sounds great, but it's 21 pt arcane talent. Not sure even with the molten armor change and this, fire would be viable over frost in pvp given the snare of frost is so critical against a melee heavy pvp environment. Though certainly worth testing 33/28 PoM Pyro/scorch spamming build on PTR with the 13 sec blink 4 piece bonus and 4 secs of 25% avoidance every time your blink thru this.

The new t6 gear has stam back on it which is nice but why oh why did they add it at the cost of +hit mostly instead of the stupid spirit. I really hope by the time WoTLK comes out they either make spirit help DPS or just remove it from our gear entirely. It frustrates me to no end to basically wear items 2-5 ilevels below what they should be when compared to e.g. warlocks.

To add a gem you can do the following (or to add any item actually). Tools->Edit Items..., click on Add..., enter item id (this is the number you would see in wowhead link (for example 32204 for +10 int gem) and that's all. It gets items from armory so for things that are not live yet you would have to enter manually. Just enter the id as before, Rawr will tell you it can't find the item and will ask you if you want to create a blank item. Do that and fill in all the values.

For the future releases I'll try to include an item cache with most mage related items.

If you have a spirit priest in your raid, spirit already helps your dps

This change, in its current state is likely to result in locks meriting a shadow priest over mages in a typical 5-6 minute fight. I don't know why you would consider this a good thing.

I do find this post interesting, though, given how Master of Elements scales.