My guild actually just got a Nightfall for our off-tank, but we've yet to test it out on teron to see what kind of difference it would make.

As far as what professions are the top for sunwell now...read my post here http://elitistjerks.com/667022-post1000.html I didn't include JC in my comparison as I feel the new haste/dmg/hit neck is better for 2/48/11+1 at least.

On the issues of choosing professions now that the crafted items are profession locked

Sunfire 2 peice is coming out as 18.24 dps over Transmutated item alternatives (Gloves of Tyri's Power, Robes of Ghostly Hatred) due to large wasted points on spirit, but 48.51 dps over tempest alternatives.

Pendant of Sunfire is a 4.98 dps LOSS over amulet of unfettered magics, but a 9.79 dps gain over translucent spellthread necklace, the ring is 2 dps over ZA 3rd chest ring and a DPS loss over exalted hyjal (due to proc)

Leatherworking is a neutral dps change for yourself, but ~75 dps total for the other 4 people in the group. Notice this is at a 1.5 second global cooldown, and doesn't consider popping drums right before cooldowns to amplify the effect.

Enchanting is a flat 20 dps increase.

Conclusion
If you...
-Only clear sunwell trash and dont have tempest: Tailoring*/Leatherworking
-Are progressing deep through sunwell and dont have access to transmutated items: Tailoring*/Leatherworking
-Are progressing deep through sunwell and have access to trans items: Tailoring* OR Enchanting/Leatherworking

Footnote:
* - DOES NOT TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE DPS LOSS OF HAVING TO WEAR ADDITIONAL POORER PEICES OF t6 FOR 4 PEICE, OR UNDISCOVERED PEICES IN THEIR RESPECTIVE SLOTS THAT COULD BE BETTER

I will not consider keeping enchanting as the rings enchant will not be lost even after dropping enchanting, if I remember correctly. Hence enchanting is a 0 dps increase.

Only problem with dropping enchanting for rings is spending 3000-4000 gold respeccing enchanting and back if a better ring drops, which with half the instances's loot still being undiscovered may happen

This has to be inaccurate for several reasons.
25crit
35haste
36dmg

vs

15hit
32haste
39dmg

Hit rating is everywhere and I feel the JC allows you to utilize your sockets better as well. For those calculations I assumed 10haste gem and 2dmg bonus, but you could hit gem if needed.

The gloves and ring were not bound to professions either from what I understand. Also the Hyjal ring was nerfed in its proc duration on PTR.

As far as T6, ideally you would use the t6 gloves + new items.

Doing gear comparisons with Rawr, and just looking at the over all stats, Pendant of Sunfire is better when you're still using a hit mh or oh combo set, but once you're to KJ, and replaced all that hit stuff, then Amulet of Unfretttered Magics is better.

Don't forget the BoP jewelcrafting only gems

Okay, no, this doesn't seem right. The Exalted Hyjal ring doesn't even beat Ring of Ancient Knowledge across most timeframes. How are you modeling the proc? Keep in mind that in 2.4, chances are that it will retain its 60 second internal cooldown against only a 10 second proc duration, and you can't use the same formula that you use for a clickable trinket.

Assuming you don't gem hit on the necklace, we're comparing 25 crit to 15 hit. 25 crit is about 20 damage worth. 20 spell damage worth of spinels is equal to 16.7 hit in lionseye, so you would still be better off sacrificing the 20 spell damage worth in gems for a better net hit gain.

There's a lot of red / yellow sockets on the new gear so I'm quite confident everyone will be able to socket more hit if needed.

Although viewing the necks from a raw stat equivalency viewpoint you would conclude the magic's neck better - in fact looking at an overall gear setup I think the JC neck is better.

At low haste T6 level, RoAK beats BotES by 5 DPS. At high haste sunwell gear, BotES beats RoAK by 1 DPS.

[Design: Don Julio's Heart] is a flat +2 damage, [Bloodthirsty Amberjewel Band] is worse than [Design: Reckless Pyrestone] for yellow slots, [Item not found!] is not in the game according to databases.

[Design: Pendant of Sunfire] is a +14.8 DPS to +15.52 DPS increase over amulet of unfettered magics, in the case you have +0% hit, +3% hit or +4% from party auras (Draenei Racial, Totem of Wrath). It's a +12.43 DPS increase if you have a +1% hit party aura (i.e. a Draenei, but no ToW).
You get another +2.24 DPS from the unique +14 damage gem.

Changing your necklace will require you to change up to 3 more pieces of your gear and regem them to go from one opimised setup to another.

This is assuming a setup with T6 Cowl, (Bracers), Belt, Boots, Skull and head enchant for 81 base hit rating, using Hellfire-Encased Pendant
Amulet of Unfettered Magics is -1.9 DPS, +15 hit, Loop of Forged Power is -3.4 DPS, +19 hit, Mana Attuned Band is -8.02 DPS, +18 hit, Chronicle of Dark Secrets is -12.2 DPS, +17 hit, Illidari Cowl + T6 Gloves is -22.12 DPS, +28 hit, changing a Reckless into a Veiled Pyrestone is -5.48 DPS, +5 hit.

Being 1 hit under the cap is -2.04 DPS. It's worth regemming if you're 3 or 4 hit rating below the cap, but not if you're 1 or 2 hit rating below the cap (after recovering all multiples of 5 via gems). Usually, if you're 2 hit rating below the cap, there is another gear setup that yields more damage.

With those numbers taken from Rawr, you can optimise your gear for different hit requirements, with and without the Sunfire Pendant.


Jewelcrafting
[Design: Pendant of Sunfire] is a +24.55 DPS upgrade over [Hellfire-Encased Pendant]. It is around +15.** DPS upgrade over [Amulet of Unfettered Magics].
[Design: Don Julio's Heart] provides another +2.24 DPS, but you can continue to use that after dropping jewelcarafting.

Tailoring
[Pattern: Sunfire Robe] is a +25.91 DPS upgrade over [Robes of Ghostly Hatred].
It is a +49.35 DPS upgrade over [Robes of the Tempest], if you adjust to 4T6 and hit cap again.

Enchanting
Enchanting provides +26.83 DPS via ring enchants.


Conclusion if you maximise everything

1) Get Jewelcrafting, make a couple of +14 damage gems, then drop it. This ensures that you always have one +14 damage gem socketed somewhere.
2) Get Enchanting. Acquire a Loop of forged Power as soon as you can. You need to convince someone to give you 5 Sunmotes to craft it. The pattern itself is a trash drop, so some guild should get a pattern within a few days.
Enchant the ring, then drop Enchanting.
3) Get Leatherworking to make and use Drums of Battle.
4) Get Tailoring to make and wear a Sunfire Robe. Curse the if it the pattern won't drop and no other guild sells it either.


Gemming grants you +5 hit at the cost of -6 damage or -5 haste (you lose less by dropping haste for hit).
Changing items grants you +hit at a much much lower cost than gemming for it.

Loop of Forged Power is +19 hit for -3 damage, , Mana Attuned Band is +18 hit for -7.2 damge, Chronicle of Dark Secrets is +17 hit for -11 damage, Illidari Cowl + T6 Gloves is +28 hit for -20 damage.
Those are far better ways to gain +hit than gemming for it.

Even though there is less +hit on gear now, gemming for it is generally not advised.
You may need to gem if you're 3-10 hit away from the cap and swapping gear would overcap you, but you won't gem larger amounts of +hit unless you miss several pieces of spell hit gear from T6 instances.





All the data comes from Rawr for a 360s fight.
All number will change as you swap gear, so it won't always be 100% correct.

I wanted to run this calculation by you guys. The problem I was solving was 'what haste rating would exactly fit 3frostbolts into the AB debuff cooldown of 8s. The equation I was using was

A*(1-C1/C2)= H, where A is a constant (1500ish), C1 is hasted cast time, C2 is unhasted cast time, and H is the haste rating.

The problem seems to come down to C2 =3x2.5+1.5s= 9s, C1=8s (the AB debuff), so C1/C2 goes to 8/9 which was about 175 haste rating.

My question was this- do you use 2.5s or 3.0s with frostbolt in the equation? IE does imp frostbolt lower the base cast time in the haste equation? Did I do this part wrong?

Also has anyone else thought of using haste rating to engineer a tighter rotation, much as hunters use bow speed to achieve a tighter shot rotation? Is this more effective than just going for +dmg?

The way I see it is if you optimize your frostbolt casting speed, you spend more time ABing, and less time Frostbolting for higher DPS. As you run off of optimal cycles, you will not AB as much since the debuff falls off.

That's assuming there aren't any better rings off of the last 2 bosses who's loot is yet to be discovered. If there is a ring off of one of these bosses, it could be quite a while before you could drop enchanting to do this since they haven't disclosed how long it will take the gates to automatically open.

In 2.3, exalted ring is 15s duration 45s internal cooldown.
In 2.4, exalted ring is 10s duration 45s internal cooldown.

In other words, [Design: Loop of Forged Power][Mana Attuned Band] seems like the best combo, with [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] swap-in if youre hit capped. And possibly use the exalted ring solely for trash (ie: a series of short dps times (< 30 seconds) with time off so you can dodge the cooldown.

You need to be using a different formula: H = A*(C2/C1 - 1).

The original casting time is the talented casting time, 2.5 seconds.

I was talking about the neck tradeoff only, so I think you missed the point entirely. In the case of the neck - gemming for hit is better.

On the neck to gain 15 hit you are sacrificing 20 dmg
In gems you would gain 16.7 hit for the same 20 dmg sacrifice. I could also describe it as gaining 15 hit at the cost of only 18 damage.

Using Lepew's constant and Muphrid's formula with a base cast of 2.5s, I get 187.5 as my haste result. Right?

Now the question is if 188 haste rating is worth gearing for pre-Sunwell, given the kinda craptacular way haste is itemized at the moment.

We know the loots from the first 4 bosses in Sunwell currently, so using those bosses as a basis of gear choices, I've been using Tempest of Chaos + Heart of the Pit weapon combo which could be why I'm seeing such difference's in my numbers. Dropping the Tempest of Chaos for Sunflare along the line does put the Amulet of Unfeterred Magics at a higher dps gain than Pendant of Sunfire.

But a lot of this is varying based off the speed of the gate openings. If the gates open realativily fast, then going Jewelcrafting for Pendant of Sunfire is a wasted gold sink, but if slow gates, no idea then.

The one concern I am having about next patch, is the massive loss of crit. Right now I'm at about 39% crit raid buffed, next patch I'm seeing numbers as low as 28% raid buffed, which concerns me a bit.

*blinks* Say what?

Using T6 and Sunwell gear with a Draenei Elemental shaman in both settings, I gain:
+0.44% crit, -0.47% hit (still capped), +14.66% haste, +99 fire damage.
The listed Rawr DPS jumps from 2235 DPS to 2609 DPS.

No idea how you manage to drop 10% hit ... maybe you forgot to count 9% fire crit from talents?

For those of you that have been testing Rawr.Mage I'd like to hear if you have any suggestions to improve the model. Some ideas I could potentially add in: threat constraint, on hit mechanics like magic absorption or molten shields, survivability vs dps tradeoff constraints, boss specific abilities like resistable silence effects, mana drains. Let me know if anything like this would be of value.

There's a couple of things that might be nice, but I doubt Rawr is made to handle these things:
-The cast sequence (like Magegraf)
-Target switching (like Magegraf)
-Automatic optimization of gear (like Tornhoofs equip optimiser)

but overall I'm very satisfied with the Rawr mage module, great job.

Working on that one for b13, but that's not Rawr.Mage specific, that's for all modules.

Out of curiousity a grocery list:
Jewelcrafting: 2x Living Ruby - 80g Pendant of Sunfire - 25g + 2x Crimson (100g each?) = 305g Leveling up to 365: ~1000g. Loop of forged - 100g for base mats 5x sunmotes (100g each?) = 600g. So 1800g total

Leatherworking: Leveling up to drums is ~1500g

Enchanting: ~1500g total for both ring enchants and leveling up, however we can exclude this as most people have this already

Tailoring: Both peices of Sunfire cost 2000 gold total. In addition to roughly 1000g leveling up.

So... roughly 4300 gold to go from the standard lw/enchanting, or 5800 gold if you lack enchanting.