Like you said as you are alliance you basically "don't need" the hit from the t6 robe but as a horde view of this and taking into account you wouldn't get an elemental shaman horde would either need to go for t6 robe, change ring which means you lose ring of omnipotence or put even more spellhit gems.

So as for horde (but I have to check it in rawr) the t6 robe should still be superior as we need to get 164 spellhit and alliance only ~152.

It would be convenient if you had a second one drop next week to test that. On a side note perhaps the buff has a hidden refresh within the circle - as in some sort of pulse which would refresh the time-to-fade-upon-exit timer. It seems unlikely that it would be completely random and it would make sense that there is some rule governing said "pulse", though it is entirely speculation.

I see a lot of you guys are just basing gear off certain stats, without taking into account this post: http://elitistjerks.com/743801-post461.html

Taking into account of those peaks, gear changes take on a whole new value. Just think, if you can reach the 395 mark, but can't reach the 592 mark, then a +12 spell damage gem, hell even at those levels a 5crit/6damage gem, will beat out a 5haste/6damage gem. Just a little thing you forget to think about.

Sure all haste provides a dps boost, but gaining 5 haste at 460 passive haste, has way less of a dps boost than another 6 damage does.

So you are claiming that at 395 haste, suddenly the next 5 crit is worth more than the next 5 haste? Sounds like total nonsense - how do you get this implausible result?

As near as I can figure, the 395 breakpoint is worth about a 0.25% boost to sustained DPS, while the baseline effect of the haste is over 25%. The "breakpoint bonus" is actually pretty tiny - it just means that the 395th point of haste is worth about 4 points. It does not somehow magically trash the value of the 396th point (or any other value).

Ok, following the standard 8(9)fireball/1scorch rotation, which is, with latency, about 27s, scorch debuff lasts 30s. So when you reach the break points of fitting another full fireball into that 30s window, the added values of haste drop. Because the difference between the gaps is near 200 haste, that's a lot of haste needed to stack.

Because mages work on a 30s window because of scorch, when those break points are reached, the dps gains are pretty substantial, while the dps gains after the break point are not as great. Though after each break point, haste keeps gaining in value, but crit keeps dropping down, but do not forget, that dropping your crit to low also has adverse affects on your dps.

That logic is flawed and has been proven wrong in the past here on this forum.

The simple (non-math) explanation to it is that if you and I do the same rotation (1xSC, 8xFB), then I'll be done faster with the 5 haste extra, so I can restart the cycle faster.

If you want math that goes along with this, start browsing back the threads.

I believe the pendant of sunfire no longer requires 350 jc (unless it's not included on wowhead / wowdb) and you can use the JC gems when you are not a jewelcrafter. If you wanted to be 'completely maximized' you would make a stop at 340 jc after dropping enchanting and then continue on to 350 tailoring.

I've seen the use of G15 macros mentioned a few times and I'd like to ask here wich kind of G15 macros do you use?
I assume your not talking about a "spam fireball until cancelled" macro with 50 keypresses per second etc so im curious, what exactly do you mean when you speak of these macros?

That is exactly what is being referred to saphirox.

Why would you not get an elemental shaman? Is it not optimal in some way?

(I have three sets of hit-related gear - 13% hit, 12% hit (+Inspiring Presence), 9% hit (Inspiring Presence & Totem of Wrath) - though the latter set involves 3/3 Spellfire, so it's a bit squishy)

Im pretty positive JC neck requires JC to wear still. Also aside from the neck all u get is +2 spell damage from JC since you can use one +14 dmg gem. The difference in dps between Pendant of Sunfire And Amulet of Unfettered magics isnt as much (or really even that close) to Sunfire robes vs Fel Conqueror Rainments or Drums so thats why I would not be a JC vs. either of those.

strange thing happend today ,not shure did any1 noticed this so far but it doesnt hurt to say it
so mage with haste gear skull/bt trinket(haste proc) basicly 670 haste with drums, used Bl and IV and now strange thing happens...
firebolt was on 1.3x sec cast when crits happens in a row (combustion crits) Im not geting ignite at all,only last crit ignite.
no its not huge ignite with 7k tick its just simple 1.5k tick.i know that ignite lags 1.5 sec after crit but this is just stupid.u can try this on dr.boom...and this haste gear isnt that hard to get with proc on trinket and skull.it wasnt even top sw gear just t6 items and nothing else from sunwell.every 2nd crit after first kinda reset ignite lag time to zero and it doesnt apear at all,atleast not in combat log.. any1 noticed this kind of bug so far? or im missing something..

Makes sense, Jabra. It's effectively reverse rolling ignites. Your cast went off before the previous ignite happened, so it didn't stack.

Ignite takes precisely 1.5sec to apply itself?

No, it seems to vary slightly, but a good approximation is 0.5sec+travel time.

I believe that the farther you are from the 2sec fireballs the trickier it is to bug the ignites, I.E what happened to your ignites.

Until WoLK does it even matter?

Why would anyone do a spec that has both Combustion and PoM? Even if it worked, it would be like shooting yourself in the foot to scratch an itch.

You're completely right in that this is something that is only really worthwhile to know in WotLK, but it seems appropriate to pose the question here since it's entirely possible to determine with the current mechanics and talent builds.

For all I know this has already researched, but I don't ever recall reading a post about it. I was just curious if anyone recalls what may have already been researched.

It does. Any 2 spells that can hit a target at the same time can abuse Combustion. Fireball-Fireblast, Fireball from distance-Scorch, Fireball + PoM whatever, Flamestrike + DB/Blastwave.

It happens with clearcasts as well I believe. In that you receive the arcane potency bonus to crit from cleacasting for both spells if they occer almost at the same time on the target.

You're correct that you can coordinate your cooldowns properly in a 6 minute fight.
If the fight gets shorter, or longer, it'll probably still work.

My concerns that I wanted to hint at were two things really:

1) Flame Caps have 3 minutes, Mana Gems have 2 minutes cooldown.
That's not a problem per se, but it means that you have to align your cooldowns differently. It's more of an inconvenience than anything else really.
Coordinating the Naaru Sliver with its 15s/90s timer on the other hand gives me creeps ...

2) It is a synchronised mana and damage cooldown in one. That's my main concern really.
In a fight like the given, you plan your damage/class cooldown pretty tight, and your mana cooldowns as a guideline.
For example - mana pot when you're down 3k and around 2 and 4 minutes later, innervate or evocation whenever you run out of mana.

Now, imagine you run low on mana and all your non-pot cooldowns come up in 20 seconds.
Then you can evocate now, but risk having too much mana for the full effect of your mana gem.
Or you can pot now, and hope that your mana lasts until and through your cooldowns.
Or if you get an innervate from a feral that tanks half the time, then your timing is restricted as well.

Now add that crits and JoW can be totally random, and your mana timing will become even less predictable.
Or if you have clearcasing because you're arcane or the new talens came, and it gets even worse.

TL;DR
Basically, you have a rather rigid DPS cooldown management with a rather volatile mana management.
If you use SCB, you link both, which can lead to situations where you have to sacrifice either damage or mana from the trinket.

With SCB, you also need to accomodate the +hit on it to use it fully.
It also hasn't been great in Rawr when I checked it back then, so it didn't seem like a big deal.
Even now it seems still only around the easy-to-acquire standard trinkets for non-arcane specs.

That's basically the reason why I didn't expand on the trinket at lengths.
More effort and less flexibility for the same or worse results. *cough* Daggers *cough*


Edit: A late reply to a post I missed, and people asked for a clarification.

Edit: Nevermind fixed a couple of things