Cubensis

Recently got this trinket, and after running many runs - and analysing with SWStats - it seems to be accounting for around 6-7% of my total DPS output. I'm an 18/0/43 frost mage, with around 800+ dmg, around 28% crit on bosses, with chill applied.

My question is, are any other casters noticing this as slightly overpowered, even besting the Neltharian Tear in terms of DPS boost (for it's time). From my initial testing, and i might be missing something here, but it seems to be almost an essential trinket. At first glance of the description, the boost isn't immediately obvious, but do the math - it really does equate to a trinket with about 6-7% crit rate (effective). I can't find any other trinket that generates that level of DPS increase, and it's a passive trinket at that.

The Lightning Capacitor

 

• frmorrison

It seems the proc can crit and can work off AoE crits, so it seems outstanding for anyone that enjoys criting with spells (and the guy is not nature immune).

This proc does not scale with +damage gear.

Know Thy group function; Thy DPS shall avoid aggro, Thy tank shall not attempt to DPS, and Thy Healer shall not go AFK without notifying Thy group.

 

Cat Astrophy

How do the charges store? As an infinite buff on your toon?

I must be cruel only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
--William Shakespeare (The Drama King)

 

dedmonwakeen

I'd be interested to see how often an arcane mage could proc this with Arcane Missles.

I imagine that would represent an increase of almost 100dps.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

Yrns

Yes, it's ridiculous. This trinket dropped for me on our first kill and it has floored me, both on paper and now in practice.

In a raid boss situation with no Shatter happening, it adds an amazing amount of damage. It hits for around 1k and crits for 1.5k. Extra damage per cast = crit rate * (1000 + crit rate * 500) / 3. If your crit rate is up around 30% with Winter's Chill stacked, that's 115 damage per cast.

In PvP with Shatter, it's proc'ing like crazy. Given that you often have one or two charges stored up most of the time in a lasting fight, you can get Frostbolt->Ice Lance->Lighting Bolt crits for 6-7k burst damage. I don't know for sure that Shatter works with the trinket, but it appears to crit a lot.

The effect is like a shaman Lightning Bolt. It has travel time; it's not instant.

The proc is a stacking buff that can be dispelled. It's infinite and persists through logout. No cooldown of any kind.

It can also proc off Molten Armor crits, which means you end up blowing up melee attackers passively on occasion.

 

Azrayne

Does it scale with +damage?

We rode on the winds of the rising storm, we ran to the sounds of the thunder. We danced among the lightning bolts and tore the world asunder...

 

• Cryect

One of our fire mages its accounting for 12% of his damage its kinda crazy. That trinket is so getting nerfed only trinket in the game to improve DPS by leaps and bounds on a side note that poison trinket from Romeo and Juliet proc rate is awful accounts for about 1% DPS.

Also a warlock we have with it will build up 2 charges hitting rats and squirrels then goes looking for horde to gank.

I need to do something useless.

 

Tel

It procs off molten armor crits and also (if any of you have done mech and stolen the fire shield off the astromage dudes?) fire shield/thorns type procs it seems.

One of our mages was dying of laughter the other day when he managed to gank a rogue with it while afk with molten armor on.

 

• Nfariessence

This dropped for us last night and I handed it over to a mage, simply because as an Affliction specced lock, many of my spells do not crit (although I'd love to see that sucker proc 100 times on Ilhoof with SoC imp control).

Is there a ranking of which type of caster it's better for? Maybe Frost Mage > Fire Mage > Destro Lock > Arcane Mage > Moonkin > SM/Ruin Lock? I'd imagine that a Winter's Chill Frost Mage is going to be critting a bunch, possibly more than a Fire Mage (but with Scorch spam thrown in the mix... who knows).

I hope it doesn't get nerfed, but I can just feel it coming down the line.

 

RikkiP

I'm firmly in belief that this will get nerfed. I can't really think of any other singular item, let alone a trinket, which has the potential to add so much damage to a player's DPS. It's an awesome idea for an item, and very fun, but with the PvP and PvE possiblities it does just seem a little too powerful.

 

Maels

"When I get my lightning capacitator I'm gonna..." I'm sure I'm not the only person who spent some time virtually speccing and gearing up based solely on getting this trinket.

I kind of feel like a warrior.

 

Plea

weak?

 

◊ Yes

Speaking of overpowered trinkets
http://www.thotbott.com/?i=57063
I've gotta run a procwatch test at this, but both thott and wowhead give it a 15% proc, which would equal 75 mp5 under optimal conditions.

With a 40% scorch crit rate, we're looking at 160 dmg per scorch, about 372 +dmg from a single trinket. 250 or so after taking into account coe imp scorch firepower etc

Edit: a few other 'interesting trinkets'

http://www.thotbott.com/?i=59610 < favors scorch spam > fireball on proc, gets you three quick fireballs in 7.5 s~
http://www.thotbott.com/?i=59724 < I would imagine if thott is right it would always stay up with scorch
http://www.thotbott.com/?i=58940 < favors rogues and druids and dw shamans and warriors

My other main | My PvP Blog

 

Cubensis

I can also confirm it can proc twice, off the same spell. Last evening, i hit a CoC on 4 mobs, crit them all (shatter), and it discharged 2 crit lightning bolts.. I'm wondering if it's also being affected by shatter, which affect all spell types. If not, i just got incredibly lucky.

Also, on Illhoof, an incredibly easy encounter anyway - it proved it's worth ten fold, as i could leave the boss on target, AOE the imps, and given the number of imps, it was proccing almost every cast - literally 1.5 second 1k nukes on the boss, *while* AOEing.

Very impressive trinket in the right situation - and overall, i just keep getting more and more amazed by it's output potential.

 

chuckg

http://chuckg.org/dump/2007/lightning_capacitor.jpg

The speculation about AOE is a bit misinformed, I think. Casting SoC on 4 mobs and having it crit across 5-10 mobs is 1-2 charges at most, it's limited on how many charges it can receive in a second. You'll also find that it should be better than Neltharion's Tear, it's a trinket from 4 dungeons ago. I think tear is still 4-6% of your DPS if you're dumping out 1000DPS, or somewhere near there. If you're thinking that a single item averaging around 4-7% of someone's DPS is too much, just take a look at your 1h/2h weapon.

 

◊ Kalman

Weapons are generally exceptional; no other *trinket* provides a 4-6% DPS boost.

http://mmorchive.net

The WoW forums, explained:

 

• Cryect

So a trinket should provide the equivalent of several hundred +damage based on a combination of your crit rate and the spell you are casting? Then why the hell hasn't blizzard chosen to provide casters with trinkets that provide that much constant +damage?

I need to do something useless.

 

Kaiza

Believe it or not, that trinket has been nerfed from it's original version, where it did around 2,500 damage.

I wish there was a melee trinket as good as that.

 

Vhad

I have found the same around ~6-7% dmg increase in raids and such, in 5 man zones it accounts for alot more if you are AoEing. Think I had it account for 10% of my dmg one run through shattered halls.

What!?

 

• Maledict

Fire mage or Arcane mage are easaily the best recipients of the trinket. Both are casting a 1.5 casting speed spell with a crit rate of 30%+.

Frost mages are in the same ball park, but their spell is a 2.5 second casting speed. And Destuction Warlocks actually don't ever get their crit rate that high, simply because they don't have the talents for it, and again are casting a 2.5 second speed spell when they are.

Affliction Locks and Shadow priests are best passing the trinket - Elemental Shaman would get a lot more use out of it than them, as would a moonkin I guess. (Again, never played with one properly).

 

• Shabadu

With elemental mastery and chain lightning, this would be stupidly good. Since all three hits of chain lightning crit with mastery up this would guarantee a proc. Shaman crit runs around 30% on lightning bolt and chain lightning naturally, with a 2 and 1.5 sec cast times.

 

chuckg

I was indeed stating that Neltharion's Tear in it's first conception was 5-7% of a players DPS (what with 2% hit and all) and more when players were doing Blackwing Lair. The 'accepted' theorycraft in my guild for how much it still provides is around 46 DPS and for someone doing 1000 DPS that's remains 4.6% of the grand total.

While I agree that fire mages indeed are probably the best recipients, I would beg to differ concerning destruction warlocks not putting it to as good a use as frost mages, both in 5 mans and *some* fights (that we've seen so far). A destruction warlock can spec points into searing pain (1.5 second cast, +10% crit) and boast 30%+ crit rating (as I do) on that spell, factoring in immolate and conflag and on average get the percentages (or more) I previously posted. While you're probably right in most cases, you're probably also forgetting destruction warlocks also have Shadowfury and Seed of Corruption to call upon; Illhoof was a treat, all I did was seed him and shadowfury the imps and was pushing 2k DPS, with the capacitor going off about once every 4-5 seconds.

 

• RK

Yes, it would be nuts for an elemental shaman especially due to the high crit rate and faster casting rate. Even more so if the lightning bolt from the trinket (being a lightning bolt) is affected by shaman talents for lightning bolts.

 

Cubensis

It used to do 500 dmg, on 5 crit procs. It was recently buffed in the 2.0.3 patch, to increase damage to 1000, and lower required crits to 3. In my opinion, the 500 dmg, 5 crits maybe was marginally underpowered, but still probaly closer to balance than the current version.

On a frost mage, typical 800-850 damage, it will be giving around 44*3/3.5 / 2.5 = 12.7 dps base, plus the hit, and with avg DPS around the 800 mark, the 1.4% ish hit will be around another 11.2 dps. Roughly 23-24 dps at most. No way is Nelth Tear pumping out 46 DPS, not even close.

 

dedmonwakeen

Arcane Mages using Arcane Missles can crit every 1sec.

Every 10th cast (clear cast), their crit rate will go up by 30%.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft