Casters : The Lightning Capacitor - Page 6

Hodan · 07/06/07, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by subscience

I've always noticed that the LC proc seems to fire at a random target. When I Elemental Mastery a Chain Lightning (causing 3 guaranteed criticals), the target of the LC proc seems to simply be random. I've had it hit my current target, the 2nd jump, and the 3rd jump.

My only gripe with this is that the bolt fired from the LC shares the name Lightning Bolt with the Shaman spell and it's a pain in the ass to analyze by parsing combat logs.

Like he said above, it'll go to whichever crit triggered the 3rd buff. Hits target if you have 2 charges, 2nd jump if you have 1 charge, and 3rd jump if you have 0 charges.

koutetsu · 07/11/07, 2:52 PM

This trinket, in addition to being very good, is interesting in that it's one of the few caster trinkets I've seen that scales on something other than damage. It does, in fact, scale linearly with spell crit.

One question: if you drop a Blast Wave and crit six mobs at once, will it proc twice?

Lavery · 07/11/07, 3:29 PM

Originally Posted by koutetsu

One question: if you drop a Blast Wave and crit six mobs at once, will it proc twice?

I believe I remember reading that there was a small limit on how frequently charges could be built, meaning multiple crits on one AoE would only count a single time. I may be mistaken, though.

manly · 07/11/07, 3:44 PM

I don't know for sure about the cap, but I know that on a full hyjal clear when i was arcane specced, my TLC did 7% of my total damage. And it does proc insanely often during AOE.

Torrential · 07/11/07, 3:50 PM

Originally Posted by koutetsu

This trinket, in addition to being very good, is interesting in that it's one of the few caster trinkets I've seen that scales on something other than damage. It does, in fact, scale linearly with spell crit.

One question: if you drop a Blast Wave and crit six mobs at once, will it proc twice?

It scales with crit but not really like every %1 increase shows an increase in LC performance.

0.20	5.00	15.00
0.21	4.76	14.29
0.22	4.55	13.64
0.23	4.35	13.04
0.24	4.17	12.50
0.25	4.00	12.00
0.26	3.85	11.54
0.27	3.70	11.11
0.28	3.57	10.71
0.29	3.45	10.34
0.30	3.33	10.00
0.31	3.23	9.68
0.32	3.13	9.38
0.33	3.03	9.09
0.34	2.94	8.82
0.35	2.86	8.57
0.36	2.78	8.33
0.37	2.70	8.11
0.38	2.63	7.89
0.39	2.56	7.69
0.40	2.50	7.50

At 20% crit you crit 1 in 5 spells. So a LC proc every 15. At 21% you need 14.29 casts. You can't cast .29 of a spell so you still need 15 casts. Only at the next % up can you drop to needing 14. Granted this assumes you cast an infinite number of spells and we all know that crit is prone to dry spells and hot streaks and more crit % is always going to be better than lower crit % for the LC.

It's not linear, but it's really close.

Northerner · 07/11/07, 4:50 PM

This is not a stepped function though really. Yes you need three discrete crits but the increase in procs over time as your crit probability increases is indeed linear.

Vontre · 07/11/07, 5:25 PM

I just finished messing around with this on my spreadsheet. It's very impressive for arcane specs. Not so impressive for fire specs - I believe the Sextant of Unstable Currents outperforms it easily for fireball and frostbolt spam. Remember that TLC is the only trinket without stats to go along with it, so you lose something there. For fireball it was about 25 dps, for an AB/AM/Scorch arcane mage rotation it was about 50 dps. Obviously because of the massively increased number of individual hits thanks to fast spells and arcane missiles. You should always pass this to your arcane mages as it's probably the best trinket in the game for them =).

Cloudgatherer · 07/11/07, 5:30 PM

Originally Posted by manly

I don't know for sure about the cap, but I know that on a full hyjal clear when i was arcane specced, my TLC did 7% of my total damage. And it does proc insanely often during AOE.

I'm finding 4-5% of my raid damage can come from TLC. Examining alternative trinkets, that's really good by comparison. Looking at parses, I even find it hard to imagine the trinket I'd need to put in that slot to get the same damage, and hearing a T5+ mage saying it is 7% (as opposed to possibly lower, due to increased damage from spells by comparison), is a little daunting.

At what point does one "upgrade" out of using the TLC or does it look like it is "the" mage dps trinket to have for the expansion?

Tempestra · 07/11/07, 5:46 PM

Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer

I'm finding 4-5% of my raid damage can come from TLC. Examining alternative trinkets, that's really good by comparison. Looking at parses, I even find it hard to imagine the trinket I'd need to put in that slot to get the same damage, and hearing a T5+ mage saying it is 7% (as opposed to possibly lower, due to increased damage from spells by comparison), is a little daunting.

At what point does one "upgrade" out of using the TLC or does it look like it is "the" mage dps trinket to have for the expansion?

I believe Manly's 7% from an overall clear is much higher due to the fact that mages AE a ton in Hyjal. In a stand-and-nuke scenario, TLC's % contribution will only decrease as your gear gets better (assuming one's gear doesn't get better by only increasing crit-rate).

I can see TLC being an integral part of any AB-AM-scorch cycle mage or smart mages who would swap it in for AE fights, but I've long stopped using it on single target boss fights - I tend to stick to a combination of the Icon, Crusade and Nel's tear.

I would never shard TLC though, as Manly stated, it's just that awesome on fights and instances with heavy AE components - Morogrim, Solarian, Hyjal trash, etc. etc. - so in that respect, I would agree that it's a trinket to keep for AE fights down the road.

galzohar · 07/11/07, 6:52 PM

25 more dps with that trinket is actually enough to bring 3XAB-AM-scorch 43/18/0 spec over 33/28 3XAM-fireballX2 DPS on my spreadsheet. Sextant should also proc more with AM, although probably doesn't scale as much due to its internal cooldown being a very significant part of your "average time between procs".

Zure · 07/11/07, 7:27 PM

Originally Posted by Jehryn

How much +dmg would the trinket represent with an elemental Shaman with 40% Crit? (raid buffed with raid with moonkin i have 43.4% crit)

You'll get about 122.56 damage per lightning bolt, assuming 43% crit rate, 16% hit, and TLC gets 100% of your +hit and all but 11% of your +crit (shaman talents for increase crit to lightning bolt spells I assume don't include this trinket). Modify this by the inherent 15 resists lvl 73s have, which will reduce it's damage by 3.08%, so 118.78 damage per bolt.

Assuming your lightning bolts get (3/3.5)*1.05*.9692 = 87.23% of each +dmg per bolt, TLC is worth 136.16 spell damage, which is almost double the value of Icon of the Silver Crescent.

Cloudgatherer · 07/11/07, 7:41 PM

Originally Posted by Tempestra

I can see TLC being an integral part of any AB-AM-scorch cycle mage or smart mages who would swap it in for AE fights, but I've long stopped using it on single target boss fights - I tend to stick to a combination of the Icon, Crusade and Nel's tear.

I was thinking about those alternatives, but the amount of +damage relative to TLC was too low for the similar reason given in the post just above this one:

Originally Posted by Zure

Assuming your lightning bolts get (3/3.5)*1.05*.9692 = 87.23% of each +dmg per bolt, TLC is worth 136.16 spell damage, which is almost double the value of Icon of the Silver Crescent.

I didn't work out the math to the detail Zure here has, but it would seem to me that the +damage value of TLC is significantly higher than Icon/Crusade, as each can be represented by a flat +damage increase, even for single target DPS. This example is for lightning bolt (3 second cast), anyone hitting faster (scorch/AM/AB) should have a higher +dam value due to crit frequency.

Binkenstein · 07/11/07, 7:50 PM

I've been looking at how LC works for my shaman calcs (here)

Works out at the following:

+dmg equiv = (250 * crit %)/dmg "value" where the dmg value is the total damage that one point of dmg gives (taking into crit/crit bonuses/extra damage talents/etc).

manly · 07/11/07, 8:01 PM

I will elaborate on what I said earlier. When you are arcane specced, your arcane explosion has already a 'high' amount of crit rate. Now, each time you proc a clearcast, your next aoe has 30% more chance to crit on every single targets. The end result of those coupled mechanics ended up giving a totally insane amount of procs from my lightning capacitor. Any clearcast turned directly into 2 lightning bolts, more or less.

Otherwise, under a 'standard' case of 3x AB, AM, scorch rotation, it gave me results generally around 3-4% of my total dps, which is still a lot, even despise the resistances.

Cynic · 07/11/07, 8:04 PM

Of course this is me just sitting at work thinking crazy thoughts, but I wonder how much theoretical DPS an enhancement shaman could conceivably get from dual wielding 1.3 daggers, both with flametongue on them. It would require a completely ridiculous build and gear selection, min. 31 in Enhance, rest in Elemental, and gear with spell crit on it.... but i still think it would be a totally awesome project for a bored/geared out shaman to undertake.