Muphrid

I must disagree. For people with the specs and gear where haste is quite valuable compared to +damage and who have the mana longevity not to go OOM, there is no reason not to get the haste gear unless it comes at the cost of going below the hit cap.

For myself, [Mantle of Ill Intent] is equivalent to roughly 78.6 +damage, while [Mantle of the Elven Kings] is worth 82.4 +damage. Hardly "blown away."

 

Pintofbrew

Murphid: Granted, of all the cloth with haste the shoulders are the best. They still are however hardly breath taking. I don't exactly see how you get more value from one item than the other, barring the prospect that you're capped or almost capped, meaning you're not getting all of the +18hit from the Mantle.

And mantle in it's self is slightly moderate in it's quality; it has no sockets which are arguably of benefit due to them allowing you to specifically focus the stat you prefer (almost always spell) and also they're sporting spirit. The only thing Mantle has to demonstrate it's significance is a dump of hit rating which if you're lacking is super, but otherwise they're mediocre.

Your observation does not change the fact that the boots(ZA), the chest(ZA) and the pants(badges) are horrific. The bracers are debatable but nothing to go crazy about. I'll accept that the offhand is good, but mostly because until Rage's there's nothing better than the old badge offhands.

 

MetallicaRulez0

I'd disagree about the Footpads of Madness(ZA). If hit capped, and until the Slippers of the Seacaller off of Naj'entus (which are rarer than a white rhino, I swear), they're the best you can get. I was using Boots of Blasting before but I gained 25 haste and 11 damage from Footpads of Madness, compared to losing 25 crit and 3 hit rating (currently at 161 hit) from Boots of Blasting. Hardly 'horrific' if you ask me.

Granted, the Robe and Shoulders are pretty bad compared to their T5 counterparts.

 

Dustwhisper

The only hasteitem I've bothered to use and am still using and would want another of is Ring of Ancient Knowledge but that is purely because I don't have the ring of captured storms, don't have the ZA timed run ring and I solofarmed my ancient knowledge ring so I actually made thousands of gold getting it :P

 

andastra

The problem with spell haste gear is that most of it only comes with spell haste and spell damage. It usually has tons of intellect as well, which is really bad for non-arcane mages. There are plenty of items, however, that comes with spell hit, spell crit and spell damage. Those kinds of items just come out far better because of Blizzard's itemization formula. They just manage to squeeze out more dps stats out of the item budget, even though spell crit doesn't confer as much benefit as the other three dps stats.

 

Malgan

Please excuse the off-topic post, but I have an issue I can't seem to work out.

Since I've recently started playing again I've come to the conclusion that i'm a retard and that i need to redo most of the calculations i ever did on my mage post-TBC. Through some miracle of math i came to the conclusion that crit was better than hit (don't ask, it's too embarrassing :P) and so now i have to redo my gear basically. Luckily I have enough hit gear lying about to be able to cap it. So if you check out my armory, don't laugh too hard at the silly gems...

Since I don't trust myself anymore with calculations I decided you guys were prolly better at it so i started using Vontre's sheet and the Theorycraft-o-Matic, both very neat tools, thanks for that

My question is regarding trinkets. Both tools say that the crusade card is better than TLC, but that doesnt make sense to me.
This is what i managed to calculate, someone point out the error of my ways please ^^

Assuming fireball spam and 33.3% crit (and 100% hit, for simplicity's sake).

Average TLC proc dmg is about 875 and procs every 9 spells. Therefore it adds about 97 spelldamage (provided the coefficient on fireball is still 100%?). This would only increase with the occasional scorch and fire blast.

This would make it better than Darkmoon: crusade, since that has 80 spell damage at best and thats not even calculating the long ramp up and chance of the proc dropping off.

Where is my calculation going wrong? :/

 

xiaoxin21

Crusade scales with your frost/fire hit and crit, TLC don't. You didnt consider the additional damage you get when you crit with crusade. a crit on crusade is worth an additional 80 damage

 

Akron

What's so terrible about intellect? It's obviously a stat which should not be prioritized over others but it still adds up to your spell critical strike chance. If an item has intellect, it should be welcomed for all specs. For example, [Mana Attuned Band] has 19 Intellect on it, which is equivalent to 0.24% crit chance and approximately 5 critical strike rating. It's not much but when you are trying to maximize your gear/damage output it's undoubtedly a welcome addition to an already very good ring especially when comparing it to other items like [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] and [Ring of Captured Storms]

About spell haste: TC proves that it is a very powerful stat and is quite cheap on Blizzard's itemization formula. It is effectively capped at 1.5 seconds (GCD) but for our main nukes (Fireball, Frostbolt) it is very competitive and the effective cap is far away. Haste rating is by far point-by-point better than critical strike rating (15.6 v 22.1). Spell Hit>Haste>Dmg>Crit>Int>Spi. That's the order according to TC. However, to see where Spell Haste fits in the selection of gear, we have to see the big picture.

TC shows that capping hit is the first step towards maximizing your damage output. As shown in various threads, this is best done by carefully selecting the 'best' Spell Hit pieces (if you have access to all loot in the game): achieving 13% to hit with fire spells / 10% hit with frost spells (+ EP) with the smallest 'sacrifice' of other damage stats (Spell Haste, Spell Damage, Spell Crit, Intellect) is one of the challenges of min/maxing your gear.

This argument brings me to this point. As you and many others have said, a lot of spell haste gear emanating from ZA/Badges is considered 'junk'. This is for two reasons. First, most of this gear simply has Haste and Spell Damage, with no trace of Spell Hit. You can't equip this loot simply because you'd most likely lose your Spell Hit cap doing so. This applies most to T4-T5 level mages. At a higher level of gear, the other reason kicks in. This gear, despite the lack of spell hit being not an issue (because a T6 mage might get it from other sources) is simply inferior in damage points compared to other pieces found in BT/Hyjal.

Given that you can't sacrifice Spell Hit for Spell Haste, the latter becomes a replacement for Spell Crit and Spell Damage at a T6 level of gear, where Spell Hit is more widely available. 'Viable' spell haste gear is rare, but if you can get it, you should get it because it does not come easy. I think there are only 4 viable haste pieces at end game.

- [Bracers of Nimble Thought] - (and it's lesser cousin [Runed Spell-cuffs] are very good mostly because there is no better bracer with more traditional stats. [Cuffs of Devastation] comes close and is considered more or less an equal.

- [Mana Attuned Band] is probably one of the best itemised haste items. Spell damage, Spell hit (as already said, the biggest 'enemy' of Spell Haste is Spell Hit because it is the only stat which is superior to it - having both on the same item is great to maximise your gear options) and Spell Haste, with some 0.24% Critical strike chance from the Intellect thrown in the mix.

- [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] - If you are hit capped, 2% Haste and 39 spell damage are hard to beat. At a T6 level, you should have enough hit from other items to afford at least one of these.

- [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] - This item was underrated for a long time especially with the euphoria surrounding [Tempest of Chaos] + [Chronicle of Dark Secrets]. 55 Spell Haste is massive, and unlike other stats, viable Spell Haste gear does not come easy. The difference in critical strike chance between the two options is negligible. The loss of spell damage amounts to 42, but the staff has 55 Spell haste rating which is a greater gain. Again, the 'enemy' is Spell Hit. Choosing the staff means losing 2.7% Spell Hit which you have to gain from somewhere else. This means you will most likely need [The Skull of Gul'dan] and stick to your [Belt of Blasting]. However, if you can manage to make up for the lost Spell Hit, I think the rarity of good Haste gear over the wider availability of Spell Hit justifies making this choice. NOTICE: If you use archaic items to reach your spell-hit cap, the overall loss in damage could be greater than the benefit you get from the extra spell haste. Vontre's spreadsheet must be used to have an accurate result. However, for example - Skull of Gul'dan and Belt of Blasting are pretty much the best in their respective slots making such move viable. Indeed, using this gear selection Vontre's spreadsheet shows a better DPS result.

All the other Spell Haste pieces in the game are not viable in end-game because:

1. They are simply inferior to other options (eg. [Footpads of Madness] vs [Slippers of the Seacaller] or [Loop of Cursed Bones] vs [Hellfire-Encased Pendant].
2. You need to keep yourself hit-capped and the item is not strong enough to warrant using it and getting Spell Hit from somewhere else.
3. It is not practical because it would break important set bonuses. (eg. [Mantle of Nimble Thought] vs [Mantle of the Tempest]

I've modeled my gear selection around these calculations, my next step would be to get rid of my old Vashj robes, grab T6 robes and get Illidan's cloth head as off-piece mostly because it would off-set the loss of Spell Hit from the Vashj robes.


------------


One question I do have regards trinket selection. Hex Shrunken Head + Skull are the best options but the former still eludes me after many ZA runs. Skull is a given choice, but I am undecided between using [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] or [Icon of the Silver Crescent] as my second trinket. I've read the discussion in previous pages (or in another thread) about this very same issue and the debate was centered around the the usefulness of On Use effects over passive effects. On one side, On Use effects can be coupled with other effects that maximise their effecivness (eg. in conjuction with Bloodlust, Molten Fury, Icy Veins and so on) - on the other hand On Use effects depend greatly on the length of the fight, the encounter itself and the interaction of the player himself. I will not go into this debate.

My question is simple, and I'm asking it because I doubt Vontre's spreadsheet covers it. Skull and Icon can be stacked (activating Skull first) and they have the same cooldown (2 mins). This means they can be stacked everytime they are used unlike abilities like Combustion or Icy Veins which are on a different cooldown (3min). Theorycraft-wise, Darkmoon card is better than Icon in an ideal scenario. However, when you stack it with Skull, does the Icon become better in a theorycraft scenario?

 

andastra

It's not bad if it's free. I say it's bad because it takes up budget points from other stats. I remember somebody reverse engineering the formula and found out that int costs 1.2 times that of spell damage on the itemization formula.

 

◊ manly

Vontre's spreadsheets handles cooldown stacking. Icon > crusade

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

pipermoonrunner

It is quite possible to be hit capped with just SSC/TK gears. I am currently hit capped (well, 2 ratings less actually, but I am not giong to regem for that) with Boots of Blasting and Mantle of Elven King to spare. The ZulJin weapon is actually better than the Dragonhawk one when you are hit capped.

Unless one wants to keep 4pcT5 bonus, which I don't see it being any suprior than a Hood of haxing + Vashj Robe + Mantle of Elven King combo due to the lack of hit capped with 4pcT5 (I would be around 35 hit rating lower than hit cap if I were to keep 4pcT5, even worse if I had to part with Vashj robe). 4pcT5 bonus is modelled as ~40spell dmg equivalent, which doesn't really justify the forgone +hit, let along the restriction of not using any T6 until you get 4pc of T6.

I do agree the ZA robe, badge pants are horrible. The cuffs and I like the new offhand better than the fire one due to lack of raw stats.

We just downed Kael (woohoo), too bad we had different raiders in our vashj kills and kael kill, so we have to get more people keyed and given the holiday schedule, no BT/MH for me until 2008. But that's ok, time for resting and family.

 

Grecasi

Correct me if I remember wrong, but 2 rating short of cap would yield you 12.85%~+3%=15.85% which is then used as 15% on the server as it doesn't take into consideration the numbers after a comma. Believe it was posted here on EJ after thorough testing. And from wearing 160~ hit rating for a while I quite frequently had 0%-3% miss in contrast to 0-1.5% with 164+ (165-167 to be precise) rating.
Just a heads up.

 

◊ manly

No offense, but rounding down the hit ratings would be possibly one of the most absurd thing i could ever imagine blizzard pull out. It is actually more trouble to code. I really doubt it works this way, nor have I heard or seen any evidence of it.

If they did for hit rating that would mean they would probably do it to crit and haste as well. I jsut can't imagine that not being noticed. (although it did take forever to get it through that EP was bugged, hmmm...)

Log on with different model:
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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Kikler

Note : ZA trinket STACKS with icon for now (they will fix it on patch).

 

◊ pewsey

Manly, does this mean EP is fixed on the PTR ?

Pewsey has heard about tact and discretion, but tends to regard them much as children view vegetables.
Nemesis: "Pewsey is single-handedly turning around every guy in the BB that didn't want to have kids."
Viator: Because I had a baby so I'm better than non-breeders.

 

pipermoonrunner

This is the wws after our 5 hours of Kaels attempt. Wow Web Stats

overall, my fireball had a 1.3% miss rate, with 162 hit rating. (I think the adds are all lvl73 mobs).

 

◊ manly

Sadly it isn't. I just meant to say that it seems like it takes a long time for people to notice a discrepancy between TC and empyrical results (and don't think 'bugged EP, no jow on frostbolt, no frostbite' cases are alone, it also happened with some melee mechanics that took a long time to get noticed that TC was incorrect).

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Grecasi

Custom splits with just the bossfight gives you 1.7% (2 parts since there was respawn, both avg 1.7%), not much different but 162 + 3% (EP). Did you have a Draenei caster in your group? You can add another percent to that which gives you 16.85%~. Even with 15%, 1.7% is pretty normal numbers, but the problem part is the dipping when it occours. Mostly a alliance mage will have a shaman and which gives another 1-4% hit from their aura and ToW.

Dipping at its worst from Sundays raid, 16 Dec:
Grecasi - WWS
Sometimes I wonder if EP is working correctly for fire even. Here is me having 5.3% miss on fireballs and 11.1% scorch with 165 rating and 3% from EP on Teron Gorefiend. No Draenei in my group, only had 2 shamans in the raid on this run. Just god awful bad luck I guess (if the stats are correct).

 

Lyer

Not so much help for me, but rather another mage in my guild. Some background info: we're all frost spec right now (for archimonde). Of the 3 of us, fizzlecast has always been the one that lags behind. He does well enough, but for some reason he doesn't seem to be on par with myself and DD our other mage (regardless of spec as well, trends were similar when we all were either arcane or deep fire). I had always thought it was due to him not using the stopcast macros, but since 2.3, he is still in relative position.

Here is a WWS of last night: WWS We had a bugged shade kill last night, so pure tank and spank. All DPS casters were flasked I believe.
Here is his armory: Wow Armory Depending on what gear I use, I have about 67-111 more frost damage than him. Is that enough to explain the difference in DPS?

He has a great attitude and a ton of loyalty, but when our warlocks come back, I'm afraid I may have to sit him during our raids. I really want to up his performance so I don't have to make that decision.

 

Iod

Short answer- he's slow. You casted 5 more frostbolts than he did, and he didn't even use his Icon of the Silver Crescent. While he used Cold Snap, he never resummoned his Elemental. Gear-wise he could use a different offhand weapon (he's well over the hit cap due to an extra 3% hit to frostbolt from Elemental Precision).

As an aside, this is something I've run into a lot of places. Some people just don't have the 'twitch' skills to change targets rapidly and make sure they're squeezing in every spell that they can. Lamentable as it may be, he just might not have the chops to play his toon to its maximum potential.

[edit: I was looking at the Shade of Akama fight since a simple tank n' spank makes it easy to compare]

 

Muphrid

Lyer: Even with the 2.3 casting change, one must be aware that they can preempt their own casts in order to take advantage of it. Does he use Quartz?

 

pipermoonrunner

No Draenei nor E. Shammy. Tests results in the other mage posts have shown that EP ghost hit doesn't apply to fire. Like manly, I am not convinced by the complete rounding down for hit%. 1.7% is still much less than the 3% you stated.

 

Lyer

I've hammered in quartz for a long time even before 2.3. He's not the type not to listen to suggestions, but when I straight up ask all the casters the typical answer is (lawl whoever doesn't use it is a noob!). I'm inclined to say yes, but I think I might have to have a chat with him.

Iod: His reaction time is a bit slow, perhaps he has just reached his limit in terms of mage performance. The gear will come with time, I'm just more concerned with his performance.

Thanks for the replies guys, hopefully I can coach him a bit more rather than sit him.

 

Dustwhisper

Too add: I just think he's lazy, he looks lazy. His DPS uptime is low.

 

andastra

I don't use Quartz and I've never used it. I have guildmates who had and they never beat me by the kind of margin on casts that you beat him with. I compared both the Naj kill and the Akama kill with respect to number of casts. Assuming you have perfect latency and just 2.5 second frostbolts, he'd have to have 600-700 ms latency to cast as little as he did. Just mashing his frostbolt button on the current patch would give number of casts way higher than that.