Please use this thread to discuss sets, items, setups in Rawr, and other related things.

4pc in both gear sets?

I've got tons of gear setups in rawr atm, ill post some differences and ideas when i get a bit more time

How reliable is rawr's optimizer? I've seen non-reproducible results from it in the past. Have you hand-checked this set as well and compared it to other possibilities, such as:

Breaking 4 pc or not/which offpiece(s) are optimal
Gown of the Spell-Weaver and possible benefits of excess hit/gear juggling
Leash of Heedless Magic vs Cincture of Polarity
Unsullied Cuffs vs Bindings of the Expansive Mind

I included Icy Veins in the list because it's a cooldown, just as Combustion is. Rawr currently does not model Mirror Image, so I didn't include that. And generally people use Mirror Image at different times, not necessarily stacking with anything.

Yes Ataxus, I have looked at each one of the scenarios you listed. Optimizer is great for setting things up, but it can overlook things, and does.

The first thing I do before running optimizer is to set my gems. I use the Mass Gem Replacement for this. The Gemming paterns would look like this:

#1 [Runed Scarlet Ruby], [Veiled Monarch Topaz], [Glowing Twilight Opal], [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond]
#2 [Runed Scarlet Ruby], [Reckless Monarch Topaz], [Glowing Twilight Opal], [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond]
#3 [Runed Scarlet Ruby], [Veiled Monarch Topaz], [Glowing Twilight Opal], [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond]
#4 [Runed Scarlet Ruby], [Runed Scarlet Ruby], [Runed Scarlet Ruby], [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond]

You can also add in [Runed Dragon's Eye] if you want. Next run Optimizer. I leave Override Regem/Reenchant unchecked, because the wording is incredibly confusing and I have no idea what those two options are actually saying. I also haven't noticed any difference between leaving them checked or unchecked. After that's done, make sure all of your enchants are properly set. That means no Mighty Spellpower on your offhand, and no scopes on your wands. Make sure it didn't load two Illustration of the Dragon Soul (and make sure it's at 200SP) for trinkets, or two Signet of Manifested Pain for rings.

Make sure your waist items don't have "extra" gems on them. For instance, if you added a gem slot to a waist item to account for Eternal Belt Buckle, and put a gem into it, then updated the item from Wowhead/Armory after Extra Socket feature was added, the gem slot will be removed, but the gem will not be removed. This 'phantom' gem will affect your DPS.

The next thing I do is look at the Direct Upgrades list. If you have Runed Dragon's Eye in multiple items, it will list these as upgrades, but because you can only have 3 of these gems, they obviously aren't upgrades, so ignore them.

And yes Unleash, I do not believe there is any possible combination of equipment that nullifies that 4-piece T7 bonus.

Good point... I wonder why I did that as well. Alright, I'll fix that.

As far as Non-JC, there is no difference in gear. You just swap out [Runed Dragon's Eye] for [Glowing Twilight Opal] in the necklace and cloak, and for the third one, substitute it for whichever gem it says to.

For 18.53, it's a 98.71 DPS loss to drop JC. For 53.18, it's a 92.08 DPS loss.

Also, a little off topic, but are you supposed to Potion of Speed instead of Potion of Wild Magic? I thought Wild Magic ended up being better because of our 2 gcd spells, but then again ignoring them with speed pot might outweigh it

Edit: On the same note, shouldn't the haste soft cap be considered in gear selection? (<1 sec gcd affecting scorch, LB, and pyro, w/ or w/o lust)

Another thing to keep in mind is that theoretically using one [Item not found!] and [Runed Scarlet Ruby] is better then 2 [Veiled Monarch Topaz] that is of course without any socket bonuses as the difference is 1spp.

Latest dev. build of Rawr already has Rune of Razorice modeled, it's roughly 5% increase in FFB dps spec. FFB + razorice is above Fireball build not including Focus Magic of another mage, if you model for 2 Fireball mages then they are around 2% above FFB.

Razorice is 5% Frostdamage only. This increases DPS of the FFB-Build by ~3,25% (5% of 65% of your damage), pushing FFB from 5671 DPS to 5855 DPS.

And if I turn off Focus Magic for Fireball I get nearly identical DPS for FFB and FB, just as Manly said somewhere. I'm not sure if I really want to trade 3% Crit against the superior DPM and AoE-DPS of FFB.

When comparing specs, you should almost always check off Focus Magic for fire whether or not there will be a second mage. The fact is that your own 3% buff is going somewhere in the raid, so you can't ignore that. The only things that I see that FFB has going for it is the burst control with IV or possibly the DPM in fights where evocation is difficult to pull off effectively.

After some troubleshooting, I was able to mirror your results with a difference of ~2 dps (5669.38). I found out that using the optimizer with low thoroughness gave strange varying results; obviously because it only considers direct upgrades and not the possible EP values of all gear sets.

It seems that Alliance mages with Heroic Presence just switch out [Bindings of the Expansive Mind] for [Unsullied Cuffs] with an increase in dps from 5669.38 to 5685.06 according to my results.