Did anyone make some calculations yet at which point it is actually worth it to break the 4 pieces set bonus from T8.5 ? Is it worth it to break it for 2 pieces of the 25 man set or wait for the hard mode sets.

Rawr indicates that it's an upgrade for me(I already have the 245 shoulders) as long as the next piece I take is anything other than the godawful robe. I only have ~800 raid buffed Spirit. In fact it's even an upgrade for me to get the 232 helm, apparently.

So I'd say it's pretty much always an upgrade as long as you don't try to use that terrible chest piece.

As has historically been the case, breaking the 4 piece is usually waiting until you have 2 piece of the next set. However, I believe some BiS (maybe minus hard modes I don't remember) still used 5 piece of 8.5. So replacing a piece with T9 can definitly be an upgrade. This is for the 245 set or above.

For my gear, upgrading the gloves and shoulders is adding ~ 185 dps

When I took into account all of the 10-man equipment available to me, and excluded all 25-man items, Rawr ended up recommending [Hood of Smoldering Aftermath] and [Band of the Invoker]. Now, these things could change if I start introducing ilevel 245 set pieces and other items (specifically from 25-man Northrend Beasts and Jaraxxus), but for someone who purely does 10-man runs, the fact that the triumph emblem gear is ilevel 245 is something that is kind of lucrative. Note though that hard mode 10-man equipment is also 245. As far as I know, it's the same gear as 10-man, just itemized for ilevel 245 (which makes it slightly confusing since it uses the same name and such).

To be fair, when I introduced all 245 ilevel set pieces, it replaced [Hood of Smoldering Aftermath] with [Sunstrider's Hood of Triumph], and replaced [Sunstrider's Robe of Conquest] with [Flowing Robes of Ascent]. Also, I don't think there is a point at which the emblem shoulders, [Mantle of Revered Mortality] or [Pauldrons of Catastrophic Emanation] trump any set pieces. That is, even if they did, I think the better investment is the emblem head piece -- but to be perfectly honest, you'd have to be swimming in emblems to shell them out for the head/shoulder pieces and not the set pieces.

This really all has to do with how I look at gear progression for my own character, which is ultimately something I'd like to put on the first post, but it's not that easy to put into words without taking up a considerable amount of space. Right now what I've done is I've taken every piece of equipment that drops in 10-man and I've enabled it. I've also taken every piece of equipment that drops in the first two 25-man encounters (because I have a feeling my guild won't be downing Faction Champions in 25-man any time soon). I've enabled all of these items, and then enabled all of the items I currently have, and all of the items available through emblems.

I could go one step further and enable crafted items -- [Merlin's Robe] and [Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers], because when I enable those, they become best in slot then. I look at all of these items as sort of the brick wall I'm up against. It represents the culmination of items that I can realistically obtain. If my 10-man raid decided to do Hard Mode Northrend Beasts in the coming weeks, I'd probably enable the equipment from there as well.

There are a few items it looks like I'll be holding on to for a while: [Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor], [Eye of the Broodmother], [Dying Curse], and [Petrified Ivy Sprig]. [Scale of Fates] is a minor DPS upgrade -- I'd pick it up though if it ever dropped, otherwise, [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] is still very competitive, slightly behind Broodmother, and depending on other gear, Dying Curse gets swapped in and out -- the same with Firestorm Band and Kirin Tor.

Anyway, that's just how I go about looking for 'upgrades' -- I'm more of a long term planner, so I'm not too concerned about what is an immediate upgrade. That is of very little concern to me, because wasting emblems/DKP on an upgrade that is good for a week doesn't seem like an upgrade at all.

Regarding the second ring you have for both Fire and Arcane's BiS slot, [Lurid Manifestation]; Wowhead shows it as crit instead of haste. Assuming Wowhead is correct, does the Emblem sp/haste ring [Band of the Invoker] surpass it?

Edit: I'm not sure if you're including hard modes or not, but wouldn't [Conductive Seal] from Mim hardmode also be better than both?

Edited Edit: Nevermind, wasn't thinking about heroic 258 gear.

I can't find it on the wowhead Database, but I believe it references the 258 version of the ring off Anub'Arak25man Heroic. Lurid Manifestation

All gear in my post is ilvl258(other than the pieces for which no ilvl258 exists, of course), I just added a note to the post stating that so hopefully it doesn't cause anymore confusion.

I've updated my original post, as Kavan has made some improvements to the proc modeling code, with the result that the value of Reign of the Dead has decreased somewhat. It was overvalued before. Both versions are still better than Flare, though.

BIS Fire T9 20/51/0
10232.86dps
10792.25dps as Arcane

BIS Arcane T9 57/3/11
11076.69dps

FFB, Rawr Standard 0/53/18
9681.15- no Focus
9971.80 - Focus Magic self-buff

EDIT: Btw Enthorn, feel free to paste my stuff into the first page of the thread, or reformat it to have nicer item links and things if you like. I don't care what you do with it. I just noticed you erased the old Ulduar stuff.

Yes, I erased the front page (although I have a full copy of it) to keep it at least relevant still -- that is, rather than show old information, I'd rather players search for new information. I will do something with the first post though. Thanks for your excellent contributions as well.

All the equipment that is available has been revealed by now, yes? As I understand it, all of the hard mode equipment is just the same as the 10 and 25-man encounters, but 13 levels higher (232 -> 245 and 245 -> 258). But I wonder if all of that equipment is on wowhead/armory or in Rawr yet.

It's all on MMO-Champion Databases, so if you can't find it elsewhere it can be found there.

Yeah, it's all been revealed because Blizzard accidentally published everything to the armory. It's available on the mmo-champion database, although I'm pretty sure you can still find everything on the armory. I added things to Rawr myself, though, and compiled from source as all the useful 3.2.2 changes aren't in the current release yet.

Gear isn't duplicated between 10 and 25 man though. The duplicates are 232->245(10 man) and 245->258(25-man). 10-man 245s and 25-man ones are completely different items, plus the 10-man 245s have extra sockets and such.

Just wanted to point out, it seems to me that once we get 2 pieces of tier 9 [Scroll of Enchant Chest - Major Spirit] becomes better than [Scroll of Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats] (0.2287% crit vs 0.2061% crit (not counting SotM)). Obviously there are other factors such as the regen (and mana pool) and the 10 stam but from a purely dps standpoint it seems spirit would be better.

Hy!

Yes i calculated the same. BUT its only right for non-Arkan Mages! If you are Arkan you can choose Mind Mastery. 5/5 gives you 15% Spelldmg from Int. That means that the +10 int from powerful stats will give you 1,5 spelldmg, wich are 1,8345 DPS

Short calculation:

0.2061% Crit are 9.462051 Critpoints
0.2287% Crit are 10.499617 Critpoints

100 crit = +81.2 DPS

9.462051 Critpoints = +7.6832 DPS
10.499617 Critpoints = +8.5259 DPS

+10 Powerful Stats = +7.6832 DPS
+15 Major Spirit = +8.5259 DPS

7.6832 DPS (Powerful Stats) + 1.8345 DPS (Mind Mastery 5/5 +10 Int DPS) = +9.5177 DPS for Arkan Mages


Fire Mages should chose with 2xT9 +15 Spirit, but Arkan mages should keep their +10 stats. (8.5259 DPS vs 9.5177 DPS).

While it is a dps increase (very marginal), I highly doubt that it's a good trade off to lose 10 stamina to gain 1 spirit worth of crit.

Any actual evidence of this or are you just speculating? Because the way the items are worded on live ( unique (1)) makes me think this is totally incorrect. I have seen nothing indicating that the 245 and 258 versions of the same items stack, and to be fair no proof that they don't.

They are just normal, Unique items on live. Unless you have evidence otherwise.

Sancus, for your arcane model I have a few questions:

1) what rotation did you use?
2) how did you determine the uptime between each spell for your given rotation
3) did you include downtime for evocating (im assuming you did, but I just want to make sure)
4) why did you choose 300seconds...isn't 7mins (420sec) considered to be the 'standard' for testing a specs dps and mana efficiency?

Hi Enthorn,
first of all thanks for all the amazing work you do for mage community
now I have a question in regards to BiS chest for fire mages in t9 content.

I am contemplating upgrading my Conqueror's Kirin Tor Tunic to Merlin's Robe, as it looks like a clear upgrade, but then when I try to verify it in rawr (I adjusted it same way like Sancus suggested, and I also excluded TOC 25man heroic mode, as I imagine it's some time till my guild will be getting loot from that mode ), it still tells me that my t8.5 robe is superior, which seems very wrong to me.
Moreover I see that Flowing Vestments of Ascent is also suggested as an upgrade, but I don't quite see how it is better than Merlin's Robe. Ok, I am not a math person, but I'd imagine extra socket and crit stat on Merlin's robe would still be better than those stats on Flowing Vestments of Ascent.

I'd really appreciate some comments/advices on what would be the best choice. I am gonna pay epgp points for the crusader's orbs that's why going for Merlin's robe is a big step for me and I wouldn't want to find out I made a wrong choice.

Thanks in advance

This is most likely due to the fact that Rawr is valuing your 4-piece t8.5 highly. Try putting on your 8.5 shoulders in Rawr and seeing if that makes Merlin's shoot way up in value. Once you get 2pt9 (with gloves or something), that should make up for losing 4pt8, especially if you have Merlin's Robe.

With 2 pieces t9 my Rawr suggests Merlin's Robe being better than Flowing Vestments of Ascent.
Tho be aware there is also a 258 version of Flowing Vestments of Ascent which is a further improvement

thanks guys for your comments,
I tried putting 2p of t9 on and yes, Merlin's Robe was shown up as a best upgrade. Guess I'm gonna buy crusader's orbs asap then

cheers all

Has anyone figured out if we could stack Reign of the Unliving [ilvl 258] with [Reign of the Unliving]. If so, both of these together would be BiS trinkets.