The normal settings in my spreadsheet are aimed at an "ideal" DPS situation where you're standing and nuking without any interruptions, and in that situation 4t10 seems weak and awkward. Where it gains strength, however, is in situations that the spreadsheet can't really model that well - situations involving high movement, lots of target switching, sudden high burst requirements, and so forth. In those sorts of situations the ability to cast Lava Burst nearly a fifth more often could be more valuable than a DPS meter will really show. I think it's very likely to be worth picking up the four-piece bonus even if it remains as it is.

I make no secret of the fact that I don't like it as it is, but I don't think it's a total write-off either.

Well, I didn't get to play much last night to really explore our changes, but I did run the first Heroic 5 man before I continued on to buy myself rep with my triumph badges. :P

But one thing I noticed is how fast I used my mana in there. Has anyone noticed that mana seems to be depleting any faster, or am I imagining it?

I hadn't played with Fire Nova on the PTR, so I was using it a little too liberally on trash with 3 or fewer targets. Our group was keeping pace pretty well and AoE'ing as much as possible, so I didn't want to waste my Tstorm to regen mana without hitting people. This might have been what you were running into as well. Otherwise, my mana consumption was pretty typical.

Keep in mind that unlike ToC there are very few non-trinket sources of hit currently available, and also no well-itemized weapons as well (from ICC, the Quel'delar reward or 258 ToC stuff is decent). I know those crafted pants are good looking, but we may end up getting the tier pants just for hit balancing.

The other alternative is to say screw all tier hit pieces and pick up the badge trinket, which has ~150 hit rating by itself.

I was curious was to everyones opinion on the new ice shattering totem. New BiS totem?

Yes, though the increase is so small that it probably won't be a priority to get with your emblems.

I haven't seen this addressed, and i'm not sure exactly how significant people might consider this but in my dps tests I've discovered that unless your gear is completely void of haste, we're not ever going to get 15% haste from EM.

It seems to work like this:

EM brings you up to 15% haste if total haste is =/< 15%
EM gives 10% haste if total buffed haste is > 15% but < 30%
EM gives 5% haste if total buffed haste is > 30%


EM acts like bloodlust/heroism does in that it will raise you to 15% casting haste if you're gear is below that already. If the end result casting speed is > than 15% but < 30% you actually only seem to get 10% from EM. Finally if the end result would put you above 30% casting speed increase, EM only gives you a 5% buff.

It's the same as when you use BL/Heroism in that these abilities only improve your casting speed UP TO 30% and not beyond it, no matter your gear.

Also, my totem of EW proc's seem to be ignored while BL is up, UNLESS i pop EM, in which case my ToEW proc's start to count again. Of course i'm only getting a 5% cast speed buff from EM at this point since the end casting buff is > than 30%. Not sure if this is a bug or not.

I don't know, I see everyone referring to the new EM as a "15% haste buff" when in reality, it's not. In most cases it's only a 10% buff and used during BL/Hero it's only 5%. Just wondering if this is general knowledge and people just say 15% for simplicities sake.

I can see why blizz would use a multiplicative method as additive would get out of hand pretty quickly. The percents might not diminish but their benefit does indeed fairly quickly. When in a multiplicative system, 15% doesn't give a flat 15% casting speed reduction. When multiplied with others the benefits diminish rapidly. For example:

2/(1.10*1.05) (i have 10% gear haste and just using WoA)
2/1.155=1.7

vs an additive model:

10%+5%=15%
2*.15 = .3
2-.3= 1.7


However when you add EM into the equations:

2/(1.10*1.05*1.15)
2/1.32825=1.5


and the additive model:

10%+15%+5%=30%
2*.3 =.6
2-.6= 1.4


We've already lost .1 ~ 5% cast speed redux due to the multiplicative system. Which means EM only reduced our casting speed by 10%, not 15% due to the multiplicative method of obtaining our new casting speed.

No matter how you spin it, you might see "15%" in a multiplicative equation, when you look at your cast bar, you are NOT getting a flat 15% cast time reduction. This gets worse the more you stack, so i'm not sure how the return is supposed to be higher than an additive model, although like i said, i understand why it's multiplicative instead of additive, haste would get out of control.

I dunno, i suppose it's just how you look at it, you're getting "15%" before it gets watered down through multiplication, however the end result is not 15%, based on your haste your stacking you actually get less of a return the more you stack.

I suppose the point is to help decide whether someone would want to use EM outside of bl/hero or during, outside you'd get more benefit from it than during, however once you get t10 and the cool down starts to get reduced it might not matter since you can use it before, during and after a BL.

Lets explain this in simple terms.

Using someone with 20% haste from rating, we get the following :

1.2*1.05*1.03 = 1.2978 = 29.78% haste

Now, that overall value of 29.78% haste is higher than the sum of 20% + 5% + 3%. This means that you've actually gained 1.78% haste by multiplying these three values together. If we take this to the next step, and add in EM or even BL, we see:

1.2*1.05*1.03*1.3 = 1.68714 = 68.714% haste

1.2*1.05*1.03*1.15 = 1.49247 = 49.247% haste

The additive values are 58% and 43% respectively, so we see increases of ~10% and 6% due to how haste multiplies rather than adds. The end result is that your "EM only reduced our casting speed by 10%" theory is wrong, unless you are looking at the cast times progressively.

ie:
20% haste takes LB to 1.667 seconds
WoA @ 5% takes it down to 1.587, a decrease of 0.08 seconds or 4% of the original cast time.

While the resulting value is incorrect, you are following the incorrect logic to get here. Since the cast time calculation is C(O)/H = C(H) where C(O) is the original cast time, H is our total haste value, and C(H) is our hasted cast time, taking C(O) as 2, and C(H) as 1.587 means we can rework the foruma to C(O)/C(H) = H, so 2/1.587 = 1.260, or 26% haste, which is the value we generated earlier by multiplying 1.2 and 1.05.

The TL;DR version is: your math may be correct, but the logic behind it just plain sucks.

PS: it's important to note that haste is not actually a percentage cast time reduction, but a percentage increase in the number of spells cast in the same timeframe. This means that 50% haste results in a 1.33 second cast time for LB (2/1.5) rather than a 1 second cast time (2-(2*0.5)).

Time for a little preliminary list making. Note that the current list is heavily work in progress and shouldn't be taken as anything more than a mere rough layout. Enchants are not included, as different professions gain different ones. For Jewelcrafting, replace 3x Cardinal Ruby (69 spellpower) with 3x Runed Dragon's Eye (117 spellpower).

Head: Sanctified Frost Witch's Helm (Chaotic Skyflare, Runed Cardinal Ruby)
Neck: Amulet of the Silent Eulogy (Reckless Ametrine)
Shoulders: Sanctified Frost Witch's Shoulderpads (Runed Cardinal Ruby)
Cloak: Frostbinder's Shredded Cape (Reckless Ametrine)
Chest: Sanctified Frost Witch's Hauberk (Runed Cardinal Ruby, Glowing Dreadstone)
Wrist: Bloodsunder's Bracers (Reckless Ametrine)
Hands: Gunship Captain's Mittens (Glowing Ametrine, Runed Cardinal Ruby)
Waist: Waistband of Despair (Runed Cardinal Ruby x2, Reckless Ametrine)
Legs: Sanctified Frost Witch's Kilt (Cardinal Ruby, Reckless Ametrine)
Feet: Earthsoul Boots (crafted 264, 2x Reckless Ametrine)
Ring1: Ashen Band of Endless Destruction (Reckless Ametrine)
Ring2: Ring of Rapid Ascent (Runed Cardinal Ruby)
Trinket1: Dislodged Foreign Object (25 normal!!! Compare with Unliving)
Trinket2:
Weapon:
Shield: Bulwark of Smouldering Steel (Reckless Ametrine)
Relic: Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice

Stats so far (note that the figures don't include missing items or enchants - they will go up considerably when those are included. For instance, the weapon alone will give us over 800 spellpower):

Spellpower: 2123
Crit: 877
Haste: 1148
Hit: 291
Intellect: 1270

In addition, we get 220 haste from relic, 3% crit damage from meta, about 47 spellpower from ring proc, Dislodged Foreign Object proc (note: I'm not certain about trinkets just yet).

Unknown variables include weapon and exact trinkets (while there are two options, I'm not quite sure about the exact numbers yet and we know well that certain trinkets can keep being good for several patches). Note that there may be undiscovered loot which could drastically change this list.

The reason I chose gloves over kilt to be replaced is because I gained enough hit to cover the cap with those items. In addition, the gunship cloth gloves give us superior stats in comparison with crafted kilt relative to their T10 counterparts. Of course, as stated above, undiscovered loot could change this choice.

Have you considered Plaguebringer's Stained Pants - Items - Sigrie ?

Also for the life of me I cant understand how you got that value for hit. What I have is
50 for ring
72 for hands
92 for pants and
52 for neck
which is 266, not 291, Plaguebringers would bump this up to 272, but either way it looks like we'll need 2 split hit gems to bring.

EDIT: Just noticed you were basing yours on full 277, which I guess is technically a true BiS list, my bad.


Also: on a similar note, does anyone have any numbers on Muradin's Spyglass v. Scale of Fates?
On paper they seem like they should be pretty close and I'm wondering if the lackluster DPS I'm feeling is from T9 nerfs or (and) testing Muradin's.