FL set gimmick?

[Skylarking]

Heard of a gimmick with firelands tier set where it can snapshot your arcane power before pulling the boss? Equip FL tier > activate AP > equip normal gear.

Is this a thing that mages use?

[acetaminophn]

haven't heard of it, does it buff it a bunch?

[isaac2314]

It basically means this:

Tier 12 (Firehawk Robes of Conflagration) 4 set bonus: Arcane Power decrease mana cost by 10% instead of increasing it by 10%.

Despite the description, it actually simply decreases mana cost by 20% while under the effects of Arcane Power.

This works, in the sense that you can put on the 4 set, cast Arcane Power, and then switch back to your ordinary gear. The bonus mana reduction will still work afterwards, but only for that Arcane Power.

Though, honestly, I don't recommend doing this unless you are in a raid group with timers (and people that respect pull timers) or doing solo content. If the boss gets pulled right when you are switching gears, your DPS will look laughable.

Even then, I don't see this being a significant DPS increase unless the fight is sufficiently short, in which case this is really just boosting your DPS for logs.

I don't know whether or not this is something mages commonly use, since this swapping doesn't leave obvious traces on logs (no separate buff, only mana cost reduction - and mana doesn't show up on logs, as far as I know. It does increase damage due to our mastery, but you'd need to calculate whether or not there is a damage increase based on mana spent, gear level and mastery level.)

[Wilderness]

A while back mages were equipping the class trinket, popping AP, then swapping trinkets before the boss was pulled but then it got hotfixed. I believe the hotfix made it so that if you had AP up when you entered combat with a boss it would go away, which if so would mean the T12 trick wouldn't work.

[isaac2314]

Yes, I know about that one (and a pity it was removed, really.)
What was hotfixed in that case, though, was that AP disappears when you de-equip the class trinket (in or out of combat, which you can test if you have a class trinket of any version.)

Anyhow, you can go to Stormwind and buy the entire T12 set for testing and sell them back when you are finished if you don't believe me. The last time I checked (which was a few moments ago), it still works.
I try to never post something I didn't test myself.

[shi]

I mean, it's probably only that significant of a difference on short fights, like iron reaver. That said, if it gets popular, it will definitely get flagged by warcraftlogs (mana does show up on logs by %).

[isaac2314]

Oh, damn, that is really embarrassing.

Reading the mana charts of top Reaver logs, I don't think anyone does this yet, although I'm not sure since some of those logs are a bit nonsensical, mana-wise. I think this is because of the different haste ratings (and therefore different mana regen rates) that each Mage has?

I don't quite expect them to remove it, but the T14 swap doesn't work, so there's a precedent that Blizz will remove such unintended usages of old set bonuses.

[klaps_05]

i remember the old 18% mirror images set gimmick, but i thought at the time they fixed gear swapping for set bonuses.

[Naedrim]

It works. It's not super useful on a general basis, but if your fight is under 1:30 it lets you glyph AP and use the full 30s with massive mana cost reduction. In that situation I often won't have to evocate until after AP finishes entirely, which is pretty nuts with 42% cast speed/GCD reduction (not haste) from class trinket.

[Deleted]

Yeah should be working, idk for myself if I want to try it, but i saw one of our rogues to use TBC 2p bonus that increase S&D duration by 3 seconds and he confirm it that it work so yeah. Time to exploit old sets until fixed! YAY

[Deleted]

AP buff only got removed if you snapshotted classtrinket and then unequipped it,T12 is just working fine for now

Edit: Buffs from Sets such as Mirrorimage thingy are fixed,but you can snapshot spells (SnD and AP) with old sets, then equip current gear and it works

[Rinoa]

It does work, yes. Not quite sure if it's worth doing without glyphed AP, but it certainly is worth it if you're glyphing. Like Fleks says, you can snapshot AP with old sets, though you can no longer do so with trinkets.

[Camjeez]

Will it not screw with your mana % because of the lower int on the gear, then when you re-equip your regluar gear you'd be at lower % (just like HP)?

[Zulandia]

Will it not screw with your mana % because of the lower int on the gear, then when you re-equip your regluar gear you'd be at lower % (just like HP)?

mana is tied to level now (and has been for a while).

[Deleted]

i'm pretty sure that ranks where u use this trick get removed, i know 3mages who did this at ironreaver and only their ranks got removed(red background)

[yeto]

dont know about mages, but i think rogues do it in this tier

[Rinoa]

Firelands gear won't get your logs flagged as far as I know. At least not yet.

[Deleted]

Even then, I don't see this being a significant DPS increase unless the fight is sufficiently short, in which case this is really just boosting your DPS for logs.

Sorry but what. Mage is DPS. He/she is supposed to DPS. So saying it only boosts logs is sooo stupid.

dont know about mages, but i think rogues do it in this tier

Yes rogues use mastery gear to boost their first slice and dice on pull. Using 2 set from Throne of Thunder gets them 1 extra combo point SND on pull.

[isaac2314]

Sorry but what. Mage is DPS. He/she is supposed to DPS. So saying it only boosts logs is sooo stupid.

I mean, this is not a huge dps gain (no more than 5 million damage total per mage?) unless the fight is short. Even then, unless you have really good coordination with whoever pulls in your group, chances are you'll either get stuck in combat with the Firelands set or waste too many seconds of AP. The risk of that happening is generally not worth it.

I guess you can try pushing 1 doomfire with this? I just don't see too many situations this tier where a slight increase to on-pull damage matters that much.

[Deleted]

imo its really nice in fights that last less then 1.30min because u can take the AP glyphe and together with the fl bonus it, first doesn't hurt so much when u lose 2secs of AP and 2nd u can do more dmg because of your classtrinket and so even after evocation u have only 0.5casttime on AB. So i guess in fast killsit helps to puch deeps and so u can get better ranks(only if they wont get marked red). Would try it but my guild still needs around 2min per boss in avg. but maybe someone with faster kills can try it