Crit vs. Spellpower vs. Haste

[GGled]

So, I've recently respecced to Fire and after reading through the sticky PvE FAQ, I'm not too sure where to go with my gems since, as is stated in the FAQ, these stats fluctuate depending on what you are lacking. So, I've come to ask the question, how would someone go about working out mathematically which are the best gems to use in order to maximise DPS?

Thanks in advance,
GGled.

[Deleted]

Spellpower > Haste > Crit is my personal preference.

Spellpower always nets you more damage without any chance of changing anything negatively

Haste is about the same but suffer from a mathematical diminish where Spellpower would trumph. Still a great choice though

Crit is a bit of a backstabber. Say you got 50% crit chance, theoreticilly (altough highly unlikely) you could crit 20 hits in a row but you could also crit 20 times in a row. Crit is still very important for Fire due to the hot streak talent.

Also for mathematical formulas and stuff look at elitistjerks. Although micronumbercrunching is a bit overrated imo unless you're in a serious guild trying the hardest achievements. Micro meaning squeezing out 10 or so dps

Still I could be wrong here as I'm sitting with high fever and actually tried to take a zip of a jar with pennies instead of my water glass

Just my crumble of the cake

[rofl]

You'll get enough haste from gear without gemming for it. Go for sp/crit gems in red and yellow sockets and sp/spi gems in blue.

[Deleted]

In general: get 800+ haste, 4pc t10 and load up your character into rawr and see for yourself.

[Twoflower]

We need a "how to use Rawr" sticky...

[Anobix]

We need a "how to use Rawr" sticky...

I made this guide: http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/class.h...45223325383012

On allakhazam to help the mages out there (I'm one of the main mage posters there... /shrug), it is still mostly relevant, especially for mages.

[Hinalover]

Or you can just watch the video for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjRM5SUoOoQ

Personally for fire, I like having about as much crit points as haste points. The 2-piece T10 favors more towards the the crit side than the haste side since it proves an 12% haste while it is up. So in reality, if you can keep up the 2-Piece at all times (unlikely but plausible), you only need a minimum of 700 haste rating (21.33% haste) in order to keep your fireballs at a 2 second cast time. However more haste rating does help. In BiS gear you are looking at around 1400+ crit and 1100 haste unbuffed.

So to sum up, above 700 haste rating, Crit >= (haste = Spell power)

PS: if you are looking at my mage though, I tend to switch back and forth between arcane and fire so I have some SP/Haste gems. However I do have other pieces of gear I switch out that are dedicated to Arcane (ie: shoulders and legs that only have SP/Haste gems in them).