Thread: Fire 4.3 Compendium

Originally Posted by Yizren

so.... 17% hit cap then stake intel?

Depends, what spec will you choose to be?

Originally Posted by Sanji

Depends, what spec will you choose to be?

Which mage spec does not want hit cap then stacked intellect?

Originally Posted by Imnick

Which mage spec does not want hit cap then stacked intellect?

For all mage specs, int is worth more than hit.

Originally Posted by takolin

For all mage specs, int is worth more than hit.

Not prior to hit cap. Feel free to stack 10,000 int, if you're running around with only 3% hit, your DPS will reflect it.

Originally Posted by Swizzle

Not prior to hit cap. Feel free to stack 10,000 int, if you're running around with only 3% hit, your DPS will reflect it.

If the scale factors from SimCraft posted in the original post are to be believed, then yes, Int is better than hit for mages right now.

10,000 int with 3% hit => +10000 * 0.86 => 8600 extra damage/hit

14% hit => 14 * 102 rating/hit => 1428 hit rating

10,000 int - 1428 => 8572 int

8572 int with 100% hit => 8572 extra damage/hit.

Somewhat napkin math, but in general int is going to be better for us until we have a big enough mana pool to support our rotations for long fights.

Hit cap is good, but sacrifice crit/haste/mastery for it, not int.

Originally Posted by DirewolfX

If the scale factors from SimCraft posted in the original post are to be believed, then yes, Int is better than hit for mages right now.

10,000 int with 3% hit => +10000 * 0.86 => 8600 extra damage/hit

14% hit => 14 * 102 rating/hit => 1428 hit rating

10,000 int - 1428 => 8572 int

8572 int with 100% hit => 8572 extra damage/hit.

Somewhat napkin math, but in general int is going to be better for us until we have a big enough mana pool to support our rotations for long fights.

Hit cap is good, but sacrifice crit/haste/mastery for it, not int.

Well of course, but if you run in 17% below the hit cap...all that spellpower and mana will just end up fueling a bunch of misses.

I get the whole Simcraft numbers thing, but you can never properly sim being drastically below the hit cap. Hell, maybe RNG goes your way that day and you don't miss at all. Or maybe the opposite is true and you miss every spell. I'm sitting at 13.77% hit right now, but I don't plan to lower my spellpower or int for it, but I'm also not going to just gem pure int gems in blue sockets either.

Yeah, I'll be gemming Veiled in blue sockets, Brilliant in red sockets and Potent in yellow sockets. Any secondary stat that isn't crit is getting reforged into hit (which is actually starting to hurt my DPS in heroics lol). I'm actually kinda liking how hit is difficult to reach. It reminds me of Vanilla when missing was just part of the game (I don't think there even was any spell hit gear until T2). I will probably be running 1 hit trinket even (Anhuur's Hymnal heroic) and one int trinket (Witching Hourglass heroic), although once I can get hit cap without a trinket, I will certainly favor two int trinkets, if possible (and equal item level).

Makes me glad I was able to get http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/56407/anhuurs-hymnal/ early on. Only 1% below hit cap currently, but still missing quite a few 346 pieces. My haste has been atrocious so I've actually been trying to gem for that instead of potent while reforging for crit and hit.

1. Consider moving some optional points in fire over to Arcane Concentration (Clearcasting) in tier 1 arcane. I run with 2/3.

2. Is 337 your item level according to your character screen or your actual equipped item level (according to armory)? For example, my average item level is 346, but if you check me out on Armory, it shows my actual equipped item level is 340. A bunch of higher item level pvp gear in my bags is boosting my average item level, but I don't plan to wear it for dungeons. I find with an 'actual' item level of 340 I don't have many problems with mana. Crit and Hit are your friends; haste is good, but will hurt your mana pool and mastery is just terrible for fire (and mages in general, at least until higher tiers).

3. Glyph Fireball/Molten Armor/Pyroblast and always run Molten Armor. Fireball til 35% mana (pop mana gem as soon as you will get full benefit from it). Evocate to 100% then fireball til ~50% and then weave scorches to keep mana around 50%. When the boss hits 35%, start spamming fireballs again. If you timed it correctly, you should run OOM just as the boss dies. Some fights might require adjusting this a bit (i.e. to ensure you can spam fireball during a high-damage phase, such as Magmaw being spiked or to conserve additional mana for an AoE phase).

Updated simcraft as of 8 hours ago is showing me that haste is once again worth more then mastery.

Hmm, there's something I don't get about the entry level optimal item set. Why does it have so much haste on it? 1287 Haste rating puts you over the amount needed to get an extra dot tick, but under the amount for 2 extra dot ticks. Wouldn't it be better to at least reforge haste for mastery once you're over 516 haste rating, unless you can at least get to 1996 haste rating to get another tick while under heroism/bloodlust?

It seems like there's a few pieces of gear that could be reforged to be more optimal, is there just something i'm not getting here?

Also, do the values for haste as a dps stat take into account DPM? It seems to me that haste will generally be a weak stat until we're no longer having to scorch due to mana issues.

Originally Posted by Laurcus

Hmm, there's something I don't get about the entry level optimal item set. Why does it have so much haste on it? 1287 Haste rating puts you over the amount needed to get an extra dot tick, but under the amount for 2 extra dot ticks. Wouldn't it be better to at least reforge haste for mastery once you're over 516 haste rating, unless you can at least get to 1996 haste rating to get another tick while under heroism/bloodlust?

It seems like there's a few pieces of gear that could be reforged to be more optimal, is there just something i'm not getting here?

Also, do the values for haste as a dps stat take into account DPM? It seems to me that haste will generally be a weak stat until we're no longer having to scorch due to mana issues.

I haven't updated the 346 optimal set in quite some time since a lot of people are raiding now and are done with heroics for the most part. The stat balancing in that set still reflects the old stat priorities where Haste was vastly superior to Mastery in lower-level sets, even on-par with Crit.

I'll look into updating it when I have some time this weekend, but for the most part you should be just wearing gear with Crit and without Spirit and going for the 1743 hit cap pre-raid. Optimal sets at that point is mostly nit-picking and won't attribute to much of a DPS gain.

Edit: It seems that SimulationCraft is still showing Haste to be the most valuable secondary stat in pre-raid gear, so the item list is more or less correct. Could use some different reforges.

300 int flask (draconic mind).

There's no decent guardian elixir so the hit or crit battle elixirs are subpar to the flask.

Originally Posted by nemex

Edit: It seems that SimulationCraft is still showing Haste to be the most valuable secondary stat in pre-raid gear, so the item list is more or less correct. Could use some different reforges.

That's because in the 346 sim it doesn't have enough haste to get the extra LB tick (516 haste with 3/3 NP and 5% from raid). After you get that extra LB tick, mastery overtakes haste. Your pre-raid set is running way too much haste.

Originally Posted by Swizzle

Not prior to hit cap. Feel free to stack 10,000 int, if you're running around with only 3% hit, your DPS will reflect it.

It seems like elitistjerks.com disagrees with you, since all their math and simulations shows that INT is worth more than HIT.

Yes, getting to the hit cap is a good thing, but you should never sacrifice INT to do so. You should only socket INT-gems, except the gems you need to activate the meta.
You should reforge the weaker dps stats (crit, haste, mastery) --> hit.

This is a couple of quote from the Fire mage guide on elitistjerks.com

Intellect is King. It's the strongest stat by far, irrespective of whether you're above or below the Hit Cap.

Hit is a very strong stat, but still weaker than intellect.

Reaching the 17% hit cap with Cataclysm level combat ratings is difficult to achieve without consciously trying. Here's a good strategy:

* 1: Pick gear with Hit Rating.

* 2: Use Blue / Purple gems to activate your Meta-Gem - but only use the minimum amount required to do so. (Gemming for INT is still your top priority)

* 3: Enchant your gear for Hit: IF you'll get the full value out of the enchant AND there's no Intellect equivilant enchant available for that slot. (Enchanting for INT is still your top priority)

* 4: Reforge the weakest combat ratings into Hit rating. These ratings are Haste and Mastery.