Corny's Guide on How to Mage - Cata Edition

[Deleted]

I can't believe you keep coming up with these arguments about "If I spam fireball I do more dmg if I get 200 int instead of 200 hit" and that it will increase your DPS. If you haven't been playing cataclysm at all, you ofc won't have noticed it, but really, CC and interrupts are really important. I cannot stress how important it can be to not miss that spell, sure it might "only" be 5% chance, but if you're really unlucky, that might result in a wipe.

So here's what you have to chose between: Pumping out maximum DPS according to some math OR actually doing what you're supposed to and not rely on luck. If you can't see which one is the right one, I feel sorry for you. ITS NOT ALL ABOUT MAX DMG, for the love of god.

[Twoflower]

Oh you dont say...

These are two different discussions. One is gameplay and the other is mathematical theorycrafting. Let's not get hostile here over ignoring that difference.

[Sarcasm]

So here's what you have to chose between: Pumping out maximum DPS according to some math OR actually doing what you're supposed to and not rely on luck. If you can't see which one is the right one, I feel sorry for you. ITS NOT ALL ABOUT MAX DMG, for the love of god.

A DPS is about DPSing. Sure there may be other jobs for us to do, but only a very small portion of our time working is spent on things such as interrupts and CCs. Interrupts are a bit of a moot point since if something is important enough to need interrupting, there will generally be at least two people ready for it. If you're not hit capped and you miss a sheep, what's the worst that happens, you have to throw out another one? Seems like a fair tradeoff to get an increase in DPS.

My overall point was that intellect is better than hit. If you're not hit capped, you reforge your other secondary stats into hit. You DON'T waste your gem or enchantment sockets on pure hit.

[Skarrd]

If you think about something "non-patchwerk," then you can actually make an argument for hit being a vital stat. Any boss level adds in a fight, any interrupts, any sort of CC to boss level mobs that you yourself are tasked with dealing with will make hit better. Key spells are the only argument for hit being better, and that is where the decision lies.

Things like "oh well I could miss some AB's in a row and lose all my stacks" or "But what if I miss combustion?" are just RNG claims and do not apply. With that type of argument you can also say "well I have a 95% chance to hit, so every once and a while I'll go an entire fight wihout missing."

If you are assigned a special role and you are not hit capped, then you are responsible for having a chance to wipe your raid when the bad luck RNG comes along. If you have no such special role then hit is worse than intellect. Period. People have always placed too much emphasis on hit caps. It has a stat value just as everything else does. Being 1 rating under hit cap is worth being up 200 haste as any class and any spec, and it always has been.

[edit] Another thing to note is reaction time and player error. If you miss a living bomb and don't notice for 12 seconds then the hit you are missing caused a bigger dent to your dps than it should have. If you scorch at the start of a fight for 5% crit to your raid and don't notice for 20 seconds then hit caused a rather large reduction in overall raid dps. This is sort of irrelevant for the higher end players, but for those who are getting used to things I'd say this may be a fairly big deal when you consider stat weights. Making decisions on the fly when your rotation breaks is an experience and knowledge thing. Anyone can learn to hit a certain number of keys in a certain order or at certain times. Knowing why you are doing that and how your spells work/what damage they do is the only way to properly recover from a broken rotation.