Glyph of Mirror Images a DPS loss?

[Kendeura]

I've been having a look at last Saturday's quick run through SoO using the logs, and I suddenly noticed that my mirror images were doing significantly less damage than the other arcane mage (Mojahm) not using the glyph and the fire mage (Ktab) using the glyph.

While it's about the same for all of us on the Nazgrim kill, it greatly varies on fights like Immerseus and Juggernaut and especially Malkorok, for instance.

Anyone got any concrete math on this? It's minor, but still pretty significant when it can vary a Touch of Death's damage value, just to put it into perspective.

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/0ebqh...ne/?enc=bosses

Overall, my mirror images did 2 million damage less than the other mages across the bossfights, heh.

Amusingly, on Siegecrafter where I went frost, my mirror images dealt the same damage as the other arcane mage's frost-casting mirror images... certainly something funny about the glyph I'd reckon from that...

[Deleted]

Might be a bit far fetched, but maybe it has something to do with Mastery not applying correctly to arcane blast/fire ball?

[pangya]

Do you use it before the pull? It could be that they use it after the pull when they have all procs up.

[Kendeura]

Do you use it before the pull? It could be that they use it after the pull when they have all procs up.

Fairly sure they too use it before the pull from seeing them get duped pre-pull, besides, don't pets and summons have live-snapshotting since MoP anyway?

[Manataurus]

Fairly sure they too use it before the pull from seeing them get duped pre-pull, besides, don't pets and summons have live-snapshotting since MoP anyway?

IDK about mages but hunter pets stats are based on the hunters stats at the time of cast (like stampede), so things like procs and debuffs do have an affect on their DPS.

[Kenbud]

MI is a snapshot, they don't count as pets. Maybe they are getting s good snapshot on the second use.

[Saegno]

The damage the MI's baseline frostbolt does was buffed in 5.4 when they removed fireblast from them.
It does more damage than the AB the glyphed version would cast since I don't believe they benefit from your arcane charges anymore.
As for the fire mages doing more, his are likely critting.

Edit- If you are worried about min maxxing it, you are better off not glyphing it IMO.

[Negishi1979]

I think they do snapshot, would be nice if they retained your crit/haste/mastery as well.

[Winkleslob]

Fire mirrors do slightly more dmg for no slow, Arcane 1 is the same and scales with mastery aswell. Frost 1 is just for slows.

[Abhorsen]

Done a reasonable amount of testing today (have an assignment due, anything is thrilling at the moment), looks like unglyphed is a reasonable dps increase over glyphed (for Fire at least). I did two 50,000 iterations simulations in SimCraft once with and once without the glyph. Then I went to a dummy (unequipped any items that may provide me with a buff that could effect the mirror image snapshotting, I found it easier than trying to get same buffs etc.) and did three runs of each with and without the glyph.

Sims showed around a 1000 dps increase from unglyphing it and dummies showed that my Mirror Images did around 190k dmg with the glyph and 240k without it. So that's 50k dmg difference, not as huge as the Sims had shown but then it would probably be a bigger difference with prepots, trinkets etc. in the mix. As to why this was the case, it did seem the like both the Frostbolts and Fireballs hit for around the same damage and had roughly the same crit chances, however without the glyph the Mirror Images cast more often (or for longer, might be worth timing it) than the glyphed Images did.

In conclusion I will be unglyphing it from now on since any tiny dps increase is worth it, will give it another look after exams as I'm pretty busy right now but from my short tests it does seem like unglyphed Mirror Images do more damage regardless of snapshotting or procs etc.

[Tehterokkar]

IDK about mages but hunter pets stats are based on the hunters stats at the time of cast (like stampede), so things like procs and debuffs do have an affect on their DPS.

No.

The only snap-shot worthy thing about Hunters is Black Arrow as Survival. Stampede scales dynamically, as should ALL pets/minions as of MoP.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Stampede scales dynamically, as should ALL pets/minions as of MoP.

Yeah, I did some haste and int testing with them a while back, and they are indeed dynamic.

[Polarthief]

Overall, my mirror images did 2 million damage less than the other mages across the bossfights, heh.

Now you may think this sounds like me being a dick, but in truth, not only are you clearly the best Mage for that night (assuming none of you were sat at any point) so you don't really need the extra damage, but 2m damage across 14 bosses and 6 wipes (because you did encounters and not kills) is so miniscule that it doesn't really matter. That's on average a loss of 100k damage (not DPS) per boss fight, which would equate to a single filler spell (not even most of the time).

I really wouldn't lose any sleep over it :\ (Hell I usually don't even use MI at any time except pre-pull XD)

However, if you really do want to know, Ktab's were critting significantly more due to being Fire, so if he didn't have all that crit, I'd assume that his would be even weaker than yours. As far as Mojahm goes, I noticed he has a significantly higher number of casts from it.

Mojahm: 1485 Hits, 574 Crits = 2059 Total
You: 1003(+86) Hits, 539(+34) Crits = 1662 Total

That's 397 more casts that his images got off! So either he's casting it more, you're casting it less, OR Arcane Blast is a slower cast with roughly the same damage, which would make it overall much weaker. Glyph seems pretty bad if MI'd ABL is slower.

[Libretto]

My guild wiped to heroic ascendant council 25 at 21K health once, and heroic garajal at 105K health. The 100K damage does matter sometimes.

[Kenbud]

Watched a video of a heroic 10 man Garrosh wipe at 94k but those instances where it matters are very very rare.

[onemanaleft]

images are for threat

what spell they cast doesnt change that

[Abhorsen]

images are for threat

what spell they cast doesnt change that

What? No... threat should not be an issue you even need to consider anymore. Mirror Images are a DPS cooldown and should be used as such. If a tank can't hold threat off you then they're doing something seriously wrong.

[Deleted]

Now you may think this sounds like me being a dick, but in truth, not only are you clearly the best Mage for that night (assuming none of you were sat at any point) so you don't really need the extra damage, but 2m damage across 14 bosses and 6 wipes (because you did encounters and not kills) is so miniscule that it doesn't really matter. That's on average a loss of 100k damage (not DPS) per boss fight, which would equate to a single filler spell (not even most of the time).

I really wouldn't lose any sleep over it :\ (Hell I usually don't even use MI at any time except pre-pull XD)

However, if you really do want to know, Ktab's were critting significantly more due to being Fire, so if he didn't have all that crit, I'd assume that his would be even weaker than yours. As far as Mojahm goes, I noticed he has a significantly higher number of casts from it.

Mojahm: 1485 Hits, 574 Crits = 2059 Total
You: 1003(+86) Hits, 539(+34) Crits = 1662 Total

That's 397 more casts that his images got off! So either he's casting it more, you're casting it less, OR Arcane Blast is a slower cast with roughly the same damage, which would make it overall much weaker. Glyph seems pretty bad if MI'd ABL is slower.

"Oh it's only a very minor amount of dps, no need to optimize it then!"

May as well not use flasks then, right? Or hell, let's save more money, no food buffs either. It's only a very small increase anyway. Who cares about combustion either, it's only a couple % of our damage anyway, and too lazy to optimize! Screw casting anything while moving as well, only a minor part of our dps, not worth the effort!

I hope you get my point.

[Polarthief]

"Oh it's only a very minor amount of dps, no need to optimize it then!"

May as well not use flasks then, right? Or hell, let's save more money, no food buffs either. It's only a very small increase anyway. Who cares about combustion either, it's only a couple % of our damage anyway, and too lazy to optimize! Screw casting anything while moving as well, only a minor part of our dps, not worth the effort!

I hope you get my point.

Because 1300 Intellect on every spell cast is on the same level as using MI on cooldown with procs up. No need to get snippy.

Edit: For the record, I only pop it on pull and occasionally once or twice after on an attempt (usually during the last 45-60s of a fight). I like keeping it JUST in case an add gets on me (ESPECIALLY on Norushen) or a tank drops and suddenly I got a 900k-critting-on-Cloth behemoth beelining it for me, because I'd rather use MI over GI for it.

[Abhorsen]

Oh, here's a definitive answer from the 5.2 patch notes

Frostbolt cast by Mirror Images now deals 50% more damage.