Shard of Woe is not BiS.

[Heilige]

SoW is still BiS - as it's the only trinket available that has a scaling ability that far outweights Int/SP loss.

The 4T13 bonus and mini-burns are further exemplified by it's mana reduction/haste use. Sims while a great tool can/will be wrong from time to time. Living/Breathing by them is asinine; you'll notice many top players of various classes frequently going off the mark that sims would suggest.

[Kavan]

If you're suggesting that sims don't take into account the scaling element of SoW then you're very mistaken. It has a very good scaling yes, which is why it lasted as long as it did. It's still one of the best trinkets, but to show that it's actually better you'll need a bit more than a hunch and noticing what top players are trying out.

[Swizzle]

If you're suggesting that sims don't take into account the scaling element of SoW then you're very mistaken. It has a very good scaling yes, which is why it lasted as long as it did. It's still one of the best trinkets, but to show that it's actually better you'll need a bit more than a hunch and noticing what top players are trying out.

While I understand that CotC scales with all forms of spellpower/spell damage modifiers, the recent nerf/change coupled with the inability to control the proc seems to indicate that SoW would still provide more focused burst and more overall damage than the proc from CotC. Could be wrong though, but I don't know how to get SimCraft or RAWR to replicate SoDW scenarios.

[Zik3l]

Fairly sure that every mage should be arcane on spine HC due to the burst possibilities that's required for that fight :3

Fairly sure that any mage doing HM Spine wouldn't be using a SoW For burst, it's a sustained damage trinket. You should be using SP trinkets.

[Kavan]

The test I ran was with the updated CotC data (OnSpellDamage_4774.8+42.32Shadow_45%_9Cd), so whatever effect the change had was taken into account. As far as control/burst goes I'll agree. Depending on fight requirements you might get better results with one or the other. The change however should be more in favor of CotC as it makes its damage more reliable.

As far as replicating this in Simc the only way at the moment is to build the dev version from source, so we'll probably have to wait until a new release is made for others to verify my results.

Also regarding Synapse Springs with simple stacking that was brought up, I was able to replicate that. It does appear that at least under the stacking that method uses SoW edges over CotC. I'll run some stacking optimization to see if it's just an artifact of that particular stacking or if it's indeed better in that case.

[announced]

i think sow and heroic WOU are still the best trinkets u can get for arcane.. obviously sow is useless for fire though..

[Sukoidha]

So is BW the best trink for H spine now, as a consensus from the magi community?

[Deleted]

So is BW the best trink for H spine now, as a consensus from the magi community?

no.
it depends where your guild is lacking now - is it tendons dmg? (then yes, get bottled wishes) or do you have more trouble with a lot of bloods later on because burning down amalgamations takes too much time? (then no, take Insignia or SoW or whatever you have in your inventory :-) )
the other trinket is ofc WoU

---------- Post added 2012-02-09 at 08:51 AM ----------

Fairly sure that every mage should be arcane on spine HC due to the burst possibilities that's required for that fight :3

well - every arcane mage was in Arcane ONLY because it is THE SPEC when you want BURN DOWN something in 20secs. with current nerf to tendons HP it is quite possible to see more guilds (i guess usually those that already killed it) to have fire mage assigned to bloods duty :-)

but yes - way more than 90% of mages will be arcane for this fight anyway..

[Deleted]

THE SPEC when you want BURN DOWN something in 20secs.

To be honest if you are AT 20 seconds of below, frost might be more viable because it can immediately Deep Freeze and then due a few ice lances and frostfires.

Though in this case it is not that low of a duration to justify that.

But if for example you only had a few seconds like in Hagara (but didn't have the rest of Hagara), frost would be superior.

[Deleted]

To be honest if you are AT 20 seconds of below, frost might be more viable because it can immediately Deep Freeze and then due a few ice lances and frostfires.

Though in this case it is not that low of a duration to justify that.

But if for example you only had a few seconds like in Hagara (but didn't have the rest of Hagara), frost would be superior.

you be trolling, mon.

[Selenti]

SoW is still BiS - as it's the only trinket available that has a scaling ability that far outweights Int/SP loss.

The 4T13 bonus and mini-burns are further exemplified by it's mana reduction/haste use. Sims while a great tool can/will be wrong from time to time. Living/Breathing by them is asinine; you'll notice many top players of various classes frequently going off the mark that sims would suggest.

This. I was kind of shocked to click this thread at random and see everyone just going back and forth via sims without actually, you know, testing it themselves.

Maybe I'm just hopelessly naive for assuming that anyone raiding at a heroic level can think for themselves.

[Deleted]

you be trolling, mon.

Well, as I said, as it is now in spine, Arcane is better, however, if you reduce that time frame a lot, it's going to be better to have the insta-Deep Freeze of frost, unless you can build up ABx4 before hand.

For example, in hagara you have very low time-frames, if you could isolate the damage buf of hagara from the rest of the fight, it wouldn't surprising at all that frost would be superior because

1) Arcane blast may not have ABx4

2) Frost can go immediately to Deep Freeze and maybe some frostfires/icelances.

This of course does not occur in any fight right now realistically (unless maybe Hagara, but that would probably need a buffed frost, it's too low in avg right now).

---------- Post added 2012-02-09 at 02:21 PM ----------

This. I was kind of shocked to click this thread at random and see everyone just going back and forth via sims without actually, you know, testing it themselves.

Maybe I'm just hopelessly naive for assuming that anyone raiding at a heroic level can think for themselves.

What is actually shocking is the lack of respect for someone saying is not BiS, who is the author of Rawr, a contributor coder in SimCraft and well respected in EJ. Who has raiding experience and who's not actually getting upset and calls people's names.

[Imnick]

Considering you have an invincible, channeling mob to build up stacks on beforehand and, if you really need it, corruption tentacles and corrupted bloods upon which to do the same, going into the Tendon phase without 4x AB means you need to learn how to play your class better >_>

[Deleted]

That was hypothetical for any fight. Spine is obviously Arcane optimized.

edit: "This of course does not occur in any fight right now realistically (unless maybe Hagara, but"

[Imnick]

Bit pointless to mention if it doesn't happen, isn't it?
Hypothetically in a situation where the boss is immune to both Fire and Arcane damage you could play Frost as well but there aren't any of those encounters so I didn't bother telling you about it.

[klaps_05]

personally I think each BiS set should be adjusted for each fight, instead of having a "default BiS set" for a spec, but meh, that's just me.

[Deleted]

SoW is bis, Lock thread.

[Makoblade]

Also regarding Synapse Springs with simple stacking that was brought up, I was able to replicate that. It does appear that at least under the stacking that method uses SoW edges over CotC. I'll run some stacking optimization to see if it's just an artifact of that particular stacking or if it's indeed better in that case.

I am very interested in seeing what you find in regards to that. If SoW is mathematically inferior to CotC my first guess is guess that synapse and celerity are still being used simultaneously, but i was under the impression that simc/rawr were changed to reflect that you can't stack them.

[Deleted]

Bit pointless to mention if it doesn't happen, isn't it?

Of course it can happen. Hahara right now would probably favor frost if one wouldn't go for multidottings frost tombs or if their job were to burst the debuffed boss stage. Of course, the spec is so nerfed right now and that's probably not the case (unless ones sims it and finds it superior). But in a scenario that all three specs are equal in single target or even frost is slightly inferior, frost could win there.

You don't need immunities, don't be silly. Just a mild buf. They choose to actively not do it as they admitted publicly recently.

[Libretto]

On the only two fights you would generally always have someone in your raid play arcane on right now:

- You don't use shard on spine because you want burst
- You should use shard on madness because your job as arcane is burning specific targets rather than AOEing, thus miniburns and IA (mana shield) are used very frequently and regen is key, thus being at higher mana at the end of a miniburn is more beneficial. This despite SoW's haste on-use being relatively useless as you can't possibly drop enough haste in T13 BiS gear.

You could play arcane successfully on Ultraxion if you wanted and CotC's proc would be the weakest there where there's only one target.

You could play arcane successfully on Blackhorn and IA is very useful there as well raising SoW's value.

The key sims and people will miss is that with 4pc T13, you can use arcane power every 37 seconds. With it glyphed, mana shield does not have a GCD, therefore using mana shield is trading its mana directly for spellpower with AP up, drastically improving SoW's value as you can stay at higher mana longer despite doing this. Doing this every single time you use AP is a gigantic DPS improvement even playing in a conserve state with SoW. You can do it twice per AP.

Consider: Mana shield is trading roughly 7-8% of your mana for about 17-19% improved spell damage (in BiS gear) for 10 seconds. The limiting factor has always been the wasted GCD spent on mana shield making such use a wash outside of having AP up. With the T13 4pc, AP is up so often that this GCD penalty is removed, so on fights with constant raid damage (madness, ultraxion, etc) doing this is a DPS increase, making SoW's mana saving impact greater.