Shard of Woe is not BiS.

[Deleted]

I shouldn't be posting this at all since it should be common sense, but anyway, it might help new users:

Shard of Woe is not useless, this isn't a fight about what is "bad" but what is better. The Arcane spec has a relative value for Intellect that is huge, about 3 times the value of mastery for example, which is its best secondary stat. We're talking about a trinket that gives 517 of it which is 172% the value of a Flask. And we didn't go to its proc yet which is modified by Arcane Power etc. An Arcane Power which is right now procing all the time by the way.

You see we aren't talking about "bad" trinkets here, those are huge contributions. You won't say "SoW is better" with speculation, you need to prove it.

I did not, but at least I want to trust someone more than others. And I won't trust speculation more than Rawr and SimCraft (both of which right now show it inferior (wait for a bug fix for SimCraft apparently)).

[Kavan]

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.

No it wasn't due to being used simultaneously. The problem is I can't replicate this situation again. I thought it was a simple thing to reproduce so I didn't save the character and now I can't remember how exactly I got to it. If anyone has a repro case let me know and I'll take a look.

I did run some tests anyway comparing simple stacking to optimized stacking with genetic solver.

CotC+WoU: 47407.31 simple, 47414.45 optimized
SoW+WoU: 46633.68 simple, 47276.98 optimized

SS+CotC+WoU: 47446.93 simple, 47910.76 optimized
SS+SoW+WoU: 46983.15 simple, 47450.34 optimized

From this you can see that simple stacking can sometimes undervalue SoW compared to CotC. But I should also say that simple stacking is already a bit more complex than simc priority lists, and the optimized ones usually require complexity and precision that is in my opinion beyond what one could execute in game.

[Deleted]

The new SimCraft is up.

The CotC advantage is there though nothing spectacular.

edit: It appears to "transfer" most of its contribution to Arcane Blast when it's on SoW so I guess that setup is less reliable when there is movement or need for sustained damage, and more reliable when there is need for burst. Indeed the bumps are jumpier in SoW and its lows lower.

edit: NOT its main burns though, only its mini-burns. Hence for tendons of Spine it doesn't seem to be superior.

[netherflame1]

Whoever says SoW is not BiS does not have a SoW.

Whoever says SoW is useless on Spine because of burst requirements has not done Spine Pre-Nerf nor Post-Nerf

[Deleted]

Whoever says SoW is not BiS does not have a SoW.

Whoever says SoW is useless on Spine because of burst requirements has not done Spine Pre-Nerf nor Post-Nerf

do you realize this is really stupid statement not backed up by any facts or data only by your own assumptions which you took as solid facts?

therefore your post is completely worthless..

[Imnick]

Whoever says SoW is not BiS does not have a SoW.

Whoever says SoW is useless on Spine because of burst requirements has not done Spine Pre-Nerf nor Post-Nerf

Whoever has three posts and no armoury link probably hasn't done spine either

[Gorno]

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.

1000x this.

As for heroic spine, I found SoW to be pretty useless compared to having will of unbinding + bottled wishes.

[netherflame1]

sorry I do not post here often hence no armory link, you could've just searched my name...

Exactly what stats and facts do you want me to bring up? people care too much about Simc and Rawr and Mr Robot everything like that and they don't even take the time to test it out themselves.... I did 3 weeks of spine progression pre-nerf and if people would know what they were talking about they would realize Amalg DPS was more important than tendon once you had a competent group set up. SoW is by far our best trinket.

I cannot even post my armory because I only have four posts

[Deleted]

For Spine in particular that doesn't sound wrong at all. The graph I'm getting from SimCraft now shows that SoW setup has similar "strength" on main burns with the high intellect trinkets, however, its mini-burns as I said are also bumped, something that does not happen in a regular setup. Hence if one wants only to burn and to mini-burn (adds) and then have the rest duration a relative downtime, then SoW does seem good.

edit: Of course, one may ask, "do I really want to have a general downtime between those burns, I may want to AOE ads" etc.

edit: You have to realize a lot of this discussion was not about Spine. It may be to you, but I've noticed various players in 10mans going Arcane for the buf.

[netherflame1]

I realize that, I am normally always Arcane. Just went fire to mess around.

I had a top 10 ranking on H Ultrax this past week with Sow/H WoU

[Aquamonkey]

sorry I do not post here often hence no armory link, you could've just searched my name...

Exactly what stats and facts do you want me to bring up? people care too much about Simc and Rawr and Mr Robot everything like that and they don't even take the time to test it out themselves.... I did 3 weeks of spine progression pre-nerf and if people would know what they were talking about they would realize Amalg DPS was more important than tendon once you had a competent group set up. SoW is by far our best trinket.

I cannot even post my armory because I only have four posts

The reason people put so much faith in SimC is because you can iterate tens of thousands of times. How much actual "testing" did you do during your spine progression? How many iterations of each trinket setup did you do? Did you eliminate extraneous factors? Anecdotal evidence is not evidence.

[Soulstrike]

The reason people put so much faith in SimC is because you can iterate tens of thousands of times. How much actual "testing" did you do during your spine progression? How many iterations of each trinket setup did you do? Did you eliminate extraneous factors? Anecdotal evidence is not evidence.

but isnt simC done by patchwork style fight?? and spine is well burst required fight and killing almag asap?? have you even done this fight?? difference between SOW and BW is huge in this fight like netherflame said not sure why he mentioned SOW in spine thought cause its really BW or SOW not COtc

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.

this guy summed it pretty well

[egrus]

Im wondering, how much intellect + something (haste crit, master) would a trinket need to outperform SoW on any fight? The intellect gives SP and higher damage during concerv phase and higher DPS at start of a Burst Phase. And the +something on a trinket should also help alot. Also with the current gear and f Insignia of corrupted equipped, you will hve way to much haste for Timewarp phases, and close to 1,06 sec cast with stolen time stacked and 4stacks, with BiS gear i guess you will be even lower.

I do understand that SoW is an awesome trinket, sadly i wont see it til MoP

Edit: A Intellect trinket will also give more mana regen from Mage armor.

[Deleted]

Guys, we can not even for Patchwerk see serious differences between the two, SimCraft gave +200DPS [that's two hundred] on CotC on top of 45,000ish numbers. Those are very small differences that only show on sims a reliability of being consistent. If one can rank with CotC can obviously rank with SoW, on Patchwerk.