Common misconceptions and useful tips

[Rinoa]

This list serves to dispel misconceptions and illuminate things that often isn't obvious. Some lines end with brackes that shows there is more information available on the topic if you find it interesting. Not everything is completely up to date, but the posts are of very high quality and almost all of the knowledge generated carries over to present day raiding with high itemlevel mythic gear.

Independent of spec

- Line Prismatic Crystal up with Nithramus. It is generally roughly equal to using Prismatic Crystal and Arcane Power on cooldoown with a 735 Nithramus, but the more gear you have the bigger the advantage in favour of synchronizing it all. There is a large gap between synchronizing and not synchronizing with a 795 ring.

Arcane

- There is no soft cap at 2100 haste, it is generally great when you have the Tier 18 4-piece. You won't go wrong when gearing for haste and mastery. [1]

- Not a useless or bad spec before you get Tier 18 4-piece, Prophecy of Fear and Tome of Shifting Words. It's fine without those, but glyph Arcane Power and use Supernova.

Fire

- Timing reliant. Not generally good for progression because of this as it typically revolves around using Nithramus (120s CD) on cooldown as Sandman's Pouch (115s internal CD) comes up to create big Combustions. You can get around this by using an on-use crit trinket from Mythic dungeons, but those will provide worse numbers.

- Mastery trinkets from mythic dungeons, both on-use and proc (Xeritac's Unhatched Egg Sac) are very strong for building enormous ignites when preparing to use Combustion. [2]

Frost

- Remains a strong spec at all gear levels, though is often overshadowed by Arcane and Fire due to their combined versatility and power.

- Prismatic Crystal outperforms both Comet Storm and Thermal Void on single target. [3]

More information if you desire it.

[1]
Komma: [TC] 2T18 Temporal Heroes - Damage and Haste Details - http://www.altered-time.com/forum/viewt ... f=3&t=1711" target="_blank
Frosted: haste, pets and stuff part 1 - http://www.altered-time.com/forum/viewt ... 260#p15110" target="_blank
Frosted: haste, pets and stuff part 2 - http://www.altered-time.com/forum/viewt ... 320#p15251" target="_blank
Komma: An Introspective View on Arcane Secondaries - http://www.altered-time.com/forum/viewt ... f=3&t=1854" target="_blank

[2]
Komma: [TC] What is Ignite? - http://www.altered-time.com/forum/viewt ... f=4&t=1516" target="_blank
skiz: Ignite building - http://www.altered-time.com/forum/viewt ... 160#p21293" target="_blank

[3]
Frosted: Frost Talents, Stat Weights, Racials, Trinkets, FAQ - http://www.altered-time.com/forum/viewt ... ?f=5&t=749" target="_blank

I also highly recommend checking out our Fire, Frost and Arcane forums for specific information regarding any specialization.

[Searix]

One of these days i'll make one of these posts!

Fire

- Timing reliant. Not generally good for progression because of this as it typically revolves around using Nithramus (120s CD) on cooldown as Sandman's Pouch (115s internal CD) comes up to create big Combustions. You can get around this by using an on-use crit trinket from Mythic dungeons, but those will provide worse numbers.

I've actually encountered this a ton. A fire mage who isn't pairing the ring with sandmans is severely hurting the raid. However, they can make a weakaura that tells them when the internal cooldown is up for sandman's and wait a few seconds to attack when sandman's ICD is up (i usually expect it to take ~3-5 second to build up fire charges from nothing).

This means for fights like Iskar/Xhul, if you're playing fire get ready to stand around until ring pops. Like this https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/nr ... iew=events (but he only waited 7 seconds)

[Rinoa]

The AddOn "ExtraCD" will also track RPPM and ICD of your procs without the need for a WeakAura if that is preferable.

[Searix]

The AddOn "ExtraCD" will also track RPPM and ICD of your procs without the need for a WeakAura if that is preferable.

Dang, good to know

[Curnivore]

will also track RPPM

Is there an API for that or do they hard code it because last time I checked most users were confused of RPPM timers and I worry such an addon might be off.

[Rinoa]

I am unsure. PoF for Arcane shows 1.5RPPM though so perhaps it's just hardcoded in the AddOn. I'm not technically proficient enough to speak confidently about these things. What I do know is that I find it quite useful as a representation of how likely my trinket is to proc. It may not be completely accurate from a numerical standpoint, but it would be surprising to me if the rate at which the likelyhood of the trinket proccing increases turns out to be completely different from what it would be had it displayed 0.9 instead of 1.5RPPM to begin with.

For ICD trinkets it's no issue at all as it works flawlessly.

[Curnivore]

It's probably technically impossible to make it perfect because I've made an aura after someone commented here (the guy that usually posts the formula for it) which counts down 226 seconds after a proc, but, since pulls of bosses drop the count by a bunch of seconds (2 minutes? I don't know) it might only make sense during the fight, if they have that 226 number correctly.