[TC] Chasing BIS: 2T16H+3HWF or 4T16H?
Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 2:31 am
"What is BiS for Arcane?"
Most of you have probably seen many duplicates of that question asked on every mage forum and Arcane guide thread. In most up-to-date guides (ie. Voltaa's compendium), two variations are often quoted as BiS:
1. Itemlevel 588, 4T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm
2. Itemlevel 589, 2T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm, TFP Shoulders, Siegecrafter Gloves
The current belief is that 4T16H is recommended for progression which heavily focuses on single target, while 2T16H is believed as "roughly the same on single target, better for multitarget fights and rank chasing".
The goal of this thread is to thoroughly check whether this belief stands the test of analysis.
Setup
Similar to most of my TC posts, the primary method of analysis will be done with Simulationcraft. I have enough confidence in the current state of Simulationcraft (Ver. 548-7) to model fights between 1 to 3 targets, while the AOE sequences are a little less optimized. However, there are very few fights with more than 3 consistent targets, so I feel it still gives a sufficiently complete picture.
As mentioned earlier, there are 2 sets being compared:
1. Itemlevel 588, 4T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm. This profile has 13959 haste and 21557 mastery from gear.
2. Itemlevel 589, 2T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm, TFP Shoulders, Siegecrafter Gloves. This profile has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery from gear.
By default, profiles will be using Frost Armor and Living Bomb. Variations using Mage Armor or NT will be denoted with name suffixes.
Single Target

Single target, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 120.0
The 4T16H profile leads 2T16H by a small margin of 0.638%. This is unlikely to be noticeable in real raid conditions. Using Mage Armor with 2T16H causes a loss of notable size - this is most likely due to the extreme levels of mastery achieved with the additional mastery pieces. This agrees with the Frost Armor vs Mage Armor analysis from my earlier thread: http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=313" target="_blank
The 2T16H profile has several points of interest. Aside from the expected higher share of damage done by AB/ABar, of interest is the haste/mastery reforge chart for it:

Origin has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
The value of Haste is practically equal to Mastery, up until 14179 haste. This corresponds to the 14242 haste BP, and the only spell that suffers beyond this point should be Arcane Barrage. This is very different from the reforge chart of 4T16H:

Origin has 13959 haste and 21557 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
Mastery is clearly stronger than haste with the 4T16H profile, and gunning for 14242 haste is a clear loss. This is significant, as we will find out later.
Three Targets
Before we start, I should explain that Simulationcraft has no simple way of separating multiple mobs. As such, Mage Bombs will always cleave all targets. I'll mention it if it affects our results.

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 175.0
The first test seems to agree with our assumption - 2T16H with LB on multiple targets has a small 0.758% advantage over 4T16H. The damage breakdown shows that explosion damage makes up 10.0% for both 2T16H and 4T16H, which means that LB cleave isn't skewing results for us. Of note is how Mage Armor falls further behind on multiple targets, contrary to popular belief.
Again we can look at the reforge graph for 2T16H:

Origin has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
Once again, it shows that we can trade the additional mastery for 14242 haste without losing any damage. This is very different from 4T16H, which shows a very erratic graph:

Origin has 13959 haste and 21557 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
When talking about 3 target fights, the first one that comes to mind is TFP. Nether Tempest should be used instead of Living Bomb on this fight.

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 224.0
"...Wait, what?"
Contrary to expectations, the 4T16H profile more than catches up as we switch to NT, and actually takes a tiny lead just larger than the error bar. Why is the change to NT creating such a huge difference in results?
The first answer that came to my mind was Haste. Nether Tempest does not have a fixed 1 second GCD, unlike Living Bomb. The 2T16H profile has 12424 base haste, which is ~1800 off the 14242 GCD cap with Frost Armor.
To verify this, we look at the reforge plot for 2T16H:

Origin has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
The reforge plot can essentially be interpreted as "HASTE! MOAR HASTE! MOAR HASTE!!11". The final reforge point with a huge jump is at 15934 haste, which has just achieved the 15832 NT breakpoint. This peak, at 874911 DPS, holds a 1.38% advantage over 4T16H - the biggest difference we've seen so far.
Now let's go back to what we noted earlier:
1. Reforging to 14242 haste with 2T16H produced <0.1% difference on single target, no ~0.0% difference on three target LB fights
2. Looking at the reforge graph on 3 target NT, 14242 haste would provide a ~1% gain.
I think it's safe to conclude that 14242 haste is a much better bargain overall.
2T16H with 14242 Haste
There's not much left to be said at this point: it's just charts and numbers. But first we need a setup: Click here for what I used as the 2T16 14242 profile.

Single target, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 120.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 174.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 224.0
What about shorter fights? Wouldn't higher haste builds hurt more due to GCD capping during Bloodlust?

Single target, Patchwerk fight, 180s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 212.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 180s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 326.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 180s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 255.0
Changing from 7.5 min to 3 min fights does not change its lead on 3 target NT. On single target it hurts a bit more, but 4T16H reigns supreme on single target anyway.
Conclusions
To summarize what we've found so far:
1. 4T16H has a small advantage on single target fights.
2. 2T16H has a small advantage on 3 target LB fights.
3. 4T16H and 2T16H are exactly even on 3 target NT fights, EXCEPT:
4. Reforging to higher haste gives 2T16H a notable gain on 3 target NT fights, while staying even on 3 target LB.
5. Once again, Frost Armor > Mage Armor in every scenario.
I offer two main conclusions/propositions based on the above. They also work as answers to the original question.
"The 4T16H BiS set is undisputed BiS for single target."
"The 2T16H set is BiS for multi target IF reforged to 14242 haste. 15836 haste is probably BiS for NT fights(ie. TFP/Spoils)."
Most of you have probably seen many duplicates of that question asked on every mage forum and Arcane guide thread. In most up-to-date guides (ie. Voltaa's compendium), two variations are often quoted as BiS:
1. Itemlevel 588, 4T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm
2. Itemlevel 589, 2T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm, TFP Shoulders, Siegecrafter Gloves
The current belief is that 4T16H is recommended for progression which heavily focuses on single target, while 2T16H is believed as "roughly the same on single target, better for multitarget fights and rank chasing".
The goal of this thread is to thoroughly check whether this belief stands the test of analysis.
Setup
Similar to most of my TC posts, the primary method of analysis will be done with Simulationcraft. I have enough confidence in the current state of Simulationcraft (Ver. 548-7) to model fights between 1 to 3 targets, while the AOE sequences are a little less optimized. However, there are very few fights with more than 3 consistent targets, so I feel it still gives a sufficiently complete picture.
As mentioned earlier, there are 2 sets being compared:
1. Itemlevel 588, 4T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm. This profile has 13959 haste and 21557 mastery from gear.
2. Itemlevel 589, 2T16H with HWF Garrosh Helm, TFP Shoulders, Siegecrafter Gloves. This profile has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery from gear.
By default, profiles will be using Frost Armor and Living Bomb. Variations using Mage Armor or NT will be denoted with name suffixes.
Single Target

Single target, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 120.0
The 4T16H profile leads 2T16H by a small margin of 0.638%. This is unlikely to be noticeable in real raid conditions. Using Mage Armor with 2T16H causes a loss of notable size - this is most likely due to the extreme levels of mastery achieved with the additional mastery pieces. This agrees with the Frost Armor vs Mage Armor analysis from my earlier thread: http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=313" target="_blank
The 2T16H profile has several points of interest. Aside from the expected higher share of damage done by AB/ABar, of interest is the haste/mastery reforge chart for it:

Origin has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
The value of Haste is practically equal to Mastery, up until 14179 haste. This corresponds to the 14242 haste BP, and the only spell that suffers beyond this point should be Arcane Barrage. This is very different from the reforge chart of 4T16H:

Origin has 13959 haste and 21557 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
Mastery is clearly stronger than haste with the 4T16H profile, and gunning for 14242 haste is a clear loss. This is significant, as we will find out later.
Three Targets
Before we start, I should explain that Simulationcraft has no simple way of separating multiple mobs. As such, Mage Bombs will always cleave all targets. I'll mention it if it affects our results.

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 175.0
The first test seems to agree with our assumption - 2T16H with LB on multiple targets has a small 0.758% advantage over 4T16H. The damage breakdown shows that explosion damage makes up 10.0% for both 2T16H and 4T16H, which means that LB cleave isn't skewing results for us. Of note is how Mage Armor falls further behind on multiple targets, contrary to popular belief.
Again we can look at the reforge graph for 2T16H:

Origin has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
Once again, it shows that we can trade the additional mastery for 14242 haste without losing any damage. This is very different from 4T16H, which shows a very erratic graph:

Origin has 13959 haste and 21557 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
When talking about 3 target fights, the first one that comes to mind is TFP. Nether Tempest should be used instead of Living Bomb on this fight.

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 224.0
"...Wait, what?"
Contrary to expectations, the 4T16H profile more than catches up as we switch to NT, and actually takes a tiny lead just larger than the error bar. Why is the change to NT creating such a huge difference in results?
The first answer that came to my mind was Haste. Nether Tempest does not have a fixed 1 second GCD, unlike Living Bomb. The 2T16H profile has 12424 base haste, which is ~1800 off the 14242 GCD cap with Frost Armor.
To verify this, we look at the reforge plot for 2T16H:

Origin has 12424 haste and 23904 mastery. Haste/mastery values in the graph are before amplification by PBoI.
The reforge plot can essentially be interpreted as "HASTE! MOAR HASTE! MOAR HASTE!!11". The final reforge point with a huge jump is at 15934 haste, which has just achieved the 15832 NT breakpoint. This peak, at 874911 DPS, holds a 1.38% advantage over 4T16H - the biggest difference we've seen so far.
Now let's go back to what we noted earlier:
1. Reforging to 14242 haste with 2T16H produced <0.1% difference on single target, no ~0.0% difference on three target LB fights
2. Looking at the reforge graph on 3 target NT, 14242 haste would provide a ~1% gain.
I think it's safe to conclude that 14242 haste is a much better bargain overall.
2T16H with 14242 Haste
There's not much left to be said at this point: it's just charts and numbers. But first we need a setup: Click here for what I used as the 2T16 14242 profile.

Single target, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 120.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 174.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 450s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 224.0
What about shorter fights? Wouldn't higher haste builds hurt more due to GCD capping during Bloodlust?

Single target, Patchwerk fight, 180s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS Error ~= 212.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 180s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 326.0

Three targets, Patchwerk fight, 180s fight duration, 100K iterations, DPS error ~= 255.0
Changing from 7.5 min to 3 min fights does not change its lead on 3 target NT. On single target it hurts a bit more, but 4T16H reigns supreme on single target anyway.
Conclusions
To summarize what we've found so far:
1. 4T16H has a small advantage on single target fights.
2. 2T16H has a small advantage on 3 target LB fights.
3. 4T16H and 2T16H are exactly even on 3 target NT fights, EXCEPT:
4. Reforging to higher haste gives 2T16H a notable gain on 3 target NT fights, while staying even on 3 target LB.
5. Once again, Frost Armor > Mage Armor in every scenario.
I offer two main conclusions/propositions based on the above. They also work as answers to the original question.
"The 4T16H BiS set is undisputed BiS for single target."
"The 2T16H set is BiS for multi target IF reforged to 14242 haste. 15836 haste is probably BiS for NT fights(ie. TFP/Spoils)."