Fire Mage Weapons

[Magenv]

Hey guys, I have a question about Weapons.

I have about 50% crit and 45% mastery. (with Voidcore Equipped and raid buffed)
My Weapons are: (H) Voidcore, (N) Edict, (H/N) Spur
My Trinkets are: (M) Goren, (6/6) Sandman, (HWF) Gaze

Until i get a heroic edict or mythic weapons which one should i be using? Stat wise i would think Spine would be best since its Crit/Mastery however Icyveins "BIS" list says voidcore is better.

Is there a "soft cap" for crit where i will want to swap to mastery, i remember reading that it was around 47% buffed but can't find the article

Also, Icyveins says that the 6/6 sandman is better than M goren however here it says its swapped. Any idea on the confusion since I thought Dutchmagoz authored both :S

Thanks for the help!

[Alzer]

Almost always use weapon with highest ilvl, so the 715 wep.

Trinket should be Sandman.

The crit soft cap is 2254 crit rating which is like 45-46% crit, this is the point at which you have 100% crit chance during the sandman's pouch proc.

[Magenv]

Thats what i figured was just making sure it the 60 int was worth losing 200 crit/mastery, Thanks for the quick response

[Seatoo]

My own sims have Edict > Spur (Unless MWF+Socket) > voidcore

[Magenv]

Makes sense, however is that still the same with a normal edict / heroic spur / heroic void?

[Alzer]

What it boils down to is really:

Do you need crit to reach 2254? If yes then take the crit/mastery weapon.

If you can reach the soft crit-cap without the crit from it, the 715 is gonna be way better.

[Curnivore]

Notice that 2254 can be reached with the help of crit food.

[Komma]

Hrm. Can someone show the math for this 2254 number?

[Alzer]

101% crit chance needed for 100% crit chance on crystal and 25% base crit (with self-buff) means you need A% crit chance from gear/proccs/food.

Code: Select all

(25+A)*1.3 = 101 A = 101/1.3 - 25 = 52.6923

Code: Select all

A = 52.6923 = (3080*1.15+x)/110

Where 3080*1.15 is the crit rating from sandman's pouch and x is the crit rating from gear+food.

Code: Select all

x = (52.6923*110) - (3080*1.15) = 2254.153

[Komma]

Ah, PC is 101, right. There is still a minor issue: crit depression applies before Critical Mass, so it is ((100/1.3) + 1%) instead of (101/1.3).

[Alzer]

Ah, my bad, that makes sense, was sitting at 2251 and my pyro chain was failing suspiciously often.

[Curnivore]

crit depression applies before Critical Mass, so it is ((100/1.3) + 1%)

Do you mean critical mass applies before crit suppression?

[Komma]

crit depression applies before Critical Mass, so it is ((100/1.3) + 1%)

Do you mean critical mass applies before crit suppression?

No, I actually mean what I said! You need to subtract 3% before you multiply by 1.3, ie. ((x - 3%) * 1.3) = 100%. It's the same as shatter, which is why the result is ((x - 3%) * 1.5) + 50% = 100%, the solution of which is ~36.33%. When we try to solve for the solution, the operations show up in reverse order, which is why we end up dividing and then summing, instead of first subtracting and then multiplying.

[Seatoo]

So we would need closer to 50% crit as opposed to the 47% being bandied about? I am le bad at math so anyone facepalming I'll apologize ahead of time

[skiz]

Against PC:
How much crit % do you need?
X *1.3 = 100% => X = 100 / 1.3 = ~ 76,9%

How much do you get free?
Y = X - 25 % (baseline crit) - 1 ( IF you are a sexy bloodelf) + 1% (Crit supression) = ~52,9% or ~51,9% if bloodelf
Baselinecrit = 5% base crit, 15% from passive out of fire spellbock, 5% buff
Crit supression = 1% vs 86, 3% vs bosses.

How much rating?
Z = 110 * Y= 5821,6 as nonbloodelf, 5711,6 as bloodelf. May be a little bit screwed because of ingame rounding.

Regarding gear: Keep in mind, cool fire mages get 15% more crit from gear.

Sandmans pouch: (3080crit)
nonbloodelf 5821,6 - (3080*1.15) = 2279,6
bloodelf 5711,6 - 3542 = 2169,6

Bonemaw's big toe: (2817crit)
nonbloodelf 5821,6 - (2817*1.15) = 2582
bloodelf 5711,6 - 3239,55= 2472
Weird ingamerounding may force 2473 / 2583, as mentioned, dont know how it works.

Get underlined crit values and you are fine. (Those should appear inside the character sheet / Armory if I aint wrong.) Critcap against Bosses is basically that underlined value + 220.

[Wilderness]

Why is everyone so intent on reaching that crit soft cap? Crit, and that cap, is only better on single-target from all the sims I've run. As soon as AoE/cleave is introduced Mastery becomes better, even if you're below that soft cap. At least that's what I've seen in my own sims. And there are less pure single-target fights in HFC than there are AoE/cleave.

It may be different for those mages with very fast kill times who are trying to rank very highly, as I've mostly been looking at 2-4 min fights since that's more realistic for me, but going with mastery for Fire seems like the better option. And it works nicely with switching to Arcane for those single-target fights.

[Curnivore]

^ I believe they do it for reliability, the want an absolute certainty of that good first burn. It's a very valid reason because reliability is an advantage the benefits the whole team, but also fire is mainly used as a fun spec for farm teams that kill stuff within the first burn or first and a half.

What I don't get of course is when that becomes the end-all. For instance, it might be better to get even more crit (or it might be worse). You wouldn't know by intuition alone, it needs proper simulation or full formulation (the latter is unlikely to be reliable).

[Wilderness]

^ I believe they do it for reliability, the want an absolute certainty of that good first burn. It's a very valid reason because reliability is an advantage the benefits the whole team, but also fire is mainly used as a fun spec for farm teams that kill stuff within the first burn or first and a half.

What I don't get of course is when that becomes the end-all. For instance, it might be better to get even more crit (or it might be worse). You wouldn't know by intuition alone, it needs proper simulation or full formulation (the latter is unlikely to be reliable).

Sure, I could understand someone doing that when they are killing fights that quickly since that first one is all that matters or most of what matters.

But a lot of people are playing fire that are not in that super-fast-kill-trying-to-rank mode and still they are prioritizing Crit, and that doesn't seem as good as Mastery in more fights (and the hardest fights in HFC are not single-target so no reason to focus single-target for a long, difficult progression fight either).

[Alzer]

That's not what I am seeing, if the fight extends beyond just the pull, crit pulls ahead by quite a bit if I'm below the cap.

You are right about the crit soft-cap tho, it's not a breakpoint, it's merely a point where crit shifts from high to low value.

[Wilderness]

That's not what I am seeing, if the fight extends beyond just the pull, crit pulls ahead by quite a bit if I'm below the cap.

You are right about the crit soft-cap tho, it's not a breakpoint, it's merely a point where crit shifts from high to low value.

Crit sims better than Mastery for you on cleave/AoE fights? That seems surprising.