Feedback wanted: Look at my mage

[Sadeian]

Basically I would like to know what else I could do with my mage to make him more powerful without going past 85. Recently I upgraded to Spellfire set which grants me 60 extra spellpower, currently sitting at 945 and 969 inside ipvp with only Arcane Intellect. Compared to my previously equipped gear, I sacrificed 1% damage reduction (from less armor) and 2% haste. Seems like a fair trade.

Speaking of haste, I'm really fond of my haste procs from trinkets, meta and weapon. I reach anywhere between 30% to 110% haste depending on how well things line up, considering all of them appear to share a 45secs ICD I get to spam Arcane Blasts with a cast time of under 1 second. All of that is without Time Warp.

I'm missing BiS enchant on hands since I'm too poor to upgrade it for now and switched from Power Torrent to Torrent of Elements on weapon as the latter provides roughly the same increase, but it has no ICD, therefore its uptime is much higher.

Arcane Mage level 85

Suggestions, please :]

 

[Blackberryy]

Get the 76 version or the 81 version of blade of wizardry. Or get the legendary staff since the proc rate on wizardry is not worth it
[doublepost=1537660306,1537660240][/doublepost]Also get the ashen band

 

[Thebullshift]

Couldn't you get engineering helm, you could stack double cogwheel haste gems. That could give you and extra 62 Haste.

My 89 twink priest is :https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/tichondrius/Smexyqt

If you know any good gear that's better then mind please tell. Just geared this character pretty fast, also coppied a couple items from you.

 

[docturphil]

I'd say the legendary staff is better. Proc rate is supposed to be around ~9% at level 85. That's essentially a straight up 9% damage increase from the proc alone. Even if that staff of wizardry had 100% uptime on the haste boost the legendary staff still probably wins. 14% haste (assuming 100% proc uptime) vs 9% raw damage. Legendary staff wins for sure.

Also, engineering helm is OP with the cogwheel sockets giving +31 to a secondary stat. +62 secondary stats overall from two cogwheels.

Also I think Cunning of the cruel might be a better trinket. Not 100% sure on that, but the proc does a lot of damage and it's AoE.
[doublepost=1537806630,1537803032][/doublepost]

Get the 76 version or the 81 version of blade of wizardry. Or get the legendary staff since the proc rate on wizardry is not worth it
[doublepost=1537660306,1537660240][/doublepost]Also get the ashen band

Is the Ashen Band of Destruction actually better? From what I've read it's a 10% proc rate with a 1 minute internal coooldown. Assuming it procs exactly once a minute then that means it's about a 6 spellpower increase on average. You lose about 4 spell power and 5 secondary stats vs a Dragon Soul epic socketed ring. Overall I'd say that isn't worth it.

 

[Sadeian]

So far I've had two hard choices, both of which have been mentioned by you boys, engineering helm and legendary staff.

At first I had intended to level engineering to get the helm, until I accidentally got my current helm (from Firelands). In the end I opted for higher main stat

Current helm (with a +5 int/crit gem)
34 Intelligence
39 secondary stat (crit/mastery)
--
Engineering helm
22 Intelligence
62 secondary stat

The difference with my current helm is +12 intellect and -23 secondary stat (that is approximately 1.8% of whatever secondary stat) For some reason this Firelands helm is superior to any DS head you can get and I suspect it can also proc different secondary stats, mine is of the peerless, it might be possible to get a different suffix.

The legendary staff followed a very similar decision making process.

Current setup (MH + OH)
MH: 68 int \ 216 haste proc (around 19% haste for 6 seconds on a 45s ICD)
OH: 64 int \ 14 secondary stat
132 Intelligence
--
Legendary staff (with three +5 int/crit gems)
118 Intelligence
39 secondary stat

Not only I get more intelligence with my current MH+OH, there is also the haste proc. Now, I do understand the argument in favor of the legendary staff, the proc just sounds really good, but arcane had something similar for several expansions. The now removed Unstable Magic had a 20% chance of duplicating Arcane Blast as an AOE for 40% of its original damage, it was great when it procced but even at 20% chance it was just not enough for a spec like arcane with mostly hard casts. So even if the legendary proc is a 100% power duplicate, the lower proc chance just makes it so underwhelming for the spec.

Also, I tested the staff on my main (arcane mage) as soon as the pre patch hit to see if it works. It did not proc once at 110 and its not proccing right now at 120 (tested it again today before this post). Maybe it is a level-gated proc like all the Legion legendaries? Regardless, at least for now the staff does not seem to be worth all the effort necessary to get it, also I'm very poor right now and can't afford paying for FL runs.

Finally, about the ashen band, I arrived to the same conclusion as docturphil, rings with sockets from DS seem to be better.

 

[docturphil]

Also, I tested the staff on my main (arcane mage) as soon as the pre patch hit to see if it works. It did not proc once at 110 and its not proccing right now at 120 (tested it again today before this post). Maybe it is a level-gated proc like all the Legion legendaries? Regardless, at least for now the staff does not seem to be worth all the effort necessary to get it, also I'm very poor right now and can't afford paying for FL runs.

Yeah I don't believe it would proc at 110. From what I've been able to gather the proc rate drops off gradually per level until it hits 0%. From my estimations it looks to be around a ~0.4% drop in proc rate per level. So it would hit 0% at level 108.

This is based on reports from a reliable source (a 99 twink who recently obtained the staff was experiencing a 3.3% proc chance) and old reports of a 9% base proc rate at 85.

Now I haven't heard from an 85 doing any proc rate tests on this weapon in quite a while, so it may have changed. But I kinda doubt it. And of course the proc rate drop off might not be perfectly linear. It might even be that the proc rate doesn't start to drop off until level 90... Crossing my fingers.

At any rate, I'll know soon enough. I should get my legendary staff a week from tomorrow on my 89 druid twink. If my theory holds up I should see about a 7.5% proc rate.

 

[Sadeian]

At any rate, I'll know soon enough. I should get my legendary staff a week from tomorrow on my 89 druid twink. If my theory holds up I should see about a 7.5% proc rate.

Cool, looking forward to those tests.

 

[Merlin]

there is a trinket that gives you 222 mastery (0.92 proc per min) when proc at lvl87 .. for classes who uses mastery as dmg % increase, it is very significant

 

[docturphil]

there is a trinket that gives you 222 mastery (0.92 proc per min) when proc at lvl87 .. for classes who uses mastery as dmg % increase, it is very significant

And what trinket is that?

 

[Merlin]

And what trinket is that?

the name is Fizzlebang's Folly .. but the lvl87 version

 

[Sadeian]

the name is Fizzlebang's Folly .. but the lvl87 version

I think you mean Theralion's Mirror.

 

[Merlin]

no .. its not Theralion's Mirror .. the mastery on this is too low .. the Fizzlebang's Folly 87 is an extremely rare version and proc 222 mastery if you use the lvl87 version .. i have quite a number of them (lvl87 version) so its a real item, then they also come in other lvl version, eg. 91, 96
[doublepost=1538422211,1538421950][/doublepost]

And what trinket is that?

the Greka is what i would use, but why do you use Dragonling ? you are aware there is a lvl96 trinket that proc 10 sec 261 str (0.92 proc per min) ? its available on AH

 

[docturphil]

no .. its not Theralion's Mirror .. the mastery on this is too low .. the Fizzlebang's Folly 87 is an extremely rare version and proc 222 mastery if you use the lvl87 version .. i have quite a number of them (lvl87 version) so its a real item, then they also come in other lvl version, eg. 91, 96
[doublepost=1538422211,1538421950][/doublepost]

the Greka is what i would use, but why do you use Dragonling ? you are aware there is a lvl96 trinket that proc 10 sec 261 str (0.92 proc per min) ? its available on AH

If I'm not mistaken, trinket chance on hit procs which increase stats all share an internal cooldown. So having two chance on hit trinkets wouldn't make sense. Unless of course I'm incorrect about that.

Also, you're looking at my 99 twink not my 89 druid twink (Docturphil on Cho'gall).

 

[Merlin]

i dont quite understand what you mean .. i used them on dummies in SW they do all proc at the same time, but it is random

yes i was looking at your 99 pally .. i see a greka that gives you 244 str, but the 2nd trink you use a dragonling, you do not prefer trink like Bajheric Bangle ? the lvl96 version Bajheric Bangle trinket is 0.92 proc per min for 10 sec, giving 265 str
[doublepost=1538491972,1538491806][/doublepost]yes, Fizzlebang's Folly 87 was meant for your 89 druid

and Bajheric Bangle 96 was meant for your pally 99

 

[docturphil]

i dont quite understand what you mean .. i used them on dummies in SW they do all proc at the same time, but it is random

yes i was looking at your 99 pally .. i see a greka that gives you 244 str, but the 2nd trink you use a dragonling, you do not prefer trink like Bajheric Bangle ? the lvl96 version Bajheric Bangle trinket is 0.92 proc per min for 10 sec, giving 265 str
[doublepost=1538491972,1538491806][/doublepost]yes, Fizzlebang's Folly 87 was meant for your 89 druid

and Bajheric Bangle 96 was meant for your pally 99

Ok, maybe I'm wrong about simultaneous trinket procs. I guess I just assumed since "on use" trinkets share cooldown that "chance on hit" trinkets would as well.

I'm using the ghost iron dragonling on my 99 twink because it was better than what I had and I had a bunch of extras laying around. And I do feel like it's still a pretty good twink trinket even at 99. But perhaps not BiS.

But since 8.0 I've been putting most of my time into my 89 twink.

As for Fizzlebang's, I'll have to check that out! Thanks for the info.

 

[docturphil]

Cool, looking forward to those tests.

So looks like it's going to be another week. Apparently you must survive the fight with Ragnaros to get the Heart of Flame, which I thought only applied to non-heroic difficulty.

I'll be playing it safe next week and doing it on 10 man regular to ensure that I survive the fight.
[doublepost=1538612004,1538573143][/doublepost]

Cool, looking forward to those tests.

Just kidding!

I opened up a GM ticket and they were able to send me the Heart of Flame! So I officially have my legendary staff!

And... Strangely enough, I actually had a Heart of Flame in my inventory and one sitting in the mailbox. So I still have one after turning in my quest. It's completely insignificant, but it makes me feel like a special snowflake nonetheless.

Anyways, I haven't had much time for testing yet. I'll have to find a decent add-on to track procs. But I spent a few minutes in front of a target dummy. The proc on dots is very noticeable since it is called "Wrath of Tarecgosa" in your combat log. Proc rate on that seemed quite high when just using dots. It seemed higher than 10% against a level 85 target dummy.

With regular damage spells, however, I didn't notice it proc a single time. I've read on wowhead that when it procs on regular spells it just shows that spell twice in the combat log instead of saying "Wrath of Tarecgosa". But I also never saw an extra yellow number pop up or an extra animation for a spell.

So my preliminary results seem to indicate that it may only proc on dots. If that's the case, it's probably insanely OP for affliction warlocks, really good for shadow priests, just barely BiS for balance druids, and pretty meh for mages and shamans.

But, more research is needed! I'll need to find a way to get a count of spells cast vs damage applications and compare the two. If the total count of damage applications are higher then it procs! If not, then I may die inside just a little bit.

I suppose it's also possible that the proc on dots is much higher. So I'll be sure to test dots and regular spells separately.