70-79 Level 70 PvE BiS Gear Compendium

[Fx]

On mobile so I can't do fancy linking.

I overviewed the plate section and have to disagree on the boots. Dreadboots from BT are by far better then onslaught imo by a long shot. Better stats and a second gem slot. Those trinks as well, everyone has their own trinket pathway, shouldn't have to go full eng gear. Trinkets were always preference to the players playstyle/build. This is PvE

You're doing the same thing as the other posters. You're giving random suggestions without any math to back it up. Here you go:

Dreadboots of the Legion vs Onslaught Treads:

10 strength vs 1 crit, 4 haste and 0.81 avg ilvl, which is a 1.35% damage increase.

So while your 10 strength will give you what would roughly be a 1.2-1.3% damage increase, you give up 5 secondary stats, which is roughly 0.25% damage, as well as flat 1.35% damage. So Dreadboots are easily worse.

As for your comment about ''preference'':

There is no preference for BiS gear. BiS is BiS no matter how you feel about a specific item. Lightning Generator is BiS for -EVERY SINGLE SPEC-. If you think it's not BiS, feel free to provide the supposedly BiS replacement with the math to back it up.

 

[Dreams]

Sorry @Fx but BiS is all about feelings and preference. Get outta here with your "math" and "rationale", lol.

 

[Rob]

feels before reals

 

[Fx]

feels before reals

Good post, +1

 

[Blackberryy]

The term BIS has been skewed in twink brackets, since people think that BIS is a term to fit to ones play style and or preferance in stats. it's good to have these guides to help people shoot for BIS.

 

[Dreams]

No response from @Resto and @Tuskbreaker

 

[Tuskbreaker]

@Onlydreams What if I have no reason to reply?

 

[Symandria]

Hi, first off love the work you are doing Fx! Your a great player

Now to contest some of your item choices for Frost mage

Wand of Cleansing Light > Wand of the Demonsoul
Once you have that much haste it turns out the 10 versa adds more to the multiplier than 5 more haste, and Demonsoul only really gives 1 SP bonus for socket so it's also a toss up with the 2 Versa.

Slippers of the Seacaller barely win out vs Boots of the Tempest because of the extra socket if I recall right.

Ring of Omnipotence > Band of the Eternal Restorer
Unless they have fixed it, Band of the Eternal Restorer just plain never procs.

(I think the numbers only work if you have enough GFed gear, but for me it worked out that using Belt of Blasting beats out Belt of the Tempest, I think it helped me hit certain Haste target points with the lowest trade offs.)

Because grandfathering isn't retroactive I won't contest swapping out gnomish lightning gen for momento, and picking up the 25 sp +15 stam master's spellthread.


P.S. Has anyone tested if Pendant of the Violet Eye procs 1 stack per tick of Ray of Frost? I know Blizzard's rules beneath the surface are inconsistent, some things can proc off the ticks from Ray of Frost and some can only proc off the initial cast. Since the spell does cost mana initially, it's possible that each tick could give a stack which now that it's versa could be +700 Versa by the time ray of frost has finished adding like 30% damage at peak.

 

[Symandria]

While your gearing sections generally look pretty solid! Your gem / enchant advice respectfully sucks. Having played 70 for a while, like yourself. And having theorycrafted the heck out of the numbers and been top DPS in countless raids I can say for certain that for many specs haste or crit is usually better than the main stat to a cap point determined by the way the class mechanics work. And the main stat usually acts to fill in the extra or slightly adjust the power * haste * crit * ilevel multiplier equation. Usually I find enchants besides the 4 wod slots lean towards AP/SP while gems lean towards whatever the spec gains most from.

P.S. You might want to just remove this whole line from your main post "The gear sets provided are Best in Slot for both raids and dungeons, with no exceptions. There is no better item available for each slot than what is given in this guide." since all gear sets at this level that mention an ability by name are now broken.

 

[Fx]

enchants besides the 4 wod slots lean towards AP/SP while gems lean towards whatever the spec gains most from.

Yes? Obviously 15 spellpower on gloves is better than 20 haste. I'd hoped I wouldn't have to specify those things.

As for the wand thing, we checked that just today actually, and yes the ''healing'' wand is slightly better. Boots are not good. Belt is not good. Ring is definitely proccing.

since all gear sets at this level that mention an ability by name are now broken.

Idk what this even means. Are you implying that because set bonusses don't work, those items aren't BiS? Because they certainly are BiS even without the set bonus. There are some nuances with overall ilvl that need working out, but generally it holds.

for many specs haste or crit is usually better than the main stat

This is flat-out not true. I've been running simulations and it's not even close. Int/Agi/Str are much, much stronger than haste/crit/vers. So much so that it's not even worth considering gemming anything besides pure main stat for any DPS. The only exceptions are the JC unique +24 crit gems. They are good enough for some DPS specs.

 

[Dreams]

Because grandfathering isn't retroactive I won't contest swapping out gnomish lightning gen for momento

Uhm what's momento?

 

[Valanyr]

Uhm what's momento?

Momento of Tyrande? I assume?

 

[Dreams]

Momento of Tyrande? I assume?

I hope that's not what he means lol

 

[Dreams]

Slippers of the Seacaller barely win out vs Boots of the Tempest because of the extra socket if I recall right.

Depends on your item set as a whole. Swapping out tempest with seacaller drops your ilvl by ~0,8. The only way seacaller is better is if that minus 0,8 average ilvl doesn't drop you below the next whole number, which it will if you are wearing BiS.

Unless they have fixed it, Band of the Eternal Restorer just plain never procs.

using Belt of Blasting beats out Belt of the Tempest, I think it helped me hit certain Haste target points with the lowest trade offs.)

First of all there are no haste softcaps or breakpoints for frost mage except the GCD softcap which is irrelevant since you're always going to hit that softcap during cds, and you're never going to reach it without cds. So if you could elaborate on "certain haste targets" that would be helpful.

Now for http://www.wowhead.com/item=34557/belt-of-the-tempest VS http://www.wowhead.com/item=30038/belt-of-blasting
Comparison: 19 SP 4 crit 1 haste VS 26 item levels (1,625 average ilvls)
So actually this comes down to item level decimals. Since ilvl only benefits you in whole numbers. If your ilvl while wearing the belt of blasting is X,375 or a higher decimal, it's worth going for the belt of the tempest. If the decimal is X,374 or lower it's worth keeping your blasting belt.

Because grandfathering isn't retroactive I won't contest swapping out gnomish lightning gen for momento

I'll wait for a response on what you mean by "momento". But just in case you mean the memento of tyrande from BT: just no.

and picking up the 25 sp +15 stam master's spellthread

The compendium only mentions general rules on enchants and gems, so what's the point of suggesting specific enchants?

Your gem / enchant advice respectfully sucks. Having played 70 for a while, like yourself. And having theorycrafted the heck out of the numbers and been top DPS in countless raids I can say for certain that for many specs haste or crit is usually better than the main stat to a cap point determined by the way the class mechanics work.

First of all: grats on topping dps as frost mage
Just in case you're curious, here are the stat weights that Fx simmed on my mage (in signature):
Int: 7.23 | Haste: 3.56 | Crit: 3.34 | Vers: 3.3
Of course these values change when you adjust your secondary stats. For the record my mages current secondaries are 22% crit and 22% haste. Having more of a given secondary devalues it comparatively to the other secondaries. For example if I were to replace my crit ring enchant with a haste enchant the value of crit would shift to being slightly higher than haste once again.

Anyway, as you can see you need slightly more than 2 of a secondary stat to reach the value of a single intellect point. So as Fx pointed out: only the 24 crit gems are worth more dps than int gems for frost mages.

 

[Dreams]

@Onlydreams What if I have no reason to reply?

No interest in backing up your own claims? why not

 

[Symandria]

Math for slippers:

Slippers of the Seacaller
18 int
14 crit
40 haste (gems)
9 versa
4 sp

+2 crit, 9 versa, 2 sp, 8 haste

18 int
12 crit
32 haste (1 gem)
2 sp

+0.8 ilevel

So slippers give about 19 secondary stat and 2 primary, at BiS that adds about 1.25% to actual damage. The extra 0.8 ilevel levels at that point add about 1.66% / 1.64 (my current bonus from ilevel, obviously adding 1.66% to a multiplier of +64% is less than adding a new multiplier of 1.66%) = 1.01% damage. Thus the Slippers win out by a good 1/4 percent of damage.

@Onlydreams is there a reason to believe whole numbers instead of floats are used to calculate the actual damage bonus for ilevel? Or is that just an assumption on your part that it does, and an assumption on my part that it doesn't?

@Fx regarding sets, why have a line in there about sets if the bonuses don't apply? Good gear will always be good gear, I think it just adds some confusion to the equation to mention them when the set bonuses aren't in effect.


Sweet! Band of the Eternal Restorer is procing again that is awesome!! Can't wait to run double eternal rings! P.S. Can anyone confirm if it procs on Mage? It could be that it procs on Priests as a healing capable class but for w/e reason doesn't proc on Mage. I only ask because the last time I tested it the Ring would not proc for my mage.


@Fx I run simulations and test in real environments, with my setup I've soloed Kara, every heroic, and every LK dungeon I can enter. I can open out for 40k DPS~ As an example to why haste is better for frost mage it works like this: Mana is no concern so it's not a drawback. Haste is then at a base weight of 1.00 effectiveness (1% haste increases damage by 1% / (1 + CurrentHastePercentage). Ray of Frost is your biggest damage source by far and it has a ramp up effect, so the faster you tick the sooner you get to +200% damage this adds at least 10-25% to overall damage. Also just to toss it out since Heroism is a true multiplier to haste if you have say 50% haste then you gain 30% * 1.5 = 45% so that doesn't work against haste stacking either. Also you get more fingers of frost and the flurry procs, but each proc does less damage so that's mostly a wash besides increasing reliability with the NOTABLE exception of comboing 2 instead of 1 extra finger of frost proc from Ray of Water (water elemental power). Overall I decided to set Haste at a base weight of 1.2x base value. At level 70 it takes 14.04 haste for 1%, with the weight adjustment it's 14.04 / 1.2 = 11.7. Now at BiS you effectively have at least around 1k SP so 10 SP = 1%. It's really easy to see that 20 haste (1.70% damage) at least for a ways beats out 1.05% (it's 1.05 because gems give int not sp, and you get an extra 5%) damage. Now either direction you head decreases the value of that stat by growing it's multiplier, so eventually you hit a tipping point where you want to switch. In the case of Frost mage the tipping point happens to be just over 50% haste because it gets you exactly 20 ticks for ray of frost (which by the way brings the average damage per tick from +100% damage to +150%), after that magic number it takes SOO much more haste to get another tick it's just not worth it, and before that point you are close enough to another tick it is worth it.

@Onlydreams yes I meant Memento of Tyrande (ilevel 151, 23 int, with a 30% uptime proc that adds 90 versa (a multiplier that is almost untouched by my build and thus worth almost as much as haste or crit at BiS) which will nicely be in effect for ray of frost driving up damage when it matters most without triggering a trinket shared cooldown. (plus at the number of haste I have a haste proc like skull of gul'dan kind of sucks anyways do to exact tick counts.)

@Onlydreams breakpoints exist for haste because of Ray of Frost tick counts. There is no softcap though you are right since you can bring GCD below 1 second now, was very surprised by that!


By the way about the 24 crit gems, if you did prefer int there are 2x 12 int gems and 1 13 all stat gems you should pick up first, after that it might be worth it depending on other things in the build.



I have my own stat crunching program I wrote, it's fairly simple I put in the base stat weight adjustments and then it computes values and will even tell me how to reallocate stats to get the most out of everything. Now currently it doesn't do advanced simulation crafting like figuring out how mechanics will interact with each other, but that would take a ton more work.

My own weights with my gear are: Int 102 (@967), 56 Haste (@50.49%), 53 Crit (@17.66%), 53 Versa (@1.13%)
Now of course it doesn't know about breakpoints so I actually value Haste after the breakpoint as basically 20% less.

I imagine the error in Fx's weight math comes from not recomputing the weights based on his current stat numbers, or an improper evaluation of the effects each stat has and thus re-weighting the stat accordingly. If his stat weights were correct I would of course concede that int gems > secondary stat. The accuracy of the math and the simulation models are what determines which is better at the end of the day

P.S. Isn't 40 SP (Major Spellpower) just better than Mark of the Warsong?

 

[Symandria]

Oops missed reviewing the math for the belts!

Belt of Blasting
24 int
16 crit
53 haste
4 sp

6 int, 2 sp, 21 haste, 4 crit

Belt of the Tempest
18 int
12 crit
32 haste
2 sp

26 ilevels

(26 / 16) * 1.66 / 1.64 = 1.64% damage for Belt of the Tempest, (8x2 + 25 = 41 secondary stat point equivalent~) (my fancy weights in the previous thing turn out to mean 1000 = 1%, so we will use a weight of 54 to average it out (half Int, mostly haste, some crit)) (41 * 54) / 1000 = 2.21% damage for the Belt of Blasting.

 

[Dreams]

I have my own stat crunching program I wrote, it's fairly simple I put in the base stat weight adjustments and then it computes values and will even tell me how to reallocate stats to get the most out of everything. Now currently it doesn't do advanced simulation crafting like figuring out how mechanics will interact with each other, but that would take a ton more work.

I'll start by replying to this even though it's not the first thing you wrote, because I think it's the premise for why you're wrong about a lot of things...
I guess I'd ask why you aren't just using Simcraft? Simcraft does, as you mentioned, take into account complex mechanics down to the smallest detail and allows you to adjust fight length (which is very relevant for building a 70 character since most fights are only 1-3 minutes). So what's the point of writing your own program when there's already a highly functioning, widely respected, extremely accurate, free program that does the same thing better?

The point is I'd trust the concluded stat weights of a highly specialized simulation that I know takes every detail into account over the stat weights of a random custom program that someone wrote any day. And so should you. Haste gems are not stronger than int gems at 22% haste. They're certainly not going to be stronger if you're doing some mongo build with way more haste.

In the case of Frost mage the tipping point happens to be just over 50% haste because it gets you exactly 20 ticks for ray of frost (which by the way brings the average damage per tick from +100% damage to +150%), after that magic number it takes SOO much more haste to get another tick it's just not worth it, and before that point you are close enough to another tick it is worth it.

breakpoints exist for haste because of Ray of Frost tick counts

And here is another really fundamental yet really important thing you have misunderstood. There are no softcaps for ray of frost or any other DoTs or channels in the game anymore. They got removed. Ever noticed that at the very end of your ray of frost you get a little extra mini tick? Say you have exactly enough haste to make ray of frost tick 25,5 times. It's not just going to tick 25 times and then skip the last half tick. It's going to calculate how much of a tick you missed and then add that damage at the end of the channel. So... There is no "magic number". Your ray just benefits equally from every point of haste you feed it.

I run simulations and test in real environments, with my setup I've soloed Kara, every heroic, and every LK dungeon I can enter. I can open out for 40k DPS~

Soloing karazhan can be done on much weaker classes than mages, as demonstrated in the other thread. Not sure why you being able to solo stuff suddenly validates your build. The fact that you're only peaking 40k dps with ray should tell you that your build is sub-optimal since my mage 1. doesn't have grandfathered stuff and 2. isn't even fully built yet and still peaks 50k on opening ray.

with the NOTABLE exception of comboing 2 instead of 1 extra finger of frost proc from water jet.

This can easily be done with 22% haste as well, and probably way lower than that.

is there a reason to believe whole numbers instead of floats are used to calculate the actual damage bonus for ilevel?

Yes. I actually conducted an experiment to test how the ilvl boost interacts with item level decimals.
What I did was adjust my average item level to be X,9 and then shoot a frostbolt in the open world. Then I calculated what that frostbolt would hit for inside of instances in three different scenarios: If my ilvl was rounded down, if it was rounded up or if the exact decimal was used. Once I had those 3 numbers I went into a raid and shot a frostbolt at a mob. The damage matched the first number aka item level being rounded down.

I didn't take notes/screenshots of the experiment so I'll replicate it once I get the time. Not saying you won't believe me otherwise but I like to have these kinds of things documented.

Sweet! Band of the Eternal Restorer is procing again that is awesome!! Can't wait to run double eternal rings! P.S. Can anyone confirm if it procs on Mage? It could be that it procs on Priests as a healing capable class but for w/e reason doesn't proc on Mage. I only ask because the last time I tested it the Ring would not proc for my mage.

Yeah it does work on mage. The screenshot I posted was of my mage.
However, we did just sim three different ring setups: double proc, proc+static, double static, and found that proc+static simmed higher. Omnipotence+sage that is. It's probably because the stats on restorer are so bad.

I imagine the error in Fx's weight math comes from not recomputing the weights based on his current stat numbers, or an improper evaluation of the effects each stat has and thus re-weighting the stat accordingly.

Not true. He ran new stat weight sims on my character after every enchant. Like I mentioned in my previous reponse: changing your secondary stat amounts obviously shifts their values proportionally to the other secondaries (and to intellect). IE: the more of a given secondary you have the less it's worth compared to the others.


I'll address your specific item comparisons later when I find the time - but as I mentioned I think the main reason you're getting them wrong is the inaccurate simulator.

 

[Symandria]

@Opendreams Let me start off by saying I respect you and Fx you guys are both great twinks!

I'll respond by saying I don't use Simcraft because I haven't looked into and don't trust it. It would have to be extremely transparent in how it works down to fine details so I could verify it wasn't making errors. I would probably trust a program like that at max level but not for twinking where it may or may not take into account corrected rotations, lack of masteries, ilevel scaling, ect.

My program also doesn't matter, being able to break down the and justify the math does. I went ahead and explained why haste matters. It sounds like the Simcraft overvalues int, can you explain how Fx arrived at the value for Int he is using. For me I started by saying that basically 100% of spell casters damage comes from SP, so 1% increase = 1% increase in damage. But as your SP goes up so does how many SP it takes to increase your current amount by 1%. Int of course also benefits from the armor proficiency bonus of +5%, so Int has a base stat weight of 1.05%.


In my personal testing for Ray of Frost the last tick always seemed the same base damage value as the one before it so I see no evidence of the partial ticks you indicate. I would test it again but at this moment my account doesn't have a subscription.


Very nice opening damage of 50k, I don't know the circumstances that's achieved under, I do know I low balled mine a normal fight opener is more like 44k self-buffed including combat consumables.


Very good news about the ring


Glad to hear you are checking the numbers after changes Generally it sounds like your methods are solid, but we do have a large difference in weights. That being said the difference in noted damage for the items I suggested actually looked pretty large and even with the varied weights the outcome should be the same, are you remembering to scale down your +damage value based on the amount of your current bonus from ilevel when making the computations?

 

[Fx]

I'll respond by saying I don't use Simcraft because I haven't looked into and don't trust it. It would have to be extremely transparent in how it works down to fine details so I could verify it wasn't making errors. I would probably trust a program like that at max level but not for twinking where it may or may not take into account corrected rotations, lack of masteries, ilevel scaling, ect.

All of the things you mentioned can easily be fixed manually. You can write your own priorities, and no, it does not count mastery (because we don't have mastery obviously?) and ilvl is something you just put in yourself if you want to compare different ilvl sets?

It's extremely easy to use so Idk why you wouldn't. Instead of using some makeshift program you can have simcraft kill brutallus 100.000 times and see how your stats actually function.

My program also doesn't matter, being able to break down the and justify the math does. I went ahead and explained why haste matters. It sounds like the Simcraft overvalues int, can you explain how Fx arrived at the value for Int he is using. For me I started by saying that basically 100% of spell casters damage comes from SP, so 1% increase = 1% increase in damage. But as your SP goes up so does how many SP it takes to increase your current amount by 1%. Int of course also benefits from the armor proficiency bonus of +5%, so Int has a base stat weight of 1.05%.

It's funny how you can write this and be reasonably close to correct, and yet draw the wrong conclusion. Int is a little stronger than spellpower, as you can see from my statweights as well, but the amount of haste you need to do something meaningful is actually obscene after you get around 20%. Dreams has over 130% haste during his CDs, and his Ray ticks almost every 0.33 seconds. To gain another tick, he would need to gem so much extra haste that anyone would say ''yeah that's too much int you're giving up.'' , because the more haste you get, the more you'll need to make an impact.

This is easily seen in the following example: smite has a 1.5 second cast time. With 50% haste, smite has a 1.0 second cast time (a reduction of half a second). If you get another 50% haste now, so you're at 100%, smite will be a 0.75 second cast time (a reduction of a quarter of a second for the same increase in haste!). Dreams has -even more haste than that-, so haste is just not that good for him anymore. This is reflected in Simcraft's results, where haste, even though it's still reasonably strong, is nowhere near as good as intellect or even spellpower anymore.

For your information, the previous statweights were not even counting haste pot usage, so haste is even worse. I just figured out how to make simcraft use haste pots, so here you go:

In my personal testing for Ray of Frost the last tick always seemed the same base damage value as the one before it so I see no evidence of the partial ticks you indicate. I would test it again but at this moment my account doesn't have a subscription.

He's not talking about the last tick, he's talking about when Ray ends. You will not get a full tick when the channel expires unless you have the exact amount of haste that would give you a full tick on the last 0.01 seconds.

Very nice opening damage of 50k, I don't know the circumstances that's achieved under, I do know I low balled mine a normal fight opener is more like 44k self-buffed including combat consumables.

Circumstances is a 5-man raid group that knows what it's doing.

are you remembering to scale down your +damage value based on the amount of your current bonus from ilevel when making the computations?

Ilvl doesn't work like crit (where getting more crit makes crit less powerful), it's a linear damage increase. There are no extra calculations to be made when you're simply gaining a linear damage increase.