T12 to T13 transition? [Need Slight Help]

[MtHyjal]

So I read the 4.3 mage guide. But the question I have pertains this part:

4 piece bonus with only 384 pieces will be around 800 upgrade for Arcane and about same as 4x391 t12 for Fire.

Mainly that section, with the main question underlined.

The question I have is how do they find its the same? The way I read that is if you had full 391 t12, it will be roughly the same DPS as full 384 t13.

I opened up the lastest version of RAWR, and ran a Sim in my current gear. It told me to keep my current gear (378 helm, 378 gloves, 391 pants.) I have a 391 t12 tier chest as well, but replaced that with the 397 t13 chest (again, used RAWR). The test I did where including my 397 t13 chest and 3 other 384 t13 pieces.

Is RAWR not counting in the set bonuses yet? Or is what Paragon originally stated wrong and just hasnt been updated? Or did I just understand the above quoted wrong?


TL;DR: I have 4pt12 (1 piece 397) and 4pt13 (1 397, 3 384s) and paragon said it would be the same DPS. I used RAWR to sim it, and I got a drastic DPS drop if I equip the 4pt13.

Thanks for your help in advanced! And go go paragon for #1!

[Guromin]

MtHyjal,

What your wrote was a tad confusing so I will do my best to cover all the bases here.

Arcane:

If you remember correctly the t12 set bonus (Reduced mana during Arcane Power) was not very good. In fact it did almost nothing. For this reason, the t13 set bonus is a significant upgrade even with lower ilevel gear. Your essentially going from no set bonus to an amazing one.

Fire:

The t12 set bonus for fire is amazing. Increased chance for Hot Streak procs is not only good for damage there, but it helps when using combustion. Luckily for fire the t13 set bonus (Combustion CD reduction) is also amazing and beneficial. The only major difference between fire and arcane is that Arcane is going from nothing to something, while fire is replacing one good with another. Because of this it requires ilevel gear roughly the same for the t13 set bonus to be an upgrade.


What you have to keep in mind is that these numbers are based on stand-still, no movement, tank-and-spank fights, which don't really exist. If you missed what I'm getting at here, it's that Iiris is completely correct in every way in regards to theoretical upgrade. To answer your question of how they find it to be equal, the answer is that Simulation Craft (which does account for the set bonus) shows that it is.

Rawr:

I know I've talked a lot about how great rawr is, but when it comes to fire Rawr is wrong. It overvalues haste just like it always has. I can say, for sure, that Rawr will account for the set bonus, but it's not as good at calculating dps increase as Simulation Craft is.

Last note about the Fire set bonus is that the actual bonus differs on each fight. The ability to use Combustion more frequently on Yor'sajh is 15 times better than the bonus on Ultraxion. In addition the length of the fight can also impact the value or in other words the number of extra Combustions gained with the set bonus.


Since I wasn't exactly sure if I caught everything you were trying to say let me know if I missed something or you have another question.

-Guromin

[MtHyjal]

Guromin,

Thank for for the quick response (I say quick because I know you guys are busy with progression, and answering other questions as well). It was actually very very helpful! You pretty much hit the nail on the head.

However, I just have a few questions to er... "clarify" the information you gave me.

My first question is simple as is: Fire - Use SimCraft, Arcane - Use RAWR?

My second question goes along with the first one: Is there a detailed guide on using SC for Fire Mages? (It took me forever to learn to use RAWR >.< Buffs, Unticking Certain thing, ect.)

And my final question is slightly gear based: Say you have 4pt12. 378 Helm, 378 Gloves, 391 Legs, 391 Shoulders. Would you replace the 4pt12 for 4pt13 if you had the following pieces? 384 Shoulders, 384 Gloves, 384 Legs, 397 Chest?

[Guromin]

MtHyjal,

Simulation Craft and Rawr serve two different purposes. In general, Rawr is for optimizing gear, while Simulation Craft is for calculating damage. Simulation Craft works for both Fire and Arcane along with nearly every spec in the game. Rawr works well for Arcane, but is inaccurate for fire.

I personally would replace the t12 for the t13 even though it is accredited as a dps loss. The reason being how oddly well the timing works out to have a 70s combustion. In addition you can remove 500 haste and switch it to crit for an added dps increase.

Lastly I want to be clear that I am not a member of Paragon. I am, however, at least a little bit knowledgeable about mages :)

-Guromin

[Guromin]

Here is a brief guide to simulationcraft that I typed up back in may. This should answer your questions and maybe have a few additional details in it that don't directly relate to your questions. If after reading it you still have questions feel free to make a post.


How to use SimulationCraft:
After downloading and launching the application you should see the welcome screen that no one reads. It's not really import, so skip to the options tab. In the options tab there are several important things that should require your attention.

Version: Live or Beta. Beta will include any balancing changes listed in the patch notes.
Iterations: How many times the fight is repeated. Increasing this will make it take longer, but increase the accuracy of it.
Length: How long the fight is.
Vary Length: This will simply change the duration of the fight from run to run.
Adds: Well, how many other targets there are. I don't use this because SimulationCraft doesn't ever seem to know what a good aoe rotation is.
Fight Style: Patchwork is standing still and HelterSkelter is a moving fight.
Target Race: This is the race of the enemy your attacking.
Player Skill: An Elite player setting will use a computer with a percent error of 0. Strive to achieve this Elite dps, but realize that it's always a good reflections of what you can realistically do.
The rest of the options don't need to be changed on this page.

In the next tab select the buffs you would like on you, Then the debuffs you want on your target.

Scaling is really important. What you select to scale is what SimulationCraft is going to tell you stat weights for. Select all of the options that apply to your class.

Skip plots for now. They aren't vital to basic SimulationCrafting.

On to Import. There are several options as to how to import your character, but most likely you will find your character on the armory using the Battle.net tab. All of the tabs work in a similar way; find your character and click import at the bottom right of the screen. Once you import a character it will appear in the History tab for your convenience to use next time. Simply double click to load the history you would like to SimulationCraft.

A series of code will appear on your screen after clicking Import. I recommend you don't edit them right now, but it is fairly self explanatory as to how to edit most of it. On this screen click Simulate! to start your characters Simulation. Depending on the number of scaling factors and Iterations this could take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.

Your character has now been Simcrafted! Now to review the results and figure things out.

First it will list your character name and how much dps you should do. Keep in mind this is an average of many attempts. Your actual results may vary.

Results, Spec, and Gear
This is the big one. The section you care about. It tells you your stat weights and dps. Scale Factors are your stat weights not in normal form. Normal form is when you take the best stat and it's value and set that equal to 1. Then all the others are scaled down proportionality. In order to get accurate stat weights SimulationCraft recommends 10,000 iterations.

Charts
Charts will tell you various things about your character that are fairly self explanatory. I use this to get a sense of importance of spell casting. It helps me to see that a silly cooldown like Flame Orb is one of my most efficient dps/cast time spells. Charts also graphs your damage sources. This is how much each of your spells should be doing. If your close to this thats good.

Great now I have all this information, but what do I do with it?

Well now you can use this information to test your rotation. If you can pull as much dps on a target dummy as it says you can, then generally that means your rotation is correct. If you can't check your rotation and the setting you used on this. Make sure you don't have raid buffs on for this.

-Guromin