Part IV in the
Frequently Asked Coercer Questions series.
Understanding Gear choices, like the
thread about understanding spell order, is vital to attaining the best dps. In this article, I'll discuss my recommendations for gearing up a raiding coercer. If you just want advice on specific pieces (where to find them or what to wear), look at the
recommended RoK gear thread. Still, I recommend reading this article, as it will supplement that thread by answering most questions as to how the ranking of those items was decided.
Every number used to calculate damage is dependent on another in some way - either making something more useful in conjunction, less useful in conjunction, or simply screwing around with the ratios. Thus, this "simple" formula is only used for a quick guide, but does not work for calculating actual damage ouputs. Still, it's good enough to help make quick decisions on whether a piece of loot is an upgrade for you or not for your average level 80 coercer:
For post gu45, 1% DPS Boost is equal to:
95 Intelligence (until 1220 Int)
27 Spell Damage without the Robe of Spectral Coercion, 19 with until 750 total Spell Damage
81 Spell Damage between 750 and 950 Spell Damage no matter what gear
3% Spell Crit (vs. orange mobs)
1.2% Base Damage
1.7% Reuse for long fights, 8.3% Reuse for short fights, or 3% Reuse for a zonewide
5% Casting Speed (until 100%)
36 dps from Spell Procs items (see Appendix)
Or, from a Spell Crit perspective:
1% Spell Crit = 32 Int = 0.4% Base Damage = 7-10 Spell Damage until 750 = 27 Spell Damage between 750 and 950 = 1.8% Casting Speed = 1% Reuse = 12 dps from Spell Procs = 0.33% DPS Boost
Some assumptions: the calculations assume 1000 Int. Low resist rate (no greater than 10%) was assumed. Spell Damage's calculation assumes 75% average Casting Speed. Base Damage assumes 750 Spell Damage. Procs(both worn and buff-based) were assumed to be about 20% of your overall damage.
Spell Damage
Spell Damage is affects each spell differently, but all of the gains can be totaled to get a good perspective of the overall gain that it does. Since I'm trying to write this for the perspective of an average coercer and gear comparison purposes, I'll focus more on the higher end of Spell Damage.
The first step to figuring out how to apportion additional damage from Spell Damage is to determine the percentage of overall damage each spell does on average. (This assumes an optimal or near-optimal spell order). Taking a ratio of the cap to each of those individual spells, we can multiply out the percentage of overall damage by the percentage of that spell's damage that is affected by Spell Damage. (That sentence is a logic nightmare, isn't it). After that, the additional damage is divided by that spell's casting time to normalize it to damage per second. Finally, adding up all of the individual damage bonuses, and divide that total damage increase by the amount of Spell Damage you have to get the number of Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost.
When you take the added damage over cast time, and then apply that by the portion of damage that spell usually does and then add it all together, you can determine how much benefit spell damage will do for you overall.
Convulsions and Lash, the damage from Hostage/Spell Curse, benefit the most from Spell Damage. This is because of the extra triggers available from achievement points and the further additional triggers from the RoK set robe. At 5 triggers, damage is increased by 83% instead of the normal 50% of most spells. At 8 triggers, Hostage gains a maximum of 133% damage from its base value. Considering these two spells do a majority of a coercer's damage, it's vital to try and cap these spells. Spell Curse caps at 600 Spell Damage, and Hostage caps at 750 Spell Damage. Since the values change drastically between whether you have the Robe of Spectral Coercion or not, I'll do math for both.
So, while some spells gain more than 50% damage, other outgoing damage is totally unaffected by Spell Damage. Procs and melee add up to about 15-20% of a coercer's parse and see zero benefit. Further, area effect spells are also reduced, so on single target mobs they only see 1/3 of the 50% increase, or about 17% damage increase. However, area effect spells usually only account for about 5% of a coercer's parse due to the lack of good ae encounters in RoK, so the negative impact is small. Overall, coercers see a potential DPS increase of 45 to 55%, but that's purely theoretical; gear selection has to be smart to actualize it.
To get the best comparison per point of Spell Damage for gear choices, I'll focus on the benefit above 600 Spell Damage, or the minimum recommended amount (and the cap of Spell Curse). Past 600, about 20% of total damage is capped at full potential, while the other 60% of a coercer's outgoing damage sees about 62% of the total potential gain. In other words, at 600 Spell Damage, coercers realize about a 34.8% total actual DPS Boost out of a maximum potential of 44.8% DPS Boost.
At 8 triggers of Hostage, the maximum potential gain rises to 55.4% - an additional 10.6% potential DPS gain from 3 triggers of capped Hostage. Since proportional damage doesn't change, coercers see 43.6% actual gain out of the 55.4% total gain at 600 Spell Damage.
Thus, the maximum remaining gain in either case after 600 Spell Damage is 10-11% more DPS.
How I calculated this: although the maximum gain per spell is 50% due to the caps, Convulsions and Lash see more than 50% gain as noted above, while area affect spells see only a 17% gain, and 15-20% of damage is unaffected, or a 0% gain. These amounts are averaged out together according to their contributing percentage amount to the overall parse, collected from data over several zones. Then, the damage boost calculated from the parses are converted into seconds (and thus damage per second) by dividing by individual spell's casting times.
With those numbers, we can figure out amount of Spell Damage it takes for 1% DPS Boost. Without the Robe of Spectral Coercion, until 600 Spell Damage, 18 Spell Damage is equal to 1% DPS Boost. With the Robe of Spectral Coercion, 14 Spell Damage is equal to 1% DPS Boost.
Now, we need to figure out how best to choose gear to attain the most of the remaining 10% potential bonus while sacrificing the least from other sources of damage. So, we'll begin by calculating out the gain per point above 600 Spell Damage.
The next milestone is 750 Spell Damage, which caps our best spell, Hostage. At 750 Damage, coercers gain an additional 7.25% without the Robe or 9.9% with and thus realize 42.3% of the total 44.8% without the Robe, or 53.5% of 55.4% ("capping" 95% of potential Spell Damage gain). Between to 600 and 750 Spell Damage, 27 Spell Damage is equal to 1% DPS Boost without the Robe, or 19 Spell Damage with the Robe. (How the math works: About 23-28% of our damage comes from Hostage, and that amount is increased by either 83% or 133%. 150 Spell Damage is 20% of the cap for Hostage, 25 * 83% or 133% * 20%.) That is hardly a drop off at all, especially in comparison to the drop off from pre-GU45 mechanics where it took at least twice as much.
95% of coercer damage is capped at 750, which means there's another 4-5% more damage coercers can attain. The next best place to look would be at the 950 Spell Damage mark, which is the cap for Tyrannous Mind. By increasing this extra 200 damage, coercers increase Tyrannous Mind DPS by 20% (which equals 2% increase to overall DPS), and approximately another 13% of your total parse damage by about 25% DPS (Brainshock, Shock Wave, Silence, and Master Strike, or another 2% DPS total potential increase if max). Because 950 only caps Tyrannous Mind and not the rest, only about 2.5% out of the total remaining 4% possible gain is realized. Plugging in the math again, about 81 Spell Damage is equal to 1% DPS boost between 750 and 950 Spell Damage. Thus even until 950, Spell Damage is a feasible method of attaining additional DPS, but only when balanced carefully with the other sources below.
Past 950, the increase is astronomical and should not be considered. Coercers have already capped about 99% of Spell Damage gain, leaving 1% unrealized. To reach that 1% gain, hundreds of spell damage is required. Thus, 950 is the basically the "cap" since 99% of the gain from this area is reached.
To recap:
600 Spell Damage = 77% of Cap = 14-18 Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost
750 Spell Damage = 95% of Cap = 19-27 Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost
950 Spell Damage = 99% of Cap = 81 Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost
Base Damage
Base Damage's gain is linear. Since Base Damage goes not affect Spell Damage caps, the percentage dps gain per point of Base Damage varies depending on your Spell Damage. There is no known cap to Base Damage, but the sources of Base Damage mod are limited to a few items and a few buffs. Base damage affects almost all your damage output. Since Base Damage is so rare and vital in that it stacks without a cap and offers the best returns on a per-point basis, there's no reason not to get as much as possible, but in certain cases you do have to measure its value against other items.
The higher the Spell Damage, the more it reduces Base Damage's percentage gain, due to Base Damage calculating damage increase only off spell's Base numbers and not affecting its Spell Damage caps. Although higher Spell Damage amounts the lowers the percentage gain of Base Damage, keep in mind that the raw DPS gain from base damage isn't affected by Spell Damage. To clarify, Hemorrhage's DPS increase from 10% base damage is 180 damage. This is a gain of 10% over Hemorrhage at 0 spell damage (180 / 1800) but only an 8% gain for Hemorrhage at 521 spell damage (180 / 2321), but in both cases the gain is still 180 damage.
Thus, assuming a normal coercer having decent Spell Damage (at least 600), the final value is 1.2% Base Damage for 1% DPS Boost. This is the number that we'll use for comparison purposes. However, as noted, if you have less Spell Damage, it reaches closer to a 1:1 ratio, where if you have more Spell Damage, it reaches a 3:2 ratio, since Spell Damage can increase a Spell to 150% of its Base value, while Base Damage can only modify 100% of that value.
Spell Crit
Spell Crit's gain is linear. No matter what your current Spell Crit percentage, the damage increase is the same for each point until 100%. There is a discrepancy, however, in how often a spell actually crits compared to how much your worn Spell Crit is, due to the mitigation effects of mob levels.
Spell Crit is the only known damage modifier whose value changes when fighting different con/level mobs. The shown number actually is the average against even con (white) mobs. Fighting lesser mobs results in a higher Crit ratio, and fighting tougher mobs results in the opposite. Since on raids we're only fighting yellow or orange mobs, these numbers are what I'll focus on.
On orange mobs, Spell Crit is 89%-90% effective, or a ratio of 9% worn crit to 8% actual crit. On yellow mobs, Spell Crit is 96%-97% effective, or a ratio of 24% to 25%.
When a spell successfully crits, the lower end and higher end of that spell are increased by 1.3. However, there is an additional check - if the spell does not pass the Base max Damage listed (whatever the top end of the spell is without any modifiers except Int), then it is increased further to the Base max + 1 damage. Thus, the gain is more than 1.3 times, or about 34% dps increase overall for a spell crit.
Spell Crit increases all damage done by the coercer except melee-based damage. (This also excludes Puppetmaster puppets and basically any pets). Since spells make up the majority of a coercer's damage, Crit basically affects 99% of a coercer's outdoing damage. Spell Crit also increases Spell-based proc damage, and thus the amount of procs you have on your gear and outside procs you get (PotM, Tandem, and etc) will, in return, affect the final dps boost value of Spell Crit; this is discussed a bit more under the Spell Proc section.
Averaging what spells are usually cast and their ratios and adjusting downwards for actual Crit versus worn Crit for higher level mobs, 1% Spell Crit will increase your damage by 0.31%. Thus, roughly 3% Spell Crit will equal 1% DPS Boost.
Reuse
Reuse's gain is on a diminishing returns scale. Thus, you get a lower gain per point of Reuse as you increase your total Reuse haste percentage. However, this slope is relatively mild, due to the post GU-45 coercer mechanics increasing the recast of our highest damage spells, Hostage, Spell Curse, and Tyrannous Mind. The reduction from Reuse is calculated in a similar fashion to Casting Speed, with half of a spell's normal recast timer being the maximum reduction.
To calculate your boost from Reuse, you have to only factor in spells which you recast immediately when they are up, subtracting the spell that you would have cast in its place. Also, you must factor in whether you actually recast the spell or not; if no recast is made, then no gain has taken place.
Further, there is "hostile" reuse, "beneficial" reuse, "spell" reuse, and ability reuse. For purposes of dps, spell reuse and ability reuse are equal in value. However, hostile reuse provides only 0.85% of increase from ability or spell reuse, while beneficial reuse is only 0.15% of that amount. This is because hostile spells makes up nearly all our dps but not entirely; Tyrannous Mind is affected only by beneficial spell reuse and thus taking this into account, the increases must be split.
At its maximum potential, with the highest damage spells being recast, 1% Reuse is about 0.60% DPS boost. (Hostile reuse would be 0.51% at max, and beneficial would be at 0.09% at max.) The maximum potential is reached in fights past the 20 second mark, and continuously increases and decreases around the peaks of your higher damage spells. For fights shorter than 20 seconds, 1% Reuse is only about 0.12% DPS boost (and thus 0.10% hostile, 0.02% beneficial). Although Reuse's exact amount will vary for you based on your raid's dps, an average of 0.36% DPS boost can be used for basic gear calculations, or 0.30% hostile, and 0.06% beneficial. However, to truly maximize your dps, you will want to switch out Reuse gear for other sources of damage on shorter trash fights and swap in Reuse gear for longer fights.
Casting Speed
Casting Speed is on a diminishing returns scale. The cap for Casting Speed is 100%, or half of a spell's Cast time. The average gain per point from 0% to 100% is 0.3% damage increase. Thus, roughly 3.3% casting speed would increase your damage by 1% until you reach the cap, starting from 0%. However, since Casting Speed gives diminishing returns, and coercers should have a good base Casting Speed from agility line and raid buffs, we need to look a bit closer at the upper end Casting Speed increases.
Casting Speed from agility line, plus a bard and monk in raid, should bring you to at least 50% Casting Speed on average over a fight, or up to 75-80% for a normal fight without major interruptions. From 50% to 100% Casting Speed, the DPS gain is between 0.23% per point and slowly declines until 0.18% per point. Any points over the cap provide 0% increase of course, and most coercers should have less than 20% Casting Speed until the cap. So, although the window is small, and the gain fluctuates based on whether you are able to cast full time or not, the DPS gain past 50% Casting Speed is 5% Casting Speed to 1% DPS boost.
Spell Procs
Your dps boost from Spell Procs is hard to narrow down to a single number, because of the randomness of the proc chance. However, over long periods of time, these numbers do eventually find an average, and are collected in Appendix V in terms of raw DPS numbers.
The main draw of Spell Procs is that they offer additional damage with no additional time. Procs are not affected by Spell Damage or Reuse, but are affected by the other damage boosting sources. Additional Casting Speed increases the proc chances as well, since each spell is calculated off its base time, thus any extra spells you cast in the time you "saved" will offer extra procs.
In the table I've provided below in Appendix V, 80% Spell Crit and 75% Casting Haste are calculated into the figures. The figures also factor in normal magical mitigation debuffs and resists.
Since Spell Procs are not affected by anything other than Spell Crit, the amount of Spell Proc items you wear also increases the value of each Spell Crit percentage point. This is because the more Spell Proc you wear and gain from outside buffs, the larger the overall dps gain is from Spell Crit. For a regular fight, Spell Proc damage accounts for about 15% of a coercer's total damage (including both worn spell procs and outside spell procs).
Every 31-40 dps from Spell Procs is equal to 1% DPS Boost. We can use the average of 36 dps as a basis of comparison. This is calculated simply by taking the average dps and finding what portion of your dps comes from procs. The better damage you do through your spells, the less gain Spell Procs provide.
Intelligence
Intelligence's damage increase is on a diminishing returns scale.
Intelligence is available in large amounts, so there is no need to seek items (or buffs, for that matter) for additional Intelligence. But just in case you were curious, I'll explain how Intelligence affects your damage.
The cap for Intelligence for a level 80 spell is 1220. The formula (15 * Level) + 20. A spell's Int cap is affected by its level; for example, Hemorrhage, as a level 71 spell, will cap its damage at 1065 Int, Hostage at 1155, Spell Curse at 1170, and Tyrannous Mind at 1220. Thus, 70% of a coercer's damage spells actually require lower than maximum Int, and thus the gain decreases even further at the upper end.
At 1220 Int, you will see approximately a 38% increase in damage compared to 0 Int, while at 900 int, you will see a 36.5% increase in damage. Raiding coercers should be at 900 Int self-buffed no matter what gear they've selected, so further gains will only lead to another maximum 1.5% DPS improvement.
Another way to look at Intelligence is to figure out what amount is necessary for a 1% DPS Boost.
From 0 to 400 Intelligence, approximately 20 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.
From 400 to 800 Intelligence, approximately 33 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.
From 800 to 1000 Intelligence, approximately 50 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.
From 1000 to 1220 Intelligence, approximately 110 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.
Robe of Spectral Coercion/Extra Triggers
This deserves its own section because it's a separate method of damage increase that doesn't fit in the other sections. Most of the math was already covered in the spell damage section. This robe is equivalent to a 10.6% DPS boost. Further, it improves the value of Spell Damage as listed above in that section.
The old Vest of Force is equal to about half of this robe, or a 5.4% DPS boost (when using capped Auspex). Since Auspex caps at fairly low, it does not significantly alter the value of Spell Damage or other damage sources, unlike the Robe.
Extra triggers from the coercer Achievement line increase damage by 3.5% DPS per point of Hostage and 2.0% DPS per point of Spell Lash on average. Tyrannous Mind at a 25% increase is about 1.9% DPS overall. These aa's are basically no-brainers.
-> How about Casting Skills/Resistability? Are they worth anything?
My answer is no, they're not useful in their current state.
As to what do they do? Skills will affect hostile spell resistability. They are on a diminishing returns curve, with a maximum of 520. At 520 skill (+120 skill from base), spells using that skill will have their resistability decreased by 20%.
I'm not sure of the actual curve, but some assumptions can be made: it's likely the first +40-50 skill is equivalent to -10% resistability, while next 70-80 skill points (440-520) is equivalent to the second -10% resistability. Most items have +4 or +5 skill on them, thus decreasing resistability by 1-2% per item.
But, this still leaves a big unknown variable: what's a mob's base chance to resist? On yellow mobs, it appears to be somewhere between 5 and 10%, different depending on zone. But on orange mobs, it's difficult to calculate with the added variable of high spell mitigation debuffs that also affect spell hit rates. Even with Hemorrhage at +50 disruption (presumably 45% harder resistability) or a skill with base 56% harder resistabilty, non-debuffed orange mobs have about a 50% to resist. For a marginally debuffed orange mob (about -3000 magical mitigation), this drops to about 25% chance to resist, and at -7000, it drops to about 2% chance to resist. Since most mobs get debuffed quickly, the value of disruption helping land that first spell isn't apparent (because the resists are still extremely high), and the value of disruption on a debuffed mob is extremely low (since resists are so low at that point already). Thus, in neither case does casting skills provide a useful boost.
Skills do a few other things than resists as well. Ministration and ordination reduce power cost of spells, but by a minuscule amount. Focus prevents interrupts. At 520 skill, Focus has a maximum of 20% to prevent interrupts from taking damage. These benefits are much worse than spell resistability as far as their potential to be useful.
Straight Resistability increase is basically in the same boat. The gain is very minor for the reasons stated above, and other sources of damage are large enough to overshadow any gain.
Conclusion
So, now that we have all this information, we have to apply it to the gear selections we make.
The first priority should be Base Damage. This is because Base Damage has a very high reward per-point. Since there are few sources, basically this comes down to trying to get a Dark Orb of the Mind (or a Wand of Crytalized Plasma in the meantime) and a Bloodthirsty Choker.
The second priority is to increase your Spell Damage with items that have high values on them until you reach at least 600 Spell Damage. This is because these items are plentiful and items with Spell Damage generally have very high amounts. In fact, many of the highest Spell Damage items can be obtained through grouping or questing, and thus your DPS is increased the quickest/easiest by focusing on it here.
After that, you have to do some work in comparing your gear to see what the potential benefit is compared to your current gear setup. There is no longer a recommended peak Reuse amount, unlike pre-GU45, because gains continue through the cap of 50% (although as you continue going, the per-point increase keeps dwindling). As for Crit, the more you get until 100%, the better.
As you obtain more gear, you should be able to keep switching out Spell Damage for more Crit, Reuse, and procs. The easiest way to make practical use of this information is to calculate the DPS boost for one piece of your gear using the formula given above, and then calculate the DPS boost of the item you wish to replace it with, and see whether it's worth it to replace your item. Once you get over 50% crit, build your spell damage closer towards 750 to gain the max benefit from Hostage. That way, you will realize the best benefit from having high spell damage.
FACQ: In-depth Gear Analysis (how to simplify damage)
