Which one first: Catalyst or Freehand?

MuffinPirate · 03-02-2008, 09:38 PM

I'm at a bit of a crossroads now. I'm level 50 and trying to decide which will help me more by getting it first: Catalyst or Freehand Sorcery. One guaranteed crit or +24% damage once a minute or so.

I'd appreciate any suggestions!

Illuminator · 03-02-2008, 11:08 PM

The common dps spec doesn't use Catalyst. Work your way to Sagacity, put 4 into Freehand first.

MuffinPirate · 03-03-2008, 12:16 AM

Ah, really? It just seemed like a guaranteed crit once per minute could be useful.

Ailees · 03-03-2008, 02:32 AM

Freehand gives more damages ; if you look at old topics and old parses, it was proven. More or less, of course ;)

MuffinPirate · 03-03-2008, 02:36 AM

Oh okay! So basically 24% extra damage is more than a crit? I'm not sure how much damage is added on a crit.

Ipaan · 03-03-2008, 04:11 AM

Long story short:
Catalyst has a casting time, freehand is instant. From the WIS-line you also get base dmg increase and power cost decrease that both are passive. By the time you start to max out your AA:s you'll find yourself having a crapload of crit gear (in t8 at least) and with maxed crits from STR-tree together with full AGI-line you'll find sagacity a lot more useful than a guaranteed crit that takes another second or two (don't remember since it's a long time I had Catalyst) to cast and that probably should've been a crit anyway... ;)

MuffinPirate · 03-03-2008, 10:14 AM

Thank you for the advice! Looks like for now, I'll grab Freehand and continue to work on the wisdom line.

Victornp · 03-03-2008, 11:04 AM

Must admit, that maybe time for a revamp for the str line, especially for Catalyst since became more useless in RoK than ever..

dakkota · 03-03-2008, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Victornp

Must admit, that maybe time for a revamp for the str line, especially for Catalyst since became more useless in RoK than ever..

Get rid of catalyst and PvP'ers wizards might be unhappy. Despite crit chance in PvP nothing is better to a wizard to make sure that freehanded nova lands critical. Least so I've heard catalyst is still really huge for pvp wizards. I don't think they would ever touch it just because raiders have high crit chances and render it damn near useless.

Victornp · 03-03-2008, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dakkota

Get rid of catalyst and PvP'ers wizards might be unhappy. Despite crit chance in PvP nothing is better to a wizard to make sure that freehanded nova lands critical. Least so I've heard catalyst is still really huge for pvp wizards. I don't think they would ever touch it just because raiders have high crit chances and render it damn near useless.

Well yes, valid point.. I don't PvP so I had no insight about it's usefulness in PvP... Though some changes would be still cool to give alternatives for PvE sorcerer setup