twisty

thanx for your posts. link from EQdev confirms this as well:
Void Shard Equipment

this makes +crit bonus exactly half as powerful as I had hoped. at high enough crit rates, however, +1 crit bonus > +1 %crit.

the break even number is around 75% *effective* crit (as opposed to listed) for non-shafted-Summoner crew.

at 100% effective crit rate, 1 crit bonus is exactly 0.5% dps increase
at 75% effective crit rate, 1 crit bonus is 0.5 * 0.75 = 0.375. 100crit bonus = 37.5% dps increase. 37.5% is very close to dps increase from crit.

claimabstract

I am guessing that you are merely looking at the range that a spell can crit for and not what actually happens. I qualify that I don't have crit bonus gear and thus cannot test it. Nonetheless, I provide my reasoning as to why your calculations are likely wrong, based on what to me would be a reasonable way to apply spell crit bonus from a dev's point of view, namely the following assumptions:
(a) all base damage is multiplied by (1.3 + spell crit bonus/100);
(b) spell damage on crit is forced to fall in the range of ( max spell dmg +1 , max spell dmg x (1.3 + spell crit bonus /100)

If your spell crit % is below 100% effective, simply multiply your effective spell crit % by the numbers below.

On a spell crit, a base damage amount is first calculated, using the range indicated in your spell description. This amount is then modified by (1.3 + spell crit bonus/100). Of note, however, is that the crit value is forced to fall into the range of ( max spell dmg +1 , max spell dmg x (1.3 + spell crit bonus/100) ). I refer you to Daray's post re: maximizing dps as a raiding wizard, where he indicates that some spells, such as Bolt of Ice and Ball of Magma, already obtain a healthy boost of roughly 40% base damage (based on his and my calcs) from a base spell crit of 30%. This is because of their large base damage range, a significant portion of which gets boosted to (max spell dmg + 1), which is more than the original 30% base spell crit.

In a scenario where a caster has 10% spell crit bonus, for example, crits for Bolt of Ice and Ball of Magma provide an additional 46% base damage, versus 40% with no spell crit bonus. So for some spells, 1% spell crit bonus is roughly 0.6% additional base damage. Other spells, such as Flames of Velious and Magma Chamber, exhibit larger gains from the 10% spell crit bonus. Magma Chamber goes from an additional 36% base damage at no spell crit bonus to an additional 43% base damage at 10% spell crit bonus. i.e., for Magma Chamber, 1% spell crit bonus is roughly 0.7% additional base damage. For Flames of Velious, this number is 1% additional base damage for every 1% spell crit bonus. Thus, for the first 10% spell crit bonus, you can expect an additional 6-7% base spell damage.

Based on these mechanics, the higher your spell crit bonus, the more you will benefit from every additional 1% spell crit bonus, until you hit the cap of 1% spell crit bonus = 1% base spell damage.

LightCC

This is not true any more if the dev quote I saw is true. They streamlined the calculations and made it so that crit multiplies *everything*, including +SD.

This means that the +SD cap is calculated based on non-crit damage, and then gets multiplied by the crit factor, instead of getting a higher +SD cap because of a crit.

It also means that base damage affects your +SD cap now.

*HOWEVER*, I haven't verified this in-game yet. Been too busy just playing. I did rework my spreadsheet but my numbers come out higher than the tooltips, so I've got some work to do.

As for the crit multiplier, it is simply a larger multiplication factor when you have a crit bonus. The preliminary look I did says that it should be about as much of a benefit as base damage is, if you want the bottom line... (again, subject to further investigation)

edit:

But, since (if?) crits now multiply +SD instead of just raising the cap, that means crit gives you extra bonus on every spell that is +SD capped.

Also, the higher your base damage, and also your +SD for non-capped spells, the more than +crit mod has to multiply so the more effective each 1% crit mod will have.

So, just like before, the exact amount will depend on your gear. Right now I'm using something like this:

1 base damage = 1 crit mod = 1.5-2 cast haste = 2-4 crit% = 30-120 +SD

The crit and +SD vary so widely because it depends on your current gear. If you are at 100% crit and 500 SD then about 15 SD = 1% crit, but if you are at 50% crit and 1000 SD then only about 30 SD = 1% crit...

claimabstract

...

You're rambling on about stuff that means little, and you are clearly missing the interaction between +SD mods and additional base spell damage for a wizard. First off, my post was directed to raiding wizards who generally don't have 50% crit. Secondly, have a look at your +SD mod, then look at the UNMODIFIED damage range on your spells, then at your parses to understand which spells do the most damage. As an example, out of raid, with reasonably decent gear, I sit at 85% spell crit chance, with a +SD mod of 1130. You would, if you are logical, understand that almost all of the spells that do most of your dmg (barring AoE fights) are well above twice your +SD mod. That is, you will gain very little little from +SD when your base spell damage increases.

SacDaddy

some day i gotta see this mythical "spreadsheet"......

lakespookie

omg lol sac i remeber when you said that to me!!!!!! and it was on those other forums lol.

Johe

I saw one back in EoF..quite impressive indeed.

__________________
http://www.voracityeq2.com

LightCC

Sacdaddy,

roflmao. I might release the old RoK one now that it's obsolete. :P Still not sure I had it perfect, but pretty close. It is still clunky as hell though (thus no real urge to release...).


--------

There are new raiders who have zero raid gear breaking into the raid scene all the time. And their gear is going to vary widely. Don't assume everyone who raids is in some kind of T1 raid guild who's cleared every major zone in the game. There *are* raiding sorcerers with 50% crit and 600 +SD. You've got to start somewhere. There are probably more of them than those with your gear.

I should know, I was one, until recently.

As far as +SD gaining very little from base damage, I'm not sure what you are talking about, it seems you are the one rambling now. My calcs are strictly for warlock, but are going to be very close to what the wizard numbers will be (they are very close to the numbers daray calculated for his single gear point calc of about 25 SD = 1 crit%). They take into account crit%, +SD, base damage mod, INT, level, etc using a generic spell order or a simply percentage based calc pulled from parses (both work out amazingly close to the DPS numbers generated from a straight averaging of all spells, fwiw). Our spells mirror each other a lot closer than one would think initially in terms of +SD caps and such.

But go ahead and think about just how things work at the particular gear point you are currently at. I prefer to think on a broader scale, it's certainly helped me more intelligently upgrade my gear as TSO has occurred. There is some really interesting gear out there...

claimabstract

Unless things have changed without my noticing (which is entirely possible given my malaise re: this game), wizards and warlocks are significantly different in how they benefit from +SD. Warlocks do significantly more DoT-based damage, proportionately, than a wizard. +SD mechanics at least in the past shortchanged DoT in comparison to DD. As a result, warlocks were hitting diminishing returns on +SD alot more quickly than wizards were. From a warlock's point of view, more base damage meant more benefit from +SD than for a wizard. I believe this is the basis for your reasoning.

Having said that, spell crit bonus for wizards, as I stated before, simply does not allow for that much extra damage from +SD for wizards. I.e., wizards and warlocks differ significantly in this respect. It is therefore inappropriate to take logic for gear choices for warlocks and directly apply it to wizards, especially without qualifying your reasoning as such. This is a thread in the wizard forum, last time I checked.

Again, all of the above is subject to the assumption that DoTs are still getting shortchanged in comparison to DDs when it comes to application of +SD.

LightCC

While this used to be true, it hasn't been true for quite a while. +SD now takes into account the full damage a spell does, including DoT damage, and then frontloads all the +SD to the first tick.

Base Damage never used to increase the +SD Cap, but with TSO they changed the damage calculations and now it does.

Warlocks and Wizards pre-TSO had essentially the same benefit from +SD, at least within a few percent dps and at least up to the reasonable levels gear can bring (1000-1500 or so). It might chance if you have a lot of normalized +SD procs, I dunno.

Spell Crit Bonus is new, part of the new calculation method in TSO. Well, not new per se, but it was always 30% multiplier before and it didn't multiply +SD from the non-crit numbers, it only raised the +SD cap when you did actually crit.

So, when +SD is not capped for a spell, this increases the value of +SD dramatically. Also, base damage mods now increase the +SD cap, they didn't before TSO. This gives more headroom for +SD which makes up more or less for the fact that crits don't increase the cap any more.

I haven't actually entered the wizard spells other than Flames (which we share) into my spreadsheet, but prior to TSO, based on all daray's calcs, we are very close in how stats and equipment work for us. I put that qualifier in my posts (or try to remember to), so take it for what it's worth, but we are very similar. I agree it may have been different when +SD first came out.

The OP was asking generically how it worked, I think my posts satisfy that, along with general guidelines for how it applies to wizards, even though my numbers are specifically for warlock.

The end of the matter is this - wizards and warlocks both will benefit from +SD well into the 1000-1500 range, and those with low crit (say 50%) with 600-1000 +SD will want to use somewhere around +25-30 SD per crit as the value for figuring out what equipment to use. Those around 90%-100% crit or higher with only 600-1000 SD will need to use a number closer to 15-20 SD per crit. It might shift a bit for wizards, but it's going to be pretty close.

I have gotten all my calcs down now, and after I update my Illusionist numbers, and add Conjurors for a friend, maybe I'll throw all the wizard numbers in to figure it out exactly for my counterparts over here, since daray has said he won't be updating his guide...

Maybe then I'll release the spreadsheet - I don't want to destroy the mystery though!