Lazermon wrote:1% crit means that out of the 100 frostbolts you hit, one will on average be a crit, and a crit is 200% damage, meaning 1% crit is in this scenario worth the average your frostbolt hits for.
snip
100 frostbolts ideally take you 250 seconds to cast. Most fights last a shorter time than that, so if you look at your damage in a fight that takes ~60 seconds, your damage will fluctuate a lot from "the average", and even a shitty geared mage can outdamage a mage with superior gear by critting 2 more times than the other mage. To add to that, most fights require the mages to do more than just spam the frostbolt button, so justifying your gear choices by looking at the damagemeter in a molten core run with your friends and comparing with the other people in the raid is not a path I would recommend.
I'm going to snip parts that don't apply, because you brought up very valid points I do agree with, when the time comes for them, but as of right now, in the current state of the game 2 points you made do not apply as of right now.
A. There is no preraid spell hit gear available and wont be for a good minuet
B. We wont have AQ / ZG / Naxx for a long time so worrying about arcane fire for current content isn't something to be focussed on at all.
You're never going into a raid with just 1% crit, and with the item build I currently have (which is by no means optimal yet) would have around 31% spell crit with winters chill.
That is 31 frost bolts, outs of 100 being a critical strike. Without the presence of hit gear right now you have about a 11% chance for your shit to get resisted by a mob. A majority of your white hits fall into that 11%, while ~ 3 crits fall into that. Theoretically anyway.
The difference between my ideal crit builds spell power, vs the current straight so is about 80 - 100 spellpower depending on item choices.
Lets use some sloppy math (because i'm not going to look up exact numbers right this second, but i'd like later when i'm not dead tired)
Lets say frostbolt hits for 500 - 600 base without any modifier.
Lets say I have 200 spell power with crit gear, and that preraid BiS is 300 spell power. This is theoretical, but using the realistic differences, on a theoretical base.
With preraid with 100 frostbolts, lets say you have 13% crit. With winters chill, 23%.
23 should be crits, 77 should be whites. However, with a 11% chance to resist with talents alone, 11 of these 100 will miss. A bulk falling into your whites, with a low chance for 1 more to fall into your crits.
So lets say 3 crits are resisted, while 8 normals hit.
19 crits, 69 whites, 11 regs out of 100 frostbolts.
800 - 900 frost bolt base, 1600 - 1700 crit.
55200 - 62100 normal damage
30400 - 32300 crit damage.
A total of 85600 minimum off frostbolts preraid
Now with crit at 31% with winters chill, and a 11% chance to resist, 3 frost bolt crits should resist, with a low chance at a 4th, while 8 regulars should resist.
28 crits, 61 regs
700 - 800 reg damage 1400 - 1600 critical damage
42700 - 48800 reg damage total
39200 - 44800 crit potential damage
a total of 84000 on a minimum flat.
1 crit away from being exactly the same as the other build.
The damage difference is very close on sloppy numbers. However, while crits have a chance, they also are still RNG. You can have a fight with good crits, and you can have a fight with bad crits. Which means the potential damage could be even more. I've had fights where i've slammed 4 crits in a row, and still had consistent crits afterwords, so you could burst even higher, and do even more damage as a potential.
While, as preraid spell damage stacking for right now, is just consistent white damage with a crit from time to time.
This question i'm asking isn't coming from "damage meters from an MC with your friends" its coming from some reasonable thought, research and curiosity.