Improved CoAFollow

Hi there,

Just a little something a came across while reading the posts here and there... I like to disagree.

Some of you say that Improved CoA is a bad way of spending two talent points.

I want to highlight two arguments for you so please bare with me:

1) There is one thread called Spell haste vs Spell crit where someone said that the spell haste he got improved his Shadow Bolt from 2,5 seconds to 2,47 seconds, witch is nothing, BUT if you look at it in a different way and say what if I cast 100 Shadow Bolts then it becomes something. Thats 247 seconds for 100 SBolts so you get one SBolt "for free" can I say and thats why spell haste is good, because you looked at it in the long term. Now this is one argument...

2) In another post Mazra did some calculations and came to the conclution that Imp CoA only puts out 366 damage over 24 seconds extra. Then others agreed that its a waist of talent points and a talent to avoid, but you only looked at one CoA...

Finally heres what I want to get to...

Look at Imp CoA in the long run. Lets use a 10min boss fight for instance. Certainly CoA is in your spell rotation? So you cast it every 24 seconds when the previous one is finished. Now 10mins = 600 seconds, 600 seconds / 24 = 25. So in a 10min boss fight you will most probably cast CoA 25 times... So if one Imp CoA puts out 366 extra damage the 25 wil put out (366*25=) 9150 EXTRA damage in that 10min boss fight.

Now how can you say that is a bad talent...?

I'm just a person with an open mind. Hope no1 were offended with my post.

Thank you for your time.

HZ

especially that you lose a global cooldown.
1x CoD = 1x GCD/minute
3x CoA = 3x GCD/minute
----------------------

So if we cast CoA we actually lose 3second wich is worth another shadowbolt.

Why would you be casting coa 25 times instead of cod 25 times? How many gcd's would u waste casting coa 25 times? If a boss fight is taking 10 minutes I'm going to guess you are in a raid and once again should not be casting coa. Just doing the math from the base value of each spell; coa=1356, imp coa=+10%=1491. cod=4200. Now 10 gcd=15 seconds, 25 gcd=37.5 sec=dps loss. Also mana is a factor. Rank 7 coa is 265 mana per cast, so 265*25=6625. Rank 2 cod is 380, so 380*10=3800. Therefore you would need to dp/lifetap more, creating more wasted gcd's. That is why imp coa is a bad talent imo. I do hope my math is correct as it is late at night here. But it has been said and proven many times that imp coa is a wasted talent.

CoA only puts out an additional 136 damage, not 366. it's even worse than you thought also unlike spell haste, you can't stack up more imp.CoA.
and finally. any fight that lasts longer than 60 seconds you should be using CoDoom instead

I use CoS. If there's a shadow priest, another lock, or even an arcane mage, I just use CoS and go on with it.

If there's no one in the party with shadow or arcane, then I use CoD. I need all the time I can get for ISB.


Also, about the link.. He still hasn't caught on that ICoA is only base damage.

Edited, Jan 12th 2008 11:54am by Ehcks

If there's two people doing elemental damage, CoE is better. Two people doing shadow or arcane, CoS is better. If there's 2-3 melee and the boss doesn't have an AP-based attack (cleave, etc), CoR is better. Once all 2-3 of those are covered, CoD is better. That's why it's wasted points - it's a spell that, in raiding, is only used on trash or in the rare chance CoD is resisted.

EDIT:
1300 damage, Contagion, Shadow Mastery, iSB, talented CoS, Shadow Weaving, Misery all on the target - the setup that favors CoA most strongly.
Talented CoA = 5520dmg/cast, 230dps, ten casts taking 15 seconds for 55200 damage in a 4-minute fight
CoD = 10650dmg/cast, 177.5dps, four casts taking 6 seconds for 42600 damage in a 4-minute fight.
BUT, in the CoD case, you've freed up a full 9 seconds for shadow bolts. That's three, almost 4, shadow bolts which (15% crit rate) will average out to 3123 damage each, or an extra 9369 damage that's hit and another 3123 that will hit half a second later.
That brings the total to 55092. This is barely worse than CoA, *and* you didn't have to waste 2 talent points on it. It's also ignoring that CoD gets more out of AmpCurse than CoA, as well as less material factors like improving total iSB uptime by allowing more shadowbolting time.

Edited, Jan 12th 2008 1:28pm by lsfreak

"That guy" stated this 5 posts later:



He might have been drinkin' a little. =P

Looks like it's a closer battle than what said "guy" thought it was to begin with. CoA with talents is better(just slightly) than CoD without Amp Curse. However, because of the 2.5:1 ratio of CoA to CoD castings you leave yourself open to other castings like extra Shadow Bolts. Also added Amp Curse is slightly better on CoD than on CoA because of his findings on Blizzard's swaying definitions in "effectiveness" lol.

To the OP, it looks like the talent would be worth it, if CoD didn't exist. =\

I love math!

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Edited as I might enjoy math, but spelling is not my strong suite..

Edited, Jan 12th 2008 3:03pm by TacticalRage

Really good point there. An extra SB or 2 in there without CoA and one of em crits or even both you're talking substantially more dmg.

Srsly haet Blizz.

They should have some part-time student worker go through all the tooltips for EVERYTHING in this game. Seriously need clarifications.

Unless you're raiding, (or often in PvP), you'll not need more than 3 points in Suppression. If you have any spell hit at all, you can take out even more points.

And by that I mean, they are utterly useless, unless the target has additional chance to resist your spells. Most mobs don't. Not a lot of players do, either.

I'd suggest taking out three of those points and putting them in Fel Stamina.

Just to keep it simple..

Edited, Jan 13th 2008 5:41pm by Ehcks