Mage basics

[Andorrabell]

Are we sure about this: First Spire AA (increase chance to crit) does NOT stack with the 7th year Vet AA, so make sure you don't use them at the same time.?

Because Lucy / Kumbaja doesn't list stacking issues between intensity and 1st spire.

[Zacatac]

Well, "not stack" might not be the right term because you can have both at once going, which is what Lucy is telling you. But if you "crit" a spell, then you get a crit. You don't get "more crit" by using both at once.

First Spire, level 3 = 21% chance to crit. 7th year, 50% chance to crit. Why use both at once? Use 7th for 1 minute, use spire for next 1.5 minutes.

[Malleria]

Well, "not stack" might not be the right term because you can have both at once going, which is what Lucy is telling you. But if you "crit" a spell, then you get a crit. You don't get "more crit" by using both at once.

...which doesn't answer the question

She's talking about crit chance, not whether having both at once makes the crits betterer

[Falore]

Are we sure about this: First Spire AA (increase chance to crit) does NOT stack with the 7th year Vet AA, so make sure you don't use them at the same time.?

Because Lucy / Kumbaja doesn't list stacking issues between intensity and 1st spire.

Considering first spire is a slot 2 crit chance and intensity is a slot 5 crit chance i'm fairly sure that would allow them to equate to a 71 percent chance to crit.

Best bet is to go to the test server and make use of the unlimited buff duration in the arena on a test dummy and nuke 100 times and see how many crits you get roughly... just make sure you factor in AA percent chances including the DoN progression crit AA from tier 4.

[Zacatac]

I'll ask Mindrix first. I don't plan on parsing 1000 casts of this and a 1000 casts of that.

I can see 3 different possibilties.

1. They do not stack, 7th year is the higher % chance to crit and overrides First Spire.
2. They are additive, 50% for 7th and 21% for first spire = 71% chance to crit.
3. They work like double procs on a weapon. You get a "roll" on 7th (50/100), and if it doesn't crit you get a "roll" on First (21/100). But if you did get a crit on 7th, ignore the first spire because the crit has already gone off.

[Mindrix]

Up until a few months ago, I would have told you that the spells (1st Spire & 7th year) would both sit on at the same time but only the top would take effect. However, from Wizard parsing and personal practice, the % to critical chance is likely additive. I can absolutely confirm that using 7th & 1st Spire at the same time is more DPS over the 2.5 minutes than doing 1 minute of 7th and 90s of First spire. (This is ignoring glyphs, because I did for quite a long time; with glyphs, it's far and away better exp)

What I can't tell you for certain is how they directly effect each other. The likely scenario is that they all just add together, but I don't know for sure. Also, Bard Epic and FE stack in as well. So you can hit 100% theoretical crit rate, but I was going to wait for Beta to actually go and test it for certain. It's going to take some overnight parsing.

[wire]

Up until a few months ago, I would have told you that the spells (1st Spire & 7th year) would both sit on at the same time but only the top would take effect. However, from Wizard parsing and personal practice, the % to critical chance is likely additive. I can absolutely confirm that using 7th & 1st Spire at the same time is more DPS over the 2.5 minutes than doing 1 minute of 7th and 90s of First spire. (This is ignoring glyphs, because I did for quite a long time; with glyphs, it's far and away better exp)

What I can't tell you for certain is how they directly effect each other. The likely scenario is that they all just add together, but I don't know for sure. Also, Bard Epic and FE stack in as well. So you can hit 100% theoretical crit rate, but I was going to wait for Beta to actually go and test it for certain. It's going to take some overnight parsing.

I used to think the same thing as Mend... but that's just not the case. Since this question came up, I've been running the parses. The effects are additive. See here.

[Zacatac]

I wanted a reasonably accurate result, so I let each sample climb to over 10,000 successful hits with level 81+ critable spells. Each run took around 9 hours

And that's why I didn't want to do it.

Very nice info there.

[Andorrabell]

Thanks guys, I was getting conflicting information all over the place.

[Merlaina]

I wonder, since the summoned ice shards aren't no trade, could you theoretically summon several and drop them on the ground in front of you before a big fight (assuming the big fight will be coming to you)? Like we used to do with mod rods? Use one up in your weave and when it's gone pick up another? I'm not sure how long items stick around on the ground these days, but seems to me it would at least be reasonable to make an extra two or so of these. Not to mention you can hand them out to wizards as well for use in their weaves.