Crit Modifier question

[Toranglo]

OK I have a mage I am taking into the xpac and am currently specced 41 arc 10 frost. In the arcane tree there is a "spell mastery" talent that increases spell criticals for all spells by 50%. Spell crits are 150% base with 50% should make spell crit 200% or double. In the frost tree I have the "ice shards" talent which increases frost crits by 100%. This should result in a 300% damage on crits. 150% base +50% talent+100% talent.

My average frostbolt is 850 to 900 damage. Lets assume 900 for a round number to work with. that makes a base crit 1350=(900*1.5). With the spell mastery talent that becomes 1800=(900*2). With the Ice shards it should be at least 2700=(900*3). I have not seen a crit higher than 1900 yet. Am I missing something, or is it possible that there is a bug and the multiple crit modifiers are not stacking and only one is being applied?

[rootkit]

They don't stack, the 100% bonus is total... So you double the damage from the frostbolt... I crit +/- the same... Critted 2200 on some warriors in pvp maybe they had 0 frost resistance...

[Toranglo]

Well that is a real snowjob...I hope blizz looks at that and does something. Looks like back to 10 in fire for ignite.

[Tunga]

It's possible this was changed but a Blue posted originally that these do stack.

The mistake you're making is that it does not increase the damage of your spell criticals by x% but rather the damage bonus from a spell critical. They don't have any effect on the original base damage of the spell (i.e. the first 100%).

For example, Ice Shards adds 100% to the damage bonus, that is it doubles the bonus.
A spell normally does 150% of normal damage on crit.
With Ice Shards it will do 200% of normal damage since the damage bonus is 50% and it does an extra 100% of this. 100% * 50% = 50% more from Ice Shards
Or to look at this with numbers, a spell that deals 1000 damage has a 500 damage bonus from a spell crit. The talent doubles this (an extra 100%) giving a total 1000 damage bonus, making the final crit do 2000 damage.

Spell Power works in the exact same way, giving an extra half (50%) of the damage bonus so this talent alone on the same 1000 normal damage spell would make it deal 1750 instead of 1500 on a crit.

If you have both of these talents, simply add the %s and work it out the same way: you'll do an extra 150% of the damage bonus. So your spell crits will now do 225% damage since 50% * 150% = 75% more from the talents.

For an 850-900 spell this would give you a crit range of 1912-2025 which is a little lower than you're seeing but you have to remember some classes have spell damage reducing talents so it's probably working as intended. You could test it on some lower level mobs to be sure. If they weren't stacking then your crits would be 1700-1800 and you're reporting more damage than this.

Hope that helps :) .

[Toranglo]

Ok that makes sense. Spell mastery and Ice shards both affect the bonus damage only and provide the same boost % wise. Just that the tooptips make them seem different. New and old wording I suppose. Thanks

[Tunga]

I assume you're talking about Spell Power? Ice Shards and Spell Power are not the same, see my numbers. When I said "Spell Power works in the exact same way", I meant the mechanics of it. As I went on to say, the number for Spell Power is 50% and not 100% as for Ice Shards. The key word in the talent description is bonus, it only effects the extra damage that you get from landing a critical hit, not the base damage of the spell.

Maybe these numbers will help.
If a Frostbolt lands for 1000 damage normally.
Normal crit: 1500 (i.e. 1000 damage, +500 crit bonus)
Ice Shards crit: 2000 (i.e. 1000 damage, +500 crit bonus, +500 from 100% more crit bonus)
Spell Power crit: 1750 (i.e. 1000 damage, +500 crit bonus, +250 from 50% more crit bonus)
Ice Shards & Spell Power crit: 2250 (i.e. 1000 damage ,+500 crit bonus, +750 from 150% more crit bonus)

Hope that's clearer :) .

[Toranglo]

I understand...the first explanation was good, my wording that I understood was probably confusing in the first place. It affects bonus damage only. Spell mastery increases spell crit bonus damage by 50% and ice shards by 100%.

So base spell crit bonus damage is 50% of original spell damage.
Ice shards is 100% bonus of the 50%. so 50% more
Spell mastery is 50% of the original 50% bonus damage so 25% more.

So 50% (for critting in the the first place) + 50% for ice shards on a frost spell + 25% from spell mastery.

225% crits right? 100% of that is your original spell damage and 125% bonus damage.

[Tunga]

Exactly correct :) .

Makes some rather nice crits :D .

[Toranglo]

Yeah the crits are nice. I am thinking 41 arc 20 frost in xpac for the nice reliable crits. It will be really nice if I can get my hands on better +damage gear and when I get a new rank of frostbolt.

[Tunga]

41 Arcane is an interesting one, I think Slow is considerably better than a lot of the mages seem to believe, but I've never played a Mage past 22 so I'm perhaps not the best judge.