Yesterday was fantastic. I’d successfully travelled halfway across the country, got home and managed to get settled in front of the computer. For the first time in a few days I was planning on helping myself to a nice portion of Warcraft goodness. I figured that since the raid lockouts had just reset that there’d be a wide variety of choices available, even at the late hour I logged on. As luck would have it, there definitely was.
I managed to get get myself into an ICC25 PuG being organised by a few people from some of the leading guilds on the server. Everything filled up nicely, we marched in and managed to take down the first four bosses as well as the mini random quest encounter. Thirteen badges in the bag, twenty achievement points and a fair chunk of fun for the evening. We’d have progressed further too if it wasn’t for the double-maintenance whammy we’ve had this week.
The awesome thing that came out of the run though was that I picked up Nibelung from Lady Detahwhisper. I’d heard some great things about this staff, particularly how the Val’kyr that it summons can really ramp up your DPS. The trouble with procs like these though is that you never really know if they’ll be worth it until you gem and enchant the thing and give it a go.
I’m also building up an armoury of weapons that I think I should really start cutting down. But the stats, procs and so on make it very hard to choose which combo is better. I must have spent about three hours at one point trying to work out which was mathematically superior until I realised I was no longer playing World of Warcraft and instead had somehow logged into MetaCraft: Spreadsheet Theory. It was not a fun place.
Currently I have the following taking up room in my bags:
- Nibelung (ICC25 normal version)
- Sister Svalna’s Aether Staff (ICC10 normal version)
- Abracadaver (ICC10 normal version)
- Frost Needle and Scourgelord’s Baton (both ICC10 normal)
I know it’s a bit like moaning I have too many pairs of shoes, or that the menu at a restaurant I’m visiting has too many tempting options, but it’s a pain nonetheless. And I really don’t want to go back to spreadsheets and searching forums for definitive answers on the best weapon to get. Sometimes I wish itemisation was easy.
So here’s the plan – go to the target dummies and test each weapon in turn to see which gives the biggest answer. Of course, if you reckon you have an answer for me then feel free to pipe up. If we had a unified Mage resource site, I’d post it there, but we currently don’t.
I’m keeping Nibelung though – being able to have Val’kyr proc from by Blizzard AoE (about all I do in heroics these days) should mean I have a harem of these things following me around…
i’d be interested in seeing the results of your tests. i just got Abracadaver last weekend, and i’m thrilled. i am curious how it compares to the others, too.
I’ll try to do a roundup of my results sometime next week, once I’ve put them through their paces a bit.
You would have to post about the only thing that I regret about not raiding! You have *no* idea what I would do to have Nibelung and it’s attendant Val’kyrs… (Other than actually raid. That’s non-negotiable.)
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I had the same collection. Rawr says that Nibelung is better than Abracadaver by around 90 dps, and you don’t have to remember to call the corpse every 10 minutes to maximise your dps with it. Although I do love my little corpse helper dude.
I’m keeping hold of the frost needle and scourgelord baton in case I get a really great one-hander or offhand once we get into hardmodes, but they’re not going to be on the menu any time soon.
Dying Light, from BQL25, is given a thumbs-up from Rawr too.
I really like Rawr, even if it’s not 100% accurate. Theoretical max dps on fight length and often doesn’t match reality because of how often you remember to hit the cooldowns.
Aye, I’m likely to keep Frost Needle and Scourgelord’s Batton just in case a high-stat replacement drops into my lap. I’m probably not going to see Dying Light though – I rarely do 25’s so I’m usually limited to 10-man tables.
I always go with whatever looks the coolest!
…This would also explain why I am not a progression raider.
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I might be many things, but I’m definitely not a pro raider 🙂
Oh man.. I have to get my lil mage into a 25-man pug. Want the dudefaces so bad!
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Looking forward to it!
Remember you really need to have full 25 person buffs before the test, e.g. the 4% hit. Especially since the hit from the other staffs would allow you to drop some hit, if you are arcane. ( Just trying out fire and having to come up with 156 hit was a bit of a hassle. )
I thought I read entries in an EJ thread that was not complementary of Nieblung.
But I really think it is cool. And I don’t have access to anything better than Nieblung-25 so I will be keeping it. I hope it performs as well as it looks!
You’re right about the hit issue, although my standard gear loadout brings me in almost perfectly on hitcap in an arcane spec. Unfortunately I don’t have the flexibility to swap in other pieces if I use a staff with wads of hit – they basically become wasted statpoints.
I’m mainly a 10-man raider with my guild, so I tend to focus on that as my target for buff selection etc. I’m also thinking that if I dtop down from the top-end target dummy, it might compensate for the lack of buffs etc. Either way I was thinking that as long as I treat each weapon the same in terms of buff, it should provide some great comparative analysis. As long as the DPS of each weapon drops by the same amount due an absence of buffs, it should still be a valid test.
I get what you mean though about it not being popular. I’ve seen a lot of talk around Rigormortis and Shadow Silk Spindle being the setup to go for, but it seems to swing back and forth. I also see a lot of love for Abracadaever purely because of the amount of haste on it.
Nibelung is the only thing I want from ICC. There are other upgrades, but I couldn’t care less.
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My mage is using Frost Needle and the Shriveled Heart…I need a new offhand or a staff like Nibelung…but I really like 1H things. For serious!
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