09-23-2005, 03:18 AM
It's hard to say a specific single number since the more of either you have the better the other one is.
On my warlock I rule-of-thumb 1% crit as being as valuable on an item as +10 damage because it's close enough to use as a basis for comparison and is easy to do in my head.
My normal shadowbolts average about 700 points each with my current set of +damage gear; crits add about 700 directly (Ruin) and potentially 560 indirectly (four Improved Shadowbolt charges each adding 20% to another shadowbolt). If I count half of the indirect buff (to allow for things like the mob dying, the debuff getting pushed off, the debuff pushing CoS off and DoT ticks absorbing the charges) that works out to just under 1000 damage per extra crit overall or +10 damage per 1% crit chance.
10 points of +damage gear gives +8.3 base damage to each shadowbolt. Allowing for a 15% crit rate with crits doing 240% total damage (Ruin and ISB again) boosts this to 10.04 - very close to the benefit of 1% crit.
This ratio (1% crit = +10 damage) can be easily argued in either direction - for instance it doesn't allow for the benefit +crit gives to fire spells or the benefit +damage gives to DoTs. It's good enough for my use.
The ratio for a frost mage should be similar but I don't know that tree well enough to do math for it. Are there crit-dependent talents in the tree that require judgment calls about how valuable the secondary effects of criticals are?
On my warlock I rule-of-thumb 1% crit as being as valuable on an item as +10 damage because it's close enough to use as a basis for comparison and is easy to do in my head.
My normal shadowbolts average about 700 points each with my current set of +damage gear; crits add about 700 directly (Ruin) and potentially 560 indirectly (four Improved Shadowbolt charges each adding 20% to another shadowbolt). If I count half of the indirect buff (to allow for things like the mob dying, the debuff getting pushed off, the debuff pushing CoS off and DoT ticks absorbing the charges) that works out to just under 1000 damage per extra crit overall or +10 damage per 1% crit chance.
10 points of +damage gear gives +8.3 base damage to each shadowbolt. Allowing for a 15% crit rate with crits doing 240% total damage (Ruin and ISB again) boosts this to 10.04 - very close to the benefit of 1% crit.
This ratio (1% crit = +10 damage) can be easily argued in either direction - for instance it doesn't allow for the benefit +crit gives to fire spells or the benefit +damage gives to DoTs. It's good enough for my use.
The ratio for a frost mage should be similar but I don't know that tree well enough to do math for it. Are there crit-dependent talents in the tree that require judgment calls about how valuable the secondary effects of criticals are?