I’m now wishing I had had an opportunity in school to pursue math further – not for career reasons, I just want to be able to understand what they are saying over at Elitist Jerks.

The mage section has been cleaned up a bit since pre-patch something or other months ago. If you’re curious: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t42876-arcane_thread/

However… there are two big problems with me getting information from EJ for my mage.

1. Most, if not all, of the calculations and scenarios are assuming that I am deep in Ulduar and probably working on my 4-piece T8 set bonus.
   I wish. I’ve had my T7 4-piece for a bit now, but anything in Uld past Kologarn is a mystery to me.
2. Most, if not all, of the calculations and scenarios are also assuming that I will be entering a raid with known variables – that I’m a member of a steady raiding guild with consistent attendance and can rely on particular raid compositions.
   I wish. The only raid comp I can guarantee is 1 mage (go me!), a tank or 3, some healers, and some other random people that are probably doing DPS. Oh, and we’ll cycle members out during the course of a raid. It’s always awesome when the leader calls for a Bloodlust and we realize the shaman was replaced 3 pulls ago. What do you mean the spriest can’t Bloodlust?

But, that isn’t to say that I did not pull some hopefully useful information from in betwixt the nonsensical formulas and the Incanter’s Absorption gimmick stuff. What follows is my version of casual theorycrafting – I don’t personally have many numbers to back this up but I’m putting the concepts out there. If you know something that’s more current/correct, please point me towards it. (more…)