12 spell dmg or 5 crit 6 spell dmg for pvp suit (arena)??

[Skrimshaw]

I know shamans are more crit dependent than other class, but all other classes I have lived by the "Hit like a girl, Crit like a girl" theory and have always loaded up on spell dmg. Now add all the resilience and me having countless opponents down to a sliver of health after a volley and not able to finish them off, I'm starting to think of loading up on all 12 dmg gems. Its interesting theorycrafting this situation cause you can't think about it as one individual, you have to look at 60 more spell dmg on an individual is really 240 more spell dmg focused per spell as a group. Anyway I was curious if anyone has tried loading up on spell dmg. I know Ellay is running the 5crit 6spell dmg gems, but he is also in mostly S4 and atleast all S3 which gives him already 70-100 spell dmg over my S2 suit.

[Boylston]

I run with the spell damage + spell crit gems for a variety of reasons. One big thing to consider: Shaman mana efficiency is tied to critting...

[Skrimshaw]

yeah but the difference is about 1 crit vs 60 spell dmg. Err correction 2.2 crit and 48 spell dmg vs 96 spell dmg.

[magwo]

All out spell damage in my opinion. You have plenty of crit from the gear bonuses I believe. You need tons of spell damage to punch through tough classes with your insta nuke.
Sometimes you are forced to go for a warlock or a disc priest, and that's where it's all about spell damage.

Can never go wrong with spell damage I believe.

[merujo]

i would say that, once ur around 20-22% spell crit, ur ok. Still crit can make u win games, the more u have, the more they will suffer.
anyways, spell dmg is still a good choice, if ur really into using NS as ur main weapon in pvp... personnaly, for every 12 spell i have 10 crit rating. u may think 2-3% more crit doesnt matter, but it does, imo.

[magwo]

Spell damage scales well against both ungeared opponents and geared opponents, whereas crit scales badly against well geared opponents.

Edit: there are also passive anti-crit talents to consider.. priests, shamans.. etc. In my opinion crit isn't worth pursuing if you're serious about arena play.

[merujo]

Edit: there are also passive anti-crit talents to consider.. priests, shamans.. etc. In my opinion crit isn't worth pursuing if you're serious about arena play.

isn't for that exact reason why u try to stack a bit more crit ?
well, u'll end up without having crit to fight resilience, and u think 30more spell dmg ( or wtv ) on each char will give u the boost to win ?

if i recall correctly, weren't u just days ago defending the use of ToW totems in arena ? Now crit isn't worth pursuing.

"but its 12% crit moar! not 1 or 2 in gems!"
no one would change NS for ToW's...not if ur serious about arena play.

[xtobbenx]

Personaly i use dmg/crit gems on all gems spots basicly of the reason that they cost half the price of the pure spell dps ones on my servers AH.. But also, i would say that my main do crit alot in arena. And it feels great so see those huge numbers

[Boylston]

whereas crit scales badly against well geared opponents

This is only true if you have a very small amount of starting crit, which shamans obviously do not. Crit scales just fine against high resilience opponents.

[xtobbenx]

Expect that all targets will have 400 resilions. So lets say that yuor base crit that your stats are showing wouls be 20% crit... +10 from talents(not shown in the crit calculation) - 10 from 400 resilion on the target = 20% total crit crit. That meens that you should crit as often as you will proc a Lightening overload. And normaly 1 of the 4 bolt will proc.. or crit on each wave. Its the little extra dps that i found bedder then the 50 or so more spell dps..