Elemental mastery changed on PTR

[Stealthy]

It's a nerf for PvP, since it reduces our burst.

In PvP, you normally pull out EM + FS/LvB when you need an instant (almost) guaranteed kill. However for the next 8 secs while LvB is on cooldown , you'll be relying on your next biggest nuke - LB/CL + FrS. Since none of these spells have a guaranteed crit, 15% crit >>>>> 15% haste in this situation. Getting your spells off 0.2-0.3 secs faster doesn't compare to 15% higher chance for killing a target outright.

Cheers,
S.

[Fizzler]

I manage it in PvP but use it as part of my click sequence in PvE.

Comes in handy when protecting a tower... taking out the biggest threat instantly is a nice thing.

[Whowantstoknow]

yes

PvE Buff
PvP Nerf

As im mainly PvE I am happy

[heyaz]

What is the spell crit cap?

[Ualaa]

You're not likely to ever hit the crit cap.
Hit + Crit + Miss = 100%.

As you increase your hit percentage, your miss percentage decreases.
And as you increase your crit percentage, your hit percentage decreases.
It is theoretically possible to get to a point where you have no hit left so additional crit is impossible, without first increasing hit (decreasing miss chance).
Not likely to get there.

As a caster, against a raid boss, with no hit gear, you have say 17% miss.
Which means there is 83% chance of a hit or crit.
If you were 83% crit chance, anything beyond this gets you nothing.
At least until you increase your hit, which lowers your miss, and gives you space for more crit to be helpful.

I believe the worst to-hit is dual wielding.
And against a raid boss, rather then an opposing player.

[yaki]

You're not likely to ever hit the crit cap.

I believe the worst to-hit is dual wielding.
And against a raid boss, rather then an opposing player.

Dual-wielding imposes a hefty hit penalty. There are generally talents to reduce this, and practically it just means you need more +hit gear over something else. If there were no drawbacks, it would be a massive free DPS gain. The miss chance and the reduced ability to wear more generally DPS-increasing stats balance the gain from the second attack so that it comes out where they want.

Level-based miss is based on the size of the level gap. Raid bosses are always +3 levels, so you need more +hit when facing one than when you're at max level and facing another max level player. The penalty scale for attacking a higher-level target is also more harsh in PvE than PvP, but only diverges beginning at a +3 gap. Note that people at the bottom of a level bracket in battlegrounds are screwed...even a +5 gap is already down to 73% base hit in PvP.

Crit is generally nicer in PvP, even with the LvB factor. Haste does a nice job of packing an extra LB between those LvBs in a DPS rotation, but in PvP there is too much downtime. It's much more important that the LBs crit as often as possible so you can keep mobile and remove a given target from battle ASAP. So it's a PvP nerf...but only every three minutes, and not a crucial one, and the opener of doom is still intact.

For PvE...since crit did nothing for LvB and we see it as an increasing factor at higher iLvL, this probably translates to a nice on-call DPS boost. Heroism Light. Since they stack, since Elemental Mastery remains off the GCD, I suspect most of us will have an EM+Heroism macro in place of our Heroism buttons making for an even larger can of whoop-ass to go to when handling troublesome boss phases. Even in PvP, that should be a rather uncomfortable thing to stand in front of.

The practical crit cap is however many points translates to 100%...but the pts/% value changes with level, so there will never be gear to allow you to get anywhere near that level. The closest is temporary abilities that give a large crit% boost or which cause the next attack to automatically crit. It is also worth noting that the gain in % per point of crit decreases the more crit you have...it loses efficiency as you go. Haste on the other hand gains efficiency, at least until all your spells take 1 sec to cast.