Spell Damage Trinkets Mechanica

[Daikoku]

Greetings. I've been a member for a few weeks, though I have been reading the excellent forums for significantly longer than that. I currently run a demonology spec, though I have bounced between affliction and demonology and really enjoy both. I had a question regarding trinkets that you can "use" to increase spell damage by X for X number of seconds (e.g. the Vengeance of the Illidari trinket I have equipped if you look at my armory profile The World of Warcraft Armory). My question relates to how this interacts with our DOT's. When one pops the trinket for the spell damage bonus, does the damage bonus apply to any DOT's cast while the trinket effect is active, or does it apply to any DOT damage ticks that take place while the trinket is active. I think it may be the latter based on some loose observations of the damage text in my in-game chat window, but wanted to see if anyone could confirm.

If, indeed, the trinket only effects DOT ticks as opposed to DOT casts, this will influence when I use the trinkets in my spell rotation. For example, if the trinket only influences DOT damage ticks as I suspect, I would cast instant corruption prior to popping the trinket as there is a delay of a few seconds between when corruption lands and when it first ticks for damage. During the delay, I would pop the trinket and thereby have the damage bonus applied to more ticks of corruption. It may also make it beneficial to apply all of your DOT's prior to popping the trinket, as you will get more DOT ticks with the +damage from popping the trinket.

I searched the forums for whether anyone discussed how the damage trinkets interact with our DOT's but could not find the topic addressed. Any thoughts are appreciated. In summary, if the trinkets only impact damage ticks, I would argue that warlocks seeking to maximize their damage may want to wait until the middle or end of their DOT spell rotation to pop the trinket, as it would, therefore, apply the damage bonus to more DOT ticks than were it cast at the start of the DOT spell rotation. Thanks for listening.

[Kusasi]

I asked this same question before on this forum but I don't blame you for not being able to find it, it's not a common question. I've been told that the damage will only apply to the cast and not to any dots currently ticking away. When I was affliction I would pop the trinket then throw up my dot sequence. If you use something like DrDamage you can see all the damage totals for your dots shoot up when you pop your trinket. This also has a funny quirk when it comes to CoD. If you pop your trinket then throw up CoD, when it procs it will benefit from that bonus spell damage even though your trinket will be almost half way through its cooldown. Funny for bosses like Curator. Also if you ever take the blue beam on Netherspite you can throw up CoD when the phase ends and just before the buff wears off. When CoD procs it will deal a hell of a load of damage.

[mat2d2]

The damage done by a DoT and a spell is calculated the second the spell is cast not when it first does damage.

So popping the trinket when Corruption has already been applied but hasn't ticket yet would mean the corruption is unaffected by the trinket but if you were to use the trinket prior to casting the spell then the corruption would be effected by the new spell damage for its entire duration.

[Kryptix]

Right.

Debuffs on a mob are calculated per tick.
(ie dots are on and do 300 per tick. but then CotE gets thrown up and then your dots do 330 per tick.

Buffs on you are calculated per cast.
(ie, trinket then cast dots)

[FreeLancer]

Greetings,

I have been pondering over this as well, so i'd like to chime in my "Thanks!" for clearing this up.

Also, when popping your trinket(s), do you activate 2 at the same time (the case of 2 spell damage trinkets) or 1 and then the other?

Thanks and best regards!

[Daikoku]

I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to read and answer my post. I appreciate it.

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by FreeLancer

Greetings,

I have been pondering over this as well, so i'd like to chime in my "Thanks!" for clearing this up.

Also, when popping your trinket(s), do you activate 2 at the same time (the case of 2 spell damage trinkets) or 1 and then the other?

Thanks and best regards!

I don't believe you can activate 2 at the same time, as you will get the message "Another action is already in progress". I will usually have one of my trinkets ready to use, so when one is up I can pop the other one.

[levinho]

Actually, I have my trinkets macro'd into my shadowbolt casts. Whenever I have an available trinket it is used simultaneously with my cast. That maximizes use of trinkets. Now, different trinkets put different effects on cooldown so it depends what kind of trinket you use. If for example I click either my Skull of Guldan or Hex Lord's Shrunken Head, then the other trinket gets a 20sec cooldown. About the amount of time that the buff runs. Since this is the case, you cannot overlap trinkets with similar effects; however, they don't put my medallion of the horde on cooldown since it is grouped with that particular set of effects that share a cooldown. My best suggestion if you are unsure is to check Wowhead since it lists shared cooldowns for on-use functions.

[iinferno21]

Originally Posted by levinho

Actually, I have my trinkets macro'd into my shadowbolt casts. Whenever I have an available trinket it is used simultaneously with my cast. That maximizes use of trinkets. Now, different trinkets put different effects on cooldown so it depends what kind of trinket you use. If for example I click either my Skull of Guldan or Hex Lord's Shrunken Head, then the other trinket gets a 20sec cooldown. About the amount of time that the buff runs. Since this is the case, you cannot overlap trinkets with similar effects; however, they don't put my medallion of the horde on cooldown since it is grouped with that particular set of effects that share a cooldown. My best suggestion if you are unsure is to check Wowhead since it lists shared cooldowns for on-use functions.

was gunna say exactly that, trinkets can't overlap from my knowledge, most trinkets last 15 - 20sec, which his usually what the global cooldown for trinkets is...ya

[FreeLancer]

Originally Posted by levinho

Actually, I have my trinkets macro'd into my shadowbolt casts. Whenever I have an available trinket it is used simultaneously with my cast. That maximizes use of trinkets. Now, different trinkets put different effects on cooldown so it depends what kind of trinket you use. If for example I click either my Skull of Guldan or Hex Lord's Shrunken Head, then the other trinket gets a 20sec cooldown. About the amount of time that the buff runs. Since this is the case, you cannot overlap trinkets with similar effects; however, they don't put my medallion of the horde on cooldown since it is grouped with that particular set of effects that share a cooldown. My best suggestion if you are unsure is to check Wowhead since it lists shared cooldowns for on-use functions.

I, too, am currently macro my trinkets into my UA cast as followed to utilize whichever is available:

/stopcasting
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Unstable Affliction

A few times that i checked my cooldown timers, it showed them as having the same cooldown duration, hence the thought of being able activate 2 at the same time.

I currently have the Icon and the Bloodgem; they do not share cooldown according to Wowhead. My question is then, will i be under-utilizing my trinkets if i macro them into my UA cast as aboved?

Thanks!