Spirit of Aquementas viable? - PvE-Server (pre 1.4)

[Tarra]

Hi,

I was thinking about the Spirit of Aquementas Off Hand as it is in the game on the PvE-Server at the moment pre Patch 1.4.
Unlike After Patch it gives you -25 mana costs on any spell.
Is it worth using on long Bossfights and by that not having to use as many Life Taps but also losing some Spelldmg?
Since you mostly spam Shadow Bolt, which is a long and comparably expensive spell I don't think it would be better than Orb of Dar'Orahil for example. (Couldn't find the pre 1.4 version of this one. I think there is 10 shadowdmg on it currently).

Can someone do the math on that?

[Numi]

Hi,

I was thinking about the Spirit of Aquementas Off Hand as it is in the game on the PvE-Server at the moment pre Patch 1.4.
Unlike After Patch it gives you -25 mana costs on any spell.
Is it worth using on long Bossfights and by that not having to use as many Life Taps but also losing some Spelldmg?
Since you mostly spam Shadow Bolt, which is a long and comparably expensive spell I don't think it would be better than Orb of Dar'Orahil for example. (Couldn't find the pre 1.4 version of this one. I think there is 10 shadowdmg on it currently).

Can someone do the math on that?

I can basically guarantee that you don't benefit enough from it, 25 mana isn't enough to make a difference before the boss is dead and you're already not tapping enough to be worth it, but I'll do the math because I'm interested in seeing the actual numbers:

DISCLAIMER:
All of this is done in _optimal scenarios_ for aquementas, meaning that this is the top benefit you'll ever see from Aquementas, this is not reflective of real world scenarios where it'd never be worth this much, as you never start fights on 0 mana and always have regen sources from outside, for example mana potions and mana regen totems / buffs.

Assumptions:
You start the fight at 0 mana. (To make it fun)
You have roughly 460 spellpower (my numbers, because I cba to do actual research and find pre 1.4 numbers, spellpower only ever increases the comparative value of aquementas, so that won't change anything)
Shadow bolt costs 360 mana. (Couldn't actually remember the correct value, but know it's close to that).
No mana potions nor dark / Demonic runes are used.

Math:
Equipping aquementas means every 15th shadow bolt you cast will provide a 0 mana shadow bolt, meaning you'll have to tap 3,75 times per 16 shadowbolts instead of 4 times you'd have to otherwise (my numbers). This entire rotation takes 45,625 (aquementas) or 46 (no aquementas) seconds.

46 - 45,625 = 0,375, or 15% of a shadow bolt's cast time. (2,5 * 0,15 = 0,375) meaning that every 46 seconds you gain 0,375 of a shadow bolt by using aquementas.

Now, a shadow bolt does roughly 1000 damage per cast, so that'd mean that in 46 seconds you'd have to gain 375 damage from the spellpower in your off-hand. Fortunately shadow bolt has close to 100% spell power scaling, so we're using that number.

375 damage = 375 spell damage bonus in total.
Since we had 16 shadow bolt casts, we take 375 / 16 (= 23,4375) o get the spellpower value needed on the off-hand.
375 / 16 = 23,4375 meaning that the off-hand would need to have +23 spelldamage to be worth more than aquementas in this scenario.

Now there's some factors I've ignored here, including for example the spellpower scaling of lifetap, but it gives you a reasonable idea of the power of it in optimal scenarios.

DISCLAIMER:
All of this is done in _optimal scenarios_ for aquementas, meaning that this is the top benefit you'll ever see from Aquementas, this is not reflective of real world scenarios where it'd never be worth this much, as you never start fights on 0 mana and always have regen sources from outside, for example mana potions and mana regen totems / buffs.

Using Guybrushes spread sheat I pulled some real world numbers:
In a 180 second fight I cast 55 shadow bolts and tap 9 times, 55 shadow bolts means I gain ~4 shadow bolts worth of mana, giving me 60% (1,5 / 2,5) of a shadow bolt worth of damage, which is worth 600 spellpower or 55 * 11, meaning that 11 spellpower on the off-hand would be roughly equal in a 3 minute fight for me right now.

It's worth a heck of a lot more than I expected when I started running the numbers, but it's far from actually useful, as there's no fight where you'll end up casting enough shadow bolts to make it worth it.

In reality, I'd probably value the effect around 8 spelldamage worth, so if you have less than that I'd use aquementas on any fight where you use life tap, but Orb of Dar'Orahil is still pre-BiS.

[Tarra]

Was expecting something along those results. Thanks Numi.

[Ravni]

Another way to calculate it is that avoiding a single lifetap gcd per minute equals a 2.5% increase in DPS (1.5 seconds out of 60). I.e. you can cast 24x shadow bolts per minute with infinite mana. By that measure Spirit of Aquementas pre-1.4 will basically give you 600 mana per minute which is going to be worth close to one lifetap worth of mana in pre-1.4 gear/enchants. I'd estimate it is worth close to ~20-25 spellpower for you assuming you lifetap at least once per fight, so not bad considering the next-best thing is probably umbral crystal for you.

The Cataclysm destro talent & 5-piece tier 2.5 also tends to be a bit underrated (although still not that great). ~444 mana per minute from 5/5 Cataclysm is going to be worth about a 1% damage increase for a decently geared lock who lifetaps for 1100. Likewise the doomcaller set bonus is worth about a 3% damage increase for the same lock. ~40mp5 (i.e. blessing of wisdom) is about 1% damage too. Only in cases where you don't lifetap a single time (say, a 20-40 second MC fight), or where there is substantial downtime in which you can't damage the boss, will this not hold true.

A lot of locks also completely discount the mana from intellect, but it is pretty substantial for most fights as well. ~60 intel already equals 1% crit which is worth a bit more than 1% damage, however the 900 mana gained from the intel (or 1039 for a gnome lock with kings!) is going to be worth ~80% of a lifetap for the above geared lock. On an average 2-minute fight that is similarly worth an additional 1% damage just from the mana, and that increases in value the shorter the fight is up until the the point that you don't need to lifetap at all.

By comparison, chugging a demo/dark rune + major mana every two minutes is going to be about a 1.5% damage increase on a long fight, but it could be worth closer to 3% on something like a 150 second fight where you use them twice, or a shorter 70 second fight where you use them to avoid lifetapping at all.