Right, I never really wanted to add exceptions here, because in my opinion they usually bring more confusion that they clear. Anyway, to keep this topic accurate, look below.

Exception is a situation, which happens during an encounter, but won't obey any rule listed above.


EXCEPTIONS

Debuff on player

+ % damage done (Twin Val'kyrs - Light Essence - Dark Essence - Empowered Darkness and Empowered Light) – NO
Changing overlays doesn't force you to recast SW:P since the damage is recalculated as soon as you swap Light or Dark Essence. Thanks to bobbylam.
Further testing needed - Thaddius' stacks reevaluation; Twins in ToC, no Essence on player, SW:P on Twin, grab Essence, observe.

Fixt. The 13% increases are on the boss, not the player so you don't have to worry about recasting it.

this needs a sticky or something

Sorry, my bad, just tested it again.....thanks for letting me know.

Would you mind testing this again?

This doesn't match my experience when I tested it a long while though it's possible it's changed since then.

Sure, no problem with that.What I did(yesterday) is that I removed all my gear, ended up with 2,27% crit chance, "unspecced" Mind Melt, asked mage to throw scorch up, waited until the debuff is almost gone, threw SW:P on the dummy and rolled for 500 ticks, ended up with 3,12% crit.
I will check it out again tomorrow.

Urgh, yeah, when I tested it last we got the direct dmg% from crit% before they let our DoTs actually crit.

500 ticks however is probably not enough to be sure.

I did some testing on the PTR dual-boxing with a pre-made Shaman.

I also removed all my gear (had 2.28% listed crit). I did still have 2/2 Mind Melt, so that would put my SW:P crit rate at 8.28%.

I build 5 stacks of Shadow Weaving (for what it's worth), then had the Shaman drop ToW and then I cast SW:P.
I then recalled the ToW and I proceeded to roll the SW:P with Mind Flay.

After 1500 ticks the crit rate on SW:P was 10.4%. After 2586 ticks it was 11.6%

Note that the ideal crit rate if the Crit Debuff rolls would be 11.28%.

Would look like that the crit debuffs still function like they used to. i.e. you do need to recast SW:P if the target gains a new crit% taken debuff.

The sample size should be big enough. If scorch were really to be rolled into the crit chance, then the crit chance would continue to be 7.27% for all 500 ticks. And the chance of getting an crit rate of 3.12% in 500 tests would be less than 0.1%. i.e. we can be 99.9% sure that when scorch drops off the target it immediately reduces the crit chance of SWP (or at least reduces it when SWP is next refreshed via MF).

That's of course assuming the mage threw up a full stack of 5 scorches for a 5% crit increase. If the mage just threw up one stack of scorch then the analysis would be very different.

Fair enough, 500 ticks may not be sufficient (or RNG just doesn't like me).
I've just edited the OP to reflect actual situation.



It was with fully stacked imp. Scorch, 1 stack wouldn't really make noticeable difference.

Excellent resource. From here, where knowledge is finally gained as to what buffs need a recast, the discussion if "SHOULD" you recast can begin. SW:P just doesn't do alot of damage, the GCD to cast it must gain a benefit large enough to overcome the loss of an average MB or 2 x MF tick average.

Does the crit from Wild Magic (player buff crit chance) carry throughout the fight via P&S refresh of SW:P w/ MF? I was in belief that the new cancel all aura system put in place during BC wouldn't allow that to happen. (when Wild Magic wears off, it "cancel aura" on all of your current and future abilities).

I've been under the impression since before 3.1 that the wild magic pot crit buff does stay with SWP for the rest of the fight as long as it doesn't fall off.

I haven't actually checked for proof on this yet though. Can anyone varify this for sure or not?

Yes, dps difference isn't gamebreaking, but it still matters, because damage per second is the reason we are brought to raids.
When writing the original post, I was actually thinking about suggestions when you should recast SW:P.But there are so many variables (raid setup, your spell power, your dps, kind of buff/debuff, how long is the mob gonna be alive, ect.), that it's almost impossible to say "Now you should recast SW:P" unless it's very specific fight (Thaddius, Loatheb comes to my mind).
You should also think that when you recast SW:P, you loose 1 tick (99%) and your dps x 1,5(GCD).Before you hit the button, remind yourself - is the damage I loose worth?






When we talk about the crit portion (200 crit rating) of Wild Magic, it works the same way as Moonkin aura or Elemental Oath (stated above).So if you want to benefit from the crit bonus, you have to cast SW:P while under effect of the potion.Otherwise you will have only extra 200 sp for 15sec.

Hi.

Just have a question regarding this :



Does this mean that changing weapons mechanism will consider differenly Crit and Spell Power ?
=> I cast SW:P with my Crit-Staff
=> I switch to my SP-staff and refresh with P&S. Why will my crit chance on the spell remain unchanged, and still my "new Spell power" updated on it ? (maybe the answer is simply : because that's the way it is, but I just find this pretty inconsistant )

Crit rating will be carried through the fight, but spell power is recalculated every time you cast Mind Flay.The reason I mentioned weapon swapping is solely for its crit rating.

edit : I also slightly changed wording in OP to be clearer.