Bough of Corruption + Flame Patch

[Thraundil 0]

Bough of Corruption

We've all looked at it once or twice and thought "what great potential". Some may even have looted it, and thought "WHOOP", only to be crushed by performance. Theres a reason its not on the top of best-in-slot lists, it does a measly 5-600k damage in the same space Wriggling Sinew puts out 2M. 

No more! After todays patch, flamestrike damage got a +15% damage increase - suppose to make it compete more with living bomb. I decided to test it out in HoV regular mythic for the Kara quest, so I specced for Flame Patch. I wore bough of corruption too, just for the mastery with the ignite cleave. And suddenly I see crazy amounts of poisoned dreams (the name of the debuff given by the trinket) - it seems as if flame patch counts as a spell, causing poisoned dreams to proc each tick! (Or, according to Skada - nearly every tick. Maybe it has a (pretty short) cooldown on each target). Here is a Skada report from a pack of 4 risen lancer / risen swordsman dudes in Black Rook Hold, where poison dreams activated on my first fireball:

Poisoned Dreams: 2,44M (19,8%)

Flamestrike: 2,01M (16,3%)

Phoenix Flames: 1,84M (15%)

Flame Patch: 1,59M (12,9%)

Now, during the pull I cast 3 flame strikes, which might be too much (I forgot if double flamestrike also causes double flame patch?). But poisoned dreams activated 50 times! It dealt more damage than my actual spells. I replicated similar numbers many times during the normal mythic runs I did just for the karazhan attunement quest line. 

"But Thraundil - who cares about cleave in mythic dungeons?" 

Well, lots of people. This is applicable to keystone dungeons too, where pulling big numbers on trash is equally, if not more important. Sustained cleave during bolstering in particular. Bough of corruption, compared to other "cleave" trinkets such as Figurehead of the Naglfar, is miles ahead. Figurehead cant cleave, so its fixed damage - my 855 version is just shy of 700k. 

 

But here comes the interesting part - a part I hope you all would like to contribute to in the form of in-game testing, the most true test there is. Target dummy in class halls and cities are aparently too close to one another - the poisoned dreams are spreading amongst them, and I have not entered a proper raid yet since making this small discovery. But suppose this. Spec flame patch. 

Run a regular rotation. Standard rune + combust spell useage. But save 1 rune of power charge. When poisoned dreams proc on the isolated boss, it will start with 1 stack (5425 dmg per tick), and then ramp up to 10 stacks (54250 dmg per tick) over 20 seconds. Which means that if you cast rune of power followed by a flame strike at say 6 stacks, you get the optimum effect. 

Quick theoretical number crunch. During rune, my pyro crits around 450k + like 90k ignite damage. Sub this for a flamestrike (one testcast gives me 240k flamestrike (a crit) and 200k flame patch, call it around 400k dmg total on average including ignite), the damage loss is not huge. But the gain? Flamestrike, aftershock and 8 ticks of flame patch, all ticking poisoned dreams. Average stack 8 for the duration is 10 * 8 * 5425 * 1,5 (rune of power is the 1,5 modifier) = 627k damage. This is disregarding crits entirely. And yes, the ticks crit, so also benefitting from golden trait. So its easily a million damage. (Lining up with combustion is utopia since the proc of Bough is unpredictable). 

 

Some data from Smashspite the Hateful (black rook hold mythic): 

Pyroblast 4,52M (24,2%)

Ignite 3,89M (20,8%)

Fireball 2,08M (11,1%)

Maddening Whispers 2,07M (11,1%)

Poisoned Dreams 2,0M (10,7%)

This is the result from Wriggling Sinew used in conjunction with combustion (Maddening Whispers), and Bough of Corruption procing twice during the encounter, both times I did what I outlined above, casting a rune then flamestrike at 6 stacks of poisoned dreams. The boss died well before the 2nd flame patch ran its full course, or the damage would be higher. The fight lasted 1 min 34 seconds. 

 

Could this be a thing? I know it carries no critical strike rating, and mastery actually comes in as the 'worst' stat on singletarget dps. But could this be a thing? Can we come together and test this out on farm bosses over the next few days and see if Bough of Corruption actually has a use? Wriggling Sinew is best in slot because it combines crit with a sick proc effect, but it seems as if Bough could actually provide the same up-front damage - or maybe even more in some situations that I havent even thought of yet. 

 

Lets find some use for this trinket, shall we? I am Tadtiq on EU Hellscream if anybody wants to discuss outside forums ;)