Hello everyone. Relatively advanced moonkin here - yet there's still one facet of everything this expansion that gives my brain the run-arounds.
Not necessarily looking for a push towards the direction of a guide or WrathCalcs, as those are the direct contributors as to the development of my issue here. The conflict lies with the (in)ability to analyze pieces at face value and decide its potency once embedded into the entire set of gear. I'm very aware of the stat priorities and debates that have surrounded them, and can generally distinguish a winner among 2-3 pieces of the same slot side by side - but optimal standalone pieces are hardly relevant or yield optimal results overall.
Essentially, what I'm fishing for is finding what exactly top druids are doing to fully optimize their itemization. From extensive reading, I find that the most common route people immediately point to is WrathCalcs, Simcraft, and AskMrRobot. On the opposite side of that token, I constantly notice how off WC/SimC stat weights are when it comes to mastery & crit. I constantly hear how AMR is full of 'rough estimates' and inaccurate for complete optimization - yet AMR is the tool that's closest to what I'm searching for. Sadly though, when I plug any top-tier druid in, MrRobot starts spitting red everywhere!
At a very basic level, I could forsake all of the calculators and automation and attempt configuring a set of gear that maximizes crit, preserves 10289 haste and hit cap, then pour all of the excess into mastery. Sounds simple enough, but then we get into reforging. That alone will takes hours to find what I would believe to be an optimal web of reforges, then find out there's a chain of other pieces I can alter to more perfectly hit those sweet spots and squeeze out more of the good stuff.
So, apologies if all of that's convoluted... but the question posed remains: What do you use for optimal reforging/gear strategies when coming up with BiS and the interchangeable pieces while going for that gear? Thanks! - Billy