Originally Posted by
Propainn
First, I'm not on a loot council, sunshine. However, in 10 years of raiding I've never had an issue with one. Arms with the right gear has a nearly 1.4:1 ratio of Mastery to STR. In other words, I would've needed to gain hundreds of STR on a pair of bracers in order to counter the loss of Mastery. Suffice to say, that was not the case. Please educate yourself. You said a notably lower item level piece could never be an upgrade, and that simply couldn't be further from the truth for certain specs. You are wrong.
Then don't claim a notably lower ilvl piece could never be an upgrade for some specs. It's an ignorant blanket statement, and shows how shallow your knowledge of the game is. Does nobody remember Mastery clownsuits during Cata? Hell, even Sub was using Mastery clownsuits to snapshot openers in WoD. Weird things can happen with gear. Just because it isn't the case for your spec, doesn't mean that it can't be the case for others.
With the following weights (M=1.37, H=1.09, S=1.00, V=0.80, C=0.73):
Gain from wearing 825 over 850 (Normalized): 878.65
Loss from wearing 825 over 850 (Normalized): 681.1
DPS gained from stats wearing 825 over 850: 8,472.61
DPS lost from stats wearing 825 over 850: 6,457.26
Net DPS gained from wearing 825 over 850: 2,015.35