SimCraft Noob Question

[Akshak]

I'll readily admit I'm new to the Simcraft stuff - hell I'd heard of it prior to today but never used.

Just exactly how do I go about analyzing and using the reports in it to properly gem/enchant/reforge existing gear? For a first time user the amount on information I saw in the Simulate execution was a bit overwhelming. I did read that trying to go solely by AskMrRobot is not a good course of action.

[Ryme]

https://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/ - Documentation - most of it deals with TCI, but if you're looking to mess around in there, it's a good start. If you're looking for basic things like stat weights (how to gem and enchant), the options in the main tabs of the program should suffice.

Set to at least 10,000 iteration for reliable weight results, tick the stats you want analysing and read the output.

Happy to help with any other specific query you might have.

[Akshak]

My main objective is to use it in conjunction with AskMrRobot to optimize my warlock's gear and up the DPS if it all possible - the sheer amount of data in the lone sim I ran for Simcraft was a bit overwhelming to be honest.

[SlippyCheeze]

My main objective is to use it in conjunction with AskMrRobot to optimize my warlock's gear and up the DPS if it all possible - the sheer amount of data in the lone sim I ran for Simcraft was a bit overwhelming to be honest.

Unfortunately, that is the level of detail needed to get that last percentage point of performance out of your character. You might ask yourself if you actually care enough, or you can accept being a few percent worse than the player next to you who does; at this point in the tier, and frankly in most of them, you probably don't matter that much. (I sure don't. World first material I am not

In addition to everything else, it is critical that your SimCraft simulations accurately reflect your play and priority. For example, one of the SpellFlash addon authors, Bitten, publishes SimC priority lists for all his addon priority lists. If you don't play to that set of actions, the weights that SimC generates with his priority list is going to suck.

Likewise the default priority list in SimC: if it doesn't match your priorities in-game, you are going to get great theoretical numbers that you can't possibly deliver on without significantly altering how you play. Get them to match.

Without that you are probably better off going with the default priorities from icy-veins.com or a guide here, and an addon like ReforgeLite that allows you to set a simple priority list and stick with it. Alternately, go with the default weights in AMR for your gear level (eg: t15 or less, or t16), and figure that you probably lose DPS more to player skill that you do to being "wrong" in your weights there.

[Akshak]

Fair enough, thanks Slippy.

I'm not a World First player either.

[Ryme]

My main objective is to use it in conjunction with AskMrRobot to optimize my warlock's gear and up the DPS if it all possible - the sheer amount of data in the lone sim I ran for Simcraft was a bit overwhelming to be honest.

Sounds to me you're mainly after the interaction of your stats to your dps? If so, this is fairly easily obtained:

In options, set the following:

Version => Live
Iterations => 10000, higher is better, 10k should suffice here though
World Lag => Low, ideally, you want to see how your stats work at their best, adjust after to see how different things effect them
Length => Variable, it's measured in seconds, mostly used for CD interaction
Vary Style => Varies length, useful to get a better average spread of procs, 20% is fine
Fight Style => Patchwerk, same reasoning as world lag
Target Level => Raid Boss
Target Race => up to you
Num Enemies => 1, should be clear
Challenge mode => Diabled, sets your gear to it's 463 equivalent
Player Skill => Elite, same reasoning as world lag
Threads => Essentially, set this to the number of cores your pc has (check task manager graphs to find out)
Leave the rest standard for now (haven't checked TMI standard boss, could be useful!)

In Buffs/Debuffs you want everything enabled

Scaling is where you set the stats you want to analyse (tick crit, haste, mastery for now)

Plots lets you see how more of each stat effects it's worth. For example, many classes have a point of haste that's really powerful, but subsides after you pass it. These are often known as soft caps.
Plots are powerful tools, but take a lot of time to plot, up to you.

Skip reforge plots for now, often very hard to read.

Import your toon on the import tab and press the simulate button.

In the results, look for the box that shows your scale factors, you can now use these inside of amr and hopefully get what you want out of that tool as well.

[Akshak]

Ryme, you sir are awesome - thanks!

**EDIT**
Forgot to ask once I find the scale factors in question do I go through the Edit Weights option on the AMR addon/site and up those 3 values by the scale factor amounts for each stat in question?

[Ryme]

I'm afraid I have almost no experience with AMR, so I can't help you there!

[Akshak]

No worries bud, wasn't sure.
The site is the main gear modifications area with the addon just taking an import from the site and bypassing having to alt tab constantly or write stuff down.

[SlippyCheeze]

Ryme, you sir are awesome - thanks!

**EDIT**
Forgot to ask once I find the scale factors in question do I go through the Edit Weights option on the AMR addon/site and up those 3 values by the scale factor amounts for each stat in question?

You really want to set *all* the weights based on your sim. In other words: you should sim out weights for all the things that AMR offers, including weapon DPS, AP, etc. Then set the entire lot.

The way AMR works is that it does some fairly basic math for each item set, where it, eg, multiplies the value of hit by your weight for hit, and the value of crit by your weight for crit, and so forth. It works hard to find the "best" set that hits your requirements (eg: hit/exp/haste caps, etc), and that sort of thing, but the basics are very simple: find the set with the highest combined value from that very simple math that you allowed it to use.

If you have some weights from your own sim, and some weights from the defaults -- which are a simcraft run, just not based on *your* character -- you will have mismatched numbers. Maybe they got more (or less) value out of strength than you would. (This shows up in Frost DK, which I am more familiar with than your class, where strength dominates until you get to somewhere around 560 ilvl across the board or so, and then other things start to win.)

So, you should turn on "generate weights for" options in SimC for everything that AMR offers you -- haste, crit, wDPS, ohDPS, SP, AP, stamina, etc, etc, etc. Plug *all* those values in from your sim results, and then AMR will deliver the best reforge/regem, the best gear based on what you have in your bags/bank, and your personal BiS list based on your configured access to gear.

(tip: AMR actually does more complicated things than that summary: it values the tier bonus, and does the hard work of figuring out things like the Thok's tail tip amplification trinket, or the Rune of Reorigination strategy you prefer with a crazy dynamic cap to proc the right thing. If you ignore that, though, and treat it as the simple math you will be fine