Enh 6.0 Stats Priority

[Arrakus]

Was wondering what our itemization is looking like going into 6.0 for enhancement shamans.
From what I have read, I am guessing Haste > Versatility > Mastery > Agi.
I know crit has raised in value, and a lot of people are all about Versatility.
Thoughts?

[Lavindar]

Hard to tell before them even begin the tunning phase, but I doubt that Versatility will be above Mastery, Multistrike, and Agility in terms of throughput

[Nitwit]

Haste > Mastery/Multistrike >> Crit/Versatility

[Deleted]

Haste > Mastery/Multistrike >> Crit/Versatility

This. Especially during our tier 17 2/4 set bonuses. Versatility will be really poor at least at the start of the expansion as you need more versatility rating to get 1% than you do haste/mastery to get 1%.

[Embermoon]

This. Especially during our tier 17 2/4 set bonuses. Versatility will be really poor at least at the start of the expansion as you need more versatility rating to get 1% than you do haste/mastery to get 1%.

Given that they haven't done the tuning yet, where are you guys getting this stuff from?

[Nitwit]

Given that they haven't done the tuning yet, where are you guys getting this stuff from?

Realistically, the only stat that "tuning" is going to significantly affect is mastery, since it applies a significantly higher-than-average multiplier onto a subset of our damage (fire/frost/nature) - i.e. if our fire/frost/nature attacks become stronger or weaker relative to our physical attacks in the tuning process, then the relative value of mastery will go up or down, respectively.

By comparison, crit/multistrike/versatility all apply to 100% of our damage, and haste applies to near-100% (basically everything except searing/magma/fire elemental's fire blast). Their relative values pretty much can't change unless they either give us a mechanical overhaul or they toss out another biased change to relative stat weights (which isn't impossible - they recently changed haste from 80 rating to 100 rating per 1% without changing any other stat conversion).

edit:
Put another way, it's pretty easy to get a general idea of relative stat weights at this stage of the beta even if you don't have a sim in front of you.

The top-tier stat is obviously haste. It has the most generous conversion per 1% dps (100/1.05 = ~95.24 rating rather than 110) and it applies to nearly 100% of our damage sources (everything except searing/magma totems plus the fire elemental's fire blast). Moreover, in T17 specifically our proposed 2p set bonus gives feral spirits quadratic haste scaling (haste = both +uptime and +dps, similar to pre-nerf T15 RPPM trinkets in a way).

The next tier down is mastery and multistrike. Multistrike is the neutral baseline - we have no positive or negative interactions with the stat, and its rating to stat conversion is balanced with the others. We don't have a huge chunk of base multistrike that serves to devalue the stat relative to others. Mastery likely has a slightly better rating to 1% dps conversion, since 110 mastery rating grants 2% fire/frost/nature damage, and pre-mastery fire/frost/nature damage is probably higher than 50% of our total right now; however, we also have a decent chunk of base mastery (8 mastery, or the equivalent of 880 mastery rating) just like everyone else, which serves to slightly devalue mastery relative to other stats. It's still probably slightly stronger than multistrike overall, though.

The final tier is crit and versatility. Versatility is easy to explain - it simply has a worse rating to 1% dps conversion than any other stat (130 rating per 1%). Crit has the same rating to 1% dps conversion as multistrike (110 rating = 1% crit = 1.6667% multistrike = 1% dps over 0%), but the problem with crit is we already have a boatload of baseline crit chance: 5% as everyone does, +10% for being an agility spec, and then another 25% on our nature spells (i.e. lightning bolt, which is a very large portion of our overall damage now) due to the stormstrike debuff. This devalues crit relative to other stats somewhat significantly. It's probably still stronger than versatility in a "I'll probably need more crit rating than versatility rating for the two stats to reach DPS equilibrium" sense, though versatility also offers -0.5% damage taken, which might be worth the tradeoff given the minimal DPS delta between the two stats.

[Arrakus]

Haste > Mastery/Multistrike >> Crit/Versatility
Got it.

So currently we are Mastery > Haste for AoE fights and Haste > Mastery for single target fights. Considering the above we should more than likely stay the same heading into 6.0/T17. Yes/no?

[Raiju]

Given that they haven't done the tuning yet, where are you guys getting this stuff from?

I'd say the say thing. The only real other thing up in the air is crit, but I don't expect it to change to be a great stat for us (either, apparently). We know haste is the go to stat, we know versatility is going to bottom most likely. From there it's possibly up in the air, but mastery/multistrike > crit makes most sense atm.

[Embermoon]

Thanks for the detailed info, Nitwit. I guess I phrased my question incorrectly. What I was really wondering about, is where you guys are seeing the conversion rates for stats. Is it all coming from just having beta access (which I don't), or are the rates posted online, somewhere that I missed?

Your analysis makes perfect sense, though. The only thing I wonder about is just how much choice we'll have over stats, with reforging gone, and the gem changes. Must definitely hold onto all side-grades.

[Raiju]

Naturally we are more at the mercy of gear (And have to think more about the items we equip if the stat difference is large enough), although some important things -

Any gear can have a gem socket (luck), gem sockets will supposedly give more stats to compensate for being rare
The crafted gear we've seen so far is 540 and RANDOM enchant. This means you can get some fantastic pieces of crafted gear as it can proc sockets / warforged / tertiary stats on top of optimal random stats.
Every slot you can enchant (almost) you can enchant with any secondary
You flask / pot secondary stats rather than primary stats
As items are shared int/str/agi for a lot of pieces, we have the opportunity to see many more viable pieces for a single armor slot. This means more various secondary combinations can be covered in raid drops.

[Embermoon]

Well that's pretty cool. The random-stat crafted stuff sounds like a benefit to professions, as you can keep crafting until you get what you want, (up to a point), and sell the extra gear on the AH hopefully.

If flasks and pots are secondary stats, are elixirs going away? Changing to tertiary stats?

[Raiju]

Well that's pretty cool. The random-stat crafted stuff sounds like a benefit to professions, as you can keep crafting until you get what you want, (up to a point), and sell the extra gear on the AH hopefully.

If flasks and pots are secondary stats, are elixirs going away? Changing to tertiary stats?

I'm not sure, I expect flasks just give a greater single secondary while elixirs may remain as the cheap lesser stat (and 1 offensive vs 1 defensive) alternative that doesn't persist through death.

[Nitwit]

Well that's pretty cool. The random-stat crafted stuff sounds like a benefit to professions, as you can keep crafting until you get what you want, (up to a point), and sell the extra gear on the AH hopefully.

If flasks and pots are secondary stats, are elixirs going away? Changing to tertiary stats?

Beta access, plus SimC has them all datamined.

For level 100:

110 mastery rating = 1 mastery (2% fire/frost/nature)
110 crit rating = 1% crit
66 multistrike rating = 1% multistrike (but you need 1.667% multistrike for +1% dps over 0% multistrike, which also requires 110 rating)
130 versatility = 1% damage/healing done and -0.5% damage taken
100 haste = 1% haste (but, as enhancement, we get a 1.05x multiplier on our haste rating)

[Lavindar]

Beta access, plus SimC has them all datamined.

For level 100:

110 mastery rating = 1 mastery (2% fire/frost/nature)
110 crit rating = 1% crit
66 multistrike rating = 1% multistrike (but you need 1.667% multistrike for +1% dps over 0% multistrike, which also requires 110 rating)
130 versatility = 1% damage/healing done and -0.5% damage taken
100 haste = 1% haste (but, as enhancement, we get a 1.05x multiplier on our haste rating)

Does Haste need 100 before or after the 5% bonus from the Attunement?

[Nitwit]

Does Haste need 100 before or after the 5% bonus from the Attunement?

The attunement is just +5% haste rating (so if you had 1000 haste rating without the attunement, you'd have 1050 with it).

[Lavindar]

The attunement is just +5% haste rating (so if you had 1000 haste rating without the attunement, you'd have 1050 with it).

I know, what I was asking is if the 100 to 1% is the base ratio for haste, and is indeed lower than the others, or is it lower because of the attunement.

[Embermoon]

Any idea if we'll have a haste cap, like if haste would otherwise push the GCD below 1 second?

[Lavindar]

Any idea if we'll have a haste cap, like if haste would otherwise push the GCD below 1 second?

At the flurry post someone did a spreadsheet, if I recall correctly it would be will around 50% haste and EM and BL up at the same time.

[Nitwit]

I know, what I was asking is if the 100 to 1% is the base ratio for haste, and is indeed lower than the others, or is it lower because of the attunement.

100 rating = 1% haste is the base conversion for everyone. Enhancement shamans only need ~95 haste rating from gear in order to get 1% haste due to the attunement (95.24*1.05 = ~100).

Any idea if we'll have a haste cap, like if haste would otherwise push the GCD below 1 second?

Yes. Haste leading up to 50% will be worth much more than haste beyond that point, because that's how much you need to hit the GCD floor (1.0s GCD). Beyond that point, more haste will increasingly lead to higher priority abilities replacing lower priority abilities instead, which isn't as valuable as simply fitting in more abilities for the same total execution time.

[Arrakus]

So, Haste (<=50% rating)> Mastery/Multistrike > Crit/Versatility > Haste (>=50% rating) ?