Ashran and the PvP dispersion

[Professor Expert]

You absolutely min/max for PvP...the min/max values are just different for PvP than they are for PvE.

Applying pve logic to pvp is a foundation for poor results. Then what, are you going to expect to be able to perform a "rotation" to "max out" your dps in pvp?

If player A and player B are both equal skill but player A is human wearing an extra damage trinket, while player B is a gnome with only 1 damage trinket because they have to wear a CC breaker, player A has the opportunity to do more damage, therefore is stronger by whatever value you want to put on that.

And as anyone with real experience in competitive PvP will tell you that more damage is not always the best choice. For example, many players overlook +stamina trinkets because they think that in every encounter, maxing out DPS wins...and it doesn't. Both CC and mobility would have a far greater influence on deciding the outcome of a match than pure damage, and your ability to survive longer tends to have more value than a bit more damage.

Does that mean 100% of games player A will outperform player B? No because RNG, but min/max is about getting the most value possible out of your character whether it be stats,gear,spec and in this case race.

No, not only because of RNG but also because PvP does not follow any particular script due to your opponents being other humans. PvP is not only about getting the most out of your toon, it's about understanding your situation, your teammates and optimizing synergy with them.

Min/Max does not mean yolo focusing on DPS/HPS as you are suggesting for some reason. It means minimizing parts of your character that do not give as much value, while maximizing in places that give the most value. If you aren't doing this in PvP then you aren't giving yourself the opportunity to perform at the fullest potential.

Ok, you just got done saying how a human player is stronger because they have the potential to deal a bit more damage due to a trinket...it sounds to me like your prevailing logic is to "max out DPS" or HPS if you're a healer, with little regard to actual conditions that you will face in the game.

This might work in pve where most of your time is spent standing in place and spamming a repetitive rotation on a single target, occasionally having to 'break for adds', which all feel an overwhelming urge to attack your tank rather than strategically picking off members of the raid.

I wouldnt waste my time arguing with this one. You should see some of his other posts.
Also he talks about how stacking multistrike is good for pvp because it increases your DPS. No. If you get lucky and every attack multistrikes (even though it can only proc once instead of twice in pvp) it could be more burst compared to a pure mastery/haste/vers build, but the DPS would be way lower. I do not know one class that prefers stacking multistrike over any other stats.

Why don't you quote the part where I said to "stack multistrike", and while you're at it, why don't you evaluate the value of multistrike per class and spec then tell me that a static value like haste or mastery is ALWAYS the best choice. BTW multistrike affects healing, not just damage...but I'm sure you knew that.

Go ahead and enlighten us with your genius, since you're so in-the-know, lay it down for us "clueless" folks about how we should be gearing for pvp.

[ellieg]

Why don't you quote the part where I said to "stack multistrike", and while you're at it, why don't you evaluate the value of multistrike per class and spec then tell me that a static value like haste or mastery is ALWAYS the best choice. BTW multistrike affects healing, not just damage...but I'm sure you knew that.

Go ahead and enlighten us with your genius, since you're so in-the-know, lay it down for us "clueless" folks about how we should be gearing for pvp.

"Multistrike is a pretty good stat for pvp in general"
While i suppose you didnt say the exact word "stacking" you mentioned it was a good stat. It is no where near a good stat in pvp. I already mentioned that if every single attack happened to multistrike it would be optimal in that exact scenario and provide you with more damage done than any of the other stats. You said it would increase DPS which is wrong because it would be a loss in dps compared to other stats. It could, if lucky, give you an increase in burst.

As for gearing, stacking is the best strategy. Crit and multistrike have their effectiveness halved in pvp (im only spelling this out for you because you seemed to be clueless about pvp trinkets in another thread). Crit is actually decent still for other classes because it has interactions with other spells and passives, such as a fire mage needed it for insta pyros, or for ferals getting double combo points. Multistrike however interacts with a much smaller amount of abilities. It is never anyones main stat in pvp. So to say "Multistrike is a pretty good stat for pvp in general" is completely false. Pretty good would, i assume, mean that its near the top of stat priorities for some classes, which it is not.

No shit multistrike affects healing. Doesnt mean its a good stat to have. The majority of specs are damage, so i just default to talking about the damage aspects since more people can relate to it.

Go to arenajunkies. Go to the top pvp ladders. Run simulations. The value of multistrike per spec has already been determined.

[Professor Expert]

"Multistrike is a pretty good stat for pvp in general"
While i suppose you didnt say the exact word "stacking" you mentioned it was a good stat. It is no where near a good stat in pvp. I already mentioned that if every single attack happened to multistrike it would be optimal in that exact scenario and provide you with more damage done than any of the other stats. You said it would increase DPS which is wrong because it would be a loss in dps compared to other stats. It could, if lucky, give you an increase in burst.

So you are accusing me of being "clueless" when it's quite obvious you do not know how multistrike works or how it can be a very good stat in pvp in general, and even moreso for certain classes.

Any attack or heal that procs with multistrike is doing 130% of it's normal damage or healing, multistrikes can crit, further boosting their effectiveness.

Critical hit rate is unchanged for pvp, its damage is reduced.
Multistrike rate is reduced for pvp, its damage is unchanged.

Mathematically, multistrike and crit are similar in terms of DPS over time, but consider this in pvp:
10,000 hit = Crit +5,000 = 15,000 total
10,000 hit = MS proc +3,000 = 13,000 total
10,000 hit = Crit +5000 = MS proc +4,500 = 19,500 total
10,000 hit = Crit +5000 = MS proc Crit +6,750 = 21,750 total

Notice how the potential damage for a 10,000 hit that crits can be boosted by over 200% if both the hit and MS proc crits, and nearly 200% if you get a MS proc on a critical hit...but yeah, let's ignore MS and gimp our burst potential because you read a website, played with sim and think that makes you the authority.

Sims don't work. Playing the game and trying things out in the field works. Sims are for people who do pve and operate in a predictable environment. PvP is by nature dynamic and not predictable.

As for gearing, stacking is the best strategy. Crit and multistrike have their effectiveness halved in pvp (im only spelling this out for you because you seemed to be clueless about pvp trinkets in another thread). Crit is actually decent still for other classes because it has interactions with other spells and passives, such as a fire mage needed it for insta pyros, or for ferals getting double combo points. Multistrike however interacts with a much smaller amount of abilities. It is never anyones main stat in pvp. So to say "Multistrike is a pretty good stat for pvp in general" is completely false. Pretty good would, i assume, mean that its near the top of stat priorities for some classes, which it is not.

No shit multistrike affects healing. Doesnt mean its a good stat to have. The majority of specs are damage, so i just default to talking about the damage aspects since more people can relate to it.

Go to arenajunkies. Go to the top pvp ladders. Run simulations. The value of multistrike per spec has already been determined.

I'm glad you think you made your case, even though you didn't...and then finish up with another reference to leaderboards which is wholly irrelevant.

I don't care what other players are doing, especially because they have their own situation to contend with. I adapt to the opponents I face - bad players look for a one-size-fits-all strategy then come to forums to complain about "imbalance" and "OP races".

[Osmeric]

Why it's racials? I explained it in depth and clearly understandable for everyone.

Your explanation was mere assertion. And your thesis is utterly ludicrous.

[Henako]

Racials have almost nothing to do with the population balance of PvPers on either side. Last season, Horde was the big PvP faction. Now it's Alliance. People follow their favorite streamers, and everyone else follows the crowd.

[Deleted]

And your thesis is utterly ludicrous.

et pourquoi?

- - - Updated - - -

Racials have almost nothing to do with the population balance of PvPers on either side. Last season, Horde was the big PvP faction. Now it's Alliance. People follow their favorite streamers, and everyone else follows the crowd.

EU has always been Alliance. US used to be Horde. Over the course of MoP more and more US players migrated to Alliance making it harder and harder for the Horde players and eventually making them transfer as well. The BUFF to the alliance racials and the NERF to the Horde racials at the beginning of WoD was the final decisive factor.

[ellieg]

So you are accusing me of being "clueless" when it's quite obvious you do not know how multistrike works or how it can be a very good stat in pvp in general, and even moreso for certain classes.

Any attack or heal that procs with multistrike is doing 130% of it's normal damage or healing, multistrikes can crit, further boosting their effectiveness.

Critical hit rate is unchanged for pvp, its damage is reduced.
Multistrike rate is reduced for pvp, its damage is unchanged.

Mathematically, multistrike and crit are similar in terms of DPS over time, but consider this in pvp:
10,000 hit = Crit +5,000 = 15,000 total
10,000 hit = MS proc +3,000 = 13,000 total
10,000 hit = Crit +5000 = MS proc +4,500 = 19,500 total
10,000 hit = Crit +5000 = MS proc Crit +6,750 = 21,750 total

Notice how the potential damage for a 10,000 hit that crits can be boosted by over 200% if both the hit and MS proc crits, and nearly 200% if you get a MS proc on a critical hit...but yeah, let's ignore MS and gimp our burst potential because you read a website, played with sim and think that makes you the authority.

Sims don't work. Playing the game and trying things out in the field works. Sims are for people who do pve and operate in a predictable environment. PvP is by nature dynamic and not predictable.



I'm glad you think you made your case, even though you didn't...and then finish up with another reference to leaderboards which is wholly irrelevant.

I don't care what other players are doing, especially because they have their own situation to contend with. I adapt to the opponents I face - bad players look for a one-size-fits-all strategy then come to forums to complain about "imbalance" and "OP races".

see this is what im talking about. once again you are wrong.

Lets take your example of 10,000 damage. It can do 10,000 damage or it can crit for 15,000. When multistrike is rolled, its based off of the original 10,000. it rolls independently of the crit. So a 10,000 damage attack would multistrike for 3,000. if the multistrike crit it would be 4,500 damage. so if you got lucky and got a crit and a multistrike that crit on the target it would be 19,500 damage. not 21,750. Now take into effect how rarely that is going to actually happen. assume you have 20% crit and 20% multistrike. Thats pretty good to have both stats that high for some classes. so thats a 20% chance for the attack to crit, a 20% chance for the attack to multistrike, and a 20% chance for that multistrike to crit. so 20%^3 = .8% chance. So you have a .8% chance on an attack to do that much damage if those are your stats. Thats not very compelling. Assuming we arent expecting all of that to line up and just want a crit and a multi strike on the same attack, thats a 4% chance. Now compare that to the amount of damage mastery/haste/vers would give you and you are stupid if u dont spec into them. I cant tell you the exact number because each specs mastery is different. The benefit of crit in pvp is not the damage it does, its the stuff it procs. such as the extra combo points, faster holy light, heating up, and other things that are tied into specs. Multistrike does not do that for most classes and i can only actually think of 2 off the top of my head. The point is, multistrike sucks. Go ahead and spec it. let me know what rating you get up to.

[Professor Expert]

see this is what im talking about. once again you are wrong.

You'd have to be right about the things you're disputing before opening with that...

Lets take your example of 10,000 damage. It can do 10,000 damage or it can crit for 15,000. When multistrike is rolled, its based off of the original 10,000. it rolls independently of the crit. So a 10,000 damage attack would multistrike for 3,000. if the multistrike crit it would be 4,500 damage. so if you got lucky and got a crit and a multistrike that crit on the target it would be 19,500 damage. not 21,750.

As far as I can tell, and the information on this is sketchy, multistrike damage is 30% of the original damage dealt...so if you scored a crit and then a multistrike on that crit, you'll get a MS for 30% of the crit. That is a fairly common occurrence; what's less common is for the MS of a crit to crit itself, but it can happen because multistrikes can crit, but they do so at the same rate as your char sheet. They do not gain any crit bonuses from debuffs applied to a target, i.e. stormstrike's 25% chance to crit buff does not factor into the MS chance to crit.

A hit that did 10,000 damage and crit for 15,000 while also proc'ing a MS that crits would deal a total of 21,750.

If multistrikes work more literally, i.e. you crit for 15,000 and a MS procs, but the MS is its own seperate strike that may or may not crit and is 30% of the damage of the ability that proc'd it, then it would be 3,000 or 4,500 if it crits.

Either way, 19,500 is still nearly 200% damage over the normal hit...point being, MS is not bad.

Now take into effect how rarely that is going to actually happen. assume you have 20% crit and 20% multistrike. Thats pretty good to have both stats that high for some classes. so thats a 20% chance for the attack to crit, a 20% chance for the attack to multistrike, and a 20% chance for that multistrike to crit. so 20%^3 = .8% chance. So you have a .8% chance on an attack to do that much damage if those are your stats. Thats not very compelling. Assuming we arent expecting all of that to line up and just want a crit and a multi strike on the same attack, thats a 4% chance. Now compare that to the amount of damage mastery/haste/vers would give you and you are stupid if u dont spec into them. I cant tell you the exact number because each specs mastery is different. The benefit of crit in pvp is not the damage it does, its the stuff it procs. such as the extra combo points, faster holy light, heating up, and other things that are tied into specs. Multistrike does not do that for most classes and i can only actually think of 2 off the top of my head. The point is, multistrike sucks. Go ahead and spec it. let me know what rating you get up to.

Wrong, because MS can proc things although it's inconsistent. It will not proc certain abilities depending on class, while it will proc others. Do your own research to see if MS can proc abilities for your class or not. MS will have a chance to proc off all damaging abilities, which is great for a class that has a lot of ancillary damage tied to each attack like rogues or MY class.

I actually enchanted for versatility/haste, and I've said this before, that versatility is the a solid pvp stat because it comes with a damage reduction and a flat boost to both damage and healing...but if I wanted more damage at the cost of some survivability, I'd have no problem laying on some MS...in fact I may do just that. I'm at 2,137 in 2s BTW on my enhancement shaman and 1,973 in 3v3.

I'm experimenting with MS right now, it's really nice when my heals MS because I can get close to 100K insta-heals if the MS crits.

Off the top of my head MS is good for Enhance Shaman, Combat Rogues, FDKS, SV hunters in pvp...and it's a cheap stat because you can get more of it for less rating. For 500 MS rating, you get about +9% MS, 5% haste or something like 3% versatility. It's also pretty good for healers.

Mathematically, the secondary stats all lead to the same output no matter what they are, but that math assumes 100% target uptime. In PvP there's plenty of interference that limits your ability to attack or heal consistently. This is less of a factor for ranged classes, but it still matters. Bottom line is that you can literally stack any stat you want and get very similar theoretical output, but the class will have a better feel and performance if you optimize certain stats. I think MS should be at least as high as your crit chance if you are a DPS if you play a class that is known to benefit from MS.

[ellieg]

You'd have to be right about the things you're disputing before opening with that...



As far as I can tell, and the information on this is sketchy, multistrike damage is 30% of the original damage dealt...so if you scored a crit and then a multistrike on that crit, you'll get a MS for 30% of the crit. That is a fairly common occurrence; what's less common is for the MS of a crit to crit itself, but it can happen because multistrikes can crit, but they do so at the same rate as your char sheet. They do not gain any crit bonuses from debuffs applied to a target, i.e. stormstrike's 25% chance to crit buff does not factor into the MS chance to crit.

A hit that did 10,000 damage and crit for 15,000 while also proc'ing a MS that crits would deal a total of 21,750.

If multistrikes work more literally, i.e. you crit for 15,000 and a MS procs, but the MS is its own seperate strike that may or may not crit and is 30% of the damage of the ability that proc'd it, then it would be 3,000 or 4,500 if it crits.

Either way, 19,500 is still nearly 200% damage over the normal hit...point being, MS is not bad.



Wrong, because MS can proc things although it's inconsistent. It will not proc certain abilities depending on class, while it will proc others. Do your own research to see if MS can proc abilities for your class or not. MS will have a chance to proc off all damaging abilities, which is great for a class that has a lot of ancillary damage tied to each attack like rogues or MY class.

I actually enchanted for versatility/haste, and I've said this before, that versatility is the a solid pvp stat because it comes with a damage reduction and a flat boost to both damage and healing...but if I wanted more damage at the cost of some survivability, I'd have no problem laying on some MS...in fact I may do just that. I'm at 2,137 in 2s BTW on my enhancement shaman and 1,973 in 3v3.

I'm experimenting with MS right now, it's really nice when my heals MS because I can get close to 100K insta-heals if the MS crits.

Off the top of my head MS is good for Enhance Shaman, Combat Rogues, FDKS, SV hunters in pvp...and it's a cheap stat because you can get more of it for less rating. For 500 MS rating, you get about +9% MS, 5% haste or something like 3% versatility. It's also pretty good for healers.

Mathematically, the secondary stats all lead to the same output no matter what they are, but that math assumes 100% target uptime. In PvP there's plenty of interference that limits your ability to attack or heal consistently. This is less of a factor for ranged classes, but it still matters. Bottom line is that you can literally stack any stat you want and get very similar theoretical output, but the class will have a better feel and performance if you optimize certain stats. I think MS should be at least as high as your crit chance if you are a DPS if you play a class that is known to benefit from MS.

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Multistrike "For Direct attacks, multistrike is decided upon cast, not when the attack lands"

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...43018374803456 "The damage (including crit or not) of the initial hit has no impact of the damage of the multistrike hit. Separate damage roll"

110 crit= 1%
66 MS = 1%
130 vers = 1% damage done, .5% less damage taken
90 haste = 1%
mastery is dependent on the class

So lets look at multistrike. 66 rating = 1%. to show how this is equal to crit, lets take 100% multistrike. Thats 6600 rating of ms. that means every single attack in pvp will grant you an extra 30% damage from crit. (lets ignore the fact that ms can crit, we will assume we have 0 rating atm). assuming we hit for 1000, thats going to be a 1300 attack every single time.

Now lets take that same 6600 rating and make it into crit. 6600/110 = 60% crit. So if an attack hits for 1000, 60% of the time it will hit for 1500, 40% of the time it will hit for 1000. So lets find out the average. (.6 x 1500) + (.4 x 1000) = 1300. So given a long period of time, the two stats are exactly the same. Given a short period of time, crit will be more bursty, multistrike less bursty but proccing more often.

lets look at versatility. using the same 6600 (i know this amount of stat is unreachable, just using it for comparison state) , 6600/130 for verse would give you ~50.77% more damage. So on average, your 1000 attack would actually be hitting for 1507. every single time. You can already tell how verse is a better stat than the other two if these were the only calculations involved. Not to mention that you will be taking 25% less damage because of it which is ideal in pvp.

Finally we will look at haste. 6600/90 = 73.3333. so that means you will be getting 73% more attacks off. if you had 100% uptime in pvp (i know you dont, im just making a point, ill talk about it later) you would be doing 73.3% more damage. That makes haste the best stat of them all.

Now lets talk about what actually happens. you dont have 100% up time on a target in pvp, so your mileage with haste will vary. That would make verse seem like its the best, so why dont all classes just go versatility? Because we have to look at how each stat interacts with each spec.

since you are an enhance shaman, you obviously know that haste is great for you. haste lowers the global cd and regular cd of your attacks. so even though you wont have full uptime on the target which diminishes the benefit of haste, you get a second effect from it which increases your benefit from haste. Other classes get a lot of benefit from crit. Such as fury warrs, holy paladins, marks hunters, assas/sub rogue, feral druids, and fire mages. Crit is valuable to them because it procs something, not because of the damage. The only pvp classes i can think about that interact with multistrike are sub rogues, surv hunters and ele shamans.

sub rogues should prioritize mastery first of all because tehy get a huge benefit from it, and then crit, and then multistrike. The benefit they get from crit is worth more damage than the benefit they get from multistrike. Mastery is way above both of those.

for surv hunters, technically versatility would be the best and that is independent of 100% uptime or 1% uptime. It will always be the best. You could argue that multistrikes could be the second best and ill let you have that one. Theyre multistrikes do 20% more damage but thats not why its get. An arcane shot multistrike will proc another tick of serpent sting (at least i believe, not sure if thats true or not). Id argue that mastery is equal to that though.

Finally ele shamans. they get huge buffs to multistrikes. They get 20% more chance to multistrike. 35% more damage from multistrikes. and 5% more multistrike from gear. So with all of these buffs, multistrike seems the best. Wrong. If they could cast more often, haste would still come out on top damage wise. But, ill let you have this one, because ele gets trained all day, the majority of the damage comes from insta cast lava burst which haste doesnt affect, so having the higher multistrike actually works out for them.

So you have 1.5 specs that have multistrike in the top 2 stats out of 5. the rest have it lower, and more have it as deadlast. My point is it is not a good stat. It takes 20% more chance to proc, 35% more damage, and 5% more stats from gear, to make it a good stat for 1 class. Youre going to argue about well in this situation, or that situation it could be better. No. in all of those situations mastery and verse specifically since they are straight damage regardless of uptime, or haste and crit, will pull ahead 9 times out of 10.

I know you dont care what the top players are doing, but ill list it anyway. Vanguards, a gladiator for almost every single season, (he even made ret pally viable last season and everyone knew they were terrible in 3s), has enh stat priority listed in his guide as haste>mastery>vers>>multistrike>crit. Where haste and mastery are almost equal to eachother, vers is the next best, then a huuuuge gap and then multistrike and crit which are both terrible. You dont have to blindly follow the top people on a ladder and you can claim "well there comps and the comps they face are different", but if everyone on the top 5000 seem to think multistrike is bad, i got a good feeling multistrike is bad.

Im not trying to be an asshole and argue just to argue. Im just listing facts and making sure you dont spread misinformation. i want everyone to perform at their best. You can try out multistrike all you want, but until you have actual data, dont tell people its a pretty good stat.

edit: when i say procs, i dont mean the damage that comes from it, i mean for example crit will proc heating up for fire mages. So yes, almost every single attack can proc a multistrike, im talking about the effects that those can proc. and like i said 19500 damage is a lot, but that happens .8% of the time.

2nd edit: I realize that with regards to haste, its only applying to auto attacks or casts. Does not affect most cooldowns except for a few classes which reduced the effectiveness of it. Although it increases rune regen speed, energy regen speed, autoattack speed which generates more fury, and obviously cast times. Output should be about the same though.

[Professor Expert]

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Multistrike "For Direct attacks, multistrike is decided upon cast, not when the attack lands"

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...43018374803456 "The damage (including crit or not) of the initial hit has no impact of the damage of the multistrike hit. Separate damage roll"

I figured this is how it works right now, but they do often make changes as stealth 'hotfixes' and don't tell us about it until it has been updated, sometimes days or weeks go by. Would be nice if blizzard took the time to maintain an up-to-date reference of how all abilities and stats work "right now", wouldn't it?

110 crit= 1%
66 MS = 1%
130 vers = 1% damage done, .5% less damage taken
90 haste = 1%
mastery is dependent on the class

So lets look at multistrike. 66 rating = 1%. to show how this is equal to crit, lets take 100% multistrike. Thats 6600 rating of ms. that means every single attack in pvp will grant you an extra 30% damage from crit. (lets ignore the fact that ms can crit, we will assume we have 0 rating atm). assuming we hit for 1000, thats going to be a 1300 attack every single time.

I get that you want to explain the "raw damage" of MS, but most melee classes get a baseline chance to critically hit, even if they had zero crit rating. Only some classes get a baseline chance to multistrike, more spec-dependent or because of a buff/aura...but for the sake of argument we can say that MS is 0% for toons with 0 MS rating, while crit would be at least 5% for DPS classes / agi classes get +10% with a 0 crit rating.

If you account for the fact that all DPS classes are going to have at least 5% crit chance regardless of gear and a base hit of 1,000 damage with 100% MS:
(450 * 0.05) + (300 * 0.95) + (1500 * 0.05) + (1000 * 0.95)
= 22.5 + 285 + 75 + 950
= 1,333

With 100% MS a standard DPS class gets about a 33.3% increase in average damage, which is a 2.5% increase over 0% crit.

For agility classes with 15% total crit baseline:
(450 * 0.15) + (300 * 0.85) + (1500 * 0.15) + (1000 * 0.85)
= 67.5 + 255 + 225 + 850
= 1,398

With 100% MS a standard Agility DPS class gets a 39.8% increase in average damage, a 7.5% increase over 0% crit.

lets look at versatility. using the same 6600 (i know this amount of stat is unreachable, just using it for comparison state) , 6600/130 for verse would give you ~50.77% more damage. So on average, your 1000 attack would actually be hitting for 1507. every single time. You can already tell how verse is a better stat than the other two if these were the only calculations involved. Not to mention that you will be taking 25% less damage because of it which is ideal in pvp.

Sure, point-for-point versatility will give you the best static damage increase, ignoring procs or abilities that have a chance to reset or deal extra damage on hit or crit...but stat availability becomes the real deciding factor. You may get more out of versa stacking equal amounts of stat rating, but there is likely to be more of a certain stat like MS available in the game due to the way items are budgeted.

Finally we will look at haste. 6600/90 = 73.3333. so that means you will be getting 73% more attacks off. if you had 100% uptime in pvp (i know you dont, im just making a point, ill talk about it later) you would be doing 73.3% more damage. That makes haste the best stat of them all.

Now lets talk about what actually happens. you dont have 100% up time on a target in pvp, so your mileage with haste will vary. That would make verse seem like its the best, so why dont all classes just go versatility? Because we have to look at how each stat interacts with each spec.

since you are an enhance shaman, you obviously know that haste is great for you. haste lowers the global cd and regular cd of your attacks. so even though you wont have full uptime on the target which diminishes the benefit of haste, you get a second effect from it which increases your benefit from haste. Other classes get a lot of benefit from crit. Such as fury warrs, holy paladins, marks hunters, assas/sub rogue, feral druids, and fire mages. Crit is valuable to them because it procs something, not because of the damage. The only pvp classes i can think about that interact with multistrike are sub rogues, surv hunters and ele shamans.

sub rogues should prioritize mastery first of all because tehy get a huge benefit from it, and then crit, and then multistrike. The benefit they get from crit is worth more damage than the benefit they get from multistrike. Mastery is way above both of those.

Enhance actually benefits quite a bit from MS in terms of gaining MW procs faster, more healing as totem ticks can be MS, etc. SV hunters get bonus damage from a spec ability that increase MS by 5% and the damage from MS hits by 36%.

for surv hunters, technically versatility would be the best and that is independent of 100% uptime or 1% uptime. It will always be the best. You could argue that multistrikes could be the second best and ill let you have that one. Theyre multistrikes do 20% more damage but thats not why its get. An arcane shot multistrike will proc another tick of serpent sting (at least i believe, not sure if thats true or not). Id argue that mastery is equal to that though.

In terms of stat availability, you have a budget of 275 total from enchants. That is 4.2% MS or 2.1% Versa. Based on the 6,600 theoretical rating figure above:

MS DPS: 1 / (33.3 / 6600) = 198 MS rating for 1% avg damage increase.
MS AGI DPS: 1 / (39.8 / 6600) = 166 MS rating per 1%.

Yes, 130 Vesra = 1% more damage, but the above examples are based on a player having no gear and only their baseline crit values. If we consider that most gear will contain crit and only a few pieces contain versatility, i.e. stat availability, the figures decrease. Meaning that the more crit you have, the less MS rating you need to get to +1% avg damage.

In the game, we're getting around %5 crit from gear without enchants, so:

MS AGI DPS with 20% crit chance (550 crit rating): 1 / (43.05 / 6600) = 153 MS per 1%.

So it's not as good as versatility per point, unless you start considering any additional benefits/procs that MS would offer over a flat damage increase...but I think we can agree at this point that MS is hardly "terrible" or a stat that should be completely ignored for pvp.

So you have 1.5 specs that have multistrike in the top 2 stats out of 5. the rest have it lower, and more have it as deadlast. My point is it is not a good stat. It takes 20% more chance to proc, 35% more damage, and 5% more stats from gear, to make it a good stat for 1 class. Youre going to argue about well in this situation, or that situation it could be better. No. in all of those situations mastery and verse specifically since they are straight damage regardless of uptime, or haste and crit, will pull ahead 9 times out of 10.

No, actually, I'd say that you're right if we're only looking at the average damage increase exclusively as a result of MS procs...but that ignores things such as abilities that have a chance on hit to provide a benefit to your class, in my case MW procs do rack up faster with more MS even if I'm doing less flat damage because of MS, my net damage in total remains the same or slightly better because of the more frequent MW5 stacks.

I know you dont care what the top players are doing, but ill list it anyway. Vanguards, a gladiator for almost every single season, (he even made ret pally viable last season and everyone knew they were terrible in 3s), has enh stat priority listed in his guide as haste>mastery>vers>>multistrike>crit. Where haste and mastery are almost equal to eachother, vers is the next best, then a huuuuge gap and then multistrike and crit which are both terrible. You dont have to blindly follow the top people on a ladder and you can claim "well there comps and the comps they face are different", but if everyone on the top 5000 seem to think multistrike is bad, i got a good feeling multistrike is bad.

No, the comps you face as you increase in rating distill and become more homogenous. There is LESS variety that the top, which means you can sit on a specialized spec rather than a more general-purpose spec knowing that there is a smaller number of possible combinations that you will face. It's the same as me choosing between glyph of purging when fighting a team with a priest or druid vs choosing sham rage if I know the other team has a stun that I can break (i.e. a paladin or hunter), or glyph of spirit wolves to boost my healing and survival when facing a strong burst comp. At higher ratings I won't need to swap talent/glyphs much if at all since most of the teams are going to be one of a small handful of comps.

I never said that everyone should forget about all other stats and jump on MS...but I do think that experimenting with it is not a bad idea if you are playing a class who will benefit from it, which is several including mine.

Im not trying to be an asshole and argue just to argue. Im just listing facts and making sure you dont spread misinformation. i want everyone to perform at their best. You can try out multistrike all you want, but until you have actual data, dont tell people its a pretty good stat.

And to perform your best you have to actually test out variations rather than basing decisions solely on theoretical results. As I said before, in pvp, it's not about damage over a protracted period...it's what you can do when you're in range. Versa is good - get what you can - but spending a few rating points such as the 275 you get from enchants on MS may work in your favor as it provides a decent boost to your burst potential, moreso than versatility does.

edit: when i say procs, i dont mean the damage that comes from it, i mean for example crit will proc heating up for fire mages. So yes, almost every single attack can proc a multistrike, im talking about the effects that those can proc. and like i said 19500 damage is a lot, but that happens .8% of the time.

2nd edit: I realize that with regards to haste, its only applying to auto attacks or casts. Does not affect most cooldowns except for a few classes which reduced the effectiveness of it. Although it increases rune regen speed, energy regen speed, autoattack speed which generates more fury, and obviously cast times. Output should be about the same though.

It would be more accurate to say that every damaging ability has a chance to proc MS, that includes dot ticks and passive abilities. MS cannot proc off themselves, obviously...but they do proc on heals as well and that's something overlooked, because 30% of a 40K heal is far more useful in the moment than an extra 2% of a 40K heal "all the time".

Also, the game does not use a linear proc rate. We see percentages, however even with a 10% crit chance it is possible to get 3 crits in a row, which would mathetmatically be greater than your crit chance. As the duration of the battle goes on, the values level out...but from a burst perspective, MS is a cheap stat that you can get a decent amount of in exchange for a small amount of flat damage.

For agi classes:
275 (stat budget of enchants)
153 (MS rating for +1%) = 1.80% avg dmg
130 (Versatility for 1%) = 2.12% avg dmg

Difference of 0.32% in terms of average damage if you chose to enchant for MS over versatility, but with the extra 4.2% MS your burst potential increases quite a bit.

It's up to you, as a player, to decide if that extra third of a percent of flat damage is worth a better chance at scoring more MS procs or not...but in terms of flat damage the difference between spending your 275 on MS or Versa is so small that it falls into the "error margin" and is statistically insignificant.

[ellieg]

-snip-

You are correct, i did not account for the base crit. But i did mention that the benefit of crit does not come from the damage, but from what it procs. You are wrong however about MS proccing stacks of MW. if it did, id agree with you that MS could be good for enhance. but it does not so if thats why you think MS is good for enhance, you should think otherwise.

I agree that at the highest rating you will face the same comps over and over again, but you gear based on your spec for the most part. A combat rogue is always going to be specced mastery for this season. Doesnt matter if he is in RMD, Smokebomb cleave, or whatever he wants to play. If hes not mastery, he is going to be performing subpar. There may be a few exceptions but this is the rule for the most part. A rogue doesnt go multistrike because hes playing against a different team, hes mastery for every single team.

Yes crits can proc 5 times in a row and give you exceptional burst. but they can also not crit for 20 seconds straight. If your class relies on crit such as fire mages or fury wars, you will go crit regardless because it procs something. Like i keep repeating, the damage from crit is nice, but its not the main reason to go crit. You can disagree with me if you want but i have 5000 people that agree with me.

Yes the 275 on MS or Versa doesnt make a big difference. But at 2900 rating, when youre playing the class at the top of the skill ceiling, a small increase will give you the win. At lower ratings it wont matter nearly as much and probably not at all so gear how you want. But take Frost DK's for example, most either go for 2 set, or no set. The ashran pieces give versa on it, so if u go for 2 set thats 3 main pieces, plus bracers, belts, boots that have versa. Or if you go for no set bonus like most frost dks on the top of the ladder, thats 8 total pieces plus 275 from enchants that can go for 1 stat. Thats when the difference between the stats can become more apparent.

[Professor Expert]

You are correct, i did not account for the base crit. But i did mention that the benefit of crit does not come from the damage, but from what it procs. You are wrong however about MS proccing stacks of MW. if it did, id agree with you that MS could be good for enhance. but it does not so if thats why you think MS is good for enhance, you should think otherwise.

You have not made a good case for MS being "bad". The 4.2% MS you get from enchants is probably better than the 2.12% versatility for most classes.

I agree that at the highest rating you will face the same comps over and over again, but you gear based on your spec for the most part. A combat rogue is always going to be specced mastery for this season. Doesnt matter if he is in RMD, Smokebomb cleave, or whatever he wants to play. If hes not mastery, he is going to be performing subpar. There may be a few exceptions but this is the rule for the most part. A rogue doesnt go multistrike because hes playing against a different team, hes mastery for every single team.

You make too many assumptions based on what you read on a website and do far too little thinking for yourself. You think checking the armory of whoever really matters? They all make adjustments before a match starts...anyone over 500 rating does that. You're adding irrelevant points that are of no consequence. What is your basis for gauging "performance" that allows you to declare one "sub par"? What's "par" for you? How are you quantifying that? All I see you doing is making generalized statements that are parroting what you heard, what someone else wrote, what you saw in some video...

Yes crits can proc 5 times in a row and give you exceptional burst. but they can also not crit for 20 seconds straight. If your class relies on crit such as fire mages or fury wars, you will go crit regardless because it procs something. Like i keep repeating, the damage from crit is nice, but its not the main reason to go crit. You can disagree with me if you want but i have 5000 people that agree with me.

Pretty pathetic to restrict yourself to what you believe others consider to be "the best" when you can't even clearly define what's "good" or "bad". Oh...5,000 people agree with you...am I supposed to be surprised that most people are followers and blindly flow with the herd? You're basically saying that you have no clue what you're talking about, but you're "sure" you're right because you "believe" you're with the consensus.

News flash - by the time the consensus realizes what's best, it's too late for people like you.

Yes the 275 on MS or Versa doesnt make a big difference. But at 2900 rating, when youre playing the class at the top of the skill ceiling, a small increase will give you the win. At lower ratings it wont matter nearly as much and probably not at all so gear how you want. But take Frost DK's for example, most either go for 2 set, or no set. The ashran pieces give versa on it, so if u go for 2 set thats 3 main pieces, plus bracers, belts, boots that have versa. Or if you go for no set bonus like most frost dks on the top of the ladder, thats 8 total pieces plus 275 from enchants that can go for 1 stat. Thats when the difference between the stats can become more apparent.

Your claim was that MS is bad. I showed you how MS is only 0.32% less in terms of overall average DPS vs spending those 275 points on versatility, with MS offering the added benefit of burst potential and improved healing for hybrid classes.

Do you REALLY think that an additional 0.32% damage would be more likely to be the deciding factor in a highly rated arena match moreso that an additional 4.2% chance to deal 130% to 145% damage?

If you've dealt 1,000,000 damage over the course of a match, an additional 0.32% is a whopping 3,200 damage.

VS

A 4.2% chance that you'll deal 130% of an attack at least once, of which a typical attack would be around 15,000 so you're single MS proc would be 4,500...but really, you know you'll get more than one and that it could crit.

I'm glad you'll choose that guaranteed 3,200 damage for every 1M you deal over the opportunity for an extra 4,500 damage with each attack.

Are and your 5,000 buddies you going to go with that plan? Great, do it. I'll be sure to LOL your way when you start a thread whining about "balance" or how "OP" someone is while you keep citing players who play at ratings you'll never attain...

[ellieg]

Are you serious? Why do you still think youre right? Everyone is disagreeing with you and you have been proven wrong about basic pvp ideas over and over again including trinkets, how multistrikes work, the 15% dmg reduction from trinkets, even how maelstrom weapon works.

assuming you hit for 1000, 4.2% multistrike chance means 4.2% of the time you will be doing 1300 dmg. and 95.8% of the time you will be doing 1000 dmg. (.042*1300) + (.958 x 1000) = 54.6 + 958 = 1012.6 average attack.

2.12% versatility. Your average attack is 1000. (1000*1.0212) = 1021.2 average attack.

So with versatility you are doing 1021.2 DPS and for multistrike you are doing 1012.6 average attack. 21.2/12.6 = 1.68. So right now, just based on stat comparisons, versatility is 1.68 times better than multistrike. You also take 1.06% less damage with the versatility. This may not seem like a lot, but with the example of the frost DK who can utilize up to 8 pieces of versa gear, this adds up.

Keep trying out multistrike. Come back in a few weeks and tell me what rating you've reached.

Yes you can get a string of lucky multistrikes in a row. Lets still assume you hit for 1000. To be generous we will assume you multistrike 3 times a row. That's 3900 damage as opposed to 3000. a 30% increase. At 4.2% added multistrike, how likely is this? .042^3 = .000074088 = .0074088% Does that seem likely or good to you?

Whats par for me? Lets take my combat rogue for example. You go mastery because its the best. No matter how youre geared, your spec will have the same priority list/rotation. So as a rogue, if im geared for multistrike, haste, versatility, mastery, or crit I will still do the same things no matter what. ill open up with a cheapshot/garrote, ill revealing strike, ill slice n dice, ill sisnister strike to 5 combo points, then evis. Obviously not the rotation I follow everytime, I might kidney shot instead of evis, or slice nd dice earlier, or throw in a marked for death. But the point is, I do the same rotation no matter what. Now mastery works the best because it comes out to the most damage. Mastery gives me a chance to do a 140% weapon attack, and those weapon attacks can proc combat potency., Combat potency gives me energy. So, by going mastery, I do more damage and have more energy which causes me to do more damage. I actually have a greater regen than if I were to go haste. I do more damage than if I were to spec crit, versa, or multistrike. The point im making, is that there is a best stat in terms of damage. You can think what you want and try out multistrike, but when I shaman comes along who went all haste>mastery and he beats you, don't be surprised.

I just defined "good" and "bad". Good will give you the most damage. Bad will not give you the most damage possible. I sure as shit have a clue what im talking about. If you don't think people who are 10 time gladiators know what they are talking about, that's on you. Im not blindly following them. Ive tested it out myself and my results agree with theirs.

[Professor Expert]

Are you serious? Why do you still think youre right? Everyone is disagreeing with you and you have been proven wrong about basic pvp ideas over and over again including trinkets, how multistrikes work, the 15% dmg reduction from trinkets, even how maelstrom weapon works.

What's more surprising is that you still believe you are right, and have some army of imaginary friends agreeing with you. Maybe time for you to lay off the meds...or resume taking them.

assuming you hit for 1000, 4.2% multistrike chance means 4.2% of the time you will be doing 1300 dmg. and 95.8% of the time you will be doing 1000 dmg. (.042*1300) + (.958 x 1000) = 54.6 + 958 = 1012.6 average attack.

2.12% versatility. Your average attack is 1000. (1000*1.0212) = 1021.2 average attack.

So with versatility you are doing 1021.2 DPS and for multistrike you are doing 1012.6 average attack. 21.2/12.6 = 1.68. So right now, just based on stat comparisons, versatility is 1.68 times better than multistrike. You also take 1.06% less damage with the versatility. This may not seem like a lot, but with the example of the frost DK who can utilize up to 8 pieces of versa gear, this adds up.

Your point is irrelevant because of the fact that every hit is considered an independent event for the crit/MS proc calculation, and that "average damage" only comes into play over protracted battles such as those that happen in pve. The "hit and run" nature of melee pvp means burst is > than flat damage, and with MS your ability to do more damage in a short time is far greater than it is with a 0.32% additional average damage that you get from MS.

You can give up 1% damage reduction if you're already over 6-7%. Again, you're fixated on the irrelevant error margin, trying to play it up as more than it is to make your failed argument hold water...but guess what - your argument against MS is just that - failed.

Keep trying out multistrike. Come back in a few weeks and tell me what rating you've reached.

Keep worrying about rating and attempting to ascribe said rating to minor changes in gear. Badiators are sure they are "experts" because they copied what some other guy did, but don't actually know what they are doing.

Yes you can get a string of lucky multistrikes in a row. Lets still assume you hit for 1000. To be generous we will assume you multistrike 3 times a row. That's 3900 damage as opposed to 3000. a 30% increase. At 4.2% added multistrike, how likely is this? .042^3 = .000074088 = .0074088% Does that seem likely or good to you?

Wow, nice logic and a clear lack of knowing how the "tables" are applied in PvP. Hint: They are not linearly applied, and so there is no mechanism in the game that limits the rate of procs, meaning you can get several in a row as long as your chance is > 0%. Your entire argument has devolved into grasping at numerical straws because you're just blatantly wrong.

MS "real world" performance means increased burst REGARDLESS of what your average damage figures say (and it is very close in average damage to versatility in terms of what you get for 275 points).

It's 4.2% added onto the 7% or so MS chance that you already have from gear, which means you're increasing your chance to land a MS by ~60%.

Whats par for me? Lets take my combat rogue for example. You go mastery because its the best. No matter how youre geared, your spec will have the same priority list/rotation. So as a rogue, if im geared for multistrike, haste, versatility, mastery, or crit I will still do the same things no matter what. ill open up with a cheapshot/garrote, ill revealing strike, ill slice n dice, ill sisnister strike to 5 combo points, then evis. Obviously not the rotation I follow everytime, I might kidney shot instead of evis, or slice nd dice earlier, or throw in a marked for death. But the point is, I do the same rotation no matter what. Now mastery works the best because it comes out to the most damage. Mastery gives me a chance to do a 140% weapon attack, and those weapon attacks can proc combat potency., Combat potency gives me energy. So, by going mastery, I do more damage and have more energy which causes me to do more damage. I actually have a greater regen than if I were to go haste. I do more damage than if I were to spec crit, versa, or multistrike. The point im making, is that there is a best stat in terms of damage. You can think what you want and try out multistrike, but when I shaman comes along who went all haste>mastery and he beats you, don't be surprised.

You haven't explained why MS is bad, you've simply explained why mastery is better for a combat rogue in your view. I don't think you really get it, because one of the first things I said was that MS is not the best choice for every class, but it is a good choice for some.

A shaman who went "all haste" would be fine in pve, but would be severely gimped in pvp. Simple hit-and-run type kiting tactics would burn him down, and haste would not offer a chance to get a MS proc on heal - which I would have - which means I can heal less often and therefore attack more often.

That improvement to healing alone is a substantial "real world" shift in dynamics that you're simply not accounting for with your narrow "average damage" theory.

I just defined "good" and "bad". Good will give you the most damage. Bad will not give you the most damage possible. I sure as shit have a clue what im talking about. If you don't think people who are 10 time gladiators know what they are talking about, that's on you. Im not blindly following them. Ive tested it out myself and my results agree with theirs.

Except that you didn't, because you're basing your entire premise on "average damage" and ignoring dynamics like burst, healing and such that gain a substantial benefit from MS procs.

Nobody who is confident in their views cites or seeks consensus. You did and you do, which proves that you're not actually drawing your own conclusions or testing anything, rather you are just following the pack because it's easy and comfortable. Hey, don't feel too bad...it takes real effort to get a PhD in expertology like I have.

[ellieg]

What's more surprising is that you still believe you are right, and have some army of imaginary friends agreeing with you. Maybe time for you to lay off the meds...or resume taking them.



Your point is irrelevant because of the fact that every hit is considered an independent event for the crit/MS proc calculation, and that "average damage" only comes into play over protracted battles such as those that happen in pve. The "hit and run" nature of melee pvp means burst is > than flat damage, and with MS your ability to do more damage in a short time is far greater than it is with a 0.32% additional average damage that you get from MS.

You can give up 1% damage reduction if you're already over 6-7%. Again, you're fixated on the irrelevant error margin, trying to play it up as more than it is to make your failed argument hold water...but guess what - your argument against MS is just that - failed.



Keep worrying about rating and attempting to ascribe said rating to minor changes in gear. Badiators are sure they are "experts" because they copied what some other guy did, but don't actually know what they are doing.



Wow, nice logic and a clear lack of knowing how the "tables" are applied in PvP. Hint: They are not linearly applied, and so there is no mechanism in the game that limits the rate of procs, meaning you can get several in a row as long as your chance is > 0%. Your entire argument has devolved into grasping at numerical straws because you're just blatantly wrong.

MS "real world" performance means increased burst REGARDLESS of what your average damage figures say (and it is very close in average damage to versatility in terms of what you get for 275 points).

It's 4.2% added onto the 7% or so MS chance that you already have from gear, which means you're increasing your chance to land a MS by ~60%.



You haven't explained why MS is bad, you've simply explained why mastery is better for a combat rogue in your view. I don't think you really get it, because one of the first things I said was that MS is not the best choice for every class, but it is a good choice for some.

A shaman who went "all haste" would be fine in pve, but would be severely gimped in pvp. Simple hit-and-run type kiting tactics would burn him down, and haste would not offer a chance to get a MS proc on heal - which I would have - which means I can heal less often and therefore attack more often.

That improvement to healing alone is a substantial "real world" shift in dynamics that you're simply not accounting for with your narrow "average damage" theory.



Except that you didn't, because you're basing your entire premise on "average damage" and ignoring dynamics like burst, healing and such that gain a substantial benefit from MS procs.

Nobody who is confident in their views cites or seeks consensus. You did and you do, which proves that you're not actually drawing your own conclusions or testing anything, rather you are just following the pack because it's easy and comfortable. Hey, don't feel too bad...it takes real effort to get a PhD in expertology like I have.

No shit burst is important. Ive been explaining that for a week now. You dont like gladiators and claim they dont know what they are doing when they are at the top of the ladder. Which means to some extent, they are better than everyone else and put more time and effort in than you.

Of course there is nothing that limits procs. You could theoretically get 3 multistrikes in a row and that would be great burst. Lets say you have 10% chance to multistrike. .01^3 = .001. That means you have a .1% chance to get those 3 multistrikes in a row. Yes that can happen and its great and dandy when it does. But you seem to think strings of multistrikes like that happen a lot. I can get into statistics with you and draw you bell shaped curves on how many multistrikes you could realistically see and youd point all the way to the end of the graph and say "see! you can get 10 multistrikes in a row, its possible and thats what im talking about!!!!!" You could theoretically find $20 on the ground every day as long as the chance is greater than 0%. You could theoretically win the lottery every time you buy a ticket because the chance to win becoems greater than 0% once you buy the ticket. Im aware of what could theoretically happen if the chance is greater than 0%.

"It's 4.2% added onto the 7% or so MS chance that you already have from gear, which means you're increasing your chance to land a MS by ~60%." - With the versatility youre also increasing the damage of those 7% attacks which will multistrike. You can say a 60% greater chance to multistrike compared to the stats you have but that doesnt really mean anything.

"Except that you didn't, because you're basing your entire premise on "average damage" and ignoring dynamics like burst, healing and such that gain a substantial benefit from MS procs." I didnt base mastery off of average damage. Mastery for combat rogues will give you more damage procs, and those procs can give you energy which lets you do other attacks. By far it is the best stat for combat rogues.

You seem to act like versatility means you will just be increasing average attacks and there is no RnG in it. You act like multistrike is the only way to add rng into the equation. Even when stacking versatility, you will still get some crits, you will get some multistrikes, you will even miss some auto attacks or get your attacks dodged/parried. There is plenty of RnG in the game. Adding multistrike might seem like the only option to get you burst, but it is not and you are overvaluing it.

"A shaman who went "all haste" would be fine in pve, but would be severely gimped in pvp. Simple hit-and-run type kiting tactics would burn him down, and haste would not offer a chance to get a MS proc on heal - which I would have - which means I can heal less often and therefore attack more often."
how the fuck can you say they would be severely gimped in pvp. It increases your attack speed, it lowers the cooldown of your spells, it increases the speed of your casts, it lowers the GCD. Real pvp experience has determined its the best. Sims have determined its the best. Gladiators have determined its the best. Average joes have determined its the best. And then theres you, screaming about multistrike with no data to back it up. Pro tip: haste means more auto attacks/ more special attacks / lower gcds which equal out to be more stacks of MW, the thing you were arguing that multistrike does when you first began arguing. Even if you are running and not getting full uptime, the lower cds and lower gcds means more frost shocks, more attacks when you do have the uptime. More haste may not directly translate into more ms procs on heal, but it does translate into more insta heals from MW5, more time to heal because you have a lower gcd, and more attacks in general that could in turn multistrike based on the multistrike you already have on the gear.

"That improvement to healing alone is a substantial "real world" shift in dynamics that you're simply not accounting for with your narrow "average damage" theory." Haste gives you far more heals, even if every other heal multistriked. You are ignoring this with your tunnel vision of multistrike.

"Nobody who is confident in their views cites or seeks consensus." You have got to be kidding me with this one. Are you aware of how peer review works and the scientific method? A scientist proposes a hypothesis, gathers observations and data, draws a conclusion from the data. Other scientists look at his conclusion and gather their own data to see if they can prove it wrong, or if they support it. So far 5000 of the highest rating people agree with one conclusion, and you, just 1 person, disagrees with the conclusion. There is a chance you could be right, but so far you have 0 evidence or data that you are.

- - - Updated - - -

Take your theories to actual pvp sites. Come up with data and realworld evidence. Let them discuss and see what they say. im guaranteeing you that if you propose multistrike as a good stat for enhancements they will laugh you out of the forum.

[Professor Expert]

No shit burst is important. Ive been explaining that for a week now. You dont like gladiators and claim they dont know what they are doing when they are at the top of the ladder. Which means to some extent, they are better than everyone else and put more time and effort in than you.

You're attempting to add validity to what you're saying by pointing at "ladders" or other players' preferred setups, not realizing that you are failing to make any valid argument at all.

Of course there is nothing that limits procs. You could theoretically get 3 multistrikes in a row and that would be great burst. Lets say you have 10% chance to multistrike. .01^3 = .001. That means you have a .1% chance to get those 3 multistrikes in a row. Yes that can happen and its great and dandy when it does. But you seem to think strings of multistrikes like that happen a lot. I can get into statistics with you and draw you bell shaped curves on how many multistrikes you could realistically see and youd point all the way to the end of the graph and say "see! you can get 10 multistrikes in a row, its possible and thats what im talking about!!!!!" You could theoretically find $20 on the ground every day as long as the chance is greater than 0%. You could theoretically win the lottery every time you buy a ticket because the chance to win becoems greater than 0% once you buy the ticket. Im aware of what could theoretically happen if the chance is greater than 0%.

Don't try to marginalize the effectiveness of MS by stretching it out and ignoring its contribution to burst capabilities. Each hit has a chance equal to your rating to crit or MS. Each hit happens in a vacuum, mathematically. We can average this damage out for purposes of comparison, but in PvP there is a far greater value in burst potential than there is in a flat guaranteed damage increase, especially when a single MS proc would typically be MORE damage than the additional damage provided by a flat increase over the same time frame.

"It's 4.2% added onto the 7% or so MS chance that you already have from gear, which means you're increasing your chance to land a MS by ~60%." - With the versatility youre also increasing the damage of those 7% attacks which will multistrike. You can say a 60% greater chance to multistrike compared to the stats you have but that doesnt really mean anything.

Actually it means you'll have a 60% greater chance of proc'ing a MS hit, which deals 130% of the ability's damage. In the context of PvP it means more burst.

"Except that you didn't, because you're basing your entire premise on "average damage" and ignoring dynamics like burst, healing and such that gain a substantial benefit from MS procs." I didnt base mastery off of average damage. Mastery for combat rogues will give you more damage procs, and those procs can give you energy which lets you do other attacks. By far it is the best stat for combat rogues.

Great, you found a class where mastery is definitively better than MS. Now explain to me what part invalidates my original statement, that MS can be a good stat for certain classes?

You seem to act like versatility means you will just be increasing average attacks and there is no RnG in it. You act like multistrike is the only way to add rng into the equation. Even when stacking versatility, you will still get some crits, you will get some multistrikes, you will even miss some auto attacks or get your attacks dodged/parried. There is plenty of RnG in the game. Adding multistrike might seem like the only option to get you burst, but it is not and you are overvaluing it.

I'm not "acting" anything, bro. I am telling you exactly how the math works out, and why the numbers are right while you and your band of 5,000 friends are wrong about MS.

I never made any absolute statement claiming that "MS is the only way to add burst". What I am saying is that given the available budget of points, 275, you get more by spending them on MS than you will with versatility. That's not saying that you shouldn't get the medallion of adaptation which gives +484 versatility, but it is saying that an boosting your proc chance for MS by an extra 60% is not a bad deal for a lot of the classes in the game.

"A shaman who went "all haste" would be fine in pve, but would be severely gimped in pvp. Simple hit-and-run type kiting tactics would burn him down, and haste would not offer a chance to get a MS proc on heal - which I would have - which means I can heal less often and therefore attack more often."
how the fuck can you say they would be severely gimped in pvp. It increases your attack speed, it lowers the cooldown of your spells, it increases the speed of your casts, it lowers the GCD. Real pvp experience has determined its the best. Sims have determined its the best. Gladiators have determined its the best. Average joes have determined its the best. And then theres you, screaming about multistrike with no data to back it up. Pro tip: haste means more auto attacks/ more special attacks / lower gcds which equal out to be more stacks of MW, the thing you were arguing that multistrike does when you first began arguing. Even if you are running and not getting full uptime, the lower cds and lower gcds means more frost shocks, more attacks when you do have the uptime. More haste may not directly translate into more ms procs on heal, but it does translate into more insta heals from MW5, more time to heal because you have a lower gcd, and more attacks in general that could in turn multistrike based on the multistrike you already have on the gear.

Ahh, here we go. The "expert" who plays an enhancement shaman at 2,900 doesn't realize how easy it is to kite an enhance shaman, who has limited options for getting in range and whose attacks solely depend on being in range.

Your pve sims are worthless and irrelevant in pvp...but sure, keep on referring to them because that's what people who have no clue do.

Firstly, in pvp your best bet is the echo of the elements talent, which gives you two charges each of stormstrike and lava lash. The value of reduced CDs in pvp is minimal, as you are rarely allowed so much uptime on target that you would run into your CDs.

As enhancement, any time you are NOT in melee range, the value of haste diminishes substantially. Add to that the fact that enhance is vulnerable to all CCs in the game, and that's even more downtime.

275 Points of haste will give you (275 * 1.05) / 90 = 3.2% more haste, which you can say is a 3.2% boost to damage assuming 100% uptime.

Let's say a typical 2s match lasts 5 mins, that's 300 seconds.
Let's say you are faced with a combat rogue, who can stun you for 8 seconds every 20 seconds or so.
(300 / 20) * 8 = 120 seconds of downtime if you are stunned 15 times during the 5 minute match.
(120/300) * 3.2 = You'll have a 40% uptime, which cuts the value of haste by 60% to 1.28%.

Let's be more realistic, tho, because most rogues take Burst of Speed, and so if they're not on you, you will be chasing them, further adding to your downtime. Your effective uptime on target for a 5 minute match could be as low as 60 seconds over the entire 5 minute duration.
(60 / 300) * 3.2 = You will end up cutting the effectiveness of haste by 80%, making the effective contribution of those 275 rating points worth 0.64% of average DPS.

"That improvement to healing alone is a substantial "real world" shift in dynamics that you're simply not accounting for with your narrow "average damage" theory." Haste gives you far more heals, even if every other heal multistriked. You are ignoring this with your tunnel vision of multistrike.

Considering that heals, as enhancement, are relatively infrequent events, having one deal 130% in that instance is far more useful than having one heal provide an extra 2% every time. You don't seem to know what the term "tunnel vision" means. We're talking about MS as part of the topic, not because I'm advocating it over all else.

"Nobody who is confident in their views cites or seeks consensus." You have got to be kidding me with this one. Are you aware of how peer review works and the scientific method? A scientist proposes a hypothesis, gathers observations and data, draws a conclusion from the data. Other scientists look at his conclusion and gather their own data to see if they can prove it wrong, or if they support it. So far 5000 of the highest rating people agree with one conclusion, and you, just 1 person, disagrees with the conclusion. There is a chance you could be right, but so far you have 0 evidence or data that you are.

The other thing that someone who has failed at argument does is introduce a lot of hyperbole along with logical fallacies - something you've been doing quite routinely here, as you deny that a 60% additional chance to deal 130% damage is "worse than" a guaranteed flat damage increase of 2% for all classes in the game.

First of all, there is no "science" happening on your side there. Secondly, the purpose of peer review is not to reinforce a bad idea, it's to analyze an idea skeptically, to punch holes in it and consider other possibilities in order to add merit to or discount the idea. Consensus is not proof, and consensus does not turn an opinion into fact. When you start trying to advance claims of science under the banner of consensus you end up with religion...and if you're ignorant enough to believe such claims, then you're going to be strung along by others almost all the time.

Take your theories to actual pvp sites. Come up with data and realworld evidence. Let them discuss and see what they say. im guaranteeing you that if you propose multistrike as a good stat for enhancements they will laugh you out of the forum.

If I were a weak and pathetic soul, I might care what "the forum" thinks - or rather, parrots...because let's face it, most of the people here are repeating what they heard and not presenting original ideas - you are a great example of this. Insecure folks would rather be accepted by their peers than actually be correct.

Optimal is relative, even moreso with hybrid classes. If you want to stick with the cookie-cutter-spec mentality, you are welcome to do so. MS is a very solid stat for enhancement shaman in pvp RIGHT NOW. For each percentage point it's roughly equal to crit, but costs half as much.

[ellieg]

Im done. You go multistrike. ill continue winning. Its also funny how you represent your statistics.
" 60% additional chance to deal 130% damage is "worse than" a guaranteed flat damage increase of 2% for all classes in the game."
imagine you had 1% versatility and spent 275 pts from enchant on it to get you to 3%. I could say are you denying that a 200% increase to the extra damage you do is worse than a 4% chance to do 30% extra damage?

[DirtyDotter]

Every time I read a post about Ashran or Holinka, I feel like I'm watching something on fox about Obama.

[Thelxi]

I completely disagree for that being the sole reason Ashran sucks. Personally I love casual PvP and open world PvP on my rogue. Timeless Isle was heaven for me. I am exactly the person who Ashran was aimed at, and I hate it. Ashran failed because it's core design is not good. I much prefer to do random battlegrounds that have pretty much no reward for me, than be in the piece of shit that is Ashran.

[Professor Expert]

Im done. You go multistrike. ill continue winning. Its also funny how you represent your statistics.
" 60% additional chance to deal 130% damage is "worse than" a guaranteed flat damage increase of 2% for all classes in the game."
imagine you had 1% versatility and spent 275 pts from enchant on it to get you to 3%. I could say are you denying that a 200% increase to the extra damage you do is worse than a 4% chance to do 30% extra damage?

The 275 points from enchants will give most players a 60% boost to multistrike over the base value that includes whatever they get from gear.
Those same 275 points from enchants will provide you with ~20% boost over base value in terms of versatility, as you'll have right around 10-12% versatility from gear alone...so even if you slice it that way, it's still 60% more MS vs 20% more versatility for the same price.

I'm perfectly willing to give up an extra 2% guaranteed damage and 1% damage reduction in exchange for an additional 4% chance to deal 130% to 145% damage or healing.