Is main stat always better?

[Skylarking]

You have 2 pieces of gear and the higher one doesn't have any of the secondary stats you need but the one 5 ilvls lower has both the secondary stats you need.

Which wins?

[Alroxas]

You have 2 pieces of gear and the higher one doesn't have any of the secondary stats you need but the one 5 ilvls lower has both the secondary stats you need.

Which wins?

Short Answer: Simcraft

Longer Answer: Depends on how your stat weights are measured for your spec (hence simcraft). Generally primary stats outweigh secondaries 2:1 (with a handful of exceptions). However, depending on your class it might be worth the loss of some primary stats to reach certain secondary "caps".

[DarkIron]

You have 2 pieces of gear and the higher one doesn't have any of the secondary stats you need but the one 5 ilvls lower has both the secondary stats you need.

Which wins?

Depends which stat you are calling your main stat?

Are talking about something like Intellect, Strength, etc as your main stat?
Or are you referring to you main secondary stat, like Crit, MS, Haste, etc?

In the first example, your main stat will win only if you do not lose too much of your secondary primary stat.
In the second example, your main secondary stat isn't a linear gain and as such you should do some research as to when the benefit of the main secondary is outweighed by another secondary stat.

[Skylarking]

Yeah main stats the strength and stuff

Secondary stats multi strike etc.

[ThePants999]

There are specs for which the best secondary is worth 70% or more of the primary, and the worst 30% or less. These specs care a lot about well itemised gear.

There are other specs for which all the secondaries hover around 50% of the primary. These specs care primarily about ilvl.

[Deleted]

There are specs for which the best secondary is worth 70% or more of the primary, and the worst 30% or less. These specs care a lot about well itemised gear.

There are other specs for which all the secondaries hover around 50% of the primary. These specs care primarily about ilvl.

This.
So you best check out your class forum and the referring specs theorycrafting to get an idea. Most work should have been done already.
If you have Satweights, the addon Pawn might come in handy to compare gear ingame.
Simcraft is the most advanced but also most accurate tool to tell you whether to chose secondarystats over itemlevel or not. You might need a good read to get into it.

Depends which stat you are calling your main stat?

That is well defined, even by the game itself.

What you consider the "main-secondary" stat is also defined. It's called the attuned secondary stat.
http://wow.gamepedia.com/Secondary_stat_attunement
However, blizz messed that a little bit up. Some classes attuned stat is actually one of their least favorable stat.

[Deleted]

It gets a bit confusing with the warforged items and the sockets (e.g. "711 with bad stats and a socket or 716 without a socket?" etc.). But usually even +5 ilevels beat secondaries. Their philosophy lately as they described it is "it drops, you wear it".

PS. Weapons are usually just an ilevel thing even with minor changes since Spell Power and the like are extremely important.

[Deleted]

But usually even +5 ilevels beat secondaries. Their philosophy lately as they described it is "it drops, you wear it".

unfortunately, this is not true. It might be desireable. But is clearly not true at all. That rule of thumb only holds for some random examples. But does as well not hold for at least the same amount.

[Gaidax]

It gets a bit confusing with the warforged items and the sockets (e.g. "711 with bad stats and a socket or 716 without a socket?" etc.). But usually even +5 ilevels beat secondaries. Their philosophy lately as they described it is "it drops, you wear it".

PS. Weapons are usually just an ilevel thing even with minor changes since Spell Power and the like are extremely important.

Except for weapons - it is not true.

5 ilvls of difference on non-weapon usually loses to optimized secondary stats alternative. 10 ilvls are much closer and usually is better.

[Spotnick]

It's not always the case it depends on the class, for some like mine, spirit is higher than intellect.

[bicycle]

Main stat usually wins. Anything over ~10 ilvls and mainstat beats secondary every time since you have to remember that your non-preferred secondary stats are still good, just not AS good as your best one.

[Cernunnos]

Depends on whether or not your class/spec has skewed stat weightings like say a Fury Warrior where crit is worth the same as Strength depending on the circumstances.

5 items level less but has crit on it, vs. the higher item level one that doesn't isn't always such a clear cut deal.

[Forogil]

There are specs and gear-levels where secondary stats are worth more than primary stats.
AS Priests in T18 does according to howtopriest have crit at 107% of intellect.

So, use Simcraft to get your statsweights and then update Pawn with them (including spellpower or the weapon-comparison will be broken) and you will immediately see which item is better.

[Deleted]

Main stat usually wins. Anything over ~10 ilvls and mainstat beats secondary every time since you have to remember that your non-preferred secondary stats are still good, just not AS good as your best one.

again, no. Not necessarily.

[Deleted]

since you have to remember that your non-preferred secondary stats are still good, just not AS good as your best one.

Not when one of them is Versatility.

[duckthing]

Main stat usually wins. Anything over ~10 ilvls and mainstat beats secondary every time since you have to remember that your non-preferred secondary stats are still good, just not AS good as your best one.

Nope. For AS shadow, crit is so good that (for example) the 710 heroic trash drop belt beats the 730 piece off M Zakuun. It'd be great if everybody had balanced secondaries so what you said would be true, but they don't and it's not.

[Deleted]

It would be very boring if all classes had the same and fully balanced stat weights, you could remove anything but main stat entirely and just increase the rest based on main stat. Depending on which secondary stats are exchanged by which and the spec a switch of 5 ilvls may be worth it but for others not even 15 levels make up for the loss of the preferred stats. If you generalise for all classes you DO get it wrong for most of them. Even versatility isn't the worst stat for all classes by a longshot, ever looked at WW Monks for instance?

[Deleted]

Not when one of them is Versatility.

If you play a Windwalker then Versatility is pretty good.

[kary]

If you play a Windwalker then Versatility is pretty good.

Versatility is #3 for hunters rn as well.
Uh, weapons are strange. 720 gun from hellfire assault is pretty much dead even with the 715 bow from mannoroth which doesn't even have the preferred stat ratio (heavy towards ms, not crit, our main stat) for MM hunters. I'm pretty sure a +- 5 itemlevel difference can be swayed by the secondary stat allocation.