How important is reaching arp hardcap (for me)

[Yholanda]

My question is if there is some magic number that would warrant ignoring arp hard cap in favor of some other stat, or proc.
As in my case, essentially the question is wether or not I should use the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion instead of Whispering Fanged Skull. My other trinket is Deathbringers Will.

I am at 719 arp passively now. When NES procs I am pretty much hard capped hower I am starting to wonder if it is worth losing the high uptime of the WFS. There are many times I am unable to take full effect of NES short uptime
WFS offers a more steady gain over the lenght of a fight but even in a tank and spank encounter, would NES be a dps gain still?

What happens when I start overcapping, should I drop NES immediately and just start working towards reaching higher amounts of passive arp?

RAWR tells me I should use WFS while I was told by our guilds other cat druid that it would not be worth losing the arp proc.
I dont trust RAWR when it comes to trinkets so any further advice would be appreciated.

[bavarcarus]

With the ArP softcap trinket, even if you aren't pooling energy to use some shreds during the proc you're getting alot of melee damage out of it. Have you figured out what your ArP is if you gem for it? With T10 pieces all having ArP on them it's not really that hard to get up there (unless you're talking about an offspec and are still spending frost on MS). If you can break 1k ArP then ditch NES and use WFS.

Also, an armory link would be beneficial for gear help.

[Loonatek]

NES is kinda crap. It's up for 10 secs and has a internal cd of 50 secs i think so... kinda crap. But oh well , that's my opinion.

[Yholanda]

Well I really would not call it crap because the proc is actually pretty awesome (imo).

I am just not sure if a 10 second window of being arp capped every 50 seconds is worth to disclaim WFS proc which is pretty awesome too, and also a lot more reliable.

I am at 719 arp now but I cant see NES being useful once I reach 800+arp because some of the proc will be wasted from being over soft cap.

From testing on the dummy, thus producing perfect circumstances for NES, WFS is slightly ahead so I guess I will just start to use it now. Situation might be different with all raid buffs and debuffs though, especially sunder armor and wf totem..I dont know yet.

Since it is always difficult to test stuff like that while raiding I still appreciate some opinions (or math) on it though.

[bavarcarus]

well, you shouldn't use nes if you're over the softcap but I'm assuming you're gemming for things other than armor pen for the most part. If you gem all ArP and you end up over 1k ArP, you're supposed to stop using the softcap trinket and go for the hardcap.

[Derfirev]

If u can reach the soft cap of any of the armpen trinkets....and u have NO armpen gems...u should drop the soft cap trinket and gem for armpen.....considering the fact that in a full 25 man setting ur melee swings should be roughly .70 or less...with 55% crit....ur white hits will be most of ur dmg....benefiting from ur >80% armpen

[Sidonis]

< 395 = Gem Agility
395-745 = Use ArPen Trinket (Mjolnir Runestone > Grim Toll > Needle Encrusted Scorpion), gem ArPen to softcap then gem rest Agility.
1050-1400 = Gem ArmorPen, then Agility unless crit capped as well (73.6% including all raid buffs/debuffs), then gem Strength.

745-1050 ArmorPen is the gray area where your gear is improving towards the point you'll want to start aiming for hardcap and putting away your ArPen proc trinket, 1050 being 75% ArmorPen without the aid of a trinket, but you're not quite there yet. 745 is the softcap for rating with the aid of a trinket proc (All 3 ArPen trinkets grant 655, so 1400-655=745.).

[bavarcarus]

Grim Toll Mjolnir Runestone needle encrusted scorpion
Ironically, no ArP trinket grants 655 ArP.

When at the ArP cap, Crit cap, expertise cap, and hit cap, you gem for haste, strength isn't on the list.

[Bigslick]

745 is the softcap for rating with the aid of a trinket proc (All 3 ArPen trinkets grant 655, so 1400-655=745.).

Actually this is incorrect. All three trinkets have different ArPen proc values, so different soft caps:

Mjolnir Runestone
Proc is 665, so soft cap is 735

Grim Toll
Proc is 612, so soft cap is 788

Needle-Encrusted Scorpion
Proc is 678, so soft cap is 722

Edit: Darn you Bavarcarus, beat me to it!

[Yholanda]

Thanks for the responses!

I am going to go with the NES for now and try to compare both trinkets again once I am more comfortable with my arp.

[Sidonis]

It was late and I was tired, thanks for the corrections.

And as for strength not being on the list, it still grants over 2 ap per 1pt in cat form until the stat rework comes along in cataclysm, so I'd be curious as to why not versus lowering an attack speed that's already well under 1.0 sec from gear and raid buffs.

Especially since considering that in BiS gear, once ArPen capped, well over crit cap without using any Agi gems, over the Expertise Cap due to 4pc T10, you're left with 2 open red slots and a blue you can throw anything in, on a 0.76 attack speed raid buffed. Your choices are basically 60 haste rating, 60 str (60 * 1.10 (kings) = 66 * 2 (ap conversion) = 132 * 1.10 (heart of the wild) = 145.2 * 1.10 (unleashed rage/tsa/abom's might) = 159.72 AP), or a combination thereof. The 60 haste only lowers your attack speed to 0.74

[getefix]

And as for strength not being on the list, it still grants over 2 ap per 1pt in cat form until the stat rework comes along in cataclysm, so I'd be curious as to why not versus lowering an attack speed that's already well under 1.0 sec from gear and raid buffs.

Seriously, how much AP do you have in BiS gear? you won't increase your dmg done by much from adding a little bit more.

[bavarcarus]

I didn't do the math, but haste makes you attack faster regardless of how fast you're attacking now. ArP and crit cap leaves your white hits hitting very hard and it results in white hits being in the 35-38% range of your total damage. In any case all the simulation programs are showing haste as being ahead in very high gear levels.

I don't have access to rawr where I am, but if I punch some numbers into http://druid.wikispaces.com/ToskksDPSGearMethod

2000agi, 1000crit, hit cap, expertise cap, 500 haste, 10,000 AP, 1400ArP, 100str, raid buffed
at this level Str and haste come out about the same, add 1k AP and haste comes out ~6.6% ahead, another 1k makes it ~13% ahead while strength is static through all of this. If my numbers are anywhere near close I guess there could be a point where you hit the crit cap but don't have enough AP to make haste better, but in the end haste does become better.

[arel00]

And as for strength not being on the list, it still grants over 2 ap per 1pt in cat form until the stat rework comes along in cataclysm, so I'd be curious as to why not versus lowering an attack speed that's already well under 1.0 sec from gear and raid buffs.

For two reasons: one being the higher damage component of white hits, the second, often overlooked, it's that OoC is a fixed chance, thus being greatly affected by the number of your white hits.

More Haste = more melee attacks = more OoC proc = more specials.

It's not THAT much higher than Strength, I give you that. But it's still a higher benefit.

I guess there could be a point where you hit the crit cap but don't have enough AP to make haste better, but in the end haste does become better.

No, you don't get there. When you're both capped in ArP and crit, the sheer amount of stats from such items sets you too high on AP to benefit from Strength more than form Haste.
The theory's right, but on practical terms gear makes you pass that threshold already.

[bavarcarus]

Yeah, I couldn't remember for sure, I'm pretty sure my 264 bis set has ~14k AP raid buffed, and 10k from that toskk example came out to 14500 or so AP post raid buffing. However that 264 set is not crit capped and I don't think it's hit capped, I believe it came out to 65% crit.