I decided to continue a study I started last year where I was comparing the value of stats between specs as item levels increased (commonly known as stat scaling) and thought I would post the results here. Feel free to post any comments you might have, but I am hoping for constructive feedback to see if this is worth pursuing in future patches (with 6.0 on the horizon).
The initial study was started in response to an active thread at the time concerning Frost DK scaling issues which started on July 4th 2013 during patch 5.3. There was a lot of discussion which included people using the term “scaling” to describe how much less value (DPS) we receive as gear levels (stats) increase (compared to other classes or other DK specs).
During this time, I set out to investigate the assumption that Frost stat values scaled poorly as gear levels increased when compared to other Strength-based classes as well as against standard Unholy DK and Festerblight.
I started by analyzing raidbots data to which people were claiming the raidbots data was invalid because of Sampling Bias (plus it didn’t help that most people when referring to raidbots were using “top 100” data which was not an optimal set of data to use for analysis purposes). I then performed some initial analysis and ran sims from different classes/specs at various item levels at which point I could then speak to what I felt were evident stat scaling issues with Frost.
From the initial samples I had done, it gave me enough confidence that there were scaling issues present and I should proceed with the study. I then settled on using a base gear profile for each DK spec and utilized the current version of SimC (v530-4 at the time).
During my study, I only utilized SimC to provide the stat values for each spec for each selected item level and did not take the DPS results into consideration. In my opinion, the DPS would be the end product of your stat values, so examining the individual value increase of each stat would be a better comparison.
Things started off a little hairy as I decided to look at the scaling of each stat instead of lumping all stats into one (Total Scale Factor), and whether to include strength or weapon DPS into the equation. I had run SimC for my character many times, but never modified any of the profiles so I apologize for the messy start.
I believe things get more clear as the study went on and it was decided how to best present the data.
TLDR:
If you only want to look at current data, skip forward to Parts IV-V (June 1-4) when I performed analysis with current gear and the current version of SimC and the same type of "scaling issues" seem to be present for Frost.
I did not compare other strength-based classes in the same fashion, but it could be something I look into in the future if this provides any beneficial information.
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Here is a link to the study document which contains links to the data sheets and references:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz3...it?usp=sharing
UPDATED LINK
-Cleaned up document references
-Added Slope and Geometric Mean rows on Part I document for consistency
EDIT - 6/24/2014
Added result sets for 1H Fury Warrior, 2H Fury Warrior, Arms Warrior and Retribution Paladin as well as a comparison chart:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post27785809