Originally Posted by
Baphomette
All right, I've been thinking about this for a while. There's absolutely a breakpoint where the extra weapon damage outweighs the extra damage from Power, the only question is where. Let's take a look at the PVE hierarchy.
i509 (5043.5 DPS) Shin'ka
i502 (4725.1 DPS) Starshatter
i496 (4468.2 DPS) Shin'ka
i489 (4186.0 DPS) Starshatter
i483 (3958.4 DPS) Shin'ka
i476 (3708.5 DPS) Starshatter
i470 (3506.9 DPS, +18% Power) S12 T1
Considerations, major to minor:
* The +18% from Power puts the S12 T1 weapon up to 4137.1, just under Normal Starshatter. However it also multiplies all of the damage from attack power which probably yields another 3-400 in full S12 gear. That puts it closer to Normal Shin'ka for weapon strikes, and unless I'm overlooking something at least equal to Heroic Shin'ka for non-weapon damage (= HB, NS) as the 960 Strength difference between the weapons is much less than 18%.
* Weapon upgrades double-dip on the PVP weapon. If it were still +18%, 2/2 T1 would still be ~50 DPS behind 2/2 Normal Starshatter, but the extra Power from upgrading will eliminate or even reverse that small gap -- Wowhead isn't displaying the right number for upgrades so I don't have exact figures in front of me, though it shouldn't be a huge difference. Conversely, until you're in fully upgraded gear, a PVE weapon lets you put 1500 CP towards other pieces/upgrades which is a small difference in the other direction.
* PVP weapons have a good chunk of resilience on them. This doesn't add to damage, of course, but given two people outputting the same damage to each other, the one with less resilience dies first.
I'm pretty confident in saying Heroic Shin'ka > T1 > Normal Shin'ka. I can't say whether Heroic Starshatter is better or worse, but I imagine it's pretty close either way and it probably depends on how much Obliterate you get to use in PVP vs spending runes on non-weapon attacks. That's a pretty fair place for T1 to be. If I already had Heroic Starshatter, I'd probably get other S12 pieces first and buy the T1 later to use with Swordshattering.
For 1Hs, the breakpoint for one T1 vs two T1s is lower as the OH contributes half of the Power but much less than half of the damage. I'm sure Normal Kilrak + T1 beats dual T1s, possibly Normal Scimitar + T1, Normal Elegion + T1, or even LFR Kilrak + T1, as you get to use half of the Power multiplier on more than half of the extra weapon damage from PVE weapons. By the same token, I wouldn't expect any PVE weapon this tier to beat T1 as an OH.
I'd love to see some more solid numbers if anyone has them.