How much to trust Mr. Robot?

[ddk]

So Mr. Robot is telling me that (for an affliction warlock) I should reforge away from +hit and towards mastery > haste, even if this drops me (well) below the hit cap. I'm having trouble justifying this since it's been something pretty hardcoded into my brain that hit-to-cap is the be-all and and end-all of raiding. So just how much faith should I have in this Mr. Robot guy?

[Xeraxis]

Never trust a robot.

[Almond Royale]

do your own research. There's a lot of resources from EJ and even here in your class forums. When using reforging tools I always double check on stat weights, i never use the provided weights

[NatePsy]

Sometimes it does that, you just have to change the stats and then revert back to the standard weights and it should give the +hit reforges again

[Deleted]

DDK, I'm not a lock but, I would suggest looking up the stats on Icy Veins and going with that. That site has been pretty solid.

[Pull My Finger]

Affliction warlock prioritizes mastery and haste over hit.

[Firebert]

Run your character through Simcraft to check, and remember that Expertise adds to your Hit (so you may already be overcapped if you're wielding a weapon that your race gets a bonus from).

AMR does have Hit below Mastery and Haste, though, so you're not seeing a bug.

[Kouki]

So Mr. Robot is telling me that (for an affliction warlock) I should reforge away from +hit and towards mastery > haste, even if this drops me (well) below the hit cap. I'm having trouble justifying this since it's been something pretty hardcoded into my brain that hit-to-cap is the be-all and and end-all of raiding. So just how much faith should I have in this Mr. Robot guy?

Its fairly accurate if your fps is higher than 30.

Try this out, say your pc is older and your frame rate is between 10 and 30 if you miss you might not see the big letters saying miss, they can miss the frame and not display. So if you miss its going to hurt your rotation your dots etc.

If your pc runs at 60 fps then you will always see every pop up saying miss, and compensate for that.
so you don't need so much hit to guarantee the hit if you can compensate fast enough.

True story, joined a big raiding guild on my server, it had only one other warlock in it, i came in blues all haste mastery.
I was doing more damage in raid by 8k dps than he was decked out in tier 11 epics. He hates me to this day.

The difference our computers he got 25fps on a good night in 10 man , i was gettting over 60.
My gear was blue is was tier 11 epic, yet i did 8k more dps.

Stat wise i had 15% hit he had 17%

[Bigtimmy]

If I use the suggested setup given by Ask Mr. Robot (hitcapped or not) it is a dps loss.

AMR is for lazy people who don't know any better, in my opinion. I've always found it to be a bad resource, and nothing seems to have changed in MoP.

If you simcraft yourself, and are aware of what your scale factors and haste plateaus are, you're better off using an addon like reforgelite. That also offers the added convenience of calculating things for you in-game. I realize AMR has some of this functionality, but it's only partially implemented and not very good.

Also, BTW, the theoretical dps increase for ignoring hitcap is ridiculously small (literally about 300 dps at most). I don't find it a worthy tradeoff, because the increase is small, but the potential loss is much larger if an important spell at an important moment fails to land.

[Xs]

I wouldn't trust AMR over your own research, but it can be a good tool to use provided you make sure the stat weights aren't derpy

[lordjust]

Its fairly accurate if your fps is higher than 30.

Try this out, say your pc is older and your frame rate is between 10 and 30 if you miss you might not see the big letters saying miss, they can miss the frame and not display. So if you miss its going to hurt your rotation your dots etc.

If your pc runs at 60 fps then you will always see every pop up saying miss, and compensate for that.
so you don't need so much hit to guarantee the hit if you can compensate fast enough.

True story, joined a big raiding guild on my server, it had only one other warlock in it, i came in blues all haste mastery.
I was doing more damage in raid by 8k dps than he was decked out in tier 11 epics. He hates me to this day.

The difference our computers he got 25fps on a good night in 10 man , i was gettting over 60.
My gear was blue is was tier 11 epic, yet i did 8k more dps.

Stat wise i had 15% hit he had 17%

Framerate has nothing to do with stat weights. If your PC can't handle WoW so bad that you can't play properly is one thing and can cause you to perform poorly but you can't say "if you have a good PC you don't need hit".

Thing is that stat weights aren't static but change with every piece of gear. Most guides give you stat weights with bis gear equipped in mind and a strict rotation or priority list. Ask Mr Robot tries to always give you the right weights for the items equipped so that it can be that you would perform better with another stat weight and other rotation than with the current one. But that also means that if you just use what AMR tells you and don't change your play style (and AMR doesn't tell you what to do differently) it could be a DPS loss.

So in the end you can use guides and AMR, EJ or simcraft only as an indicator and if you want to perform at best you need to start theory crafting yourself so that you can create the perfect stat weights and play style for every state of equipment for yourself.

[Kouki]

Framerate has nothing to do with stat weights. If your PC can't handle WoW so bad that you can't play properly is one thing and can cause you to perform poorly but you can't say "if you have a good PC you don't need hit".

Thing is that stat weights aren't static but change with every piece of gear. Most guides give you stat weights with bis gear equipped in mind and a strict rotation or priority list. Ask Mr Robot tries to always give you the right weights for the items equipped so that it can be that you would perform better with another stat weight and other rotation than with the current one. But that also means that if you just use what AMR tells you and don't change your play style (and AMR doesn't tell you what to do differently) it could be a DPS loss.

So in the end you can use guides and AMR, EJ or simcraft only as an indicator and if you want to perform at best you need to start theory crafting yourself so that you can create the perfect stat weights and play style for every state of equipment for yourself.

Framerate has alot more to do with it than you think.

My old computer gave me 10-15 fps 20 if i looked at the ground all on low settings.
My new computer is a 2012 model custom built pc top of the line parts. it gets 60fps because my monitor is not 3d.

When i made the switch it was back in ICC my gear did not change my rotation keyboard mouse did not change only my pc changed.
The jump in dps was double what i was doing, even with my ICC hit that was 33%.

If you can't see the pop up "Miss" then your rotation is dead and your going to lose dps.
If you can see it and re apply the missed dot your rotation is saved sooner than later losing less dps.

Try it yourself reduce your hit to 15% on a caster and spec the rest into your main stat mastery haste or crit.
For all specs of warlocks hit is the least important, its somewhat important to demon but not by much.

Trust me ive been a lock for as long as the game has been out and this has always been true.

[Orbitus]

If I use the suggested setup given by Ask Mr. Robot (hitcapped or not) it is a dps loss.

AMR is for lazy people who don't know any better, in my opinion. I've always found it to be a bad resource, and nothing seems to have changed in MoP.

If you simcraft yourself, and are aware of what your scale factors and haste plateaus are, you're better off using an addon like reforgelite. That also offers the added convenience of calculating things for you in-game. I realize AMR has some of this functionality, but it's only partially implemented and not very good.

Also, BTW, the theoretical dps increase for ignoring hitcap is ridiculously small (literally about 300 dps at most). I don't find it a worthy tradeoff, because the increase is small, but the potential loss is much larger if an important spell at an important moment fails to land.

Funny, a warlock in my guild used Askmrrobot and got a substantial dps increase even with 6% hit with 478+ ilvl, going from hit cap to 6% like it told him to. He gained something like 12-15k or more dps increase switching from destro to affliction with not being hit capped.

[Kinjin]

Just about everything bases thier information from bis profiles in Simcraft. Remember simcraft is a static environment. It's not a real raid situation and you aren't in bis gear. I would echo the above statement of don't trust a robot. Mr. Robot is going to reforge you down to 6-8% hit. If you follow thier recommendations and lower your hit to that extreme it's going to be terrible. There just aren't many situations in a raid that you can afford to miss at a high rate, especially at the beginning of an expansion when you don't overgear everything.

The fact is the Simcraft may recommend hit below mastery and haste for Affliction, but the profiles are hitcapped. Warlocks in the top guilds are hitcapped. Check out some of the Warlock streams. Go to World of Logs. Start checking top 5 ranked Warlocks in 25 man heroics. With racials, hit, and expertise, they are hitcapped. There is one guy reforged down to under 9%. But if you look at the logs he didn't miss once. Meaning when he got that rank he was hitcapped.

Mastery and Haste actually bounce back and forth as the highest priority for Affliction many times while gearing towards bis. Especially at lower levels of gear. The only way to know is to plot mastery and haste when running sims.

"Funny, a warlock in my guild used Askmrrobot and got a substantial dps increase even with 6% hit with 478+ ilvl, going from hit cap to 6% like it told him to. He gained something like 12-15k or more dps increase switching from destro to affliction with not being hit capped. "

He didn't get a 12-15k increase from being below hitcap. He got that much of a difference due fight mechanics or variation between specs.

[Raidboss]

Ask Mr. Robot is just another tool to add to your arsenal.

I use it frequently to double check my reforges and gems for optimization. As far as the stat weights and hit I don't know if you noticed but on the top menu bar where it shows your spec and such there are two fields that help to make it more accurate. The first drop down box allows you to select between a few pre built stat weights. The default choice is built around Mastery>Haste>Hit>Crit stat weight, but if your like me and raid hit capped the second choice is the build you want (hit>mastery>haste>crit). The next button of importance is "Edit Weights" inside the pop up window you'll find another drop down box for target level. If you are gearing for raiding you'll want +3.

For me I pull from multiple resources to make gearing and stat weight decision, but this is definitely a helpful tool if used properly.

[rt7]

yeah mr robot is always telling me to reforge out of hit

I think my robot is trying to make me bad.

[kenshinag]

No, I would not by default trust mr robot, as I run my toon through simcraft and enter in the stat weights from there to get the most trustworthy reforge/gem/enchant setup.

That being said, affliction's currently got hit as below mastery and haste in stat weights. How much you specifically can get away with, I would advise to simsimsimsimsim to find out. I'm currently at around 3% under cap atm, I've been solidly 5% under, as well. It just changed when I got new shoulders and legs recently.

[heruka]

I can only share my own experience, playing a warlock since late Wrath all the way through Cata until now. I am a stickler for having my reforging as perfect as I can get it. AMR has very often given me non-optimal or just plain wrong results. I use SC to get stat weights, then I use wowreforge dot com to get a much more accurate result than AMR is able to provide. Even the ReforgeLite addon is much better than AMR if you punch in the stats you want to use. Rather use these two tools than AMR and never doubt again. Or if you want some empirical proof, spend a few minutes after every suggestion on a target dummy to see what your Skada or Recount tells you. You will find that it's just not worth bothering with AMR. Ever.

hth

[Tzalix]

It's a great tool for calculating stuff for you, but don't go blindly trusting the stat values they give you.

I usually use SimulationCraft for getting my own stat values, then I put them into AMR.

I can only share my own experience, playing a warlock since late Wrath all the way through Cata until now. I am a stickler for having my reforging as perfect as I can get it. AMR has very often given me non-optimal or just plain wrong results. I use SC to get stat weights, then I use wowreforge dot com to get a much more accurate result than AMR is able to provide. Even the ReforgeLite addon is much better than AMR if you punch in the stats you want to use. Rather use these two tools than AMR and never doubt again. Or if you want some empirical proof, spend a few minutes after every suggestion on a target dummy to see what your Skada or Recount tells you. You will find that it's just not worth bothering with AMR. Ever.

I did use wowreforge in Cata, but last I checked it hasn't been updated yet for stuff like Expertise=Spell Hit for casters, which is why I'm currently using AMR while waiting for wowreforge to get updated.

As for Affliction, I had to go with Hit cap. It is correct that it is a theoretical DPS increase to prio Mastery and Haste above Hit, but I find that I cannot stand missing a DoT in a boss fight. Furthermore, if you do not react as quickly as a robot(no pun intended), the minor theoretical DPS increase from not being Hit capped is offset by having to double check each target to make sure the DoTs actually hit it.

[CDShaidar]

Its fairly accurate if your fps is higher than 30.

Try this out, say your pc is older and your frame rate is between 10 and 30 if you miss you might not see the big letters saying miss, they can miss the frame and not display. So if you miss its going to hurt your rotation your dots etc.

If your pc runs at 60 fps then you will always see every pop up saying miss, and compensate for that.
so you don't need so much hit to guarantee the hit if you can compensate fast enough.

True story, joined a big raiding guild on my server, it had only one other warlock in it, i came in blues all haste mastery.
I was doing more damage in raid by 8k dps than he was decked out in tier 11 epics. He hates me to this day.

The difference our computers he got 25fps on a good night in 10 man , i was gettting over 60.
My gear was blue is was tier 11 epic, yet i did 8k more dps.

Stat wise i had 15% hit he had 17%

Just so we're all clear, this was not the case in T11 if I'm recalling correctly, hit was still rated above all other secondary stats back then for all warlock specs. If you meant T14, our current tier, then of course this is true because he's 2% over hit cap...

Framerate has alot more to do with it than you think.

My old computer gave me 10-15 fps 20 if i looked at the ground all on low settings.
My new computer is a 2012 model custom built pc top of the line parts. it gets 60fps because my monitor is not 3d.

When i made the switch it was back in ICC my gear did not change my rotation keyboard mouse did not change only my pc changed.
The jump in dps was double what i was doing, even with my ICC hit that was 33%.

If you can't see the pop up "Miss" then your rotation is dead and your going to lose dps.
If you can see it and re apply the missed dot your rotation is saved sooner than later losing less dps.

Try it yourself reduce your hit to 15% on a caster and spec the rest into your main stat mastery haste or crit.
For all specs of warlocks hit is the least important, its somewhat important to demon but not by much.

Trust me ive been a lock for as long as the game has been out and this has always been true.

Again, just so everyone is clear, the current hit cap for casters IS 15%. So, if you are above it, of course it is a dps increase to reduce your hit to cap in favor of other stats. Forgive me if I don't just blindly trust you as I've been a good warlock for the last 8 years and it has been extremely rare that being below hit cap has been optimal for DPS. Also, you had +33% hit in ICC?