MoP CM BiS-list

[Kassina]

I do not know the reason of "Dancing Steel + Eye of the Black Prince" for the DK weapon enchant! I guess you where tired! Rune of Fallen Crusader is the way to go for DKs.

Changed it tho!

[Iltareh]

I use WA 2. Is anyone else getting an error with the macro for the progress of times with it?

Can't seem to get it working, and I'd really love it going for realm times.

[xarxz]

He's not wrong, actually. You don't get extra stats with HWF gear compared to a regular piece, regardless of the ilvl as long as it's above 463. If the gear has a tremendous amount of hit on it like a HWF piece, it compensates by taking even more stats out of the other secondary (you can test this easily in PG. What the stat shows on the item is not true at all, equip and unequip the item to see the real amount of stats you gain). I have HWF pieces that actually give me negative of the other stat in it I.E. a piece with huge hit and haste on it gives me negative haste just because there is so much hit on it.

Basically, you don't get "free hit" from items with more hit on them. It just compensates. The biggest thing about gear is to just get items with as many sockets as possible (because losing secondary at least for a spriest is worth it for the gem slot) and right itemization. Ilvl does not matter.

Ah yes reequipping the items inside the CMs has shown me the error of my ways. I actually had a discussion with my healer a few months ago about the legendary cloaks, we couldnt figure out why they were showing reduced stats in comparison to the wowhead challenge mode settings. I guess this is the reason why. I apologize for that.

That being said, alot of the newer gear does have more gemslots. This is itemization taken out of the secondaries but is NOT reduced by scaling. Any compensation would taken from the already reduced budget for secondaries. Would it be a % based reduction in secondaries or is it a straight 1 for 1 swap per hit rating?

[Deleted]

Tried that and it still didn't work. Not that big of deal I guess, was just pointing it out to ya.

Hmm, I just copied in the macros placed in and tried them myself and seems to be working correctly for myself atm, maybe you might of copied them in correctly? But ye, guess this usefulness of these macros are kinda outdated since realistically, all top time strategies now don't really require you to swap between the two mid run with the use of Salyin Battle Banner for some instances.

I do not know the reason of "Dancing Steel + Eye of the Black Prince" for the DK weapon enchant! I guess you where tired! Rune of Fallen Crusader is the way to go for DKs.

Changed it tho!

Not gonna lie, I tend to forget Runeforging even exists sometimes for Death Knights :P Cheers anyway!

I use WA 2. Is anyone else getting an error with the macro for the progress of times with it?

Can't seem to get it working, and I'd really love it going for realm times.

Did you happen to import the WeakAura inside a Challenge mode or any other instance? If so then, you need to exit the instance, reset the instance, then re-enter. Sometimes, with my version of the WeakAura it will only show if you start the Challenge Mode timer then it will work from then onward. If it still doesn't work, remove your current WeakAura import you have and just import it again but from outside an instance first. Should fix the problem. If not, i'll throw in my version of the WeakAura, mind you though, its a earlier creation of it so it has a little bug or two compared to the current version on the spreadsheet.

[zoomgpally]

I thought you used higher itemlevel gear in CM...
Hit/Expertise doesn't scale down with the gear, so you can have less items with hit/exp at higher ilvl

Am I misunderstanding this?
Is hit/exp scaling just not shown? I remember missing in proving grounds(uses same scaling AFAIK) even tho stats on C showed 15.something% hit...

[Deleted]

Am I misunderstanding this?

Yes you are. Basicaly, you can't go against the system, all your stats are lowered down depending on how much your hit/exp havent been lowered, every point is pondered.

In other words, the way stats are lowered on a single piece of gear is dependant of the rest of the stats on the rest of your gear, it is calculated to make you lose crit/mast/haste the exact amount of hit/exp you would have lost if theses pieces were lowered without difference. So in the end there is no direct advantage to take higher hit/exp pieces, but there is some other few "tricks" that can give you a gear advantage:

- some items are WAY overbudgeted (alchemy stone, darkmoon fair trinkets...), some are decent (engineer head stats are not scaled down because it come from gems) and some are tiny (Leishen mace has a +80int-80endu bug)
- every socket is taken into the weight of each piece of gear, but socket bonuses themself are not
- you have a free extra socket from every ToT weapon from the legendary questline (also from sha touched but you loose a basic socket so it's generaly a 60 major stat loss)

These are simple exemples, I'm certainly missing a lot of them.

[CausalXXLinkXx]

I'm unsure about some of the reasoning behind the DK bis list. I believe reniat and I simmed DKs and found crit to be the most valuable stat.

[Tojara]

I'd be surprised if haste is BiS for DKs at all. Most emphasis in CM are big packs, and you basically have full resources between each big pull anyway. Haste could theoretically be simming well, but I'd imagine in practice, for DPS purposes critical strike would be best stat to go to.

Although not optimized very much, when I went back with a full avoidance tank set I seemed to do so much more damage than when I did CMs back when they were first released with a strength/haste focus. Critical strike just seems to be so much better at high AP values.

[Libretto]

I've seen some high challenge score DKs gemming avoidance, and others gemming pure crit. It's debatable for tanks due to riposte since you're getting 75% of your avoidance stats as crit on big packs anyway, with less likelyhood of being instagibbed.

[CausalXXLinkXx]

I've seen some high challenge score DKs gemming avoidance, and others gemming pure crit. It's debatable for tanks due to riposte since you're getting 75% of your avoidance stats as crit on big packs anyway, with less likelyhood of being instagibbed.

If you're going for the absolute best time you can get, pure crit will always be better than avoidance. Avoidance will be slightly less damage but you get more survival. The changes I'd make to the bis list for DKs is crit > haste, durumu bracers with crit, raden chest, maybe the jugger belt (haste/mastery, but the sockets are nice to have, 120 str with str/crit and crit instead of double crit, but the mastery is kinda iffy)

[Whiteout]

can you please post the sim? most of the ones i have personally ran over the tiers shows haste close to if not ahead of crit especially at common challenge mode vengeance levels.

[CausalXXLinkXx]

can you please post the sim? most of the ones i have personally ran over the tiers shows haste close to if not ahead of crit especially at common challenge mode vengeance levels.

Reniat simmed it not me, I asked him to do it when I was checking if crit was better than str stacking. When I say crit is best I'm talking big dick pulls where you pull a lot of mobs, and your veng spikes to crazy levels. If you're doing baby pulls maybe haste is better I have no idea.

[Whiteout]

only ones I currently have the results saved from are current tier, I believe that vengeance cap in cms assuming str flask / food and stam buff is somewhere around 450k so it should be pretty relevant. Most sims (including this one) are also using the dps meta and dps cloak which obviously favor crit as haste does nothing for them, and do bear in mind that this sim itself was done with using the t16 4 pc tank bonus which obviously is going to devalue haste a significant amount both points which you do not have in challenge modes.

edit : idk why a point for point comparison of str to either haste/crit stacking would even be a question as they are both higher at almost 0 vengeance let alone once you start factoring that you get double haste or crit when gemming. The debate should be haste vs crit and in challenge modes haste definitely has the potential to win out

[Megabloks]

only ones I currently have the results saved from are current tier, I believe that vengeance cap in cms assuming str flask / food and stam buff is somewhere around 450k so it should be pretty relevant. Most sims (including this one) are also using the dps meta and dps cloak which obviously favor crit as haste does nothing for them, and do bear in mind that this sim itself was done with using the t16 4 pc tank bonus which obviously is going to devalue haste a significant amount both points which you do not have in challenge modes.

Haste does increases procs from cloak and meta.

You should just resim with CM mode enabled.

[Libretto]

Crit makes more sense just from a logical standpoint - haste doesn't affect your direct damaging abilities, crit does. On big pulls your diseases are a huge portion of your damage and haste doesn't affect them. Haste becomes more effective the longer a pull lasts, on short "bursty" pulls crit should be the much stronger stat. If playing with good dps, pulls shouldn't last long enough for haste to pull ahead of crit by a long shot - if pulling trash together with a boss you're not aiming to keep the trash alive the entire boss fight as you're not a monk or prot warrior and you will eventually die.

[Kassina]

I've started running with crit, and I've kind of only noticed difference in big aoe packs, boss dps seems to be the same and my healer said he haven't seen a much bigger change in healing me. So crit is prob the way to go with a lot of aoe.

Could someone SIM if haste is better in low vengeance tho? because there is instances with poop vengeance :/

wrote this on phone so excuse me for weird stuff in the text

[Deleted]

Does it matter if the pieces are lfr/normal/heroic-quality? statwise.

[Kassina]

Does it matter if the pieces are lfr/normal/heroic-quality? statwise.

if it says that it should be heroic then it matters to get the right caps, else you will need to gem different.

[Whiteout]

did a few cm sims = with 1.5k haste (in 463)

= with 9.8k haste (in 463)

i dont like the standard priority system for blood dk in simcraft so i changed it to this:
actions=auto_attack
actions+=/antimagic_shell,damage=300000
actions+=/mogu_power_potion,if=buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<=60
actions+=/use_item,slot=hands,if=buff.dancing_rune_weapon.up
actions+=/berserking,if=buff.dancing_rune_weapon.up
actions+=/raise_dead
actions+=/dancing_rune_weapon,if=runic_power>89
actions+=/outbreak,if=(dot.frost_fever.remains<=2|dot.blood_plague.remains<=2)|(!dot.blood_plague.ti cking&!dot.frost_fever.ticking)|buff.dancing_rune_weapon.up
actions+=/plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking
actions+=/icy_touch,if=!dot.frost_fever.ticking
actions+=/death_strike,if=frost=2&unholy=2
actions+=/soul_reaper,if=blood>0&target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=35
actions+=/rune_strike,if=blood<2|runic_power>70
actions+=/heart_strike,if=(blood=1&blood.cooldown_remains<1)|blood=2
actions+=/death_and_decay,if=buff.crimson_scourge.up
actions+=/blood_boil,if=buff.crimson_scourge.up
actions+=/horn_of_winter

- also edited in str flask /food etc.
-had all buffs which not might always be there in cms but shouldn't change the numbers too much.
-average vengeance was 168k in both sims, and definitely looks like the more haste you get the worse haste gets in relation to crit
-it could be worth it to reforge parry > haste
-take with a grain of salt as these are single target long encounters which do not accurately reflect what goes on in cms

[Whiterock]

Hah, I been making CM gear lists since the summer of 2013 and somehow this topic slipped away from my browser searchings (been pointed here by guildamte week ago)
So let's go in order:
1)Priest BiS list - weapon:
Torall(Brilliantx2) versus Venomlord(Brilliantx2)
+140Int
+152Spirit
-80Stamina
-120Crit
-56Haste
That gives us the comparision of 1 Int ~ 1 Crit, which would lead to Crit gemming. But since I am sure we both agree that 160 Int >= 320 Crit, then Torall wins.

2)Most of class/spec:
Head from Battlefield Barrens is better than Engineering helm, if you are lucky to have one, with proper stats.
-1/-1 Secondary stats
-80 Main Stat
+Yellow Gem (so if you gem 80Main+160secondary - you get 158 bonus of secondary stat)
The stats count as <Random Enchantment>, about taht in (3)

3)To swoosh away all those rumors about Hit/Exp and HCWF/LFR, here is the formula by which your stats get calculated:

Challenge Mode Stat Value = (1 - [CurrentHES - RawHES] / [RawCrit+RawHaste+RawMastery]) * RawStat

Conversion is going point by point. For regaining, say 3000 Hit/Exp - you lose exactly 3000 Haste+Crit+Mastery

HES - Hit/Exp/Spirit
RawStat - what you can see in Wowhead when you put put item to show it's 463 values.
This is applied to summary of stats from all your gear.
Inludes: Stats shown on item, reforges, Crit/Haste/Mastery, Hit/Expertise, Spirit(shadow,boom,elem only).
NOT includes: Armor, Stamina, Int/Str/Agi, Dodge/Parry, Gems, Socket Bonuses, Enchants, <Random Enchantment> that havn't been reforged.
Let's take [Jina-Kang, Kindness of Chi-Ji](2/2) as example
CurrentHES: 991 Spirit
Raw: 237 Haste, 237 Mastery, 237 Spirit
End result: 991 Spirit, C/H/M from our gear gets reduced by (991-237)=754.

So what we gain from this imformation?
Let's assume we are class with prio Haste > Crit >> Mastery
The mechanic wil work for any other prio, just swap the names.

First: the value of Hit/Exp/Spirit
b)Our focus in gearing will be Haste, which never gets reforged away and always be reforged into.
c)Possibly we avoid Mastery, which as minimum will be reforged to Crit(if not to Haste)
d)So, Haste is stationary. Mastery is stationary(always reforged away).
e)Which leaves Crit to be our bread of change - that gives us that Hit/Exp = Crit in terms of picking gear, as it be practically the only stat we change to/from Hit/Exp.

Second: the hidden usability of 3rd stat
a)The more of stat you have - the stronger it be soaked into Hit/Exp by the formula.
b)So our Haste - the more we have of it, the weaker it's weight becomes (but by pretty small delta)
c)Contorary - when we have too little of the stat - it's value at it's peak.
d)Say, we have only 1 item with Mastery - let alone it's existence consumes part of Hit/Exp conversion, saving up some Haste/Crit.
e)Mostly, if base weight of Mastery is very low - that usually only helps some exceptional items like Legenary cloak or Mannaroth shoulders.

Third: Higher ilvl version of item - more loss of desired Secondary.
a)By the formula - the higher is difference between the actual and CM's H/E/S - the more of your Haste gets consumed.
b)So with 1000-400 Hit item you will have less Haste, but more Crit/Mastery than 400-250 & 600-350 items.
c)But here is a bug hidden:

If you have so much CurrentHES minus RawHES that it exceeds your secondaries, aka:
[CurrentHES - RawHES] > [RawCrit+RawHaste+RawMastery]
The system bugs out and you keep:
a)Your Current HES
b)Your C/H/M at their unchanged Raw value. in cloak's case above - 237 Mastery, 237 Haste
c)This is practically reachable by any tank that goes for Dodge/Parry.
d)And for dps with most of items being HC (expcept for <RE> ones, those counts as alive gems)
e)But that will make the dps reforge almost all their Crit/Mastery into Hit/Exp, practically making Hitcap and Hard Exp cap, but does it worth it?


P.S.: for people who been telling that they lose Hit/Exp when they enter CM/PG - that's becose you have <RE> item with Hit/Exp