Expertise or no for Arms PvE?

[sixx]

What you folks think? Too lazy atm to go and read 50 posts of useless info at EJ before finding the useful one!!

I'm a tank for my 25man raiding guild, it's weird when I go dps but I decide to mess up with Arms for when I do so. ATM I have expertise capped because I think that will help on a nice uptime on the Colossus Smash debuff. What are your thoughts?

[smartAXE]

if your gear allows you to cap it go for it
atm my gear/gearlvl isnt going to allow me to do so and i do fine dps

[Deleted]

26 Expertise. No less.

[Soisoisoi]

If you're too lazy to go do some research, why should we bother helping you?

But either way.. "[Cataclysm] Warrior FAQ" So hard to find...

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Get 8% Hit. After that, Strength > Crit > Mastery = Expertise > Haste.

[Argesh]

Yes. expertise cap is a requirement for arms PvE now since they normalized rage. It wasn't such a big deal in wrath of the arp king because 1 huge crit filled your rage bar, but now you get a set amount of rage depending on your weapon speed, so constant hits are essential to keep your rage flow constant.

[sixx]

If you're too lazy to go do some research, why should we bother helping you?

But either way.. "[Cataclysm] Warrior FAQ" So hard to find...

Q: What are my stat priorities?
A: Get 8% Hit. After that, Strength > Crit > Mastery = Expertise > Haste.

Becauseee I'll give you cookies and beer

Lol.. really because I prefer the popular opinion and because you know the EJ warrior forums are horribly set.

Get 8% Hit. After that, Strength > Crit > Mastery = Expertise > Haste.

Awesome, but like should I be reforging to expertise like if it were a must have?

[Soisoisoi]

Becauseee I'll give you cookies and beer

Lol.. really because I prefer the popular opinion and because you know the EJ warrior forums are horribly set.

Awesome, but like should I be reforging to expertise like if it were a must have?

Probably best to use a simulator, but I imagine so.

Gief cookies and beer... Now >.>

[Master Guns]

I don't see why you'd consider not getting expertise capped, regardless of spec, especially for DPS. Tanking, sure, expertise cap is obviously not needed. But DPS? Yeah, you need to be capped. No questions.

[blahssat]

People spouting crap about arms -needing- 26 expertise for maximum DPS is dead wrong. Simulations have consistently put forward that forgoing the expertise cap in favor of getting more of your best secondary stat, crit, will always, over the long term, come out as a DPS gain. I recently did a sim for an arms warrior named Morla on these forums that pretty clearly showed that not getting expertise capped resulted in a DPS gain.

Proof is below. Only difference between the two fights is one is reforged for max DPS, the other is reforged for best stats while maintaining expertise cap.
100,000 simulated fights while not expertise capped: average 21,785 dps, Link to simulation results
Same 100,000 fights, but expertise capped: average 21,663 dps, Link of simulation results

Those DPS figured are accurate to within an error of 4 dps.

I repeat, if you are getting expertise capped on purpose, you are doing it wrong.

In case anyone is wondering, I originally posted the simulations here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post10858114 (It was originally about choosing between a 2h mace or 2h axe for dwarf, but using it to disprove that expertise capping on purpose is a dps gain is a good use for it too)

Also, if you look at most top arms warrior dps parses, you'll see they aren't expertise capped either.

[Raugnaut]

For Arms PvE, it depends on how you feel. If your attack is dodged, well, you get a freebie Overpower, and the rage refunded. This is the main reason why expertise is rated so low for Arms, due to Overpower and Rage refund.

However, lets say you get unlucky, and your Mortal Strike is dodged 3 times in a row. LttS falls off, and, well, dps plummets. Thats one of the main reasons why it is generally recommended for melee to cap hit and soft cap expertise, due to the fact that most specs have some type of core move, and if RNG is bad, the core move could repeatedly fail to land and result in a dps plummet.

Generally, hit and expertise can be translated directly into dps, as 1% hit = 1% dps. RNG is random, though. You could not miss once for a 15 min fight with NO hit/expertise, or you could miss 5 times in a row missing a mere .02% hit.

Do you mind if your moves are dodged/parried? If yes, cap expertise. If you dont really care about a dodged move, crit/mastery will be a better stat.

[Tarin]

Yes. expertise cap is a requirement for arms PvE now since they normalized rage. It wasn't such a big deal in wrath of the arp king because 1 huge crit filled your rage bar, but now you get a set amount of rage depending on your weapon speed, so constant hits are essential to keep your rage flow constant.

i think it was more that dodges proc'd overpower which was one of your hardest hitting abilities.

of course the added benefit of higher rage generation, but i think later on this expansion we might begin to see expertise drifting off because of the previous mentioned overpowers.

[Nume]

If it turns out that staying in berzerker stance the majority of the time with auto rend refresh during next patch, there's a good chance expertise capping will become important again. As for right now though, no you're better off getting crit than expertise. I generally choose expertise over mastery if given the choice, but thats more or less personal preference because they are very close dps wise.

[blahssat]

If it turns out that staying in berzerker stance the majority of the time with auto rend refresh during next patch, there's a good chance expertise capping will become important again. As for right now though, no you're better off getting crit than expertise. I generally choose expertise over mastery if given the choice, but thats more or less personal preference because they are very close dps wise.

Actually, according to simulations using the latest PTR info (Inluding the patch notes released 2 days or something like that), expertise will become your -worst- stat.

PTR simulations here. Click the warrior arms area and compare the scale factors for each stat. The number under scale factors is roughly how much dps you gain by getting +1 to that stat.

Also stance dancing basically nullifies your 4t11 set bonus since it gets removed on stance switch

[Awnetu]

I don't see why you'd consider not getting expertise capped, regardless of spec, especially for DPS. Tanking, sure, expertise cap is obviously not needed. But DPS? Yeah, you need to be capped. No questions.

Unholy DKs dont care about expertise cap.

[flamingsnot]

26 expertise isnt as big of a deal for arms warriors compared to other melee but if you can get 26 with your gear then yes get it.

overpower, which should be at the #1/2 on your damage done list, cant be dodged or parried.

[Troyzilla]

If it turns out that staying in berzerker stance the majority of the time with auto rend refresh during next patch, there's a good chance expertise capping will become important again. As for right now though, no you're better off getting crit than expertise. I generally choose expertise over mastery if given the choice, but thats more or less personal preference because they are very close dps wise.

You can't stance dance with 4pc.
Rend auto-refresh seems to be taken out.

@OP, I can tell you from my own personal experience, capping expertise does seem to be a SLIGHT dps increase.

An increase over what though? I'm glad you asked. Since cata the way I have played arms is str > haste > crit > mastery, hit cap is assumed necessary, expertise I put no value on at all. I recently just switched to the expertise/crit build this week and like I said, it seems to be yielding slightly higher results. However, I have not been in an actual world-class raid environment since the arms buff to test these 2 directly against each other in a constant surrounding, so a lot of it at this point is guess-work and estimation on my end.

TLDR; Play tons of STR/haste with no value on expertise and 2ndary value on crit, or play Exp/crit emphasis with no value on haste. Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions.

[smartAXE]

@troy
maybe your dps went up cause you took out your prio of haste
having mid range exp is nice, being able to cap it with lucky expt drops is wonderful, but not needed

[Deleted]

It depends on how you play arms, simple as that.

If you stay in BattleStance the entire time, then yes Expertise as a stat is not worth all that much, but if you spend a fair ammount of time in Berserker Stance (which has proven to be a slight DPS increase) Expertise rockets up to a point where it gets even with crit.

[EDIT] There's also abit of preference involved. Yea, Crit will give slightly more DPS than Expertise but it will nuke your reliability. Arms is already a low burst spec, by comparison to fury, in PvE and as such having crap dodge when you really need it can be quite significant.

[Randoo]

We're not in WotLK anymore where it was all about ArP and stealing hunter/rogue loot for crit/arp. Get the 26 cap its vitally important you don't get dodged on Csmash, MS, or Rend.

[Tzalix]

No, 26 Expertise is not "required" for Arms DPS. I'm no expert on the stat math, however I personally, and other Warriors from my guild, have found that reforging for the soft Expertise cap results in overall lower DPS than going for max Crit.