Shadow stat weights

[Dierdre]

Lots of confusion regarding stat weights. Different sources give different priorities, but the reality is that there is no definite stat priority. Twintop has posted sample stat weights for different talent combos for given sets of sim conditions, so you can use them as guidelines. Keep in mind though that those weights will vary for different conditions.

Stat weights will vary depending on:

1. Your talent choices. Stats interact differently with your talents, particularly your lvl 45 and lvl 100 talents, resulting in different stat weights for different talent combos.

2. The encounter. Your stats impact your spells differently, so fights where you play single target dotweave (e.g. downstairs Kargath, The Butcher) will have different stat weights (a higher mastery weight in this case) than fights where you play CoP multidot (e.g. Tectus / Brackenspore). Movement, downtime, and encounter mechanics will alter your gameplay and will therefore affect your stat weights.

3. Your playstyle / role. Your stats will have different weights for Kargath if you stay downstairs or if go up, or for Brackenspore if you're doing flamethrowers or not; even if it's the same encounter with the same talents.

4. Your stats. Yep, your stat weights will vary with your stats. Overall, stat weights are fairly close with the exception of versatility. That means that for the same fight, same playstyle, same talent choices, your stat weights will vary depending on your current stats due to stat interactions:



So every time you replace a piece of gear with a piece with different stats, your stat weights will shift slightly.

In conclusion, even if mastery scales a bit better than crit/haste/multi for patchwerk CoP, there is no sporebat right now. Keeping a healthy stat balance will yield you better results than stacking one stat while neglecting another, and it will give you more flexibility.

[Yvaelle]

Good post Diedre

Personally, because I plan to go AS as soon as it's competitive for me - I have been preferring crit with what little power we wield over our stats. Crit isn't a bad stat for any L100 talent, for AS it's the only case where any L100 talent has a clear "best stat" regardless of fight type (mastery is best for CoP single target, but not always for multi-target), and seeing crits is fun

I have done a ton of sims and tests, I have read everything I've seen - and like Diedre said - three changes have converged to make our advice-giving capability ineffective, except by personally simming each spriest in their gear for a specific fight they are struggling with:
1) stats vary too wildly based on the conditions outlined above to provide generalizations,
2) our ability to control our stats is at an all-time low - we wear what drops,
3) all our stats are quite close together - sims I did this morning for Yva suggested even versatility was 75% the value of crit (my best AS stat by far).

To put that last point in perspective, in past expansions it was possible to have our "do not use" stat be worth as little as 33% that of our ideal secondary stat at the time.

[Dierdre]

Personally, because I plan to go AS as soon as it's competitive for me - I have been preferring crit with what little power we wield over our stats.

Yep, I also try to get as much crit as I can for the same reason, but RNGods are giving me tons of mastery and versatility.

[Relapses]

My guild leader got a bit upset with me when he asked me what my gear preference was and I replied 'everything.'

:c

But realistically, at this point, when we're replacing blues with epics that are 40 ilvls higher, any stat combination is an upgrade. Once we get into endless farming, I'll try messing around with different gear sets, but for now I'm gathering everything I can so we can push as far as possible in Mythic next week.

[Dierdre]

My guild leader got a bit upset with me when he asked me what my gear preference was and I replied 'everything.'

What, Gul'dan, should shadow priests look for in their gear?

[Fluffyjesus]

Question as a shaman main, looking to make a priest alt, how different are the weights? Like, if I were to switch between CoP and VE for level 100, would I need different gear sets, or are the stats "close enough" to not make a too huge a difference, im not looking to min max, just to not stack a useless stat if I switch talents.

[Dierdre]

Question as a shaman main, looking to make a priest alt, how different are the weights? Like, if I were to switch between CoP and VE for level 100, would I need different gear sets, or are the stats "close enough" to not make a too huge a difference, im not looking to min max, just to not stack a useless stat if I switch talents.

There are no useless stats for shadow (not even versatility, which sucks comparatively). You shouldn't use Void Entropy in its current incarnation (it's mechanically suboptimal on every current scenario); but if you were to switch between CoP and AS, as long as you keep your stats balanced, stat weights will likely have a much lower impact than RNG / playstyle. The problem with AS in Highmaul is that there aren't fights where you can have enough SWP ticking for it to be par with CoP, so you'd need currently unattainable crit levels for AS. Once we get to fights with more and beefier adds, AS will be a better option.

[Fluffyjesus]

There are no useless stats for shadow (not even versatility, which sucks comparatively). You shouldn't use Void Entropy in its current incarnation (it's mechanically suboptimal on every current scenario); but if you were to switch between CoP and AS, as long as you keep your stats balanced, stat weights will likely have a much lower impact than RNG / playstyle. The problem with AS in Highmaul is that there aren't fights where you can have enough SWP ticking for it to be par with CoP, so you'd need currently unattainable crit levels for AS. Once we get to fights with more and beefier adds, AS will be a better option.

Thanks, this is good to hear. I guess I will go ahead and level up my priest then.

[MoanaLisa]

There are no useless stats for shadow (not even versatility, which sucks comparatively). You shouldn't use Void Entropy in its current incarnation (it's mechanically suboptimal on every current scenario); but if you were to switch between CoP and AS, as long as you keep your stats balanced, stat weights will likely have a much lower impact than RNG / playstyle. The problem with AS in Highmaul is that there aren't fights where you can have enough SWP ticking for it to be par with CoP, so you'd need currently unattainable crit levels for AS. Once we get to fights with more and beefier adds, AS will be a better option.

Do people like it better this way or do people prefer to have a few stats to target specifically? Genuinely curious since there is a sort of blandness that can set in if stat weights are roughly equal.

[Deleted]

Great post mate !
I kind of enjoy our stat weights being so close to each other, since i can basically take every item that isn#t ideal for our mages and warlocks.
I told my raidlead to give crit items to warlocks and mages since they benefit more from it than me while i take the rest :P
Makes gearing for progression alot easier tbf.

[Yvaelle]

Do people like it better this way or do people prefer to have a few stats to target specifically? Genuinely curious since there is a sort of blandness that can set in if stat weights are roughly equal.

A bit of both

When one stat clearly dominates all the others (as haste sometimes has in the past), any gear that lacks haste can feel suboptimal and sucky - so even winning what should be an upgrade can feel diminished because you know it isn't the thing you really wanted. Similarly if the thing you really want never drops, you can feel like the RNGgod hates you - and that sucks too.

By contrast, as you mentioned, when all the stats are the same we don't feel in control of our gear - we simply put on what drops - and that doesn't feel empowering or exciting.

So neither are perfect, I'll think about what would be best

[Granyala]

Do people like it better this way or do people prefer to have a few stats to target specifically? Genuinely curious since there is a sort of blandness that can set in if stat weights are roughly equal.

Can only speak for myself: I like it better if I don't have to feel bad b/c I don't get the needed drops with stat X.
That being said: I try to get as much haste & crit as possible.
Crit for AS and haste because a hasted shadow just feels so much smoother to play. (I blame getting used to 42% haste in MoP ^^)

[Yvaelle]

Crit for AS and haste because a hasted shadow just feels so much smoother to play. (I blame getting used to 42% haste in MoP ^^)

Not just MoP, Shadow has almost always adored haste

[Succath]

Great post.

however i have noticed while gearing up for two specs (holy and shadow) that i get the most out of Haste en Multistrike.
Haste is just to good to pass up on any occasion for both shadow and holy.

Mulitstrike is just good. while its still recommended to have a healthy dosis of mastery/crit i do see mulititrike pulling ahead at this time.

So basiscly i`ll grab any gear with either haste or multistrike for both specs. addmitting that i do favor crit/multistrike - haste a bit more for shadow and
purely haste multitstrike for holy.

what do you guys think?

[Granyala]

Not just MoP, Shadow has almost always adored haste

Sure but I can't remember ever getting up to like 40% before. ^^

[Dierdre]

Do people like it better this way or do people prefer to have a few stats to target specifically? Genuinely curious since there is a sort of blandness that can set in if stat weights are roughly equal.

Keeping a healthy stat balance doesn't necessarily mean that stat weights are equal. We had this in 5.4 too, once you hit the haste breakpoints you generally got more juice out of your stats by balancing them; but you could also min-max a bit for each given encounter. You could theoretically get an ideal set of gear / gems / enchants for each encounter that would depend on your role / playstyle, but that's not likely feasible nor convenient in practice, and the difference would probably be negligible versus actual gameplay.

[Dierdre]

question: do we have some haste cap we must reach so all the other stats be more effective?? cause in the last raid i try full mastery with 6.5% haste and my dps was semi crap...when i change again to 10.00%haste everything was way way better...any advices???? ty

There aren't any haste breakpoints anymore, and the only real haste cap is the GCD cap. Mastery might sim as your "best" patchwerk stat as it provides the greatest increase to your hardest hitting spells for a patchwerk scenario, but it loses value significantly the moment you have to multidot and / or move since it doesn't affect your DoTs at all, and it doesn't benefit SWD either, which is a very relevant part of your damage even for patchwerk.

Crit and multistrike on the other hand, affect all of your spells, and haste benefits your DoTs and fiend while reducing your mind blast and global cooldowns.

Your stats interact too: Haste increases the amount of spells you can cast per time unit, increasing the number of hits that can crit or multistrike. Your Mind Blast / Mind Spike / Mind Flay crits and multistrikes will hit harder the more mastery you have. With stat weights being as close as they are, these interactions are nontrivial when compared to pure stat weight differences.

TLDR. You want to have a bit of every stat. Hoarding one stat while neglecting another will result in an overall dps loss.

EDIT:

Other than vers, fuck that stat.

[Deleted]

the best post i ever read from the start of wod. thx diedre

[Drye]

Other than vers, fuck that stat.

[Deleted]

Other than vers, fuck that stat.

Can't wait until they inevitably remove it next expansion.