Stat ComparisonSetup:
Race: Human (hardly matters)
Talents: None
Glyphs: Focused Shield
Seal: SoI
Gear: 522 (T15 Normal raid set)
Rotation: CS>J>AS>Cons>HW>SotR
Buffs: Full raid, 75k and 150k Vengeance
Code:
calc_statscaling.mRevision:
r560Patch: 5.2
Date: 6 Mar 2013
This sim calculates DPS for a range of strength values (we'll call this the "independent" stat). It then adds the equivalent of 10 itemization points of one "dependent" stat (i.e. 10 strength, agility, intellect, 20 AP, or 10 of any rating) and recalculates DPS. The difference between the two values is the improvement that those 10 itemization points granted us. By doing this for all of the relevant stats on our gear, we can construct a plot showing how those stats scale with the independent stat. We then repeat the calculation three more times with hit, expertise, and haste as the independent stat.
Under the hood, I'm cheating a bit - I actually use 100 of each stat to do the calculations, because it smooths out some of the fluctuations in Strength and haste (you may notice some "wiggle" on the strength plots - that's due to in-game rounding effects). But then I divide by 10 afterwards to normalize everything appropriately, so the plots and tables show the effect of 10 itemization points.
I've artificially set the hit and expertise of the gear set to 5% and 7.5% respectively to ensure that we get the full valuation of hit and expertise on the plots. I'm also calculating the results at 75k and 150k Vengeance AP so that we can see how things change with boss damage. This might give us an idea whether our stat priorities change depending on whether we run 10-man or 25-man.
First, let's look at the strength plots. The armory strength value of this gear set is
14140.

At 150k Vengeance, each attack is doing so much damage that hit, expertise, and haste become our top DPS stats. Making sure that those attacks land (hit, exp) and getting more of them (haste) simply dwarfs any effect the other stats could have. Crit has actually pulled ahead of strength to take fourth place. Crit, strength, and AP all cluster in a second tier of mediocre stats. Agility and intellect grant less crit than crit rating, and thus fall considerably lower on the totem pole.
Parry and dodge are new additions to this round because the new version of Grand Crusader gives them a DPS value. Unfortunately, it's a very
low DPS value - they fall behind even Intellect in terms of effectiveness. Parry is ahead of dodge primarily because it's being hit harder by diminishing returns than parry is, as our gear set isn't optimized for that. In fact, I had to turn off the Alabaster Shield glyph for these sims because dodge's value was coming out
negative - it caused a larger DPS loss in the form of fewer blocks to power Alabaster Shield than it could make up for with Grand Crusader procs. In short, neither dodge or parry are very useful DPS stats, but at least parry is net DPS-positive in all situations.
The plot looks pretty much the same at 75k Vengeance:

You can see here that the vengeance-scaling stats (hit, expertise, haste, and crit/agi) drop while the "static" stats (STR, AP, INT) don't change. However, hit and expertise stay at the top, with haste dropping down to around the level of strength and AP, and crit falling behind them. If we continued down to 50k vengeance or lower, exp would drop to about the level of STR and haste would drop below AP.
The interesting point to take home here is that your max-DPS gear set will vary from boss to boss. On some bosses, you'll want 7.5% hit and 15% expertise followed by as much haste as you can muster. On other bosses, you might hit-cap and spell-hit-cap and then gem/reforge for haste or strength. If we extrapolate to weaker bosses (which may be most 10-mans), expertise may fall behind strength. This makes gear choice tricky, because we'll have to get accurate estimates of our own damage intake and Vengeance levels for the raid category we care about.
Note that on 10-man content, we're likely to be in the 75k or lower regime, so hit and exp might lag strength slightly in terms of raw DPS.
For now, I've calculated DPS stat weights for both 150k and 75k Vengeance levels. I've included Shield of the Righteous uptime coefficients as well to give you an idea how the stats impact survivability. Note that these values are the change in SotR uptime
percent that you get per 1000 points of the stat, whereas the DPS values are per one point. The third column gives DPS benefit in terms of itemization points (which just bumps AP up slightly, since everything else is 1:1).
- Code: Select all
DPS and SBU% stat weights for CS>J>AS>HW>Cons>SotR, SoI, 150k Veng
| | DPS | SBU% | DPS |
| | ppt | p1kpt | pipt |
| hit | 4.531 | 1.279 | 4.531 |
| exp | 3.591 | 0.766 | 3.591 |
| haste | 2.517 | 0.821 | 2.517 |
| str | 1.466 | 0.031 | 1.466 |
| ap | 0.664 | 0.000 | 1.329 |
| crit | 1.645 | 0.000 | 1.645 |
| agi | 0.576 | 0.000 | 0.576 |
| int | 0.123 | 0.000 | 0.123 |
| parry | 0.073 | 0.031 | 0.073 |
| dodge | 0.019 | 0.043 | 0.019 |
- Code: Select all
DPS and SBU% stat weights for CS>J>AS>HW>Cons>SotR, SoI, 75k Veng
| | DPS | SBU% | DPS |
| | ppt | p1kpt | pipt |
| hit | 2.754 | 1.279 | 2.754 |
| exp | 2.204 | 0.766 | 2.204 |
| haste | 1.533 | 0.821 | 1.533 |
| str | 1.442 | 0.031 | 1.442 |
| ap | 0.664 | 0.000 | 1.329 |
| crit | 1.012 | 0.000 | 1.012 |
| agi | 0.359 | 0.000 | 0.359 |
| int | 0.073 | 0.000 | 0.073 |
| parry | 0.048 | 0.031 | 0.048 |
| dodge | 0.011 | 0.043 | 0.011 |
Next, we'll look at the hit rating plots:


These two tell a similar story. Hit, expertise, and haste dominate as long as Vengeance is high enough. On both graphs you can clearly see when we cross the melee and spell hit caps at 7.5%. Hit has no value past the spell hit cap, while expertise continues to improve our melee attacks.
Perhaps it's worth noting that it isn't worth stacking hit above 7.5% just to reach spell hit cap - we're much better off using expertise to get the rest of that spell hit, since we get the added benefit of dodge/parry suppression. That's probably common sense, but this gives us the numbers we need to quantify that thought.
It's also worth noting that even at 150k vengeance, expertise above 7.5% isn't optimal for DPS. In theory, the max DPS configuration is:
150k Vengeance: Hit to 7.5% > Exp to 7.5% > Haste > Exp to 15% > Crit > STR > AP
75k Vengeance: Hit to 7.5% > Exp to 7.5% > Haste > STR > AP > Exp to 15% > Crit
At lower levels, haste will slip behind STR/AP as well. Note that haste will always be ahead of expertise in excess of the spell hit cap, though, as both stats scale with Vengeance. Most of us are likely gearing for 15% expertise for survivability reasons, so it's not likely to matter much. However, if you're trying for a #1 WoL parse, you might consider stopping at 7.5% expertise and converting the excess into more haste.
Next up, the expertise plots:


Not much new here. At 10% expertise we reach the spell hit cap (because of our 5% hit), and both hit and expertise see a drop in value. Hit maintains a pretty high value after that point, while expertise drops below haste. Once we hit 15% expertise, expertise drops to zero as expected. The ordering of stats on this plot is pretty similar to those we've already seen.
Finally, let's look at the haste plots:


There's not much new to tell from this plot. Improving haste makes everything better, but the stat priorities don't change significantly. At the 150k Vengeance level, we still want hit>exp>haste; at 75k we still have hit and expertise dominating with haste and strength vying for third place, AP right behind them in fifth, and crit a distant sixth.
A note on gems:In MoP, the stat budget on gems has changed slightly. Instead of the itemization ratio seen here, we get twice as much of a secondary stat as we should (example:
Bold Primordial Ruby vs.
Precise Primordial Ruby). This analysis has used the usual itemization budgeting that you'll get on gear pieces, which means that for gemming, you need to double the value of any secondary stats. In a practical sense, this means that expertise, hit, haste, and even crit will almost
always be the high-DPS choice for gems. Strength simply can't compete with the factor of 2 itemization benefit on gems. Since we're not likely to get enough haste to reach any sort of serious cap, we can always stuff a haste gem into a slot for more DPS than a STR gem (socket bonuses nonwithstanding, but even there, a STR/Haste or pure haste gem will be superior to pure STR).
TLDR summary:
- Hit (to 7.5%) and Expertise (to 7.5%) are generally our best DPS stats (in that order) at reasonable Vengeance levels. At very low Vengeance, they will fall behind Strength and AP.
- At high Vengeance levels (~150k), haste is our third best stat, followed by expertise (from 7.5% to 15%), crit, strength, and AP.
- At lower Vengeance levels (~75k), haste, strength and AP are about equal, with expertise (from 7.5% to 15%) trailing them slightly, crit falling to sixth place and crit trailing it significantly.
- Agility and intellect are both very weak DPS stats at all Vengeance levels. Avoid them.
- Dodge and parry are both very weak DPS stats. Avoid them. Dodge is actually a DPS loss (albeit a negligible one) if you're using Alabaster Shield.
- Remember that since secondary stats on gems are doubled, secondary stats are always the right DPS choice on gems.