Kenom I'm curious how well your dps is with that hit rating? I usually raid wiht a hit rating of 134. I havent tried raiding with 105 yet which is what im currently at with double syphon's.

So how is your dps with that hit rating kenom?

How would you exactly use this macro if you have 2.6ers in actual combat? And what does it do in effect exactly? Are you supposed to spam it every 3+ seconds to make sure that you're MH is getting prio or?

I'm sorry if I'm stupid or something, but I simply dont grasp the whole concenpt and it's importance.
I would like to think that it would simply increase DPS if used in a certain way (which is why I'm asking).

You really only need to use it once after you've entered melee range. You're trying to avoid your first hit being with your offhand, since that gives slight preference to OH WF. If you start attacking and you're already in melee range, both weapons will attack at the same time.

If you auto attack and run in, your first hit will be with your offhand. If that hit procs WF, then your MH attack (which is delayed) will be ineligible for WF for another 3s.

If you run into melee range and then start attacking, your MH and OH hit at the same time, but your MH is actually hitting first. More importantly, your weapons will continue to hit at the same time, but with the MH getting priority. That means if WF procs, your MH will still be able to proc WF again once the 3s cooldown is finished.

In other words, don't hit the attack key until you are in melee range and then you don't need the macro.

all right, cheers for clarifying.

Another question though; what would apply if you started to attack a mob when you are in melee range, and it runs off for a while (i.e ranged DPS overaggro)? Would it be needed to use the macro at that point, or does the "initial" hit still be the one in charge so to say?

I always turn off/on my autoattack just in case for that scenario.

has research been done showing the greatest benefit of DST for different types of melee and ranged?

I have some guildies saying that DST is better for BM Hunters.

How much benefit do we get from it then say a Warrior, Rogue, Hunter, Druid?

I currently raid with 146 hitrating (Illidan on farm gear level, 1600ap, 31% crit) but I would gladly take some more, if possible without hurting other stats.

I used to have maxxed hitrating (256) while we had just finished ssc/TK and been gradually going down from there. To be honest, I dont like my current hitrating, if any good gear choises would drop, I would gladly take on a bit more +hit. I mean, as others have stated here, as our yellow attacks cap rather fast, you should not favor hitrating just because of it, but if you can get decent piece of gear that statweights posted in 1# gives decent point to wear, do it.

T6 is bad. I only have taken gloves and chest, dont think i will ever use more. Its not only cause of mp5 but it also favors critical strike rating while i like to have agility (scales with kings, gives dodge). Last, but not least, T6 ench chest looks like a dress! Pff!

This is an argument you don't want to get into. First, saying that something is *best* for any class or spec is damn near impossible to prove, and it comes down to emotional responses from people that removes the objectivity of the discussion. In the end all they'll attempt to do is prove that its the best for their class because they want the trinket. (I'd wager that your guildies saying its best for BM hunters are in fact, hunters) Second, there's been maybe two threads discussing who the DST is "best" for, you can search by Topic in this sub forum to find them. They all diverge into stupid bickering.

Summary: Lets not argue who its best for, its dumb. Everyone wants and needs it.

You realize that even with Kings, Agility gives less Crit than Crit Rating does? Its not an accident that Agility is weighed less on our AEP system than Crit Rating is. Strength > AP, and Crit Rating > Agility.
[e] 22.07 Crit Rating = 1% Crit. 25 Agility = 1% Crit.
As an example, 200 Agility with Kings would give you 8.8% Crit. 200 Crit Rating would give you 9.06% Crit.

I'm so confused on what to think about hit rating. I could go up to 155 or drop down to 105 and dual wield syphon's with some haste gear on. I've seen people like yourself say you would like more hit. But i have also seen people like Sebudai and he prefers low hit rating.

Very confused.

Look, its not that Sebudai prefers low hit rating. If he could keep high AP and Crit stats while grabbing another 100 hit rating, he'd do it without a thought. Its not like anyone says "Gee I like having white attacks miss!" and gearing up around that philosophy.

The process is this:
1. Maximize your AP.
2. Maximize your Crit Rating.
3. If gear that satisfies 1 and 2 but loses some Hit Rating, oh well.
4. If gear satisfies 1 and 2, but also increases your hit rating, excellent, its like getting a piece of cake in your lunch box.

Its not that its made up by it, its that Hit Rating statistically improves less of your DPS than AP and Crit do.
If you take all Hit talents than your SS and WF attacks, 45-50% of your damage are now hit capped. No amount of +Hit will ever improve SS and WF damage beyond the 9% you get from talents.

Every bit of hit rating on your gear goes only toward improving white dps. Autoattacks make up 40-50% of our damage, but when you figure out that its only affecting less than half your damage, hit rating on gear becomes relatively expensive to AP and Crit which affect all your melee damage. Understand now?

Got it thanks.

Can we update the initial post to put in bold 'do not ask stupid questions about hit rating'?

Seriously this thread is crippled with dozens of post asking the same shit on hit rating. I am amazed at the number of people raiding tier 6 content with no clue on how game mechanics work.

I feel for Malan and others who constantly have to answer the same questions.

Stop asking these questions, just read the damn thread.

Its already there in the "Frequently Asked Silly Questions" section under "How much hit rating do I need".
Also in the Itemization Hit Rating section it discusses exactly what I just said above.

We get just as much benefit as any of the other classes. DST is a seperate tier of trinkets and every physical dps should have one. Unfortunately, it doesn't always drop as well as it does for my guild.. I think we have had 8 or so? All but one physical dps has one.

Summary: It's just as good for you as for the others, don't get into a discussion who benefits more from it because that's just dumb. Pick one up if you can, you won't regret it.

Well the weapon AEP values for DPS were only valid for 2.6 speed, so someone would need to replicate all the tests that Rob ran for 2.7 weapons to figure that out.

I believe a lurker was running some tests with 2.7 and 2.8 speed weapons for his Excel spreadsheet. I don't know if he will be getting around to posting that; I know he still had some work to do. But if someone's really interested, it's not too hard if you refer back to my original post for the methodology -- I just am not interested in repeating those tests now that we have a good idea of what kind of numbers to expect.

Beyond that, running tests still isn't going to provide a concrete answer like "RT/Syphon is better than Dragonstrike/Syphon is better than Syphon/Syphon is better than Syphon/RT" or anything like that -- we know that these combos are within a percent or two of each other. At that point, you first have to deal with the fact that gear differences are going to result in slightly different AEP values for the stats on these weapons. Then, the fact that shaman DPS is so prone to streaks of good or bad luck prevents us from actually confirming any theory that we come up with. Multiple sims or test runs of identical gear can come out 2-3% different, so we are unlikely to be able to say that gear which is only 1-2% theoretically different is truly superior. (Possible exception of RT being a dominant choice for Orcs due to the 1% racial.)

People have very strange theories concerning stats and gear for our class. I don't focus on any stat in particular. I determine the value of each stat for myself, using a simulator like Yo's, and then I equip the items that result in the highest total. I don't focus on attack power, or hit rating, or haste, or whatever. I just equip the best items.

It is not as though we have a vast array of items to choose from, each focusing on a specific stat. I'm not choosing between a +hit breastplate, a +crit breastplate, a +attack power breastplate or a +haste rating breastplate. We get like 2-3 options for each slot, and they all have some of most or all of those stats.

[Midnight Chestguard] isn't my breastplate of choice because it has more of my "chosen" stat than [Mail of Fevered Pursuit] or [Skyshatter Tunic]. It's my breastplate of choice because it's just designed better. It has 3 sockets, it makes good use of the item budget by having a bit of each stat instead of stacking one, and it doesn't waste its budget on stats like Mp5. I'm not going to loot it because it's a +hit upgrade, I'm going to loot it because it's just plain better than the other options.

You guys need to stop focusing on individual stats. Use Yo's simulator, determine your own AEP values, and loot upgrades. It's really simple. All of the stats are so close in value for me now that ilvl is the largest factor in determining what is an upgrade. Not which item has more +hit rating or whatever.

Here, here.

The answer to the question "How much X should I stack" is simple: Don't stack anything. Weigh each piece against each other according to some scale, be it the static AEP, customized AEP from Yo's simulator, or some personal system that includes stam/int/feral skill/whatever nonsense you think is important.

But don't just STACK stuff. There's no wall you're trying to break through as a shaman, no "zone" you're trying to enter. We aren't mages looking to hit cap or warriors trying to become uncrittable...gear like that as a shaman and you're bound to gimp yourself somewhere.

BTW: my guild now has three active raiding enhancement shaman. Exciting to be sure, but too many for one raid. I've volunteered to swap to an elemental spec on raid nights. Anybody got a link to an ELEMENTAL theorycraft thread?

@ Weapon Expertise

On the test realm, I've been doing a little project. A side result is this:

Disquette - WWS

I currently have the [Shoulderpads of the Stranger] and [Belt of One-Hundred Deaths] equipped, giving 35 expertise rating = 2.25% reduction in dodge/parry.

My melee dodge/parry rate (always facing the mob - I'm solo grinding) = 4% total.
My windfury dodge/parry rate (always facing the mob - I'm solo grinding) = 4.5% total.
My stormstrike dodge/parry rate (always facing the mob - I'm solo grinding) = 2.4% total.

Looks like expertise, as far as this small test has shown, is affecting yellow damage too. I'll have to look into it further. Also, I'm going to be doing more grinding soon to get a bigger data set.

If this is correct, I'm probably going to use a back-of-the-envelope expertise = 2x hit rating for my valuations.

By the way, I'm using the Twilight Serpents in Nagrand for my testing. So, all 180 kills or so are on level 69 or 70 mobs. The test is admittedly *slightly* affected by the fact that I have 349 instead of 350 dagger rating, but I'm hoping that doesn't make it too tainted to use.

So if we do this test with an ER of 0, we should have

melee dodge/parry rate = ~6.25%
wf dodge/parry rate = ~ 6.75%
SS dodge /parry rate =~4.65%

Is this the right way of calculating this?

Do we know how high the dodge chance for raid encounters is?