I was alittle shocked at some of the AEP values I got, in my current gear with 1700 AP/31.77 crit/19.02 hit (inc talents - with kings) I got:

1 - AP
2.23 - Crit (????)
2.05 - Hit
2.08 - Haste
0.32 - Armor Ignore
2.17 - Agi
2.2 - Str

Which kinda screws up my loot list as everything becomes crit gems lol :P which kinda goes against the current itemisation plans!

Mox how long and how many times did you run the sim for? Yo recommends 1000 hours on the sim for AEP, but when I've done it for testing stuff I set it to 10,000 hours and leave it running for 5-10 minutes. Might give you better results that way, and always always run it more than once to make sure you get the same values consistently.

Also the idea behind the AEP values is how you should value your *next* item, not your current stuff. So don't look at this as "oh crit is worth more for me, I should redo to crit gems" because that's going to change your AEP valuation. The value you use is how you should judge incoming gear based on the gear you currently have.

I set it for 15,000 hours and 10,000 hours and got near identical values (afew 0.01 differences here and there).

Yeah I understand the theory that its to enable better selection of future upgrades, but under current thinking are we actually saying that at a certain point in gear progression +hit becomes a sort after stat contrary to most thoughts?

Basically, at low levels of DPS, Hit and Haste are worth much less than STR and Crit. As players stack STR and Crit, Hit and Haste become more valuable, so at high levels of DPS they are worth as much or more than STR and Crit. We can chalk this up to a few factors:

1) Increasing crit has diminishing returns on increasing Flurry uptime
2) Additional AP becomes less as a percentage of total AP
3) Increasing AP makes extra white hits (created by hit rating) more valuable
4) Increasing AP and crit make extra white attacks (created by haste rating) more valuable

Obviously, if most shamans increased hit and haste initially (before AP and crit) we'd have a different list of factors (increasing hit makes additional AP more valuable, increasing haste makes additional AP and crit more valuable) and we would see more people obtaining sub-1.5 AEPs of Hit and Haste.

Give yourself an extra 46AP if your using a bloodlust brooch (20/120)*278

20 seconds of uptime every 120 seconds assuming you are using it every time the cooldown is up.

Yo,

Your sim has come a long way, and is proving a very valuable tool indeed. Thank you.

One thing that seems to be off for some reason, possibly after the first time it is switched on, is the AEP ratings when 30% AP --> spell damage is turned on. As you would expect, AP becomes worth more than it was previously, so the other values go down. What seems to be bugged is that suddenly crit and agi have scaled down to ~1.29 while hit rating is ~1.69. One would expect both numbers to come down proportionately, not reverse in this manner. If I recalculate again, the values seem to come back to what they should be. I'm using 10,000 hours as my runtime currently. As I'm trying to add a pawn string to show post 2.3 values for gear choices, I'd really love to make sure they're accurate.

Ok, im pretty naive when it comes to using theorycraft and so I figured I might put my ideas out for those with a better understanding to pick them to pieces.

I have two things that I've been wondering about with the coming of 2.3

1) Everyone seems to be discussing the pros/cons of slow WF/fast FT which is all great but im wondering why not slow WF/slow FT? With a fast OH with FT, theres losses in SS dmg as well as ur OH eating flurry procs which u might not be able to keep up as much anyway because you've sacrificied some crit for AP as it gives more spell dmg for your FT. Also, by using FT ur scaling better with haste effects so u would prolly have as many haste trinks/procs/pots as you can which again would result in more losses in flurry procs as ur OH takes them from ur MH, which now needs the haste as there is only 1 wf to worry about when it comes to the 3 sec cd.

2) Ive been thinking about the viability of an enhancement/elemental build. Something like 43/18 based upon getting convection, concussion, reverberation and elemental devastation. This appeals to me because of the increase dmg/cd reduction to shocks which will be pumping out more dps with the coming of 2.3 as it is but also because of elemental devastation which would more than make up for the loss in crit that will happen with me as I aim for more AP to increase spell dmg.

Ok, feel free to flame/praise or do watever with these thoughts, im just putting them out there for consideration and maybe ill get lucky and one of the theorycraft experts will give some attention to my ideas

Clarification to elanoria:
According to what people say, FT gets 10% of your spelldamage added (not modified by speed) + base FT damage (modified by speed).

Therefore, at some itemization point, fast weapons will do more damage from FT scaling than a slow weapon will get from FT base damage.

EDIT:
Added more clarification.

Wandering, if anyone compare buffed [Rod of the Sun King] vs [Netherbane] as OH, with Dragonstrike in MH?

Flametongue Weapon is not viable. Unless they change the spell in a major way in the next patch -- and so far there is no reason to assume they will -- it still won't be viable. I'm not sure if some of you understand just how bad FT is right now. It's really bad. I don't want it to be bad, but it is. Sorry!

Also, Enhancement/Restoration is superior to Enhancement/Elemental. There are many reasons for this -- most of which are completely obvious if you actually spent some time thinking about it -- and they've all been posted in this thread already. Shocks account for roughly 10% of my total dps in a raid. I want to drop 15 talent points into improving them why? Convection is a meaningless talent for our spec now, let alone after the patch when our shocks will basically cost 60% less mana. Elemental Devastation is a horrible talent. It's not even in the same realm of any of the Restoration talents. Do you guys put any thought into these questions before you ask them?

Stop ignoring the posts in this thread. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel. I know there are a bunch of people that are new to this class/spec and it's fun to explore the different options, but many of us went through this process months ago. I'm not saying you shouldn't have an open mind or try to think outside of the box, but don't be ignorant. Don't be stupid. Think about your questions before you ask them. If you use your brain you are capable of answering a lot of these questions all by yourself. Many months ago I looked at Elemental Devastation and said to myself "I wonder if that's any good..." I then spent about 30 seconds doing basic math based off of my spell crit % and came up with the following answer : "Nope."

Malan did not pull the original post of this thread directly out of his ass. These are things that we have discovered through a lot of theorycrafting and a lot of experience. It is absolutely retarded to have an endless stream of people coming here to question the most basic truths of our class for the umpteenth time. The answers to your questions have already been posted in this thread, and you're choosing to ignore them.

Stop being lazy.

+12 ap, +4 dps (roughly 56 ap) vs 1.1 crit (after BoK).
i.e. 68 ap vs 24 crit rate.
Match MH speed, so doesn't consume flurry procs.

Rod is better.