Originally Posted by Veritas17

so a lot of that info on the first page needs updated.

Originally Posted by Veritas17

Yeah apparently you can't read either, I already said that getting into heroics was problematic at best on my server.

And there are a lot of new things that JUST came out in ZA and rep rewards that I haven't been able to keep track of so a lot of that info on the first page needs updated.

I guess I should of stated that.

Plus, I was curious about having expertise since that also wasn't on the first page from when I had been reading up on it.

Thanks tho?

Originally Posted by Veritas17

Yeah apparently you can't read either, I already said that getting into heroics was problematic at best on my server.

And there are a lot of new things that JUST came out in ZA and rep rewards that I haven't been able to keep track of so a lot of that info on the first page needs updated.

I guess I should of stated that.

Plus, I was curious about having expertise since that also wasn't on the first page from when I had been reading up on it.

Thanks tho?

Originally Posted by Malan

In short:
OH = [Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver] > [Fury] > [Fool's Bane] > [The Decapitator] > [Runic Hammer] > epic dagger or anything else faster than 2.4

Originally Posted by Malan

VIII.12 Itemization - Weapon Expertise
Patch 2.3 will change all weapon skill rating into weapon expertise rating, which converts into Expertise skill at a rate of 3.95 expertise rating:1 Expertise, and reduces the chance for your target to dodge and parry by 0.25% per point of Expertise. [Shoulderpads of the Stranger], which used to provide 10 dagger skill rating, will now provide 10 expertise rating (all weapons).

The parry reduction element of Expertise will have only marginal use in raid settings: mobs cannot parry attacks made from behind. Many bosses randomly turn to cast attacks and can parry while turning, but this possibility is too random to value significantly. Unlike parry, mobs can dodge attacks from behind and Expertise is currently the only way to reduce the number of dodges. The dodge reduction element of Expertise will vary from encounter to encounter: it will be useless against bosses that are constantly casting (e.g. Shade of Aran, High Astromancer Solarian, Reliquary of Souls) because mobs cannot dodge while casting, but useful against mobs that do not cast or only cast instant spells. Expertise has been shown to affect yellow damage as well as white damage, so under the second circumstance it is actually more useful than hit rating for enhancement shamans.

We still don't know how Expertise's dodge and parry reduction affect the one-roll white attack table. For now, the community is assuming that it converts dodges and parries into hits that do not have a chance to crit. On the other hand, we are now confident that Expertise will allow yellow attacks to crit, since they are resolved through a two-roll system. Thus, we will estimate expertise rating to be similar to the weight of hit rating, with some exceptions.

First, expertise rating is only useful in chunks, because there is no concept of having 2.5 Expertise - the Skill values are all rounded down to whole integers. To get around this, you first need to sum up the expertise rating across all your items, divide by 3.95, take the floor, and multiply by 3.95 again. This gives you a "white hit rating" equivalency. Note that this makes expertise rating EP discontinuous. One expertise rating may be worth 0 EP because it is not enough to give you an extra skill point -- e.g. you go from 14 expertise rating to 15 expertise rating -- while a jump of two expertise rating at the same point may have a surprisingly high EP -- e.g. you go from 14 expertise rating to 16 and thus 0.75% dodge reduction to 1.00% dodge reduction.

Next, we must account for the fact that Expertise, unlike hit rating, also effects the yellow damage from special attacks in addition to the white damage from auto-attacks. To correct for this, you need to multiply by the ratio of melee damage to white damage, or (Yellow % of damage + White % of damage)/(White % of damage). Also, because white crit rate as a percentage of landed swings decreases as hit rate goes up, but with the two-roll system, yellow crit rate stays constant, we must adjust for that. Finally, we must multiply by the EP of 1 hit rating, to convert our "hit rating" equivalency into EP.

Our final expertise calculation is:
<br /> \text {EP} = \lfloor \frac {\sum {\text Expertise}}{3.95} \rfloor \times 3.95 \times \frac {\text {Yellow%} \times (1 + \text{Crit%}) + \text{White%}}{\text {White%}} \times \text {Hit EP} <br />

Example Calculation:
Assume that we are examining a new piece of gear that will bring our total Expertise Rating to 17, Hit EP is 1.4, Crit% is 30%, White% of DPS is 50%, Yellow% of DPS is 40% and the remaining 10% is shocks and searing totem.

Expertise EP = \lfloor \frac {17}{3.95} \rfloor \times 3.95 \times \frac {40 \times 1.30 + 50}{50} \times 1.4
Expertise EP = 45.12
Note that this value is not the EP stat weight of Expertise Rating, it is the total sum worth of the Expertise Rating on all your gear.

Originally Posted by ugbutz

Hey guys. I've been following this thread since the beginning, really great help for the understanding of shamans class mechanics.
We were extremly unlucky with t5/t6 tokens for a long time so i'm still wearing my t4 helmet.
Since we downed illidan 1 month ago im hoping to get my hands on Cursed Vision of Sargeras and so passing for the t6 tokens. Today Zul'jin dropped Grimgrin Faceguard, nobody else wanted to take it so i picked it up.
Now my question: On the first sight it's a huge upgrade over t4, but is it worth it to loose the 3% crit bonus from Relentless Earthstorm Diamond? In a raid environment with around 40-50% crit rate it's quite a dps boost.