Thanks. I'm in the process of double-checking all the sets so hopefully shit like that will get ironed out. I probably just typed something wrong rather than there being an error in the optimizer.

norg, is the relentless earthsiege gem you listed as best meta a typo? Or was there math on it somewhere that i missed placing it over the chaotic skyflare?

It's not a typo.

The reason relentless is superior to chaotic is because of the requirements, not because agility is better than crit rating (which obviously is not the case). Being able to take a yellow over a blue (relentless takes a blue and a yellow, chaotic takes two blues) is what tips things into relentless' favor. Back when JC gems were prismatic, this wasn't the case since you could basically ignore the reqs, but now, yeah, relentless is indeed superior (although the difference is very, very small).

It's also important to note on the Relentless that one prismatic gem will fill both the blue and yellow gem requirements. Throw a Nightmare's Tear somewhere to get a Strength socket bonus, activate your meta, and allow you to put another full Strength gem somewhere instead of a hybrid gem and it's easier to see why it wins out.

It seems to me that crit would have a different intrinsic weight depending on the presence of the 4pc T9 bonus, and therefore we would need two weight scales, one with 4 pc T9 and one without. Without the crit chance on diseases, I would think crit rating would lose value relative to other stats. I don't see how this can be calculated with a single EP value for crit and a single value for T9 bonus, since that value should scale according to one's crit rating. Getting an average from simulator iterations would only seem to muddy the waters, wouldn't it?

If someone can explain how the simulator weights can encapsulate the relationship between crit and 4pc T9 in a single weight scale, I'll be all ears..

In your update of Frost DPS (DW) the new relentless glad axes and maces are actually better than the ToC weapons.

While that may be true, BiS is BiS.

[s]Well, they should be listed as BiS - But the hellscream slicers should also be up there. Simply because raiding is PvE and they are high end PvP items. I havn't checked the stats on them nor do I PvP - But are the stats different enough to make the BiS table change?

Maybe an extra grid underneath saying "True BiS" or something along those lines including the weapons (Assuming the table wont change drastically.).

Anyway - Have the stat weights been posted (Preferably the ones used in the OP tables.)? They haven't been updated from 3.1 weights. In particular the Frost ones - As they have been removed from a previous post and needed to be redone.[/s]

Edit: Knew I shouldn't has assumed they are better, because they are not. Unless resilience gives you some sort of DPS increase. Which it doesn't.

Relentless weps are 196.5 DPS, ToC 25 normal weps are 196.5 DPS, ToC 25 heroic weps are 216 DPS. Am I missing something here?

[Relentless Gladiator's Handaxe]
hellscream-slicer (Hardmode) - Hellscream Slicer - Items - Sigrie

DPS is the same, but no they are not Better than Hellscreams for PvE at all. Pigvomit is just a little slow. I should I checked the stats before I posted about it. And not assume someone who posts this is better than that had known what they are talking about.

But the DPS on both weapons is in fact the same. But so is the speed. Hellscream's stats easily outweigh those of relentless.

While on the topic of what is a better weapon than those in the OP...

Are we not considering the Remorseless - Items - Sigrie for FrostDW?

Assuming we are, I imagine the presently linked items are being chosen base on the value of the sHit rating in Frost Stat Weightings. Basically I am asking if this has somehow been mathematically weighted higher than the increase in DPS (196.5 vs 216.5) and higher top end strike damage (665 vs 732). Is this a case of personal preference for finding a balance between Special Cap vs sHit cap, or was it overlooked in the gearing choices?

That makes sense, on my work desktop both the links show the non-heroic versions. However on my co-workers computer the links work properly. I assume it has something to do with that computers caching. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm not sure that I added in Remorseless when I ran the Frost sim first time around, and definitely not the PvP weapons.

Today I'm going to re-do Blood and Unholy as I re-ran them last night and there are a couple of mistakes. Then I'll re-run Frost (with the new items) and do the same.

I got rid of the stat tables I had on the Tier 8 section, but I'm eventually just going to replace them with screen grabs of each set so everyone can see its stats and Optimizer Score.

Are there other options for BiS-Items for Frost-DW?
In the "no restriction"-list there are 338 hitrating.
For DW you only need 5% hit ~ 164 hitrating.

Source: DW Builds 3.2 -Revenge of the Offhand

V. HIT RATING

This is a common question for new Deathknights venturing into DW. Here are the basics:

Special attacks require 8% hit to ensure no misses against level 83 opponents. The talent nerves of cold steel effects this chance, reducing the requirement via gear to 5%. This means, contrary to what some might think DW builds actually require less hit to cap their special attacks than our two handed brothers. Special attacks include: Blood Strike, Plague Strike, Frost strike, Obliterate. (and others that we don't care about as DW)

For DW Frost, according to the Optimizer hit rating still has a stat weight of 2.52 from the melee special cap up to the spell cap. This makes it the third best stat after expertise and strength. So that is why you'll find the Optimizer still giving preference to items with hit rating on post-8%.

@Marvis

You are correct as far as capping specials that we only need 5% for melee specials. However, there are -very- strong bonuses to capping to the sHit. If you are running a GoD rotation, ensuring your ITs and Pestilence hit -every time-ensures you don't mess up your runic pairing or a refresh on your disease.

With my gearing changes required with the change from 2H unholy to DW Frost, I lost a lot of hit rating due to 'down grades' for an item or two to pickup the ArP. For a brief period i was running a GoD Frost DW spec with 5.8% hit rating. All my specials were capping, but the misses on KMRimes or ITs caused a considerable amount of DPS loss. Once I realized that my Pestilence was also missing from time to time (leaving me watching my diseases applied with UA/DMC:G/Banner drop). This forced me to not only have to reapply my diseases more often, but lose the "ideal disease setup".

Long and the short of it....if your running GoD spec, then it is STRONGLY recommended to maximize your hit. If not, then it will really come down to personal preference. Just keep in mind, that unlike other classes/specs where the stacked sHit is effectively 'wasted' as frost DW its still our third best stat.

I believe this decision is impacted in part by [Bloodbath Girdle]. If you've got the expertise coming from there, you don't need the expertise from the T9 hat, so you'd get the T9 Chest and [Faceplate of Thunderous Rampage]. If you upgrade to [Girdle of the Impaler], you lose the expertise off the belt, and so you have to re-adjust to the T9 Helm for the expertise, and you can drop the T9 Chest for [Titanium Razorplate]. [Greaves of the 7th Legion] also impacts these decisions, since it's your other major source of expertise.

BiS doesn't take into account you being [expertise/hit] capped across the board, simply what the best entire set if you were to have the entire set would be. In this case, the BiS gets you to 24 expertise, which means as an Orc with [Dual-blade Butcher], you're expertise capped from the racial, but as a Human, you're not, and may want to account for this.

Given the high cost of crafting [Titanium Razorplate] at the moment since you can't buy [Crusader Orb] yet, it's arguable that skipping the crafted item altogether might be a better decision, depending on your other gear as you upgrade.

Why do you pick up another Cloak for Horde Blood than Alliance Blood?
I think the 103 Strength +57 hit are still better than 114AP+57 Arp, especially Horde-Blood only has 185hit

Furthermore the combination of Alliance-Blood only yields 146 exp. rating. and Horde-Blood 185 exp. rating

For all sets, I never amend the items in the selection between Horde and Alliance. I simply select a list of items for the Optimizer to choose between, run it for Alliance with the Draenei racial enabled, then re-run it for Horde with the same items.

Therefore if the Optimizer selects different items on an Alliance set to its equivalent Horde set, there are two possible reasons: either the Optimizer is correct and your suspicions are not; or there is a fault with the Optimizer, in which case you need to talk about it in Zerack's dedicated thread.

Have you tested your theories out in the Optimizer and come up with a better score than the set in the OP?

As Horde, if you value being hit capped and exp soft capped over having the highest gear score, replace Sylvanas' Cunning with Garrosh's Rage and Ring of the Violent Temperament with Plainstalker Band. Your hit will be a bit over the cap, but this is probably the best solution, and probably ideal anyway when using Glyph of Disease (which is based on spell hit).

I'm not familiar with what the hit cap is for alliance, but swapping Violent Temperament with Plainstalker will get you to 218 rating at least. I imagine that's pretty close, or enough so that you might just consider putting a hit gem somewhere and pick up a socket bonus as consolation. Put it in your legs or boots for a +6 str bonus, assuming you put your Nightmare Tear in the yellow slot on your helm for the +8 str already.

I should probably point out that, unless there's something drastically wrong with the Optimizer, the Horde Blood set has 267 hit rating which is past the Horde cap for melee specials. I'm not sure where Marvis got 185 from but someone's made a mistake somewhere.

Source:
Horde Blood - No Restrictions


Neck - 49 hit
Pauldrons - 68 hit
Gloves - 68 hit
-------------
There are 185 hit or am i missing something?