On the question of 44/0/27 spec viability:

I tested that spec over a in Naxxramas and Ulduar (10 man) for a few weeks. Although the simulators show 44/0/27 as doing way less damage than 51/0/20 the difference in real DPS charts wasn't much. In some fights 44/0/27 won, in others it lost.

It seems like in general the ghoul spec makes up for a lot of "lost" DPS because in many mobile fights the ghoul sticks to target, doing its DPS while you end up spending precious seconds out-of-reach. However, there are a few fights where you are up against a no-win-choice of whether using your time in micromanaging the ghoul (to keep it alive) or just let it die, lose a bit of DPS and summon another.

In the end it seems to boil down to which kind of playstyle you can handle best and which boss you test it on. I specced back into 51/0/20 after meeting Mimiron the Pet-Eater. Micromanaging the pet just wasn't for me.

I believe Methods has being using a sim to generate his numbers. I'll keep an eye on this discussion, hopefully he can add some insight as to their generation. That being said for the time being I will stick with his numbers as I know there have been some other people who have independantly come to similar conclusions.

My biggest concern is that people are speaking in numbers that are all on the same scale, in the case of Methods numbers I refer to in the OP they are normalized to an AP value of 1.0 I don't know if Darkside was using that same scale in his post that people seem to be pulling these equations from, if he has any comment about the apparent discrepancy it would probably be more useful.

I am normalizing everything to attack power when I am calculating stat wieghts/equivalences. There's a short explanation of this in section IV of http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t59946-f...lease_read_op/.

Assume that we have 0 abilities that get crit from crit rating but not from Agi. Than the value of Agi is 0.808 that of crit rating. The best possible value for Agi is that + 1/18 or 0.0555. So taking that 1.56 value for crit we get an optimal value of Agi of 1.316. That is the absolute highest Agi could be. When we have values such as 1.56 crit and 1.37 agi at the same time there has to be an error somewhere. I think it's the inaccuracy of using a sim to find the APE of stats. Although that variation seems too high to me even then, so I'm wondering what else could cause discrepancies.

I can't speak for Methods, umm, methods, but playing devil's advocate did you include the 10% bonus Agi gets from Kings that Crit does not? So would it be (.808+1/18)*1.1 = 1.45, at a maximum? I only point this out b/c you didnt specifically mention Kings and when people don't they have usually left it out. I'm hoping we can get a response from Methods while this topic is hot. I'll float him a PM and maybe we can get some better insight.

The biggest issue with calculating APE values is almost certainly people overlook some piece of the big picture, I know I've done it personally, and found errors in others work on it too. My perception of the values that we are dealing with is that they assume a certain level of gearing already present, and certain raid buffs being applied. Keep in mind that it is almost always the case that the more you have of a stat the less valuable each additional point becomes, or for example the case with STR and ArP, where the more STR you stack, the higher the relative value of ArP.

This should tell us that the "landscape" of stat weighting is constantly shifting, and it would be erroneous to assume that any one "set" of weights would be universally accurate for every player. I think that the calculations people have done that don't agree with the numbers Methods came up with are assuming a blank slate, whereas APE values generated from a sim are functionally integrating at the very least some basic gearing assumptions. So you have to take the good with the bad in that sims give you results that may make you uncomfortable at first glance, but may be factoring in much more than we ever could in a simple calculation.

(NOTE: This is only a simple assessment on one fight more data would be needed to really prove what I am trying to say.)
I have a disagreement with this point. The glyph of disease does not replace an IT+PS with a DS it replaces an IT+PS with HSx2. The logic here is that if you skip an IT+PS you would yes DS but if you were to IT+PS you would STILL have to DS later and THEN you get to HSx2 with those death runes.

So using some numbers I pulled from a Vezax with a blood DK (not myself) I got these numbers:

HS 3000/7600 avg hit/crit 46% crit count 114 total: 591500 5190 avg overall
PS 1450/3560 avg hit/crit 70% crit count 20 total: 58500 2925 avg overall
IT 1380/3120 avg hit/crit 20% crit count 20 total: 34500 1725 avg overall
DC 2510/5270 avg hit/crit 39% crit count 59 total: 211600 3580 avg overall
DS 3760/9690 avg hit/crit 37% crit count 37 total: 222100 6000 avg overall

Taking these into account, if you replace a 2925 PS and a 1725 IT with 2 avg 5190 heart strikes you get a gain of 5730 dmg. Then you add in 2 15% chances of proccing a DC for avg of 3580 adding (537*2)1074 damage. This gain is totaled at 1077 damage (taking into account the loss of one HS 5190+537 from the 15% DC proc). There is of course the loss of a major glyph to consider and if you mess up and lose your diseases it can be bad. All that I am really saying is that it has potential. This is also not taking into account the effect on a rotation where IT+PS>DS>HSx2 is replaced by a DS>HSx2 and how it plays out overall.

I did factor in kings. I also highly doubt Agi is even 90% as effective as what is the optimal. The only mechanic I could think of that would make Agi better would be if somehow DRW/ghoul/blood worms gained benefit from Agi but not crit rating.

I know this is the reason STR is not constant. STR is unique in that as you get stats besides Strength it's value actually goes down. As you stack Strength it will remain constant.

Actually haste may increase increase the value of Strength.

Edit: (to Archimedea)
You are correct in that you gain blood runes. however one of those 2 gained goes to pestilence. So the true gain is 1HS vs IT + PS

I've never claimed to be 100% accurate so it is more than likely there are mistakes here and there. I've taken care to be as accurate as my time allows.

One mistake was this: I believe there was some rounding error (combined with bladed armor) with my previous AGI calculations. Currently, if I add 1 agi to a normalized simulation I'll get the expected 1.37 but if I add 50 Agi and divide the change by 50 (or add 100, 150, etc and divide them by themselves) I get an increase of 1.318 which seems to be a bit more accurate with the current assumptions. I believe this was caused by the addition of armor per so many points of AGI being rounded off (and obviously the larger the sample the smaller the error).

Base stats from gear:
AGI: 10
CRIT: 715
STR: 1524
ArP: 448
Exp:158
AP: 402
Haste: 79
Hit: 257

Obviously, base racial stats, all buffs possible/trinket/procs (greatness, Fallen Crusader), and of course talents are added on top. As time permits I'll continue to investigate.

I think you're incorrect about this. The (relative) value of strength decreases as you drop other stats to pick up more and more strength. Conversly, it's value goes up the more you accumulate of other stats.

For example, as your crit chance increases, the value of crit compared to AP (and therefore strength) decreases steadily towards zero. Now, it might look like the overall value of AP/Str is remaining constant, but that is only because we normalize all other values towards AP. In reality, the value of AP/Str is steadily increasing as you approach ArPen/Crit caps.

Hmm, that number is incredibly close to the optimal value of Agi. Is it taking into account the difference between spell crit and melee crit? IT and DC crits while not much do devalue Agi somewhat in relationship to crit.

To Darkside: I do realize that. What i was saying that as you stack other stats STR while gaining value does not gain value as quickly as AP does. Thus it loses APE rating. The exception would be haste which I think will increase STR faster than AP. I was more explaining how some unusual situations occur because of the system used not that you get less dps per strength as you get other stats. The point is that without bringing in the ghoul STR's APE value would remain constant since there would be no difference between STR and AP besides the multipliers. Thus I was wondering if there was another situation with AGI in that pets may benefit from it since it is a primary stat but not from crit.

Yes, I have separate values for spell and melee crit. The amount of Melee crit gained is exactly equal to 1.1(kings)*0.016(AGI-TO-CRIT conversion) so no issues there. I'm looking at the possible errors in DRW at the moment. If anyone wants to list the stats that do and do not effect DRW that would be helpful just so I can double check against my own assumptions (especially how DRW's white hits are effected).

Currently, my DRW is not acting as it should (though it is close).

Now how much of that is effected by Crit value? It's not going to be 100% (diseases for instance). Edit: Also, my numbers are based on the rather unrealistic single target only assumptions.