I'm multiple points off the hit cap at this point. My DPS has increased by about 500 since I stopped worrying about it.

Yes, the rotation occasionally is annoying. Yes, you'll miss a couple opportunities for a quick FB->CP->SR type of thing if you miss that first FB, and you'll just have to do SR. But having more armor pen and having better gear (like 2pT7/2pT8 or 4pT8) is worth the loss, at least for me.

I think we can break the hit/expertise question down into 4 different categories:

1. The "warm and fuzzy" issue. The tranquility and peace of mind that comes with knowing that every attack will hit and that you'll never feel the pain of missing (or being dodged).

2. The "must hit now" issue. For the situations where you absolutely must count on your next blow landing. This generally happens more with tanks than with dps, but if you are responsible for interrupts (for example), that would fall into this category.

3. The "average damage scaling" issue. How much do missed attacks affect your dps in general when averaged over a sufficiently long period of time?

4. The "second-order effects" issue. Does (for example) a missed attack screw up your standard dps sequence and cause situations where you (by not noticing the miss) let SR or Mangle or Rip or Rake fall off for an extended period of time?

My take is that #1 may have some value, but the value is not quantifiable. Generally speaking, if you are having a discussion about dps, arguments that fall into category #1 are irrelevant.

#2 is not about dps. It is about utility. Personally, I think Maim is a lousy option for interrupts. It requires combo points, requires a significant amount of energy, and severely screws up a standard dps cycle. So I don't count it as a valid concern when talking about whether or not to hit cap.

This leaves #3 and #4.

#3 is both answerable and answered. Hit/expertise are valuable. All the way up to the cap (there is no magic cliff at 1% or 2%). It's just that they are *less* valuable (point for point) than agility. How much less will depend a bit on how much of everything you have, and any sort of accurate answer to that will require a fairly complicated calculation or simulation that takes into account your current gear.

#4 is the grey area, because it differs from person to person. How good are you at both staying out of the fire and simultaneously adjusting your dps cycle to accommodate misses? Personally, I'm pretty good at it once I've done a fight successfully a number of times and my situational awareness is fully ramped up. But before I get to that point, I believe that misses hurt me more than the models say they should. For this reason, I choose to knowingly overvalue hit and expertise (and maintain them at the cap). I certainly wouldn't advocate that others do the same because they may not be as retarded as I am when learning new fights.

When I posted I was only considering this question, so thanks for helping isolate it.

I agree this optimization question is answerable, but I haven't seen it answered clearly. What I'm looking for is a diagram or equation that allows you to see the trade-offs in the variable space with respect to DPS. I'd expect an additional trade-off in reliability when undercapped.

I recently picked up an Idol of the Corruptor, and given that it has a pretty high chance to proc (85%, according to wowhead, but this has not been confirmed) I was wondering if anyone had done some work modeling it in a DPS set.

My inclination would be that it's BiS for kitties who don't have a mangle/trauma bot. 153 agility that is essentially static is a significant buff, and with no internal cool down on the trinket, you can keep it up most, if not all of the time.

Thoughts?

Been reading EJ for quite a while now, was just wondering one thing about gear.
If you'd check my armory you'll see im using [Winter's Icy Embrace], what I was wondering is it worth dropping this item for the t8.5 chest. Cause that way i will lose over 80 arp, which should downgrade my dps? Also if i would do it, my unbuffed arp would be 199, then i should regem to agility again?
Or i could get the 4set bonus by gettin the gloves and shoulders, and leave the chest.

Thanks in advance

Winter's Icy Embrace is better than T8.5 chest. If you are able to get 4T8 / 2T7 + 2T8 without the T8.5 chest, use Winter's Icy Embrace. Otherwise, use the chest to get the setbonus.

Is the 4set bonus worth dropping 80 arp? Is it that big of an upgrade?

This isn't an easy thing to search for, so excuse me if it's been explained by anyone.

I may be crazy, but I'm consistently seeing an extra 3% damage on all of my Rip crits these days. Is Sanc Ret doubling up? Or perhaps not applying to non-crits? As far as I know, Rip crits should only be modified by the base Crit Multiplier, and then an additional 10% from catform. (XXX * 2 * 1.10) 3% is too low for 'Oops, I was using the Rip Idol', and the fact that it's only present on Crits is the reason I bring it up.

Some of the numbers:

2117->4796 (Should be 4657)
2619->5937 (Should be 5764)

I'm sure I'm going to feel dumb when it's answered, or if it results in a nerf as the result of a bug-fix.

You are wearing the meta gem, which increases crit-dmg by 3%.

2117 * 2 * 1,03 * 1,1 = 4797,12 (which is very close to your 4796)
2619 * 2 * 1,03 * 1,1 = 5934,65 (which is very close to your 5937)

Bah, I knew it was something dumb, disregard. Didn't WoWHead have a filter that allowed you to search the spell effects? That would've saved me some posting time.

It's kinda strange, rawr keeps saying gem'ing agility is better. But everything i read here is, after u get 200arp unbuffed its worth gem'ing arp. So should i just ignore rawr and keep geming for agility?