Just to add to the list of wonkiness around AGI enchants, the agi+stam Twilight Leg Armor seems to be better than the AP+crit Scorched Leg Armor, and has a hefty chunk of stam which I'm appreciating for early raiding (still unable to find upgrade to 2pc T10 heroic pieces, so low on stam). Unfortunately the epic version of the leg armor only increases agi by 10 (but increases stam by much more), so the epic AP+crit one is better.

Right, well the epic versions are what we should be looking at. 55 agi/145 stam vs. 190 AP/55 crit. Agi scaling is 5%*5%*15%%*2%~=130%. That puts this enchant at about 143 AP and .22% crit which is less AP and crit than the alternative. Depends on if the stam is worth it or not.

Also, just for the record, I am tending to side with Serpent Sting as the glyph of choice over Arcane Shot now. The two are almost a wash theoretically, and in practice I think the value of AS is only going to go down vs. SS as focus usage becomes less efficient. Serpent Sting also wins out in aoe but honestly it's rather insignificant since most of our serpent spread damage comes from the multi-shot and imp SS portions of that damage.

That's even more a reason to go for SrS over Arcane Shot glyph if you ask me, unless I missed the note that ISrS is not affected by the glyph.

Merry Xmas btw.

Hi, I didn't understand a thing:

1% crit is 1% more damage (assuming a 100% bonus damage per crit)
1 point of mastery is 1% more damage to elemental damage only. So why should we ever prefer mastery over crit?

So if a non elemental attack crits .. mastery improved it by how much? 0%.

I don't really see your point at all.

Once again, above posts show you his point exactly in mathematics;

But the percentage of our attacks that are elemental grossly outweigh the number that aren't.
You're correct in saying that mastery doesn't increase non elemental attack crit, but at high crit levels the damaged gained from mastery influenced elemental attack crits provide more overall damage gain then the 1% damage increase to all attacks, because a critical elemental attack would be a 2% damage gain from a point of mastery - which happens frequently enough to contribute more than a flat 1% crit damage gain.

Not sure if that made sense to you this time either -
but i'd suggest being more humble this time around if it doesnt still.

Several of you better change your tone before my Christmas gift to each turns out to be a 3-day ban from posting.

Firstly, 85% elemental seems a bit high. Are you including your pet damage? Your pet's crit percentage is equal to your own and it's damage should be counted as physical. This typically brings you to about a 70% elemental/30% physical ratio.

Now, if you will study the math provided earlier at a 70/30 split, crit will have to be:

30/70 = .4285 = 42.85% Higher than mastery before mastery is more valuable than crit.

Since the base mastery is 8%, this means that your crit percentage will need to be at least 50.85%, though most likely a bit higher than that, before mastery is better than crit.

The theory that was presented was to determine: A) that there is a point at which mastery becomes better than crit and B) how to determine (roughly, since we did not analyze abilities that proc on crit) where that point is. We did not intend to make you believe that mastery was better than crit for you right now or even soon. The theory and math is needed, however, for us to understand how our stats effect our dps and how to gear as we progress through content.

I highly doubt you have anywhere close to 50% crit right now, so I would be very surprised if you told me that you had run a simulation with your current gear in which mastery was better than crit. I hope this application of the math presented earlier helps to clear things up for you. If this is still to incredible to believe, then I would suggest to you to continue to stack crit and you will be just fine...since that's what you would be doing for quite some time even if you understood this concept.

Ok I rewrote the formula with variables instead of fixed values:

c = crit chance
m = mastery percentage
T = m + c
assuming 20% is normal damage and 80% is elemental

total damage = normal damage(1+crit) + elemental damage(1+mastery)(1+crit) =
0.2(1+c) + 0.8(1+m)(1+c) = 0.2(1+c) + 0.8(1+T-c)(1+c)

the derivative of that respect to c is d/dc=0.2+0.8T-1.6c=0 for c=T/2+1/8 -> m=T-c=T/2-1/8

So:
c = T/2+1/8 = T/2+0.125 = T/2+12.5%
m = T/2-1/8 = T/2-0.125 = T/2-12.5%

That means that regardless of total, crit must be 25% percent higher then mastery.

Including glyph of explosive shot doesn't change much. The formula above becomes, supposing that explosive shot is half the elemental damage:
total damage = 0.2(1+c) + 0.4(1+m)(1+c) + 0.4(1+m)(1+c+0.06)
Doing the same calculations as above it comes that crit must be 24.27% higher than mastery.

I think the discussion we really need to be happening is more around Haste vs Mastery, the Crit/Mastery math seems solid enough, and right now its been a bit of a no brainer in the currently available gear levels. Haste/Mastery seems to have more on the table worth discussing and considering!

I don't think the approach we want is to develop math on haste vs mastery. I think that comparing haste to mastery or crit is probably going to lead you in circles mainly because haste is more closely related to hit -- it's far more important to have haste until you reach the cap.

So, instead of haste vs whatever arguments, I'd like to see haste cap calculations. The only reachable softcap, excluding rapid fire buffs or blood lust type effects, that I have seen presented is whatever haste it takes to hit a cast time of 1.66 on your cobra shot allowing for three cobras inbetween each explosive.

The next logical softcap would allow for 3 cobras and 1 arcane (or black arrow) per explosive shot but is only viable if the focus regen and cobras combined can actually support the arcane and explosive shot per rotation.

As it was mentioned earlier, there may be points in haste where it is worth stacking haste even if you don't reach the softcap goal so long as the extra attacks that you put out do enough damage to compensate for time that you will inevitably waste in your rotation.