Thanks Kavan, that explains it; it also explains why slight variations in gear make this bug disappear.

Perhaps averaging the stat value over a wider interval (based on relative DPS change as a result of, for example, +20 spirit) for capless stats and stats far from cap is a more robust approach. Regardless, now that this bug is known and documented (even if only on EJ forums), and is verified to only affect "Relative Stat Values", it is not nearly that annoying.

Quite simply, this is because you probably don't have any upgrades that can provide you with such a small amount of hit.

I have this as well - I'm 2 hit rating under the cap right now, but to gain those two hit, I would lose 10 spellpower. Rawr calculates (correctly) that 10 spellpower gives me more DPS than 2 hit does.

If you run the optimizer and set an additional setting requiring that your hitcapped, it will adjust accordingly, and gove you a set that is capped.

But in this case that would be a DPS loss?

That was what confused me. I always thought the rule was quite clear, that hit cap is ALWAYS more important.

I have no problems with ignoring the small gap I have to the hit cap, as long as Rawr is correct in advising me to.

I was just saying that if absolutely felt the need to have it hit cap you, you could

I've suggested this to the devs before, but their general recommendation was to look at the Item Budget chart instead (since the delta there is 10 item points, instead of 1 stat point). That said, I still think the chart names are misleading: an uninformed user will likely look at the "stat value" chart thinking it represents macro-level stat scaling, even though it does not. For that purpose, maybe we could use a new chart with stat deltas of ~30-50 :-)

Rather than computing the difference of dps(stat+1)-dps(stat) it should be better to use the partial derivative of the dps function which should have a smaller mesh size.

Well, if one can compute the symbolic function itself, one has all the necessary information right there, but ultimately, the disclaimer Rawr has not to use relative stat values in and of themselves is valid: why bother with these broad generalizations when Rawr itself can compute total damage done (and DPS) swiftly and accurately for any gear combination (and find the ideal gear combination out of a finite set of gear choices, to boot)?

When most stats were linear with caps it made sense to write out stat equivalence formulas. Nowadays, however, GCD caps complicate haste, Hot Streak complicates crit, and spellpower has never been all that well-behaved (an explicit formula for the %DPS gain from spellpower for rotations with more than one spell aren't pretty). The amount of useful information to be had in formulas has diminished significantly, and I think trying to express the values of stats through approximation is simply inappropriate given that we have the power to compute them exactly.

No, it's not that cut and dry, such guidelines are always rules of thumb. When you read something like "always reach hit cap before anything else" what it is saying is that if you are choosing between an amount of hit and an amount of some other stat that are in the same ballpark, the hit is better as long as you're below hit cap. It should be pretty obvious that there inherently must be some tradeoff ratio at which gaining the other stat is better than gaining hit.

For me, for example, that ratio between spellpower and hit is about 3:2, so that 3 SP is worth about them same to me as 2 hit rating. The thing is that gemming can always allow me to make a tradeoff favorable to hit (since there the ratio is 19:16) up to a granularity of 8 hit rating, so going for hit will always win out via gemming. once you're less than 8 hit rating from cap, however, those favorable gemming ratios become less favorable, tipping the balance of the tradeoff. If you have to give up 10 SP to gain 2 hit that a ratio of 5:1, *far* worse than than 3:2 tipping point for me. Thus, that situation favors sticking with the spellpower and remaining 2 hit under cap.

What is the best way to set up Rawr to mirror the Hard Mode Vezax fight? Specifically the multipliers and the mana restrictions.

It doesn't know it's allowed to use the 32sp JC gem. Go to Edit Gem Configurations, and turn on the JC gem sets.