Is it possible to get a breakdown on Holy Prism's value? It obviously requires more globals, but at least some information would be helpful. I was using it on Wind Lord, but I have no numbers to help me decide whether that is a wise decision or not. Comparing it to LH for AoE would be particularly helpful, but it'd also be nice to know how it ranks vs single target to see if the AoE benefit can outweigh the single target losses.

Well, I don't know how it is in this tier, but the main reason we used 4p T11 back on Cataclysm was to keep the Ancient Power buff longer, not increase the damage of the Guardian itself. So it was worth it regardless of the snapshot/non-snapshot thing. I think it's dynamic anyway.

GoAK mechanics are still relatively untested. We know broad strokes, but I've never had anyone step forward when I've asked if someone has done long-term testing to nail down mechanics.

During Cata GoAK did not benefit from AW, scale from your gear at that time, or inherit any buffs. I recall that broad level of testing (nude vs geared and normal vs AW). Additionally, Hero before or after popping GoAK would not increase the attack rate of the Guardian. It rather did its own thing - the scaling was all on you since 1% Str per stack improves with your gear.

Haste
Looking at my logs from last night, my Guardian does appear to scale with Haste. Normally my Guardian attacks every 1.7 to 1.8 seconds. On Gara'jal I popped CDs after doing a totem->LoH trick to rapidly self-buff and my Guardian then attacked every 1.5 to 1.6 seconds, dropping back to 1.8 for the last 2 attacks when I lost my buff. Matching Guardian with Hero (Hero popped slightly after GoAK) dropped to 1.2 to 1.3 second attackspeed after a few normal speed attacks. This appears to be dynamic Haste updating.

Crit
The frequency of crit may have increased during Gara'jal, but tiny sample size prevents a definitive answer.

Damage
I see one of my lowest Guardian hits of the evening under Gara'jal + AW. Since we gain stacks of +% Str during his activation, the fact his damage range is fairly predictable inclines towards him gaining nothing from our Str, AP, or SP. Otherwise his damage should increase during activity as our Str increases.

Note that Ancient Fury (Guardian death-'splosion) is recorded as your damage, not the pet's. Thus this should be modified by AW. Timing GoAK to end a hair before AW seems most advantageous - bonus 20% to Ancient Fury compared to very slim chance you have one more ability used in the window between GoAK expiring and AW ending.

Tentative conclusion: Guardian scales dynamically with Haste. Hero before/after using is good. AW may not matter to him, but GoAK increasing your Str during AW matters to you. Aim for GoAK, pause, AW (where pause is less than a second with SW talent, to slightly less than 11 seconds without).

GoAK definitely scales with strength, if you don't click off his buff you can watch his dmg go up. Additionally, if I summon him with just Starshatter vs full gear he does 8k a swing vs 28k.

Does not scale with AW though.

Even though summoning him with just Starshatter truly makes him hit a lot less (not 8k, though, summoned him with only starshatter and 2 rings, and it resulted in GotAK hitting for 10k), Clicking his buff off doesn't really matter at all, his damage per melee swing was increasing over time, but when I removed his buff 10 secs later, he kept dealing the same damage per swing

This could mean that there's some other stat that increases GotAK's damage, even though I don't really know which would it be

Made some mistakes while testing, posted the actual results 3 posts after this

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you have 9k haste and only a 476 weapon.

@Tyrionth

I can't reproduce the behavior you are talking about. If I click off the GoAK stacks his damage definetely drops back down. Maybe you had a trinket proc strength just after you clicked off the stacks?

I noticed the same in latest simcraft but I'm sitting on roughly 10k haste and a normal starshatter. Maybe a heroic starshatter or the 2pc ret bonus will change this again.



Changing gems to 160 Str gems (red or prismatic sockets), 160 haste/80 str (yellow) or Str/Hit gems (blue) is roughly a 800 - 900 dps increase from a full haste setup.

Weird - maybe there is a haste <> str breakpoint at least when your weapon is not on par with your gear.

Proof that you should always run tests in your own gear.

I think it's the standard 'stats affect each other' scenario. My Heroic Gear stat weight tests were with entirely arbitrarily selected gear - probably not BiS, and with gear and weapon balanced (neither a jump ahead). End Tier gear could have 2 Haste > 1 Str, while gear en-route could be all over the place.

2 and 4 piece tier bonuses could also tie in heavily. I notice both Tourism and aylen86 (presently on Armoury) do not have 2 or 4 piece bonuses. Bonus TV damage will encourage faster HP generation, thus Haste is good. More AWs will encourage more abilities within an AW window, thus Haste is good.

Tyrionth - it's unlikely to be a set time after gaining/removing a buff. If it's tracking time since it affected you, why not do it instantly? Instead it's probably an internal timer. Every X second (5 most likely) the Guardian double-checks your stats and updates. In full gear his damage range is rather wide - it's not uncommon to see late (thus buffed with Ancient Power) attacks do less than early (unbuffed) attacks. Low-end no stack damage can easily be below high-end unstacked damage.

For comparison I have only 7kish haste and normal starshatter and it's basically equal gemming strength or haste. I don't have any tier bonuses yet.

I'm having strange results as well. With HA I'm showing 2 haste > 1 str, but with SW I'm showing 2 haste < 1 str. Could this be because of the scaling of HoW? Does this mean we should gem str instead of haste when specing into SW? Below are my simcraft results.

With HA: http://pastehtml.com/view/chul142e8.html

With SW: http://pastehtml.com/view/chulrq54w.html

Hi guys, got a question about trinkets in this tier. Is there any clear way of determining accurate DPS values for trinkets once in raid gear? Even relative differences would suffice, but I'm struggling at the moment with finding accurate modelling. Most resources i've seen seem to focus on trying to isolate the average stat contribution from each trinket and valuing them accordingly. It seems to me, however, that their value would be more significantly changed by your choice of HA / SW / DP, your other trinkets and the specific fight.

As an example, I'm currently running Relic of Xuen and Wok. If i understand Execution Sentence correctly, the on-use haste doesn't benefit it at all, so I try to wait for Relic to proc and ES with the Str buff up. By that measure, taking Lei-Shin's Final Orders and praying for a proc overlap (possibly delaying ES by a few seconds, no more) and trying to pre-empt the ICD of both when popping class CD's would seem optimal.
However, on the fights where i find HA to be preferable to SW (Elegon being a good example - need HA for spark waves in 10 man and everything stacks for initial pull and final burn phase) , it seems like bursts of haste during HA are incredibly beneficial due to the sheer number of TV (or DS) that can be pumped out as a result. This would lead me to think that a combination of Wok and Darkmist Vortex (once it comes out, obviously) would pull ahead significantly while using HA.

Am i overvaluing haste in CD phases? Is there a simpler way of comparing trinkets? At the moment, the number of variables is really screwing with me and i can't come up with effective comparisons. Any input here would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,

P.S. First post, hope i'm not being simple