It seems like the new T10 libram will solve most of the problems with seal swapping in 3.3. If we can switch targets and switch seals without losing our 220 str (like our current 200 str with valiance), we can keep up our dps over target swapping fights.

This combined with the new T10 2pc bonus, as divine storm adds a lot of cleave damage, could offer a lot of dps increase in target switching and aoe fights.

I'm curious to see the dps with this new libram stacked with SoComm against a 4+ aoe fight.

Regarding rotation, in my current gear RAWR shows j>cs to be 1 dps lower than cs>j. I do have the 4 piece T9. I've tried to figure out why my values differ from conventional wisdom, but have come up blank. Has anyone else noted this?

SimulationCraft and Rawr agree in terms of what items constitute our BiS. The two programs disagree in terms of gems and enchants. Rawr states that the optimal cloak enchant is 22 AGI and the optimal yellow gem with a STR or AGI socket is an Inscribed Ametrine. In SimulationCraft for players below roughly 447 haste rating, the optimal cloak enchant is 23 haste and the optimal yellow gem with a STR or AGI socket bonus is a Fierce Ametrine.

I plotted the DPS results of tweaking my gear in SimulationCraft.

The first data point is my current armory. The second data point replaces +22 AGI to cloak with +23 haste rating. The third and subsequent data points replace Inscribed Ametrines with Fierce Ametrines one by one.

The priority order used was Judgement>Crusader Strike>Divine Storm>Consecration>Hammer of Wrath>Exorcism. We can see from the graph that the number of low priority ability uses decrease. Exorcism drops from 29.1 to 27.6, Consecration drops from 44.3 to 42.3, and Divine Storm drops from 44.8 to 42.7. The number of Crusader Strikes sky rockets from from 96.9 to 109.7. Even though it's the top priority ability, Judgement drops from 59.3 to 57.2 uses. I neglected to graph it, but the number of Hammer of Wraths stays nearly constant.

My question is does the local haste maxima observed around 447 haste rating (45.51% melee haste, 22.89% spell haste raid buffed) make sense? The DPS increase between 437 and 447 haste rating in SimulationCraft is quite significant - 83 in my current gear set. My initial guess is that 22.89% spell haste sufficiently decreases the GCD of Exorcism and Consecration in order to better align with a four second CS cooldown; however, the change in spell GCD between 437 and 447 haste rating is on the scale of a few milliseconds (1.22389 seconds down to 1.220604 seconds).

It does make sense yes...

At 0 haste, both melee and spells have identical GCD.
As you get more haste, the GCD on spells (cons, exo) becomes shorter and sometimes adding a bit more haste will alter the rotation. Sometimes quite drastically AND unexpectedly.

If you plot out a perfect FCFS rotation using 1.5melee and spell GCD and compare it to a rotation with 1.5 melee and 1.49 spell gcd, you actually get off worse. Over a 5min fight this results in 2 less CS, 1 less Judge & 1 less DS and an extra 7 seconds of time waiting on CD's.
Wait. What ? More haste means less abilities hit ? In this particular case yes. Sometimes changing haste only a small bit can have a big impact. A slightly faster weapon swing speed will compensate this slightly but overall it'll still be a negative.


In reality things aren't as bad because human inaccuracy, server response time etc will add 'random' delays between each spell making a sustainable "perfect" following of the rotation impossible.

Minor changes in the rotation asside, the first major change in the rotation happens when you get enough haste to make the spell GCD 1.25s. and yes, the change is major even compared with 1 less haste rating.


I'm not sure if rawr models gear upgrades accounting for the fact that a change in haste would change the rotation.