Skip all the maths. Just take the BiS setup, and run it again with Cat's Swiftness. Take the dps difference and work out how long you'd need to be running to make that difference up.

DeltaDps/CatDps * 60 for seconds per minute run time required.

I'd do it now, but I'm at work and don't have EnhSim downloaded (they frown on downloads, but don't mind forum browsing so much - go figure).

Updated

On Enhsim/Rawr
I will respond to this in the Rawr thread.

Yes I am doing this currently, but am awaiting a new build on Enhsim that addresses the GCD issues recently identified.

With regards to Yo!, I know who he is and have used his sim. My offer to explore other simulation tools as a basis for this thread was a sincere one. In conversing with him, the point I was trying to make is that Enhsim is a) generally considered to be largely accurate and b) updates are still occurring to further refine the accuracy of the tool. Given these two points, I do not think it would be inappropriate for us to rely upon Enhsim for an exercise such as this.

Latest BiS setup
Ksubi has provided the new BiS setup. I have tweaked his submission slightly by switching out a few gems.

Using the 1.8.0 version of Enhsim, I get roughly 7421 DPS. I am not ready to begin employing newer versions of Enhsim yet as there are some identified bugs that are being worked out, so for the sake of consistency I will stay with this 1.8.0 build until I receive confirmation that 1.8.X is ready to roll out. The newer version may results in a DPS increase due to a corrected clipping issue, or may results in a DPS loss as there is currently an issue with GCD recognition on certain abilities.

As for 1.7 OOM time with this build, mine reads at 1%, which is well and truly acceptable.

Currently on the main page you have 172 expertise which is exactly 2 expertise gems over the cap which is maybe why u netted ~10dps lower than I did in my original post. Also note that using an AP/Stam gem to receive a socket bonus of 12ap is worse than using a straight 32ap gem and ignoring the socket bonus all together. I suggest using 2 expertise/stam gems and 1 enchanted tear to reach the required blue gems for the meta to work. I would also like to see someone try Dark Matter instead of Blood of the Old God and use Band of Lights instead of Loop of the Agile to partially make up for the hit loss and change a couple of gems to compensate. I'm not very good with Rawr and all that but perhaps someone else is and knows how to input the Dark Matter trinket and export it to EnhSim so that it sims correctly.

Great thread and hopefully we can keep it going into 3.2

Note: I use Exp/stam gems because before the expertise cap, expertise will sim to be more than double the AEP of attack power making it the better choice.

You may have more run time for XT Hard (wayward sparks) and for IC (running to and between the dwarves, this is less true on Steelbreaker, but definitely true for Brun when he is flying through the air.)

It's also nice for those "get back to the door first for DI pulls." :p

The Rawr XML file has already been updated, he removed the expertise gems in the Off-Hand and the Gloves putting us exactly at the cap, he just hasn't made it around to the forum post yet.

Also, why would you recommend switching in (2) Expertise/Stam gems when you had just mentioned that we had too much Expertise already? It obviously makes more sense to leave the Balanced Twilight Opal in place, remove (2) Precise Scarlet Rubies like he did.

As far as the Trinket/Ring setup goes, I believe the first incarnation of this post had Dark Matter + Band of Lights in place of Blood of the Old God and Loop of the Agile and was lower then the current setup.

Thanks for pointing this out. I had updated the Rawr/Config but had forgotten to update the table as well. I have done so now. The reason I am netting less DPS than you is because we are using different versions of Enhsim. Furthermore, only 2 blue gems are required for the meta, so the changes I made resulted in a DPS increase (I changed 1 exp/stam gem for straight expertise and the other for Ap/Stam)

I don't think any of the releases had the issue that would cause the swing timer to be improperly reset; it was added and removed before any release.

The clip/delay discrepancy should be the same from 1.7.0.3 (and earlier I guess) through 1.8.0, and the bug in 1.8.1 should only happen if you sim with LVB or MW0. These really aren't things I would expect to affect sim output too much; the only relevant thing for simming 3.1 gear is that Comet's Trail was incorrect until 1.8.2 (and maybe the fix for the CL cast time).

If it's something important for this project it shouldn't be too much trouble to e.g. create a 1.8.0.1 release which just has the correction for Comet's Trail. It's also possible to have e.g. just the trinkets added to create a 1.7.0.4 release too. But overall I think the remaining issues are mostly due to lack of information about items both with the rarer trinkets (though it's likely they're correct) and the stuff in 3.2.

Delete please. Made an oversight.

Updated

Began employing Enhsim 1.8.2.

Updated again. Managed to sqeeze out more DPS with ES_SS in the priority list.

Just a note that I did some work around getting Dark Matter in and I am convinced that it will not work for us. Blood is simply a better trinket. Would be happy to be proven incorrect of course

Isn't the worldbreaker_battlegear_2 missing from the setbonus list in the current BiS configfile? As far as I know you had to manually include that in the earlier versions of EnhSim, and I havn't seen any changelog saying otherwise?

Edit: Guess I was wrong. I couldn't find a definite source, but EnhSim, DPS simulator seems to clarify it.

I can positively confirm that if you put in both bonuses it counts the 2pc bonus twice. I've posted an issue at EnhSim - View Issue #4665: Warn if duplicate set bonuses so we can have this fixed for a later version.

Just a quick note to address some of your assumptions here. I think you overestimated some run times, which makes your challenge to run speed even more viable. Note that atm I didn't also re-check your calculations.

• Mimiron avoiding shock blast in P1 and P4
• Algalon avoiding cosmic smash
• Algalon avoiding big bang
• Iron Council avoiding overload

The actions above are actually cycles of
a) running out
b) waiting for a catastrophe to happen
c) running back in
Phases a) and b) do not benefit from run speed (unless someone stays and hits the boss until the exact last moment - I am not doing this).

For lack of time right now I can't also redo the table with my note above.

On Algalon you usually don't leave melee range when avoiding cosmic smashes. Also you should be in your melee position long before the big bang phase ends, even without run speed. So that leaves only running to the portals.

I thought exactly the same thing as I was compiling the table, however I thought it best to be more generous in my assumptions to off-set the inevitable suggestions that my numbers were inflated. Either way, I think the point is clear- run speed, while very valuable on many encounters, is not always superior to Icewalker.

There is another side to "a" and "b" in that it is a much more significant dps loss if you don't make it out in time because you didn't have runspeed and died as a consequence.

While that is an unlikely occurrence when those fights are on farm, it is a significant risk when learning those encounters and one that should be considered seriously. Outputting 20 additional dps is unlikely to matter as much as simply not dying when learning an encounter and that is an area where runspeed has a definite effect.

Survivability will always win over a small amount of DPS. Once you and your guild is comfortable with the content. Runspeed will have a lower value to you. The table above is a good reference, but depending on the strategy's that you use, those numbers will have a large variance. I haven't ran a runspeed Enchant since sunwell. I have been running with Icewalker, or Pure AP. Now the strats that we are using most of the encounters we limit the melee movement. And I would say our strats are alot more melee friendly for the most part.

If you have not cleared all content and you are working on new content or hardmodes, and you have shown that you have survivability problems related to not moving out of the way of stuff. Then clearly it will always make more sense to try to have more survivability. I understand that we're trying to get hard data theorycrafting wise. I personally feel runspeed is something that will be impossible to theorycraft on. The basis of the arguments for having it vs not having it are really how skilled the player is reaction wise. There is no current content that _requires_ you to have the extra run speed. You will have a DPS loss from having a runspeed enchant, but you will get more DPS time possibly because you were able to return back to the boss quicker. I understand we are talking about a delta of ~20-25 dps... But for the most part we are all here for min/max reasons.

I personally have been waiting for a BiS gear discussion for a longtime. I have used Rawr and EnhSim in the past, before I started having fatal crashes with EnhSim on my Vista machine. And I've tried to gear towards what I feel is BiS. I look forward to see where we end up BiS gear wise with 3.1 and where we go in respects to 3.2.

My issue is more with the people who will read this list and make assumptions even though they aren't on the same level of raiding experience. I know we can't handhold everyone but when you make a BiS list and break down enchantments to this level you have to understand that people are going to pay attention. This reminds me too much of the tank discussions relating to runspeed versus pure stamina enchant and I don't want people dying to things like running out Shockblast and when confronted by their raidleader for not having Runspeed, referencing EJ as the reason.

Dukkon, I have a challenge for you. Since your guild seems to have all of ulduar on farm and your gear is pretty damn close to BiS already, next week swap your boot enchant to Cat's Speed (keeping everything else identical) and show us the WoL logs for comparison to this weeks raid with Icewalker. 1000g to any alt you have on Mal'Ganis that you will do more dps when averaged over all the boss kills with Cat's Speed. If you can't get Cat's Speed then get Tuskarr's and I will pay 500g if your dps still doesn't go up when compared to Icewalker.

If he drops icewalker and picks up Cat's Speed or Tuskar's Vitality he will need to regem to get back to the spell hit cap. He is a little bit over the cap right now (341.02 for Alliance shaman) so he has some wiggle room.

I wouldn't be surprised if the difference falls into the RNG background.

I thought he was replying to Xieon, I see now that I missed that he directed it to Dukkon. That makes for a much easier comparison. I still think it may end up falling into background RNG making it very hard to prove one way or another for such a wager.

Back to Rouncer

I agree with you on the best in slot tunnel vision that happens when people review these lists. I think everyone has fallen victim to it at one time or another, including myself (I don't even play in a guild that is doing 25 man hard modes). Overall I think the utility outweighs the dps cost. I feel the same with Improved GW.

I think the asterisk method in the table works fine. The table lists absolute best dps enchants and gear for "stand and nuke" fights. Putting a note that a speed enchant on boots may or may not net you a dps gain in high movement encounters and adds utility that can outweigh the dps loss is enough to offset the "this is the best" mentality these lists invoke. I think of it in the same vein as using "tauren" in the sim or picking skinning/leatherworking as the control professions. The intent is to show the baseline best, if a person gets better performance with a different enchant because of their play style or other factors that don't effect every person evenly then that is a bonus for them.

I think people reading the list have enough common sense to apply it realistically, I view it more as a reference than a shopping list (in large part because i wont be doing some of those 25 man hard modes any time soon). If you don't evaluate the list against your own play style then what good do any of these tools really do you? At that point it's just hand holding, "get this stuff and you'll be good."

He's using AP to boots, so swapping enchants wouldn't require him to change anything but the enchant.

I'll swap the Enchants next week, unless its 3.2... then everything changes :P

Overall it will be very difficult to see DPS increase or Decrease because of RNG, and Fights that have bonus DMG. But I will provide WoL for both. Well nothing stops you from looking at WoL this week either I guess, or Previous weeks. The hard part will be if I grab any gear this week, Ring of the Agile, Bran's Signet ring. But I will do it regardless

Sorry, I should have made the post more clear.

Dukkon - I look forward to next weeks results, well unless 3.2 hits and then all bets are off until raiding and gear stabilizes once again.