Does this still stand for hit for SMF post 4.06?

Expertise effects rage generation in the way that a dodged or parried special attack only costs 4 rage.

Edit:
I meant a dodged or parried Special attack still costs some rage, BT costs 4 rage when dodged / parried.
Sorry for making it unclear.

I just tested it, and I gained exactly 29 rage from a melee attack, I also got exactly 29 rage from a parried or dodged melee attack. I was using a 3.6 weapon while being arms, and im 100 % sure about the numbers I got. Feel free to test yourself, because I'm sure that the rage gain is the same as normal hits, even though it's a parry or dodge.

Confirmed. Single-wielding a 3.60 2H mace at 85 as fury against an 88 training dummy I get 23 rage/hit for regular hits, glancing hits, dodges, and parries. 0 rage on a miss. (23 instead of 29 because of the lack of Anger Management.)

Technically expertise still affects rage gain slightly through Flurry, but I think it'd be fair to update the OP to no longer claim that expertise is a major player in rage gen.

Why are one of the options for fury to put in two points into Blood and Thunder? Wouldn't switching from Zerk stance to Battle, throwing up Rend and casting thunderclap be a DPS loss overall?

Colossus Smash takes precedence over Slam, and actually over Raging Blow as well. The wording is unclear and warrants an update.

For single-target DPS you wouldn't do this, but it's a substantial DPS gain in controlled AoE situations with good execution and stance dancing.

However, the point will be moot in 4.1 with the Whirlwind changes.

Thanks for clearing that up. Also do you have an estimation of what the difference in damage is between SMF and TG and what it will be after the patch? I don't see it saying anywhere which is actually the best of the two.

Ideally you would want to compare SEP values, which can be generated with for example SimCraft, I can tell you the values should be something along the lines of this:

Hit: 1.2614
STR: 1
Crit: 0.6266
Expertise 0.4336
Mastery: 0.3712
Haste: 0.2795

(These are values calculated from my gear levels and using my settings, they may vary some compared to other simulations, these are to be seen as guidelines only, and especially expertise fluctuates a lot.)

That is my SEP values from 10k iterations with SimCraft, so basically you would want to weigh the SEP value against each other. One of the only cases I've experienced in Cata, where you wouldn't gem for socket bonus, is on the tier legs, given there may be more cases, especially if you are looking at non-epic gear.

@Mordenthal

As Korebian says, you'll need to know your approximate SEP values, which widely ranges with gear setup. However, the numbers Korebian posts I would argue are not to be taken as guidelines at all, since for example his hit weighs more than strength, suggesting he's not hit capped or accidentally included negative deltas when calculating SEP values (which is included by default). Expertise does not fluctuate that much either in the sense that it's never worth losing expertise for any other stat if you're not softcapped. The reason expertise SEP values seems to fluctuate alot when you're close to the cap is that Simc by default calculates stats in increments of 300 rating (I believe), which if you're slightly under the cap can put you over by quite a large margin which deflates its value, which makes it appear to be a weaker stat sometimes, and other times a very powerful stat. The truth is it's always powerful as long as you're not softcapped (26 exp), no matter what value Simc gives you.


Now to socket bonuses, once you got your SEP values it is straightforward and easily explained. You want to compare the sum of the gem's stats ([Design: Inscribed Ember Topaz] or [Design: Etched Demonseye]) + the socket bonus versus vs a pure [Bold Inferno Ruby]. For example, [Dargonax's Signet] has a yellow socket with +10 str bonus. An inscribed topaz in this ring equals to 30 str and 20 crit, and a pure 40 str gems equals to just that, 40 str. This means that 20 crit has to beat out 10 str, which it does if crit's sep value is more than 10/20, or in other words, more than half. So, in this particular case, if your SEP value of crit is >0,5 than that of strength (which it often is in my experience) it's a dps increase to go for the socket bonus. My crit SEP value for example ranges around 0,6.

Be advised however that the differencies when you're gemming is often close to being negligible. For example, let's assume the Dargonaxx Signet above instead had a +10 crit socket bonus and my crit SEP value is 0,6. Then 30 crit has to beat out 20 strength, which means the SEP value of crit has to be higher than two thirds (20/30) of strength (sep value of crit >0,6666..). Since I assume I'm at an sep value of 0,6 crit in this example, the 30 crit pans out at 0,6*30= 18 strength, and as such the difference is merely 2 strength.

As a closing word, if you're not that interested in min-maxing your character (or if you can't calculate your sep values), you could always get 40 str in all slots where the socket bonus only is +10 stat, since that is always going to be a very good dps gain, even if it isn't always the ultimate choice.

This appears misleading. Shouldn't Inner Rage be popped anytime you'll be taking excessive raid damage (especially if beserker rage is used)? You should have enough rage to use HS/Cleave under the normal 3 second CD.

The armory stats page doesn't include the 3% hit from Precision or the 1% from the Draenei passive. So those warriors you inspected actually have 3-4% more hit than the armory states.