The problem in finding a clear answer is that is very dependant on your gear. ArP value is dependant on itself AND strength and once it's worth gemming for it, it should be worth more than STR up to the cap and if you only want to compare how much passive arp you'd need to replace an arp proc you have to consider its value: 20% uptime, 50% arp roughly.
Considering you would be at 50% arp, stepping to 100% would grant you 25% damage for 20% of the time, resulting in a 5% average damage done. To achieve the same passive increase you'd need around 62% arp.

However what makes the trinket much better than the equivalent passive arp is that you can stack cooldowns increasing its relative value and is very complex to estimate an exact number.

This is just napkin math, so feel free to correct me or try to play with the spreadsheet to check the passive ArP needed to replace a GT or MR in comparison to other trinkets.

It very likely does have to do with Rawr "averaging" the proc of Mjolnir and Grim Toll. This is a known issue, and should be fixed either in the next or the subsequent public build (v2.2.14 or v2.2.15). The plan is to make so that instead of implementing it the way it is now, Rawr will add the maximum amount of ArP value that would be utilized in any given proc situation.

For example, say you have 30% passive ArP. If the trinket procs, you would get the entire value out of it for the duration of the proc. However, if you start out with 70% ArP, the program would calculate 100% ArP effectiveness - 70% passive, and the program would only be "counting" 30% ArP as the proc of the trink for the duration. So, it's a sorta-trick, where the program will "modify", on the fly, the proc value of the trink, based on your ArP at the time.

If you're a arms warrior and you're under expertise cap. Do you think we should gem for expertise till we get cap? and if you're not capped in expertise will u dps drop alot?

This is just up on MMO:

Sword Specialization now gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to get an extra attack on the same target after hitting your target with your Sword. (Up from 1/2/3/4/5%)

They are buffing sword spec, will be good to try this out on the ptr, but I doubt it's gonna be enough to compete with poleaxe spec.

I guess i will give it a Try. What do you think, could Swords become competetive now? I really hope so.

Expertise for arms has some strange effects, as compared to fury, due to the ability to convert dodged abilities into overpowers. While certainly it is always less desirable to have a swing (white or special) be dodged, the ability to recover some of the damage has a tendency to reduce the SEP of expertise. Unfortunately, "recover some of the damage" is a pretty amorphous thing to calculate, as it depends on a lot of things. For one thing, the rotation priority you use should influence expertise SEP to some degree. For example, if you prioritize OP below either MS or EXEC, except to avoid losing a TfB proc (I believe this is the commonly-accepted priority), then there is a higher likelihood that an overpower from dodge would proc while TfB were already active (this means it was wasted). OTOH, if for some reason you tend to use OP before, say EXEC, then you are clearing your TfB buff early in the cycle and a dodge-procced OP may not be lost.

That all being said, for now your best bet is to check your gear against the latest version of Landoul's spreadsheet you can find. I don't recall, but I think the most recent version (pre 3.2) did not count possible overpowers from dodges. This would mean a potentially inflated SEP of expertise. As a point of reference, I do remember my expertise SEP being below Armor Pen SEP (albiet both ~0.1 above 1.0 SEP), when I was arms; this was, however, with armor pen at something like 75% passive+10% b-stance=85% (no mace,no trinkets), and is likely an outlier case.

I recall reading from Landsoul's post that the new spreadsheet will attempt to calculate a more accurate expertise SEP based on possible additional overpowers from dodge; look to that thread for more information.

I edited Landsoul's spreadsheet to take into account the change to Sword Spec. The result I got was that Aesir's Edge, and of course Voldrethar, coming out ahead of Lotrafen (which I have at the moment). The later by a significant margin. However I am a Human with quite low Expertise so the racial for swords certainly pushed things in favour of the swords.

I then however tested with a different race and Aesir's Edge still held out in front of Lotrafen, this certainly looks like it will mean that arms warriors can look at more weapons than just axe's in the future.

Anyone know if 2p t9 > 4o t8.5? Or is it better to switch to t9 when you have 4 pieces?

you also have to take into account that Lotrafen is 3.4 speed where as aesirs is 3.6. that alone when compared individually without a spec makes aesirs much better. the new ToC axe is 3.6 which would be a more comparable axe to put up against a sword. But certainly that means sword might be viable again. we'll have to see when landsoul's new spreadsheet comes out.

However before this change, even with Aesir's vastly superior speed, Lotrafen won out against it. I was simply pointing out that this is no longer the case. However in trial the best weapon is Justicebringer so the changing to a usable sword spec seems a little inconsequential now. However it is good to see that we no longer have to turn down better itemised weapons in the future purely because they are swords.

i was saying aesirs won out if you only compared the two weapons individually. when you factored in specs then ya, lotrafen became better.

Something to remember, though, that everyone who played with Sword spec / Windfury in TBC probably knows; the more spike rage you gain with Sword Spec, the more dps you can output with Heroic Strikes and Cleaves. With sword spec and a 55/8/8 spec, you gain a huge number more opportunities for heroic strike, since you have a rage-gaining proc attached to 10% of all your swings, allowing you to queue heroic strike without fear of a rage drought.

I wish I had the weapon access to charcopy over and get hard numbers; this could be of huge synergistic benefit to an incite / heroic strike glyph / sword build.

I've been through these pages a few times now and although there is a lot of discussion on it, it seems there hasn't been a conclusion just yet to this question. While using Rawr last night, i used the optimizer option and it told me to switch most of my gems out to Inscribed Ametrines. Now i finally got the Plated greaves of providence last night after weeks of never seeing them drop. I'm thinking i finally broke a threshold of armor pen because i now when i use optimizer it says instead of the Inscribed Ametrines i have switch out for, it tells me to use all Fractured Cardinal Rubies. I've also added all the equipment i've gotten in this patch to Landsouls old spreadsheet. It also now says to switch out all my gems for armor pen, but remove Grim Toll and use the banner instead now. This would give me about 80% passive armor pen, but according to a lot of posts here, you guys suggest to use Grim toll instead of Banner until you can have 100% passive armor pen with the banner. So my question is why are the spreadsheets telling me to use Banner instead of Grim Toll even though it would only give me 80% Armor Pen. Then on top of that, using the Banner instead of Grim toll would drop my hit to about 200, which i always regardless of the controversy about how some people believe you can be under cap, am between 263-300 hit.

I know on the rules you say multiple times to not ask to have your "hand-held" and ask how not to suck. I believe this is more of a question about passive armor pen of 80% being better than 51% passive armor pen and Grim Toll, with a definite answer instead of the maybe's.

Will anyone use sword with it being bumped up by 5%? To me this doesn't change anything and the 6 second cool down still bothers me.

On sword spec, I just felt like dropping a few fast numbers out of my head. Nothing really new is added in this post, just obvious facts with simple numbers.

I will try and compare with very simplistic assumptions what would be the axe and what would be the white sword damage, in average, during an interval of 6 seconds. Do not get carried by the numbers, actually you'd be wise to simply jump into the conclusions.

Assuming that raid buffed a warrior swing speed is around 2.6, we can assume an average of 6 / 2.6= 2.3 hits per 6 seconds. For the sake of numbers, assume that the average weapon damage is 1000, and base crit chance is 30% (35% with axe).


Axe

Total damage over 6 seconds =

Average non-crit damage +

+ (chance to crit) * (average added crit damage) =

[ (2.3 * 1000) ]+ [ (0.35) * (2.3 * 1050) ] ~= 3150 damage

Sword (old 5%)

Total damage over 6 seconds =

Average non-crit damage +

(chance to crit) * (average crit added damage) +

+ (chance to get at least 1 sword proc out of 2.3 trials) * ( 1 swing damage + 1 swing crit added damage) =

= [ (2.3 * 1000) ] + [ (0.3) * (2.3 * 1000) ] + [ (1 - (0.95^2.3) ) * ( (0.7) * (1000) + (0.3) * (2000) ) ] ~= 3135 damage

Sword (new 10%) (same formula, different numbers)

Total damage over 6 seconds =

Average non-crit damage +

(chance to crit) * (average crit added damage) +

+ (chance to get at least 1 sword proc out of 2.3 trials) * ( 1 swing damage + 1 swing crit added damage) =

= (2.3 * 1000) + (0.3) * (2.3 * 1000) + (1 - (0.90^2.3) ) * ( (0.7) * (1000) + (0.3) * (2000) ) ~= 3270 damage

Provided that the formulas are correct, raid buffed the my conclusion is the expected one: Axe spec whites outperform sligltly the current Sword spec (5% chance) whites. Considering yellow damage is always going to be higher for Axes, there is no dispute: Axes are superior in <3.2. But the news are that Axe underperforms the new 3.2.2 buffed Sword spec (10% chance) for white damage, by roughly (3270- 3150) / 3150~= 4%. Now Axes are not the clear winner.

Remember, these are the values only for the white damage. We gain 4% white, but of course, no yellow attacks or Deep Wound ticks are added to the formula. The next question we should answer is: does the 4% added white damage compensates for the loss in yellow damage?

Thanks for your time,
Tei.

Edit: Thanks for the feedback Gruntle, Aw4, much appreciated. I corrected the errors: 1.- Impale does not affect white hits, so the added crit damage is not 1200, but 1050 and 1000 respectively for axes and swords. 2.- The final percentage is not 12% but 4%.

Your formulae seem correct to me for white damage. However, your calculation of the percentage of gained white damage when using sword over axe is wrong. The correct percentage gain is (3420-3300)/3300 ~ 4%.

Disregarding the whites we then have this situation (to first order, there are some more abilities that trigger from hits/crits, but they should be minor).
Sword
4% extra white damage (+ extra rage for this),
10%/6s cd chance of getting a sword proc doing (0.7+0.3*2.2)*white damage from a yellow swing,
x% extra rage from these procs.
vs
Axe
5% more yellow crits
5% more damage on yellow crits
5% more DW procs

I doubt it will be enough to break the axe superiority, we'll know soon enough when landsouls updated sheet is released.

As far as I can see, you are calculating with impale affected white crits.
Impale only affects yellow crits.

The right formula to calculate white crit damage is:
normal damage * 2 * (1 + Axe/Polearm + Meta)

So that the crit white damage is 2.16 times the normal damage with Axe/Polearm and Meta.
The added crit damage for Axe in your calculations then should be 1100 instead of 1250.

Edit:
And of course 1000 instead of 1200 for Sword.

A lot closer

Let your average white hit be 1, and let us ignore glancing chance and the meta bonus.
Your average white damage per swing is:

No spec: 1*(1-crit)+2*1*crit = 1 + crit
Axe spec: 1*(1-crit)+2.05*1*(crit+0.05)= 1.05*crit + 1.1025
Sword spec: 1*(1-crit)+2*1*crit+1*1/10= 1.1 + crit

So (axe spec - sword spec)= 0.0025 + 0.05*crit
e.g.: crit=0.33, average weapon damage=1800 -> axe spec - sword spec = 34.2

That's not much, something like 15 dps, assuming you have some haste.
Obviously there's much more to take in account here, but I'm too sleepy at the moment.

PS:But is the crit damage with axe spec 2.05 or 2.10?

Your math above is omitting the fact that the sword procs can crit. Factoring that into your model would say that sword spec is a DPS increase over axe. However, to understand the actual benefits of sword spec you have to factor in the "once every 6 seconds" limitation.

Assuming every attack has a 10% chance to proc the extra hit and that once you get the extra hit, you cannot get a new one until 6 seconds has passed, you will have some amount of attacks that cannot proc the extra hit. Therefore, instead of the formula simply being 1/10, you have to factor in the number of "invalid attacks" that cannot proc the extra hit: 1 / (invalidAttacks + 10)

The number of invalid attacks cannot be negative and is determined by your number of attacks per second: (NumberOfAttackPerSecond * 6 - 1)

So the full formula is: 1 / ( (NumberOfAttacksPerSecond * 6 - 1) + 10)

To put this to use, if you attacked 1 time every 6 seconds (1/6 attacks per second), the formula would give you:

1 / ( (1/6) * 6 - 1) + 10) = 1 / (0 + 10) = 1/10 = 10% (i.e.: the 6 second rule has no effect)

However, if you attack 3 times a second:

1 / ( (3 * 6 - 1) + 10) = 1 / (17 + 10) = ~3.7% (i.e.: statistically only 1 out of every 27 attacks will proc the extra hit)

So as you can see, the faster you attack, the more the 6 second limitation decreases the affect of your "10% chance of an extra hit"

Thank you Pirie, your formula is correct, my bad to have written that post at 2am.

Let your weapon have 1 dps, and let its speed be x seconds. The percentual (white) dps increase with sword spec is:
y=(SwordSpecDps - NoSpecDps)/NoSpecDps
Now if we substitute with what Pirie and I have stated, plus Deep Wounds (third term in the parentesis), the correct formula should be:


Which magically can be simplified into:


So the sword spec bonus isn’t affected by you current crit chance, as it should reasonably be.


Plotted with some shitty plotter of mine (I should install gnuplot as soon as possibile):



If your weapon speed (modified by haste) is 3, your white dps increase should be around 9%. Therefore if your white damage is 20% of your total dps, your dps are increased by 1.8%, 0.36% per talent point.

The dps bonus with Polexe Spec is much simpler to consider.
In this case the y I calculated above for sword spec should be:



Poleaxe spec is heavily dependent by your current crit chance. See the plot below:


The higher curve is with crit=10%, middle crit=30%, lower crit=40%.

With a 3 seconds weapon speed and 30% crit chance, your dps increase with Poleaxe spec is 5.5%. But if affects all of your damage.

If my math is correct (please do not hesitate to correct me) axe spec will still be almost 3x sword spec.

Please note that I’m not considering the effect of glancing blows, that will likely affect negatively these calculations, nor Impale (which should buff Axe spec) or the Meta gem bonus (that shouldn't affect my calculations).

If we take into account Impale, assuming as before 80% of your total dps are yellow, things should be something like that:




Here crit is set at 30%. The curve above is the one with Impale.


PS: Final question. Aw4 stated that crit damage with Poleaxe and meta is 2.16 times normal damages. Is this true or it's just 2.08 normal damage?

I have a question, as there is no recent spreadsheet around to compare those two helmets:
Its about T8,5-Head:
[Conqueror's Siegebreaker Helmet]

vs.

[Faceplate of the Silver Champion].


If i put the same gems (21 crit meta + 20 arp) into them, its a comparison of


68 arp in T8,5
vs.
8 str, 76 haste, 7 crit in the ilvl 232 helmet

(i don't care about hp/armor value).


So whats better for arms? With T8,5 i have 52% arp in battlestance, with the new helmet it would drop to 45%.

Setbonus is irrelevant, because with helmet i have 3/4, without 2/4.

Additional question:

What if i would spec into fury? Is haste a good stat for fury warriors?

My main spec is protection, so i don't really know the answer =)