[Level 20][Opinion] All Specs Mastery Rundown

Bop

Remember the Treeline
A few important points before we get into the list:

1. I didn't run simulations for this. It's hard to run accurate simulation data for 20s.

2. This isn't meant to consider every possible factor. For the most part, I aim to compare Mastery only to other secondary stats within each specialization.

3. I will give each mastery a score from 1-5 based on its value in pvp.
- 1 = Virtually zero value compared to other secondary stats.
- 2 = Low Value. Not in one of the item suffixes that is best for the spec.
- 3 = Useful when stacked in a niche build or with a trinket (Elekk Tusk).
- 4 = A core part of your specialization's build. Feverflare, Harmonious, Peerless.
- 5 = Spec defining. Competitive with primary stats 1-to-1. Consider Savant pieces.
I'll also give a brief explanation in a spoiler for why I gave the mastery this score. This rundown ignores the viability of the spec outside of its mastery. I'll give something a 5/5, even if that spec should never see play in level 20 pvp.

4. I made this because I see people misunderstanding mastery ratios on here all the time. I often see posts talking about "Well mastery for X spec has a high %ratio, so you should stack mastery." Depending on what the mastery does, it may not actually be amazing even though it has a great ratio.

5. Feedback is not only welcomed but greatly appreciated. I'll update this rundown as I'm provided new info, feedback, critiques, etc. I only ask that you provide reasoning for your position.

6. At level 20, ~4 mastery rating gives 1 mastery point. Each class automatically has 8 mastery points. Below each spec, I show what 4 mastery rating will provide.

Quick reference of 4 rating for other secondary stats at 20:

- Versatility: 0.89% damage and healing, 0.45% damage reduction
- Critical Strike: 1.02% chance for doubled damage and healing
- Haste: 1.08% attack speed, resource recovery, and cast speed

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DEATH KNIGHT
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BLOOD (2/5)

Mastery: Blood Shield
+2% Converted Death Strike Healing to Absorption Shield
+1% Attack Power
Death Strike healing is quite low in pvp already. An absorption shield scaling with that heal amount will be abysmally low. At 200 strength, a 1% increase in attack power will equate to 2 extra strength. It takes 4 mastery rating to add 2 strength, even at a strength value that is only achieved from stacking all +3 strength gems. This analysis applies to pretty much every tank's mastery going forward, so remember it.
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FROST (4/5)

Mastery: Frozen Heart
+2% Damage Done by Frost Abilities
Most of Frost's damage comes from Howling Blast, which is pure frost damage. Even without counting DoT damage, Frost Strike also benefits from mastery. This is very close to 4 mastery rating = 2% damage increase. Haste increase rune regeneration stops it from scoring a 5/5.
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UNHOLY (4/5)

Mastery: Dreadblade
+1.8% Damage Done by Minions and Shadow Damage Abilities
Buffs Apocalypse damage, both the initial proc and the summoned skeletons. Increases ghoul damage. Increases virulent plague damage, both the DoT and the ruptures. Increases Clawing Shadows damage (talent replacing Scourge Strike). Unholy tends to have fairly weak uptime dps after using your cooldowns, so guaranteeing those cooldowns have the most impact possible is huge. Only thing holding this Mastery option back is that it isn't a huge DPS jump when your pet cooldowns are down.
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DEMON HUNTER
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HAVOC (2/5)

Mastery: Demonic Presence
+1.8% Chaos Damage Done
Havoc lacks very many Chaos damage dealing abilities. Fel Beam is the main one affected, since many of the others are either very low damage scaling to begin with and/or gated behind Metamorphosis. This can lead to a sizable jump in damage during certain burst windows, so it gets a small bump.
+0.6% Movement Speed increase
Not available at 20 for some reason...

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VENGEANCE (1/5)

Mastery: Fel Blood
+3% Agility converted into bonus armor for Demon Spikes
Brief windows of uptime. Doesn't help versus spell damage at all. Has a secondary scaling requirement of stacking agility. Very bad.
+1% Attack Power
- Not available at 20... It isn't even consistent between tank specs.
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DRUID
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BALANCE (3/5)

Mastery: Total Eclipse
+1.1% Nature spell damage during Eclipse (Solar)
+1.1% Arcane spell damage during Eclipse (Lunar)
The damage bump itself is pretty much in line with other secondary stats, so it's hard for this mastery to truly stand out. It gets a bump because Balance Druid really needs all the help it can get bursting with Starsurges and mastery is therefore more vital to the spec.

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FERAL (5/5)

Mastery: Razor Claws
+2% Damage Done by Cat Form Bleeds and finishing moves
Big bites is all Feral really has to offer. What is basically a flat 2% damage increase per 4 mastery is very good scaling (see Frost DK) so this mastery has very high value for Feral Druids.
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GUARDIAN (5/5)

Mastery: Nature's Guardian
+0.5% Maximum Health
+0.5% Healing Received
+1% Attack Power
This mastery does it all. +0.5% on both Health and Healing received are small numbers, but consider what they are applying to: two very large numbers (Health bar in bear form + incoming heals). The normal +attack power increase is just icing on the cake. Like I said at the start, this doesn't mean that Guardian is a good spec for pvp. It just means the mastery is incredibly good for Guardian.
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RESTORATION (2/5)

Mastery: Harmony
+0.5% Increased Healing Done per Healing-over-Time Effect
Resto Druids are missing Lifebloom until level 21. This is unfortunately a pretty critical spell to lack for this mastery to work as intended at max level. Nourish is worth mentioning, but that gives up Cenarion Ward which counts for the mastery. It gets a bump for being innately present on everything you do while healing, but it is not worth stacking.
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HUNTER
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BEAST MASTERY (3/5)

Mastery: Master of Beasts
+1.9% Damage Done by Pets
A lot of BM's damage comes from pets. Making your Bestial Wraths as threatening as possible seems to be very high value, but without buffing the actual Hunter's damage output and only being a +1.9% puts this in a situational scoring category.
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MARKSMANSHIP (5/5)

Mastery: Sniper Training
+0.625% Increased Range on Hunter Abilities
+1.4% Damage Increase on Hunter Abilities
Range up is potentially incredibly high value because it changes actual gameplay rather than raw DPS. But even without the range up, MM mastery also comes with the best point for point damage increase option out of any secondary stat option. One of the strongest masteries.
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SURVIVAL (3/5)

Mastery: Spirit Bond
+1.65% Damage Done by Focus-spending Abilities
+0.1% Health Regenerated every 5 seconds
I'll admit I don't know much about Survival Hunter secondary stat options. I typically see them only stacking agility. This does make some sense, because unless I'm mistaken this only applies to Raptor Strike and Serpent Sting. Those are core abilities for Survival, but a 1.65% scaling per 4 mastery rating likely does not outscale pure agility in value. As far as secondaries go it seems like a pretty decent option, but probably not as important as Critical Strike for bursting healers or Vers for a semi-vulnerable melee class. The health regeneration seems pretty hard to evaluate. With 100 mastery rating, I think this is a 3.3% health regen per 5. Or about .66% per second. With a health bar of 3000 in scaled pvp, that would be about 20 health a second.
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MAGE
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ARCANE (3/5)

Mastery: Savant
+1.2% Mana Regeneration Rate
+1.2% Maximum Mana
+0.6% Damage Increase per Arcane Charge to Arcane Blast
+0.3% Damage Increase per Arcane Charge to Arcane Barrage
+1% Damage done for other Arcane spells
While this mastery provides solid damage, it appears more impressive than it actually is. The damage increase per Arcane Charge for Arcane Blast / Barrage seems great, but consider that versatility also ramps up that damage for each charge you have. Versatility is actually more damage for Blast and Barrage. Mastery increases the damage on Arcane Missiles more than Versatility, but only by a slight amount. Considering also Haste's value for channeling/casting so many spells, Mastery doesn't end up scoring very well.
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FIRE (2/5)

Mastery: Ignite +0.75% Damage Converted to Ignite
Fire needs to Critically Strike and it needs to Critically Strike a lot. It also relies a lot on casted spells to get that chain of instant pyros proccing. This mastery suffers because of how reliant on other secondaries Fire is at low level. There *might* be a way to play for max mastery and phoenix flames in a Wargame 10v10 situation, but even then the scaling leaves a lot to be desired.
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FROST (1/5)

Mastery: Icicles
+1.9% Spell Power Coefficient to Icicle
+1.9% Damage Increase to Frozen Orb
This Mastery runs into a playstyle issue as well. Stacking Icicles for a big shatter is nice, but a lot of Frost's playstyle at 20 revolves around landing a giant critical strike with Cone of Cold. This mastery seems somewhat DPS oriented, but Frost lacks the critical tool of Pet Nova at level 20. On top of that, the entire second half of the mastery isn't even available at level 20.
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MONK
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BREWMASTER (2/5)

Mastery: Elusive Brawler
+1% Extra Dodge per Non-dodged Attack or Blackout Kick hit
+1% Attack Power
I don't think I've seen a single twink play Brewmaster at 20. Extra dodge seems incredibly lackluster. The attack power conversion is not enough to save this mastery by itself, but I'll give it a small bump on the off chance that there's some wonky full mastery build to counter hunters / warriors that we just haven't seen yet.
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MISTWEAVER (5/5)

Mastery: Gust of Mists
+1% Spell Power Coefficient to Gust of Mists
Very powerful source of instant healing. Allows MW to react to burst much more effectively. The coefficient on this mastery is actually 4.2% of spell power per mastery point, adding up to a pretty massive ratio when stacked. Like most healers, Mistweaver is going to value Versatility as a core stat. But since your Vivifys while channeling Soothing Mist are only gated by the global cooldown and each Vivify procs this mastery, stacking harmonious gear becomes the best option for MW.
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WINDWALKER (4/5)

Mastery: Combo Strikes
+1.25% Damage Done by Non-Repeated Abilities
This is effectively a flat damage increase, since rotating abilities isn't exactly a chore for windwalker. They have pretty much all of their core spammable abilities at 20. A 1.25% ratio isn't exactly crazy, but it's the best secondary stat option in terms of pure DPS.

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PALADIN
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HOLY (3/5)

Mastery: Lightbringer
+1.5% Max Healing Done Increase
This mastery is uniquely challenging to evaluate. According to what I could find in WoWhead comments, this mastery is 100% effective at 10 yards or closer, 2/3 effective at exactly 20 yards, and 0% effective beyond 40 yards. The value of this mastery is going to almost entirely depend on what type of PvP you're doing, as well as who your allies and enemies are. This score reflects a rough average of how I feel it should be based on having coordination with your teammates. A +1.5% increase to healing for close allies is a good mastery, but you're too vulnerable in most level 20 PvP situations if you're RPing as a Ret pally. If you're only receiving a partial benefit, then I feel like Versatility and Haste are both better options.
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PROTECTION (5/5)

Mastery: Divine Bulwark
+1% Chance to Block (Before Diminishing Returns)
+1% Attack Power
+0.35% Damage Reduction by Consecration
Protection Paladins receive spell power equal to their bonus attack power. Stacking mastery ends up causing their heals to become massively out of control and their judgments to hit like a semi-truck. On top of that, the increased block chance helps out with Holy Shield builds and the damage reduction in consecration helps to reduce the increased damage tanks otherwise take in PvP.
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RETRIBUTION (1/5)

Mastery: Hand of Light
+1.6% Holy Damage Done
Perhaps a product of being at level 20, Retribution has surprisingly few Holy damage abilities. Templar's Verdict and Judgment are important abilities, but the issue here is the value that every other secondary stat has for Retribution. Critical Strikes in a Hammer of Justice are a core part of Ret's ability to kill healers. Haste reduces many cooldowns, allowing for more Holy Power generation (and therefore more Templar's Verdicts). Versatility increases damage, bumps up Ret's already pretty strong offheals, and gives a melee spec some much needed tankiness. The 1.6% ratio is also quite low compared to other masteries.

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PRIEST
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DISCIPLINE (3/5)

Mastery: Grace
+1.35% Increased Healing and Absorbs to Targets with Atonement
Personally, I think this mastery is under appreciated. A 1.35% ratio per 4 mastery rating is quite good and almost all targets you're healing will have Atonement. This mastery would be amazing if it weren't compared to Discipline's other secondary stat options. Versatility is incredibly important as a cloth healer with some solid damage output. Haste is critical to juke interrupts as a low mobility healer that will likely have every melee dps and their brother smashing their buttons into you. Nevertheless, I think this is definitely one of the big masteries that the level 20 meta is sleeping on.
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HOLY (2/5)

Mastery: Echo of Light
+1.25% Extra Healing Done as Healing-over-Time
This mastery has a few issues. First, Holy Priests have weak direct heals at 20 outside of Holy Word: Serenity. Second, when you do use Serenity, it's likely to save a target receiving a large amount of burst. The extra healing is nice, but it comes in the form of a HoT. Either the Serenity saved them or they're going to die, HoT or not. Third, a 1.25% ratio is surprisingly low compared to other healer masteries. Fourth and finally, Holy already has solid multi-target healing from Renew, which does not benefit from this mastery. It's saved only by consistently being applied after every direct heal.
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SHADOW (3/5)

Mastery: Shadow Weaving
+0.5% Damage increased by Damage-over-Time Effect
This is another heavily under utilized mastery. Every 4 points equates to a 1% increase in damage on all of your double-dotted targets. For your kill target getting hit with Devouring Plague, this jumps up to a flat 1.5% increase for all of your burst. The main thing holding this mastery back is that Haste is far and away the best DPS secondary stat for Shadow - and Versatility has quite a bit of value as well. Overall, if your only goal was to do the highest damage possible to a single target, Mastery is probably Shadow's best secondary stat. Considering the Hunter meta, it loses value compared to Haste and Vers.

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ROGUE
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ASSASSINATION (1/5)

Mastery: Potent Assassin
+1.7% Damage to Poisons and Bleeds
This mastery only applies to poisons at level 20. Neither Instant nor Deadly Poisons are significant enough chunks of your damage to invest in only a 1.7% bump to their damage per mastery point. Outclassed by every other secondary.
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OUTLAW (2/5)

Mastery: Main Gauche
+2.9% Attack Power Coefficient to Main Gauche
Like Mistweaver's mastery, the attack power coefficient on the tooltip is misleading. Since every spec has 8 mastery points built in for free, this actually starts at roughly 23.3% of attack power at level 20. I'm hesitant to judge this mastery because I see so few Outlaw rogues - and the ones I do see tend not to stack mastery. Assuming the numbers are correct, this mastery would deal a baseline of about 192 damage (before other modifiers like versatility) with 200 agility and 100 mastery rating - at a 30% proc chance. This seems underwhelming, despite the 2.9% ratio being relatively high. This is a good example of not falling for big ratio = good mastery scaling.
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SUBTLETY (3/5)

Mastery: Executioner
+2.45% Damage to Finishing Moves
Sub rogues don't have good damage ratios on their finishing moves. This isn't equivalent to Feral's mastery, making your 5 combo point Ferocious Bite huge, or Assn Rogue's mastery, which enhances its rot and run playstyle. But the base damage of Sub's finishers being low isn't the mastery's fault; in fact, the mastery goes a long way towards shoring up the dps numbers. A 2.45% ratio is absolutely massive and, combined with both the Weaponmaster talent and incredible mobility, supports a playstyle of dipping in and out of the action to set up burst. This mastery doesn't do as much as Haste for energy regen but it's worth considering in any sub rogue build.
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SHAMAN
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ELEMENTAL (5/5)

Mastery: Elemental Overload
+1.875% Chance to trigger a second cast
The copied spell deals 85% damage, so multiplying the 1.875% chance to proc by the 85% damage gives roughly 1.6% increased damage to Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst per 4 mastery rating. This is already substantially better than any other secondary option, but the copied spell also generates 75% additional maelstrom. As if this wasn't enough, this mastery gets bonus points for enhancing Elemental's main selling point - unloading high burst damage in a single global cooldown. Great ratio, best dps secondary stat, adds additional burst.
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ENHANCEMENT (3/5)

Mastery: Enhanced Elements
+0.08% Chance to Proc Stormbringer and Windfury Weapon
+2% Fire, Frost, and Nature Damage Done
This mastery is the subject of substantial debate. I will admit that I do not play as or with enough Enhance shams to add any sort of expert analysis to the debate. Sticking to purely the numbers, the 0.08% increased chance to proc Windfury Weapon is very underwhelming and Stormbringer is not available at level 20. The 2% increase to Fire/Frost/Nature damage is sizable, and if it read "all damage" then it would be nearly double as effective as Crit, Haste, or Vers. The problem is that Frost Shock, Flame Shock, and Lava Lash are the main abilities that benefit from mastery, but they each have cooldowns that feel a little too long to construct your entire build around. Most of your consistent dps will come from white hits and a good bit of your burst is from Stormstrike (physical damage). Ultimately, Mastery seems to benefit a side build but probably isn't a huge outlier compared to other secondaries.
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RESTORATION (5/5)

Mastery: Deep Healing
+3% Ceiling for Increased Healing Done
Probably the most popular mastery stacking spec in the bracket - and for good reason. The 3% ratio is unparalleled and the mastery itself is applied to every source of healing from the Resto shaman. The only caveat to add is that the mastery ratio scales with the % missing health of the ally. An ally at 90% health would receive only 10% of the ratio (0.3% per mastery point), whereas an ally at 10% health would receive 90% (2.7% per mastery point). That being said, smarter people than I have crunched the numbers at 20 and determined that below 50% health, 1 mastery rating outheals 1 point of intellect. When mastery competes with a primary stat in any scenario, it's going to be worth stacking.
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WARLOCK
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AFFLICTION (5/5)

Mastery: Potent Afflictions
+2.5% Damage Done by Many Spells
This mastery affects every damaging spell Affliction has at level 20 except for Drain Life and Shadowbolt. So a 2.5% ratio mastery that affects close to 100% of the spec's damage output. The only subject for debate here is that Haste and Vers are both useful to Affliction. Haste reduces fear cast times and also ramps up DoT damage - and Vers is pretty crucial for immobile level 20 Warlocks to reduce damage and increase drain life healing. That being said, there's no doubt that stacking this Mastery increases Aff's dps more than any other secondary.
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DEMONOLOGY (4/5)

Mastery: Master Demonologist
+1.45% Damage Done by Demons
Worth noting that this includes *all* summoned demons including temporary ones like Wild Imps, Bilescourge, and Dreadstalkers, as well as "guardians" like Fel Lord and Observer. The 1.45% ratio is quite high for a purely damage based mastery and helps make your Demonic Strength / Fel Lord kill windows much more dangerous. Unlike its Warlock brothers, Demo mastery probably isn't worth more than Versatility, but it should be a core part of gearing if your goal is to deal high damage.
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DESTRUCTION (5/5)

Mastery: Chaotic Energies
+1% Increased Spell Damage
+1% Random Increase to Spell Damage
+0.22% Damage Taken Reduced
+0.22% Random Reduction to Damage Taken
This mastery is underrated. There's a lot of text there, but think about it as a comparison between Mastery and Crit / Vers. 4 Crit rating will increase your Chaos Bolt damage by 1% and your average damage from other spells by about 1% as well. 4 versatility rating will increase your damage by about 0.9% and your damage reduction by 0.45%. 4 mastery rating will increase your spell damage by 1-2% (more than either) and decrease your damage taken by 0.22-0.44% (less than Vers, but not by much). The variability doesn't really matter when the average result is more power per point than either option. Definitely don't sleep on Destro mastery.
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WARRIOR
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ARMS (3/5)

Mastery: Deep Wounds
+1.1% Damage Increased to Targets with Deep Wounds
This has a pretty low ratio, but Arms doesn't have many other options. Critical Strike rating adds slightly less average damage per point (1.02% vs. 1.10%), although the value of burst from critical hits makes up the gap. Versatility actually has surprisingly decent synergy, given the damage reduction being useful and the increased healing applying to Ignore Pain. The conclusion is that Mastery is technically the highest damage secondary stat for Arms, but it's awkward to have to start it up every time you need to hit a new target.
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FURY (2/5)

Mastery: Unshackled Fury
+1.4% Damage Increased while Enraged
Fury only has one way to activate Enrage at level 20 and it only has a 30% chance every ~4 seconds. Enrage only lasts for 4 seconds. It's already fairly unreliable as an ability - but the mastery ratio is only a measely 1.4%. Yes, it's more than Arms, but Arms can guarantee that damage ratio's uptime nearly 100% of the time. Fury has it about 30% of the time.
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PROTECTION (1/5)

Mastery: Critical Block
+0.5% Block Chance (Before Diminishing Returns)
+1.5% Critical Block Chance (Before Diminishing Returns)
+1% Attack Power
Block only applies to melee damage at a 30% reduction in damage taken. Critical Block bumps that up to a 60% reduction. This is horrible. But at least you get a very small ap bump for your 85% ap ratio Shield Slam or 52.5% ratio Devastate. Don't mastery stack a Protection Warrior at 20, dear god.

Warm Regards,

Bop from Mok'Nathal
 
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FROST (5/5)
Mastery: Frozen Heart
+2% Damage Done by Frost Abilities

I really wanted to like mastery on my frost DK, but it just doesn't feel like it's 5/5. You're too rune/runic power starved at 20. In practice I feel like I get more mileage out of crit for the extra pressure that it generates. Feels more effective if I target ~30-35% crit versus hard stacking mastery.

Nice list!
 
Should I point out which ones you got wrong or it's just an opinion and not a guide?

Well, I think there are areas where I can be objectively wrong ("Actually, Vengeance's AP portion of its mastery does work at level 20");

And then there are areas where I'd like to hear opposing opinions or perspectives from players who main a certain spec who feel like I missed something with its mastery.

Both are welcome!
 
I really like mastery on fury I think it scales well since you can get the base dmg of your spells high with str procs, and then you slap that fat enrage modifier. I’m probably a little biased because I have dual destiny so I can hit very high main stat. You ideally would use the fresh meat talent if you’re using mastery gear. The talent is Great for pve. Mastery gear gets me 150+ ww crits in pve


Same with prot. Full mastery, and str crit gems, and I can spam 550~ crit revenges in lfg dungeons during sader. High enough mastery and crit you can reach crit block cap during pit fighter and always crit block when you block. This is pve of course
 
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For assa rogues, my preliminary testing puts mastery at half the value of the next lowest secondary stat. Yes, mastery doubles the damage impact of poisons compared to the best of the other secondary stats, but testing on a combat dummy showed me that poison damage account for 20-25% of all damage done. Doubling a quarter of our damage (if we're generous) is still half damage compared to other secondary stats.

Hopefully someone with more experience can elaborate on the impact of mastery for assa rogues. As it stands, I would give mastery a 2/5 for assa rogues, and personally I would gear one as if mastery were 1/5.
 
Well, I think there are areas where I can be objectively wrong ("Actually, Vengeance's AP portion of its mastery does work at level 20");

And then there are areas where I'd like to hear opposing opinions or perspectives from players who main a certain spec who feel like I missed something with its mastery.

Both are welcome!
Nice, in that case here are my objections:

  • Assassination rogue - mastery doesn't work on bleeds. This is level 2 which is obtained at higher levels. It only works on poisons and if using the DFA talent which casts Envenom even though it's a lvl 22 spell.
  • Arcane - I've tested all stats even got some savant pieces in bank and mastery turned out to be the worst stat. The other 3 just provide better performance than mastery. I'd put it in the 3/5 category as using elekk tusk will provide some nice damage although I don't use mine often.
  • BM hunter - Mastery gains roughly twice the % compared to versatility but increases only pet damage. This means that unless your pet is doing at least 50% of your total damage when testing with 0% mastery, versatility will be better as it increases all damage and provides damage reduction as well. I'd say 3/5 here.
  • Discipline - I wouldn't use elekk tusk on disc. I think this is what 3/5 means. Nevertheless it's a nice stat as you said just not worth stacking vs others.
  • Shadow - While what you said is mostly true, this mastery is designed to work with and balanced with 3 dots. At higher levels the uptime of DP is much higher and we gain access to more direct damaging spells which makes mastery good in pve if I remember correctly. At 20 we don't have good DP uptime due to the lack of key spells. I would rank it lower as it's not worth picking over haste and versatility even with elekk tusk.

These are the specs I've played and didn't find mastery worth it. The others I've played, I agree with. Cant say anything about the rest as I haven't played most melees and some casters.
 
Well, I think there are areas where I can be objectively wrong ("Actually, Vengeance's AP portion of its mastery does work at level 20");

And then there are areas where I'd like to hear opposing opinions or perspectives from players who main a certain spec who feel like I missed something with its mastery.

Both are welcome!
I mean we did kinda do a 10 page thread like a month ago about how shit stacking too much mastery on ele is so id bump it down a notch or 2.
 
I mean we did kinda do a 10 page thread like a month ago about how shit stacking too much mastery on ele is so id bump it down a notch or 2.
Seconded. I'm far from what you'd call an ele main but I've been playing it a bit lately and I started out heavy mastery stacked (its buffs DMG and its a resource builder!?) but have slowly been replacing some of that with haste (on Goesids recommendation) and find the build even more enjoyable and more effective.

Which isnt to say its bad. I think its a rock solid 4/5, just not a 5/5.
 
Great info!

For prot pala, I get almost 5% more dmg reduction while in consecration on the buff than what the character sheet shows, and Idk which is correct. Doesn't change your assessment, just an oddity w the class I think.
 
ele needs enough haste to get your casts down to 1.6/1.7 speed before stacking mastery or you are going to lose your mind playing it.
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Frost Shock, Flame Shock, and Lava Lash are the main abilities that benefit from mastery, but they each have cooldowns that feel a little too long to construct your entire build around. Most of your consistent dps will come from white hits and a good bit of your burst is from Stormstrike (physical damage)



I think the best way to go is to pick up some mastery off pieces, like for rings bracers etc while using the triple socket pieces from tbc. Enh mastery is nice it really umps up frost shock damage ( hits harder then stormstrike with elektusk up with a shorter cd.) Lavalash also hits harder then stormstrike with enough mastery but its cd is long although it also buffs flameshock. My flameshock at 45% mastery and 200 ap is hitting for over 100 a tick non crit on target dummies.
 
For assa rogues, my preliminary testing puts mastery at half the value of the next lowest secondary stat. Yes, mastery doubles the damage impact of poisons compared to the best of the other secondary stats, but testing on a combat dummy showed me that poison damage account for 20-25% of all damage done. Doubling a quarter of our damage (if we're generous) is still half damage compared to other secondary stats.

Hopefully someone with more experience can elaborate on the impact of mastery for assa rogues. As it stands, I would give mastery a 2/5 for assa rogues, and personally I would gear one as if mastery were 1/5.
Mastery on assassination isn't worth it without envenom imo. Even endgame pvp mastery is a system you don't really want before vers and haste.

Also the magic number for mastery for ele shamans is 94 to have 50% in bgs.

Haste is the king for ret, but a little bit of mastery can be very fucking good! Id say 3/5 for ret.
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Mastery on assassination isn't worth it without envenom imo. Even endgame pvp mastery is a system you don't really want before vers and haste.

Also the magic number for mastery for ele shamans is 94 to have 50% in bgs.

Haste is the king for ret, but a little bit of mastery can be very fucking good! Id say 3/5 for ret.
 
Great write-up and fun to compare all classes!

My 2cents, Destro is 5/5
Mastery>Int in my testing and a decent roll 1 socket green > even the 3 slotter BCs. This is in terms of damage and mitigation, not even including the random roll.
Not including the bonus roll, mastery provides roughly the same damage as versatility but twice as less reduction. There's no way it's better than int.
 
A couple technical nitpicks. IDK why you rounded to 4 mastery rating but then compared it to precisely 1.02% crit etc. If you are going to be that precise, the numbers are 3.92 rating = 1 mastery point = 1% crit = 0.875% vers = 1.06% haste.

Also if we're talking about PvP, you should be using the lvl 29 scaling values instead of lvl 20. 5.19 rating = 1 mastery point. The scaling comparison ratios to haste and vers stays the same, and while 1 mastery point is still 1% crit, a crit is only +75% effectiveness in PvP, not +100%.

Addressing the how 2 most confusing masteries work:

The MW mastery coefficient is 4.2, not 1. Every point adds 4.2% spell power to gust. This is why you start with 33.6% mastery (8 points*4.2). The formula for gust healing is SP*(1+Vers)*(Mastery).

Outlaw rogue coefficient is 1.45, every point rating adds 1.45% mastery on the character sheet. The base is 11.6% (8 points*1.45). However, the damage formula is not completely straightforward, and there is a multiplication by 2, which is where your 2.9 comes from. The whole formula appears to be 2*(MH Ability damage)*(Mastery)*(1+Versatility)*1.13. So essentially your mastery is a multiplier on the damage that these procs do. It is underwhelming, but that's how it works.

Opinions on the few specs I have an opinion on:
Arms: Mastery is on paper the best secondary, but it is kinda clunky. It doesn't start working until after you've hit your target with MS or CS, and it doesn't give a boost to that first hit that applies it, so it only really comes into its own when you can sustain pressure against a single target, and is pretty worthless if you are constantly needing to switch targets. I'd call it 3/5, its kinda a wash between crit, vers, and mastery (and honestly haste scales well enough that it's probably fine too). Arms is probably the poster child for just using https://www.wowhead.com/item=108902/armored-elekk-tusk?ilvl=25

Fury: Pretty spot on, not worth going out of your way to get, probably not worth using https://www.wowhead.com/item=108902/armored-elekk-tusk?ilvl=25 either. But you don't have to avoid it per se.

Prot warr (and tanks in general): The 1% AP is much better than you make it out to be. With 200 primary stat (which is more easily attainable at 29 than 20) 2.6 mastery is basically 1 primary. This isn't amazing, but it is in the same ballpark as the other stats (math says 1 primary should be equal to 2.97 vers, 3.46 crit, and 2.45 haste), plus it has defensive benefit. I'd say 3/5 at least, maybe 4.

MW: Probably 5/5 honestly, it's really strong and adds a frontloaded heal to your HoTs making your ability to react to incoming burst better. Don't think it is as good as resto shaman mastery, but very good nonetheless. Unless you're trying to punch people instead of healing, then it's useless.

Frost DK: It might be 5/5, but it's the lamest feeling 5/5 ever.
 
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Nice, in that case here are my objections:

  • Assassination rogue - mastery doesn't work on bleeds. This is level 2 which is obtained at higher levels. It only works on poisons and if using the DFA talent which casts Envenom even though it's a lvl 22 spell.
  • Arcane - I've tested all stats even got some savant pieces in bank and mastery turned out to be the worst stat. The other 3 just provide better performance than mastery. I'd put it in the 3/5 category as using elekk tusk will provide some nice damage although I don't use mine often.
  • BM hunter - Mastery gains roughly twice the % compared to versatility but increases only pet damage. This means that unless your pet is doing at least 50% of your total damage when testing with 0% mastery, versatility will be better as it increases all damage and provides damage reduction as well. I'd say 3/5 here.
  • Discipline - I wouldn't use elekk tusk on disc. I think this is what 3/5 means. Nevertheless it's a nice stat as you said just not worth stacking vs others.
  • Shadow - While what you said is mostly true, this mastery is designed to work with and balanced with 3 dots. At higher levels the uptime of DP is much higher and we gain access to more direct damaging spells which makes mastery good in pve if I remember correctly. At 20 we don't have good DP uptime due to the lack of key spells. I would rank it lower as it's not worth picking over haste and versatility even with elekk tusk.

These are the specs I've played and didn't find mastery worth it. The others I've played, I agree with. Cant say anything about the rest as I haven't played most melees and some casters.
Mastery is good for shadow priest if you not trying to make build which aims to survive - if you dont give a fuck about damage reduction and heal increase.
If we check 100 vers vs 100 mastery in bg at 29 its 16.86% dmg increase from vers and 13.63 from one dot with default mastery or 9.63 without it.
This means you can get 16.86+12% damage (default mastery 4% x 3) while using 3 dots as versa shadow priest and 24.86 while using 2 dots or you can achieve 27.26% damage increase while using 2 dots as priest with 100 mast instead 100 vers. As we can see this means that mastery > versa in terms of damage even if we are not talking about using 3 dots. But if we do - it gives much higher damage potential to burst - use swp, vampiric touch, dp, and then cast of mind blast+instant vampiric and this dp+vamp+mb damage will be increased for 40.89% compared to 28.86 with 100 versa instead of mastery.
Priest is already strong in terms of surviving and mastery is a good option to boost dmg potential if you are not aiming to make very fat character.
 

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