[Level 20][Opinion] All Specs Mastery Rundown

Another simple way to look at is this for inside arena/BG.. world numbers are just confusing the issue as they are meaningless.

Spaceblades 63% mastery scales down to 42% in a BG - and 0 verse.... so essentially with out nit-picking at decimals 43% increased shadow damage only.
Naxxrammers verse scales from 33% down to 26%- and he also gets the base 18% mastery in a BG... So he gets 26% increase Physical damage... and he gets 44% increase to Shadow damage.

Like I said I just don't see the all mastery equation. Especially when Festering strike and Deathstrike are also just physical. Again again assuming Haste stays at a constant between both examples.
 
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Yeah arena/BG testing would be better and if he wants help with some testing there as well I'd be down to help. Just saw he asked for some training dummy numbers so I got some during my lunch break
 
Im not saying I don't understand that Unholy can't just pop some trinkets and wreck somebody... but again, just based on what I showed up above the way mastery scales so badly... it seems iffy to me.... and again... popping trinkets just adds the damage - I am not debating that at all... I'm just talking about the base secondary stats... and giving up verse for no other benefit.

Popping elk tusk for more damage gives the same bonus regardless of what you are running you could have on a crit/haste build... its just just a flat increase it does not care what your stats already are... UNLESS there are some diminishing returns on mastery and it actually scales WORSE if you already have high mastery... I don't know.
 
What is the name of the addon that shows the breakdown of avg dmg? Does it also show healing? Thanks in advance!
 
legit if they wanted a big number why are they talking about DK at all, instead of just playing huntard like the rest of the smurfs
Its not fulfilling to make hunter do big numbers. Nobody's gonna look at your hunter and go "man this guy has that thing, look how much damage he does". No one cares. That's why its noticable when someone outdamages hunter. It's not about the numbers, it's about the message
 
As mentioned you are wrong in assuming your way is the correct way or only way that works. I felt like Chops comment was spot on but still since you are referring directly to my post which are backed up with my large amount of game experience. I figure I'd chime in now.

Anytime someone new joins this forums it is up to them to read over the information and figure out what works for them. What stat priority will be fun for their specific build in the type of content they do. I believe myself and everyone else here has provided options for them. Which is what new players deserve.

I listed reasons for stacking Crit and there is a reason why Spriest stacked Crit when I was competing at 2600 MMR in RBGs. We had a Crit Spriest and so did other top teams in the world. If another team had one, you had to keep them in the GY otherwise your team was in for a bad time due to the Facemelting pressure they provided. This is NO different at level 20 as the stat and mechanics function the same. If you make a Crit build you aren't doing it wrong, you are playing a very effective different way that works extremely well in a BG setting.

I personally go Haste/Crit as mentioned as they synergize extremely well and explained why they offer more damage and mitigation. So people can explore this option for themselves and perhaps try out the build to see if it is something they enjoy more.



Just because you don't like information doesn't make is misinformation. Something that people get wrong in today's time.
The reason crit is good for endgame spriest is because of shadowy apparition which 20s don’t have. But crit is decent for unfurling darkness at 20.
 
The reason crit is good for endgame spriest is because of shadowy apparition which 20s don’t have.

True

But crit is decent for unfurling darkness at 20.

Yea had a 1250 crit with it so far. I mean any dot class should consider Crit though as it's the biggest damage amp. It makes everything feel extra face melty. Especially when Shadowfiend is critting with Dots and mindflay rolls in and is critting. It's just really great pressure. You want your Dots to matter and if they don't Crit they are more or less padding damage instead of doing something impactful in my opinion.

Not to mention also the defensive benefit.
 
Crit is decidedly not the biggest damage amplifier for DoT classes because it is nerfed in PvP. Mastery or Haste is going to be best, depending on the class, and even versatility scales better than crit when you factor in the PvP reduction. In fact, crit is basically never going to be the best "on paper". In order for crit to be good, it needs to do something mechanically to outperform it's theoretical value.

Crit can be good for a few reasons:
  1. You have big single hit abilities which become more than 75% more threatening when they do 75% extra damage. Think Aimed Shot, Sudden Death, etc.
  2. Your character has abilities that proc on crit meaning you get more value than just the added damage/healing. (The shadowy apparitions example)
  3. You feel the need to make your class more highroll-y in order to actually be threatening, so instead of boosting damage consistently via haste/mastery/versatility, you just go for trying to highroll for a bunch of +75% crits. The value of this is kind of dubious though, because it actually creates more variance to have less crit and higher base damage because your crits will be bigger, if less frequent.
  4. There is more crit on gem socket gear than other stats.
Generally 1 and 3 don't really apply to DoT classes, although they may also have something that can crit big like unfurling darkness. Crit does perform consistently with DoTs because you have a bunch of small numbers rather than a few big numbers, but with that consistency comes less variance, exposing the worse theoretical scaling of the stat whose whole upside is creating more variant events.
 
Crit is decidedly not the biggest damage amplifier for DoT classes because it is nerfed in PvP. Mastery or Haste is going to be best, depending on the class, and even versatility scales better than crit when you factor in the PvP reduction. In fact, crit is basically never going to be the best "on paper". In order for crit to be good, it needs to do something mechanically to outperform it's theoretical value.

Crit can be good for a few reasons:
  1. You have big single hit abilities which become more than 75% more threatening when they do 75% extra damage. Think Aimed Shot, Sudden Death, etc.
  2. Your character has abilities that proc on crit meaning you get more value than just the added damage/healing. (The shadowy apparitions example)
  3. You feel the need to make your class more highroll-y in order to actually be threatening, so instead of boosting damage consistently via haste/mastery/versatility, you just go for trying to highroll for a bunch of +75% crits. The value of this is kind of dubious though, because it actually creates more variance to have less crit and higher base damage because your crits will be bigger, if less frequent.
  4. There is more crit on gem socket gear than other stats.
Generally 1 and 3 don't really apply to DoT classes, although they may also have something that can crit big like unfurling darkness. Crit does perform consistently with DoTs because you have a bunch of small numbers rather than a few big numbers, but with that consistency comes less variance, exposing the worse theoretical scaling of the stat whose whole upside is creating more variant events.
Okey, first of all, I love all of you for taking a thread about a secondary stat and making it about another irrelevant secondary stat.

Second, I think youre forgetting that crits look cool. I mean theres a reason theres like a million 12 year olds in this bracket playing hunters. And if you dot you get many crits. All those numbers in bold font covering your screen as the fight wages on.
 
True



Yea had a 1250 crit with it so far. I mean any dot class should consider Crit though as it's the biggest damage amp. It makes everything feel extra face melty. Especially when Shadowfiend is critting with Dots and mindflay rolls in and is critting. It's just really great pressure. You want your Dots to matter and if they don't Crit they are more or less padding damage instead of doing something impactful in my opinion.

Not to mention also the defensive benefit.
I’m aware yeah my priest is 45% haste 15% crit 13% vers
 
As I'm preparing my druid for DF, I'm wondering how current evaluation of mastery may change for druid in the next Xpac.
Balance druid may get access to celestial alignement meaning they will get twice the benefit of mastery during 20s every 3mn, putting this stats through the roof regarding the ability of the druid to burst down a target with starsurges (which is what balance is good at)
Resto also gets a lot more hot, which may change the estimation of mastery by a lot.
Feral gets more bleeds, putting this mastery even higher ? (Even if it is already rated 5/5)

Any opinions on these ?
 
As I'm preparing my druid for DF, I'm wondering how current evaluation of mastery may change for druid in the next Xpac.
Balance druid may get access to celestial alignement meaning they will get twice the benefit of mastery during 20s every 3mn, putting this stats through the roof regarding the ability of the druid to burst down a target with starsurges (which is what balance is good at)
Resto also gets a lot more hot, which may change the estimation of mastery by a lot.
Feral gets more bleeds, putting this mastery even higher ? (Even if it is already rated 5/5)

Any opinions on these ?

Mastery for boomy will be nice, but if the bracket stays as bursty etc, you will only take mastery that you can get for free, unless you plan on just playing a 3 minute stealth into 1 shot rogue I suppose
 
As long as the 20s stays as simple as "Fear > Chaosbolt" or "freezing trap > aimed shot" (or whatever else stupid shit you want to come up with... none of this really matters, just build your toon with the right gear and play it.
 
Y'all are motivating me to finally make the edits I lost mid-draft about a month ago.
[doublepost=1660525560,1660516686][/doublepost]Edits to the main post!

1. Updated the scoring criteria to be shorter and clearer.

2. Arcane Mage Mastery 5/5 --> 3/5.

--- I missed a kind of subtle issue with Arcane's mastery that caused some people to note that mastery doesn't damage test very well. Versatility also ramps up the damage of Arcane Blast + Arcane Barrage as each gain stacks. What seems like a 4x benefit to the mastery when you have 4 Arcane charges is not that impressive when versatility also receives that same 4x benefit by increasing the base damage of those spells. Credit to someone in @CigNus 's discord for doing the damage tests in real time with me to help me figure out where my math was going wrong. As it turns out, the mastery is only good for increasing mana and a very small damage increase over versatility for arcane missiles (1% vs. 0.89%). I'm keeping it at a 3/5 because it's still quite good alongside versatility as a pure damage option.

3. Protection Paladin Mastery 2/5 --> 5/5.

--- Another area I miscalculated bigtime when evaluating masteries initially. With Protadin, the reason is more about how the class plays than any mathematical reason (which is why I'm only changing Protadin's mastery and not the other tanks). They benefit massively from increased attack power = spell power ratios on their word of glory and flash of light. You can easily get each of those to heal for over 1000 outside of instanced pvp with enough mastery. The damage reduction in consecration is fairly substantial - roughly equivalent to Versatility's damage reduction. And of course the block synergy with the Battlegrounds Holy Shield build is gigantic. This is an excellent example of a mastery that doesn't have the best "math" nevertheless being god tier because it synergizes incredibly well with how the spec wants to play.

4. Demonology Warlock Mastery 3/5 --> 4/5.

--- When I originally scored it, I thought a 1.45% damage increase per 4 points of mastery was low for some reason. It's quite reasonable, even for a class that desperately wants versatility. The 4/5 score reflects that it's not as jaw dropping as Affliction or Destruction masteries but should still be a core consideration when gearing.
 

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