Splosion
Mr Theory
Ok so I'm half done. Got some more chardevs in the works, will add them when I've done them
I have a few for you, namely Rogues (all specs) and retribution paladins, both for PvE.
For the rogues, it was my original intention to make two "BiS" sets with chardev, one cataclysm blue-heavy and the other wotlk-heavy, to illustrate the differences. However, since I attempted that, in the case of a leather-wearing agility user, I've found that the cataclysm gear is simply terrible. In almost all slots you lose agility, and since for pve, rogue specs do not need mastery (the assassination chardev is different because of this) as much as say...an arcane mage, I found myself ignoring cataclysm gear almost entirely, sans mainhand/offhand (even the LK25hc xbow is better than any cataclysm alternative). With this in mind, all specs use 5/5 t10 heroic (I may update the chardevs in future if I math it that one offset is better, since it probably is), and next to no cata gear.
So here are the chardevs:
Combat:
chardev 9
Combat favours haste above all, although it's worth noting that you're extremely likely to be energy-capping with the amount of haste listed here (definitely with adrenaline rush up), so you may end up swapping some of the haste for mastery. The set is well above spell hitcap, which all-but removes the value of the stat completely.
Subtlety:
chardev 9
Similarly to combat, you'll likely find yourself energy capping with this set, although it isn't as likely. Subtlety uses energy well, and you'll have a very fluid rotation with high haste, and be able to keep the three required buffs rolling at all times (SnD, recup, Rupture)
Assassination:
chardev 9
Assassination is slightly different to the two previous chardevs. it uses more cataclysm gear, simply because agility isn't worth anywhere near as much as it is in the other specs (barely 30% more than hit to 8% infact). Because of this, I opted to swap the t10 chest for the cataclysm offset one, because you gain a large amount of mastery, which is by far assassination's best secondary stat (at least til I get around to running some stat comparisons in simulationcraft). Similarly with the offset ring.
In all three sets I have used the cataclysm weapons, as it would be silly not to. Weapon dps (particularly main hand dps) is the strongest stat for rogues by a very, very wide margin. As such, you want to get the weapon with the highest ilevel you can, which means the 308 cataclysm ones (not to mention you get landslide vs berserking, which is a 600 AP gain)
Now, on to the next class
Retribution:
I've made 3 BiS sets for retribution, and I plan to reduce this, once I've made some more simcraft tests. These three are as follows:
Mastery heavy (4pc t10): chardev 9
Fairly standard, capping hit & expertise first, then going mastery>crit=haste for weights.
Haste softcap (4pc t10): chardev 9
Given the amount of haste that a level 80 character can get, it's viable to try and achieve the 3sec haste cooldown, which involves a calculator: Ret Paladin 4.0.1 Haste Softcap Calculator. My ms is 31, so the cap was 931 haste, which I have achieved in this set. However, it costs you 4 mastery points (not rating) to do it, which actually ends up in slightly less dps (according to simcraft)
Mastery heavy (2pc t10 only): chardev 9
In this set, I swapped two items from the set out. The shoulders and legs, since the 277 offset legs are really well itemised, and the 308 hit/mastery shoulders are likewise. The question however, is whether the gain in mastery/str worth the loss of 10% judgement/seal damage. In my simcrafts, the combination of these add up to around 18% of my total damage, which means the set bonus is a 1.8% increase in damage.
Trinkets can be switched around, I haven't ever had access to the StS (let alone the heroic version) or DBW/DC, but I found that the porcelain crab (my current 2nd trinket in ret) has a 105sec internal cooldown, and a 20% uptime. This means it is worth 918/5 = 183.6 mastery (the proc) + 80 mastery from passive, which is 263.6 mastery. I'll perform similar calculations for the other trinkets once I can get access to either them or info on their internal cooldowns.
Shadowmourne has special mention for retribution, because a 3.8 speed weapon is much better than a 3.6 speed weapon, simply because of seal damage (ppm, so higher % chance to proc per swing with SM). The weapon damage is a minus, however the proc is also strong for retribution (again, seals proc it faster), which is likely to push the value of it up. I do not know if the chaos bane str proc is still cancelable, if so it's likely to increase the dps value of the weapon.
Stay tuned for yet more chardevs and theory
I have a few for you, namely Rogues (all specs) and retribution paladins, both for PvE.
For the rogues, it was my original intention to make two "BiS" sets with chardev, one cataclysm blue-heavy and the other wotlk-heavy, to illustrate the differences. However, since I attempted that, in the case of a leather-wearing agility user, I've found that the cataclysm gear is simply terrible. In almost all slots you lose agility, and since for pve, rogue specs do not need mastery (the assassination chardev is different because of this) as much as say...an arcane mage, I found myself ignoring cataclysm gear almost entirely, sans mainhand/offhand (even the LK25hc xbow is better than any cataclysm alternative). With this in mind, all specs use 5/5 t10 heroic (I may update the chardevs in future if I math it that one offset is better, since it probably is), and next to no cata gear.
So here are the chardevs:
Combat:
chardev 9
Combat favours haste above all, although it's worth noting that you're extremely likely to be energy-capping with the amount of haste listed here (definitely with adrenaline rush up), so you may end up swapping some of the haste for mastery. The set is well above spell hitcap, which all-but removes the value of the stat completely.
Subtlety:
chardev 9
Similarly to combat, you'll likely find yourself energy capping with this set, although it isn't as likely. Subtlety uses energy well, and you'll have a very fluid rotation with high haste, and be able to keep the three required buffs rolling at all times (SnD, recup, Rupture)
Assassination:
chardev 9
Assassination is slightly different to the two previous chardevs. it uses more cataclysm gear, simply because agility isn't worth anywhere near as much as it is in the other specs (barely 30% more than hit to 8% infact). Because of this, I opted to swap the t10 chest for the cataclysm offset one, because you gain a large amount of mastery, which is by far assassination's best secondary stat (at least til I get around to running some stat comparisons in simulationcraft). Similarly with the offset ring.
In all three sets I have used the cataclysm weapons, as it would be silly not to. Weapon dps (particularly main hand dps) is the strongest stat for rogues by a very, very wide margin. As such, you want to get the weapon with the highest ilevel you can, which means the 308 cataclysm ones (not to mention you get landslide vs berserking, which is a 600 AP gain)
Now, on to the next class
Retribution:
I've made 3 BiS sets for retribution, and I plan to reduce this, once I've made some more simcraft tests. These three are as follows:
Mastery heavy (4pc t10): chardev 9
Fairly standard, capping hit & expertise first, then going mastery>crit=haste for weights.
Haste softcap (4pc t10): chardev 9
Given the amount of haste that a level 80 character can get, it's viable to try and achieve the 3sec haste cooldown, which involves a calculator: Ret Paladin 4.0.1 Haste Softcap Calculator. My ms is 31, so the cap was 931 haste, which I have achieved in this set. However, it costs you 4 mastery points (not rating) to do it, which actually ends up in slightly less dps (according to simcraft)
Mastery heavy (2pc t10 only): chardev 9
In this set, I swapped two items from the set out. The shoulders and legs, since the 277 offset legs are really well itemised, and the 308 hit/mastery shoulders are likewise. The question however, is whether the gain in mastery/str worth the loss of 10% judgement/seal damage. In my simcrafts, the combination of these add up to around 18% of my total damage, which means the set bonus is a 1.8% increase in damage.
Trinkets can be switched around, I haven't ever had access to the StS (let alone the heroic version) or DBW/DC, but I found that the porcelain crab (my current 2nd trinket in ret) has a 105sec internal cooldown, and a 20% uptime. This means it is worth 918/5 = 183.6 mastery (the proc) + 80 mastery from passive, which is 263.6 mastery. I'll perform similar calculations for the other trinkets once I can get access to either them or info on their internal cooldowns.
Shadowmourne has special mention for retribution, because a 3.8 speed weapon is much better than a 3.6 speed weapon, simply because of seal damage (ppm, so higher % chance to proc per swing with SM). The weapon damage is a minus, however the proc is also strong for retribution (again, seals proc it faster), which is likely to push the value of it up. I do not know if the chaos bane str proc is still cancelable, if so it's likely to increase the dps value of the weapon.
Stay tuned for yet more chardevs and theory
