Shikaari
Blood Legion
Hi, everyone. I go by Shikaari, and I'm trying to create the ultimate BiS list. I am planning to do this for a few reasons: a) I don't see one, b) multiple people ask about what to get for their gear lists and c) because I'm bored and I know what I'm talking about and the two combined gave rise to this.
FAQ:
Why should I trust you?
Well, you don't have to. This is a game that constantly changes and the next innovative thing won't happen until YOU try something new. Don't take my word for dogma, and feel free to try out new strategies, gear lists etc. With that being said, please do tell me what you find on this forum and if I like what I see I'll update it with you being my source! But all of that aside, I'm a 20 twink that has been playing since pretty much the inception of F2P twinking and I consider myself pretty good at this game. I am using this account as an alias, some of you know who I am (if you do please keep it yourself), but long story short, I've played all of the classes that you can play at 20 and I have a pretty good idea at how to play them at a top level. I promise I won't steer you wrong.
How did you decide how what exactly BiS was? After all, I was told that there are MANY BiS lists.
You are perfectly correct. There are a lot of different "BiS" lists. Here's what went into mine and why I think mine are preferable. First of all, most of those BiS lists are based on hearsay. In other words, you might hear "on my hunter I stack stamina, I have 1900 HP and nothing can beat me." The problem is, that's a logical fallacy. Yes, 1900 HP hunters may be un-killable, which is certainly a lofty goal to strive for; however, a 1400 HP hunter may also be immortal but trade in that 500 HP for some extra AP/Crit that will give him an advantage over other hunters. As an example, Biggie and Laglol both have significantly less health than most hunters, and yet frequently 1v1'd these other hunters simply by doing more output damage.
With that being said, that brings me to my second consideration. Skill-cap. For my list, I assume that every player is skill-capped and plays a style similar to that which I assume to be the best playstyle. THIS MIGHT NOT BE TRUE FOR YOU. Just because I think you should play a certain way, does not mean that you should play in that way. There are r1 Gladiators that play the same class completely differently and yet still hit the same ratings on the same battlegroups. If your style of play differs that's up to you. However, I am picking the style that I think is the easiest to learn, maneuver and excel with.
I was taught numbers, numbers, numbers. Elistist Jerk's says you're not proving anything. Right?
Yup. I have not got into my numbers yet, but without numbers, everything you hear is hearsay. I'll explain the numbers that I get into, why I have certain weights etc. To give you a brief overview of the mentality going into the numbers without giving examples, I set each value to a maximum of 100. In other words, 100 stamina gave me 1000 health, 100 intellect gave me 1500 mana and 100 spellpower and so on. I then theorized the point at which someone should feel comfortable with forgoing a certain statistic for another, and that gave me my weight. In other words, for a disc priest, shields are based on intellect, and are also on a very short cooldown. You would be hard-pressed to lose your shield quickly, and therefore stamina ends up falling behind intellect. I'll explain the reasoning behind this in the priest section.
Some of this gear is nearly impossible to get!
Yes, unfortunately, that's how BiS lists go. If it was easy to get then everyone would have it, and no one could brag about being BiS. That's unfortunately how it is. You can note that Alliance does have an easier time than Horde for all counts. That's not to say they always have better gear, but in the rare cases that they do not, they simply have no hard to get alternatives so ease of gearing is... well easy.
How about pre BoA BiS?
That's an oxymoron. If it's not a BoA, and the BoA slot is BiS, then you are not BiS. Get BoAs! THAT MEANS RESILIENCE BOA TRINKET!
What is this ratio thing?
The ratio is the math that I was talking about above. It essentially allows you to calculate the values of gear that you have yourself without relying on me. Lets take an example. For priests, the ratio is, 1 : 1.3 : .6 | .4 : .1
Lets break that down. The first number is the MAIN stat that every single piece of gear should have: stamina. The second number is your main secondary stat. For priests, that would be intellect. The third number correlates to the third statistic that priest would want: Spirit. The numbers that follow the | are Crit/Haste (the secondary stats). Any other numbers given will be explained in the subsection. For example, certain stats might be better than other stats past a certain thresh-hold (in other words, once you hit 20% crit, haste may start to pull ahead over crit.
As an example, lets take the bracer slot for a priest. You have a couple of options:
Ivycloth Bracers of the Eagle: 4 Stamina/ 3 Intellect
Ivycloth Bracers of the Eagle: 3 Stamina/ 4 Intellect
Mindthrust Bracers: 3 Stamina/ 4 Intellect / 3 Spirit
Ivycloth Bracers of Intellect: 5 Intellect
Lets do the numbers!
IBotE: 4 Stamina (x1) + 3 Intellect (x1.3) = 7.9
IBotE: 3 Stamina (x1) + 4 Intellect (x1.3) = 8.2
MB: 3 Stamina (x1) + 4 Intellect (x1.3) + 3 Spirit (x.6) = 10
IBoI: 5 Intellect (x1.3) = 6.5
Why is this cool? Well, you can do your own math and find the gear that you can / should get BEFORE BiS. IE: If you have a IBotE, it will always be better than IBoI so you should always use those first. MB is far ahead so that's your BiS!
What about hit?
Great question! Hit is the #1 most important stat, secondary only to Expertise for melee. There are very few exceptions where Hit (especially in such a low bracket) does not come far ahead of every other stat. For this BiS list, I am finding the most optimal scenario to get Hit Cap without sacrificing other stats according to the ratio above. If you can think of basic algebra for a second, it's pretty easy to solve an equation with one variable. Hit, in this case, is that one variable, as everything else has been assigned a number according to the ratio given. That means that we can just plug in hit until we maximize gear to said ratio and we have our optimal "Hit Scenario." For melee, Expertise is almost as big. There are a few scenarios where this will not be the case, but in the vast majority of cases, Expertise reigns supreme. The equivalent to expertise for casters is Spell Penetration.
FAQ:
Why should I trust you?
Well, you don't have to. This is a game that constantly changes and the next innovative thing won't happen until YOU try something new. Don't take my word for dogma, and feel free to try out new strategies, gear lists etc. With that being said, please do tell me what you find on this forum and if I like what I see I'll update it with you being my source! But all of that aside, I'm a 20 twink that has been playing since pretty much the inception of F2P twinking and I consider myself pretty good at this game. I am using this account as an alias, some of you know who I am (if you do please keep it yourself), but long story short, I've played all of the classes that you can play at 20 and I have a pretty good idea at how to play them at a top level. I promise I won't steer you wrong.
How did you decide how what exactly BiS was? After all, I was told that there are MANY BiS lists.
You are perfectly correct. There are a lot of different "BiS" lists. Here's what went into mine and why I think mine are preferable. First of all, most of those BiS lists are based on hearsay. In other words, you might hear "on my hunter I stack stamina, I have 1900 HP and nothing can beat me." The problem is, that's a logical fallacy. Yes, 1900 HP hunters may be un-killable, which is certainly a lofty goal to strive for; however, a 1400 HP hunter may also be immortal but trade in that 500 HP for some extra AP/Crit that will give him an advantage over other hunters. As an example, Biggie and Laglol both have significantly less health than most hunters, and yet frequently 1v1'd these other hunters simply by doing more output damage.
With that being said, that brings me to my second consideration. Skill-cap. For my list, I assume that every player is skill-capped and plays a style similar to that which I assume to be the best playstyle. THIS MIGHT NOT BE TRUE FOR YOU. Just because I think you should play a certain way, does not mean that you should play in that way. There are r1 Gladiators that play the same class completely differently and yet still hit the same ratings on the same battlegroups. If your style of play differs that's up to you. However, I am picking the style that I think is the easiest to learn, maneuver and excel with.
I was taught numbers, numbers, numbers. Elistist Jerk's says you're not proving anything. Right?
Yup. I have not got into my numbers yet, but without numbers, everything you hear is hearsay. I'll explain the numbers that I get into, why I have certain weights etc. To give you a brief overview of the mentality going into the numbers without giving examples, I set each value to a maximum of 100. In other words, 100 stamina gave me 1000 health, 100 intellect gave me 1500 mana and 100 spellpower and so on. I then theorized the point at which someone should feel comfortable with forgoing a certain statistic for another, and that gave me my weight. In other words, for a disc priest, shields are based on intellect, and are also on a very short cooldown. You would be hard-pressed to lose your shield quickly, and therefore stamina ends up falling behind intellect. I'll explain the reasoning behind this in the priest section.
Some of this gear is nearly impossible to get!
Yes, unfortunately, that's how BiS lists go. If it was easy to get then everyone would have it, and no one could brag about being BiS. That's unfortunately how it is. You can note that Alliance does have an easier time than Horde for all counts. That's not to say they always have better gear, but in the rare cases that they do not, they simply have no hard to get alternatives so ease of gearing is... well easy.
How about pre BoA BiS?
That's an oxymoron. If it's not a BoA, and the BoA slot is BiS, then you are not BiS. Get BoAs! THAT MEANS RESILIENCE BOA TRINKET!
What is this ratio thing?
The ratio is the math that I was talking about above. It essentially allows you to calculate the values of gear that you have yourself without relying on me. Lets take an example. For priests, the ratio is, 1 : 1.3 : .6 | .4 : .1
Lets break that down. The first number is the MAIN stat that every single piece of gear should have: stamina. The second number is your main secondary stat. For priests, that would be intellect. The third number correlates to the third statistic that priest would want: Spirit. The numbers that follow the | are Crit/Haste (the secondary stats). Any other numbers given will be explained in the subsection. For example, certain stats might be better than other stats past a certain thresh-hold (in other words, once you hit 20% crit, haste may start to pull ahead over crit.
As an example, lets take the bracer slot for a priest. You have a couple of options:
Ivycloth Bracers of the Eagle: 4 Stamina/ 3 Intellect
Ivycloth Bracers of the Eagle: 3 Stamina/ 4 Intellect
Mindthrust Bracers: 3 Stamina/ 4 Intellect / 3 Spirit
Ivycloth Bracers of Intellect: 5 Intellect
Lets do the numbers!
IBotE: 4 Stamina (x1) + 3 Intellect (x1.3) = 7.9
IBotE: 3 Stamina (x1) + 4 Intellect (x1.3) = 8.2
MB: 3 Stamina (x1) + 4 Intellect (x1.3) + 3 Spirit (x.6) = 10
IBoI: 5 Intellect (x1.3) = 6.5
Why is this cool? Well, you can do your own math and find the gear that you can / should get BEFORE BiS. IE: If you have a IBotE, it will always be better than IBoI so you should always use those first. MB is far ahead so that's your BiS!
What about hit?
Great question! Hit is the #1 most important stat, secondary only to Expertise for melee. There are very few exceptions where Hit (especially in such a low bracket) does not come far ahead of every other stat. For this BiS list, I am finding the most optimal scenario to get Hit Cap without sacrificing other stats according to the ratio above. If you can think of basic algebra for a second, it's pretty easy to solve an equation with one variable. Hit, in this case, is that one variable, as everything else has been assigned a number according to the ratio given. That means that we can just plug in hit until we maximize gear to said ratio and we have our optimal "Hit Scenario." For melee, Expertise is almost as big. There are a few scenarios where this will not be the case, but in the vast majority of cases, Expertise reigns supreme. The equivalent to expertise for casters is Spell Penetration.
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kk thanks
