70-79 Level 70 PvE BiS Gear Compendium

This should be stickied btw @Conq @Valencia

 

For the BM Hunter list:

Necklace of the Deep > Hard Khorium Choker
Barrel-Blade Longrifle > Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury (Thori'dal is garbage)
Bloodstone Band > Khorium Band
Band of the Eternal Champion > Band of Ruinous Delight
Terror Pit Girdle > Gronnstalker's Belt

Highest iLvL does not always equate to highest DPS, even with the Incstanced iLvL boost.

 

Probably because they have based their assumptions on ilvl = higher always. That's probably why none of these strength-user items show up
http://www.wowhead.com/item=34354/mayhem-projection-goggles&spec=72
http://www.wowhead.com/item=28795/bladespire-warbands&spec=72
http://www.wowhead.com/item=28824/gauntlets-of-martial-perfection&spec=72
http://www.wowhead.com/item=30032/red-belt-of-battle&spec=72
http://www.wowhead.com/item=33122/cloak-of-darkness&spec=72 or http://www.wowhead.com/item=24259/vengeance-wrap
http://www.wowhead.com/item=32345/dreadboots-of-the-legion&spec=72
http://www.wowhead.com/item=29950/greaves-of-the-bloodwarder&spec=72
http://www.wowhead.com/item=30740/ripfiend-shoulderplates&spec=72
on the list

 

No. The raw stat comparison is 3 stam, 6 crit, 12 haste (khorium) VS 12 AP (deep). So the necklace of the deep barely (arguably) wins the raw stat comparison. But the khorium neck gives you +3,6 average ilvl which is +5,9% damage in instanced PvE. They are not even close.

Once again let's do the raw stat comparison first:
32 stam, 17 crit, 21 haste, +2 swing damage (thori'dal) VS 30 AP (barrel-blade)
So here your suggestion actually wins in terms of raw stats. But once again when you consider the difference in average character ilvl which is 2,75 = +4,5% damage, we can see that thori'dal clearly wins (+4,5% flat damage vastly outshines a ~+3,5% bonus to AP). Even if it didn't have the extra secondary stats.

Raw stat comparison:
26 stam, 9 haste (khorium) VS 10 AP, 12 crit (bloodstone). And now the ilvl difference: 21 which is an average character ilvl difference of 1,3 which is = +2% flat damage. So now we're weighing 10 AP 12 crit vs 9 haste and +2% flat damage bonus. Khorium band wins.

Might be right actually. Haven't done the research.

.....
1 haste, 6 AP (terror pit) VS 1 stam, 5 crit (gronnstalker). Okay so your belt baaaaarely takes the win in terms of raw stats. The ilvl difference is 29 though which gives an average ilvl difference of almost 2. I'll say no more.

 

If someone reading this is totally oblivious to what I'm talking about in terms of ilvl = damage bonus (@Tuskbreaker); click the link in the OP that takes you to a 70 PvE guide, then scroll down to the "How to gear" section and read.

 

Yeah it's a 50s ICD afaik. And it lasts for 10 seconds meaning ~20% uptime assuming you're hitting reasonably fast and can proc it near instantly after its ICD is over. So the proc alone would average out to 32 AP over a longer fight. Definitely seems amazing.

But it's always an interesting discussion from class to class. Some classes deal almost all of their damage inside of small windows and sometimes can't afford to delay that window until the ring procs. That's definitely not the case for survival hunters though. They have very consistent damage and would gain roughly the same benefit from the ring no matter when it procced. It's definitely BiS for survival hunters.

 

@Onlydreams when you're doing the "raw Stat comparison" why aren't you including the Sockets for +10 Agi each additional? The 2 Sockets on the Gun means you have 50 Agi total (52 if you're a JC). Main Stat FAR outweighs Secondaries. @Fx I did testing on these some time ago, however, please enlighten me with your parses showing that it's iLvL > et all no matter what.

 

Thori'dal has 21 agility which is 22 attack power.
Barrel-blade has 50 agility which is 52 attack power.
52 - 22 = 30

What? If you have the +12 agility gem you can put it in any item. How would having jewelcrafting ever make a difference when comparing two items like these? JC = +2 agi regardless of how many sockets you have, unless you have 0 or 1.

I believe I can be of help here.
When Legion came out I talked to a person who claimed to have tested the ilvl boost on the PTR and was convinced that it had been significantly nerfed or removed. So I did an experiment which I still have the notes on:

I did this in 7.1, so if your theory is that it has since been changed I invite you to test it out for yourself.

edit: I just want to add that the ilvl boost has been in the game for almost 3 years and has for the majority of that time been widely known and accepted. Quite weird/funny to see someone dispute it now.
You can thank @Aelobin for the initial discovery as well as making the mathematical formula that we use.

 

@Onlydreams I'm not at all disagreeing that the iLvL boost works in Instances. I tested out various gear on my 70 Hunter by going into SWP with him and a 100 Tank (my own DK while dual boxing). The 100 just used Taunt and stood there while my Hunter attacked the Sunblade Protector in the 2nd "room" before the actual Trash begins. After each test duration (until it died), I headed out and reset. I changed to different gear each time to test if this or that DPS'd better in an actual real world situation, vs on paper.

Now, when I say I changed to different gear I mean I changed one single item and redid the test. That way I had a baseline to value any changed DPS against. I cannot say I've done any testing on my 70 (have on several other Twink Levels) since Legion began so if it changed from 7.0 and on then I'll have to do it all again.

As soon as I'm able I'll repeat my testing in SWP to see if anything has changed since whatever Patch I did it back in WoD. Thanks for the detailed reply.

 

@DeLindsay Why don't you just sim it? That way you get thousands of parses and eliminate the chance of RNG messing with the results. You can even find sites hosting simulationcraft in the cloud if you don't want to mess with it yourself.
Of course simulations don't take the ilvl boost into account so you have to add that manually.

Here's a 10000 parse sim i ran on necklace of the deep vs khorium choker for my survival hunter http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/argent-dawn/Mewqt/advanced
Simmed dps with necklace of the deep: 6768.5
Simmed dps with hard khorium choker: 6747.0

And now we add our ilvl bonuses:
Average ilvl equipped with necklace of the deep: 157,43
Average ilvl equipped with hard khorium choker: 161,12
(157,43 - 115) * 1,67 = 70,8581
6768,5 * 1,708581 = 11564 total instanced dps for necklace of the deep
(161,12 - 115) * 1,67 = 77,0204
6747 * 1,770204 = 11943 total instanced dps for hard khorium choker

 

@Blackberryy ilvl boost was implemented in WoD prepatch so almost 3 years ago. So people have been having to weigh "real" stats vs ilvl for a long time.

 

@Blackberryy Sure wod pvp gearing was a lot different than it is now, but this is a pve compendium thread. Nobody in here is talking about pvp gear.

 

On mobile so I can't do fancy linking.

I overviewed the plate section and have to disagree on the boots. Dreadboots from BT are by far better then onslaught imo by a long shot. Better stats and a second gem slot. Those trinks as well, everyone has their own trinket pathway, shouldn't have to go full eng gear. Trinkets were always preference to the players playstyle/build. This is PvE