Proposal: Affliction Gemming is nothing, ilvl is everything

[Kaboozey 16]

First, I'll come out and say this: I can't stand Ask Mr Robot. It fluctuates. It doesn't give soft-caps correctly more often than not.

Another commonly used reforge tool is wowreforge. It doesn't take upgrades into account. You CAN manually change stats on an item to reflect upgrades properly. Also, the quest reward for a prismatic socket from the Black Prince doesn't show up, but you can properly adjust numbers as needed for that as well. Finally, it doesn't change out gems to optimize... but... how much does this even matter? Let's find out.

Using my current armory, I have only one item fully upgraded right now - my weapon. It changes Critical from 355 -> 382 and Haste from 341 -> 367. Optimized, my stats end up looking like this using 5100 Hit Cap & 4717 Haste cap:

Crit: 2037

Haste: 4721

Mastery: 6712

Hit: 5108

After changing out all 4 Fractured gems to Sensei I re-optimize and get:

Crit: 2037

Haste: 4722

Mastery: 6708

Hit: 5111

I would lose a whopping 4 Mastery and gain a huge 1 Haste. I thought maybe this was just an anomaly, and loaded up Zagam's profile into wowreforge. After adjusting ALL of his various upgraded gear (thanks for a 1/2 and a 1/2 there), we end up with these stats using a 5100 Hit Cap and 6637 Haste Cap:

Crit: 1111

Haste: 6637

Mastery: 7166

Hit: 5100

Peforming the same actions as to my own profile, I changed out the Fractured to Sensei:

Crit: 1111

Haste: 6638

Mastery: 7165

Hit: 5100

Well holy hell. So long as you're setting the same cap parameters, and taking your socket bonuses (as you should be), reforging will end up giving you the same results either way. Gemming doesn't mean squat. Go with what is cheapest.

Similarily, if two pieces of gear have the same desirable Affliction stats and are at the same ilvl, you're going to end up in the same boat. Example:

My bracers are an eyesore. I was trying to figure out what would be better: Attenuating Bracers (Mastery + Haste) or Twisting Wind Bracers (Hit + Haste). Long story short - it doesn't matter. Blizzard itemized gear so it doesn't. The difference is a change of 7 Mastery rating between the two bracers after reforging.

__________________

My wowreforge link: http://wowreforge.com/US/Deathwing/Kaboozey

[Zagam 1,982]

Gemming does matter, but only to a point. Like I've sound many many times before, stats are such a small part of your overall DPS. Still, the community always wants to know what is best, even if they don't truly understand it. Perhaps you are onto me, since I am a Jewelcrafter. Could you imagine if someone accused me of changing the priority on Icy-Veins then selling gems to match that priority?

Kidding aside, reforging is awesome. It allows you to get out of bad stats and into more desireable ones. If you were to decide on Hit/Haste vs Haste/Mastery, I would take the Mastery ones because I have an item level high enough to switch gems or other forges to get what I want. However, I would end up at a lower overall Mastery level because of that one piece. If you only care about item level and not the enchants or reforges, consider this:

My current gem/reforge/gemming gives me 300 haste, 265 crit, 2610 mastery, 480 hit, and 2386 intellect. That could change based on my priority which would have a rather large effect on the overall value. It matters, but as you've found out and I've preached, not a whole lot.

[Kaboozey 16]

Kidding aside, reforging is awesome. It allows you to get out of bad stats and into more desireable ones. If you were to decide on Hit/Haste vs Haste/Mastery, I would take the Mastery ones because I have an item level high enough to switch gems or other forges to get what I want. However, I would end up at a lower overall Mastery level because of that one piece.

This is kind of specific to Affliction because of how valuable Mastery is for us. Hit, Haste, and Mastery are all desirable. I gave the Hit/Haste vs Haste/Mastery example. Reforging with both pieces yielded a difference of 7 Mastery rating, which is obviously nothing in the grand scheme of things. Those two bracers are equal. Likewise, I have yet to come up with a situation where it would make a difference in what you take in your yellow/blue sockets between mastery & hit. If you're over cap, reforging will just dump it all where it belongs, and you end up with the same numbers.

I should have put a "TLDR: Don't take crit gear" at the end.

[Zagam 1,982]

Yep, that's very true. I'm currently on simulation 4 out of 10 proving what you just said :)

[Kaboozey 16]

The only situation it DIDN'T work out is when I regemmed all of your yellow sockets to pure haste. It was simply too much haste stacked since you have so much innately in your gear and couldn't dump enough haste + crit to balance out where it needed to be.

[Zagam 1,982]

Yep. I'm on iteration 6 out of 10 right now. I had 9505 haste in one of them and Simcraft freaked out and gave me a 3.78 weight for Haste meaning it was better than Spell Power...I lol'd outloud. I love breaking simulation things when you blow its parameters out.