1H and OFF or 2H

[Akomagus 8]

Age old question. I got the staff drop on Horridon, but also the fetish of Hydra from Megaera. I only have the 502 venomlord wand.

For now I know it's better to keep dinospire staff because it's 522 but when i get the wand should I do 1H and fetish or stick with 2h. I'm trying to decide what I should upgrade and use the princes extra socket on without it being a waste if i get the wand or sword next week. Any suggestions?

Edited July 6, 2013 by Akomagus

[Oltier 471]

I'd upgrade the staff.

Nothing can guarantee that a wand/dagger will drop next week. What if it will not for a month? :)

That extra 2500 gold nowadays is really not much. ^^

[Akomagus 8]

I'd upgrade the staff.

Nothing can guarantee that a wand/dagger will drop next week. What if it will not for a month?

That extra 2500 gold nowadays is really not much. ^^

In the end though, is wand/sword and OH better than the staff? Almost capped in vps so i guess i will upgrade the staff lol....

[Siniwelho 13]

is wand/sword and OH better than the staff?

Assuming same ilevels and same secondary stats then it is:

dagger/sword/wand + off-hand > staff

This is mainly because you can enchant the off-hand.

Then there are racials for humans and gnomes that make some one-hand weapons more valuable. If I understood correctly a certain thunderforged spirit caster sword is a BiS item for one of the mage specs - even with spirit - if the wielder is human or gnome.

[Oltier 471]

In the end though, is wand/sword and OH better than the staff? Almost capped in vps so i guess i will upgrade the staff lol....

Yes, it is. If you have a look at our BiS list in mage sections. ;)

[Mortanius 3]

The important question here is what spec is he because either choice really comes down to the secondary stat prioritizing (unless you get thunder forged)? Wand&OH is definitely better for fire due to the crit but the haste/hit on the staff I believe works out to be better for Frost. This isn't a fact for everyone though, it depends how the rest of your gear looks as well. Your best bet, use Mr. Robot with your current set up, see what your DPS is with the staff and then switch it up to the wand/OH and see if you go up or down.

[Zagam 1,982]

Assuming same ilevels and same secondary stats then it is:

dagger/sword/wand + off-hand > staff

This is mainly because you can enchant the off-hand.

Then there are racials for humans and gnomes that make some one-hand weapons more valuable. If I understood correctly a certain thunderforged spirit caster sword is a BiS item for one of the mage specs - even with spirit - if the wielder is human or gnome.

Your > symbol is exaggerated here quite a bit. It's not as simple as "boom, this is better." You have many things to consider.

What if you have a Heroic Thunderforged Staff, but only Heroic 1H and Heroic OH? What if your 1H is TF? What if only the OH is TF? The 1H + OH seems better because you can enchant it, but you also have to get lucky enough to get TWO thunderforged pieces instead of just one. Depending on your stat priority, you may not want an OH at all because they all have Crit on them. I know Fire loves Crit, but does Arcane? The 1H + OH usually comes out 100-250 DPS ahead of a Staff if itemized properly (Haste/Crit OH from Lei Shen + Haste/Crit wand from Horridon). Does 250 DPS really matter in the grand scheme of 250,000? Hardly. Is the 250 DPS worth the frustration of hoping and praying for 2 TF items versus just one? That's your call.

[Vladamyr 169]

Zagam did you see this part?

Assuming same ilevels and same secondary stats then it is:

For OP if you are:

Fire - wait for the wand. 1 socket on your staff isn't going to change your dps in a noticeable way and you want crit.

Frost/Arcane - Stick with the staff.

[Zagam 1,982]

My b. I'm just bitter because I play in a 10 man group.

[skullman232 0]

oddly enough, this post covers almost exactly what my question is, so i think ill just tag onto the end i just got the 535 dinomancer staff, currently using 522 venomlords wand/ 522 fetish of the hydra, specs are Fire mage main/ frost off spec, so im not sure whether the dinomancers staff is actually a better upgrade for mainspec, as id be losing quite a bit of crit, even if i reforge the hit off staff back into crit.

[Oltier 471]

oddly enough, this post covers almost exactly what my question is, so i think ill just tag onto the end i just got the 535 dinomancer staff, currently using 522 venomlords wand/ 522 fetish of the hydra, specs are Fire mage main/ frost off spec, so im not sure whether the dinomancers staff is actually a better upgrade for mainspec, as id be losing quite a bit of crit, even if i reforge the hit off staff back into crit.

Could you link your profile, please? This really depends on if you already have "enough" crit, etc. You might be able to reforge other items into crit due to the high number of Hit rating on the staff, etc.

Although, I am pretty sure, that the staff is better.

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=96401.0.4442.0.76641.76697.0.0.137;94755.0.0.0.76641.76697;94796.0.4434.0.76641.0.0.0.138&weights=Mage%20-%20Fire;23:119:123:96:103:170;100:79:75:65:55:46

[skullman232 0]

Arguably i probably don't have enough crit to be fire yet, however i like the play style and i enjoy it more than the other specs. As well, everything on my gear already either has crit, or is reforged into crit xD

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormrage/Daanin/simple

[Zagam 1,982]

You're losing a little crit but gaining a sizeable amount of Intellect and Spellpower. This is a no-brainer. Every caster's first priority is maximizing Spellpower and Intellect.

[Vladamyr 169]

Skullman (as Zagam said) for sure go with the upgraded ilvl staff. I would also make the suggestion to set a haste soft cap at 5036. You'll find mastery is better once you hit that haste cap.

[Alphric 7]

To argue with Oltier about what the guides say are better, the BiS can change due to a few factors. They will change slightly, if at all, with changed race and professions. It will change MAJORLY by what part of the legendary quest line you're done with. Also it's a strong possibility the stat weights are wrong. For instance, I went to go learn how to play affliction and tried to choose one of the reforge options on askmrrobot. Then I watched sparkuggz, blatty's, and evrelia's affliction guides and went back to askmrrobot and changed the stat weights and added the correct haste cap. This is all to say. When I add a generic character to ask mr robot to see what "BiS" is, it says 1H with OH until you get the iLvl600 cape. Then it says staff, which lines up with what Spakruggz says in his guides. Hope this helped...

[Alphric 7]

So basically I'm using the dagger from dark animus and the megera off hand until I get Lei-shen's orb of command, and I went ahead and won the Suen-wo staff for when I get the cape. I understand we're talking mage right now, but at least for arcane, if it avoids crit too, it should be a similar story.

Edited July 10, 2013 by Nemestris

[Oltier 471]

To argue with Oltier about what the guides say are better, the BiS can change due to a few factors. They will change slightly, if at all, with changed race and professions. It will change MAJORLY by what part of the legendary quest line you're done with. Also it's a strong possibility the stat weights are wrong. For instance, I went to go learn how to play affliction and tried to choose one of the reforge options on askmrrobot. Then I watched sparkuggz, blatty's, and evrelia's affliction guides and went back to askmrrobot and changed the stat weights and added the correct haste cap. This is all to say. When I add a generic character to ask mr robot to see what "BiS" is, it says 1H with OH until you get the iLvl600 cape. Then it says staff, which lines up with what Spakruggz says in his guides. Hope this helped...

I of course understand what you say. :)

That being said, in this topic we only got the name of 3 items and a question which is better. (No armory link or whatsoever)

So, I basically gave him a baseline answer.. :D Most of the time, if I am given an armory link I would run simcrafts for the person to find out what combination would be better for him.

All in all, I completely agree with you about the personal BiS, but the list we have given in BiS section is the absolute BiS and without any armory link I will answer the questions according to that. :)