ask mr. robot Stat Priorities With Ask Mr. Robot

[Damien 1,514]

As you might have noticed, we recently added links to Ask Mr. Robot on the website. From now on, we will work together on stat priorities and we will use their infrastructure to provide lists of Best in Slot items on Icy Veins.

For a few weeks, there will be inconsistencies between our websites, as Ask Mr. Robot is transitioning to level 90 and we are still focusing on level 85. This will be resolved when Mists of Pandaria is released.

As always, our goal is to improve your experience on the website and in World of Warcraft, and we hope that this move is in the right direction. We would very much like to hear your opinion, so feel free to comment :)

[Guest]

Really dislike Mr. Robot. What happened to wowreforge? :(

[Damian 26]

I used Mr robot last night and thought it was really good and very easy to use.

[Inwee 9]

I have been asking Mr Robot for help since cata :) I also use it to check out my fellow raiders if I see that they have performance "under par". Of course you should not always rely on Mr Robot's optimizing suggestions - there is always room for personal preferences if it suit your playstle better.

[Luofu 4]

really nice.

i use mr robot for some time now.

may sound stupid but its mainly because wowreforge wont work on opera browser. :o

well mr robot does do its job very well.

easy to use. and easy to understand. havent used wowreforge for a long long time. and i dont miss it ^^

[soulstrong 1]

Get stat priorities from SimC according your current gear, put the weights on MrRobot = TOP DPS.

[Siniwelho 13]

I'm not too happy with the results of Mr Robot optimizing.

For my mage (Siniwelho @ EU-Eonar) they suggest reforging

Mastery to Expertise. Even I know that it is not a good idea.

[dblzero1 1]

expertise was not good, if you read the new info expertise is giving casters hit now, so maybe he knows what you don't lol

Edited September 8, 2012 by dblzero1

[Boradan 17]

I'm not too happy with the results of Mr Robot optimizing.

For my mage (Siniwelho @ EU-Eonar) they suggest reforging

Mastery to Expertise. Even I know that it is not a good idea.

To make it easier for melee classes that also use spells like DKS to reach the hit cap, Blizzard made expertise also give hit rating.

The reason behind this was that even if they hit the 8% melee hit cap, their diseases and any special that was classed as 'magic' (outbreak, howling blast etc) would be missing 9% of the time. DKs therefore had to reforge waaaay over the melee hit cap in order to make sure they WERE capped.

This is counter-intuitive for a lot of people, considering that if they hovered over the 'melee hit rating' and saw that they had 0% chance to miss, they would STILL be getting a lot of misses.

Due too melee items having less hit than caster items (in general) this often meant having to reforge out of an important stat to reach the hit cap, whilst other melee classes were able to reforge into a better stat.

Since melee classes also stack expertise, the best thing that blizzard could do to fix this was to make expertise also grant SPELL Hit rating (it adds nothing to melee hit rating) . This means that getting the melee hit cap AND the expertise cap will ensure that a melee classes spell hit will also be capped.

The fortunate side-effect to this is that casters can now reforge into expertise to get to the spell hit cap (1 expertise rating = 1 spell hit rating).

Askmrrobot gave you the correct advice: Since Mastery is your weakest stat, it wants to reforge it into hit to get you to the hit cap as its #1 priority. Your bracers already HAVE hit, so it couldnt use 'Hit rating' as the reforge. It chose 'Expertise rating' instead.

Mission accomplished.

Edited September 8, 2012 by Boradan

[Damien 1,514]

Really dislike Mr. Robot. What happened to wowreforge? :(

Up until now, we have been linking to wowreforge, but we never really had any sort of interaction with them. Also, when Patch 5.0.4 was released, they were not ready and the import function on their website did not work for a few days (something we got a lot of comments about).

Then, the guys at Ask Mr. Robot contacted us to create a solid and interesting partnership, so we went for it.

[Jayde103 3]

my only issues with Ask MrRobot are:

1) The stat priority they were showing me for my demo lock, was different than I saw here. Provided both were different from Noxxic's as well....so I'm kinda confused as to which is right. I'm unfortunately not very good when it comes to SimCraft =/

2) They try to tell me that some of my BiS gear (from the list here and on EJ) gear actually isn't BiS.

[vodoospell 0]

in my case ask mr. robot is not so good after all, because i have 2 specs so when i want to see my shamy dps spec i need to change spec logout and wait a long long time and this upsets me :c

[Vlad 411]

in my case ask mr. robot is not so good after all, because i have 2 specs so when i want to see my shamy dps spec i need to change spec logout and wait a long long time and this upsets me :c

This is not an issue with Ask Mr Robot, but rather an issue related to Blizzard's Armory. A character's armory page is only updated when that player logs out of the game. This includes everything from gear, to achievements, to specialisation, and to specific talents and glyphs. Therefore, it is impossible for Ask Mr Robot, or any other website that uses the Armory, to know that you changed your spec or updated your gear until after you log out of your character.

I tested just now, and literally within seconds of me logging out, Ask Mr Robot was showing the correctly updated information.

[JigsawComplex 0]

Does anybody here know how to manipulate the stat weights on Mr Robot? I'm trying to use this priority for tanking, but i have no clue what numbers to set the weights at.

Mastery > Parry/Dodge (Aiming for Parry to be double my Dodge) > Stam > Hit/Exp (Aiming for 7.5% on both) > Haste

[Vlad 411]

Does anybody here know how to manipulate the stat weights on Mr Robot? I'm trying to use this priority for tanking, but i have no clue what numbers to set the weights at.

Mastery > Parry/Dodge (Aiming for Parry to be double my Dodge) > Stam > Hit/Exp (Aiming for 7.5% on both) > Haste

It's quite simple. Once your character is loaded, there is a box titled "Choose your gearing strategy". It is located in the center, above the tables related to your character. By clicking the drop-down menu there, you will be taken to a stats page. There, you can select from several different pre-set configurations (PvP, raiding, etc.). Within any of those configurations, you can then modify the stat weights by clicking on Customize (above and to the left of the stats).

I must confess that it was not the most intuitive system for modifying stats, but I found it easily enough. If my explanations are not sufficient, I can post screenshots.

We also aim to write a short how-to guide regarding proper Ask Mr Robot usage :)

[Shazwozza 1]

YAY!! I've been using Mr Robot for the last 2 years and have always topped DPS charts on my Mage... Can't speak highly enough of them

[Bobio 1]

Go to the wow armory and load yourself.. then open Ask Mr. robot and there will be no wait time..little trick i learned and it works great..

[Boradan 17]

my only issues with Ask MrRobot are:

1) The stat priority they were showing me for my demo lock, was different than I saw here. Provided both were different from Noxxic's as well....so I'm kinda confused as to which is right. I'm unfortunately not very good when it comes to SimCraft =/

2) They try to tell me that some of my BiS gear (from the list here and on EJ) gear actually isn't BiS.

1. askmrrobot is set up to optimise lvl 90 chars. The guide here is for lvl 85 (until MoP is released, then the guides will be changed to stat prio for lvl 90)

2. BiS is an evil thing. You need to remember that a 'Best in Slot' list is only valid if you have EVERY item on the list. If you are one item short, then, the chances are that the list will change for you. Heres an example of how this works:

Lets say you are one item short of the BiS : Bracers. The Bracers you have dont have the same stats as the BiS item (D'UH).

The BiS list NEEDS those bracers in order to hit certain break points (lets say Haste). Due to the fact that you do NOT hit the haste break point because of your one item difference from the BiS list, the BiS list is no longer valid and askmrrobotwill make a different suggestion for your items.

If you click on an item in askmrrobot, you see the 'BiS list' There are 2 choices here: Absolute and relative ranking. The Absolute ranking demands that you have every single item in the list. NO exceptions. The relative ranking means that it is highlighting the BiS item on that particular slot for your CURRENT gear.

Tier Gloves may be ranked as BiS for your class, but your current gear may mean that an out-of-tier item is best for you RIGHT NOW due to the stats it can provide,

I know this is counter-intuitive. People automatically assume that having an item that is classed as BiS means that they cant improve on it. This is simply not true. An item that is classed as BiS can actually be WORSE for you than another item simply because it lacks the stats you need right now.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Boradan

[Angyarr 0]

I've used DrRobot in the past and wasn't so happy with it but decided to give it another try after reading this topic. Simming my stat weights and then entering them into DrRobot worked great but I have 1 question. Since I'm obviously allready at the hitcap the stat weight is rather low hence DrRobot reforges me all the way out of hit so that i'm left with a way too low value (around 5%). I'm not gaining hit from any other resource so is this a bug or merely the consequency of the lvl85 vs lvl90 discrepancy? Only by giving hit a custom value higher than the highest stat at that time I can get DrRobot to keep that in mind while setting up a reforge strategy and get me to 15% (warlock)

Edit:

Non-hit profile: http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/1de5c293-1cea-41b8-8638-28e7ef23caff

Hit profile: http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/f146c526-8e56-4a4a-b217-9a17e8ab306f

Edited September 10, 2012 by Angyarr

[Siniwelho 13]

To make it easier for melee classes that also use spells like DKS to reach the hit cap, Blizzard made expertise also give hit rating. The fortunate side-effect to this is that casters can now reforge into expertise to get to the spell hit cap (1 expertise rating = 1 spell hit rating).

Ok, this change was made under my radar. So it is basically a similar thing than the older "spirit = hit" for some druids. A quick fix for a problem Blizzard doesn't want to address properly.

Since Mastery is your weakest stat, it wants to reforge it into hit...

Well, that is not quite correct. Being an Arcane mage I value Mastery - that can be seen from the rest of my reforges.

[Damien 1,514]

I've used DrRobot in the past and wasn't so happy with it but decided to give it another try after reading this topic. Simming my stat weights and then entering them into DrRobot worked great but I have 1 question. Since I'm obviously allready at the hitcap the stat weight is rather low hence DrRobot reforges me all the way out of hit so that i'm left with a way too low value (around 5%). I'm not gaining hit from any other resource so is this a bug or merely the consequency of the lvl85 vs lvl90 discrepancy? Only by giving hit a custom value higher than the highest stat at that time I can get DrRobot to keep that in mind while setting up a reforge strategy and get me to 15% (warlock)

Edit:

Non-hit profile: http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/1de5c293-1cea-41b8-8638-28e7ef23caff

Hit profile: http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/f146c526-8e56-4a4a-b217-9a17e8ab306f

I don't think Ask Mr. Robot is to blame here. In the first link, hit has the lowest value of all your secondary stats, save crit. So, it is normal that the tool would advise you to reforge out of it. Even though there is a hard cap at 15%, if you tell Ask Mr. Robot that the value of the stat is lower than that of Haste or Mastery, it will treat is at as worthless stat and reforge everything it can out of it.

The second link is normal as well, Hit has a high value, so you reforge everything into it until you reach the hit cap.

[Boradan 17]

Ok, this change was made under my radar. So it is basically a similar thing than the older "spirit = hit" for some druids. A quick fix for a problem Blizzard doesn't want to address properly.

Well, that is not quite correct. Being an Arcane mage I value Mastery - that can be seen from the rest of my reforges.

Its not really a quick fix. Its a fix that works perfectly. The only other way around it would be to have stuff like diseases NOT classed as spells, but classed as physical damage. That would screw up the entire DK System and mean they would have to remove stuff like howling blast and make DKs a pure melee class instead of one that uses magic and melee. Its a perfect fix for something that wasnt REALLY broken, it just had to be worked around by going over the melee hit cap to ensure spells dont miss too. Alternatively, they could just put more hit on plate dps gear to ensure DKs could reach the cap, but that would mean the other classes were way over the hit cap, even with reforging.

IMO, its the best solution that could work for everyone and not cause issues with other classes. It gives one particular stat an extra 'ability' that removes Nothing from that stat for other classes.

Regarding the mastery issue, I checked your armory link and saw you were fire, so assumed that was what you were forging for, so My Bad.

Theres a big red box at the top of the page in askmrrobot stating

DISCLAIMER: Mr. Robot is transitioning from level 85 to level 90 optimization.Treat these level 85 stat weights and rating conversions as estimates.

So I wouldnt worry about it.

Throughout 4.3 I used RAWR and askmrrobot and they gave me almost identical results as far as reforging goes, so I would trust it once MoP hits the shelves.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Boradan

[Goil 3]

Just a quick one, I saw on you Gear optimisation page that it still refers to wow reforge, you may want to update this now you have a new partnership with Ask Mr. Robot.

[Peelyon 416]

Glad to hear Inner Sanctum are now officially partnered with Ask Mr Robot as well! Should be great getting info from all 3 of you, knowing you are all working towards the same goals etc!

[Stoove 347]

Hmm well that's interesting to hear.

One thing that I found in Cata is that AMR has been almost useless when determining what to reforge for healers. The reason for this being - in the case of a Resto Shaman - that stat weights are so arbitrary and meaningless (as stated by Elitist Jerks, no less!) that any set of stat weights I put in, does not get what I believe to be an "optimal" answer out. In many cases, I have found improvements which reflect my playstyle but aren't easy to put into stat weights.

For that reason, I won't be using it. On the other hand, I like it for DPS toons (including my Enhance offspec). So maybe I will if/when I get to playing Enhance =]