For the most part, I’m not a big fan of BiS gear lists. The problem is that what gear is best changes not just on your spec, but also on your buffs and what other gear you have.
The best way to choose gear is to find out weighted stat values for you specifically, with your buffs and your gear. And the best way to do that is to use a spreadsheet. Keep in mind everything that we said in Understanding Spreadsheets – don’t become a spreadsheet disciple. Spreadsheets only model average, single-target, non-moving boss fights. Understand what they’re good at and what they aren’t good at. One of the things spreadsheets do pretty well is comparing stats and gear.
How to Get Stat Values
The easiest way is to use the fantastic online spreadsheet available at www.femaledwarf.com
When you get there your screen will look something like this:
Let’s first do a bit of an overview of each of the sections in the online spreadsheet. You can click on any of the sections to expand them.
- Armory Import: this will let you just enter your character, server, and pet names to import all of your current character info into the spreadsheet. Easy and fast, it does most of the work for you.
- Gear: This section allows you to change gear and gem and enchants around. However you won’t need to use it for getting stat weights if you just import your character.
- Talents/Glyphs: Again, these will automatically import. You can change them, but be aware that this is one area that spreadsheets are not nearly as strong at modeling.
- Shot Priority: It’s very important that you enter your shot priority here! This will not default to anything logical, though there is a button to enter “standard” rotations.
- Buffs/Debuffs: Also very important to enter the buffs that your raid actually brings. Buffs contribute massive amounts to your dps. The presence of all possible raid buffs will nearly double your unbuffed dps, and you results are only accurate if you accurately enter what buffs you have in your raid team. Remember there is both a “Buffs” and “Debuffs” section — both need to be filled in. The custom buffs will not be used for our purposes, you can leave that blank.
- Pet: Again, everything here should automatically and correctly populate upon importing your character.
- Settings: This is another important area where you’ll need to adjust settings to get a logical result.
Okay, for the purposes of getting stat weights, most of the sections are automatically filled in when you import your character. The ones that you must pay attention to are: Shot Priority, Buffs/Debuffs, Settings.
Let’s look for a moment at settings before moving on.
Settings
There are several areas in the Settings tab that you will likely need to change, though most can be left at their default.
- Fight Length: This defaults to 6 minutes. Most fights are just not this long. A fair average I think is 5 minutes.
- Kill Shot Range: This defaults to 1.2 minutes, which is not very reasonable. Typically you will spend less than 20% of your fight in Kill Shot range, because that last 20% is when everyone is blowing cooldowns and using their Kill Shots/Executes. The last 20% goes faster in most fights. I usually default this to around 0.7 – 0.8 minutes (42-48 seconds) though you should find what is most appropriate for your raid group.
- Feeding Frenzy Range: This is a Cunning pet talent, so not applicable to most raiders — thus the number doesn’t matter to us.
- Latency: Latency has a very real impact on your dps, and this defaults pretty low. Plug in your actual latency.
- Target Armor: You probably don’t want to change this, but it’s worth noting that different bosses have different armor levels.
- Wait Time: This is how long you’ll sit there doing nothing at all while waiting for a heavy hitting shot to come off cooldown.
- Sniper Training Uptime: Very important — this defaults to 100%, assuming that you always have sniper training active. Determine what a realistic uptime is for you.
Understanding the Results
Once you have everything entered, just hit the “Update DPS” button on the bottom left. The bottom of the page will update with tons of interesting theoretical calculations. What we’re interested in is the first ones, that look something like this:
The first thing you’ll see is your theoretical DPS on a patchwerk fight. Ignore this number!!! This is not what your dps should be or could be! That number is only useful for comparing it to other numbers. You don’t care about the number, you care about what percentage above or below the number gear changes will make.
Seriously, you need to not obsess over that number. At all. Ever. I will yell at you when you email me about playing with a spreadsheet and mention that number. I will secretly hate and disdain you.
Now, the next table over is what we’re interested in. It shows us a stat, the theoretical dps that each point of that stat gives us, and then the per budget dps. We don’t really care about the per budget — that’s just there to let us know that yes, attack power is the lowest, but we get 2 attack power where we’d only get 1 of anything else in the itemization budget.
Once again, the actual dps that we get from one point of a stat isn’t accurate, but the comparison is pretty good. I can see that 1 agility is better than 2 attack power, or that 2 attack power is better than 1 haste, etc.
These are the numbers that you can use to make your PAWN string (for more on PAWN, see the WHU Addon Guide). This is essentially the same thing as EAP values, though technically to make it EAP I’d need attack power to be valued at 1 (so in this example, I’d multiply everything by 1.362).
How You Compare Gear
But this is how we compare gear. We take our gear and multiply each stat by the number the spreadsheet gives us. The total number tells us how good the gear is compared to other gear.
So if my chest piece has a value of 861 that doesn’t mean the chest is increasing my dps by 861, it just means that the chest is probably 10% better than a chest with a value of 775, and twice as good as one with a value of 430.
This doesn’t work on any item with a proc or on-use ability — which means most trinkets are out. For those you have to calculate manually, but you can often just figure out the average stats of the trinket, and then use the PAWN or EAP values from your spreadsheet like normal.
This online version is said to be based off of the Excel version of Shandara’s… yet I can get wildly different numbers from each of them. Sometimes the directionality of better gear can even be opposite. Anyhow, which do you prefer to use Frost? Online or hard copy?
Thank you. This is why I suggest this site to just about every hunter (and even some non-hunter) friends I have. Not only do you give us the place to go, you explain how to use it. While I very little trouble figuring out how to do some of the basic stuff on there (importing character, setting shot rotation, etc.) I hadn’t even thought about things like changing the fight time or Kill shot range. As I say with most things you post, Well done sir, well done.
I love femaledwarf.com Every time I am considering a new piece of gear I am plugging it in and seeing where it changes.
I also tend to play with my spec a bit with female dwarf before I start plunking down gold, though I am unsure how effective this is because I have found for myself that standard cookie cutter specs tend to calculate lower sometimes than putting points elsewhere (for instance, I saw it recommended to put points removed from Imp Arcane into Imp Steady, but found better numbers on “the spreadsheet” from filling out Imp Barrage first. I have yet to dummy test this, as most of my guildies refer to me as “amazing deeps” anyways.
One thing I wish you had mentioned, Frost, is how you arrived at the 1.362 number for normalization (take the desired value for AP, 1, and divide it by the value listed, 0.734. this gives you 1.36239782016349. Rounded of course for simplicity) Not everyone can be as uncommonly good at maths (as well as good looking) as you
I guess this information is actually pretty simple, but may elude some.
Thanks Frost, another great post.
The impression I get from your last paragraph (I could be wrong) is that you’re recommending 1-to-1 comparisons of pieces of gear. Should we as a general rule be doing this when we upgrade gear? Don’t we care more about the compared values of combinations of gear working together more than 1-to-1 stat comparisons of individual pieces of gear? I’ve found that if you only go with 1-to-1 comparisons without looking at the bigger picture, you’ll end up with a high gear score, but often not higher dps.
I was also wondering about another thing. For me, the sheet’s true value for gear considerations comes in when I’m comparing complex sets of changes (rearranging hit, gems for the meta, etc. based on possible gear changes) and can’t eyeball the differences. In such situations, should we turn to the dps measure for comparative (not absolute) evaluation? Can the dps measure be used for comparing trinkets?
Thanks again.
Ive never been able to model an ArP focused gear set using this tool (its an amazing tool, no doubt).
I can plug in like 600ish passive ArP, I have the ArP trink from H FOS, and the changes are either nonexistent or negative. Is 600ish still to low a baseline? I’m hesitant to make the large regemming investment sight unseen, as it were.
“The best way to choose gear is to find out weighted stat values”
/superchargedfacepalm
RAWR!!!!
Female Dwarf ftw!
I’m sorry, perhaps this has been mentioned in a post or on a comment, but similarly to Zryinx I’m not seeing the values putting ArP over AGI, I’m SURV but am finally gonna take the plunge into MM to get that extra DPS, my passive ArP is 581, I used your spec for the femaledwarf website, changing Focused Aim for IHM since I’m a bit over capped. Not sure if the spreadsheet simply doesn’t show this very well or if I’m doing something wrong. According to the “spreadsheet” my dps will increase by 40 dps when I change. Any thoughts/comments would be much appreciated.
I have also found that femaledwarf.com seems to give armor pen a lower value than agi, unlike most other tools I use (such as rawr).
Thanks again for an incredibly useful post. I can’t wait to plug my hunter in… so to speak.
If you look at femaledwarf you will also see a Gear Comparison Box with links to a couple of sites that compare gear like Custom Hunterloot.com. I think you need to beware of these as well because they do not appear to take set bonuses into account. I know of at least one hunter ( I’m sure he must buy $millions in WoW Gold) who has really expensive crafted gear but takes no adavantage of set bonuses because he takes what these sites “say” is best as gospel. It’s all really good gear…but may not be as good as set bonuses.
the only time I use the dps numbers quoted is when some PUG leader is asking me questions about my dps…….I usually give him the number I get from here completely unbuffed.
Thanks, that totally helped with the question I had yesterday!
My wife plays a hunter, and I use Female Dwarf to help her plan her gear. All classes should be so lucky to have such an easy to use site.
@Odi – Did you remember to swap your glyphs on the site as well? I have forgotten to do that several times, and been left scratching my head.
Armor Levels for 83 level raid bosses were standardized at 10643 with blue posts supporting the change.
FemaleDwarf.com is based on the Elitist Jerk’s Hunter Spreadsheet with many thanks to Shandara for it’s stewardship. Both are great tools. The spreadsheet is better when comparing multiple pieces of gear.
Frost, can you do a piece on the significant level of skill barrier before hunters should attempt to go ArmPen. Either I see hunters that are gemming ArmPen too early or don’t manage their movement properly to afford the dps loss ie skill.
I had an interesting result from the spreadsheets which stumped me about a month ago. Recently my guild broke into two 10man teams and I lost my Warrior tank and therefore the my major armour debuff, and our druid is normally healing so I don’t get the minor armour debuff either. I rearranged my 10man buffs/debuffs to accomodate my new 10man team and recalculated my Stats (Im MM fyi)
This is where it got weird, ArP was weighted more than Agi, however when I had Sunders helping me out Agi was better. I have 450 passive ArP and a ilvl232 weapon and my spreadsheets are telling me to stack ArP?
Valacia , Frost just got it with some basic maths because the number is less than a whole number in the case 1 attack power he wants to convert all stats to show the valves if it was 1 attack power evenly. So if you attack power in this case is .734 to make it a whole number you need .366 so therefore but multpilying every stat by 1.366 would turn it into a figure of 1 for attack power however .366 is just over the whole number of 1 so i guess Frost used a slightly lower number to get it close as possible to the whole number of 1 but would prefer it be on the slightly lower side of 1. I hope i made sense to you so you can understand were he’s coming from , great post Frost i dont really use spread sheets as I have found your EAP scores orginally posted seem to work pretty fine for me but now i have a greater understanding I think I will give this one a go.
I too have questions about using spreadsheets for gear planning.
I’m a ten man raider. Does the spreadsheet accurately take set bonuses into consideration? I’ve got the sense that 4pT10 with the legs replaced is the place to aim for for 25man hunters. But, I’m not sure that this works if the tier pieces are ilvl 251.
I’m at a crossroads if my goal is to go for 2pT10 and the BoE chest, emblem gloves and crafted legs (all 264) or go with the 4pT10.
The spreadsheets say the 2p gearing is slightly ahead, but again, if the setbonus is improperly considered maybe this shouldn’t be trusted.
Another set of questions is now coming to me because of the above commentators questions about ArP. I don’t believe a 10 man hunter can currently get ArP capped (at least not before hardmodes, and sadly that’s a while away). Is getting to 90ish% worthwhile? Or does gemming for Agi stay ahead until one can get capped?
Mine kept coming up saying that I am a jewelcrafter and that i havent used any dragon eye gems however i can not seem to find out where you input them i went to the gear page selected gem but nothing happens which is weird , i dont suppose tho the gems would make a difference to my stat valves only lower my dps overall which you said not to worry about the 1st number as I am way over the number they state of 4000 dps lol im more like 6000 or more I also noted it doesnt include enchants from what i read you need to manually input them.
Thank you for the info, Frost. It couldn’t have come from a more uncommonly good looking dwarf.
My question is this: Do I have to recalculate the values for my pawn string every time I change a piece of gear? I understand that some of the values change comparatively with one another, but which ones do I have to watch for to know when I need to recalculate?
Wow Frost, thank you again for giving us all such good resources. I’d played around with the spreadsheet before, and was seeing great (albeit, unobtainable) numbers, but never fully utilized this tool. With your explanation of some of the features, I was better able to model my current dps, then make a few tweaks. Result: instant success in ICC10 last night! I’m not pulling your numbers, but I was finally beating out those silly rogues!
Thanks, Frost.
I’m curious as to what you think about rawr?
Thanks Frost for taking the time to cover this.
Now, what about doing an in-depth look at how to use SimCraft?
What do you do with the Buffs/Debuffs section if you don’t have a set raid group?
Great article. Something I’ve always wondered about is the gear upgrade sites listed at the bottom of femaledwarf. Are these actually accurate? The top one insists that gemming only intellect is the way to go which seems counter to everything else I’ve seen/read/tried.
Burazaazu – I have a oft changing raid composition. Mage INT buff and Replenishment are both missing sometimes, which wildly changes INTs stat value.
For those mentioning multiple sets of item changes, you need to use the spreadsheet/website to do them combined. Remember whenever you change 1 item your pawn string effectively changes at that point. It’s based on your current level of stats.
A great guide. Worth mentioning the “Don’t emulate known bugs” option in the Settings. If this is left unticked I believe the stats work on the premise that with 2pc T10 you will re-apply your Serpent sting with the % boost to dmg. If you don’t bother doing this then it might be worth ticking the box and seeing the difference it makes to your THEORETICAL dps.
Excellent article Frostheim. I’m fast becoming a huge fan of yours.
Bier – Gemming INT is often recommended by the stats if you find you have no Replenishment/BoW/Judgement of Wisdom debuff/mage INT buff. I come across it often in my 10 mans as I don’t often raid 25man at all.
HOWEVER I used to gem what it told me (INT) but moved away from that pretty fast. The reason being that the stats are working on you hitting viper and your overall dmg over a boss fight. I don’t like losing the potential burst dmg I might have had from gemming AGI/AP/Crit/ArPen/Strength(jk!) and I found that I’d rather hit Viper and suck it up than weaken my peak DPS which is sometimes what you need, e.g. Saurfang adds.
Great article Frostheim. Folks who are running into any problem with the site btw can feel free to send your questions via the Feedback button on the site, I generally answer all emails and I’m happy to help anyone having difficulty. Plus if you think you’ve found a bug I want to know about it!
Fradin, if your dps number is that low, I suspect you’ve forgotten to enable raid buffs. Those generally have a pretty huge impact on your dps. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t be able to select the dragons eye gems though, possibly a browser issue, please send me feedback through the site with more details.
Anyone who’s getting high int values due to low regen buffs, keep in mind that you can use the option under settings to tell the site to never use viper. This will make it so mana considerations aren’t taken into account calculating your dps. Generally if you raid with low regen you are going to want to avoid leather more but it usually isn’t a good idea to gem for int (I have a warning about this on the site when int gets rated above agility, but it doesn’t trigger for just a high value of int that’s below agility) since you often have ways to manage your mana better during fights that won’t impact your damage as much as the site will estimate.
ieatkittens, the bulk of the code is identical between the spreadsheet and my site, but over time various things have diverged so the results won’t always be consistent. One big difference is that the LnL implementation on my site has been tweaked to more accurately reflect estimated procrates than the more simplified % based uptime the Excel version uses. This generally leads to higher explosive shot damage on my site. Another difference is that I have support for damage potions which the Excel version does not. I also generally will turnover changes in game a bit faster usually and I’ve added tweaks like support for the 2pc T10 bonus being maintained on serpent sting (the Excel version recently added that as well but I think that implementation needs a bit more tweaking). Sometimes the Excel version changes don’t end up making it to the change notes as well and I may not be aware of them till someone brings them to my attention. If you’re noticing major differences please do feel free to send me a copy of your spreadsheet to compare with the site and I can try to see on which end the issue is.
Some help pls?
A fellow hunter in my guild is currently using http://www.wowhead.com/item=50444 stating thats a dps inc over http://www.wowhead.com/item=50262
I use the felglacier, but if its true that the Rowan is a dps inc then I will get it. What do ppl think? it totally confuses me, seeing as all the stats on teh Rowan are for tanks IMHO.