[H2P] Weapon BiS List/Ranking

[Uuna]

Hello all, this is my first attempt at creating such a list, and I hope it can be of value to the spriest community. I did not use any stat weights in creating this list, instead I simmed each weapon and offhand vs a weaponless profile. For those interested in the details of my method I have described it at the bottom.

The importance of this list is not the PP values exactly, but the relative ranking.
Results are based on single target patchwerk style fight, I plan to work on a list for heavy multi-dot/AOE encounters as well but don't expect much difference in those results.

All weapons were simmed with Epic Gems and Power Torrent (and 40int for offhands).

=== Two Hand and MH+OH ===
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest - 3701 PP
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind H + Ledger of Revolting Rituals H - 3446 PP
Vagaries of Time H + Ledger of Revolting Rituals H - 3295 PP
Visage of the Destroyer H - 3275 PP
Lightning Rod H - 3270 PP
Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time H - 3223 PP
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind N + Dragonfire Orb - 3062 PP
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind N + Ledger of Revolting Rituals N - 3058 PP
Vagaries of Time N + Dragonfire Orb - 2929 PP
Vagaries of Time N + Ledger of Revolting Rituals N - 2922 PP
Lightning Rod N - 2904 PP
Visage of the Destroyer N - 2899 PP
Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time N - 2856 PP
Runestaff of Nordrassil - 2716 PP
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind LFR + Ledger of Revolting Rituals LFR - 2715 PP
Ti'tahk, The Steps of Time LFR - 2532 PP

=== Main Hands ===
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind H - 2877 PP
Vagaries of Time H - 2753 PP
Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony H - 2690 PP
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind N - 2600 PP
Vagaries of Time N - 2446 PP
Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony N - 2385 PP
Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind LFR - 2314 PP

=== Off Hands ===
Ledger of Revolting Rituals H - 450 PP
Dragonfire Orb - 401 PP
Ledger of Revolting Rituals N - 397 PP
Ledger of Revolting Rituals LFR - 354 PP

Method:
Default SimC T13N BiS profile for Shadow Priests was used, weapon was removed. Default BiS profile was found to be 14 hit rating over cap, even for races without hit/spirit bonus. In order to simplify obtaining hit cap for other weapon sets, hit was reduced to 1742 total, and the remaining 14 points were moved into crit for the most conservative estimate.

Reforging weapons: Because the BiS profile is already at hit cap, +spirit and +hit on weapons necessitate different reforges on gear to shift stats around. In order to simplify this procedure it was assumed that exactly the hit cap can be maintained. Forty percent of the excess stat were reforged into the most desirable secondary stat (using haste>mastery) not present on the weapon already. The remainder is converted into crit, under the assumption that the entire set of gear can be reforged close to 1742 hit.

For example: Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony has 141 Spirit and 111 Haste. 40% of the spirit, 56, will be moved to Mastery, the remaining 85 spirit is assumed to be compensated by different reforges on other gear, and for conservative estimate will be assumed to be equivalent to crit.

Note: Because each weapon set will require a unique combination of reforges to fall very close to 1742 hit rating some results may in fact be lower or higher, Crit was chosen for the remainder stat because it is the least valuable and will provide the most conservative estimate.

The SimC weaponless profile was used as a base line.
This control was run at 50,000 iterations on Patchwerk style encounter. This number of iterations results in a 0.02% margin of error.

Weapons were added individually using the method described above and the DPS value was recorded. The difference in DPS between the control set, and the weapon equipped set was used to rank the weapons.
PP was calculated by Scaling the value for Intellect of the baseline and dividing the difference of the weapon equipped results by this scaled value. Scale value was found to be 3.8761. For example Dragonwrath was found to do 14345dps more than the baseline, so 14345/3.8761=3701PP.

I hope some find this listing helpful, please note that because individual gear sets and reforge combinations may vary this list is only an approximation, weapons sets which are very close in total PP value may shift around slightly given one’s individual gear, but for the most part the PP value differences are many orders of magnitude greater than the margin of error.

Thanks to Kilee for the help.

[Blackmorgrim]

So want my legendary... now its just a matter of convincing people to go back and do old content. However, its good to know that the dagger is 2nd runner up, since within my guild it seems to be a sleeper hit of a weapon. (Everyone without the legendary seems to drool over Lightning Rod.)

Though one thing to keep in mind is Ti'tahk is not just about personal DPS. I'm sure simming that weapon under the assumption that 4 people stood together all the time would show the true possibilities of that weapon. Though I'm still curious if you can have the haste buff from multiple people at once.

[Piazzolla]

Thanks so much Uuna. Something I've always wanted to see was a listing of weapons where the 2h and MH/OH aren't segregated. Since it looks like there's only two noteworthy off-hands, I suppose you could just list out the possibilities, or pick 2-3 of the most common. Something like:

Legendary Staff
Other Staff
Dagger with X off-hand
Yet another staff
Dagger with other off-hand
etc

I think a list like that would help me visualize the upgrade of getting, say, the other off-hand before the dagger drops. I noticed this particularly reading Blackmorgrim's post--it isn't visually intuitive that the dagger is 2nd runner up.

Speaking of off-hands, is there no heroic dragonfire orb on the loot tables?

Also, I thought it was interesting that the visage of the destroyer and the lightning rod switch places going from reg to heroic.

Thanks for your work!

[Uuna]

Sure I can add some of the PP results and list those as sets for a few of them, there are 28 combinations of those MH+OH, but I could list the top 2 for heroic and normal combos or something along those lines.

There is a heroic Dragonfire Orb in the game files, but it is a trash drop, so like a lot of the LFR weapons, is in the game files but not available in the game.

[Blackmorgrim]

As far as the dragonfire orb goes, you probably wouldn't even worry about using that really. Eventually, you'd have to trade it out for the Ledger to meet your hit requirements.

The only thing I will say, the dragonfire orb is a really neat model for those who don't pvp. So if no one wants it, make sure to at least pick it up for that. :D

With regards to the staves swap place from normal to heroic, notice how close in value the two are. Now read the methodology of these values. The reason for the swap probably comes down to the possible reforges and how much extra hit is left over afterward. They were so close in value originally that if one results in more unused hit at heroic level than normal, it could potentially trigger the switch.

[Uuna]

Well shouldn't be any issue at all reaching hit cap with reforges in t13 regardless of weapon. So if your guild will only achieve normals, Dragonfire Orb is likely better.
Been running some more sims with combinations of MH+OH, and some of the results are higher than simply adding the above PP values, especially where Rathrak is concerned, so I am going to do some more work on simming the best 2 combos for heroic and normal, and the top combo for LFR (since there is only 1 MH and OH in LFR).

Looking like Rathrak+Ledger heroic is BiS for non-legendary wielders even single target. (at least based on T13 Normal BiS SimC profile)
I will list them as combos within the list for a more intuitive sense as requested.

Updated the list, some of the combos are pretty close to just adding the PP values of the MH and Oh simmed seperately, others were enough PP off to be worth simming together.

Also fmoratted the list a little differently.

[Piazzolla]

This is awesome! I think just listing a couple possibilities works well--I can check the list below to see what kind of pp hit I take from missing some particular part of it.

[Uuna]

Thanks Piazzolla.

Blackmorgrim yes they are fairly close in value, I have never had any issue getting 16.99%-17.01% hit using some reforge calculator utilities so I'm not sure it is hit that is the difference so much as a slight shift in stat weights.
Of course since this is an approximation based on the T13N BiS profile in SimC weapons that are very close in value are, in reality, pretty much interchangeable.

I'll figure up the margin range later on and post info on that here as well.

[Blackmorgrim]

One thing I might do about with that "BiS" profile... try to swap out that haste trinket for the int one from spine. That BiS N profile is definitely not BiS, at least from a DPS point of view, though it definitely is hit capped for sure, allowing for ease of swapping weapons.

[Uuna]

Blackmorgrim yes you are right in that it is not a true BiS setup, however I do not think it would have a major effect on the relative values of the weapons, since only Dragonwrath's proc is effected by int, and it is already on top by a large margin.
(Though Rathrak is effected by crit).

Especially since there are pretty big gaps in the PP value for most of the best options, with the exception of the Lightning Rod and Visage of the Destroyed staves which are exceptionally close in value.

The goal if this list is to find the ranking of the weapons rather than a complete BiS profile. However I will take a look and see if there is any appreciable shift for some of them.

Thanks