Tier 10 Set Stats

Apparently there was a new PTR patch pushed out yesterday, and MMO-Champion had been hard at work squeezing all of the goodness out of it for us to read. The big thing that was added was quite a bit of loot from from the 5-man, the raids, and the Tier loot.

My first reaction:

WOW!!!!

Here are the links to the ilvl 251 and ilvl 264 gear.

Before you get really excited, I want to make one disclaimer. Data mined info is Data mined. It is not currently in game. It has not been confirmed by Blizzard. It is quite possible that these were released in error and will be changed in future PTR releases.

That said, I'm still giddy. I don't know how it compares to the other classes because I don't understand them well enough, but here are a few quick things you will notice.

1. Not a single drop of Spirit anywhere on the Tier set.



2. Gem Sockets: 5 Red, 2 Yellow, 1 Meta



3. Socket Bonuses: All Spell Power

My Second Reaction:

After taking a step back and thinking about it, this makes sense for a couple of reasons.

• At Blizzcon, it was announced that Spirit would become primarily a healer stat in 4.0, and would have little or no value to caster DPS. If history is any guide, the players that are able to pick up these sets will likely wear them will into Cataclysm. When I first started raiding Naxx last November, I still had most of my Tier 6 gear on, because the quest rewards were inferior, and the heroic loot were side grades for the most part. The lack of spirit here will make these items more useful in the expansion.



• Blizzard has been saying for a long time that they are saving the best gear for last. They didn't want the earlier sets to be perfectly itemized, otherwise the final sets would just be unexciting numerical upgrades. To some extent, this shows that Blizzard knows what we like and is capable of producing it if the situation calls for it.

So, Blizzard is killing two birds with one stone here. Not only do they create some kick ass tier sets, but they are preparing the players for the next expansion.

In the midst of all this praise I do want to express one concern. Every piece of the tier sets has Crit Rating on it, two pieces have Hit Rating, and the other three have Haste Rating. Don't get me wrong, I love Crit Rating, but with the current Moonkin design I would like a better balance of Haste and Crit. This itemization will probably push us more in the direction of Haste gear for our non tier pieces.

Other Gear:

At this point it is hard to evaluate all of the other gear available. This is obviously an incomplete list. Please don't start asking when my New gear lists will be available. Cowtarus has volunteered to compile all of the information for me again, but it will take time and won't be final until the patch is released.

I do have two small observations that I don't like though. The upgradeable rep ring that a lot of people are excited about is a Hit ring. That is not necessarily bad, but I would rather it didn't have hit to allow for a little more flexibility. The other issue I have is with the quest rewards from the Quel'delar questline. Those weapons are very nice, but from a Moonkin standpoint they are lacking. The great caster DPS weapon is a sword that is un usable by druids, priests or shaman. There is a spell mace, but it has Mp5 on it. I think making the sword a dagger would have made a lot more sense.

Toon Update:

LoE killed Algalon 25 last night for a server second. Again, it's not as big of a deal as the guild that were able to kill him before ToC was released, but I'm still very happy. We have officially killed every boss in Ulduar, and Yogg+0 is the only hard mode we have not completed. I don't know if we will work on that one or not. I would like to get it down at some point, but completing ToGC is a much bigger goal at this point. Plus, If we can master Anub relatively soon, we will have time to go back and clean up some of those achievements in Ulduar.

A Look at Pushback Resistance

In my recent Moonkin Basics post regarding Talents I made the following comment:

Resto Tier 1 - Currently, there isn't a lot of debate about this tier of the tree, but that may change at some point. Improved Mark of the Wild and Furor are currently favored because they provide a little extra DPS and regen. However, it is really pretty minor. In a heavy damage situation pushback resistance can be a big DPS boost. Since most guilds have Imp MotW covered by a Resto or Feral Druid, don't be surprised if you see many Moonkin taking points out of Imp MotW or Furor to put a few in Nature's Focus, if the situation calls for it.

This prompted the following comment from a reader:

Imp MotW is not what I would call a debatable talent. 2% stats wins over pushback in a PvE setting.

For the record, I want to say that I don't think Pushback Resistance issue in the current PvE content. That is the exact reason why I didn't included Nature's Focus as a part of my core build in my Moonkin Basics post. However, he was so dismissive with regards to the value of Pushback Resistance that I fell it is necessary to address the topic more formally. In the following post I hope to show you why you may want to pay attention to Pushback Resistance in the future.

How Spell Pushback Works

You will experience Spell Pushback if you take damage while you are casting a spell. However, how it affects that spell depends on the spell type. For a Channelled spell like Hurricane, tanking damage while channelling the spell reduce the spell's duration by 20%. For a spell with a cast time like Starfire, taking damage while casting will increase the cast time by 0.5 seconds. The good news is for both types of spell, only the first two hits will incur spell push back. So, spell pushback can only reduce your channelled spell duration by 40% total, or increase your cast time by a maximum of 1.0 seconds.

Unfortunately, the only way to reduce spell pushback is with the use of talents and buffs. I did some testing over the weekend and proved to myself that Haste has absolutely no impact on the cast time added by spell pushback. Fortunately, Moonkin have several tools available to them to combat spell pushback.

Celestial Focus - When fully stacked CF will reduce the Pushback on your Starfire and Hurricane by 70%.

Nature's Focus - When fully stacked NF will reduce the Pushback on your Wrath and most of your healing spells by 70%.

Barkskin - Your push back is reduced by 100% for all spells while Barkskin is active.

Owlkin Frenzy - Your push back is reduced by 100% for all spells while OF is active.

Concentration Aura - This is from a paladin. It will give you 35% resistance to pushback if you are in range of the pally.

These buffs stack additively. So, having Concentration Aura with Nature's Focus and Celestial Focus gives you 100% resistance to spell push back.

The Math of Spell Pushback:

For simplicity's sake lets make a couple of stipulations. Lets say that the average Starfire hits for 10,000 damage and takes 2.0 seconds to cast. Lets also say that the average Wrath hits for 5,000 damage and takes 1.0 seconds to cast. I know that these are not percice numbers but more accurate numbers are not needed to show the impact of spell push back.

So, using these numbers, both spells have 5,000 DPS if they do not suffer any spell pushback. With the first hit, Starfire's DPS will drop to 4,000 DPS (10,000/(2+0.5)), and Wrath's DPS will drop to 3,333 DPS (5,000/(1+0.5)).

As you can see, taking a hit will have a significant impact on your DPS. On top of that, a spell like Wrath that has a shorter cast time has an even larger drop in DPS due to spell pushback, because the amount added is not relative to the cast time. Of course, Wrath is more likely to avoid spell pushback due to it's shorter cast time. That will reduce the impact of spell pushback some, but it will still have a greater impact then Starfire.

So, what happens if we put a point in Celestial Focus or Nature's Focus? The DPS of Starfire will rise to 4,193 (10,000/(2+(0.5*(1-0.23)))), and the DPS of Wrath will rise to 3,610 (5,000/(1+(0.5*(1-0.23)))). For Starfire this is a 4.83% DPS increase and a 8.30% DPS increase for Wrath. The second and third point have even larger marginal impacts on your DPS. However, this benefit is only realized if you take damage.

Why Spell Pushback is Important

Some of you may be thinking: "I realize that pushback has an impact, but I don't get hit enough in raid for it to have a big impact."

As I said before, I agree that Pushback Resistance isn't hugely necessary in the current raid content. Naxx and Ulduar don't have a lot of unavoidable raid wide damage. ToC has a little bit more but it really isn't enough for it to be a big issue yet. On top of that Celestial Focus is a core talent of any moonkin due to the Haste it provides. Therefore, we are currently pretty well covered as it is. The question is, what type of damage will we see in ICC?

If you take a look back at Black temple and Sunwell, you will see that frequent damage was more of the norm then infrequent damage. In some of the fights like Bloodboil we were getting hit with damage every 2 seconds. If Wrath is 40% of your damage, and 50% of your wraths are getting delayed due to push back, each of those points in Nature's focus will now increase your DPS by 1.66% to 2.09%.

We are only just now getting our first looks at the bosses of ICC, and we don't know what they will look like in hard mode. As such, I can't make any definite statements about Pushback resistance being necessary in ICC or not. However, don't be surprised if you start to see a lot of high level moonkin starting to make the switch. The reason is because Pushback can have a huge negative impact on your DPS if there is enough damage being thrown around.

Blizzard Hates Moonkin

Clearly, Blizzard hates Moonkin.

Ulduar Meta: Complete

I know that it's not quite as significant as if we had done it before ToC was released. I know that the gear we've obtained from ToC has made the achievements easier to some extend. However, I am still very proud and happy that it is now complete.

The fact of the matter is that Yogg +1 is not an easy fight. Neither is Firefighter, Freya +3 and several other Ulduar hard modes. For most guilds these are not fights that you can walk in and watch them fall down. Completing this acheivement was the result of a lot of hard work and trying to squeeze Ulduar time into our ToC schedule.

Grats to everyone that got drakes, and thank you to everyone that helped me get mine.

Moonkin Basics: Talents

I'm starting a new series called Moonkin Basics. The purposes of these posts will be to answer the basic questions a new raider or offspec raider would ask. My intention is to keep them up to date as things change in the game and have links to them on the right side of my blog. Obviously, most of what I say in these posts will be common knowledge to experienced Moonkin raiders. Please feel free to comment if you have a difference of opinion.

To some extent these posts are inspired by or stolen from Hamlet's Moonkin guide in the Elitist Jerk's Think Tank (link). It is the best "How-to-Moonkin" guide I have ever read. I think that anyone raiding a mookin should read it. You may also want to check out the Moonkin Sticky on the official forums that has been compiled by Wisprunner.

Some of you may be asking: "If Hamlet wrote such a good guide, and you could get similar information from the Moonkin Sticky, why do you need to post anything?"

Very good question. I'm doing for several reasons.

• This will be something I control. In the history of WoW, many guides have come and gone, and many are dead before people realize it. I won't maintain it forever, but as long as I'm blogging and playing WoW I will try and keep it up to date. I can't make the same commitment for the other guides if I point people to them.



• I regularly get asked basic questions about Moonkin DPS. I love it when people ask me questions, but to be honest, I am pretty bad about answering my mail. These posts should give the answers more exposure so that people can find them on their own. It will also give me a quick place to point to if I have already answered the question.



• Finally, I don't always agree with the answers provided by other guides. The differences aren't huge generally, but they are common enough that I think it is helpful to the readers.

Now, on with the guide.

The Core Talent Build: (Link)

This is what I consider to be the core talent build of almost every raiding moonkin for a majority of encounters. I did leave two points unspent, because how you use those points really depends on your raiding situation. If you have mana issues you'll probably put them in Intensity. If you focus more on single target DPS Brambles is probably the better choice. Gale Winds is a good choice if you have to do significant amounts of AoE.

In addition, to the two points I left unspent, you may want to consider a couple of variations to the core spec I've provided.

1. Moonglow vs Imp MF - Tier 2 of the balance tree doesn't have a lot of good options. Moonglow is the worst mana "regen" talent we have. Improved Moonfire has very little impact if you also use the Glyph of Moonfire. Unfortunately you have to spend three talent points in these two talents to move on to the 3rd tier of the tree.
   
   I chose Moonglow in the Core build because it is a simple way to get some Mana regen without really hurting your DPS. The one exception I would make to policy is if you have the 2T9 set bonus. If your Moonfire ticks can Crit then the talent improves significantly.



2. Imp IS for Mana - The core build ignores almost all of the Mana Regen talents. Most Moonkin I've talked to don't have any problems with mana regen as long as they have replenishment. If they do have issues then Innervate fixes them easily. Therefore, I expect that most moonkin don't have mana issues.
   
   However, I'm sure this isn't true for everyone. If your looking to pick up more regen from your talent build, I suggest you skip Improved Insect Swarm. It is a decent DPS boost, but probably the smallest one we can reasonably get rid of.



3. Resto Tier 1 - Currently, there isn't a lot of debate about this tier of the tree, but that may change at some point. Improved Mark of the Wild and Furor are currently favored because they provide a little extra DPS and regen. However, it is really pretty minor. In a heavy damage situation pushback resistance can be a big DPS boost. Since most guilds have Imp MotW covered by a Resto or Feral Druid, don't be surprised if you see many Moonkin taking points out of Imp MotW or Furor to put a few in Nature's Focus, if the situation calls for it.

Talents: A Quick Look

Starlight Wrath - A straight DPS boost. A must have talent.
Genesis - A horrible Moonkin talent. It is really a way for restos to start the balance tree.
Moonglow - Our worst "regen" talent, but relatively cheap. Many moonkin have 1 or 3 points here.
Nature's Majesty - Straight DPS boost for our two main spells. Also plays well with Eclipse.
Improved Moonfire - Very poor talent when combined with Glyph of Moonfire, but is revived with the 2T9 set bonus.
Brambles - Minor talent. Small single target DPS boost, but primarily for PVP.
Nature's Grace - Must have talent. One of the keys to moonkin DPS.
Nature's Splendor - Straight DPS boost.
Nature's Reach - Extra range and threat reduction are to very nice things to have as a raider.
Vengence - Boosts critical strike damage. It works very well with the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond.
Celestial Focus - Pushback resistance is an often overlooked asset. Combine that with haste and this a great talent.
Lunar Guidance - Spell Power for Int. It buffs an unavoidable stat.
Insect Swarm - A high DPET spell when glyphed.
Improved Insect Swarm - Buffs our two nukes but relies on high DoT uptime.
Dreamstate - Good regen stat for leveling, but last one picked for raiding.
Moonfury - Straight DPS Boost
Balance of Power - The extra Hit chance is critical, but don't over look the damage reduction.
Moonkin Form - The key to the whole tree.
Improved Moonkin Form - Raid wide haste + spell power from spirit = great talent
Improved Fairie Fire - Provides a static 3% crit chance to the moonkin and hit for the raid.
Owlkin Frenzy - A PvP talent, but may find a place in very high level raiding.
Wrath of Cenarius - Straight DPS Boost
Eclipse - Love it or hate it, it is the final key to moonkin DPS.
Typhoon - Primarily a PvP spell, but has limited uses in PvE
Force of Nature - Better known as trents. A great single target DPS Spell.
Gale Winds - Only useful for a AoE heavy fight or if you have no need for regen.
Earth and Moon - Straight DPS boost, and provides an essential raid buff.
Starfall - Provides a solid DPS boost in both AoE and single target situations.

Improved MotW - A minor boost to DPS and survivability
Nature's Focus - Provides push back resistance for Wrath and heals.
Furor - Minor DPS and regen boost.
Natural Shapeshifter - Needed for Master Shapeshifter, but would pass if possible.
Master Shapeshifter - Straight DPS boost
Omen of Clarity - Best Moonkin "regen" talent.
Intensity - Great regen talent when fully raid buffed.

Blue Post: Need Before Greed and Other Things

This slipped my radar at first, but thanks to Lissanna's excellent post on Restokin.com it came to my attention.

The Blue Posts:

1. The Need Before Greed loot system will be the unalterable default looting system for pick-up groups in the Dungeon System and has been updated.
   
   
2. Need Before Greed will now recognize gear appropriate for a class in three ways: the class must be able to equip the item, pure melee will be unable to roll on spell power items, and classes are limited to their dominant armor type (ex. paladins for plate). All items will still be available via Greed rolls as well as the new Disenchant option should no member be able to use the item.
   
   
3. Group Disenchanting Option: In addition to rolling “Need” or “Greed” on items, players now have the option to elect for an item to be disenchanted. “Disenchant” works exactly like “Greed” except if a player wins the “Greed” roll, they will receive the disenchanted materials instead. Players who choose “Need” will always win the item and will always beat those that choose “Greed” or “Disenchant.”

A lot has already been said about these changes on the forums, and I want to try and cut through the hysteria.

The Actual Impact:

In a literal sense this change means that Moonkin will not be able to "Need" cloth when using the random group feature coming out in 3.3. A moonkin can "Greed" on cloth using the tool, but their rolls are grouped with everyone that just wants the item for enchanting mats or vendor gold.

In actual play this change will probably have very little impact. Who is running instances for gear any more? Most of the people using this too will be doing so to get emblems, get rep, or get achievements. The only really problem I have with the actual system is that it treats "Greed" and "DE" on the same level. Therefore an item that is a real upgrade for a new moonkin may get automatically DEed so that another player can have a shard in the bank. Other then that, the impact will only be felt by people who are leveling.

The Symbolic Impact:

The reason I have a problem with this change is the symbolic impact. Whether Blizzard means to or not, this change will be interpreted as a big flashing sign that says: "MOONKIN SHOULDN'T WEAR CLOTH!!!"

I am trying to look at it optimistically. First, this will probably have little or no impact right away. Thoughtful guilds like mine will still realize that there are valid reasons for Moonkin to wear cloth in some situations. Thoughtful Moonkin will pick their battles wisely and try not to rock the boat to much. Guilds that currently prevent moonkin from rolling on cloth will continue to do so. The status quo will be maintained.

Another reason to be optimistic is that there are massive changed coming to gear itemization in the next expansion. Moonkin shouldn't have to worry about Spirit any more and hopefully Blizzard will be better about providing gear with the necessary stats like Hit Rating. I may be dreaming but we may actually get to a place where spell leather is equal to cloth. If that happens then the leather vs cloth debate will change quite a bit.

That said, the pessimist in me is worried. Blizzard has gotten a lot better about providing quality spell leather, but there are a couple of facts that make me think that spell leather will never equal cloth.

1. If you exclude Ele Shaman, there is one spec that will want to use DPS spell leather. There are 3 classes that are restricted to cloth.



2. Most raids will run with only one Moonkin. Two at the most. On the flip side, most raids will have 6 or more cloth DPSers.



3. In WotLK, cloth drops are twice as frequent as spell leather drops.

Blizzard has said many times that they don't like seeing items useful to only one class getting sharded week after week when there are possible upgrades for other classes. This is why they don't like to have idols drop from bosses. This means that there will always be better cloth options because there will always be more cloth options. If you only have one non-tier leather piece with Hit Rating you might be forced to use it, because you don't have other options. Moonkin will be back to the same cookie cutter gear we had in TBC.

A Failure of Logic:

Blizzard has acknowledged that this change was likely to be controversial, but they feel it is necessary to protect people against ninja's because it will be harder for players to protect themselves with cross-realm LFG. I understand the reasoning, but I question its logic. Blizzard explained it this way:

Ultimately, our logic went like this: If a Holy paladin loses a great non-plate upgrade to another player, one out of five players might feel bad. If a Holy paladin rolls Need on every type of armor that drops, then four out of five players might have a bad experience. The jerk potential seemed worse than the lost-an-upgrade potential as far as whether or not players buy into using the new dungeon tool.

On the surface the logic seems reasonable. Upsetting 1 person is better then upsetting 4, but I want to ask one question. How big of a problem are Jerks/Ninjas?

I've played WoW for a long time and I've done a lot of pugs. I've met my fair share of assholes, but I would say the vast majority players are reasonable and aren't going to "Need" every single drop.

For arguments sake, lets say that in 1 out of 10 instantance runs there is a jerk that decides ninja loot. Then lets say that in 5 out of 10 instance runs there is a Druid, Shaman or Pally that loses a legitimate upgrade, because they couldn't roll need or another player wanted a shard. Who knows what the actual rate for these to events will be, but I think everyone can see how the 1 vs 4 argument is misleading.

To use Blizzard's example, only the Holy Pally will be upset that he can't roll on the non-plate item, but he may be upset every time he runs that instance because there will usually be someone that hits the DE button without checking to see if it's an upgrade for someone that can't roll need.

I think we would all agree that ninja's suck, but someone getting screwed out of a legitimate upgrade is going to be much more common.

Other Things:

Nature's Grace:

I agree Nature's Grace is a big part of the problem here. We changed Gift of the Earth Mother for pretty similar reasons. However, Nature's Grace is a Really Big Deal. We honestly keep talking about changing it, but we're also paranoid about screwing it up because Balance dps is dependent on it. NG is probably an overbudget talent, but in this case if we nerfed it, we'd have to mess with Balance in a lot of other areas to compensate. We'll almost certainly do it at some point, but I worry about messing with it for 3.3.

Translation: "Nature's Grace is getting nerfed in 4.0."

After reading all of the discussion, I agree with Ghostcrawler's comment quite a bit. If Nature's Grace wasn't so powerful we wouldn't be clipping the GCD, but it's such a powerful talent that nerfing it is more difficult then it sounds. Given that we are so close to an expansion it is probably a lot easier to alter the talent and the spec as they are making the massive changes that come with every expansion.

Twisted Nether Blogcast:

In case you missed it, my appearance on the Twisted Nether Blogcast round table is now available. You can find it here. I am also told it is available on Itunes.

Moonkin Tools: SimCraft

SimulationCraft

What: SimCraft is a simulation based executable program. I think it was orignally created by Dedmonwakeen on the EJ forums and is not a dedicated Moonkin tool. It currently supports most of the classes in game and Starfox is the current Moonkin developer for the project.

Where: The project's home is in Google Code which you can find here. This is where you would find the downloads, source code, and issue logs. Most of the discussion regarding SimCraft can be found on the EJ forums. The general discussion can be found here. The druid specific discussion can be found here.

How to Use: The developers are working on a GUI interface, but it still in alpha at this point. Therefore, I recommend that you stick with using the text files and such. For the record, I am a Windows user. I don't have a clue as to if or how this would work for any other platform. Here are some basic instructions on how I got it to work.

First, down load the files and put them in their own directory on your computer. There are two files you want to look at first. They are the READ_ME_FIRST.txt and the Examples.txt files. These are probably the best sources of documentation you will find right of the bat.

I assume you will want to download your toon from the Armory or WoWhead. To do that you need to create a text file. You can do this using Notepad. To download from the armory you text file needs to have one line that looks like this:

armory=Region,Server,Player save=Player_Version.simc

For graylo I created one that looked like this:

armory=us,garona,graylo save=graylo_base.simc

When you drag the file you created over the SIMC.BAT file it will download your profile and save it to a simcraft file that can be modified for future runs. Then drag the .simc file you just created over the SIMC.BAT to get the DPS calculation. You can also drag that same file over the SCALE_FACTORS.BAT file to get stat weights as well as the DPS information.

There are several variations to this process. For example you could download your information from a WoWhead profile instead of the armory. You can review the Example.txt file to see more of the possibilities.

Pros:

• Fewer Assumptions: Formulation tools like Rawr and WrathCalcs have to make a lot of assumptions to get results. For example, they calculate what the average Eclipse uptime will be. They calculate average cast times. They also make assumptions like DoTs are always up so that you benefit from Imp IS. These are not bad assumptions, and the tools are not bad for making them, but you can see that they might skew the results a little.
  
  Simulations make fewer assumptions. They model DPS by setting up a spell priority and and giving the rotation a time limit. DPS is then calculated based upon the the random procs that occur and the actual buffs and Debuffs you receive. If Fairie Fire is not on the target you do not get the 3% crit chance. I think this results in more realistic numbers when it comes to total DPS questions.
  


• Alt Friendly: Like Rawr, SimCraft covers most of the classes and specs in the game. If you get comfortable using it on your moonkin, you can transfer your knowledge to try and use it to evaluate your alts as well..

Cons:

• Statistics: The big problem with simulations is that you will never get the same results twice. Therefore you have to run them multiple times and use averages. Simcraft for example will run you simulation 20,000 times by default to come up with your spec's DPS. When you do the Scale Factors it runs it 20,000 for each stat. Therefore, it runs the simulation about 140,000 times
  
  That sounds like a lot, but it actually happens pretty quickly. The issue is in the variance. SimCraft is great at measuring large changes like what happens if I change my rotation or which set bonus is better. It is bad at measuring small changes like what happens if I add one more Spell Power or Crit Rating. As a result, to provide the stat weights SimCraft has to make large changes in stats. This brings up diminishing returns issues. It's also not good at evaluating minor gear changes.
  
  
• Unuser Friendly: The project has some decent documentation, but lets face it. Creating text files and doing drag and drops will be intimidating for some users. Also, making changes in the simulation is not easy. If you want to try a different rotation you have to figure out what the triggers are and modify the text files. You can change your gear manually, but it's probably easier to download a new profile. The program also assumes you use all available raid buffs. If you want to turn one off, you have to turn them all off and then turn the rest back on. Hopefully, when they get the GUI interface running this will eliminate most of these issues.
  


• Black Box: Again, unless you understand C++ SimCraft is a just a Black Box that you put numbers in and have numbers spit back out to you. If you're like me you like to know how it got from point A to point B, but that is not possible unless you understand the language.
  
  This isn't a huge issue, because a lot of smart people are reviewing these tools, but I like to be able to research an issue when the results seem strange to me. SimCraft does not allow me personally to do that easily.

TL:DR

SimCraft is great because it provides a view of your DPS that the other tools can't provide. It lets random events occur as random events, and impact your DPS as they would in an actual raid situation. This makes it a great tool for evaluating spell rotations, idol procs, and set bonuses. However, due to the very nature of statistics it can't provide exact results that are consistent every time you run the simulation. It is not necessarily the best tool for evaluating small gear or stat changes.

SimCraft also has some very big issues with how users will interact with it. Unless you are computer savvy it may be very intimidating to create the files necessary to use the tool.