Agility gem never recommended

Every guide I read recommends Saber’s Eye of Agility. And Agility is usually better than any secondary stat, after all primary>secondary, by definition. However, through all of BFA, robot has never told me to use one. Not once. Here goes my string:

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The simple answer is sometimes the right answer: the agility gem just isn’t as good for your case!

I guess in this case it’s more like: they are so close that you could go either way. So use the agility gem if you prefer, but it is not better.

Here’s a simulation with your gear as-is:
23,173 DPS Not Available

Here’s a simulation if I replace one of your haste gems with an agility gem:
23,164 DPS Not Available

The difference is below the margin of error on the simulation, which I put down at 0.1%. When things get this close, the optimizer is actually better at telling you which one to use – it’s able to use statistics to smooth out the noise inherent in simulation. But really… if the difference is below the margin of error of 0.1% simulations… they are equivalent for all practical purposes.

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And I get that at times, it definitely could be worse. What I don’t get is how every guide tells hunters to use it, it was designed to be better (limit of 1 use) and it was NEVER better for me. I run BIB everytime I get gear, which means a couple dozen times a week. It was never brought up.

But ok I guess, I’ll keep not using it. Secondary are cheaper anyways. Just wanted to make sure I’m not missing something, like a sim setting or anything like that. thanks

Yeah probably a couple things: point-for-point, primary stats are better at lower gear levels. As an expansion goes on and item level gets higher, secondary stats become better point-for-point. The cross-over can vary by spec, talents, your particular items that you have available to you, etc.

Also, by default, we typically have the gem/enchant “threshold” for Best in Bags set to 0.5%. The difference between an agility gem and a haste or crit gem is always going to be very small – below the threshold where it would be worth changing it. You could try setting that to “disabled” and it might recommend them more often. (But then you’ll potentially spend a lot of gold on nearly imperceptible gear changes, which is why we added the feature by popular demand back in Legion).

The way that blizzard counteracts secondary stats becoming stronger as an expansion goes on is by reducing the amount you get on gear relative to primary stats as item level increases. If you have an old e.g. ilvl300 or 325 item with secondary stats, you’ll notice that the ratio of secondary to primary stats is much closer than say a 415 item that you have. But gems… always give you 40 of each stat. So their scaling mechanism doesn’t work with gems… sockets become more and more powerful as an expansion goes on, and the primary stat gems get relatively weaker and weaker.

Not sure why they decided to stick to doing it like that… but it is what it is. That is why especially e.g. rings with sockets but lower item level can often come out ahead of higher item level rings. It’s an oddity of the gearing system that blizzard could probably do without in a future expansion.

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