-18ilvls increases dps by 4.11%?

Ask Mr. Robot
1

Hi,

Just now MrRobot just told me to switch gear around that will result in -18ilvl, but which will result in a supposed 4.11% dps increase. Mind you that the previous build was also suggested by MrRobot, so I’m finding this hard to believe, and wanted to make sure that this is correct.
The snapshot ID is d02dc7331bfb4f278058f5aa74d2145c.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Best Regards,
jb

2

The biggest difference there is probably the change of your weapon (from a 370 Staff to a 440 dagger, without even including any off-hand item!) combined with using more corruption.

The new weapon alone will increase your stats a bit (i.e. by 326 Intellect while losing 91 secondary stats), even though you don’t really have anything to equip in the off-hand. The only item you could equip there is an item level 108 shield which lowers your average item level by about 21 compared to an item level 440 shield. You’d just need to get a somewhat relevant off-hand item or shield to “fix” your item level - and also increase your stats a bit more.

3

Hi Asashdor,

Thanks very much for you reply. While that might account for alot, I was curious about all these aswell:

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The only upgrade is on the Hands slot, and then only by 5 ilvls. All the rest look like a massive downgrade.
I’m very confused by this.

Thanks again for your time on this.

Best Regards,
jb

4

Generally speaking, item level is a decent indicator of an item’s strength, but will never be the only important value on an item. Every spec scales differently with stats and different stats will have (sometimes) wildly different value - and that may even change around depending on how much of every stat you have.

Taking elemental shaman for example, it looks like Mastery is much worse than the other stats and you’d want to balance out Crit, Haste and Versatility while almost completely avoiding Mastery. That alone might cause an item with Mastery to be worse than another item of lower item level without Mastery.

With your recommendations for example, you’re losing Mastery and Haste, while getting some Intellect, Crit (more than directly visible because of an additional 5x31, i.e. 155, from the third corruption effect) and Versatility.

While that is a downgrade by item level, you’re also getting better Azerite traits on your chest, as you’re using at least one enhancement only trait in your current chest. You’ve also set enhancement as a higher priority than elemental (see the order of specs to the left), so you’re telling AMR not to change anything used by that spec. Thus it’s better to use a lower item level piece with appropriate traits.

The other items are also switching around some corruption effects and using one additional item with corruption. Corruption effects can be really strong and (depending on the exact effect and your current stats) can be stronger than a high amount of basic stats - although those effects will be removed completely in a couple weeks when the Shadowlands Pre-Patch hits.

5

Asashdor,

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation.
I believe I have a better understanding of it now.

Best Regards,
jb