Old custom gearing strategies will not adjust for (or rank) essences, or any items with special effects added in 8.2.
After we get the rest of the 8.2 stuff squared away, I plan to revisit and update the custom strategy generation for cases like yours, where you want to generate some rankings based on a custom rotation.
In the mean time, you’re probably better off using our provided strategies, then one of the customization options (and/or some locking of particular items) to push it towards a different stat and/or preferred azerite trait for PvP. We also plan to beef up the customization options as well, which may even replace the need/desire for a custom strategy entirely by giving you more easy and flexible options to control the optimizer.