First off, apologies if this has been discussed to death, did a quick search and didn’t see anything that seemed to be related.
I’m getting confused when trying to compare essences using the best in bag feature, example below:
I have Purification Protocol equipped, and run best in bags to see what difference it would make using Unbound Force (other equipment locked in for consistency):
4.93% increase, nice!
So I go change the essences in game, update my char with the addon and run Best in Bags again, but this time changing the major Essence back to purification Protocol:
(can’t post second image, but it shows a 2.48% DPS increase to revert to how it was)
It’s showing as a 2.48% DPS increase to switch back. Huh?
Tried it with several essences, and it seems no matter what I have slotted, AMR will always suggest that any other major essence is a DPS increase if it’s chosen on the setup drop down.
I’m pretty sure I must be missing something here, but can’t figure out what’s happening!
The optimizer is not set up to show relative differences between talent/major essence choices.
Your talents, major essences, and current gear are the input to the optimizer. The %DPS change is telling you the change compared to your currently equipped gear, talents, and major essence. Once you pick a major essence in the setup step, it treats your gear as if that is the major essence you have equipped. You get a little weirdness if you choose a major essence that is not the major essence you actually have equipped, so it is best to have the major essence you are optimizing for already equipped.
If you want to get an idea for what might be the best major essence for you - you can get some general information on our guide pages for your spec. You could also run some simulations with the simulator as well to compare absolute values.
So if we switch to each of the major essences one at a time then run the optimizer, it will show us what improvement we can expect maybe by reshuffling some of our existing gear.
But, correct me if I’m wrong, won’t that just show relative improvement for that essence choice and not which of the major essences are the best since we don’t know our absolute dps numbers (for example)?
Correct - the optimizer does not show you relative differences between different major essence and talent setups. We have a section in the guide pages that gives you some idea of the relative potential power of different essences and talents to help you choose them if you want.
We use the talent and essence build you want to use as an input to the optimizer.
