Yo's Simulator

After a somewhat disappointing ~550 DPS report from last night's Kara run, I've decided it's time to do some OCD-style over-analysis of my raid DPS. If you've spent any time glancing at the Elitist Jerk's stuff on Enhancement Shaman, you'll no doubt have seen numerous mention of Yo's Simulator, which seems to be one of the best tools available.

Here's a quick breakdown of the tool, by tab:

• Tracking headquarters - input your base stats like AP, crit, weapon info, etc.
• Procs & stuff - weapon enchants, trinkets, totems, shock rotations
• Buffs & debuffs - class-provided buffs on you, and debuffs on your target. At the bottom are three dropdowns for raid consumables, too.

When you're done inputting typical values for your raid makeup, go back to the first tab and hit the Theorycraft! button. Well lookie there: 543 DPS - pretty consistent with last night's Recount report.

Since I'm still saving for the epic flying mount and have gear accessibility issues (don't we all?), it's all about bang-for-buck. Let's look at a few upgrades I've been considering:

Dual Mongoose over my current dual Crusaders only improved DPS by 7. Same story with adding the Shadowsong Panther trinket or Hourglass of the Unraveller: 7 DPS. Meta gem Relentless Earthstorm Diamond yielded 10 DPS, but my current Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond wasn't listed, so it's likely less of an improvement.

Playing around Strength/AP (while keeping crit above 23%) seems to have much more DPS value. Furthermore, getting the ugly-as-sin fist weapons (Vanir's Right and Left Fist's of Brutality) for a mere 150 badges (gulp) seems to yield a 25-ish DPS improvement, but getting rid of my hard-fought dual Gladiator's Cleavers (36k honor, 40 EotS tokens) would be extremely disheartening - dunno if I can do it, honestly. :)

So in conclusion, better DPS seems to be all about the sum of all parts, there's no magic bullet in my case. But focusing more on raw base stats (Strength in particular) is probably the direction I should be headed, in addition to any "cheap" upgrades for accessory items (trinkets/gems/enchants) I can find.