Gear Guide can't make up its mind

[kreelor]

Alliance
Char: Human Hunter (lvl 90)

I was in the Dread Wastes, and picked up a new item. The guide suggested to change it from what I had to it.

3-5 minutes later, (after I restarted the game to try to fix another guide issue), the gear guide changed its mind and told me to switch back to what I had before!

Truly, this does happen very often. It's confusing. Plus, the stats seem a little strange to me.

gear system-dread wastes-89-90.jpg

[cabby]

Normally when something like this happens it means both items have the same score meaning they are both equally good for your class. In this kind of situation you would just pick whichever one you want and then use the decline button when it wants to switch to the one you don't want.

As a hunter the best thing is to just pick the one with the highest agility on it and use that. In this case it would be the Amberglow Necklace.

[kreelor]

I thought the Zygor Gear Guide system took a char's class into consideration. Yes, I know that Agility is high on the list for a Hunter, so why didn't Zygor consider that as well, instead of choosing an armor with less Agility with lower stats on other valuable things?

Also, I have a question, Cabby.
I don't understand what the vague term "Expertise" has to do with stats. What does it do? If it's a higher number than some other important stat, is it wise to choose it, or not?

Also, you never explained why Zygor keeps reverting back and forth between its suggestions!!!

[cabby]

Each stat on a piece of item is multiplied by it's 'weight priority' and then added up with the other stat scores to come up with a total score for the item. The 'weight priority' is determined by class and spec to help the system know what's right for you. So for a hunter Agility might get a 'weight priority' of 20 but for a priest that would be 0. It's like that for all of the different item stats.

Right now a hunter stat priority should looks something like this:
Agility > Expertise (7.5%) = Ranged Hit (7.5%) > Crit > Haste > Mastery
1st > 2nd = 2nd > 3rd > 4th > 5th

The numbers are to help visually see what is meant by that = sign. The 7.5% in () means that particular stat is only good in that position until you reach a 7.5% modifier in game. You should be able to see this by hovering the mouse over that particular combat stat on your character window when logged into your toon. Once you hit 7.5% then that stat has a reduced weight as it's no longer as important as all the other stats in that priority.

With all this put together it's easy for 2 different pieces of gear to have the same total score depending on the different stats and what the stat priority is for the class/spec. When there are two with the same score then the gear system won't know which one is 'best' and keep suggesting you switch back and forth between them.

Expertise is the stat that keeps your attacks from being dodged as a hunter. For melee classes Expertise will also keep the attacks from being blocked/parried. Expertise has a high importance because dodged/blocked/parried attacks means a loss of dps.

You might want to check out Noxxic (http://www.noxxic.com/wow/pve/hunter/beast-mastery) to get a better understanding of the different stats and end-game gearing aspects. We do have the majority of our weights based on the Noxxic priorities so you can use that as a quick reference.

[kreelor]

Thanks for replying, but I really don't care about all those numbers, etc. That's up to the developers to build into the guide (I paid for). My confusion is why they haven't done it correctly in many cases, like taking away agility from my hunter who needs it more than the suggested item (of theirs) which weakens my char. Plus, going to noxic might be informative, and I appreciate that you mentioned it, but it's not why I purchased these guides. I expected the developers to incorporate what they learned from noxic, so that I won't end up disenchanting my valuable equip because the guide suggested a wrong piece of equipment. That's the only reason I made the post I did. I don't understand why zygor has so many things that even noxic, and others would advise against. Too often, they just don't fit my characters. I get frustrated because I want to trust zygor to save me the research, as long as it's valid in the guide suggestions.

And, to reiterate my question....
"Also, you never explained why Zygor keeps reverting back and forth between its suggestions!!!"

[deleon]

Kreelor,
I usually use askmrrobot for reforging, gemming, and enchants on my characters. With my rogue, I use shadowcraft. I get different results between the two. But -- on shadowcraft, I can load my rogue, tell it to optimize and it'll return some results. If I tell it to optimize again, it'll change one or two items returning some different results. It's possible that what you're seeing in this case, is something similar -- Zygor is suggesting you swap out your neck piece based on a total "stat" weight. Once you swap it out, you may drop under the "magic number" (i.e., 7.5% for ranged hit) which would mean the original neck piece you had while having a slightly lower "stat" weight, might actually keep you above the thresholds to provide you with the maximum DPS.
I'd suggest equipping one of the neck pieces, taking a screen shot of your stats, swapping them out as the guide is recommending, then taking another screen shot. Post both results, indicating which is which, so the returned values instead of just "stat" weight can be looked at.

[cabby]

And, to reiterate my question....
"Also, you never explained why Zygor keeps reverting back and forth between its suggestions!!!"

Yes, yes I did.

With all this put together it's easy for 2 different pieces of gear to have the same total score depending on the different stats and what the stat priority is for the class/spec. When there are two with the same score then the gear system won't know which one is 'best' and keep suggesting you switch back and forth between them.

[Zygor Admin]

It's because you're a level 90. The Gear System was never really intended to be used for max level characters but rather as a tool to aid in the leveling process. That's why in the latest version of the guide the system is set to disable once you reach level 90. We would recommend just disabling it in the options under Zygor Guides Viewer / Gear suggestions.

[kreelor]

Well, that explains that. If it's disabled in the paid-for version of the Gear Guide, may I suggest that you inform users (somehow) who are not using the paid-for version of the same thing? I chose not to purchase either the Gear Guide or the Pets Guide because of the many issues related around them since they were first introduced. Thanks for clearing up this issue for me.