More offhand discussion, plus new simcraft features!

Earlier, I discussed my problems in selecting an off-hand weapon to complement my Tankard o' Terror.

Even earlier, I showed you all how to use SimulationCraft to augment your decision-making processes. Since we last examined simcraft, they've expanded some of the character definition functionality. Happily, they now integrate with wowhead profiles. This is very cool, because it allows you to create "what-if" setups to compare specs and gear.

So, I set up three different wowhead profiles - all based on Jillathee's combat spec and base gear (which wowhead can import directly from the armory), but one with the basic fang of truth offhand, one with a black knight's rondel offhand, and one with a dagger of the rising moon offhand. The new daggers are recent acquisitions, as I work on my mutilate gear (mostly for PvP). To be fair, I set all of the offhands to have the berserking enchant, although I only really have the Rondel thusly enchanted - I know I'll be using that dagger for a good long time, so it's worth it.

So now, I can just do this: ./simc wowhead=17750546 wowhead=17750747 wowhead=17750850

The numbers there in the wowhead=FOO line are the profile numbers for my wowhead profiles. That's all you've got to do, although as usual you can tweak the commandline parameters, by changing the raid buffs present, for example. The characters show up in the result data with the wowhead profile name, which is handy when figuring out what's going on for multiple people.

The real question, of course, is would more combat potency procs from a faster offhand be more important than the raw DPS value of the slower (but iLevel 219) rondel? The answer is: the Rondel is the winner. In every situation, the Rondel outperforms both the Fang of Truth and the (0.1 sec faster) Dagger of the Rising Moon. It's not a gigantic edge - about 100 DPS or so, but still, why throw away DPS?