I don't mind theory crafting to figure out a strategy. For ENH shaman, for instance, in the opening paragraph of this article, The Tunic would be better - hit is more useful, and so is the Mastery. How do I know this? Theorycrafters worked out that the general "hierarchy" of secondary stats for an ENH shaman. For the most part, all pieces in the same slot for the same iLevel will have the same base stats, so that we can ignore. So we decide what's better based on secondary stats.

For the most part, Hit (till spell hit cap, 1740 or there abouts for most), Expertise (until 26 rating, 540 or there abouts for most), Mastery (effects 60+% of your damage, including your hard-hitting lava lash), Crit (effects all damage but at a much lower rate), then Haste (only has a major effect on our weapon swing speed, and honestly, not that much, you need an insane amount to really count now-a-days. ENH SHaman don't cast many spells with a cast time).

So, for clarity:

Hit (till cap)
Expertise (till cap)
Mastery
Crit
Haste
Anything else, including INT, SPI or any other stat.

So, I can quickly look at the two pieces of gear, like those two chest pieces, and assume, yes, that the Tunic would be better. If I end up with too much hit, with reforging, I can remove hit elsewhere and use it for something like Mastery or Crit, so I don't even need to really care about Caps.

Now, what do I NOT like Theorycrafting/simming for? Arguing about pieces of gear. If someone in one my raids ever said "BIS so I should get it" to me, I would probably consider not bringing them next time. Gear is gear, but if two people can use it, then something else - with us just the simple RNG, but could be something like DKP or Loot Council - can decide it. But if we sit to argue who can use it "More" we'd never get anything done. Also, I don't think it's a very good use of time to sit there and run through gearing choices. Things should be fairly obvious.

I deeply appreciate theorycrafters and Sim developers work, but at the same point, once I learn that hierarchy, I really don't want to sit there and use programs for a few hundred DPS difference.

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