How Mortigan Got His Groove Back

"Someone said he who knows he knows, knows nothing yeah
He who knows he knows nothing really knows
But I have searched and I never could find
A way to make my true self unwind
And while I sit here waiting to die
I can see what I am, can tell you why..."
- Spooky Tooth, Hangman Hang My Shell On A Tree

I thought I knew about all about stat priority. And gems and enchants. And Reforging.  Seemed pretty simple... especially since I never bothered to do any real digging into the subject.  In case I haven't left enough clues already, I'll just come out and say it: I don't pay much attention to the details. And the Devil, unfortunately for me, is in the details. 

I've been monkeying around with things too much lately.  I've collected several shoulders, robes, rings, and whatnot, and I've been swapping them in and out in an attempt to create separate gear sets for Heroics and Raiding.  I had assumed (without doing any proper research, or course) that I wouldn't need much Hit in Heroics. I planned to use gear that was heavy on Haste and Crit, but light on Hit.  I figured doing so would give me faster, bigger hits, and overall increase my DPS on Heroic trash. It seemed like a really good plan, but in execution, performed terribly. The more I monkeyed around, the worse my DPS got. I watched my Heroic Trash DPS drop from 10K to 8K. Might as well wear my Wrath Purples at that point. I hit the training dummies last night (without using elixirs) and confirmed 8K DPS. ABSOLUTELY WRETCHED.  I had been previously been doing better with worse gear.

I needed help. Someone to look over my gear, tell me what I screwed up, and what I needed to do to fix it. So I climbed the mountain to speak to the all-knowing Oracle (Google), and discovered www.askmrrobot.com.  Mr. Robot said he could help. I decided to trust him. After all, it was easier to trust him than do real research on Elitist Jerks or Warlock's Den - both of which I can only tolerate after a long comforting visit with every Warlock's best friend, Mr. Chivas Regal. Anyway, Mr. Robot decided that I should enchant and reforge for Hit and Haste, in that order. Throw out some purple and yellow gems for more red Brilliant Infernos. I followed Mr. Robot's advice like a... ummm... robot. Did everything he said, just like he said to do it. My mind kept saying, "This is really dumb," but also "it's not expensive to put it back," and "your DPS was going down the toilet anyway." So I just went for it.  When I was done, I was very near the Hit Cap. Haste was nearly 2% down from where it was, and Crit 3% down. "Boy, the giant sucking sound from THIS set-up is going to be heard all the way to Nagrand," I thought as I headed over to the Training Dummies.

And then I proceeded to set the Dummy on fire, and something magical happened. The DPS gods smiled upon Morty, and I found myself immediately edging up to 12K DPS without elixirs.  Downing a few elixirs or Flask of the Draconic Mind would have easily pushed me beyond the 12K mark, and in a decent group with some buffs thrown in, I could SET THE WORLD ON FIRE!  And these numbers are without all the best enchants that Mr. Robot recommended (it will cost me another 10K to upgrade all gear - donations welcome!).

So Cowls off to you, Mr. Robot. You ROCK!  My next step is to swap out some of my other gear that is already hit-heavy (the stuff I was saving for raids), optimize it on Mr. Robot again, and test against my current set-up. A good project for tonight.

I also finally became a Transmutation Master last night.  I had periodically seen guys in Stormwind yelling about how they're Transmutation Masters, but I never got around to looking into the matter.  But last night I was recruited by a guildie hungry for some Elementium Deathplate, and he needed PILES of Truegold to get it done. Discovering my Truegold was off Cooldown, he was willing to invest in me becoming a Transmutation Master in exchange for the Truegold. Sounded like a plan to me.  He helped figure out what I needed to do, and within a few minutes, the deal was done.  I was able to generate Truegold x2 for him. A couple other Alchemists later, and he was forging his Deathplate.

So regemmed, reenchanted, and reforged with much better DPS and Transmutation Master to top it off, Mortigan is back on top! If you need to get YOUR groove back, you just might want to ASK MR. ROBOT.

EDIT: Read TheGrumpyElf's reply to this post. His additional info friggin better than my original content.

Mortigan the Grooved Again