Upgrade?

So something I'm running into a lot with a few things... is the question, "I know it's purple. And it does have a somewhat higher crit rating than the item I have on. But other than that, I lose 45 Strength to gain 49 Agility. I'm not sure it's really an upgrade?"

What I'm talking about is that Kvasira is currently wearing the Gold Amulet of Kings out of Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.

The Collar of Dissolution dropped last night in Naxx-10. And the Pendant of the Outcast Hero which is a Dalaran Emblem of Heroism token reward.

But are they better? Their i-level is the same, 200. One is just colored purple, the other blue.

So, let's compare.

47 Strength gives me 94 Attack Power. (It takes 14 AP to increase DPS by 1, or so says WoWWiki.) So in terms of Attack Power, both pieces may actually be better than the Amulet. (pout, I hate it when my research proves what I was about to say wrong.)

It takes 45 crit rating to increase your crit by 1%. It takes (for a paladin), 52 agility to increase crit by 1%.

There's a conversion for when Agi becomes more important than Str.

For me, it seems that equilibrium point is when my 'DPS' is about 902.71.

Right now, it's at 434 something.

So according to this, I should still be focusing more on Str than Agi. This is subject to change with talents, and as I get more or less strength, more or less agility, more or less crit chance.

It's, to put it simply, confusing as hell.

It's [(0.1428-0)x(1+0.26)]/0.0002 for me.

This is [(DPSperStr-DPSperAgi)x(1+Crit)]/CritperAgi

For people who aren't hunters and rogues, it's always 0.1428 for DPSperStr and for anyone who isn't a rogue, hunter or cat druid, it's 0 for DPSperAgi.

So from what I see of this, when I mouse over my 'Damage' and it reads 902 DPS, that's when I say 1 point of Agility > 1 point of Strength. Until that point in time, Strength is still my baby.

For crit chance, I'm sitting at about 26% right now. The Pendant would give me an overall 1.7% crit. The Amulet gives about a 0.95%. The Collar gives about a 0.69%.

Once you get above 25% for a retribution paladin, give or take, Vengeance and Righteous Vengeance are always aglow and active.

So would the extra 0.75% crit chance matter? Crits are pretty. Crits make us laugh in glee. And at this level, it takes a walloping amount of crit rating or agility to make us sit up and go, "Really? Wooooow." So when you say it like, it's just an increase in 0.75% crit... makes it sound like less than it is. It's actually a good boost.

What the Collar has that the other two do NOT is Expertise. Now, if you have talents that are guaranteed to never be dodged or missed, then boogy for you. For us paladins, we need expertise to avoid that 5-6% dodging that bosses will do.

So that 38 Expertise Rating calculates out to being a little over 1% decrease in the boss' ability to dodge (or parry) my attacks.

Right now, raid buffed, using Elixir of Expertise and Rhinolicious Wormsteak, with my expertise gems, I'm at about 5% dodge free.

So... in my opinion, if you're hit capped and close to expertise capped, the Collar is not an upgrade.

In my opinion, the Pendant ekes out over the Amulet.

Which means I know what I'm buying when I get home tonight.