Well, it's official now. After spending the gold to acquire the Darkmoon Fair agility trinket, my tank and DPS gear sets are now identical. Originally I had swapped out helms (for a +stam and 2% less spell damage taken meta), but with a new helm whose item level blows my former ones out of the water, I'm going to end up using it for both my specs regardless, so I decided to just go with the agility meta for tanking. I may end up swapping back to the stamina/spell damage meta in the future when I acquire another helmet of equal power (since spell damage is most tanks' soft spot), but until then (and heroic-modes) I think I can get away without.
I also performed the tests I mentioned in my last post, to determine the effects of shuffle and elusive brew on parry/dodge. They both seem to give a flat percentage bonus to dodge and parry regardless of your current values, so diminishing returns should not be affected. This may make dodge/parry more desirable, since there is virtually none on leather gear by default. I may reforge into parry in the future, since brewmaster monks already have a bunch of base dodge from agility. I'll worry about this when my gear level improves and my haste is a bit higher (probably in future tiers).
I have, since the last post, readjusted my gear so that I cap my hit and dodge-cap expertise, but I don't pursue any further expertise (to the parry cap)...I instead go to haste to boost my energy regeneration, making it easier to manage the shuffle buff (and gain elusive brew stacks). Gearing this way also ensures that I do considerable damage when I switch to DPS-spec. As DPS, I'm usually managing around 60k on most single-target fights (with no damage bonus fight mechanics), which is nothing to sneeze at.
I've found that the biggest way to maximize my own numbers was through the use of the proper addons. In my case, I didn't want an addon telling me how to play--I wanted a way to have it tell me things when I want to know about them, so that I can decide for myself when the best time to use specific moves is. To this end, WeakAuras has been a great help. I can create my own notifications, and then completely customize when, where, and what is displayed on the screen. Areas where I have found this to be extremely useful include:
1) Timer Bars for abilities, buffs, debuffs - the last thing you want to be doing in the middle of a fight is browsing through your icons in the corner for a duration number. By setting up a timer bar and placing it somewhere useful on-screen, you can easily see just how much longer that ability will last. This is very useful for defensive cooldowns, such as Fortifying Brew, Shield Wall, Hand of Protection, etc. This can also work for 'pet summons', such as Xuen the White Tiger, Spirit Wolves, Earth Elemental, etc. In some cases (like Xuen), this timer bar is the only way to really determine how much longer your pet will be around. You can also set up timer bars for proc-based buffs, or debuffs if you desired.
2) Notification Icons - this ties into the above timers to provide a better visual clue when certain buffs/debuffs are present, or when an ability of yours is no longer on CD. These can also be used to notify you when you're missing a buff. You don't want to set up tens of timers -- browsing through those wouldn't be much better than browsing through the original buffs/debuffs in the corner. The key is to limit the timers to a minimum, and convey other important information through relevant icons and sounds. More on this at the end of the section.
3) Highlighting Abilities - WeakAuras also has the ability to highlight spells on your action bars, just like WoW does by default when certain procs activate. I haven't found this to work 100% of the time, but it's still helpful.
4) Alert Sounds - sometimes it's better to receive important information through more than one medium. When tons of things are happening on-screen at once, it can be useful to set up sounds to certain event auras to ensure that you know what's going on. Again, like timer bars, you do not want to apply too many sounds to your auras--just ones that are critically important.
To better demonstrate these concepts, I'll give examples of my own aura setups, and rationale for setting them up as I have.
The auras at the top of the screen are more suited to boosting your DPS, but I still feel are important. The blue cat circular symbol in the center notifies me that 'Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger' is no longer on cooldown - he is ready to tear up some enemies for me. This aura also highlights my Xuen button on my lower left action bar. The fire effects surrounding the Xuen notifier at the top of the screen each symbolize a different agility proc. The left fire is the agility buff gained from Relic of Xuen, the right fire is the agility buff gained from Bottle of Infinite Stars, and the top fire is the agility buff gained from my Dancing Steel weapon enchant. Because most summon spells (such as spirit wolves and fire elementals) base their power off of your current stats at the moment you summon, I try to only use my Xuen cooldown when I have at least 2 of these fire auras lit. If all 3 are up, I use Xuen immediately!
Other notable auras I use include a notification aura when I reach 15 stacks of Elusive Brew or 10 stacks of Tigereye Brew. This displays a large green mug icon on my screen, telling me I need to drink, and also plays a chime sound, just in case I'm not paying close enough attention. On a similar note, I use an aura to track whether I have the buff from my ox statue (Sanctuary of the Ox), and if not, it displays a large yellow ox icon. Lastly, I have an aura to track when I am affected by Moderate Stagger or Heavy Stagger, both of which play distinct sounds and put a skull & crossbones icon on the screen until I use Purifying Brew (or die). All of these auras also highlight the appropriate abilities I should use. It's worth noting that a lot of these auras are configured so that they are disabled when I'm outside of combat, or when I'm not in a dungeon. When you're looking around for daily quest items, you don't want a lot of stuff like a big blue Xuen icon blocking your screen! Taking the extra couple minutes to enable and disable where these auras activate can improve your play experience that much more. (For the record, I recommend keeping your proc-based timers enabled 'everywhere'...case-in-point, if you have them set up to turn off outside of combat, you will enter a battle, have them proc, kill the enemy, exit combat and have your timers disappear (lets say with 20-30 sec left on the duration). If you enter combat with another enemy 3 seconds later, those timers will not reappear with their remaining duration -- it will seem as if your trinkets are off CD and ready to activate, when in reality they are still on their internal cooldowns. Keep timers enabled to avoid this problem!)
Configuring your UI so that it tells you what you need to know (instead of what it thinks you need to know) is one of the biggest steps you can take to improving your gameplay. It'll probably take you a full night to install, setup, and test your addons, but in the end, it is time well-spent!
