A bit of a dry spell

Nothing fancy about today, just jumping back into spitting my thoughts onto paper...or digitized screen, whatever.

Huuuuuuuge gap in time since the last post.  Sorry about that, part busy part lazy mixed together there.  If you've been following Blizzcon, you know that the WoW raiding scene is going to see some changes, Blizz says in order to streamline things going forward.

For those that have no idea what I am talking about, Blizz is change raiding structures some.  Our current "normal" mode is going to be what the difficulty of "current flex" is in the next expansion, meaning anywhere from 10-25 players.  Current "heroic" is going to be the "normal" raids, and it will also be the flex style for raid size.  They are then introducing "Mythic", which will be the new static size of raiding, which is 20 man (no more 10/25), and will be the same in difficulty as the current "heroic" we have now.

So, to recap, LFR will exist, then it goes to Flex Normal, then Flex Heroic, then 20m Mythic.  And everything but Mythic will be cross realm from day one.

So 10man teams are going to have to double up, and 25man teams are cutting down a few.

A lot of people are already in freakout mode.  The 25's probably not as much as the 10's though.  It's easy to drop people than recruit new players, for sure.  I hope this gives Blizz the ability to design better content with this streamlined approach, but we'll just have to wait and see on that.

For me though, and more specificly for my wife Cillie who does almost all the recruiting, this means we have to start planning now for the future.  We've been trying for a very long time (since before ToT came out) to get a second raid team going.  Now, it looks like one might be getting a really good start.  They've only been a raid team for a couple weeks about and they are already 5/14N.

Naturally, the questions are already starting.  "Will I be on the 'Mythic' team?"  "How many from group 2 will join the main team?"  Lots of questions like these.  The easy answer is...maybe.  

If you've read any of my previous posts, you may have an idea of the type of raider, player, person, I look for.  You have to be a certain caliber to be on the "main team".  We're looking for the total package type of player.  Raid awareness, class ability, role ability, punctuality and attendance, communication.  All these are factors for being one of our raiders.  Patience, not being a douche, etc also.

Also, if you play on Eldre'Thalas, horde side, the heroic raiding scene would not exist at all if it weren't for EQ just about.  Now, hopefully server mergers will give us an influx of raiders from other servers (one could say we would be the influx into other raiding communities, but it's the same thing either way).  This, plus our own stable of raiders, will probably give us the ability to field a Mythic team.

Here is what many progression oriented teams need to start thinking about.  It will take time to recruit people, more or less depending on your server population.  More for us, barrig server mergers treating us to 50k new horde.  Any "new" teams/guilds will also be trying to poach players.  And besides recruiting, there is a process, mostly trial and error, of weeding people out.

Let me give you an idea.  During MoP, we had about three people from the Cata team not even play MoP.  We went through a dps and two healers and a tank before having a semi stable team up until around our 2nd heroic kill where we had to replace another tank.  

More shuffling around and we get to ToT, where we replace a healer again.  We actually live through most of ToT normal without any personelle issues...until the very first week we could do heroics and the guild splits (Remix to Equilibrium).  

Two members replaced.  We get another stable team for the most part, until SoO, and we have to replace a tank.  We hadn't even cleared normals yet, and we went through about three different people before finding someone, from Australia!

That's a lot of stress, people, emotions, in a years time.  And that is just for a 10man.  Double that, and that's what Mythic raiding is going to be like.  Probably more so.

Our team has its own culture, a way of making fun of ourselves, hazing each other, and also a way of getting serious and doing work.  If you have a very large influx of people very fast, it's going to be volatile.  No matter how nice and civil people are, people will show their asses and do stupid shit.  We had to kick a non-raiding guildie out because of BMAH crap.  Somethig as simple as that got some assclown kicked from the guild.

So yeah, recruiting has already started for the smart guilds, and the ones that never clear content won't bother until WoD.  And if you are the type of player that is jonesing to see progression raiding on our server, start sales pitching us now.  We took a player from freaking Australia, so don't think that being a local gives you any kind of advantage.

I'll be posting some of my own thoughts on all the stuff from Blizzcon that we got to see in the next few days, so be ready for more idle ramblings!

Welcome To The New Age

SoO is in full swing!

World first race is still on, with a few 10's and 25's working Garrosh over and over.  Flex has come out, and people are using that.  LFR wings are starting to open, and the hilarity there is starting to ramp up.

For Equilibrium, we're doing everything.  Our core 10 is sitting right now on 11/14, much faster progress that we've ever had before in our raiding lives.  We're really impressed with ourselves, and now that we have recruiting (hopefully) finished for this tier (hopefully forever, but I know real life always comes in eventually), we're really cooking along with a real solid team.  Impudence over on alliance finally downed Garrosh, mad props to them, can't wait to join them and work on heroics.

Equilibrium has absorbed a lot of new people recently.  I'd like to brag and think it's because Cillie and I are just sooooo awesome and badass.  But I know it's pretty much probably just because other people aren't organizing what we are organizing.  Our officer core is doing a fantastic job of arranging guild Flex raids, and we're running those with almost 25 people every single time.

Hell, we even started doing guild LFR runs, so more people can get that done without the wipe fest most seem to be lately.

We've got a lot of new people getting into raiding.  Which is very awesome!  Eldre'thalis needs a lot more raiders, especially on horde side.  We've got a lot of people that are very new to organized raiding though.  I want to spend a little time on Raid Etiquette.

Raid Etiquette:

First, and most important, and encompasses many things, is be respectful of everyone else's time.  Your time is being spent partaking in the raid, but so is everyone else's.  If you are being a distraction to the raid, you aren't slowing yourself down, you are slowing down and wasting the time of everyone else.  It's considered "bad form", and if you do it too much, you may find yourself not being invited back again.

I compare this to a radio show that I sometimes listen to, called The Rick And Bubba Show.  On this radio show, they have a segment where they allow anyone to call in, and for thirty seconds, you can talk about whatever you want.  They preface this segment by telling the audience to keep in mind something very important.  If you were to listen to yourself, would you feel like you are being annoying, a waste of time, or would you feel like you were entertaining and informative.

I want my raiders, all of them, to have that kind of mindset when they get into raid.  Especially on Mumble.  Yes, we're all online at the same time, and all chatting in Mumble together.  However, raid time isn't social time.  Shout outs to each other, talking about non-raid stuff, stuff of that nature shouldn't be going on.  When trash is being killed, when the raid gets to a boss and it's time for a strat recap, it isn't time to goof off.

Don't get me wrong, we'll joke around in raid, and maybe the occasional off topic thing might be talked about.  But when it is constant, that's when it becomes a nuisance, and that's when it is counter productive to the raid.  The raid is here to progress through the highest content in WoW, that is it's main goal, it's focus, the reason why everyone is showing up.  That's where the focus should be, not elsewhere.

Second, gear, and guild resources.  After each boss kill, everyone is always excited about their gear drops whenever they happen.  Naturally you want to put it on, trick it out, and be better than you were before.  However, spamming chat or Mumble for every enchant, gem, reforge mount, etc, slows down the raid.  Yes, you might see a 1% overall improvement in your performance, but you are actually wasting everyone's time while we wait for all that stuff to take place.  Wait until a break, or the raid is over, to take care of that kind of stuff.  And don't expect the guild to fund all of that stuff.  All those enchants and belt buckles and shoulder/leg enchants and gems, etc, take people time to acquire, and definitely not in the amount needed to give everyone in the guild whatever they want whenever they want it.

My 10 man team pools resources so that key people take care of key items, however, that doesn't mean that we've put in the time for another 30+ people to share those resources.  You should never expect that, just because you are raiding, that all the mats for everything are going to be welfare'd out to you.  Everyone needs to be able to either provide their own mats, or work with other raiders (or anyone really, doesn't need to be with people in the guild) where you agree to provide each other certain things.  The guild bank is not Good Will.

Third, reputation.  You are part of a guild, a very successful guild, but don't think that gives you the ability to "shit talk" over the Internet.  Just like how a business cares about what it's employees are saying on Social Media sites, or to people in public, a guild cares about that too.  If you are a dick to people, you will be kicked out.  That can include things other than just what you say.  It includes what you do.  We've reformed the entire guild before because of a minority, we'll do the same any time it is needed.  If someone is harassing you, find a way to deal with it like a responsible adult.  Remember, this is just a game, and the moment it becomes abuse, that's when it should be walked away from.  Put someone on ignore, get a GM involved, do whatever it takes to separate yourself from the issue.  There isn't any good coming from nerd raging over something as insignificant as what anyone could ever say (or do) in WoW.

Fourth, have fun.  Once this all is no longer fun, then it's time to put it away and move on to something else.  Yes, there are some guidelines to follow so that you don't ruin the fun for others.  And once everyone decides to get along, then everyone is having a lot more fun, and we have an even bigger reason to keep playing.  Be respectful of each other, and yourself, and you'll enjoy this game and this community more and more.

Fifth, send me all your gold.  No?  Meh, it was worth a shot.

Every body wants to rule the world...

Thought I went away huh?

So, if you are keeping up with WoW, 5.4, Siege of Orgrimmar, is about to go live in a few days.  Blizzard has a few new snacks for their players to gobble up and taste for this patch.  First off, the big one, FLEX RAIDING!  We've already got guild/pug plans to have this mode rolling a couple days a week.  With how they are staggering the release of flex wings, it's actually going to be pretty slow going at start.

Why is flex going to be slow?  They are gating it in sections like LFR, but at a slightly faster pace than LFR.  Well, actually flex is going to take LFR's old gating speed, and LFR is going to be delayed a week later than flex.  It's a little weird, gating within gating while gating is gating other gating, but yeah.

Plus there is other random stuff for the masses to do on the new island place, with things and quests and items and crap.

I'm kind of hoping for some better competition this time, but I probably won't get it until they do the virtual server mergers, if they ever do that.  That feature is being delayed, we don't know until when, but we're looking forward to it.  I love my server, but apart from us and MR, there isn't any other real progression raid scenery going on for us to recruit from.  Hopefully flex changes that, and more than hopefully the virtual servers will def change that for us.

Oh yeah, and Garrosh think's he's better than he is, and needs to die.  I'm putting my axe in his forehead.  It's our town, not his.

It's quiet...almost...too quiet...

Bit of a dry spell since my last post, I know, I know.  But something really entertaining, that makes raiding and playing with this group of people the bets thing ever, happened on Tuesday.

We picked Horridon as our fourth heroic kill this time.  The fight isn't really harder, the only new mechanic is a pink dino that you have to punt away from yourself every few seconds.  But the health of everything just scales up enough to where everything is taking long enough to where you can't always kill everything before their mechanics take place. 

We worked on it all night, and in classic raiding fashion, the last pull of the night before our time is up, we get the kill.  We barely get the kill.  Let me show you!

We'd been refining the fight after each pull, working out cooldowns, targets, interrupts, etc.  We actually had a pull near the middle of the night where we cleared every gate, had Jallak down, and had just died to Horridon's massive damage ramp up and had tried to stay spread out to make him run people down and still dps him.  But he just had too much health and too many of us dead to make it happen.

But the pull just before this one, one of our tanks, our newest member, said something like "Man it just feels like we're regressing!"

A few of our veteran members tell him that that is exactly how things go in this guild, we pull and pull and pull, wipe and wipe and wipe, and then we decide to stop messing around at around the last ten minutes and pull out a kill.

But for this group, we started a new heroic boss and had it dead in less than three hours.  That's a record for us.  And the way it finally happened, with our ele shaman reincarnating before the last person died, getting just enough damage off before the boss melts his face, the desperation all of us were probably feeling, that we're so close and it's looking so bleak, and then we finally get him down, there are very few feelings in the world like that.  That feeling of something being so difficult, and yet a group of friends over the Internet work together, work their asses off, and see something glorious take place.  There isn't word in the English language to describe that feeling the right way, no word or phrase that expresses just the overwhelming joy, elation, the sense of victory, the camaraderie, that..."je ne sais quoi". 

To have a little fun with things:

At the 11:11 minute, when both tanks are down, we're like shit!  Everyone spreads out, trying to make Horridon run his ass all over town.  At about 12:15, Cillie is screaming.  It totally sounds like Lemarc goes into massive prayer mode.  Well,back at 12:02, Donton actually drops and comes right back up a couple seconds later.  Once Theblob goes down, Donton's all like I got this!  And then, at 12:20, that glorious moment in time, it feels kinda like this.

I hope everyone gets to have a moment like that in WoW, or in any game really.  There is just such an immense sense of accomplishment that comes from having something, it could be raiding, it could be PvP, it could be getting to the level cap first on your server, whatever it is for you.  But that moment of triumph, where something was difficult, and failure could be at any moment, but you make the right decisions, you make the right plays when they matter the most, and you get the win.  I hope each and every person gets to share that type of feeling at least once in their life.  It is a cherishable moment, once that I will remember fondly for a very very long time. 

Or until Cillie bakes me a cake.  ;)

Together we'll stand, divided we'll fall...

Who the hell was Canned Heat?!?  I don't usually get all hippie like, but I thought the lyrics fit this topic kinda well.  Listen in the background while you read, maybe, or not if you don't want to.

So, Blizzard, they came out a few days back with this little gem.  Flex Raiding.  What in the Sam Hill is that?  Say you want to raid, current content, but LFR makes you want to vomit all over your next door neighbor who will then punch you in the face.  But, you can't get a solid ten man or twenty five man group that will dedicate the time to do normal raids.  What do you do?  Blizzard now lets everyone form a scaling raid based on number of bodies, anywhere from ten to twenty five people, assumes you know to have enough tanks and healers doing simple math (read as at least one healer for every five people, and two tanks), then lets you fight current content that is much more casual friendly, yet not the stupidness of LFR.  It won't be as hard as normals, but it won't be the Keystone Cops that LFR usually is.

Why I think this is one of the best ideas ever created:

First, all of these statements to follow are based solely on the idea of what this feature could be.  None of the WoW community has actually been able to test this to any real extent, so nobody can come out right now and say what everything is like.  It's all conjecture and idealism and people pissing thoughts out the window.  Which is great, because everyone loves to get involved in some imagination time.  Especially about WoW.

Aside aside, this feature, if done correctly, is going to be a fantastic tool to build raiders.  This mode, as Blizzard has said, will not share any kind of lockout with the other raids.  Which means that people in serious guilds can kick back with their friends that don't raid as much as they do, still do meaningful encounters, and be able to teach others and give them first hand experience at how raiding really is. 

Take my guild as an example.  We have a fairly big roster and not just a crap ton of alts.  We have a large amount of unique players.  We have a pretty kickin ten man team that is a serious set of raiders.  There are others in the guild who are trying to get a second team going, because they do enjoy end-game content and want to raid, but they are just a bit behind current content mostly because they are getting into it later than others.  Nothing wrong with that, it just means that whenever new content comes out, they get to it a few weeks after others do until they can catch up.  Then you have others in the guild that wouldn't mind pitching in from time to time if anybody needs it, but they don't want to commit to a serious schedule.  If they happen to be on, and a team needs a filler because someone is out that day, then everything keeps moving along smoothly.

But not everyone is in that situation.  Take my ten man team, we're at the point, content/gear wise, where if we have someone out on any particular raid night, then progression halts.  We usually have to reschedule, because on our server, finding a suitable replacement is very difficult.  The general raiding community, horde side on Eldre'thalas just isn't very strong.  Not many people are at the same gear level we are, or have the same fight knowledge that we have, so finding someone to fill in is nigh impossible.

So Flex Raiding, how does that actually help?  Well, those teams that are trying to build up, it gives them the ability to form a meaningful raid, because now the content is a little easier, there are still meaningful rewards, and you don't have to strive so hard for that perfect team comp.  My second team will probably use this while learning fights, or if they have to sub people in.  Our main team raiders can easily come in on a Flex night, help carry while teaching people how to handle mechanics and such, and not take up a valuable slot preventing people from learning fights or getting gear, because gear is distributed using the LFR loot system, nobody interferes with your loot.

Or both teams could group up together, plus fill in with random people in the guild, and get a taste of what twenty five man raiding is like.  Or everyone could hop onto whatever alts they have, run a Flex raid, the fights won't be as gear dependent, and everyone can have fun running through the raids while still making progress on their alts.

There are tons of possibilities for how Flex Raiding can be a huge boost to the "fun" in WoW.  There will be more pugging going on every server, because people won't have to wait longer for more gear to overcompensate for mechanics, they will be able to enter into raiding earlier, have meaningful improvements, have a meaningful learning curve, and have fun.

Wasn't LFR supposed to do that?  Well, yes, it was, but when you lack real communication in raid encounters, the developers have to dumb fights down to ridiculous levels.  Or what they did recently, which was to put in a stacking buff after wipes.  In reality, LFR leaves a sour taste for many players.  You are getting this weird roulette type experience, because unless you queue up with a lot of people that you know are good, you have no clue if your healers are going to suck, if your tanks won't know any fight mechanics, or if your dps are a bunch of tools who just auto attack and stand in fire constantly.  With Flex, you are able to hand pick people, have better communication because more than likely you will be using Mumble, or Vent, or Skype, or whatever, and have a better raiding experience with better rewards.

Flex Raiding, as long as Blizzard doesn't totally fubar it, is going to be an amazing gap closer for people wanting to get into raiding, for people looking to gear alts, for people wanting to play with friends, and guilds needing people to sub in from time to time or build up a farm team.  You can realid friends with this, on current content, across servers, and you don't have to have perfect raid comps to do it.  This is going to be a wonderful system for building a greater raiding community, for casual raiders, for heroic raiders, for guilds, for entire servers.  Blizzard, get Flex Raiding out to us ASAP!

Who cares what side of the plate the fork goes on?!?

Etiquette - is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group.

Thanks Wikipedia.

Why the hell did I post that?

Something happened a couple of weeks back, something that irks me.  A raider of mine left, not just left the guild, left the server.  Without mentioning anything to anyone, no word, no "hey, I'm gonna go play on xyz server with my friends."  Not a peep.

Why is that bad?

Raiding, it's a group activity, and it takes up time.  Time is always in short supply, the one downfall of being mortal and all that crap.  So we don't have infinite time, thanks Sherlock.  Well, when you are on a raid team, either nine other people, or twenty four other people, are depending on you to be there. You know, to slay dragons and crap like that, because we can't solo them right now.  So you agree to spend your time with those other people who also agree to spend their time with you.  Mutual benefit, everyone ethereally agreeing to do something, placing value on their time being spent in that manner together.

So he left without saying a word, big deal, find another random person out of the 12k that are playing on your server.

Not quite so easily done.  On my server, the amount of people that can effectively do what we do is very limited.  Imagine if you will, that Tom Brady, of massive NFL fame, decides that, six hours before game time, he decides to quit playing for the Patriots and hops a flight to play in some league in Venezuela.  Sure, you can get a backup, you may have a few on your team that are okay, but they aren't a Tom Brady.

That's kind of the deal we got put into a couple weeks back.  A key position player just ups and vanishes, without a single word.  Finding another Tom Brady caliber tank on this server, tough to do.  Thankfully, we found a couple new tanks that are fantastic, and do the job even better, in less gear, than our previous Tom Brady did.

So, what is my take on proper raiding etiquette?  Mine will differ from some guilds, probably different than every casual team, because my team pushes tier content.

First, respect everyone's time by showing up on time.  You aren't the only person giving up three hours, nine other people are.  And I will value the nine people giving up their time more than the one giving up their time.  You don't respect everyone's commitment, they aren't going to respect yours.  You know, the same reason employers want you to show up to work on time.  Nobody likes having their plans ruined by someone not showing up.  You can't be here when everyone else is, just don't log in.

 Second, know your role.  Don't waste everyone's time by showing up and not having any clue what-so-ever about what is about to happen.  My raid team works very well at learning fight mechanics before hand, with whatever information is out there to help, but then also applying that information as they get first hand practical knowledge.  If you aren't able to do a bit of homework ahead of time, just don't log in.

Third, be ready.  Yeah, I made that a short vague sentence.  Gear, know how to have it reforged, enchanted, gemmed, etc.  You should know, if you are going to get into raiding, and not LFR, but real normal/heroic raiding, what your class should be doing, how you should be choosing what stat is important, and how to maximize your character.  You should want to be the best at your class, and not being the best at your class should irk you.  Know your rotations, or priorities, if you are dps, so that we kill things.  If yer a healer, or a tank, know what cooldowns need to be used and when.  Everyone, understand positioning in every fight and why it matters.  Those goofy achievements, the "Ready for Raiding" ones, they may seem stupid, but it's a core principle, like people who are in fantastic shape still do warmups before they do their real workout.  If you can't be bothered to know the basics about yourself and your class and your role, do me a solid, don't log in.

Fourth, know what you want for gear.  Wowhead has been around so long that it should be as common to wow players, especially raiders, as google is.  There's also sites like askmrrobot that help you build a BiS (Best in Slot) list, and who drops what from where.  If you aren't going into raids knowing that if this one item drops that you need because there isn't anything better in the game yet, stay logged out. 

I'm going to elaborate a little on point number four.  Loot can be the biggest thing that will split a raid team up.  My raid team, ten man, does a BiS loot system.  If an item drops, say an INT ring, lots of classes will be interested, but because of itemization (spirit, crit, haste, etc), not everyone is going to value it the same.  Priority is given to those classes that want the item because there is flat out nothing better, hence, it is the best item in that slot.  If multiple people are wanting the item for BiS, then they roll for it.  It doesn't matter who's getting a bigger upgrade for it, the item is valued the same, because there isn't anything better.  If an item isn't a BiS for anyone, or if all the people that do value it as BiS have it, and others can make effective use of it since it is an upgrade, then it goes to the person who will have the biggest ilvl jump or it's a roll-off if two or more will get the same ilvl boost from it.  Tier for us works differently, everyone want's tier, so we round robin it with people that have earned the fewest rolling for tier drops each time.  For our raid team, this has worked insanely well.  Everyone can respect each other for their valuing items certain ways.  And with websites like askmrrobot, where you can edit stat weights and fact check people, it's massively easy to keep everyone honest.  Plus, we kill every boss every week, so nobody is feeling left out because we have a chance for everything to drop every single week.  There is a massive amount of stress and drama that goes right out the window when you know that every single week you will get a chance at whatever loot you want.

Fifth, drama.  If you bring retarded drama to my raid team, don't bother logging in.  Legitimate concerns and issues are one thing, but if it's a "Sally said that Mark likes her better" kinda piece of crap, I'll Falcon Punch you over the internet.  Thankfully, everyone on my team is mature and not an asshat, so I don't have to worry about that. 

If you can keep those things in check, you are on a great start to having a blast killing some cool bosses and getting shiny loot.  If you can't be bothered to be a decent human being, I hear Call of Duty is a great game.

Simulation Craft, or "So THAT stat is good now? Ooookaaaay..."

I have a feeling that most of my readers play WoW...probably because like 99% of the people I tell that I have a blog are in WoW.  But up until recently, I knew that there was something called SimulationCraft, but I had no idea what it was.  I take that back, I knew what it was, but I thought only uber nerds were using it to min/max to a ridiculous degree.  Until I downloaded it.  And started playing with it.

So, you google Simulationcraft.  You click the first link, for simulationcraft.org.  You click that "Download Latest Release" in the top right.  It downloads the current version that is most compatible with WoW, and just unpack the folder wherever you want, mine is on my desktop, ymmv.  After that, open the folder, and you can pin or just double click the SimulationCraft file to run it. 

Now you get a lot of options.  I don't know exactly what everything does, but I know enough to get to actually running a simulation of myself and getting relevant information.

I start off in the "Options" tab. There are several sub tabs on it.  Starting in "Globals", I keep "Version" set to "Live", because I don't play on the PTR.  "Iterations" you will want to set to anything higher than the 1000 mark, because having SimCraft run 1000 or less simulated fights is not enough of a sample size to truly find out what is important to you.  "World Lag",  "Length (sec)" and "Vary Length" I leave at their default settings.  "Fight Style" is interesting.  Normally I keep it set to "Patchwerk", which is just a setting that tells SimCraft that there is little to no movement, it's a single target fight, just sit there and do the max dps you can.  I like that setting because it gives me a max single target dps to look for, and I can use that as a benchmark once in the game.

All the rest of the settings after that I leave at their defaults, except for one of them, the "Threads" options.  You can change this option based on how many CPU's you have in your computer, like myself I change this to 2, since I have two cores, again ymmv based on your own hardware.  Under "Advanced Options" on the right (or further down if you don't have a widescreen monitor or split screen), I leave all of those on their default settings as well.

Now on the "Buffs/Debuffs" sub tab, you want to make sure you have everything toggled on, because if you are like me, you are wanting to know what you will be doing in a raid environment, not while solo.

On the "Scaling" sub option, this is where it will be different for everyone, whether you are a tank, healer, caster, agi melee, str melee, etc.  For me, I play an Enhance shaman, so I'm looking to see what to gem/enchant/reforge for.  For that, my stats I'm looking at are Agility, Crit Rating, Haste Rating, and Mastery Rating.  Those four options, "Analyze Agility", "Analyze Crit Rating", "Analyze Haste Rating" and "Analyze Mastery Rating", I will check mark.  But you might check on something else, like an dps dk may check everything the same except they would check Strength instead of Agility.

The next sub option,  "Plots", may seem confusing.  since we are dealing with a large amount of stats on our gear, I usually go for a combination of 50 for the "Number of Plot Points", and 250 for "Plot Step Amount". The reason I choose 250 instead of 500 is that usually whenever we're reforging, it's in amounts around 200-350 (except for some trinket reforges, but that's the exception and not the rule).  It gives me accurate information, but you can do however much you want to here.

And then the last sub option, "Reforge Plots".  You want to go with 5000 on the "Reforge Amount" to see how your stat performs at the widest range of stats possible.  "Step Amount" you actually want to set this to a low number, because a lower number here means that the simulations will look at reforge breaks by however you set this to each time.  Meaning, if you set "Step Amount" to 500, the reforge sim will give you results based on reforges every 500 points, or just 10 reforge breaks if you have the "Reforge Amount" set to 5k.  If you have "Step Amount" set to 50, then it will do 100 reforge breaks.  Basically, the smaller the number you put for "Step Amount" the more detailed information you will get.  And Since you cannot ever reforge out your primary stat (agi, str, int, stam), you want to make sure you are checking off under "Secondary Stats" the appropriate stats for your class, which again in my case is between Crit, Haste, and Mastery.

Now back up to the main options tabs at the very top, I'll click on "Import" next.  Usually I just import myself from Battle.Net, which is the default sub option when you click on this tab.  On your screen you will see the WoW webpage, and you have the usual "Search characters, items, forums, and more ..." field at the top right of the page to click in and search for your toon.  I look up my character's name, click on the right one, and I see the normal armory page for myself.  Don't I look sexy!  Then on the bottom right corner of SimCraft, you can then click on the "Import" button. 

When you click import, it will flip over to the "Simulate" tab in the main options tabs on the right, and your screen will fill up with a whole bunch of crap, all sorts of code-ish looking things that are important for SimCraft to know what to do.  At this point, you can click on the "Simulate!" button on the bottom right.

Once you click on "Simulate!", you are in for a long wait, unless you have the world's fastest computer.  So at this point, go do your normal stuff, because when I say you are in for a long wait, I mean potentially days.  Go play WoW, surf the web, etc, just leave SimCraft running in the background.  Oh, and make sure you don't have your computer set to auto update and reboot windows or anything like that.  If your computer restarts itself, SimCraft forgets everything it was doing.  So please, please, please, make sure your computer will be able to stay on for days in a row.  It's not something that overly taxes your computer, I can play LoL, WoW, surf the web, do whatever I want, it just takes a lot of time for the computer to simulate 50,000 WoW boss fights, while reforging and plotting data and collecting information and running a bajillion RNG type systems that WoW uses.  So really, go enjoy your life.  Just every day, a few times a day, click back to SimCraft.  You will know it is done when, instead of seeing all that programming crap looking code stuff, you see beautiful looking bar graphs, pie graphs, and charts telling you how much Haste is worth, or Agility is worth, etc. 

So when it is done, you will get all kinds of information.  I mean all kinds of information.  Most of it I ignore, because my brain explodes when I look at it.  However, I do look at the first bits of information.  Right at the beginning, you should see a chart that says something like it just did for me, which was "Scale Factors for Saichotick Damage Per Second", but it will say your own character's name and role, based on what you simulated.

The nitty gritty, in this chart, is going to be those stats you were focusing on, Agi, Str, Crit, Haste, etc.  Look at that chart.  For me, my stats I was comparing were Agi, Crit, Haste, and Mastery.  In the "Scale Factors" line, you will now see numbers, numbers like 6.30, or 2.95, or 3.45.  These are your "stat weights".  This means, for example, where my Agi says "6.30" it means that for every point of Agility that I have, I will see a direct increase in damage per second of 6.30.  Everyone can then go to their favorite website that they use for reforging and finding their "BiS" list (Best in Slot, meaning what piece of gear is the best in the game currently for them).  I like www.askmrrobot.com, mainly because the interface is clean, you can manipulate things in very easy to understand ways, and it is very customizable.  On that site, I can go into the options and then put in the values for each stat that SimCraft gives me, and the website then does a whole bunch of reforge and gems and enchants and updating my BiS lists and stuff for me, useful information that I can then apply in-game to make myself the best I can be.

How often should this be done?  The whole process?  Well, I usually recommend after any patch that changes how much damage or healing or whatever that you actually do, but make sure that SimCraft is actually up-to-date with the changes.  Currently, as of the time of this post, SimCraft is updated for 5.3.  On SimCraft's website it will tell you what version of WoW it is compatible for.  I would also run SimCraft after you have gotten a lot of new gear.  Say you go from ilvl 490 to ilvl 505.  I would definitely run a sim at that point, because at certain ilvls, you may have gotten enough total amount of stats, or certain tier bonuses, that some stats may actually become less or more helpful for you.  Enhancement is an easy case of this.  At the very start of MoP, Enhancement Shamans wanted to gem and reforge for Agi and Crit, since the amount of Haste and Mastery we could actually have at the time was very low, since we were dealing with a low ilvl and total amount of stats.  Once you get into the 470-490 ilvl range, the stat focus actually shifts to a Mastery build, since we're starting to get enough of the other stats for them to be shifted into Mastery to make a noticeable difference in dps done.  But once you break out of the 490 ilvl, Haste now becomes the most effective stat, since we're getting enough crit to make sure our classes passive abilities have an effective up-time, and our weapon damage starts to get higher and higher, to the point where we want as many melee swings as we can get.

But every class is different.  Some classes it may be very basic, like no matter how many times you run a simulation, you may end up always just stacking as much of a particular stat as you can.  Other times, you may find out that you are getting enough gear to where you may need to regem every single slot into something else

I hope people have found this helpful.  I know it has really helped me to figure out a lot about my own class that I didn't fully understand before.  Maybe it will help you too.