I started with a full defensive CM build with Crystal Shell, Prismatic Armor, and the CD reduction rune on frost nova, as well as Cold Blooded, CM, and Evocation as passives that were unchanged throughout. I took the fight time and my char sheet dps to compute the DPS Multiplier, which is the effective dps gain of the build. For example, at 100k dps using the full defensive build I would expect an effective dps of 247k. I also computed relative DPS of each spec meaning switching from Prismatic to Storm Armor increased dps by about 36%.
And in case there's any confusion, 'x' in the table means that skill was used.
| Storm Armor | Shocking Aspect | Pinpoint | Shards | Prism | DPS Multiplier | Relative DPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.47 | 1 | |||||
| x | 2.78 | 1.13 | ||||
| x | 2.99 | 1.21 | ||||
| x | 3.01 | 1.22 | ||||
| x | 3.36 | 1.36 | ||||
| x | x | 4.06 | 1.65 | |||
| x | x | x | 4.25 | 1.72 |
The interesting information is that Storm Armor is about a 36% dps gain over prismatic armor. When you add Shocking Aspect it's a 65% dps gain over prismatic armor and about a 36% dps gain over pinpoint barrier. Adding Diamond Shards further increases the dps gain but it's only about a 4% dps gain by itself when you use Shocking Aspect. The dramatic decrease in survivability for the fight makes it very not worthwhile, but that could easily change depending on the fight. Rak for example, would probably be just fine with DS or prism.
I also expect the values for Shocking Aspect to be dependent of crit and attack speed, since it only procs on crits and higher attack speed should lead to more procs from WW, so with 50% crit, I'd expect the damage to increase by about 16%, or I'd expect the total dps gain to be about 90%, for a relative dps of 1.9. With a crit % of 52% I would expect Shocking Aspect to double your dps over prismatic armor, roughly speaking, with the same APS of 1.965 or so.
For reference, my stats at the time of the data collection were 104k dps buffed (110k with pinpoint), 1.965 attacks per second, 20 APoC, 1298 LoH, 1.5% Life Steal, 641 resist all and 4588 armor unbuffed, with 40.5k hp and 43% crit with Scoundrel. I also had about 400 life per second regen, just to complete the stats.
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That's like buying a Ferrari, breaking two speed records with it, driving it for three years and ~200k miles, and then returning it because of some ridiculous reason (The color does not match the color that was mentioned in the contract, for example). Yes, you might be able to find an issue with the contract to get the refund. But seriously - I would feel ashamed of myself.
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I don't think you have tried everything. I went to this one website you might have heard of and see what I did, using your exact words:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how to get rid of staff of herding
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Loroese already answered all your gear questions, I have nothing to add but one small thing: there is absolutely no reason to solo uber bosses. If you like a challenge - sure, go for it. But you will always find a group of people to help you, because for them it's a free chance for organs and you might get an invite back if they have machines and are looking for a CMWW tank mage. It's a win-win situation. If you decide to try the bosses solo you face the possibility of failing and wasting machines. Oh, and another thing: if you have a disconnect, the the portal is gone; in a group the portal stays open and you can re-join (the group has to abort the uber kill attempt though because you can't join an ongoing fight).
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Didn't play the first four months (actually great when a game you've been waiting for for 5 years gets released immediately before you have to leave for a summer research internship).
Of course 1 month late vs. 4 months late is a difference, but I caught up on my friends in no time and I have about equal gear etc. now - there's so much money they spend and so much time they wasted in the beginning and it didn't give them any advantage. Besides a few paragon levels more, they have ~200 hours played more on their account but otherwise we're pretty much equal in terms of character progress.
On topic: it's just normal laws of economics. See wealth concentration, for example. I mentioned this in a previous topic but can't find it... works like this:
-Casual gamer with (below-)average gear and high-end gamer are playing Diablo 3. Since high-end gamer plays much more, has higher paragon level, higher damage, and maybe more efficient farm route (due to more experience etc.), he/she gets way more drops (let's say about 20 times more legendaries per week than casual gamer). This is not exaggerated; maths was done in another thread.
-Casual gamer will find badly rolled, worthless legendaries - and so will all the other casual gamers. They get nothing for it on the AH. High-end gamer will every now and then have an awesome lucky roll on one of his/her many legendaries - and sell it for lots of money.
-Money will be re-invested at some point, and since these gamers have both lots of money and high-end gear already, they're willing to pay several hundred million or even a billion if it's a definite best-in-slot item.
=> Result: the market for these top-items is a closed market between high-end gamers. The only ticket to enter it is time AND money or time AND luck. Even if casual gamers find a best-in-slot item or buy them for ridiculous amounts of money, it will not be enough, because a) it's only one slot, and if the rest of the gear is average it's not the same dps increase for them as it would be for the high-end gamer, b ) they still have 30-50 paragon levels to catch up to the high-end gamers, equal to 100-150 MF and c) unless one catches up completely in terms of dps/ehp with these players, the farm speed is much slower. But well... we have to live with that. It's just like in real life: the poor get poorer, the rich get richer ;-)
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"I bought one lottery ticket and won a million. I'm so depressed."