Why player rankings matter to you

It's not merely epeen:

How do you evaluate which stats to favor for maximal HPS throughout a fight? The proof is in the pudding -- check the scoreboards and armory those folks to see what the top dogs are stacking.

For moderate to advanced players, scoreboard data is the single best resource for learning class principles. It's one of the only resources you can be sure you're learning from the best.

In hand with this, check their parses to see what their approximate spell rotations are. If you see 60% shields,10% PoM, and 10% PoH, you might compare this to your own breakdown to see if there's an important play-style discrepancy.

I've been recommending doing this myself for years; and recently I came across a World of Raids interview with a top dps, Kripparrin, who recommends the same thing.

"Despite many hunters making gear and spec decisions based on Shandara’s spreadsheet on Elitist Jerks forum, I often review the hunter DPS leaderboards, especially when one of my marks is beaten. It’s always a good idea to see what the competition does differently in terms of shots and gear choice. Out of the many hunters I check out, I would say that Krez of 'Fusion', and Starfair of 'CUTIES ONLY' are the two that I have looked up on multiple occasions due to their consistency. "

This is great advice for every player that can reasonably interpret WoL and WMO parses and follow up with armory searches.

Spreadsheets and theory are important, but they only go so far as in-game results. Starting with the scoreboard data simply cuts to the chase.