and
does not compute well.
Yes it does. None of those spells are good enough to make a pass. The sk self buff is a minor upgrade, the reverse life tap is okay but not that great. Plus 95% of characters actively trying to get on the top 5 have these spells because of what you get for grinding the factions anyway (runics, gate clickies) people have already acquired them. If you had ALL of the spells and the other person had none of them and you had the EXACT SAME GEAR it might make a pass. The reason those lists are such a massive fuck pile is because specific characters either have a ton of gear and few tomes, or an assload of tomes and less gear
As for valdian.. I don't have enough actual information about the runic 2 pet's dps to really evaluate if it's a pass or not. Without the pet while he may have more mana than zoroth, zoroth has way more tomes done, more ft, and an eternal. Their personal dps will be close because of the difference in focus effects vs tomes. It's really close. I would need to know the actual dps difference between the two of them.
As for vah. Don't get me wrong, it's great. If you click it every time it's up it's ~10% dps increase overall, which is huge! Except in reality that never happens. You click it as an oh shit button to save your self/raid when things go bad. Vah matters. But see rule #4
"4. Bagged items do not count. I don't care if it is the Holy Grail. If it's not in, I don't care. The only time I will ever care, is when its an old character, that is not wearing a class critical item, that I am well aware that they have, but can't get ahold of them to pop it in. That will not happen often. Only in cases where it is something frequently swapped out (such as warrior shields, or ranja bows) by the class as part of it's nature depending on situations. Bagged foci, will never count. Ever. Do not mention it. Ever. If you do, I will ignore your posts until the end of time, no matter what is in them. You have been warned."
If you're wearing it, it matters. If you aren't it doesn't. End of discussion!
And yes, runic 2's do matter.. well some of them anyway. Some of them are just bad (bard runic 2 is pretty much shit, sk and paladin one aren't very special either) but in the case of the pets I don't know how much more dps valdians pet is actually doing without him providing me with some parses.