Misplaced Servo Arm - Rumors and facts. - Page 6

zeroeight · 11/09/06, 7:32 AM

I did some proc testing with my MSA. I used 3 configs:

- DW with spamming hamstring + HS

PPM: 6.3
Proc/melee: 0.14
Proc/any attack: 0.079

- MSA+Shield spamming hamst + HS

PPM: 3.9
Proc/melee: ?? (damn, lost this one)
Proc/any attack: 0.079

- DW White damage only

PPM: 3.1
Proc/melee: 0.058
Proc/any attack: 0.058

This was done on a relatively small set of attacks, I waited for the MSA to proc 36 times for all 3 tests. "melee" and "any attack" only counts attacks that actually hit the enemy. I am a fury warrior with flurry.

The results are inconclusive. My *guess* would be that MSA has a fixed proc chance of any attack you do of about 6-8%.

pf · 11/09/06, 2:36 PM

Originally Posted by overen

Just an anecdotal note.

I've had my MSA with lifestealing on it for about 2-3 months now. In that time, the % of my DPS that the proc makes up has ALWAYS been 2%.

I got a Castigator 2 weeks ago. I slapped lifestealing on it (I had +15 agility on my pugio). Now, you would expect the % of my dps from ED to go DOWN because of the slower attack speed of the Castigator.

Here's what's trippy though.

In EVERY single instance that I have tested for at least 1 million dmg, ED has made up 3% of my dps output since. All I changed was lifestealing and the castigator. My guess is that lifestealing is the real root of why I am seeing 50% more ED procs across the board.

EDIT: In case I was confusing:

MSA+Lifestealing and Pugio+15 Agi = 2% DPS from ED
MSA+Lifestealing and Castigator+Lifestealing = 3% DPS from ED

My DPS increased a bit from upgrading my offhand, but I am getting just that many more procs compared to numbers I've been used to seeing.

Thinking about this logically, you can say it this way. If I do400 dps and I increase to 420, the total amount of dps required to do 2% of my dps goes up by 2. So in other words if the proc rate of the MSA stayed exactly the same, i would see 1-2% instead of 3%. The fact that I ALWAYS see 3% now and my total dps went UP tells me that I am always proc'ing more often.

Im sorry, but I refuse to believe the proc dps went up 50% because you enchanted your offhand with lifestealing. Also, your offhand speed should have 0 affect upon the procs dps. My guess is that you are remembering things wrong as people often do. If you really want to test this, you need to setup a test situation and have enough data so that your margin for error is small.

pf · 11/09/06, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by overen

My comment about offhand speed was due to this thread where people saw an increase in MSA procs with faster offhands. If that's really not the case, blame the thread, i've never bothered to check deeply into whether or not that is the case with on equip procs.

As for remembering wrong, you're wrong. I routinely look at that stuff at the end of every raid night. There wasn't a single night that I wasn't 2% dps done from MSA procs. For the last two weeks (I got my castigator on 10/24) I have been running a steady 3% on MSA proc dps.

You can chalk that up to me misremembering or whatever, but I guarantee you, that is the case. Lifestealing procs frequently enough that if they do proc off each other (and if lifestealing can proc lifestealing, as I believe it does) I can easily see a 50% increase being possible.

I would expect 4% dps from the MSA proc if I wore a maelstrom trinket.

So, lets assume you have 100% offhand hitrate, that will get you just shy of 8procs per minute on lifesteal from the offhand assuming 30% haste. In one minute, you would have about .7 procs from lifesteal (if it did proc from lifesteal). Of course, with 100% hit and instants, you would be getting about 6.4 procs per minute from there. So, clearly, .7 more procs per minute is 50% more than the previous 6.4. Unless there is something really buggy about its interaction with lifesteal, a 50% gain cannot be attributed to this. If the proc used the average speed of each weapon instead being weapon independent, this could cause a few more procs from instant attacks, but 50% more seems very high.

If you really want to see if there is a difference. Go attack a servant in blasted lands for 20 minutes or so with each setup equipped and log the results(dont use dps%). Do not use instants as they can skew the results. Record the procs per melee swing and compare the two adjusting for the faster offhand speed. I would assume after you adjust the offhand speed that the two results would be almost identical. However, if the slower mace records a significant amount more procs. About 10% more procs would account for lifesteal proccing it. A significant amount more than that would be blizzard really messing up programming (assuming your sample set is large enough).

• sp00n · 11/10/06, 4:01 AM

Maybe also it is just rounding errors.
I.e. these 2% were actually 2.4%, rounded down to 2%, and the now seen 3% are more like 2.6%, rounded up to 3%. That would be the 10% increase in procs mentioned above.

Kjaska · 11/10/06, 10:51 AM

Doesn't the current implementation of damage procs don't allow more than 1 damage proc per swing, i. e. if you are wearing a Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom and a weapon with lifesteal, you can not proc both of them on the same swing, so you are actually reducing the effectiveness of them both? Or does the proc of MSA follow a different rule, because it is "On Equip"?

A bit of OT, but I am wondering what to put on a Nightfall to increase the overall raid dps more - a 3% counterweight or Fiery Weapon? Would Fiery Weapon actually affect the procrate of Nightfall in any benefical way or not? Same question goes for the counterweight. I would appreciate your advice and want to thank you in advance :>

Necrotoid · 11/28/06, 2:40 PM

Originally Posted by Kjaska

Doesn't the current implementation of damage procs don't allow more than 1 damage proc per swing, i. e. if you are wearing a Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom and a weapon with lifesteal, you can not proc both of them on the same swing, so you are actually reducing the effectiveness of them both? Or does the proc of MSA follow a different rule, because it is "On Equip"?

A bit of a derail, but I'm curious about this as well. What procs are mutually exclusive? There are weapon "on equip" bonuses (MSA, TUF), proccing enchants (lifesteal, fiery), shaman buffs (windfury), and other "on equip" bonuses (Darkmoon Cards Maelstrom & Heroism).

For a shaman with a proccing enchant + self buffs, is it desirable to avoid proccing weapons and trinkets (even though the hit density provided by WF, flurry, and stormstrike all increase proc-per-min)?

Trindade · 11/30/06, 6:11 AM

There's so much misinformation about the MSA, I decided to test it for myself. Here are my findings.

1: The MSA will only proc off melee swings. It will proc off either a yellow or white swing. It cannot proc off elemental damage (so it will not proc off itself).
2: The reason that you often see screenshots of stacked procs, is, simply, that the proc damage comes in the form of a bolt - it is always delayed from the swing. Observe this screenshot of a whirlwind hitting 3 targets. The bolt lands 1 second later on all of the whirlwind's targets, with auto attacks inbetween - now, if you did a special and an auto attack to something, then 1 second later saw two procs on that target, you'd think you just proc'd off a proc; but you didn't, you proc'd off both attacks and they hit the targets as delayed bolts.

(that screenshot was the result of me running around bored in BL after doing a testing session, was just lucky to grab it)
3: The MSA will proc off 1 in 10 hits (again, yellow or white). The rate is the same whether you hold it in main hand or off-hand.
I did a bunch of 15 minute sessions of auto-attacking the invulnerable mobs in BL with different configurations. There were some variations but they averaged out with repeated testing back to 10.
The configurations were:
MSA MH, Maexxna's Fang OH - all auto attack
MSA OH, Maexxna's Fang MH - all auto attack
MSA MH, EoC OH - all auto attack
MSA OH, EoC MH - all auto attack
...and the above configurations, running spamstring

In every single variation, it averaged to 1 proc for 10 swings.

I also did some testing with frost oils. I am yet to see MSA proc off anything but a melee swing.

It will not fix itself to become a percentage of your damage.
It will not stack procs off itself.
It does not work at a ppm rate.

It'd be great if someone else with a MSA could confirm these findings.
It'd be even better if someone with two MSA's could confirm my hypothesis that two MSA's will produce 1 proc every 5 swings.

Pantone · 11/30/06, 6:32 AM

Originally Posted by Trindade

It does not work at a ppm rate.

Well now this is an interesting conclusion. So to maximize procs, you'd want to use a very fast offhand with it? Or for the feral derail option, a cat druid spamming claw would proc it 7.6 times a minute? (an additional 15.8DPS, still much poorer than a feral weapon except on very high armor mobs).

Trindade · 11/30/06, 6:40 AM

Originally Posted by Pantone

Originally Posted by Trindade

It does not work at a ppm rate.

Well now this is an interesting conclusion. So to maximize procs, you'd want to use a very fast offhand with it?

Yes.

suicuique · 11/30/06, 6:50 AM

Originally Posted by Trindade

It does not work at a ppm rate.

Apologies in case I mssunderstand you, but there is the common misconception what "ppm" means.

It's nothing more than a concept to derive the "on hit chance" for a given enchant/weapon combination.
As such there is no need for "ppm" base for weapons with inherent procs (such as thunderfury, MSA).

It always comes down to a "on hit chance" ... it has to. Because a REAL ppm concept would require the program to see the future ... if you get what i mean.

EDIT: I DID misunderstand you :)
What you obviously meant was that the ED proc chance did not differentiate between your MH and OH speed.

Trindade · 11/30/06, 6:56 AM

Originally Posted by suicuique

Originally Posted by Trindade

It does not work at a ppm rate.

Apologies in case I mssunderstand you, but there is the common misconception what "ppm" means.

It's nothing more than a concept to derive the "on hit chance" for a given enchant/weapon combination.
As such there is no need for "ppm" base for weapons with inherent procs (such as thunderfury, MSA).

It always comes down to a "on hit chance" ... it has to. Because a REAL ppm concept would require the program to see the future ... if you get what i mean.

I understand that. However, my testing showed that the MSA's proc rate is unchanged with various weapon speed/attack adjustments. Holding it in different hands, attacking with different weapon speeds, spamming hamstring with it in off-hand and main-hand, it still returned 1 proc for 10 swings.