Hi all --

As an extension of this thread (http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewt...hp?id=8617&p=1), I've started doing some thinking. In brief, I'm testing energy regen rates. I have a theory that energy regen is done client side, and is for some reason not entirely consistent, giving a slight advantage to those with better hardware, and visa versa. My initial testing has shown that I regen 21 energy approximately every 11th tick, rather than the 20 you'd expect, for example.

If you'd be willing to help me gather data, I've written an addon to track energy changes. Get it here:

http://wow.tachyonsix.com/EnergyTicker.zip

Run it for a while, and then print your results with:

/script EnergyTicker_Print()

You can reset your results with:

/script EnergyTickerData = {}

(Sorry, no fancy slash commands yet :P)

Take a screenshot and post it here (or just transcribe it), along with your CPU make/model/speed, amount of RAM, video card make/model, network connection type (cable, DSL, dialup) with any notes about abnormal pings or whatever, your addon memory limit and load if available, if you have any kind of gear that procs energizes (Bonescythe and Shadowcraft/Darkmantle set bonuses, specifically), and info on any overclocking done.

Ideally, I'd like 500+ energy increases per sample, but any amount you can give me is awesome. What I'm primarily hoping to learn here is whether different hardware, UI, and/or network connection setups affect energy regen rates. This is particularly significant because it could potentially mean that people with certain setups can regen energy faster than others, which would, among other things, allow them to recover from special misses/dodges/parries/etc faster, and give them a DPS boost.

It doesn't filter by classes, so druid in catform should be able to use it, too, in theory. It just works off of the UNIT_ENERGY event, so any unit that uses energy should be able to collect data with it. The addon itself is very simple and just a quick little data collection job I hacked out, so if anyone else feels a burning need to improve it or point out flaws in my logic, that'd be welcome too.

AMD 3000+ (1.81Ghz)
1.50GB RAM
6600GT
Cable connection 500kb/s dl 3xkb/s upload

I do have AR and Relentless

Hm, ok, so that rules out my dual core processor as the source of the +21 ticks. You're seeing an almost 1:11 21-energy:20-energy tick ratio, as well.

Any idea what the 32/33s are? Perhaps a missed special right as AR ticked? That would be +40 - 7/8, which would account for it.

The +28 confuses the hell out of me, though. The +24 is interesting - is it possible that Relentless is refunding only 24 sometimes, rather than 25? I noticed some 24s in my own testing, as well.

I'll probably extend the addon to provide a timeline of events, with each energy increase noting what events were in the queue before the event (so, for example, I proc Relentless, and then there's a tick right away, resulting in a +45 gain, the log would show "Relentless, tick, total 45", or somesuch. That might give us more solid info.

Eh, rezzes don't bother me that much. We can just throw those increases out of consideration.

I ignore any energy increase that results in 100 energy specifically so that it doesn't skew the numbers. Since you can tick from anywhere from 50..99 up to 100 (With the +50 being Vael), it would not be smart to count ticks that resulted in you having 100 energy. :)

I have run that addon through AQ40 and BWL, I have yet to see a 19 tick for my energy. Will post the screen as soon as I'm at home again.

My assumption is that the energy tick is server based, but with a rather low priority. If the load on the server is high, the calculation for the tick may result in some unexpected values, such as 19.
That 21 seems to me like a random lucky roll, to compensate for the missing energy on a missed/dodge special. Could be miscalculation as well, but I prefer the illusion that blizzard thought of something helpful for rogues right from the beginning. :D

Computer:
3200+
1 Gig RAM
Geforce 6600GT

I could see something like this. Server, give energy users one energy every .1s, do this calculation every 2s. If you get delayed a little bit, that's no problem!

Anecdotally, my druid seemed to get a high percentage of 21-23 ticks when I was leveling him on a new server... which seems to support the server load idea. Has anyone ever tried using a high-precision timer along with some energy tick watcher to see if, over time, ticks average one every 2.03 seconds or something?

During times when the server has locked up or I have timed out, my energy often gets stuck at a particular value, so I'm fairly certain it's server side where it counts.