Crowbite

nvm

 

Valerian

I've been using Tunah's Spreadsheet and for my gear I got numbers that seem to correspond to other spreadsheets, except for Str.

Im getting that Str is worth 2.41 AP. Str directly correlates to AP and should be equal to 2.46 AP with SotF and HotW. I dont know if its a rounding error somewhere in the spreadsheet but its just something I thought I'd point out.

 

ShadowKntSDS

While I would tend to agree with the "sweet spot" being at 5 skill, I am not sure about the large jump between 4 and 5 skill. It was Faewen's post that lead me to 1st give credibility to the wowhead post.


This statement torubles me and disagrees with the above post I copied. It also is not the only explaination of faewen's observation.
Other sources would suggest that at 4 skill, you would gain 1.6%, making for a less drastic jump at the transition between 4 and 5. It also agrees with the "if def skill > weapon skill by more than 10, the penalties are doubled" theory.

 

tunah

Ugh, this is ugly, and every time i look at this i change my mind. I had a long rant about it, but the short version is:
When charsheet-displayed stats like STR are used as intermediate values, the rounded value that is displayed is the true value used.

To accurately (ugh, well at least consistently inaccurately) model DPS at a 'point' of gear, we have to take account of this. For example, 16 feral skill rating and 19 feral skill rating give exactly the same benefit. But this makes our graph of DPS vs STR bumpy, which makes it hard to find the slope.

I'm going to remove the rounding on all stats except Feral Skill, and make sure to average feral skill rating over a multiple of 3.94 to smooth over the bumps. Hopefully those weird numbers should go away.

Edit: Sigh, I remember intending to put in the rounding for everything, but all that I ended up doing was the AP and feral skill. Have taken out the AP rounding, let me know if numbers are still wonky. If you've made a copy, just get rid of TRUNC() around Stats!B20.

 

Valerian

Yup just re-entered values and it works fine now Str is = 2.46 AP as it should be. Also of note, in your base sheet you have the Primalstrike belt having 58 AP and 84 Hit rating instead of 84 AP :P

 

Daenerys

Going back to gems (and I appologize if I've missed this elsewhere), is it universally accepted that 8 Agi is the best gem for kitty DPS assuming you are ignoring hit rating (I'm near the cap, so I'm just looking at getting the most bang for my gem-buck).

 

dukes

Agi = ~2.8
Str = ~2.7
Hit = ~1.9
Crit = ~1.7(?)
AP = 1

That's the approximate values afaik. Agi will always be best, regardless of hit rating unless by getting a socket bonus you can get more stats out of a piece of armour than otherwise by grabbing socket bonuses.

 

tunah

Hahaha, oops, was testing out the set bonus tracking, wasn't paying attention to the actual stats! Will fix this, it shouldn't matter (other than the default set being hit capped) though.

And yeah, agi is the best gem, str is close, hit should only be considered in socketbonus emergencies (in which case agi/hit should edge out str/crit).

EDIT: Best gems
* according to the random gearset I happen to have loaded
* (with the hitcap fixed!)
* assuming 'half-kings'
* Weighing 1STA = 1AP
* these are the blue versions of course, draw your own conclusions for others

1. +8AGI (Red) - 23.2 AP
2. +8STR (Red) - 20.8 AP
3. +4AGI/+4Hit (Red, Yellow) - 19.1 AP
4. +4STR/+4Crit (Red, Yellow) - 18.0 AP
5. +4AGI/+6STA (Red, Blue) - 17.6 AP
6. +4STR/+6STA (Red, Blue) - 16.4 AP
7. +16AP (Red) - 16.0 AP
8. +8AP/+4Crit (Red, Yellow) - 15.6 AP
9. +8Crit (Yellow) - 15.2 AP
10. +8Hit (Yellow) - 15.0 AP
11. +8AP/+6STA (Red, Blue) - 14.0 AP
12. +6STA/+4Crit (Blue, Yellow) - 13.6 AP
13. +12STA (Blue) - 12 AP

In short:
Red: +8AGI
Blue: +4AGI/+6STA or +8AGI
Yellow: +4AGI/+4Hit or +8AGI
Sheet can tell you whether it's worth going for socket bonus or not.

 

Vaccine

Reports from PTR say that powershifting has been nerfed. Tick timer now starts from when you enter your form, so its always a full 2 seconds before you get your first 20 energy.

I've not tested this myself yet. Going on this post here:
WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Powershifting ruined on PTR

 

Daenerys

Thanks for the confirmation. I started gemming with Agi all around on my DPS stuff, so I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. =)

Here's another question: is there a point at which crit hits diminishing returns? I'm getting up towards 40% unbuffed now and I'm not sure if I should weigh crit as heavily as I have been at this point.

 

Krag

I can't say if it's ruined (as I never really got into using it myself) but it has changed for sure. The claim that the first tick happen after 2 seconds is wrong though as far as I can tell.

Testing this today, what is happening is that I get anywhere between 1 and 20 energy from the first tick when I shift into cat. The energy gaing itself happened most of the time pretty quickly - definitely not delayed by 2 seconds (my energy meter thing in Pitbull never reached the end before I got some energy from a tick).

 

tunah

Two possible interpretations here.
1. Will I eventually get less DPS increase per point of crit increase?
2. Will I eventually be better off stacking something else?

Hypothetical example to show the difference:
with some otherwise identical gear:
at 30% crit, +1% crit = +20 DPS, +40AP = +20DPS.
at 40% crit, +1% crit = +20 DPS, +40AP = +25DPS.
at 50% crit, +1% crit = +20 DPS, +40AP = +30DPS.
Here crit shows no diminishing returns in terms of DPS. However AP shows increasing returns in terms of DPS, and crit shows diminishing returns in terms of AP (at 30% crit, 1% crit = 40AP, at 50% crit, 1% crit = 27AP) so eventually you'll want to stack AP instead.
Note that this applies to relative scaling rates of any other stat, not just AP. AP is the 'big one' though.

Actual example, playing around in my spreadsheet with some gear,
~3.2k AP, ~33% crit
DPS per critrating: 0.318
DPS per AP: 0.167
Critrating per AP: 1.90
Same gear, 100 critrating added
DPS per critrating: 0.315
DPS per AP: 0.173
Critrating per AP: 1.82
Same gear, 200 critrating added
DPS per critrating: 0.313
DPS per AP: 0.179
Critrating per AP: 1.75

So yes, there's (probably) a slight diminishing returns of crit in terms of DPS. AP definitely gets increasing returns as you scale up crit (makes sense, hitting for an extra 100 is worth more the more likely that 100 is to be doubled). So as you get more and more crit while relatively neglecting other stats, other stats will become better to stack.

The actual crossover point depends on exactly where you're getting this crit from - there doesn't seem to be any reasonable gear level where crit rating is better than STR, AGI, or even AP point-for-point by the itemisation formula.
On the other hand, since AGI is both crit and AP it scales very well with any configuration of gear, and remains the best value stat even at +200 crit rating (~40% crit).

Model limitations
More severe diminishing returns will occur when the model breaks:
a) You're critting so much that you can't spend the extra combo points on rip, because your rips are starting to overlap. Rip lasts 12sec, so 120energy has to buy you 5CP plus a rip. This can't happen without an OOC proc, and is more likely to happen the more you crit, so this is an additional diminishing return that's happening already, which I'm not going to calculate here
b) You hit the crit cap of 100 - dodge - miss - glance. If you've got at least some hit rating, this should be 75%+ crit. There's no reduced benefit until you hit the cap, so this isn't a worry.

 

Boevis

I really don't think it's possible to reach that point, since it takes OOC/Malorne procs to make you run into your rips

00 (100)
00 (70) Rip
01 (30) Mangle 2cp
02 (50)
02 (8) Shred 4cp
04 (28)
06 (48)
06 (6) Shred 5cp
08 (60) Powershift
10 (80)
12 (100)

Even with a perfect powershift and 3 crits on specials, your minimum time on a cycle is 12 seconds. I guess you could say that OOC/Malorne have diminishing returns as you increase your crit.

Though I suppose that's true Tunah, you will eventually run into the Dodge Wall at 94.4% on specials, and the Dodge+Glancing wall at 69.4% on white damage. Aside from freaks like me that have a set of 900 agi gear, I doubt anyone is going to realistically see those numbers.

 

• Vykromond

Even at my fairly modest level of crit I'm already running into situations where my Rip is still ticking at 5CP and 100 energy. It's very annoying, but it's more a function of the Malorne 2-piece than crit itself I think.

 

Valerian

At this point is it more worthwhile to shred again or overwrite rip with a new one? Odds are you would only lose 1 tick of Rip. Are the extra combo points generated by that 1 shred worth 1 tick of Rip?

 

dukes

If i get into that situation I'll normally use an extra shred rather than overwrite with a new rip. I have no idea which is mre efficient for DPS, but I might have a go at working it out later.

 

ShadowKntSDS

Too bad haste doesn't speed up Rip....

 

Daenerys

I'd love to see this, as I sorta do either depending on my mood, with no clue as to which is actually better for DPS. =P

@Tunah - Thanks for the info! Sounds like you're of the opinion that 8 Agi is still the way to go unless you get up to insane crit rates. The reason I asked the question primarily has to do with gem choices, and whether there is a crit level where 8 Str gems start to outstrip 8 Agi in total DPS gains.

 

david0925

I don't really have done the precise math, but I think the time left on a preexisting rip has a lot to do with actually dps gain/loss when compared to a shred. Most of the time we're not really concerned with DPS, but DPE (energy) since that's really the limit for us. When rip is refreshed, lets say, when it has 10 seconds left, and it ticks for 3600 total damage. The DPM for this will be 600(tick) x 14 (12 seconds from reapplying, and 2 seconds from the first tick) divided by 60 energy (the energy required for two ripes), that'll give you

Marginal DpE for reapplying rip when only 1 tick has gone off= 1 extra tick, which means you're trading 30 energy for 600dmg. in this case, 600/30 = 20 Dmg/E

Same case scenario, but lets look at a rip with 2 seconds left when reapplied

Marginal DpE in this case is 5 x 600 / 30 = 100 Dmg/E

The timing for using shred over reapplying a rip before time runs out is when the average Damage per energy for the shred to have better returns than the DPE of the marginal return of the rip, lets just say on average, the shred here does 2100 dmg on average, then the average DpE will be 2100/42 = 50 Dmg/E, which means that when there is less than 7 seconds left on the rip timer (realistcally 6, since rip ticks every 2 seconds.). 600 x 3 / 30 = 60. it'll be more efficient to reapply rip, if it has more than 7 second left, then it is more efficient to apply another shred for damage.

This is all really rough math work, so don't pummel me if the math is flawed or flat out wrong =P

I'm sure someone who has more time and/or better than me at math with variables can probably graph the best time for shred and rip depending on one's crit rate and attack power, but if one knows his average shred damage and rip damage, then he can work out a best time to reapply rip should there be a conflict for overlapping timer (again, that's assume my math is correct)

 

Valerian

While this looks correct from a DPE standpoint, it doesnt take into account the fact that you "waste" a combo point (or two) by using Shred when at 5 combo points.

 

david0925

Combo point isn't really relevant at this point, since at five point combo point, regardless of using a Shred or a Rip, you won't actually generate combo point. I guess the real argument here, is that whether the 12 energy saved is worth the dps loss when reapplying a relatively fresh rip. At lower than 6 second count, the answer points to rip. It is very rare to run into such a dilenma above 6 seconds though.

Basically, if 12 energy + Combo point gained (this will be less than 1, since you don't save enough energy to actually perform an extra combo point producing attack) is greater than the dps loss from reapplying rip, then its worth it. Again, im not a huge expert at modeling such a thing.

 

Valerian

Well granted neither Rip nor Shred at 5 CP will give another combo point, but using Rip THEN Shred results in 1 or 2 combo points whereas using Shred then Rip results in none.

 

Daenerys

Another thing to think about in the scenario where Rip has say 2 seconds left to tick, if you Shred at that point, you are going to lose the opportunity to Rip for X seconds (X being the time it takes to regen enough energy to rip). If that's longer than the 2 seconds left on Rip, you will have a situation where you don't have Rip up, meaning less DPS, right?

 

david0925

I understand what you're trying to say here in terms of orders. So basically, we're looking at

Shred x X then rip

or

Shred x (X-1), rip, then shred again, X being the number we need to shred due to unnatural burst of energy regeneration, so the tradeoff will be 1.x combo points on average (depending on your crit rate) and the impact it has in terms of DPE for this combo cycle versus the DPE for the cycle for the other rotation.

 

david0925

I agree with this, the assumption for the Dpm math i just did is the fact that you'll have enough energy to perform any of the given, so the actual math might be skewed by 1.5 seconds due to energy regeneration rate needed to perform another rip. However, in most cycles people stay at at least 70 energy before even considering a rip (to perform rip and mangle), so the scenarion in which you described shouldn't happen often in a well managed dps cycle.