You've got a reasonable theory running there. Specced healing-type silliness at the moment, will take a run back out there next time I feralize to check. If you make Aldriana's friends cap towers, it'll guarantee no buffs. :-P

I lied and went back healy specced. Seemed like a good opportunity to get some numbers without mangle spec. It took me longer to match the 1711ap than it did to do the testing.

1711ap, 34 0 27 spec
5cp 360/361 ticks
4cp 308/309 ticks
3cp 237/238 ticks

As per Herb's math:
(1092 * 1.3 * 1.1 + 0.24 * 1711 ) * 1.1 = 2169.4 (361.6 ticks)
(894 * 1.3 * 1.1 + 0.24 * 1711 ) * 1.1 = 1858.0 (309.7 ticks)
(696 * 1.3 * 1.1 + 0.18 * 1711 ) * 1.1 = 1433.6 (239.0 ticks)

That looks pretty good to me. Definitely no zone buffs this time, and the accuracy of that formula to this bout of testing makes me tend to assume I was just obliviously screwing up last time. I'll still run out here next time I spec Mangle to satisfy my own curiosity, but I'm sure you're right.

Now I'm just left with the major "But why?" question to those multipliers.

My original idea was that Rip was affected by Mangle and Naturalist twice, and that different specs would yield different base damage modifiers (as in: Mangle only = 130%; Naturalist only = 110%; Neither = 100%; Both = 130% x 110%). But...

... - where i assume you had either "Neither" or "Naturalist only"* - proves that wrong: you still get the same "Both" (130% x 110%) modifier, so it seems to be independant of spec.

As it stands, it's likely a bug (maybe only a tooltip one, however, seeing how e.g. Shred's highest rank is a major upgrade over its previous rank).


*) i just noticed the x1.1 in your post, so it's obviously "Naturalist only"

Where did the 30% from Mangle go to for the scaling portion of Rip (the AP effected one)? If this is really true it means Mangle is a lot less effective than one would think, as it gets relatively less beneficial as Rip become more powerful.

Sadris: I was specced 34 0 27 for that last data set. Adding the Mangle debuff to those targets would have changed:

to:

Mangle is as beautiful as it ever was, as it scales the entire Rip.

But yeah, Herb, I'm still perplexed. Overall, cat damage seems to be reasonable at this point, so "fixing" Rip doesn't seem necessary or useful, but I'm not the one paid to make that judgement. The extra 30% and 10% multipliers to the base Rip damage seem entirely too coincidental to be random, which leaves accident or intention. Don't expect we'll know which of the two it was, or if it matters, but it's certainly interesting to see.

Also, I think I'll try to have a few extra minutes next time I respec so I can run down to Winterspring and go rip a few mobs without Naturalist. I'll be surprised if the internal 1.1 modifier isn't built in to the rip, but it's probably worth knowing for science and all.

Just occurred to me that I may have missed the important part of your post, Sadris. Or maybe hit it indirectly, but it's worth a direct note.

Everything in the parentheses appears to be the base rip damage. 1092*1.3*1.1 + 0.24*AP over 12sec. Naturalist and the Mangle debuff both apply after all of that is calculated.

Well you have to find out what debuffs would be on the target and how much damage they do.

If you assume mangle is up, no serrated blades or murder for simplicity, and 2500 raid buffed AP, a 5 point rupture does 130 DPS while it is on the target.

If you're knocking off a warlock dot, find out if that one dot is more than 130 DPS. If it is, total raid damage will be higher if you use evis. Your deadly poison debuff almost certainly does less DPS than your rupture, but it's likely to have better uptime on the target, so depending on your playstyle, it might be better to give up rupture than DP.

We typically field 3 locks and 2 shadow priests, but at least one of the warlocks is destruction (used to be 2 of them, not sure right now as one respecs constantly), so they use fewer slots.

Nobody has complained about their dots getting knocked off, and I use deadly poison and rupture regularly, but we only field 2 rogues, so we are using 4 slots at most for rogue stuff compared to your 6.

I guess the debuff we knock off could be anything. But I guess the basis of their complaint is doom.

Ok, on wowhead I see that CoD is 4200 damage after 1 minute, but receives 200% spelldamage, so let's say your lock has 1200 +shadow (someone tell me if this is reasonable).

That means CoD hits for 6600 damage per 60 seconds, or 110 DPS. So in this case, if you have mangle and 2500 raid buffed AP, rupture is better than CoD while either is on the target.

However, maybe CoD + your Evis is better than just rupture.

Now it comes down to the fact that you have something you can do pretty easily instead of Rupture, while the lock doesn't have a lot of options. CoD is an instant cast, so by not casting it (it's gonna get knocked off), the lock saves 1.5 sec (GCD) of cast time per minute. What will they do with the extra time? Probably shadowbolt, which is a 2.5(?) second cast when talented.

Let's say it's a (conveniently long) 5 minute boss fight, so he saves 5 GCDs for 3 shadowbolt casts.

Is your rupture damage over 5 mintues + 3 shadowbolts better than 5 CoD's + whatever you do with evis in 5 minutes? I don't know for sure how much the average shadow bolt hits for, so I'm gonna have to stop here and let someone take over. Your spec will affect the number of eviscerates you perform in 5 minutes, so that's another variable.

1200 is a fair guess raid buffed.

You are mostly right about CoD, but remember in raids you have a Shadow Priest (15% more total shadow damage plus possible imp SB which is another 20% but I will ignore that), so 7590 damage in 60 sec or 126 dps for only 380 mana.

If you have debuff slot issues, tell the Affliction locks to drop Immolate, and if needed Rogues can drop Deadly, rupture is really good.

On debuffs, the highest (assuming UA spec) is 5 slots, with 1 slot shared for Demonic Embrace and sometimes 1 for imp SB.

This is the same workaround that our guild has come up with. Its not an issue on alot of fights where one class or the other doesnt get max time on the boss but losing rupture isnt really a viable option due to the change in energy cycles. Especially when your running with 3 rogues and a feral druid ;]