Enhance Shaman: The Collected Works of Theorycraft, Vol I - Page 12

choble · 07/04/07, 10:00 PM

How good would Darkmoon Card: crusade be when compared to other trinkets say the ones suggested in the first post?

Jules_AA · 07/04/07, 10:10 PM

Heya,

I was just curious into what meta gem would be the best choice for us atm.
the old +24 ap/crit rating one or one of the new haste increasing / agil+crit dmg increasing gems.

• Khlysti · 07/04/07, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by Valoran

AFAIK, this is the normal behaviour when a global cooldown is used.

No, any genuine instant on a paladin or shaman won't reset the timer. However 'fake' instants, meaning spells which normally have a cast bar but are instant due to some other effect generally will reset it. All spells reset it for other classes as far as I know.

Malacort · 07/05/07, 1:32 AM

Originally Posted by Magna_FA

Just wanted to put up some data from my testing I did today. I had the Syphon of the Nathrezim (2.8 speed 100dps) from BT and just received a Netherbane (2.6 speed 93dps) and after reading this thread started to wonder which would be better in my main hand, considering so many people saying that you should always put the slower weapon in your off hand to minimize wf procs. But in this case, there is a 7 dps difference in the 2 weapons as well as the speed difference.

So I took my fugly neon axe and went to the Blasted Lands and beat on those level 55 unkillable mobs. I did a run of .5 mill damage with the slower weapon in my main hand, then took the dps measurement from Violation (trying to keep both str and agi totems up at all times), then again but with the faster weapon as suggested in my main hand. Then repeated those 2 tests again to double check and average. I could have probably done it more to be more accurate, but I was already seeing a trend. In this case, it seemed the slower, higher dps, higher damage range weapon was best used in the main hand, rather than having the slow weapon in the off hand. I know it's probably not too accurate, but the difference was on average of the 2 tests, 34 dps difference in favor of the slow weapon in the main hand.

So to double check this, I used Pater's java simulator and put in my weapons and something along the lines of my gear (couldn't remember the exact in raid values, so I just guessed, none the less, no matter the values, it's close enough to illustrate the issue.) And this is what I got:

It's not the dps difference I saw in game on a level 55, but again, the slower weapon in the off hand did not win out. So this goes to show ya, do your own testing on your own circumstances before just throwing that slower weapon in your off hand. In this case, the dps difference out weighed the gain from the weapon speed difference.

I'd like to hear other people's responses and testing in this area, as well as any thoughts and ideas.

I have the same weapons, when I went out and beat on those same mobs, I found that Netherbane (in offhand) was taking like 75% of my windfury procs, you didn't find this the case? I assumed that over time this would be lower dmg/dps overall.

Lujaar · 07/05/07, 3:29 AM

Originally Posted by Malacort

I have the same weapons, when I went out and beat on those same mobs, I found that Netherbane (in offhand) was taking like 75% of my windfury procs, you didn't find this the case? I assumed that over time this would be lower dmg/dps overall.

That really shouldn't be happening.

How long were you testing for, and what method did you use to distinguish between MH and OH procs?

Stigmata · 07/05/07, 5:00 AM

Originally Posted by Lujaar

That really shouldn't be happening.

How long were you testing for, and what method did you use to distinguish between MH and OH procs?

Is there a mod available to distinguish between MH and OH hits?

Morelis · 07/05/07, 5:03 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

I'm somewhat curious, Disquette/Pater or anyone else, have we modeled the effect of hitting SS every 10 sec when its lit versus only hitting it when a WF CD is up?

I'm curious to know this as well. I've been using wfwatcher for a while and I think it's better this way but the variations in our dps make it impossible to say without large amounts of controlled testing.

Malacort · 07/05/07, 7:53 AM

Originally Posted by Lujaar

That really shouldn't be happening.

How long were you testing for, and what method did you use to distinguish between MH and OH procs?

I was testing for about 300k worth of damage, I ran a /combatlog and went over it once I was done and counted the procs and found the trend. It was pretty easy to distinguish the off hand procs and main hand procs simply by the damage.

• Disquette · 07/05/07, 8:30 AM

When I do testing, I use the above method. It works pretty well, especially since my tests usually involve a high dps weapon in MH, and a super-low one in the OH. I then put everything into excel and let it populate the "WhichHand" column.

Also, to Morelis's point - what's the concern/purpose of waiting for WF CD to be up before storm striking? I know I've heard the explanation before and though "heh, that's neat", but I don't remember it at the moment.

Leachim · 07/05/07, 8:41 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

StormStrike and Windfury are not normalized to weapon speed and are not impacted by haste effects. Haste is therefore an excellent way to increase Shaman DPS - to a point at least. New modeling appears to indicate that when your weapon is hasted between 1.50 and 1.41 speed you will actually experience a sharp decrease in DPS.
Enhance Shaman: The Collected Works of Theorycraft, Vol I
It may be hard in practice to actually achieve those speeds for long periods of time though.

Could you explane this a bit more perhaps? The way i read it you predict a strong decline in dps when attacks are hasted between 1.5 and 1.4. But what if the weapon is hasted below that level, do you see a further dps-increase then or is it worse then a speed over 1.5?
Becouse with my current itemization I can get my attacks hasted even below 1.0 attackspeed, question is if thats a good thing. The drops below 1.51 hasted AS occur when flurry is combined with 2 times a Mongoose proc and a proc of one of my various haste accelerating items (dragonspine trophy, dragonstrike), coupled with the inevitable Bloodlust used in an encounter.

◊ Malan · 07/05/07, 9:33 AM

Right, the 1.5 and 1.4 decrease is (according to theory, we haven't seen a test of it yet) an abnormality. Once below 1.4 hasted speed the DPS increases with more haste, The only area we think you need to worry about is between 1.5 and 1.4.

Stigmata · 07/05/07, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

Right, the 1.5 and 1.4 decrease is (according to theory, we haven't seen a test of it yet) an abnormality. Once below 1.4 hasted speed the DPS increases with more haste, The only area we think you need to worry about is between 1.5 and 1.4.

Hmm, I don't really get where this "abnormality" comes from, or even who and why it was suggested given that you say there is no testing on it.

The only problem I could see or I could think of was that dropping below 1.5 speed means that WF has to swing 3 times for your main hand to have a chance of it proccing again.

This to me is not a concern, as I've stated before my white damage is way way above all of my other damage combined, hitting at 1.4 or 1.3 (which occurs alot of the time) will always have a net increase, your WF damage goes down slightly, but would your white damage would go up by the same amount or more than the loss of WF? I think so.

Celetroll · 07/05/07, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by Khlysti

As to the comment on stacking haste, the game simply adds the haste ratings together and then applies them, so it is indeed 1+1=2, were it to apply them sequentially (like it does with flurry/heroism over something hasted by rating) then it would actually give more dps not less.

I dont quite get it, could someone direct me to a thread or explain it a bit further.

Lets take a simple example: bloodlust (30% speed) + battle drums (80 HR).
Looking to character sheet weaponspeed with my slowest 3.70 speed 2-hander equipped (to minimize rounding problems) I can observer that:
1# battle drums used alone drops wspeed 3.70 -> 3,44 = ~7,027% speed increase
2# battle drums used after bloodlust drops wspeed 2,85 -> 2,65 = ~7,017% speed increase

Doesnt above mean that stacking haste is reducing its benefit with every stack and i would get more overall dps if I wait with drums after bloodlust has expired? (if you consider drums too marginal, then take thoes on use haste trinklets with 300+ HR, when is the best time to use them?)

Ruzia · 07/05/07, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Disquette

Also, to Morelis's point - what's the concern/purpose of waiting for WF CD to be up before storm striking? I know I've heard the explanation before and though "heh, that's neat", but I don't remember it at the moment.

From what I understand, its to try to force your MH to proc WF more often than your OH. Whether or not its better to just SS every CD I don't know =/

Unaz · 07/05/07, 12:49 PM

Waiting on WF cooldown to use SS is much more important when using a two hander then with DW I imagine. I would carefully count the seconds when using my two hander and it made a noticeable difference. I haven't bothered so much with DW, as I figured I'd shave a second off my WF cooldowns at most. I didn't take into account that a stormstrike WF forces a MH proc though.

It's worth modelling to see exactly what the differential is in the long term I'd imagine.

◊ Malan · 07/05/07, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by Stigmata

Hmm, I don't really get where this "abnormality" comes from, or even who and why it was suggested given that you say there is no testing on it.

Disquette did some math on it and so did some EU guys on their official board, the discussion is back around page 4 or so of this thread. It has been modeled but not tested, because in practice you need a LOT of passive haste rating in order to keep the weapon permanently between 1.5 and 1.4 speed in order to actually observe the DPS decrease. So in theory its bad, in practice... probably will never be seen except in a few rare cases where you have bloodlust + drums + double mongoose + flurry + other crap going off all in the same instant.

Stopokingme · 07/05/07, 1:30 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Disquette did some math on it and so did some EU guys on their official board, the discussion is back around page 4 or so of this thread. It has been modeled but not tested, because in practice you need a LOT of passive haste rating in order to keep the weapon permanently between 1.5 and 1.4 speed in order to actually observe the DPS decrease. So in theory its bad, in practice... probably will never be seen except in a few rare cases where you have bloodlust + drums + double mongoose + flurry + other crap going off all in the same instant.

I can reach 1.47 speed when flurry is up along with DST and double mongoose procs, but that occurs so rarely that it doesn't really matter.

One thing I'm wondering though is if the 4 piece T5 will hurt my dps or not with my current gear setup, I'd be at 1.48 speed then with flurry and trinket proc up. Time will tell I suppose, since we're not close to beating Vashj or Kael yet.

• Khlysti · 07/05/07, 2:15 PM

Originally Posted by Celetroll

I dont quite get it, could someone direct me to a thread or explain it a bit further.

Lets take a simple example: bloodlust (30% speed) + battle drums (80 HR).
Looking to character sheet weaponspeed with my slowest 3.70 speed 2-hander equipped (to minimize rounding problems) I can observer that:
1# battle drums used alone drops wspeed 3.70 -> 3,44 = ~7,027% speed increase
2# battle drums used after bloodlust drops wspeed 2,85 -> 2,65 = ~7,017% speed increase

Doesnt above mean that stacking haste is reducing its benefit with every stack and i would get more overall dps if I wait with drums after bloodlust has expired? (if you consider drums too marginal, then take thoes on use haste trinklets with 300+ HR, when is the best time to use them?)

Your example is, despite your attempt to avoid it, based on rounding errors and bad math.
Firstly 3.7 -> 3.44 is 1.07559% more attacks (the relevant number here, your '% speed increase' is meaningless) and 2.85 -> 2.65 is 1.07547%, the two numbers are only different due to character sheet rounding, as shown below.

1 haste rating = ~0.0951% haste. So drums = 7.608% haste.

3.70/1.07608 = 3.4384 converting to swings per minute we get -> 16.2162 -> 17.44997 = 7.608% more swings per minute (hey, that ones a shocker, right?)

3.7/1.3 = 2.84615/1.07608 = 2.64493, once again the % swings per minute change here is 7.608%.

As you can hopefully see here the drums have the same increase in number of attacks as they would at any other time.

However, while Bloodlust/Heroism gives 30% more attacks by itself, and the drums give 7.608% more attacks, the combination of the two gives 16.21621 -> 22.6849 which is 39.89% more attacks. This is why I said heroism/flurry/haste rating stack better than 1+1=2 with each other, while as haste ratings are all added together before being applied they stack exactly as 1+1=2.

Dhaos · 07/05/07, 2:35 PM

I haven't read all 11 previous pages of the thread but I have 2 questions.

1: Is there a comparison to the Cat's Swiftness Boot enchant to the Surefooted boot enchant for dps? I have 20% hit right now so I don't really want to lose anyone more hit rating but if Cat's swiftness is better maybe I can switch up some gear.

2: Another comparison, the 2 new melee meta gems, which one is better for me. Currently I'm using the haste gem but it's proc rate is pretty low, so I was wondering if the crit dmg gem is better.

I have 30% unbuffed crit w/ 1300 AP, procs: 2 Mongoose and Hourglass of the Unraveller (I kinda bank on the fact that I crit alot, I've hit 60% before)

◊ Malan · 07/05/07, 3:23 PM

Originally Posted by Dhaos

1: Is there a comparison to the Cat's Swiftness Boot enchant to the Surefooted boot enchant for dps? I have 20% hit right now so I don't really want to lose anyone more hit rating

I'm keeping my 9% hit from talents and then dumping hit rating to between 100-120. I'd say go get the Cat Swiftness.

2: Another comparison, the 2 new melee meta gems, which one is better for me. Currently I'm using the haste gem but it's proc rate is pretty low, so I was wondering if the crit dmg gem is better.

Most people aren't too happy with the haste gem from what I understand. I use the crt dmg one myself.

Also, admitting that you haven't read over half the thread isn't a good way to start your post.

Morelis · 07/05/07, 3:44 PM

Originally Posted by Disquette

Also, to Morelis's point - what's the concern/purpose of waiting for WF CD to be up before storm striking? I know I've heard the explanation before and though "heh, that's neat", but I don't remember it at the moment.

The purpose is to maximize the time spent under the wf cooldown. If you have 2 otherwise identical players and the first spends 75% of their time on cooldown and the second spends 85% of their time on cooldown, then I'm assuming the second would have done more damage due to the larger number of wf procs. On the other hand the second player also does fewer stormstrikes since they're waiting for the cooldown to come up. My gut says the gain in wf procs would out weigh stormstrike being delayed a second or two but it's really only speculation on my part.

I'm not aware of stormstrike giving any bias to MH procs but I guess if it's always checked the MH first it would. Might be something I could test if I get the time today.

• Disquette · 07/05/07, 3:48 PM

I do believe it's the MH hits first when SS-ing that matters. You can verify this by seeing that a dodge/parry on the Stormstrike mainhand always results in the OH Stormstrike attack not landing.

Dhaos · 07/05/07, 4:37 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Also, admitting that you haven't read over half the thread isn't a good way to start your post.

I just didn't wanna look like a moron if someone else already asked the question a couple pages in, but I guess I failed lol.