• Intermission

edit: im blind

 

Cheeky

Both Excel and OO versions posted.

Change Log:
- Added in new gear ([Demon Stalker Shoulderguards], [Charmed Amani Jewel])
- Fixed a bug with how pet specials factored into Ferocious Inspiration uptime.
- Changed Hunter attacks to a 2-roll system, where hit and crit are determined separately.
- Made very clear in Hit/Crit chances what the target level is.
- Changed default target level back to 73. There are just as many people who couldn't figure out why their hit changed from previous versions as there were people who didn't know where 0.6% of their crit went.
- Corrected some item names ([Prowler's Strikeblade], [Sun-Gilded Shouldercaps]).
- Fixed the bug where the Rotation for different profiles wasn't being saved properly (display in 'Settings and Results' bug only.)
- Corrected some item stats ([Gladiator's Chain Helm]).
- Provided a better model for the Curse of Shadows Debuff.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Midnight

Looks like there´s a bug with critical hit damage calculations now.

On the calculations tab for auto shot where it used to be 236,90% with version 40 it says 133,90% now (same crit chance of 36,40%). Also the Crit/Miss Adjustments went down from 149,34% to 111,84%.

left Side v40, right side v41


edit: included some screenshots for better illustration. This also affects Steady Shot and Multi Shot but whereas it´s a hit of over 200 DPS for auto shot it´s less than 9 dps for Steady and Multi. I guess this is propably somehow related to the changes for the 2 roll system that differs between white and yellow hits.

 

Koroshiya

Hopefully Cheeky won't mind... but here's an alternative place to download the latest spreadsheets. It took me a while to download from his site so just offering an alternative.

Excel: http://www.altoholic.com/wow/spreads...S_Calc_v41.xls
Open Office: http://www.altoholic.com/wow/spreads...alc_v41_OO.xls

 

Dec

Cheeky, on the 'Gear' tab, cell L88 is not picking up the +hit set bonus.

 

Cheeky

Turns out I forgot to move Auto Shot to the 2-roll system, but decreased the critical strike damage ratio from 2.3x to 1.3x (because crits are now just a ratio of extra damage per shot.)

I'll get an updated version posted in the next few minutes.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Cheeky

Change Log:
- Have Auto Shot use the 2-roll system and have proper critical strike damage.
- Use +hit gained from set bonuses.

OO version updated too.

Sorry about those bugs guys.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

pharzo

[Jin'rohk, The Great Apocalypse] is mispelled in the spreadsheet, and does not import from armory correctly. Missing the 'h'

 

alienangel

Could you tell us what kind of 2-roll system you're using Cheeky?

A small nit-pick I had is that we all seemed to assume that if a single-roll system is discounted we'd be left with a "first roll for hit/miss, then roll for hit/crit" system. While agree that that's the most likely alternative to the 1 roll system, all that Lactose's recent test with the banshee showed is that we're not working with a 1 roll-system, not that we're actually working with a 2-roll system (e.g. blocks could be on a 3rd roll) or if we are, what kind of 2-roll system, since the rolls could for instance be "roll for hit/crit, if hit roll for hit/miss" (and unless I'm misunderstanding, that would again change the relative values of hit/crit).

Again, I think it's a safe assumption that if it's 2-roll it'll be roll for hit, if hit roll for crit, and just to be complete I'll probably go test that when I get a spare few hours, but stating what model you went with is probably good for the spreadsheet. And afaik we still don't know when the roll for blocks happens in the 2-roll system (edit: although for your dps simulation blocks aren't relevant).

 

Cheeky

I compute both simulatenously, as I did before. I just use slightly different equations. The order of the rolls is independant, just whether or not a single roll is used is important. Here is an example using 95% hit rate, 30% crit rate, +130% crit bonus:

1-roll - (2.3 * 0.3) + (0.95 - 0.3) = 134% damage increase.
2-roll - ((1.3 * 0.3) + 1) * 0.95 = 132% damage increase.

Where hit = 100% they are even:
1-roll - (2.3 * .3) + (1.0 - .3) = 139%
2-roll - ((1.3 * 0.3) + 1) * 1 = 139%

Deatiled testing of above, 100 attacks for 100 damage each:
2-roll, 30 crit for 230, 65 hit for 100, 5 miss for 0 - 134 average damage
1-roll, 5 miss for 0 damage, 28.5 crit for 230, 66.5 hit for 100 - 132.05 average damage

Cheeky of Havoc

 

• Glaurong

As far as I can tell from the testing that has been done so far:

Roll 1 (Avoidance):
Hit/Miss/Block

Roll 2 (Critical Hit):
Crit/Normal

Roll 3 (arcane shot only):
Partial Resist

Which is almost exactly how spells work (minus block).

Log Parser for BM Hunters (Right click, save as) - Updated 10/11/2007

 

• Glaurong

This could be a side effect of the order effects are applied when generating an attack table.

For instance (this is just an example):

Base table + talent modifiers + gear modifiers + self buff/debuff modifiers = Your attack table.

To keep the amount of computation down, this is only calculated when one of the above things changes, not on every for every attack.

On each attack, your final attack table could be computed by adding your table with an opponent defense table, which could consist of the same stuff, talents, gear, buffs/debuffs.

If things are actually calculated this way then you can have talents of your target overriding your gear.

Log Parser for BM Hunters (Right click, save as) - Updated 10/11/2007

 

Saryanne

Hey Cheeky,
Is there any way to work out a rotation for the "new" macro that is going around? I tried looking back, but couldn't find anything.

 

Cheeky

I haven't seen a solid mathematical model for it yet, and have had some difficulty coming up with one that fits all the logs I've seen myself. I think there is a heavy random factor (either latency or the jitter in combat logs and how fast you can spam the macro) that is a large component to the way the macro behaves.

If you have a suitable model, post it here and I'll see if I can get it incorporated.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Cheeky

So I've taken a stab at the new macro and how to model it.

During my investigations I discovered something no one had been talking about, but which is part of why the macro works like it does. Auto Shot's cast speed is not 0.5s in practice. I analyzed almost 100 times when chained Steady Shots would clip an Auto and measured the time between the last Steady Shot and the Auto Shot. I understand there is jitter in the combat logs, so I'm hoping the sample size is enough to draw some conclusions. Here are the results:

1 - 70 of the 96 test cases showed a difference under 0.5s. 26 showed over.
2 - Over all test cases there was an average of 0.44823s between Auto and the previous Steady.
3 - This works out to an 11.55% haste effect over the tooltip 0.5s cast time.

Using that data, and what we've seen regarding client-only GCD, I've modified the Shot Rotation matrix as follows:
1 - Latency is no longer added to Steady Shot cast time.
2 - If the shot previous to a GCD-using shot was an Auto Shot, I readjust the GCD start to be the greater of previous GCD or previous Auto Shot cast time + latency.
3 - Auto Shot's cast time is adjusted by the 11.55% haste factor I've found above.

With those changes to both the regular Shot Rotation and Quick Shots I also added 2 new "Steady Spam" buttons. These check Auto vs. Steady cooldowns for each shot and pick whatever is next.

Doing all that, using a 0.15s latency and my gear, led to the following DPS totals (Hunter only):
[Serpent Spine Longbow] - 827 DPS, 17:33 Auto:Steady in regular, 22:28 in QS
[Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix] - 863 DPS, 20:30, 23:27
[Steelhawk Crossbow] - 840 DPS, 20:30, 24:26
[Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle] - 847 DPS, 20:30, 25:25
[Barrel-Blade Longrifle] - 848 DPS, 22:28, 25:25

If this holds true (see caveats below) then the sweet spot of weapon speed seems to be about 2.9s. This also seems to be what the anecdotal evidence is saying. We may still be weapon speed dependant, just on a different, much more narrow speed now.

Caveats:
0 - This was a modified version 40 of the spreadsheet, it was only to look at timings.
1 - We need much more testing under different constant haste effects to determine exactly how Auto Shot's cast time is modified.
2 - With jitter in latency, it will be almost impossible to ever model this in a way that can be replicated consistently in game. I saw variances in Auto Shot cast time from 0.17 - 0.8s.
3 - This whole mechanic is so fucking stupid I'm seriously thinking about giving up on modeling Hunters. I can't for the life of me figure out how any of this is "working as intended" and I really wish Blizzard would at least give us some indication of what they'd like our mechanics to be.
4 - I could be completetly wrong about all of this, but it's the only model I've been able to come up with that fits the facts I've seen. The logs with 4-5 Steady chains still worry me, and it may be related to a small window for clobbering available right before an Auto Shot is cast (maybe the time between the 0.5s base cast time and the hasted time?)

If we get some concensus on whether or not this model is sound I can release it. I hope to provide a spreadsheet of the Auto Shot data I collected later tonight.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Korikin

I hate not knowing WHY something works. And it's painful to try to explain to other hunters in my guild why they should switch macros if I can't tell them a single 100% for sure reason why it works other than "it just does". Plus, gawd knows this "mechanic" is going to be "fixed" sometime in the future with no warning or acknowledgment.

 

Rokh

Nice work, Cheeky, looks promising. Are we sure that the cast time of Auto Shot isn't affected by Haste? I'm not sure how to go about collecting the data in the same manner as you did, but perhaps you/someone could log some tests without a quiver or any haste gear, then do the same with as much haste gear as possible?

Also remember that in 2.4 the combat log is being reworked, so hopefully the timing issues will be fixed, and we'll get a much more consistent and precise log to work with when doing things like this.

 

Cheeky

I haven't done testing myself, but going with 0/5 Serpent's Swiftness and no quiver is the next logical step. In PMs Lactose suggested the range to mob (i.e. flight time) may be being applied to one shot and not the other, this would also complicate things, as well as make it completely un-modelable.

I've seen a little of the 2.4 combat log changes, but I don't remember hearing if the timestamps will all be server side (which is what we'll need.)

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Rokh

Just in some limited testing, it seems Auto Shot is affected by latency, and haste. I'm not sure if the speed of the weapon affects this, if quivers affects it, ect. It will take a lot of testing and data to rule out each of these, but I'm definitely noticing a difference between a 2.7 hasted weapon and a 3.0 un-hasted one, in just limited testing.

Cheeky, did your auto shot data come from the same variables each test, or were things like spec, weapon, and haste changed?

 

Cheeky

The data was from the posted logs of 3 different Hunters covering 5 different tests. I have no idea what haste effects were in place, but I think all were BM Hunters.

We need controlled data to figure it out for sure.

Cheeky of Havoc

 

Uncas

First: GD, I skipped testing sunfury and went straight for the serpent spine on Dr. Boom, maybe i should be using sunfury now

Two: re #3, Amen I spent an hour on the phone bitching to my friend (who doesnt even play WoW) about how this would be nice. And that I am not saying, tell me what gear and what macro, but explain to me how we are mechanicaly supposed to be doing DPS. and how we are supposed to actually achieve that.

Three: thanks for the 2 roll system, now I can get a better grasp on effects of losing +hit, With my current gear, it seems I should replace my survival favortie yellow (4agi 4 hit) with 8hit.

 

anjel

Cheeky,

I have two questions regarding your spreadsheet (version 42):

1.) Currently specced standard raid BM, I am thinking of respeccing to survival where I'd like to use 'auto/steady/steady' rotation. Any chance you want to add this type of rotation into your spreadsheet? I had a chance to try this on the last PTR for about 2 hours on Dr. Boom. In my tests I was able to consistently beat my BM dps by a substantial amount (naturally not factoring in the pet damage nor the FI buff). I was going to run few more tests to record the numbers, but they brought down the PTR before I was able to do so. From memory, I believe the DPS difference between BM with auto/steady rotation and Survival with auto/steady/steady rotation was bout 100-150.

2.) I am not certain your spreadsheet works correctly to account for the thundering skyfire diamond. When I load my current gear, the difference in the reported dps with and without this metagem equipped is only about 1.5 dps, which seems to be rather low. What I find interesting is that with or without the metagem equipped, the shot rotation tab claims that the 50 shots are fired in the same time period.