WotLK Discussion - Talents and abilities. - Page 108

Lanlaorn · 10/09/08, 7:09 PM

Even if they did add some sort of grace period mechanic in an attempt to counter lag effects, 2.5 seconds would be insane. No one plays the game with 2500 ms latency.

I'm actaully fairly shocked that this is still unknown at this point, all my precious math depends on it

I wonder why Ghostcrawler hasn't responded directly about this issue?

Tafsis · 10/09/08, 7:17 PM

With all the DRW vs Gargoyle discussions going on, I thought of a slightly unorthodox build, with the intent of boosting DRW damage as much as possible by extending its duration by six seconds.

With a 26-second DRW, you should be able to cram in one and a half rotation pretty much on the second if you pop it right before going into a PS->IT->4xHS streak, and not dumping any RP into DC until after DRW runs out.

My gut feeling tells me that trading the unholy points to go deeper into frost isn't really worth it, but the EU server is down, so I don't have any possibility of trying it out at the moment, and it's a bit late for me to start crunching numbers.

Mizrahi · 10/09/08, 7:18 PM

Originally Posted by Janraea

Adding a grace period has no effect on maximum dps, since we're still gcd-bound. Server-side queueing is the only solution that would really work for us.

I'll re-explain, as my first explanation may have come out sideways:

Theory: If a rune is active, a timer starts that counts to a max of 2.5 seconds. This time is then subtracted from the next cooldown.

Example 1: A zero latency, zero reaction time player

T = 0 Rune is used and begins 10 sec cooldown
T = 10 Rune is available
T = 10 Rune is used ( 0 seconds of rune sitting in active state )
T = 20 Rune is availabe ( 10 seconds of CD have passed )

Thus in the span of 20 seconds, we have exactly 2 rune uses

Example 2: A 2 second Latency+reaction time player

T=0 Rune is used and begins 10 sec cooldown
T=10 Rune is available
T=12 Rune is used ( 2 seconds of rune sitting in active state )
T=20 Rune is availabe ( 8 seconds of CD have passed )

Same result, 2 rune uses within 20 seconds, however, there is a grace period

Again, this is just the theory, but IF it were true, then it DOES allow for GCD grace periods that will not affect DPS

Mizrahi · 10/09/08, 7:38 PM

Originally Posted by Lanlaorn

Even if they did add some sort of grace period mechanic in an attempt to counter lag effects, 2.5 seconds would be insane. No one plays the game with 2500 ms latency.

Well, 2.5 seconds may not be unreasonable.

DKs are a button mashing class, thus the GCD is likely to be up very often.

Perhaps they factor a typical worst case scenario of a GCD being just activated when the runes come off cd. So thats 1.5 seconds right there ( assuming no unholy presence ). The remaining 1 second is certainly a reasonable "buffer" responsible for soaking latency + typical .3"ish human reaction time. That would mean you could play with up to 700ms without truly suffering a dps loss.

Overall, I think some serious GCD/Rune CD testing is in order. Also I think its very important to consider that Unholy Presence may have an impact on the "grace period" we are theorizing. IF it did, it could knock .5 secs off the grace period and thus result in alot more 8 second rune cds.

Testing may get tricky as you cannot just spam a single ability because it will use the next available rune. Additionally, its possible that the "grace period" is shared between runes, and therefore only visible during rotations where all runes are on cd at most all the time. That could explain how if you just test 1 ability at a time, you would not see the effect.

Edit: Lanlaorn, should this theory of grace period hold true, it would have no affect on any theoretical calculations, as the 10 sec rune cooldown is preserved.

elemund · 10/09/08, 7:46 PM

Originally Posted by Leaflock

I don't buy this. You can verify the 8 second cooldown by using a single ability over and over, without pausing. It will always be 8 seconds after the first. You can also back away from the target, wait, and as long as you don't exit combat, it will still be 8 seconds. If the cooldown really varied as much as you say, it would completely mess up rotations.

I'm seeing ten seconds for back-to-back abilities. Well, between 9.5 and 9.8, depending on how sloppy I am with the buttons.

If you back away and wait, it's 7.5 seconds, which rounds up to 8. As far as I could tell it's the same in Unholy Presence.

I noticed the same thing as Tinweasele--if you IT/PS then SS those runes when they're back, the frost will come back sooner--which is what led me to hack more precise counters into runehero. I've uploaded my klugey version here if anyone wants to test things.

It also looks like missed runes still have a 2s cooldown. I'm not sure how it interacts with the grace period, though if you miss a SS and SS again immediately the runes will still be staggered.

Originally Posted by Lanlaorn

Even if they did add some sort of grace period mechanic in an attempt to counter lag effects, 2.5 seconds would be insane. No one plays the game with 2500 ms latency.

Another effect is that it lets you alternate one-rune and two-rune abilities without making your cycle bigger.

Mizrahi · 10/09/08, 7:56 PM

CD Testing:

Spam Bloodstrike against a low level dummy ( to minimize dodge/miss). I mean really spam, to minimize "rune active but unused" time.

If you do this for 20 minutes.

Then,

Total Time / (# bloodstrike hits / 2) = Rune CD

At least with some reasonable accuracy, as you are building at least the first 1.5 sec GCD in as error, and if there are any misses/dodges where the cd resets faster, those will have to be accounted for.

8sec vs 10sec is a very serious difference and the results should be quite obvious without doing more than even a hundred attacks.

Zurai · 10/09/08, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by Mizrahi

CD Testing:

I would test this, but all the beta/test servers are offline at the moment.

I'm still curious to know whether this is intended or not. Not a peep out of the blues since I posted the bug thread.

Caggy · 10/09/08, 8:42 PM

Originally Posted by Tafsis

With all the DRW vs Gargoyle discussions going on, I thought of a slightly unorthodox build, with the intent of boosting DRW damage as much as possible by extending its duration by six seconds.

With a 26-second DRW, you should be able to cram in one and a half rotation pretty much on the second if you pop it right before going into a PS->IT->4xHS streak, and not dumping any RP into DC until after DRW runs out.

My gut feeling tells me that trading the unholy points to go deeper into frost isn't really worth it, but the EU server is down, so I don't have any possibility of trying it out at the moment, and it's a bit late for me to start crunching numbers.

I find epidemic incredibly useful just because of some of the random affairs that can happen with melee dps and range issues. This build would have been more viable in the 1 min CD stage at the beginning, but now it does force you to worry more about your normal rotation rather than cooldown spamming.

I guess not dumping RP while there's runes avaliable with DRW up is more effective than spamming DC, heck its a good time to use empower rune weapon. But then if there is such a window, no harm in doing so.

Zaroua · 10/09/08, 8:49 PM

Originally Posted by Tinweasele

After my previous posts on Frost rotations and specs i was doing some investigating into the value of runic power mastery chill of the grave and general priorities.

From my own experience and testing in order of priority while using an oblit glyph,plague glyph

in terms of damage per GCD(deathcoil not included because of same opportunity cost as frost strike at lower damage)

1. initial IT(bonus damage to all abilities and howling blast included)
2. initial PS(bonus damage to oblit and bs included)
3. Howling blast + killing machine OR Howling blast + deathchill
4. Obliterate
5. FS + killing machine
6. Howling blast
7. FS
8. BS
9. IT
10. PS

from which we can derive the following rules(sorry for the obvious)
1. IT and PS must be used every rotation to keep frost fever and blood plague rolling
2. Howling blast can only take the place of Oblit or frost strike(with freezing fog)
3. Howling blast should only be used with runes in replacement of Oblit if killing machine is up otherwise its a damage loss
4. If Freezing fog is up, Howling blast should always replace a Frost strike, because both conditions of using Howling blast are better than their Frost strike counterparts ex. KM+HB > KM+FS && HB>FS
5. If Freezing fog and KM is up and FU is available, use Oblit and wait to use HB during an FS GCD.
6. Obliterate is the highest damage per GCD of any other ability not requiring procs so the general idea of a rotation should be to execute as many Obliterates as possible.
7. Because of #6 2 x BS should be used in preference of FS and HB even with KM because of the long term effects on DPS.(not to mention screwy rotations)

using these rules i came up with my rotation.
IT->PS->OB->BS->BS->FS->OB->IT->PS->OB->FS->OB->FS->FS
where FS = FS unless freezing fog is procced
and OB = OB unless KM is procced, HB isnt on cooldown, and freezing fog is not procced

WHEW!!! OK with that out of the way, we approach the original problem which is, what is the value of runic master, and chill of the grave in terms of this rotation.

runic mastery:

The problem with runic mastery is that in any given rotation your RP can be expressed as the NET runic gain/use over the course of a single rotation. which is to say, that based upon your rotation you will ALWAYS either approach infinite, negative infinite or 0 runic power, With the ideal being that you always use exactly the amount of RP you gain, or approach 0. This is done either in 1 of 2 ways, either you bake in your gain and loss within a single rotation, OR you swap between an infinite gain and an infinite loss rotation. With no significant (read DRW or gargoyle) RP dump frost must rely on the first option. Which means that your max runic power never needs to be greater than the total amount of RP you use in a row. In the case of my rotation above that number is 80, so with my rotation i will never need a single point in runic mastery.

Chill of the grave stuff that I edited out.

/edit Oh forgot, this is i believe the optimal spec for this rotation.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Some things I disagree with.

First one is Howling Blast's damage: a HB crit will hit a tiny bit harder than Oblit crit (assuming Oblit glyph) without armor debuffs and without any ArP, but with HB's partial resists and a higher chance to miss, it puts Obliterate crits ahead. HB crits harder than FS crits (my testing showed me at 7.5k HB crits on the target dummy and 6k FS crits) but also will miss a LOT more than FS ever will - in the end you're a lot less likely to waste a KM proc on FS than you would be on HB.

For non-crits, Howling Blast falls far behind both FS and Oblit - both the melee abilities will land a lot more often than HB and they both have a far higher crit chance. HB only benefits from crit rating and crit chance buffs/debuffs, while FS and Oblit benefit from Agility, crit rating, crit chance buffs/debuffs and Annihilation. On top of that, Oblit gets a whooping 29% chance to crit with 2pc T7, Rime and Subversion.

So while your list is accurate without buffs/debuffs, it's only for raw damage and not overall DPS.

Overall DPS for single targets, it'd look like this:

1 - initial IT
2 - initial PS
3 - Oblit
4 - FS
5 - HB with Rime procs
6 - BS

So not only does it give you a nice priority list, it basically gives you your rotation: since you'll never HB with your FU runes, it means you'll always use PS > IT > Oblit for your FU runes(PS > IT because of Glacier Rot and Tundra Stalker), you'll always use Oblit for your Death Runes and you'll always use Oblit for double Death Runes.

The other thing I disagree on is spec and Runic Power Mastery: what you wrote only applies to Patchwerk type fights. Any time a fight forces you to stop your rotation before you use FS, you have additional RP that can't be used. RPM basically means that RP isn't always wasted. It also means that if your rotation screws up because of resists or hits not landing, you can save up the RP and reset your rotation by doing FS * 3 instead of blowing Empowered Rune Weapon (or you can do it while ERW is on cooldown, obviously). The other problem I see with your spec is when it comes to dealing AoE damage - you lose out on a lot of AoE DPS potential by skipping Epidemic in favor of extra points in Frost and Bladed Armor. Keep in mind that with Epidemic, you also save a GCD by using an extra Obliterate instead of PS > IT, meaning more leeway on movement heavy fights, on top of a lot more AoE damage.

And Chill of the Grave/Runic Power Mastery are very good when you're forced out of range of a mob/boss for any reason - it lets you build up RP and if needed, use Death Coils when you'd otherwise by out of RP.

Mild Confusion · 10/09/08, 9:55 PM

Ah, but can HB miss when it is a crit? As long as deathchill or killing machine are up, there should be no way for HB to miss.

Even if RPM helped with excess RP, no more than 2 points would be needed, up to 120 RP for 3 frost strikes or death coils. But I still cannot see myself using it. Like you said, even on mobile fights, using death coil when out of range should still be plenty to keep you below 100 RP.

As for his spec, I personally would remove the 4 points in toughness and place 2 in frost aura and 2 in acclimation. Getting hit by a physical attack should rarely happen while a little extra raid utility and survivability from aoe/dots is nice.

Ginn · 10/09/08, 10:32 PM

Did some testing on boss target dummy.
Real dps is a bit higher than shown, about 150 higher, Recount lowered it due to still counting as in combat because of dot ticking while I am no longer hitting target.

Stats:
AP - 2561
Hit - 7.20%
Crit - 21.67%
Expertise - 8 (-2% dodge, -2% parry)

Each try took around 2 minutes.
Used rotation:
BS / BS / SS / SS / DC / PS / IT / SS / SS / UB

1) 17/0/54
With Wandering Plague, without Gargoyle
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
ImageShack - Hosting :: wanderingtrueuw4.jpg

DPS - 1717.8

2) 17/3/51
Improved icy Touch instead of Wandering Plague, without Gargoyle
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
ImageShack - Hosting :: icytouchtruedl0.jpg

DPS - 1749.0

3) 17/3/51
Improved Icy Touch, Gargoyle
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
ImageShack - Hosting :: gargtruemb0.jpg

DPS - 1653.4

Will do some more tries tomorrow to minimalize RNG as much as possible, too sleepy now.
Can check other build as well, those are in my humble opinion candidates for top dps cookie-cutter spec.

Zurai · 10/09/08, 11:11 PM

Originally Posted by Mild Confusion

Ah, but can HB miss when it is a crit?

Yes.

Lanlaorn · 10/09/08, 11:16 PM

Ah, but can HB miss when it is a crit? As long as deathchill or killing machine are up, there should be no way for HB to miss.

I don't know about Deathchill (or other Cold Blood-esque effects) but a Rogue can definitely miss/be dodged/be parried while under the effects of Remorseless Attacks, even when you're over 100% crit rate with the buff (easy to test with a dagger rogue alt with no hit gear). I imagine its +40% crit rate and Killing Machine's +50% are the same mechanic.

I strongly suspect even Deathchill doesn't work that way, I imagine the people to ask would be Ele Shaman who might remember resists (i.e. misses) with EM up.

Janraea · 10/09/08, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by Mizrahi

I'll re-explain, as my first explanation may have come out sideways:

Theory: If a rune is active, a timer starts that counts to a max of 2.5 seconds. This time is then subtracted from the next cooldown.

Example 1: A zero latency, zero reaction time player

T = 0 Rune is used and begins 10 sec cooldown
T = 10 Rune is available
T = 10 Rune is used ( 0 seconds of rune sitting in active state )
T = 20 Rune is availabe ( 10 seconds of CD have passed )

Thus in the span of 20 seconds, we have exactly 2 rune uses

Example 2: A 2 second Latency+reaction time player

T=0 Rune is used and begins 10 sec cooldown
T=10 Rune is available
T=12 Rune is used ( 2 seconds of rune sitting in active state )
T=20 Rune is availabe ( 8 seconds of CD have passed )

Same result, 2 rune uses within 20 seconds, however, there is a grace period

Again, this is just the theory, but IF it were true, then it DOES allow for GCD grace periods that will not affect DPS

I understood your explanation, I just don't think you understand the nature of DK dps. We don't have free gcds. It doesn't matter how fast your runes recover, you won't be able to use them faster than 1 ability per (gcd+latency) unit of time. If our runes didn't even deactivate, we wouldn't get extra hits in (bigger ones, since we'd spam oblit the whole time, but no extra ones).

In the specific (if unrealistic) case you present, of 2 second latency + reaction time, having a grace period wouldn't really matter - we'd still only be hitting one strike per 3.5 seconds. It would help in the sense that more of our strikes would be the good kind (we'd still be able to hit 2 oblits per 10s, for example), but our dps would be in the crapper anyway.

On the other hand, what having a grace period *would* do for us is allow more flexible rotations - you could change the order of your strikes somewhat while dpsing, instead of being stuck with a fairly fixed order, since the runes you used in a particular order are going to come up in the same order next time.

Janraea · 10/09/08, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by Lanlaorn

I don't know about Deathchill (or other Cold Blood-esque effects) but a Rogue can definitely miss/be dodged/be parried while under the effects of Remorseless Attacks, even when you're over 100% crit rate with the buff (easy to test with a dagger rogue alt with no hit gear). I imagine its +40% crit rate and Killing Machine's +50% are the same mechanic.

I strongly suspect even Deathchill doesn't work that way, I imagine the people to ask would be Ele Shaman who might remember resists (i.e. misses) with EM up.

Aren't player vs mob attacks on a two-roll system?

tzenes · 10/09/08, 11:28 PM

There was a minor bug in the last spread sheet which prevented people from using the paper doll.

That has been fixed: RapidShare: Easy Filehosting

Aedon · 10/10/08, 12:24 AM

Originally Posted by clairecakes

I noticed that blue post myself and was toying around with trying a new spec. Yet I've got a question about your spec. Why all the buffs to Icy Touch just to get Annihilation? I mean Annihilation is a fantastic talent, to be sure, but it seems like perhaps your points would be better spent in Toughness then Glacier Rot and Imp Icy Touch. And Black Ice is significantly less appealing now that it only effects Frost damage (despite what the tooltip says).

Seems like this would be better from a dps stand point. This spec directly buffs more of your damage and I'd think Necrosis, Blood-Caked Blade and Shadow Of Death more then make up for the epic journey you have to take to reach Annihilation.

Well this was my build before the change to black ice, but I do not need toughness for PvE DPS, My spec is mostly for DPS purposes only, I would probably respec Unholy for AoE tank, or Frost for Single target tank and those of course require different builds.

I have seen multiple post about Obliterate. I think its an amazing WS and can usually get 2 off without it removing any of my diseases in my rotation.(Reason for Annihilation)

Your points are valid about Necrosis,Blood-caked Blade and SoD Its something I will have to run test on. The problem with testing as a lot of DKs will tell you is that when you start out your in PvP gear hitting a training dummy.

So I have a few test to do with the spec you link and I will let you know how it turns out.

Aedon · 10/10/08, 12:26 AM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

DRW may add 200 dps, but what about Unholy's 21 pointer? That adds nearly the same dps (about 150) on my tests, and it doesn't parry haste my target.

You didn't read my post clearly. If you use DRW behind the target it doesn't Parry haste the target. The reason my post states you wouldn't use it if you were tanking. You would go gargoyle. If you plan on tanking a lot then its not the spec for you.

Mild Confusion · 10/10/08, 12:33 AM

Originally Posted by Zurai

Yes.

Has this been tested?

Not that I'm doubting you, but the wording on the talents seems different than other talent.

From talents that state a percent increase on crit chance, I understand that the roll system would prevent it from critting, but KM and deathchill give a diffinitive statement that the next ability WILL crit. So I presume that it forgoes the normal roll system and crits no matter what.

I never bothered to check to see if it works like that or not and never noticed a miss when using KM or deathchill either. It may just have a 100% crit chance and still have the miss chance involved.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

• frmorrison · 10/10/08, 12:39 AM

Originally Posted by Mild Confusion

Has this been tested?

Not that I'm doubting you, but the wording on the talents seems different than other talent.

From talents that state a percent increase on crit chance, I understand that the roll system would prevent it from critting, but KM and deathchill give a diffinitive statement that the next ability WILL crit. So I presume that it forgoes the normal roll system and crits no matter what.

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Ask any theorycraft Rogue if Cold Blood can miss. 100% chance to crit does not push hits off the combat table, only more hit rating or debuff that increase hit rating can do that.

It would be nice to always get a crit, but that is not going to happen. Death Chill is still a nice talent, I macro it with Obil.

Zurai · 10/10/08, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by Mild Confusion

Has this been tested?
---
Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Yes. I tested it myself. Howling Blasts, Icy Touches, and Frost Strikes affected by Killing Machine can miss. So can HB, IT, FS, or Obliterates affected by Deathchill. It works exactly the same as every other "guaranteed crit" ability in the game.

Mild Confusion · 10/10/08, 12:52 AM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Ask any theorycraft Rogue if Cold Blood can miss. 100% chance to crit does not push hits off the combat table, only more hit rating or debuff that increase hit rating can do that.

It would be nice to always get a crit, but that is not going to happen. Death Chill is still a nice talent, I macro it with Obil.

I agree on cold blood because of how it is stated, it gives a 100% crit chance. On the 2 roll system, it must pass through miss, dodge, parry, block before it can crit.

But my point is that deathchill does not state that you gain a 100% crit chance, it says it will crit. That makes me think that it ignores the roll system and makes the ability crit.

It may be the same mechanic between the 2 talents, but the wording is different enough for me to question it. Which is why I am curious if anyone has ever seen a deathchill or killing machine proc miss.

Edit: Ok, I was just curious, thanks

clairecakes · 10/10/08, 3:00 AM

Originally Posted by Aedon

Well this was my build before the change to black ice, but I do not need toughness for PvE DPS, My spec is mostly for DPS purposes only, I would probably respec Unholy for AoE tank, or Frost for Single target tank and those of course require different builds.

I have seen multiple post about Obliterate. I think its an amazing WS and can usually get 2 off without it removing any of my diseases in my rotation.(Reason for Annihilation)

Your points are valid about Necrosis,Blood-caked Blade and SoD Its something I will have to run test on. The problem with testing as a lot of DKs will tell you is that when you start out your in PvP gear hitting a training dummy.

So I have a few test to do with the spec you link and I will let you know how it turns out.

No no I'm right there with ya. Though the nice thing about testing in that pvp gear is when we all post our omgamazing numbers the gear factor is removed leaving us to better analyze specs and rotations.

As for Obliterate...You're gonna blow four runes for 2 strikes in a row? Then how do you expect to get BP and FF back up? Usually a dps Blood spec goes IT>PS>HSx2>OB>IT>PS>HSx4>IT>PS>HSx4 with Death Coils throw in when Death Trance procs or your Blood Rune is on cooldown.

clairecakes · 10/10/08, 3:47 AM

With all the changes currently flying around and one of my raid leaders informing me I might be called on to tank as a DK (oh noes!) I've started paying attention to the Frost and Unholy trees again. Specifically looking at main tanking specs. I'll front porch the spec below with this disclaimer: All my effort has been in really perfecting my play style as a blood spec'd dps DK. I've still got a long way to go before I ever tank.

That being said how does this look for a main tank spec? I mean from my standpoint it seems to allow for excellent mitigation, ample rune uptime, good rune power regen and healthy aggro. Are the points people have been putting into Unholy (Anticipation,Epidemic) really that much better?

mrlenxa · 10/10/08, 3:56 AM

I would be interested to know what gems are going to be best in slot. This would be for both tanking as well as dps.

So for DPS...

Red = Bold (R) (+Str)
Yellow = Etched (O) (+Str/+Hit)
Blue = Sovereign (P) (+Str/+Stam)

There are also some nice +Exp/+Hit and +Str/+Crit Orange gems as well.

I've never played a tank before so I don't really have any idea for tanking gems.