Unholy Dps | 3.3.5, King of Anything - Page 81

Valtiel · 11/12/09, 3:32 AM

I've checked that.
I'm still suspicious this is on of those clear cases of theorycraft being an imperfect tool - assuming you don't have Desecration for the entirety of the rotation is unrealistical, because you would have it up until the refresh window, so a comparison between a no Desecration + BB vs a Desecration + BS rotation is sort of irrelevant; we should probably look at a 2 rotations interval, one with BB and Desecreation for the first half and one that refreshes it on the second part sacrificing a Blood Boil.

Theorycrafting AoE dps rotations is very hard because the dps windows are very hard to quantify.
On a single target like a boss it's safe to assume an extremely high number of rotations will be required before the kill, and thus average dps is a consistent theorycrafting tool.
On the other hand, I think it's extremely wrong to assume that the average AoE window even last for 20 seconds, and I'm also confident that in the much more commong instance of very small AoE dps windows squeezing in as many BB as you can will give you the best dps output, as long as you don't end up into a case of "Desecration just expired".

Amroo · 11/12/09, 7:09 AM

When I made the calculations for BS in AoE-sitations on the last page I was aware of the fact that the modelling is far from optimal (not everything taken into account, just one parse, Anub not optimal fight to take numbers from (which begs the question, what is?)), however, the numbers turned out so much in favor of BS that all these things can be ignored.

I was thinking about the AoE-window as well, though. As you've said, it's very hard to calculate a baseline-rotation and for that you pretty much have to assume 20 second windows, else you would have to do it on a case by case basis. Also, if you only have say 10 seconds of AoE you usually have a boss or something to hit after that is done. As the DPS-requirements on the boss are often times stricter than on things that may be AoEd on the way to killing the boss, you don't want to drop the Desolation buff. I guess my point is, even if you have very small AoE-windows, there is usually something going on before and after that recommends keeping Desolation up.

Edit: The fact that we now have Reaping back in spec also causes us to have the second rune set be used for 3xSS. So we will only use BS during the first set of the single target rotation, which very much increases the chance of Desolation dropping off on the start of your AoE-rotation.

Kalitari · 11/12/09, 8:33 AM

Originally Posted by Consider

Undocumented Patch Note (just tested and confirmed on PTR): AotD's cast time is down to 4 seconds.

Currently, AotD does between 80k and 90k damage over its duration. Next patch, that will be 40k to 45k. With a 4 second cast time, you'll have to be doing less than 10k to 11.25k dps for AotD to still be optimal to use even mid-fight on encounters without phase transitions or downtime.

Unfortunately, between ICC gear and the patch changes, we'll probably surpass that number (or come very close). Still, a buff is a buff.

Do notice that the 10k rule only applies when the other option is to do 4 seconds of uninterrupted dps at full capacity. If there is, for example, 1 second window, where you can't do any dps (an example of this would be in ToC the point when Anub'arak comes out from burrow, there is a small, 1-2 second, window where he can not be attacked and you have to wait for tank to pick him up) the "value" of the AotD goes up to 13-15k dps.

Also, comparing AotD against our full DPS isn't really a valid comparison, since unless we've done something terribly wrong beforehand our both diseases and most likely unholy blight would be ticking during the AotD summoning and our ghoul (and maybe even gargoyle if you are aiming for full burst) would still be happily bashing away. The value of the AotD shouldn't be compared against full dps but dps from melee and strikes only.

At this moment my diseases and unholy blight logged a total of 22% of my dps and my ghoul was almost 10%. Even with Unholy Blight and 4*T9 nerfed I'd say the "tipping point" would be closer to 13k than 10k. Even with ICC gear I don't think our dps will go over that anytime soon.

Nathanael · 11/13/09, 2:30 PM

Looking at the stat weights - does the sim not give a value for weapon speed? The reason I ask is because after looking at the Quel'Dalar chain rewards, it seems that if you only base your evaluations on the stat weights in the first post (using the original low value of haste at .9 or whatever), you'd find that the order from best to worst is the 2hand agi mace, 2hand agi sword, and then 2hand str sword.

However, that's not taking into account weapon speed differences, which are actually relatively significant and in reverse order - str sword is 3.6, agi sword is 3.4, and agi mace is 3.2. I know different classes and specs have different value of weaponspeed - some may generally prefer slower but it's really not that important, while others completely depend on it - and was just curious where we lie.

♦ Darkside · 11/13/09, 2:42 PM

Weapon speed is an irrelevant stat for nearly everything except tanking. What matters is weapon DPS and average weapon damage and as a general rule, the weapon with the highest DPS will almost always be better. In the case of a tie, the weapon with the highest average damage wins every time unless there is something horribly, horribly wrong with the stat itemization.

Nathanael · 11/13/09, 3:34 PM

You realize you just contradicted yourself, right? The speed alone is irrelevant, but it is an easy way to measure average weapon damage. All weapons at the same ilvl generally have the same dps, with some minor tenths-place variation. Therefore weapon speed can be used to calculate average damage by multiplying dps x speed, and becomes an easier way of measuring average damage value, especially in terms of stat weights using a resource like the Wowhead database.

The mace and str sword are both 267.2, and the agi sword is 267.4. Simply multiplying dps by speed puts your average damage at 855.04 for the mace, 961.92 for the str sword, and 909.16 for the agi sword.

There has to be some way to put that into a value that can be compared to other stat weights. Is it really so overpowering that a 3.6 weapon will always beat a 3.5 weapon for DKs at the same ilvl? I know that used to be the case for a lot of classes, but then they introduced normalization because they don't want weapons to have one completely overpowering feature. So I was just trying to figure out if we know how significant the difference is or not.

clowningaround · 11/13/09, 4:27 PM

Stat	BP Builds	IUP Builds
Attack Power	1.0	1.0
Weapon Speed	238.10	112.9
Weapon DPS	6.03	6.13
Hit Rating (until cap)	3.05	1.97
Strength	3.05	3.10
Crit Rating w/ 4P T9	2.22	2.00
Haste Rating	2.19	1.29
Expertise Rating	1.65	0.45
Crit rating w/o 4P T9	1.60	1.50
Agility w/ 4P T9	1.50	1.45
Hit Rating (to spell hit cap)	1.40	0.93
Armor Penetration	1.30	1.29
Agility w/o 4P T9	1.05	1.00

as far as i can see there's a weapon speed stat weight for live EP values, just not for PTR ones. I know consider hasn't posted a change to it, but perhaps that's because it didn't change significantly. I haven't looked at PTR EP values recently, so I couldn't speculate. Perhaps he can add them when he gets a chance.

I should clarify. Giving a stat weight to weapon speed allows you to do the same thing as giving a stat weight to average weapon damage. We simply avoid having to do the simple calculations ourselves on every weapon we inspect.

♦ Darkside · 11/13/09, 4:44 PM

Originally Posted by Nathanael

You realize you just contradicted yourself, right? The speed alone is irrelevant, but it is an easy way to measure average weapon damage. All weapons at the same ilvl generally have the same dps, with some minor tenths-place variation. Therefore weapon speed can be used to calculate average damage by multiplying dps x speed, and becomes an easier way of measuring average damage value, especially in terms of stat weights using a resource like the Wowhead database.

The mace and str sword are both 267.2, and the agi sword is 267.4. Simply multiplying dps by speed puts your average damage at 855.04 for the mace, 961.92 for the str sword, and 909.16 for the agi sword.

There has to be some way to put that into a value that can be compared to other stat weights. Is it really so overpowering that a 3.6 weapon will always beat a 3.5 weapon for DKs at the same ilvl? I know that used to be the case for a lot of classes, but then they introduced normalization because they don't want weapons to have one completely overpowering feature. So I was just trying to figure out if we know how significant the difference is or not.

The problem with using weapon speed to weight items is that it is a dummy stat with no intrinsic raw value. By that I mean that since weapon speed is no more than a ratio of two other stats, it can only be used to make a valid comparison for items of the same ilvl. You cannot create stat weights for it because of this.

A simple examination of the meaning behind stat weighting reveals why this is true: Stat weights tell us how much we are required to increase one stat to get a similar gain from a different stat. These are normally normalized to attack power i.e. in the current table of weights we see that we need to use 3.1 AP in order to get the same damage increase we would see from 1 point of strength. You cannot do the same with weapon speed. A gain of 1 weapon speed does not correlate to any increase in damage and therefore can have no equivalent in attack power. How could it? Weapon speed by itself is meaningless.

Nathanael · 11/13/09, 6:00 PM

If that's the case, then weapon dps shouldn't really be used in stat weights either, because its weight is heavily reliant on weapon speed. Sure, it contributes at a flat rate to melee attacks. But its contribution to strikes will vary on weapon speed, which especially in 3.3 will contribute to a great part of our dps.

For example, a 200 dps weapon with 2.0 speed (ignoring normalization) will be doing less strike damage than a 150 dps weapon with 4.0 speed even though the 200 dps weapon would be doing more melee damage. But if they were both 4.0 speed, the 200 dps weapon would do more strike damage and melee damage.

So you can't really say weapon dps contributes in a predictable fashion like strength or AP, either. You have to calculate in weapon speed.

At least for enhancement shamans, this difference is huge. It's my understanding (admittedly I'm not super familiar with the class) that for enh shammies, a 2.6 speed Naxx weapon is better than a 1.5 TOC weapon, regardless of stats.

So if what you say is true, then at least for the purposes of using a spreadsheet or other tool to calculate BIS weapons, the stat weights alone are useless I guess. We need to be able to know how much of a difference speed makes when the weapons are all the same ilvl - could stats ever be enough to overcome? And is there a point where the speed difference is enough for a weapon to not be an upgrade (like say going from a 3.5 ilvl 232 weapon to a 3.2 ilvl 245)?

It'd be nice to know what the breaking point for unholy DKs is - I'm tempted to say weapon speed matters more the higher ilvl you go, but I don't know enough of the formulae to calculate it out myself.

♦ Darkside · 11/13/09, 6:53 PM

Originally Posted by Nathanael

If that's the case, then weapon dps shouldn't really be used in stat weights either, because its weight is heavily reliant on weapon speed. Sure, it contributes at a flat rate to melee attacks. But its contribution to strikes will vary on weapon speed, which especially in 3.3 will contribute to a great part of our dps.

For example, a 200 dps weapon with 2.0 speed (ignoring normalization) will be doing less strike damage than a 150 dps weapon with 4.0 speed even though the 200 dps weapon would be doing more melee damage. But if they were both 4.0 speed, the 200 dps weapon would do more strike damage and melee damage.

So you can't really say weapon dps contributes in a predictable fashion like strength or AP, either. You have to calculate in weapon speed.

At least for enhancement shamans, this difference is huge. It's my understanding (admittedly I'm not super familiar with the class) that for enh shammies, a 2.6 speed Naxx weapon is better than a 1.5 TOC weapon, regardless of stats.

So if what you say is true, then at least for the purposes of using a spreadsheet or other tool to calculate BIS weapons, the stat weights alone are useless I guess. We need to be able to know how much of a difference speed makes when the weapons are all the same ilvl - could stats ever be enough to overcome? And is there a point where the speed difference is enough for a weapon to not be an upgrade (like say going from a 3.5 ilvl 232 weapon to a 3.2 ilvl 245)?

It'd be nice to know what the breaking point for unholy DKs is - I'm tempted to say weapon speed matters more the higher ilvl you go, but I don't know enough of the formulae to calculate it out myself.

Weapon DPS absolutely contributes in a predictable fashion. A 10 DPS upgrade on a weapon will, suprise, give you 10 more white DPS. This is always true. It is true that it won't contribute to strike damage in a consistent manner, but noone is asserting that it will. This is why you need both DPS and average damage numbers in order to determine the worth of a weapon.

Additionally, Enhancement shaman value 2.6 speed weapons so high because of the scaling properties of their flametongue enchant. The damage they do with flametongue weapon is directly proportional to the speed of the weapon, regardless of itemlevel or overall damage. Death Knights do not have an analogue for this behavior.

Finally, you missed the entire point of my discussion. Weapon speed CANNOT be used in stat weights, the reasons for which I have already given. It is a fairly simple affair to calculate stat weights for weapon speed and DPS and use these values in conjunction with the stats on a weapon to determine which weapon is the best of the choices available to you.

Larisroth · 11/13/09, 7:06 PM

I think it's a bit premature to say that the glyph of disease is only useful for single target fights which are long.

The following are damage breakdowns for a glyph of disease based rotation versus a glyph of the ghoul based rotation. They're 1 000 000 second runs resetting every 3 minutes, with an initial rotation to get up procs and diseases, but then no further disease optimisation. This means that the GoD rotation doesn't necessarily always maximise diseases but the sim doesn't have to worry about the use of the blood runes. I used the new 2H Toc unholy set, many 180s fights and turned off wait for procs for Gargoyle, but otherwise it was the defaults.

Firstly the GoD run, at 9884 dps

Ability	Total	%	Landed	Hit%	Crit%	Miss%	Average
ScourgeStrikeMagical	1961020407	19.8	250000	51.2	48.8	0	7844.1
MainHand	1774548660	18	394445	66.3	33.7	0	4498.8
ScourgeStrike	1148703179	11.6	250000	51	49	0	4594.8
Ghoul	944687391	9.6	950003	87	13	0	994.4
DeathCoil	890021618	9	144442	65.1	34.9	0	6161.8
BloodPlague	805663808	8.2	327777	66.1	33.9	0	2458
FrostFever	634943805	6.4	322221	100	0	0	1970.5
Gargoyle	582643592	5.9	122232	87.2	12.8	0	4766.7
WanderingPlague	487340564	4.9	219779	100	0	0	2217.4
BloodCakedBlade	295736558	3	118642	100	0	0	2492.7
BloodStrike	194112791	2	55556	57.3	42.7	0	3494
UnholyBlight	88980385	0.9	144442	100	0	0	616
PlagueStrike	42627697	0.4	11112	60	40	0	3836.2
IcyTouch	32853897	0.3	11112	65.1	34.9	0	2956.6
Horn	0	0	33334	100	0	0	0
Pestilence	0	0	44444	100	0	0	0

Secondly the GotG run at 9703 dps

Ability	Total	%	Landed	Hit%	Crit%	Miss%	Average
MainHand	1772988683	18.3	394445	66.3	33.7	0	4494.9
ScourgeStrikeMagical	1608996399	16.6	205556	51.1	48.9	0	7827.5
Ghoul	1099580268	11.3	950003	87	13	0	1157.4
ScourgeStrike	941975171	9.7	205556	51	49	0	4582.6
DeathCoil	887386086	9.1	144442	65.1	34.9	0	6143.5
BloodPlague	660044817	6.8	294444	66.1	33.9	0	2241.7
Gargoyle	583495678	6	122232	87	13	0	4773.7
FrostFever	581315920	6	294444	100	0	0	1974.3
WanderingPlague	420051765	4.3	199211	100	0	0	2108.6
BloodStrike	362671066	3.7	100000	57	43	0	3626.7
BloodCakedBlade	295449938	3	118642	100	0	0	2490.3
PlagueStrike	228619027	2.4	55556	59.9	40.1	0	4115.1
IcyTouch	171845066	1.8	55556	65.1	34.9	0	3093.2
UnholyBlight	88713223	0.9	144442	100	0	0	614.2
Horn	0	0	33334	100	0	0	0

For some reason with these short runs I don't get an extra DC in the GotG run.

Nathanael · 11/13/09, 9:08 PM

Originally Posted by Darkside

Weapon DPS absolutely contributes in a predictable fashion. A 10 DPS upgrade on a weapon will, suprise, give you 10 more white DPS. This is always true. It is true that it won't contribute to strike damage in a consistent manner, but noone is asserting that it will. This is why you need both DPS and average damage numbers in order to determine the worth of a weapon.

But if it is contributing to strike damage in an inconsistent manner, you can't determine it's value to overall damage. We care about white dps and yellow dps, not just white. Predictable variable X (rate of white increases) + unpredictable variable Y (rate of yellow increases/decreases) absolutely does not produce a predictable variable Z (rate of overall increase.

Finally, you missed the entire point of my discussion. Weapon speed CANNOT be used in stat weights, the reasons for which I have already given

.

My point then is that DPS of a weapon can't be used in stat weights then, either. Which means that:

It is a fairly simple affair to calculate stat weights for weapon speed and DPS and use these values in conjunction with the stats on a weapon to determine which weapon is the best of the choices available to you.

I would like to see your alternative, fairly simple method of calculating weapon choice, so I can easily pick out whether (Edit: bah, they're not on normal wowhead yet. These two handers) is better. Just using the 3.3 stat weights, the Spire is better than the Quel'Dalar, Might of the Faithful, but again, that's not taking into account the fact that Spire is 3.2 and Might is 3.6 in any fashion whatsoever.

Consider · 11/13/09, 10:35 PM

That's interesting and all Larisroth, except:

Dot ticks drastically drop in damage after the refresh.

Simple dummy test done (SS/BSed to get a couple procs. Applied diseases. Waited on procs to expire. Refreshed via Pest/GoD), but unless I am reading it incorrectly or did something wrong, such a log (which is easily reproducable) leads to the conclusion that either 1) GoD no longer rolls AP values or 2) disease ticks recalculate AP value per tick, regardless of application. Judging by the FF tick before and after Greatness expired, I am fairly sure it's the first.

Either way, it makes your post inaccurate - although not necessarily wrong.

Fargom · 11/13/09, 11:01 PM

A few moments of testing confirms your findings Consider, I removed all gear except a basic weapon (no runeforge) and a greatness card. I waited for a proc, applied both diseases and then refreshed once greatness was down. Every time without fail the diseases used my current AP when I refreshed. It would appear that the functionality of GoD has changed.

Larisroth · 11/13/09, 11:12 PM

Wow that's big news. It's actually good news in a way. Sure it's a nerf to your potential disease damage, but it makes it much easier to use. While we aren't gcd constrained anymore, running the GoD rotation optimally is actually quite difficult, and having to figure out whether its worth reapplying your diseases is rather difficult in practice (other than when you have all procs up).

Before I used the latest version of the simulator it didn't reset trinkets between runs and so there were some parses where the average disease tick was pretty much the same for both glyphs and the dps was still competitive (at least with either the 4t9 or 2t10 set bonuses).

Using the numbers in my last post we can theoretically compare the dps (after a short start up phase.)

Edit: Sorry, didn't post these the first time around Consider, and then I left this in edit while trying to calculate a proc uptime.

Okay looking firstly at the ghoul dps numbers for both specs
The ghoul glyph is is worth 1099.6 - 944.7 = 154.9 dps
Gaining a SS (and using a Pest) in place of an IT, PS and BS and 1/8th DC is actually only about 730 extra damage, and we get to do this once every 20 seconds so its only 36.5 dps.
The main advantage is actually with the extra disease ticks, we get two extra ticks of each disease every minutes and about a third of the disease ticks proc wandering plague. So that's about 9838 extra damage a minute, or 164.0 dps
so your talking about 200.5 dps for the glyph of disease.

That's assuming you actually can use all the extra RP which isn't always the case.

So yeah in theory with 4 piece t9 the GoD will win on most fights. Although there will be slightly lower uptimes on some procs. The 2 piece t9 is probably the worst, but I can actually model that and it comes out as 17.3% uptime for a 2 BS cycle (assuming they're applied back to back), versus 15% for a one BS cycle due to the 45 second internal cooldown.

Without 4 piece t9 it'd be much closer.

Edit 2: Okay with 4 piece t9 the disease damage drops down to about 140.7 dps. Still the disease glyph wins out, and it gets a slight extra boost when you get 2 piece t10.
Anyway here's a nice table

Approximate DPS boosts

Glyph	DPS
Ghoul	155
Disease	177
Dis+4T9	200
Dis+2T10	181