[BETA] Balance Discussion - Page 2

Cdin · 11/15/10, 10:41 AM

A couple of things:

1. I did some preliminary calcs using Hamlets lvl 80 spreadsheet. At our current ICC gear levels Chaotic is still a clear winner, but obviously our current gear levels aren't representative of what we will see in T11 gear. I tried down grading it to the type of gear we had in T7. And the chaotic still came out ahead, but not as dramatically.

The key to remember here is scaling. The Chaotic Diamond scales much better as our gear improves, but the penalty for the Chaotic gets bigger as well. In my ICC gear I have 18 gem sockets. A hypothetical T11 gear set I came up with had 12. Plus at T11 we will be using superior quality gems instead of epic gems.

Right now I'm confident that the Chaotic will still be the gem of choice, but I would like to look at it using a level 85 model, and with 85 gear. Hamlet, do you have a level 85 spreadsheet around here still? If so, could you point it out? I'm having a hard time finding it.

2. One of my big worries with this new meta requirement was that it would complicate gemming dramatically, but i don't think it's as bad as I originally thought. Gemming will actually be pretty simple.

Belt Buckle Prismatic: Sparkling or Rigid Blue or Lightning Green
Other Prismatic: Purified/Veiled
Red: Purified/Veiled
Blue: Purified/Veiled
Yellow: Quick, or what ever secondary stat is favored at the moment

If you put one blue or green gem in a prismatic socket, then put all purples in red, blue and other prismatic sockets and all yellows in the yellow sockets then you fit the meta requirement easily, and maximize your gem stats.

Roywyn · 11/15/10, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by Cdin

1. I did some preliminary calcs using Hamlets lvl 80 spreadsheet. At our current ICC gear levels Chaotic is still a clear winner, but obviously our current gear levels aren't representative of what we will see in T11 gear. I tried down grading it to the type of gear we had in T7. And the chaotic still came out ahead, but not as dramatically.

The key to remember here is scaling. The Chaotic Diamond scales much better as our gear improves, but the penalty for the Chaotic gets bigger as well. In my ICC gear I have 18 gem sockets. A hypothetical T11 gear set I came up with had 12. Plus at T11 we will be using superior quality gems instead of epic gems.

Right now I'm confident that the Chaotic will still be the gem of choice, but I would like to look at it using a level 85 model, and with 85 gear. Hamlet, do you have a level 85 spreadsheet around here still? If so, could you point it out? I'm having a hard time finding it.

2. [...] If you put one blue or green gem in a prismatic socket, then put all purples in red, blue and other prismatic sockets and all yellows in the yellow sockets then you fit the meta requirement easily, and maximize your gem stats.

That's actually not the best way to deal with yellow sockets, assuming you are near hit cap (some spirit pieces and mass reforging should get you close) and intellect is better than crit/haste/mastery. The best way is placing a green gem into a yellow socket while placing a red gem into a red socket. This would give you 40 int + 40 rating from two yellow + red sockets, while your method would use a yellow + purple gem for 20 int + 60 rating. Since this method required a red socket for each yellow socket, it may get complicated when having 2 more yellow than red+prismatic combined (the initial green gem may also go to a yellow socket). If you have at least 2 more yellow than red+prismatic, use the above method and fill up the best sockets bonuses first. You'll have only yellow and blue sockets left then. If the socket bonus is good enough (remember, you used up the sockets with good bonuses first) use a yellow, otherwise a purple gem. Blue sockets naturally get filled with purple gems.

Your T7 test at level 80 is a good indication. Ratings will be worse at 85 though since their requirement was multipled by 4 (and T11 has nearly 4 times the ratings of T7) but base damage was only multiplied by ~2. Scaling is awkward since better gear means (usually) more sockets and at some point epic gems, but also that intellect won't be that much better than ratings in high-end gear (in T6/T10, spellpower and haste were pretty close compared to T4/T7). Living in interesting times

• Hamlet · 11/15/10, 12:20 PM

The last L85 sheet I uploaded was here:
Cataclysm Balance Theorycraft and Spreadsheet Thread

I don't remember what updates I've made since I moved to L80 for a bit. I'll go back to uploading L85 values now that we're getting closer.

-----

Gemming:
You can improve on that gemming (Assuming Chaotic is still best). Keeping in mind that a purple gem is better than a yellow (i.e. one half-gem's worth of Int and on half-gem's worth of Spirit is worth more than two half-gem's worth of haste or another secondary stat), you want to cram in as much red and blue as possible. Moreover, you can use a red and a green gem to get two half-gem's worth of Int for only one half-gem's worth of Spirit, while still maintaining parity for the meta requirement.

A complicating factor is the hit cap. The above (and all analysis of gems so far really) assumes stats are completely fungible because you can just reforge to reach hit cap at a 1:1 exchange. But we're talking about having quite a lot of blue in our gems, which might tighten the cap (I haven't checked how close an issue it is in T11 gear, but it will be eventually). You may have to start converting blue/red pairs of half-gems into yellow.

Summing up. Here is, I think, the optimal socketing flowchart.
Assuming blue gems are better than yellow (i.e. Spirit is worth more than haste, and the hit cap is not a problem):
1) Let N be the total number of sockets you have. Let R be min (number of red+prismatic sockets,(N-1)/2).
2) Put R red gems into red/prismatic sockets.
3) If there are still red/prismatic sockets left over, put purple in them.
4) Let Y be min(R, number of yellow sockets).
5) Put Y green gems into yellow sockets.
6) Put R-Y blue gems into blue sockets. //you're now at red/blue parity and have at least one blue or yellow socket left.
7) Put one blue or green gem into one socket. Meta requirement now satisfied.
8) For each remaining pair of blue/yellow sockets, socket one blue and one orange gem.
9) If yellow are left, fill with half green and half orange. If blue are left, fill with purple.

Hmm, this came out worse than I thought. I'm going to see if I can clean that up into simple rules. And this isn't even getting to the possibility of ignoring socket bonuses.

EDIT: the above isn't totally correct. I'll try to make a good writeup.

Cdin · 11/15/10, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

That's actually not the best way to deal with yellow sockets, assuming you are near hit cap (some spirit pieces and mass reforging should get you close) and intellect is better than crit/haste/mastery. The best way is placing a green gem into a yellow socket while placing a red gem into a red socket. This would give you 40 int + 40 rating from two yellow + red sockets, while your method would use a yellow + purple gem for 20 int + 60 rating. Since this method required a red socket for each yellow socket, it may get complicated when having 2 more yellow than red+prismatic combined (the initial green gem may also go to a yellow socket). If you have at least 2 more yellow than red+prismatic, use the above method and fill up the best sockets bonuses first. You'll have only yellow and blue sockets left then. If the socket bonus is good enough (remember, you used up the sockets with good bonuses first) use a yellow, otherwise a purple gem. Blue sockets naturally get filled with purple gems.

Your T7 test at level 80 is a good indication. Ratings will be worse at 85 though since their requirement was multipled by 4 (and T11 has nearly 4 times the ratings of T7) but base damage was only multiplied by ~2. Scaling is awkward since better gear means (usually) more sockets and at some point epic gems, but also that intellect won't be that much better than ratings in high-end gear (in T6/T10, spellpower and haste were pretty close compared to T4/T7). Living in interesting times

Your right. I was hoping that there would be a simple rule that everyone could follow, but it looks like it will be a little complicated.

That said, I was using my rule in the calculations, and that favored the Bracing Meta. This means that the Chaotic is clearly the best moonkin meta, at least until I can do some better calculations.

Treyce · 11/15/10, 2:07 PM

Glad there is some confusion over this (excuse any insult), because ive done alot of testing, and in full T11 359 gear, under many gemming scenarios, i still only get the Chaotic coming ahead by a slight 200-300 dps. Ive done my own math, but i would like to see what others think regarding this meta.

What the issue seems to be is the massive amount of int (and its new inherent strength) you are swapping to obtain the critical damage bonus. Since we drop quite low in critical rating, its very close, at least until we start seeing superior crit numbers.

dreslav · 11/15/10, 2:36 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

The last L85 sheet I uploaded was here:
Summing up. Here is, I think, the optimal socketing flowchart.
Assuming blue gems are better than yellow (i.e. Spirit is worth more than haste, and the hit cap is not a problem):
1) Let N be the total number of sockets you have. Let R be min (number of red+prismatic sockets,(N-1)/2).
2) Put R red gems into red/prismatic sockets.
3) If there are still red/prismatic sockets left over, put purple in them.
4) Let Y be min(R, number of yellow sockets).
5) Put Y green gems into yellow sockets.
6) Put R-Y blue gems into blue sockets. //you're now at red/blue parity and have at least one blue or yellow socket left.
7) Put one blue or green gem into one socket. Meta requirement now satisfied.
8) For each remaining pair of blue/yellow sockets, socket one blue and one orange gem.
9) If yellow are left, fill with half green and half orange. If blue are left, fill with purple.

Hmm, this came out worse than I thought. I'm going to see if I can clean that up into simple rules. And this isn't even getting to the possibility of ignoring socket bonuses.

EDIT: the above isn't totally correct. I'll try to make a good writeup.

Forgive me for my ignorance, but how does the accounting work for the meta requirement? Specifically, does it take two greens to equal one red (i.e. two half blues required to offset the whole red), or does a green count as a full blue gem and a full yellow gem, and thus a purple equal a full blue and full red that offset one another (which is the same as the current wrath model)? From reading this, it seems as though it's the latter indicating no change from the current regime, in which case I think your guide is, indeed, completely correct.

For clarity, I may combine step #3, #8, and #9 into a final catch-all step: "All remaining red fill with purple. All remaining blue slots fill with purple unless there are remaining yellow slots. For each empty yellow slot that has an empty blue slot available, socket one blue and one orange gem. For each pair of empty yellow slots, socket one orange and one green. For a single yellow, fill with green."

Cdin · 11/15/10, 3:14 PM

Originally Posted by dreslav

Forgive me for my ignorance, but how does the accounting work for the meta requirement? Specifically, does it take two greens to equal one red (i.e. two half blues required to offset the whole red), or does a green count as a full blue gem and a full yellow gem, and thus a purple equal a full blue and full red that offset one another (which is the same as the current wrath model)? From reading this, it seems as though it's the latter indicating no change from the current regime, in which case I think your guide is, indeed, completely correct.

For clarity, I may combine step #3, #8, and #9 into a final catch-all step: "All remaining red fill with purple. All remaining blue slots fill with purple unless there are remaining yellow slots. For each empty yellow slot that has an empty blue slot available, socket one blue and one orange gem. For each pair of empty yellow slots, socket one orange and one green. For a single yellow, fill with green."

Hybrids count as two full colors. Socketing a purple gem is the same as socketing one red gem and one blue gem, not 50% of each.

• Hamlet · 11/15/10, 4:09 PM

I put a detailed writeup here: http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/hamlet...quirement.html

If you skip to "conclusion," you can see the correct and simplified version of my flowchart above (basically, as concise as I can make it without sacrificing optimality). It should be true for all classes, so feel free to spread to anyone who's discussing this same topic.

Draugir · 11/16/10, 5:08 AM

This obviously doesn't work in a general gear set, but I gemmed a theoretical "best in slot" set (mostly using 372 ilvl tier + offset leather) both for the new meta requirement and according to current (WotlK) gemming. Using the dps values from Wrathcalcs Beta I found it to be a 150 dps increase to use a Chaotic Skyflare Meta. The 2 things that are making this occur are that, as Roywyn said, Int is so much better than any other stat, and that with an abundance of mastery on gear, it was easy for me to reach hit cap through reforging all mastery (which makes using hit gems basically a gain in mastery that you don't have to reforge).

• Hamlet · 11/19/10, 11:12 PM

After playing with the new L85 WrathCalcs (posted on the other thread, try out the new item selector), I'm pretty confident that Chaotic will be the best meta.

• Hamlet · 11/20/10, 5:42 PM

I'm still seeing Wild Mushroom as better DPET and Wrath and Starfire (by quite a lot, if you can really plant down 3 Mushrooms in 1.5 seconds). I haven't played Balance at 85 much on the beta--am I missing something here? Or is it really beneficial to plant down 3 Mushrooms every 10 seconds no matter what you're doing?

Edit: aha, WM planting still gives a GCD of 1, not 0.5.

Edit 2: Also, DoT's recompute crit rate in real time, so you can't abuse 4T11 by refreshing DoT's with 100% crit.

Erdluf · 11/20/10, 10:44 PM

Can an existing DoT consume the 4t11 proc? That would be ugly.

• Hamlet · 11/20/10, 11:33 PM

No, just Moonfire direct hits.

Hmm, which I guess means you might want to cast 3 nukes before your NG/Eclipse Moonfire each half-cycle. Assuming you're in a stable 1-Moonfire rhythm, that's fine. If not though, maybe it's not worth worrying about.

Cdin · 11/23/10, 4:45 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

Edit 2: Also, DoT's recompute crit rate in real time, so you can't abuse 4T11 by refreshing DoT's with 100% crit.

Does this mean that DoT ticks are buffed by 4T11 for the 8 or less seconds it's up even if the dot was cast before the buff was procced?

I never got a chance to test the tier sets in Beta.

• Hamlet · 11/23/10, 4:48 PM

Originally Posted by Cdin

Does this mean that DoT ticks are buffed by 4T11 for the 8 or less seconds it's up even if the dot was cast before the buff was procced?

I never got a chance to test the tier sets in Beta.

All I tested was that if you cast the DoT when you have a 100% crit chance, you still get non-crit ticks after the buff expires. I'd be pretty confident that it works the other way too though, yeah.