Have you asked your druid about it? Lacerate and Swipe are fairly close to each other in threat depending on buffs/debuffs, your tank might have made the call to use Swipe to prevent Lacerate from using up a debuff slot.

He said he was using swipe because it was more TPS and just said Lacerate wasn't enough. I fail to see so many top DPS guild's druids being wrong and when I do find another druid using Swipe, their mages Invis'd.

edit: I know in 2.4 lacerate was buffed slightly.

Once you have 4T6 (which I imagine he has), the highest DPS *and* TPS rotation is to keep a 5-stack of Lacerate rolling while Swiping in between. The only downside to that is that it uses a debuff slot. If you're running out of debuff slots, just using Swipe isn't far behind on TPS.

In terms of actual ability rotation, that looks like: Mangle, Lacerate, Swipe, Swipe, Repeat. (Optimally replace Swipes with Lacerate for the first rotation and a half until you get 5 stacks up)

We finally downed brutallus tonight! And I touched swipe twice in the raid. Why?

Brutallus has a LOT of armor, a lot more than any other mob in the game that I know. Lacerate is a bleed and has an initial threat value. When I did swipe, I think it hit for about 180ish, which is not high enough to be better than lacerate (and yes I have the 4pc T6 bonus).

I thought they debunked the Brutallus=8800Armor idea, and proved that it was 7700 like many other bosses?

Well I could be wrong, I was avoiding the use of swipe because I thought he had high armor, and the one time I checked the damage it was low, maybe just bad luck. Wasn't really focussing on my own damage anyway, as there's a lot more things to worry about obviously for a tank.

His armor kind of has to be high though, else glaiveboys would just rip him apart. Rite?

Is that with the values of lacerate scaling with AP? I haven't seen any real indicators of what the actual threat generated is or what the formula is for the new lacerate in 2.4. My anecdotal experience has lacerate having much greater threat than before, but I could be wrong.

Not that Brutallus needs more threat, mind you; more DPS is better no matter what. But it would be good to actually determine what the real threat is on lacerate now.

AP only extremely minorly increases the initial threat of lacerate. Yes, 207 counts lacerate as doing 60 initial damage. If your lacerate does 75, it'd be 208, very minor difference.

I thought the mechanic for crits is the same for swipe/lacerate-- that is, if you crit, the threat of each of the opening of those moves is effectively doubled? Which means that crit rating is meaningless (except the lacerate DOT damage), and the damage swipe needs to do is fixed around 225-250?

Keep in mind, too, that keeping your lacerate stack up does more DPS than swipe, especially with its AP buff.

Crit only affects damage. The threat component of Lacerate has not changed so the majority of the threat is still static. While it does more damage than before, the threat multiplier is still a much smaller value than Swipe has.

Astrylian, that would be another idea of improvement: Initial threat of Swipe / Lacerate, DPS of Swipe / Lacerate.

I have about 3000 AP / 40 % in my Brutallus Gear and i'm using 4T6.

Ignoring Mangle/Maul which take priority, it's

Swipespam: 452 TPS (312 DPS)
Laceratespam: 292 TPS (56 DPS)
Lacerate 1tick: 424 TPS (315 DPS)
Lacerate 2tick: 451 TPS (367 DPS)
Lacerate 3tick: 462 TPS (389 DPS)
Lacerate 4tick: 469 TPS (401 DPS)

So it's about 17 TPS and 89 DPS gain (even less since i ignored Mangle and Misses/etc.) - that is pretty minor, considering you take a debuff slot and this is optimal. You are gonna have to stack Lacerate up again each time you start tanking again (assuming you are in cat in between).

Swipespam surpasses Laceratespam at about 1500 AP (with 4T6, 40% Crit and 15% Damage Reduction).

On a sidenote, since many people asked, Lacerate scaling is as follows:

(31 + 1% AP) for the inital damage as well as periodic damage per stack and tick.

It kinda depends on the armor of the target too, right? As well as the crit on the initial lacerate. I don't think 1500 is correct; it seems very low and certainly is lower than what I have right now, and I'm absolutely certain lacerate does more than swipe does, threatwise.

How about a mixture of the two though? (Swipe:Lacerate at a 2:1 ratio)

Now I don't have 4T6 just yet, and my full mitigation set also has significantly less crit (~31%) than you. It's likely I'd change my mind based on your numbers if the two changed.

Quick question, "Laceratespam" is the TPS/DPS from just the initial damage on spamming the skill right? And you've taken the ticks from 1 to 4, but Lacerate stacks up to 5 times. Am I missing something or did you miss the DPS/TPS for a 5 stack? =x

I have a number of TPS models available in my spreadsheet and a few more that are present, but not enabled. Right now there are only two readily available, both are Mangle/Lacerate spam but with Maul turned on or off. If you look on the BearTPS page there are a few more, just not currently activated for use on the gear selection page. I can turn these on for my next update.

As many have stated, Lacerate is better than Swipe one-for-one until 4t6. In T4 or less, Lacerate is always better on single targets. After 4t6, Swipe spam is slightly better and scales more with AP (or tanking in DPS group). The higher your gear gets above T4 (including being in DPS group instead of tank group), the better it is to only 5-stack Lacerate and spam Swipe between (even before 4t6).

I think i didn't make that quite clear. What i mean with 'Lacerate 2tick' is i let Lacerate tick 2 times and spam Swipe in between, kinda like:

0.0 Lacerate (already at 5 stacks)
1.5 Swipe
3.0 Swipe (1st tick)
4.5 Swipe
6.0 Swipe (2nd tick)
7.5 Lacerate
...


And yes, Laceratespam seems to be awful compared to 4t6 swipe at the moment. I don't know if they changed lacerate threat though, i only know the damage.

k, that makes more sense, thanks.

He said "Ignoring Mangle/Maul which take priority", of course those would be used without question (provided enough Rage for regular Mauls). The idea is to find out what's optimum GCD usage when Mangle is on cooldown.

Hello its late at night and i was just going through some crazy ideas in my head, mainly how efficient is mangle compared to shred, did some very rough calculations and seemed to have some posability.

So here is a copy of the second set of "less rough" calculations.

Assumptions = Standard feral build, 2xT6 Set Bonus

For Mangle calculations I assume, I have Idol of Terror "up all the time" and Ashtongue Talisman of Equilibrium "up all the time"

For Shred calculations I assume, I have Everbloom Idol, and Berserker's Call

Ok heres the stats i got from rawr with my gear assuming raid buffs and Enchance shaman "Windfury Not Grace of Air"


Hit Capped
2.2% Chance to be Dodged
28.3% Mob Mitigation "7700 armor minus debuffs and armor penitration"

In Shred Calculations
5374 AP "Berserker's Call = 182 AP"
43.51% Yellow Crit

In Mangle Calculations
5667 AP "Idol of Terror = 90 AP, Ashtongue Talisman of Equilibrium = 385 AP"
46.4 % Yellow Crit "Increased Crit from Idol of Terror"


Shred Calculation

225% Weapon Damage +405 +88 "Everbloom Idol"
Weapon Damage = ( 55.5 + 5374/14 ) * 1.1 = 483.3
Damage = (483.3 * 2.25) + 493 = 1580
Damage After Mitigation = 1580 * (1 - 0.283) = 1,133
Critical Damage = 1.133 * 2.26 = 2,560
Crit to Normal Relationship = 2.2% dodge 43.51% Crit, 54.29% Normal changes relationship to 44.5% Crit / 55.5% Normal
Average Damage = (44.5 * 2,560 + 55.5 * 1580) / 100 = 2016
Damage per Energy = 48


Mangle Calculation

192% Weapon Damage + 317
Weapon Damage = ( 55.5 + 5667/14 ) * 1.1 = 506.3
Damage = (506.3 * 1.92) + 317 = 1,289
Damage After Mitigation = 1,289 * (1 - 0.283) = 924
Critical Damage = 924 * 2.26 = 2,089
Crit to Normal Relationship = 2.2% dodge 46.4% Crit, 51.4% Normal changes relationship to 47.4% Crit / 52.6% Normal
Average Damage = (47.4 * 2,089 + 52.6 * 924) / 100 = 1476
Damage per Energy = 42.2

If these calculations are anything to go by it might seem plausable that a mangle spec could keep up with a shred spec. I can't be 100% that what i have done is correct but if so here are what i see as advantages/disadvanatges.

Advantages
Mangle Debuff on 100%
Extra AP / Crit from Idol/Trinket combo increasing rip/normal damage
Easy ripping cycle with faster combo point gains from crit and reduce energy cost of abilities ensuring rip will have almost no downtime.

Disadvantages
Idol of Terror will not effect one mangle every 12 secs possability of 2 mangles not triggering the buff "15% chance not to trigger on 1st mangle 2.25% chance not to trigger on 2nd mangle"
Tailisman of Equilibirum might not proc "chance of triggering 1st mangle 60%, 2nd Mangle 84%, 3rd Mangle 94%,4th Mangle 97%". however at 35 enegry a mangle and 40 energy every 2 seconds means 1.75 secsonds per mangle which should be sufficient"

Have a look at these calculations and see what your opinion is and critisisum or exploration is welcome

But you've still come up with:

Shred
Damage per Energy = 48

Mangle
Damage per Energy = 42.2

Under assumptions which seem slightly slanted towards Mangle. So I'm not quite sure how you're concluding Mangle would be able to keep up with Shred?

The way this could compete is Shred would be the additional stats gained by using Mangle procced abilities, as you can see they give just under 300 AP and just under 3% crit, there is also the more refined ability cycle which should reduce the downtime of rip and increase the percentage of 5 point rips against 4 point rips "Mangle costing 35 energy shred being 42".

I do admit there are loop holes in the possability of these buffs droping and the mechanics of idol of terror "cannot be refreshed while active", but i am wondering if there is a possability of this working, not trying to prove it works already.

I'd be very surprised to see this work, one other thing in favour of the mangle approach though is the option of freeing up another 2 talent points since you don't need the shred reduction cost.

Of course there aren't really any places I can think of to put those points to great benefit in a PVE build and you also lose the rage reduction cost on lacerate.

Edit: You'll also see slightly more benefit from some procs, I'm thinking 2T4 and OOC primarily, since you'll be making a few more special attacks due to the lower energy cost. I'd expect this to also be minor though.

I have a Mangle-only cycle in my spreadsheet. It can be close if you are able to squeeze in Shred's when all procs are up (not modeled), but Standard rotation is just always better. If you are a set the specific task of Mangle-bot, then yes there are ways to optimize it.