coredumperror

If you're in a fight where taunt actually works (not very many) you'd be pretty unlikely to survive for more than a few seconds if you're not in full tank gear. Combining your desperately low armor with desperately low HP, your healers probably won't know to be healing you till you're already dead.

 

Tinweasele

extrapolation does that actually block the powershifting? or is it just used for describing lost energy? cause if you are comparing to the threshold then anythreshold under 20 has a .5 window of opportunity to powershift, which seems low to me:-/

 

Mijae

That's what I'm saying. You cannot model the probability that way. There is no moving average. It doesn't matter how many hits you have had since the last proc. The next attack will always have the same proc chance, you cannot change it to a variable chance. They are independent events.

You are just as well off using a basic average procs per minute and then turning that into a time threshold.
timeThresh = 60 / PPM
OoC = 2 PPM
2t4 = (hitsPerMinute * 4%) PPM

Even this will only give an average time till proc. You will end up being wrong very often.

Either way, I don't see this being very useful. Whether the energy proc happens before or after the powershift, as long as current energy is being checked it shouldn't really matter imo.

 

raffy

Assuming 4% proc rate, if you haven't got a proc in the last n hits, then your chance of getting the proc within the next few attacks increases, since over extremely large n, the proc rate must be 4%.

I do see your point as the PPM example would basically do the same thing, so maybe what I really should be modeling, is like the inverse of proc. For example, after you got a few lucky procs, your chance of getting more lucky procs is decreases as your number of hits increases.

On a longer fight, I'm sure that if you modeled the bloodlust proc you could have some success predicting its occurrence. How much energy would you save? Who knows? But why not try to figure it out? ;p Since we're ultimately limited by mana, avoiding shifting near high probability of Bloodlust procs doesn't seem like that bad of an idea.

 

Anedris

What?

Probability has no memory. If I flip a coin a hundred times and get heads every time, my next flip still has only a 50% chance of being tails. If I flip that coin ten thousand times I can assume I will get approximately 50% heads and 50% tails, but there is no law of causality that dictates I must get that - it is simply probable.

So it doesn't matter how many attacks I've made that failed to proc. The next attack has exactly a 4% chance to proc. The same as the attack after that, and so on. The hits you have already made have zero influence on the hits you have yet to make.

 

• Astrylian

Rawr - A theorycrafting tool for Bears, Cats, Moonkin, Trees, Healadins, DPSWarrs, Retadins, Mages, ProtWarrs, Tankadins, HealingPriests, ShadowPriests, Warlocks, Rogues, EnhShams, Hunters, Elementals, RestoShams, Tank DKs, and DPS DKs!
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raffy

Yeah, but we're not flipping coins in a textbook example, we're trying to model Blizzards RNG for a 4% proc rate based off melee attacks.

Have you ever seen more than two chain Bloodlust procs? Three? Ten in a row? I'm sure Blizzards RNG uses its own output as feedback to keep the random distribution relatively sample-independent to avoid RNG bias in short-interval combat.

The criteria is probably similar to: "a 4% proc over 1000 attacks such that the proc rate of any substring of the attacks falls within a window of 0 to 8%."

Proof of this can be shown by looking at any WWS report and realizing that the overall proc rates of various random actions (crits or procs or whatever) match their expected values within a reasonably small window of error.

ie. no one is sustaining 80% crit with 50% paper doll.

@Astrylian - Gambler's fallacy again implies we know nothing about the distribution (ie. its random) which is not the case for WoW's combat RNG.

 

Krazen

Hey guys,

I'm looking to gear up my friend's feral druid by buying a couple t6 tokens, and hopefully some other BT pieces. He's currently geared out in a set of full t4/badge gear. I'm primarily looking to optimize cat dps, bear tanking is secondary.

The World of Warcraft Armory

I'm planning on keeping the t4 hat and shoulders, gemmed for dps (cursed vision isn't an option), and he has enough gold to buy 3 pieces of BT/Hyjal loot, maybe 4. Rarer, desirable dps pieces like [Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape] are also not for sale.

What order should he be looking for pieces in? T6 gloves look like the clear best option, since they can be used in both dps and tanking roles. From there, I'm looking the following pieces.

[Insidious Bands]
T6 legs (enchanted for tanking)
T6 chest (gemmed for tanking)


For reference, he currently has no dps legs (using t4 legs), and uses [Chestguard of the Conniver] in the chest slot. The Teron bracers will let me regem [Band of the Swift Paw] for tanking purposes.

 

Anedris

Huh? Why would Blizzard implement a bunch of complicated code to make every random element in the game conform to its average over time? People don't get 80% crit rates with 50% paper doll crit because the chances of rolling that many crits over an entire encounter, given a 50% crit chance, are simply very small. You do however see occasional WWSs of warlocks who got lucky with the RNG and did 2900 DPS or whatever due to higher-than-average crit rates. (I don't know what you mean by a "bloodlust proc" since you're obviously not talking about the shaman ability.)

When flipping coins, you know the chance of a given event occurring (50%). I don't see why the gambler's fallacy would apply to that but not to a 4% proc chance. (Unless Blizzard's RNG was not, in fact, random at all but designed instead to produce average results over some given interval, which, again, makes little sense to me, though if that is indeed the case then sure, what you say makes sense...)

If Blizz did put in this check to make sure occurrences never stray too far from their averages, they obviously didn't implement it for loot drops at any rate...

 

coredumperror

Yes, I have in fact seen several chain bloodlust (2t4) procs in a row. I once pulled off 4 procs in under 5 seconds.

I think you're confusing blizzards "ppm" system of putting an internal cooldown on most procs, preventing them from happening too often, with the observed/documented 4%, no cooldown proc rate of 2t4. 2t4 has no internal cooldown, and it is ONLY the luck of the draw that might net you several procs in a row, or none at all for a long period of time.

 

• Astrylian

Indeed, there's no special magic with the proc chance of 2T4. 4% chance on every hit, completely independent, that's it.

Regarding buying MH/BT items... If you want to stick to the T6 tokens, due to the high drop rate, yeah, sounds right. If you want to gamble on it dropping, Nether Shadow Tunic, Grips of Damnation, and Shady Dealer's Pantaloons may be slightly better. Ask Rawr to find out.

Rawr - A theorycrafting tool for Bears, Cats, Moonkin, Trees, Healadins, DPSWarrs, Retadins, Mages, ProtWarrs, Tankadins, HealingPriests, ShadowPriests, Warlocks, Rogues, EnhShams, Hunters, Elementals, RestoShams, Tank DKs, and DPS DKs!
Download Rawr v2.2.27 <--NEW Nov9th!

Are you an active Rogue / Hunter / Warlock theorycrafter and an experienced C# dev, with some spare time and a desire to help build something great for the WoW community? Send me a PM!

 

raffy

There's no point in arguing about this. All I'm saying is, I believe the results from WoW do not conform to a perfectly random distribution, thus information can be extracted and ultimately predictions can be made about future data with relative accuracy.

If I'm wrong, the predictions will not be accurate, however any improvement would result in increased DPS because you'd have 20 more energy per missed proc at the end of the fight. Even if thats only 20 energy, thats still ~2k damage or about 0.5% more damage over the course of an average fight.

I am not trying to say I can predict a random variable, so please stop mentioning the freaking coin flip :p

 

Touf

Wow, wow, wow. Let me guess, you "feel" that this is true? Do you have ANY sort of proof that the programmers would go through about 100 times the work necessary to implement such a system?

Imagine it this way, a 5 minute fight has ~300 attacks. If you look at Exact Confidence Interval for a Proportion
you can get a feel for how hard it is to even get a 5% difference in crit rate with that many samples.

When you go down to 50 samples (most casters) you see outliers all over the place. But still, the odds of getting an 80% crit rate instead of 50% with 50 samples is only 1 in 100,000.

And there is a point, because you're trying to model something on unbased assumptions.

 

raffy

1. You can implement such a system with a few lines of code.

2. Yes, I'm trying to model something that I cannot prove one way or another about how it works, which is why making an assumption and then attempting to model it and make predictions. If it's truly random, then I cannot model it accurately to extract any useful information. However, if it is modelable (which I believe it is, especially at really low or really high proc rates) and thus not perfectly random and independent), what harm is there in attempting to model it?

3. I find it ignorant and silly to believe that the attack and proc RNGs do not operate with target constraints. So much of this game relies on short bursts of combat, and if the RNG provided truely random results, you'd see far DPS outliers (ie. like 80% sustained crit).

4. Lets continue this discussion in the other thread so the Feral thread can be left alone.

 

Valerian

From the look of the gear he has he needs:

Chest, Legs, Gloves as first priority. T6 gloves and legs work well. Nether Shadow Tunic would be the best BT/Hyjal chest available. You could go for Teron bracers, but really the S3 ones are nearly the same for dps. Further once S4 comes out the new bracers are better than anything besides T6 for dps (and have only a minor arena rating requirement).

 

Yilfin

Greetings guys

I'm in a complete brain storming actually concerning my tanking gear (we have Illidan on farm since one month and start sunwell). In one week, i looted two items that never wanted to drop since near 6 months, the [Treads of the Den Mother] and the [Pillar of Ferocity]. I've also looted the t6 shoulders. Three new items, to replace the old ssc staff, the s3 pvp boots, and the t5 shoulders. There is my problem: with the new boots, i gain a lot of stats, but loose 26 resilience, that is huge. I'm not immune to crit anymore. I switched the +6 to all stats enchant of my chest to a +15 resilience, but i'm short of 19 def or 13 resi to reach the crit immunity against level 73 boss. I've always puted the offensive inscription on my shoulders, with 30ap, because my main purpose in raid is to have a sky-high threat, for trashs, waves in hyjal, and adds in boss fights. I rarely main tank boss, except the ones where we need more than one tank.

So here are my questions: Do you really think that raiding with 0,31% chances of being crit by boss is crazy, or is it viable, as it's a very low probability ? If i choose the aldor defensive inscription, i gain 10 defense, so i'll be short of 9 def or 6 resi, but i'll loose 30ap and 10 crit rating. I think that this little loss is compensate by the gain of 150ap thanks to the pillar, but i hesitate a lot, and i'll still have 0,15% chances of beeing crit. Are there druids around that have a tiny amount of chances of being crits, and raids with that ? 30ap is important in tank, for aggro generation or not ? I need some theorycrafters answers to these questions, to comfort me in one or another decision. For your information, i try to reach the crit immunity with: 20 resi of the glyph of gladiator, 15 resi in chest, 20 resi in wrists, 20 and 19 defense in rings.

Thanks a lot for your help guys

 

wuffles

The number of times you'll be able to do that are rare. I've only had that situation happen once (I also use 2pc s3 and vindicators bracers in my dps set), and it was on magtheridon in a pug. Tank died at 9% and even with salv I was riding the tanks ass on threat, so it worked out. On content more challenging than that (and with a group full of more geared/skilled players), its never made a damn bit of difference once the MT dies - I'm hardly ever second on the threat list and I'm likely to get pasted before the healers can react (even if they could keep me up). The only thing that allowed the healers in that pug time to make the change was a sizable avoidance streak when he turned to me and that's not really something that can be counted on.

The only time its been of any real benefit is on trash tanking/dpsing so that I can switch between roles on the fly, and even then getting crit probably isn't the end of the world if the healers are on top of their game.

@yilfin: Have you considered using an elixir of ironskin? Also, as a general rule, I would never sacrafice crit immunity for increased threat on anything but trash (and even then, as you can see above, I'm covered).

 

Yilfin

I've considered to use the elixir of ironskin, 30 resi is huge, and will allow me to switch [A'dal's Signet of Defense] for [Ring of the Stalwart Protector] and still be crit immune, but i'm not enchanted by the perspective to have to use an elixir each time that i'll do a boss to be crit immune, and also loose 250 health. If there are other advises, opinions, concerning my problem, don't hesitate to post them, thanks in advance

 

Mandrus

I can't anwser all of your questions, but [Wildfury Greatstaff], is actualy better than [Pillar of Ferocity], when you consider avoidance, and overall mitigation.

 

Yilfin

Yeah i know that in terms of avoidance, thanks to the 54 dodge rating, the ssc staff is better, and i'm planning to still use it in fight like gurtogg. But for a lot of other fights and trashs cleaning, i prefer the additional armor, stamina and strength/attack power that the pillar offer. I'm really asking advises for my crit immunity problem, don't hesitate to post, thanks all

 

Skysec

I personally would not want to tank anything while being critable, once you get to end t6 level and up, getting crit on trash usually means you die, or other ppl die, because healers have to focus on you too much. Holding threat is not a problem for ferals, half the stats on our tier gear is useful for threat. I have 2 "main" tanking sets that I use, one for tanking trash where I don't worry so much about armor, and one for tanking bosses. I use the vengeful staff on trash because it allows me to switch out other pieces with resilience/def/armor for more threat oriented pieces, plus its has hit on it.

With 2.4 there's actually many ways you can get crit immunity. 12 def to cloak, 12 def to bracers, 18stam 20 resil helm enchant, 15 resil to chest, etc etc. You can always use pvp bracers, as that's what the majority of us do before we get t6 bracers.

 

Draugdae

Regarding reaching crit immunity, with , [Greater Inscription of Warding], [Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Steelweave], [Enchant Chest - Major Resilience], and [Enchant Bracer - Major Defense] you only need 69 defense or 46 resilience to become uncrittable. This can be done fairly directly by using [Vindicator's Dragonhide Bracers] with the socket bonus activated, [Violet Signet of the Great Protector] and a neck with at least 21 defense, such as [Pendant of Titans], [Frayed Tether of the Drowned], or [Necklace of the Juggernaut].

 

Mihir

I disagree, on Hyjal and Black Temple trash, being crit immune isnt important at all. I almost never tanked that trash with crit immunity, and I only die if healers die first In Sunwell the situation changes, since the trash there hits significantly harder and you lose 25% avoidance due to the radiance.

 

dakalro

Considering I've seen my crit rates can vary between 4% and 50% on ~100 casts samples each and the way loot behaves I'd say the chances that Blizz added such a resource consuming system to the game are totally null. And it is resource consuming because it needs memory and it needs awareness for when to reset the mechanism which isn't an easy task considering it's supposed to be done for each player/pet. Dual Wield melee will pretty much always show close to predicted crit rates on overall hits because simply they attack a lot, but if you watch the rates by ability you'll notice crit% varies a lot. There is a balancing mechanism already in place, that's the RNG list which is already uniform and will give you expected rates, over a few million hits/casts probably.

As an idea, having such a system in place (in what seems the simplest way to do it) would mean:

if (bonus% < expected%)
do bonus
else
do normal

but that would lead to very close to expected values in a very low amount of hits and that certainly doesn't happen, not when you see 6 crits in a row at the start of a fight.

 

wyrdone

Look at the new Sunwell Badge DPS legs. Very good DPS. Particularly if your not hit capped already.
Same with the new Badge chest.

I'm in the same boat with my druid being my alt and not being able to get into 25-main raid groups except Gruul;s & Mags.

That being said I've pushed my DPS gear up to the point I can pump out 1200dps (raid buffed) to 1400dps (if I get a shammy who plops down GOA for me).

Also, Vindicator's bracers are good dps to look at.