Feral Megathread - Page 250

Maeltne · 05/16/08, 4:04 PM

So I *DID* just finish browsing through the API, and a function did catch my eye.

GetComboPoints() - Returns the number of Combo points you have on the target.

I've updated my shred macro to 16 energy threshold, and added a check to the shred macrco so that it will NOT powershift if you at 4 or more combo points. See: http://elitistjerks.com/747048-post3677.html

Note: This functionality has not been tested, and will not be until tonight.

MisterMerf · 05/16/08, 6:20 PM

Originally Posted by Maeltne

I've updated my shred macro to 16 energy threshold, and added a check to the shred macrco so that it will NOT powershift if you at 4 or more combo points.

While interesting that we have another condition to work with, could you explain why you would want this condition?
When powershifting with 4/5 combo points, you can still generate extra shreds. Your damage per energy will drop a bit, granted, but you're still increasing your DPS.

ecopsorn · 05/16/08, 7:10 PM

Originally Posted by Odas

Astrylian,

A thousand apologies, I haven't been frequenting this board for some time. It was I who asked for the double rip slidder, and yes I do have a method of successfully getting double rips relatively consistently and not by changing the typical attack cycle.

Basically it goes like this:

There is a small gap in time between when an ability is used and it reaches its target, similar to flight time of say a fireball spell. When you press rip if you watch carefully you can see a delay between when the energy and combo points are consumed compared to when the rip effect is applied to the target.

The damage calculation for rip is done both as the energy is consumed, and again when the debuff ticks on the mob. Basically, if you wait until mangle has less than one second left, and you "release" rip while the mangle debuff is up, damage is calculated as if rip has mangle. Half a second later, mangle wears off, then rip reaches the target and is applied. The rip damage has already been calculated with mangle up, so it continues to tick for an extra 30%. If now you were to mangle again, the rip damage is increased again.

Cycle:
0.0: Mangle
.
.
Generate combo points
.
.
11.5: Rip "cast", energy and combo points consumed
12.0: Mangle wears off
12.1: Rip debuff appears on target
12.5: Mangle before first rip tick for double effect

Something to keep in mind is that the last mangle at 12.5 seconds does not need to be there for the phantom rip to take place. So if you were out of energy at 12 seconds, the first tick of the rip will tick as if only 1 mangle were on, and you can apply the "second" mangle any time in the future, or not at all. This method requires that no one else is mangling, because it will make timing very very difficult.

Through much practice I have been able to become quite successful at getting double rips varying on different bosses. For example, something to do with the hit box of Anetheron makes it extremely difficult to get double rips. While Rage Winterchill is a much easier target. Although I originally experimented on the servants in the Blasted Lands, I found that they also are more difficult to time double rips on.

I hope this clears some stuff up.

Hey there, seriously I'm since an hour trying to get a double rip on the mob in Blasted Lands without success. I do think that I followed your instructions.

1.) Mangle
2.) Builld up combo points till 5 (ususally that's done with Shred, but to practice on the mob I had to do it with Mangle
3.) after 5 points are built up, I wait till the timer goes down to < 1sek.
4.) Then I press Rip
5.) I should experience now an increase in dmg of the Rip by 30% right? This really doesn't seem to work for me, even when I do immediately a mangle after Rip.

Are those blasted lands mobs really so crappy to try this on them or do I do something wrong?

Hoping for an answer

cheers
Silverstorm

Tarlitz · 05/16/08, 7:14 PM

Something totally else. I was browsing Toskk today, to see what items to shoot for next and to my surprise I saw [Wolfshead Helm] popping up on Toskk as being 150 aep better than the second best dps head (Duplicitous Guise). I got curious if this would work, and went ahead and made one and tested it today on both Naj'entus and Gorefiend. I must say, combined with 2t4 it's definately a lot of fun to use, you will have an insane amount of energy to play with.

I still did around 1650 dps on both fights, without consumables, but in a proper dps group. This dps is pretty much what I normally get as well. Wolfshead therefore seems to be a viable alternative if you don't need the headpiece for a certain set bonus.

Mana is a problem, and I found myself running oom on both fights without JoW on the boss.

Ehani · 05/16/08, 8:07 PM

Originally Posted by Tarlitz

to my surprise I saw [Wolfshead Helm] popping up on Toskk as being 150 aep better than the second best dps head (Duplicitous Guise).

This only happens if you have the Relentless Earthstorm Diamond box checked (meaning that it's assuming you have it already and doesn't include it in headpiece comparisons). If you uncheck that, Duplicitous Guise, Quad Deathblow, Cursed Vision, and 4pcT6 all pop up higher than Wolfshead, even if you have it set to powershift once per cycle. Though apparently if you're shifting about every 0.92 cycles (i.e. averaging more than once per Rip), Wolfshead can actually beat out everything else.

Deninkle · 05/16/08, 8:13 PM

Originally Posted by Maeltne

Fixed, I have *NO* idea where I got the other number. And don't thank me - thank Malthoreniel. I'm just a leech that made minor changes.

Also can anyone tell me why this line isn't doing what I expect? I'm stuck...

/run local b="Dire Bear Form";b=GetSpellCoolDown(b)>0 or not IsUsableSpell(b) or CancelPlayerBuff(b) end;

It *should* drop you out of bear form, provided you aren't on GCD and you have enough mana to get back in.

Also I ran out of mana on Najentus with the powershift shred threshold set to 18. I'm going to try 16. Although I don't see much difference for anything between 22 and 2, it's still going to be 2 ticks.

Also got our first kill on Kalecgos last night - it was messy as hell - only 3 people alive at the end.

You're either going to laugh or cry when you read this... You've capitalised "GetSpellCoolDown". It should be "GetSpellCooldown".

Jone · 05/16/08, 9:48 PM

Stance/form/pet are the only conditions I can think of that you have a chance of influencing through Lua, so I don't think this is applicable to many other classes.

The old bear pot macro relied on changing your action bar during your shift to chose which of two actions to take (casting bear form or canceling it and using a pot). I believe you can change your action bar in lua, correct? Then the only thing left for making a conditional is the ability to call an action based on action bar position rather than on the spell itself.

Even if you can't do something like /cast actionbar1 button1 (hypothetically), you can make it into a fast double tap cast the way the old bear pot macro cast worked.

hobbit · 05/16/08, 9:49 PM

Would it be possible to make an addon that records data about your energy levels, say each 0,5 secm and saves it to a textfile.

Example:
0 sec - 100 energy - Mangle
0,5 sec - 65 energy
1,5 sec - 65 energy - Shred
2,0 sec - 23 energy + 20

And allso include when you shapeshift.

I'd like to actually see where i fucked up, how much energy I wasted and so on.

raffy · 05/16/08, 11:38 PM

Edit 3: I was recommended to take down to the code as it may be a potential macro exploit since we're basically using the [form] conditional as state variable in our macros (something which isn't intended although loopholes still exist, like basic boolean logic using [focus].)

Anywho,

1. 2pT4 proc rate?

2. I'm looking for lua code/pseudo-code/or just the logic that completely describes feral DPS logic from any point within a DPS cycle, and accounts for both energy extrapolation, clearcasting, and powershifting, and simple debuff management.

Here is a start, from FeralKit's ability suggestion code:

if GetComboPoints() == 5 then
	local iEnergyFuture = self:GetEnergyAfter(1.5)
	if ((bHasMangle and not tMangleExpire and bCanRip) or
		(bCanRip and bHasOOC and iEnergyFuture >= 35) or 
		(bCanRip and not bHasOOC and iEnergyFuture >= 30+35)) then
		sSuggestion = "Rip"
	end
elseif ((not bHasMangle) or (bHasMangle and tMangleExpire and tMangleExpire < 0.5)) and bCanMangle then
	sSuggestion = "Mangle"
elseif bHasMangle and bCanShred then
	sSuggestion = "Shred"
end

-----------------

Edit 4:
I removed all the bad code so FeralKit is safe again for download.
http://oldschoolwow.com/FeralKit.zip

New Features:
-- (under construction) cat UI
-- proc annoucements for omen, bloodlust, and terror (more to come) using sct, chat, or others
-- more powershifting preferences (including energy extrapolation to prevent shifting when a bloodlust proc is probable and looks at the energy tick time)

http://oldschoolwow.com/FeralKitReadMe.txt

Tarlitz · 05/17/08, 5:48 AM

Originally Posted by Ehani

This only happens if you have the Relentless Earthstorm Diamond box checked (meaning that it's assuming you have it already and doesn't include it in headpiece comparisons). If you uncheck that, Duplicitous Guise, Quad Deathblow, Cursed Vision, and 4pcT6 all pop up higher than Wolfshead, even if you have it set to powershift once per cycle. Though apparently if you're shifting about every 0.92 cycles (i.e. averaging more than once per Rip), Wolfshead can actually beat out everything else.

Ah, yeah, forgot about that. But even so, it still comes out on top for me as being 50 aep better.

Mijae · 05/17/08, 7:12 AM

Originally Posted by raffy

1. 2pT4 proc rate?
...
-- more powershifting preferences (including energy extrapolation to prevent shifting when a bloodlust proc is probable and looks at the energy tick time)[/url]

It has been confirmed there is no internal cooldown on the 2t4 proc. All attacks have an independent 4% chance. It is impossible to predict when the next attack will result in a proc with any certainty.

This is similar to betting on roulette (or rolling dice). All values on the wheel have an equal chance outcome. It doesn't matter what the last 50 outcomes were, the next spin could land anywhere.

Onestandard · 05/17/08, 12:21 PM

My apologies if I'm blind (or ignorant), but I couldn't find any recent commentary on DPS and TPS benchmarks for ferals in T6 gear/content. I'm trying to get an idea of what's reasonable to expect out of our feral. Thanks in advance.

raffy · 05/17/08, 1:22 PM

Originally Posted by Mijae

It has been confirmed there is no internal cooldown on the 2t4 proc. All attacks have an independent 4% chance. It is impossible to predict when the next attack will result in a proc with any certainty.

This is similar to betting on roulette (or rolling dice). All values on the wheel have an equal chance outcome. It doesn't matter what the last 50 outcomes were, the next spin could land anywhere.

Well, obviously if the proc rate is 4% then, the chance of getting the proc after n attacks is: 1 - (1 - p)^n

The other logic I use is like, "if within 1.5 seconds you will get another 20 energy from regen, then include that extra 20 energy in the energy calculation."

So it currently looks like:
energy = (current Energy) + (20 energy if energy tick occurs within 1.5 sec) + (20 energy if 1-(1-p)^n > 95%)

I model p like a lazy moving average, incase the proc rate actually does increase with haste effects.
p = ((20 - 1) * p_old + p_new) / 20 where p_new = 1 / number of hits since last proc while wearing 2.4 in Cat form

Maybe I should just change it to:
p = ((# - 19) * p_old + p_new) / (20 + #) where # is number of procs for the wow session (this way it should eventually re converge to 4% after considerable number of samples.)

raffy · 05/17/08, 1:47 PM

A bunch of people have been asking what the energy regen cycle looks like after a shift, so in the lastest version of FeralKit, you can use /fk ps ticks to enable printing the energy time deltas.

Enter Cat Form
Energy Tick [0]: 578 ms
Energy Tick [40]: 705 ms
Energy Tick [59]: 827 ms
Energy Tick [80]: 2077 ms
Energy Tick [100]: 1985 ms

Notice: 578+705+827 = 2110 ms

I can't figure out any relation with the first tick, for my latency of 100 ms, it looks like 400-600 ms so maybe 500 ms +/- latency?
The furor tick is probably aligned to the clock, since it ranges from 400 to 1000 ms.
The last tick is 2000 ms minus the previous two update deltas.

It might be interesting to model the delay + furor tick, instead of just using 1.5 seconds often you could gain energy in less than 1.5 seconds (although I guess since you're still inside the gcd, it wouldn't help, although this might allow better shifting during heroism, for example.)

And just for kicks, it might be interesting to observe the +/- 3 energy gains that seem to randomly occur, and to see if there is any pattern.

Edit: added a few more features
http://oldschoolwow.com/FeralKit.zip
-- if /fk proc terror is enabled, when combat ends, it will summarize the procs uptime for the combat duration.
-- /fk bear crit will tell you if you are crittable against a 73.

Nathariel · 05/17/08, 2:07 PM

How much DPS would you give up to remain uncritable?

My current DPS set uses 2pc S3 and Vindicators Bracers, but with recent drops I am now looking at fitting in 2pc T6 with my 2pc T4. As primarily a tanking feral I liked the idea of being able to switch to bear if something happened and know that I would not be crit, even if the hits were harder than in tank gear.

So what are others thoughts, is a 1 or 2% upgrade in dps worth it over the option to take over if the tank dies late in the fight?