Feral Powershifting: macros, thresholds, mana management - Page 7

Mijae · 06/03/08, 7:56 PM

Originally Posted by zimira

*stealthed
and
*in combat
and
*has less then the threshold energy

The only time I can see this is if you can stealth immediately after using all your energy to kill something and are able to attack the next target before your energy ticks. The next target would need to be standing almost directly next to you and not in combat with you (non-aggressive mob?). Not likely if possible.

Verdian · 06/04/08, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by zimira

By the looks of it that macro isnt a sequence at all
/castsequence [nocombat, nostealth] Prowl; [stealth] Pounce; Mangle (cat)()
is the same as
/cast [nocombat, nostealth] Prowl; [stealth] Pounce; Mangle (cat)()
Since Raffys addon checks if you are in combat, or atleast i think it does, I cant see any potential problem with replacing the normal /cast Mangle with this line. Only unwanted behaviour i could imagine is if you are :
*stealthed
and
*in combat
and
*has less then the threshold energy
This would powershift you and put you out of stealth, but i cant see anytime this happens tbh

Thanks, it works like a charm

Deathwing · 06/04/08, 9:19 PM

I know this is a bit off topic, but can these conditional macros be used with other spells(I ask because I don't quite understand the syntax). What I'm understanding, the macros do this:

if(Cat Form is not on cooldown, energy is less than a certain amount, and mana is more than a certain amount)
then powershift
else
do some other ability

Is is possible to use this with warrior abilities? A simple name change in the macros isn't working(I'm trying warrior tanking rotations), but I'm having difficulty seeing how it's any different. I just want to check if a certain ability is on cooldown, otherwise use something else.

Spookeh · 06/05/08, 6:04 AM

No
already been discussed

it works for cat because the complex conditional used is cancelling a buff (cat form)
warriors don't do that. only cats.

ecopsorn · 06/05/08, 8:49 AM

Raffy, how is FeralKit coming along? Haven't heared from you since quite a while.

crimson2891 · 06/05/08, 10:13 AM

I was also wondering if you have had time to update it. Do you have a forum specific to feralkit? Thanks anyway for the time and thought you put into FeralKit, Raffy.

Aranan · 06/09/08, 3:09 AM

So... what thresholds are people using? The first post mentions 18 being a probably sweetspot, but then includes a macro setting the PWS value to 8. There's also a lot of talk of setting the thresholds individually based on the ability at an energy of [cost]-20 (or [cost]-21).

• Astrylian · 06/09/08, 3:12 AM

I've had the most success with Mangle=15, Shred=18, Rip=10, Bite=15.

Spookeh · 06/10/08, 9:39 AM

I also thought the same thing, I want to do Mangle, Lacerate Lacerate Lacerate x repeat if you have low rage, and add Mauls in if you have high rage.

I wondered about this, its untested though:

/run if UnitMana('player')>40 end
/castsequence reset=6 [form] Mangle(Bear)(Rank 3), Maul, Lacerate, Lacerate, Maul, Lacerate
/stopmacro [form]
/castsequence reset=6 [form] Mangle(Bear)(Rank 3), Lacerate, Lacerate, Lacerate

where unitmana means rage.
hopefully this will work? have probably got something wrong.

Mynea · 06/10/08, 12:33 PM

You can't, at least not usefully. The conditional check, if it succeedes, would shift you out of bear form. This means that if you have enough rage, you queue a maul, and if you don't have enough rage you shift out of bear form and back, dropping your rage to ten and incurring a GCD. On top of that, if you get the macro-getting-stuck bug, you wipe the raid.

Maeltne · 06/10/08, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by Firehoof

I've started using Feralkit a while ago and wondered if it could be used to simplyfy tanking.
Reading through this thread it was already stated that canceling an aura is an exception of what can be done with a conditional macro type of thing (what about shifting back in though? (Ah that's dine with the [form] tag)) but I was hoping this might be an exception:
What I was hoping to see is a mangle(bear) macro, that will queue a maul whenever I've got over a certain amount of rage. (either through feralkit, or a script)

I guess this is probably not possible, but that's what I thought about powershift macro's that check energy aswell.

It's not possible. But then instead of feral tanking being all about spamming 2 buttons, it would be about spamming 1 button. Honestly it doesn't need to get any easier.

Just use something like the following, and maul manually:

#showtooltip Mangle (Bear)()
/cancelaura blessing of salvation
/cancelaura greater blessing of salvation
/startattack
/castSequence reset=6 Mangle (Bear)(), Lacerate(), Lacerate(), Lacerate()

Put this macro right beside Maul on your action bar. Rage light = mash macro only, Rage heavy = mash macro and maul.

foxglove · 06/10/08, 7:55 PM

Originally Posted by Deninkle

It seems counter-intuitive that you would get less dps with more energy. However, to be sure it might be a good idea to record how many white/specials you use and how many of them were hits/misses/crits.

Who knows why it went down? Firstly, were you using 2t6 so that mangle has an energy requirement of 35? Astrylian said that when he spam tested powershifting on some ogres that his hit timer didn't reset, so it would be great to get more evidence for this.

Any other followup on this? I am not seeing the sort of DPS increase I expected with an energy threshold of 18; I in fact noticed a consistent loss of about 50 active DPS (per swstats and recount) over several Gorefiend pulls (as compared to my norm on that boss). I had all the usual buffs, etc., and no gear changes. 2pt4, no 2pt6. Now, I'm not too confident of my observation since I don't have a combat log, but it did make me worry that I might be losing autoattacks or something.

Can anyone verify that a lot of powershifting does not result in lost attacks?

Edit: Also, can anyone suggest a controlled environment for testing my DPS with a normal mangle/shred/rip cycle? I feel that there are too many variables in a raid.

Edit 2: someone earlier in the thread mentioned the dark portal mobs. I'll try that.

• Astrylian · 06/10/08, 8:01 PM

Originally Posted by foxglove

Any other followup on this? I am not seeing the sort of DPS increase I expected with an energy threshold of 18; I in fact noticed a consistent loss of about 50 active DPS (per swstats and recount) over several Gorefiend pulls (as compared to my norm on that boss). I had all the usual buffs, etc., and no gear changes. 2pt4, no 2pt6. Now, I'm not too confident of my observation since I don't have a combat log, but it did make me worry that I might be losing autoattacks or something.

Can anyone verify that a lot of powershifting does not result in lost attacks?

No, Powershifting does *not* result in lost autoattacks. 50dps can completely be explained by random chance on a fight as short as Gorefiend. And getting the exact same buffs between different weeks is much harder than you may thing. ie, how tightly was your enh sham twisting, if at all? Did a Surv hunter get upgrades so his AP bonus to you went up? Did a MS warrior have more or less blood craze uptime? Did CoR drop off some of the time? Etc.

Edit: Ogre spirits at the end of Dire Maul, if you're not trying to compare hit/exp. Everything else should at least be proportional on them, I think.

foxglove · 06/10/08, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

No, Powershifting does *not* result in lost autoattacks. 50dps can completely be explained by random chance on a fight as short as Gorefiend. And getting the exact same buffs between different weeks is much harder than you may thing. ie, how tightly was your enh sham twisting, if at all? Did a Surv hunter get upgrades so his AP bonus to you went up? Did a MS warrior have more or less blood craze uptime? Did CoR drop off some of the time? Etc.

Edit: Ogre spirits at the end of Dire Maul, if you're not trying to compare hit/exp. Everything else should at least be proportional on them, I think.

Thanks Astrylian. I hadn't considered any of the things you suggested; only whether my character's pre-combat buffs, party composition, and drum uptime were the same. I guess I just need to set aside some time and haul my character back to Azeroth.

Tembetyu · 06/11/08, 11:11 PM

I do have to say that the macros work really well. The only time I've ever been stuck in caster form is if I was smashing an attack while holding down the haste pot key. This also stopped after I watched to see when I gained my haste pot so I would let go of the key.

unitsinc · 06/14/08, 5:52 PM

I've finally decided to try and get into this despite the fact all this seems way over my head, but I really would like to be the best feral that I can be, so I downloaded Feralkit and as soon as my character loads I get a a Lua error 246 attempt to call global' CombatTexas_AddMessage' (a nil value)

The only thing new I see on my screen is a small bow with a "0" in it and nothing I do changes it. I can use the /fk commands, but I can't really figure out how to do much of anything with the commands.

I also copy/pasted the toggle on/off macro and the mangle macro to auto powershift. The only question I really have about those is, in order to do the same for any other ability, do I have to create another toggle macro set to a different threshold, because if I am understanding the macros correctly, then the toggle I have will make me shift at whatever energy threshold I have listed. But from what I have gathered, it is best to have a different threshold set for every different ability.

I'm really terrible with macros so please forgive me if I sound terribly ignorant.

Tembetyu · 06/14/08, 8:17 PM

Originally Posted by unitsinc

I've finally decided to try and get into this despite the fact all this seems way over my head, but I really would like to be the best feral that I can be, so I downloaded Feralkit and as soon as my character loads I get a a Lua error 246 attempt to call global' CombatTexas_AddMessage' (a nil value)

The only thing new I see on my screen is a small bow with a "0" in it and nothing I do changes it. I can use the /fk commands, but I can't really figure out how to do much of anything with the commands.

I also copy/pasted the toggle on/off macro and the mangle macro to auto powershift. The only question I really have about those is, in order to do the same for any other ability, do I have to create another toggle macro set to a different threshold, because if I am understanding the macros correctly, then the toggle I have will make me shift at whatever energy threshold I have listed. But from what I have gathered, it is best to have a different threshold set for every different ability.

I'm really terrible with macros so please forgive me if I sound terribly ignorant.

Thresholds are set in the macro for each individual ability. The toggle just turns the power shifting option on/off.

gobbles · 06/18/08, 2:31 AM

I've been messing around with the inline macro's and find they are working really well and i love them to death. Much better than when I used to manually powershift.

My caster bar comes up but i dont think - despite spamming the button - I've started casting anything i have bound there yet.

The only time I've gotten stuck in caster was during the last 10% of archie when i powershifted while in the bubble. But that's likely an issue with the bubble since you cant seem to shift forms while in it in any case.

Gaseous · 06/19/08, 10:11 PM

The macros now work great. I couldn't get any shifts with /console autounshift 0, so I set it to autoshift and the macros and addon all work perfectly now. Just gotta be careful not to hit the lifebloom key while tanking now o.O

Thanks for all the great work guys.

manapaws · 06/22/08, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Astrylian

I've had the most success with Mangle=15, Shred=18, Rip=10, Bite=15.

I notice that you have the t6 set bonus though. For those of us without it, do you recommend just adding 5 to mangle and leaving the rest as is?

• Astrylian · 06/22/08, 1:57 PM

Yes, that's correct.

Demiah · 06/24/08, 5:10 AM

i've skim read this thread and i dont appear to have read anything that explains the reasoning behind having shred at 24 energy lower than its cost when the other are all 1 tick (20 energy) below their full cost.
Could someone explain that to me?

• Astrylian · 06/24/08, 5:29 AM

Well, it's pretty simple. Shred can't be used immediately after a powershift, because it costs more than 40. You have to wait until the next energy tick (60), then shred (down to 18). So 18 is the cutoff. Any higher than 18, and it ends up cycling powershift->tick->Shred->powershift->tick->shred. One powershift per shred is really expensive.

Demiah · 06/24/08, 5:33 AM

Ah yea ofc, thanks man, i'd just not through it through properly.

Spookeh · 06/24/08, 9:31 AM

I use 22 for Shred.

I don't find I run OOM in a typical boss fight really.
I use mostly 2T4 / S3 / 2.4 badge items, (rather than end-game rogue leather) so they give a fair amount of int. We also have a lot of ferals (to mangle for me) and a lot of paladins (so I get blessing of wisdom) so maybe that helps.
My AP is 3100ish unbuffed and 48% crit.

The last fight i looked, (in ZA i think, doing ~1100dps) Shred was 58% of my damage- I shred a LOT. This means everbloom idol blows the others completely out the water- Rawr doesn't account for powershifting to this degree, and so over-values the Rip idol.