Double post: I just got the new Rawr but I'm still not 100% clear that it takes the newest armor pen knowledge into account. I'll try to find Ast and see what he says about it. But yeah, my results are now similar.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
I'm not getting the same results in Rawr as you, vb. However I'm not confident in Rawr's modeling right now -- has the new information about the value of armorpen been integrated properly? It seems like armor pen is valued far too highly for that to be true.
I used Shred/Rip/SR glyphs and LW/Alch professions.
8307 dps points as of RAWR 2.2.1
The only way I can increase the dps is by making it a BS/JC, but dealing with JC gems is annoying when it comes to testing. Of course RAWR could be wrong, but it is a much better theorycrafter than I.
Edited for readability and grammar (sorry).
Last edited by vbdotnetrulz : 04/27/09 at 10:30 AM.
Also keep inmind that using both grim toll and mjolnir runestone will cause you to go over the ArPen cap, which rawr wont take into account due to it averaging the procs. imo its better to use only 1 arpen trinket.
Also keep inmind that using both grim toll and mjolnir runestone will cause you to go over the ArPen cap, which rawr wont take into account due to it averaging the procs. imo its better to use only 1 arpen trinket.
Unless you take into account that arpen can apparently go over the cap.
My list was of item values at the time. There were more items discovered recently, and certain items will be re budgeted or fixed. Blizzard has done this with several pieces of loot so far in WOTLK including the heroic COS quest gloves.
The newest feral weapon that I've seen is Dark Edge of Depravity (not on wowhead yet). It is better than [Furious Gladiator's Greatstaff] even if it is not re budgeted.
The ArPen trinkets are both better by a good deal due to the average amount given is much higher and that ArPen is better than Agi.
Does this take into account how those procs might stack? I'm fairly certain if both go off simultaneously you can over cap arp which would severely decrease the value of them combined.
(ignore the Warlock bit on the left; I rerolled feral druid, 'Fite').
Just to add to the confusion on this topic -- I regemmed everything to armor pen and ended up with 415 arpen rating (33.70% reduction). This reduced my ap by about 600 from full agi gemming. I put on as much arpen as I could get, breaking T7 bonus in the process on the theory, promoted here, that maintaining rip is less important than weaving in FB.
Gear is moderately close to Naxx25 BiS, plus some pieces from U10.
I then went and blew up the boss target dummy for a few hours, and my dps gradually settled in at around 3850, motw only. Rip had a few breaks owing to some clearcasting droughts, and I weaved in a decent number of bites when possible. Priority was SR, Rip5, Rake, Bite5, Shred.
I usually do a little more dps -- over 4000 -- with pure agi gemming.
And indeed, despite people with very similar gear reporting that Rawr is giving them arpen > agi, even with full arpen gear Rawr is telling me that agi is better -- which would contradict the notion offered here that arpen has increasing returns, if Rawr is right, which is always pretty questionable.
Given that disparity, it seems likely that it's not so cut and dried that arpen is better. It may be better for certain gear combinations, but for mine, which is probably pretty reasonable for 75% or more of the druids reading this thread, it's questionable. Couple that with most of the fights in Ulduar involving movement requirements, and at least for me it looks probable that optimizing rip/rake (and swipe!) over FB and shred seems to have better play in real world scenarios.
Does this take into account how those procs might stack? I'm fairly certain if both go off simultaneously you can over cap arp which would severely decrease the value of them combined.
Darwexn, it boggles my mind, but a warrior on these boards has shown that "overcapping" ArPen results in abilities hitting for more than their base damage -- in other words, an overcap leads to a mob with negative armor who takes more damage from melee attacks than a mob with zero armor. Given the stacking math on ArPen, "overcap" is desirable and probably the best use of itemization.
(ignore the Warlock bit on the left; I rerolled feral druid, 'Fite').
Just to add to the confusion on this topic -- I regemmed everything to armor pen and ended up with 415 arpen rating (33.70% reduction). This reduced my ap by about 600 from full agi gemming. I put on as much arpen as I could get, breaking T7 bonus in the process on the theory, promoted here, that maintaining rip is less important than weaving in FB.
Gear is moderately close to Naxx25 BiS, plus some pieces from U10.
I then went and blew up the boss target dummy for a few hours, and my dps gradually settled in at around 3850, motw only. Rip had a few breaks owing to some clearcasting droughts, and I weaved in a decent number of bites when possible. Priority was SR, Rip5, Rake, Bite5, Shred.
I usually do a little more dps -- over 4000 -- with pure agi gemming.
And indeed, despite people with very similar gear reporting that Rawr is giving them arpen > agi, even with full arpen gear Rawr is telling me that agi is better -- which would contradict the notion offered here that arpen has increasing returns, if Rawr is right, which is always pretty questionable.
Given that disparity, it seems likely that it's not so cut and dried that arpen is better. It may be better for certain gear combinations, but for mine, which is probably pretty reasonable for 75% or more of the druids reading this thread, it's questionable. Couple that with most of the fights in Ulduar involving movement requirements, and at least for me it looks probable that optimizing rip/rake (and swipe!) over FB and shred seems to have better play in real world scenarios.
This may be an example of where target dummy testing won't give you an accurate picture. In a raid setting you'll have increased combo point generation (through increased crit) and increased energy regen (through haste and hit, increasing your OOC procs), not to mention more clearcasting procs once you get 2T8. These changes will have little effect on your bleed dps since our rotation revolves around maximizing Rake and Rip uptimes, but will greatly increase the number of Shreds and FBs you're able to pull off. I'd suggest comparing combatlog parses or Recount from raids before your gear changes and after to get a better idea of what's really happened to your dps.
Darwexn, it boggles my mind, but a warrior on these boards has shown that "overcapping" ArPen results in abilities hitting for more than their base damage -- in other words, an overcap leads to a mob with negative armor who takes more damage from melee attacks than a mob with zero armor. Given the stacking math on ArPen, "overcap" is desirable and probably the best use of itemization.
Wait, how does that work, did GC's post show that you couldn't pass more than ~80% arp on a boss mob; as in, you cant even drop 100% armor altogether or did i misinterpret the post?
Wait, how does that work, did GC's post show that you couldn't pass more than ~80% arp on a boss mob; as in, you cant even drop 100% armor altogether or did i misinterpret the post?
The equation GC gave us was nothing to do with caps. It really just determines the effectiveness of ArPen based on the amount of armor the target has (and your level). They might have intended for there to be a cap when your paper doll says 100% but there isn't.
This may be an example of where target dummy testing won't give you an accurate picture. In a raid setting you'll have increased combo point generation (through increased crit) and increased energy regen (through haste and hit, increasing your OOC procs), not to mention more clearcasting procs once you get 2T8. These changes will have little effect on your bleed dps since our rotation revolves around maximizing Rake and Rip uptimes, but will greatly increase the number of Shreds and FBs you're able to pull off. I'd suggest comparing combatlog parses or Recount from raids before your gear changes and after to get a better idea of what's really happened to your dps.
As bad as boss dummies are, they do provide a stable, repeatable platform for testing, from which one can then draw conclusions -- more stable in my opinion than most raids, where maybe your role was to root on Ignis, or you had to run out because you kept getting lightbombed, or you needed to battle res someone who stood in fire, or etc. I agree that having the major armor debuff on the target might change things up a little, but as a Tauren I don't get hit buff from the raid, haste is good but scales better with agi's crit, and purely on the agi side, kings is huge, trauma/manglebot is huge...
As bad as boss dummies are, they do provide a stable, repeatable platform for testing, from which one can then draw conclusions -- more stable in my opinion than most raids, where maybe your role was to root on Ignis, or you had to run out because you kept getting lightbombed, or you needed to battle res someone who stood in fire, or etc. I agree that having the major armor debuff on the target might change things up a little, but as a Tauren I don't get hit buff from the raid, haste is good but scales better with agi's crit, and purely on the agi side, kings is huge, trauma/manglebot is huge...
The biggest factors in a raid is CP rate and bleed uptime. Crit and haste (OoC) directly influences cycles and can mean the difference between being able to FB or not. You can also sacrifice bleed uptime for FBs. When you are on a training dummy your crit will be lower and your ability usage will be more stable. This will most likely lead to higher bleed uptime. The increasing value of ArP in relation to Agi is directly dependent on increasing the frequency of Shreds and FBs. Additionally, some abilities scale better with AP which means proportion of damage contribution from different abilities changes in raid.
Yes you can draw some conclusion from dummy testing, but it requires huge sample sizes and data extrapolation.
As bad as boss dummies are, they do provide a stable, repeatable platform for testing, from which one can then draw conclusions -- more stable in my opinion than most raids, where maybe your role was to root on Ignis, or you had to run out because you kept getting lightbombed, or you needed to battle res someone who stood in fire, or etc. I agree that having the major armor debuff on the target might change things up a little, but as a Tauren I don't get hit buff from the raid, haste is good but scales better with agi's crit, and purely on the agi side, kings is huge, trauma/manglebot is huge...
I'd say, if anything, your test shows how powerful arp is - you sacrificed the things that help your rotation most on a dummy (ap, crit) for arp, that only really starts to shine with a major armor-debuff (sunder armor), and yet your dps didn't drop much.
Im affraid, that final word about ArPen value for most people could be declared only by giving WWS or recount results. Personaly, I have nothing against RAWR and people, who use its results. I used it for a long time and it helped a lot when I managed my gear pre Ulduar. But Idd like to see a player, who put his gear to RAWR and on live raid could provide same DPS. The only fights before Ulduar I was close to my RAWR was Patchwerk and dummy. I wrote close, it meant 100-200 DPS behind RAWR.
Its not hard to provide RiP all the time on target, but you have to sacrifice a lot of other things. When you try to maximize RiP uptime, you obviously have to wait while you have 5CP and ~8sec RiP remain. You cant use FB, because you risking not enough CP for another RiP. During this time, it can proc OOC and it can proc twice. Also there is great chance, that during this time your rake expire. So I can say, that just both rake nad RiP uptimes cant be 100%, if you are not overwriting them and if you are not raking over the 5 CP.
When someone came here with... "WoW I putted this AGI gear to RAWR and it shows 8.2k DPS and ArPen gear shows only 7.5k DPS" ... with all respect, this is weak argument. AGI gear have lot of potential, when god take a holiday, and you provide almost 100% bleed uptime, you will probably get only 500 DPS behind RAWR. Amount of damage from bleeds oscillate depended on luck. Then gear with high percentage DPS output from bleeds sufer a lot, when you are unable to maximite bleeds uptime.
In subjective opinion, if you will run raid content with ArPen gear, you will do more damage, when you will run raid content with AGI gear. During Vezax progres, I was in contact with another guild feral mate, who concentrate gear for AGI, and he was fairly behind in general. When my worst pulls was slightly behind 5k (I learned the new fight), his best was slightly over 5k... my best was 5.8k and during kill pull I managed 5.3 out of spite losing several CP and uptimes because of swiching targets. A day later he whispered, that he managed 5.2 in 10man with incredible luck about uptime.
I meant no offense against RAWR posters, also I apolgize for my dirty english. Ill work on recount and WWS reports from ArPen style feral during Ulduar runs. Hope, there will be comparable data from AGI gemed ferals.
I would point out that the current #1 and #3 (2 is in tanking gear atm) Druids on Deconstructor are both using a good deal of Armor Pen, but then I'd also have to mention that they have better gear than the #5 who's using Agi, so until we start breaking 8k on Rawr with our gear, there's really no point because comparisons are going to be highly skewed by gear, especially among those with Lotrafen already.
@Temelin: Well, just because another feral buddy of yours has lower DPS than you with his AGI gear, that doesn't prove anything. His Gear could be worse or just his skill or his buffs...
@boevis: In my opinion the deconstructor fight favors ArPen because of the heart. Usually you will have one (or even two) times berserk for the heart, meaning you can spamshred on it. And you also start with a refreshed SR and a full energy bar on the heart leading to much more shreds than usual. And last but not least -> your rip will expire on the heart and you can't refresh it because the heart does not live long enough for 2 rips.
So deconstructor ist NOT the fight to compare ArPen to Agi...
Regemming all your gear, the difference should only be on the order of a 50-100 DPS gain (assuming 10-20 gems and an average difference in DPS-per-point of .3). Getting more comfortable with a certain fight, luck with the RNG, small improvements in skill, and the play of people keeping buffs up for you will all obfuscate that gain in a WWS parse.
You really have to trust the math, and to do that, you either have to do it blindly, or actually know why the theory says what it says. When there are disagreements (like Toskk's/Rawr versus FBN/SC), you can just average the difference out, or trust one set of numbers. I STRONGLY recommend that you don't simply choose the one with the best interface, but the one that matches your playstyle the closest. Yes, this takes work, but if every last DPS matters to you, you owe it to yourself to figure it out.
04/24/09, 10:05 PM
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