Cat DPS Rotation - Page 49

Inaiwae · 03/05/09, 6:54 AM

I did some tests on PTR today, selfbuffed, no other people debuffing the dummy. I dont have SR glyph so i use rip, shred and mangle. My gear is agility gemmed and enchanted.

My rotation is not perfect but i think its quite ok, but i didnt manage to be higher than 4300. I dont use t6. The screenshot shows 4200 due to bleeds ticking while i was taking the screenshot.

edit: i have 4t7, berserking enchant, DC:G agility. RED, dps spec. The test was 6 minutes (2x berserker).

Pzychotix · 03/05/09, 7:22 AM

4300 DPS without raid buffs is actually ridiculously good, considering how much benefit we get from raid buffs (kings and UR alone are massive boosts). I'm really surprised at such a massive difference in DPS from live test dummy parses, and with no SR glyph yet.

Question: How often did you find yourself waiting on Rips, with the new 26s timer? I see you FBed only 8 times. Do you feel that you could/should be fitting more in?

/edit: Just saw that DoT crits went from 150% to 200%. Geez, no wonder.

Murna · 03/05/09, 7:23 AM

I can see only 1 Faerie Fire, which is definitely not enough for 6 Minutes. So DPS could be improved here as well.

Inaiwae · 03/05/09, 7:40 AM

@Murna: i have a habit of pressing FFF whenever i have free gcd, so it was up all the time.

@Psychotix: yes i think 4300 is too good but i was reacting to Shamgarr above who managed 4400-4600 with 4t6. And about FB - i could squeeze more in, i think i did quite poor job with FBs there but i lack practice, was tanking last month almost exclusively.

seminarca · 03/05/09, 8:22 AM

FFF in Cat Form does no damage and so it doesn't get tracked by Recount .. unless it misses. In this particular case, Inaiwae would have had 1 FFF miss. I'm actually surprised they buffed DoT crits to 200%, I thought 150% was fairly reasonable and the numbers seemed to stack up nicely vs what other classes can do. Can't help but feel this won't make it to live in its current state.

foxglove · 03/05/09, 8:55 AM

Originally Posted by wuffles

It's also very easy to have the RNG shit on you (as the tank) in the first few seconds of a fight, a miss/dodge/parry of key threat moves in the first few seconds can have a huge impact on your threat lead at the start. This is pretty much a non-existent problem these days though unless you're in some sort of bizzaro group with no hunter(s) or rogue(s). If you're in real danger of pulling aggro on a single target fight these days, all signs pretty much point to inept tanks.

Actually, even with an MD, I've had people who decided to start nuking the boss immediately peel bosses off me on the pull when I get a maul or mangle parried... I wouldn't say that the days of aggro management are entirely gone. The old rule of holding fire on the pull and not nuking for a few seconds still applies. Once the encounter is rolling and the tank has actually established aggro I agree it's unlikely for DPS to pull a boss off a geared and competent tank, except perhaps in situations like Malygos' vortex where ranged DPS can continue to attack the target while the tank is out of melee range.

It seems like people are comparing our DPS on the PTR to other classes' on live; I'd wait until more folk have a chance to compare with other melee on the PTR before drawing conclusions as to what Blizzard will or won't do to nerf it.

Pzychotix · 03/05/09, 8:55 AM

FFF in Cat Form does no damage and so it doesn't get tracked by Recount .. unless it misses. In this particular case, Inaiwae would have had 1 FFF miss. I'm actually surprised they buffed DoT crits to 200%, I thought 150% was fairly reasonable and the numbers seemed to stack up nicely vs what other classes can do. Can't help but feel this won't make it to live in its current state.

Yeah, neither can I. But I'm hoping that I'll get to top at least one raid on live before they swing the nerfbat around at us.

Random short test I did:
Glyph of Rip and Shred only, self buffed, and I kinda just facerolled to 4000 DPS. Without Glyph of Mangle, it's actually somewhat hard to always get the 3 shreds in for Rip, and the addons I used can't really tell me if I've already shredded enough for this Rip or not. There was a lot of room for improvement.

My DPS gear is kinda shoddy as well. I think some of them are enchanted/gemmed for tanking...

Mowen · 03/05/09, 9:59 PM

Has anyone done any experimentation with changing idols in a fight? Like using the shred one and then only using the rip idol on rip and going back?

charriu · 03/06/09, 2:04 AM

Originally Posted by Mowen

Has anyone done any experimentation with changing idols in a fight? Like using the shred one and then only using the rip idol on rip and going back?

Since this resets your swing timer, it's probably not the best idea.

Aladonic · 03/06/09, 2:58 AM

Yeah resetting the swing timer is the big issue. Although I was thinking would it work if you switch to shred idol right before you TF->Berserk, due to the fact that is when we shred the most. Then AFTER the FB, we switch back to rip idol, while we wait for energy. I would assume that the 7-8 shreds with the +203 dmg out weighs the 2 white hits.

Drashian · 03/06/09, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Aladonic

Yeah resetting the swing timer is the big issue. Although I was thinking would it work if you switch to shred idol right before you TF->Berserk, due to the fact that is when we shred the most. Then AFTER the FB, we switch back to rip idol, while we wait for energy. I would assume that the 7-8 shreds with the +203 dmg out weighs the 2 white hits.

Looks close on napkin math. With my white attacks doing around 600 damage each (crits factored out since I'm assuming +203 damage would get multiplied by a crit at the same rate as a white attack), it would take 6 shreds to make up for 2 full lost white attacks, not unreasonable. Since you obviously wouldn't lose the entire two attacks, but rather an average of 1 from the sum of the two swing timer resets, there definitely looks like there's an advantage to swapping. The advantage scales down as your attack power gets higher (affects white attacks, but not the shred bonus), but it's there. Only a few hundred damage, but if you're willing to take the trouble, it's there.

Malazaar · 03/06/09, 1:30 PM

You are completely ignoring the fact that you swap out the rip idol and lose rip damage during that interval.

Thaeryn · 03/06/09, 1:38 PM

While I don't think this is a viable method of increasing DPS by any substantial margin... no, you would not lose the dps from the rip idol. The extra damage is on application, just like damage increasing buffs. Drop a 5 point rip in a double stack of sparks on Malygos and then run out. Your rip will continue to do the increased damage. You would only lose the rip damage if you did not have the idol equipped when applying the rip.

Elwood · 03/06/09, 2:03 PM

I can provide a single data point, with no real scientific analysis:

A few weeks ago, I had this same thought, and hit the practice dummy. Keeping the Shred idol equipped, swapping to the Rip idol to rip, then swapping back before my next shred, dropped my dps from around 3k to around 2600. I kept my cycle pretty tight, so I don't think that it was predominantly due to having to get used to adding the swap into my rotation. Though it was about a 20-minute run, it could have been partly RNG, partly user error, and partly swing-timer based.

Either way, my decision was that at best, it seemed to not be worth the extra work, and at worst, a noticeable dps loss.

Boevis · 03/06/09, 6:04 PM

The only time when it's in your best interest to swap idols is when your capabilities change; tankside on Thaddius swap to Rip (after 3.1 no change), balcony phases on Gothik and Noth swap to mangle, Whelps on Sarth or start of p2 Malygos swap to swipe.