Cat DPS Rotation - Page 59

Allev · 04/03/09, 9:59 AM

Mijae, that all sounds feasible, but to what degree are you seeing hit rating over-valued? Given that we have two simulators which both rate hit in the ballpark of calcs, I'm a skeptical of large deviations.

Monfalaris · 04/03/09, 10:42 AM

Since we will probably use ArP gems instead of Str or Agi for maximized Cat DPS, I was wondering at what point Shred has actually the better DpE compared to Rake, since Rake got that big hit from not being affected by Primal Gore and Shred getting boosted a lot by the new gear setup. This would kick Rake out of our rotation. I can remember there was a table in the WotLK Discussion thread where Rake was up and away followed by Shred but I forgot about the parameters. The calculation would have to take into account an ArP rating of 650 (this is what I get using RAWR) and Idol of the Ravenous Beast as well as major and minor armor debuffs on the Boss. Right now I cannot really concentrate on this so I am a bit lost here. Does someone have the time and is willing to help me out? Or am I too suspiscious of rake?

Mijae · 04/03/09, 1:16 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

Mijae, that all sounds feasible, but to what degree are you seeing hit rating over-valued? Given that we have two simulators which both rate hit in the ballpark of calcs, I'm a skeptical of large deviations.

In new max gear my calc shows about 7100 dps when hit capped, which is closer to Toskk's than Rawr. However, removing all hit rating reduces mine by 600 dps but Toskk's by only 250 dps.

Also, Toskk's does not model a number of buffs (most notable being 4t8). The biggest difference I see is the reported DPE of attacks. If all buffs and stats were applied the same, these values should be identical. This is one of the short comings of Rawr (not being reported). I would really like to be able to see computed average damage of attacks to compare against WWS numbers.

I usually base stat point values on adding 8 points (equivalent to half gem). Mine is putting hit/exp worth about 1.5 times more than agi/str.

Originally Posted by Monfalaris

Since we will probably use ArP gems instead of Str or Agi for maximized Cat DPS, I was wondering at what point Shred has actually the better DpE compared to Rake, since Rake got that big hit from not being affected by Primal Gore and Shred getting boosted a lot by the new gear setup. This would kick Rake out of our rotation. I can remember there was a table in the WotLK Discussion thread where Rake was up and away followed by Shred but I forgot about the parameters. The calculation would have to take into account an ArP rating of 650 (this is what I get using RAWR) and Idol of the Ravenous Beast as well as major and minor armor debuffs on the Boss. Right now I cannot really concentrate on this so I am a bit lost here. Does someone have the time and is willing to help me out? Or am I too suspiscious of rake?

This will, of course, depend on total stats (they scale differently with AP/crit) and idol. The actual rating needed will also depend on if they fix the 0.81 multiplier bug reported on the PTR. Using BiS gear and shred idol you would need around 84% total armor pen, or around 660 ArP rating if fixed (including Sunder/FF). However, the Rip idol will still be worth more. Without the idol it would be closer to 90% pen (or 830 rating). Each are about 25% higher if bug is not fixed.

However, this does not account for the 2t8 bonus giving clearcasting on bleeds. This should really push the value up to where it's not feasible to drop Rake before t9.

Allev · 04/03/09, 3:15 PM

Originally Posted by Mijae

In new max gear my calc shows about 7100 dps when hit capped, which is closer to Toskk's than Rawr. However, removing all hit rating reduces mine by 600 dps but Toskk's by only 250 dps.

Also, Toskk's does not model a number of buffs (most notable being 4t8). The biggest difference I see is the reported DPE of attacks. If all buffs and stats were applied the same, these values should be identical. This is one of the short comings of Rawr (not being reported). I would really like to be able to see computed average damage of attacks to compare against WWS numbers.

I usually base stat point values on adding 8 points (equivalent to half gem). Mine is putting hit/exp worth about 1.5 times more than agi/str.

I'm not saying "get close to Rawr" or "get close to Toskk's" or "get close to Nightcrowler" or "get close to Simcraft". But each of those, after adjusting for mechanics problems, have hit weighted less than strength or agi. They all have their issues, but they're all in fundamental agreement.

Both simulators have run into problems with not accounting energy refunds properly when they've been overvaluing hit rating. I'd guess you're doing the same.

Think about it this way: you're losing about 8% of your DPS (600/7100) when you lose 8% hit rating. That's close to what I'd expect with zero energy refund on yellow attacks. Are you refunding energy on misses?

Jone · 04/03/09, 5:54 PM

Is it possible to reach the tipping point for ArPen versus agi in 3.1 without using Grim Toll? I like the elegance of agi gear also being decent for tanking, and I think the goal of primal gore was to make us gem agility in our DPS sets. As such, I'm hesitant to gem everything for ArPen if they could nerf one item and make me do it all over again.

Natural · 04/03/09, 6:38 PM

Do any of the simulators include human error when considering the hit and expertise caps? In an ideal world, we will always notice when an ability misses and try the same attack again. However, in the heat of battle, we might not notice and accidentally use the next ability we had planned in our head. A simulator will always pick the correct thing to do. A human might not.

Perhaps we accidentally put up a 4 point rip because we didn't notice mangle missed, or our rake misses and we follow up with a mangle and have to wait for energy to come back to put up Rake. There are lots of situations where we may already be planning our next ability in our heads. However, if we make a mistake, I don't know how much this will really impact our DPS.

Hypothetically this could be simulated by predicting one action ahead at all times. If the attack misses and the predicted next action would occur immediately on the next GCD, the "human error factor" would be considered to determine whether the simulator makes the "new best ability" or "planned next ability"

I know it's a bit pessimistic to assume we will make mistakes. However, it's clear to me that Hit/Expertise are the only stats that reduce the chance you will make a mistake. I believe it should be considered.

RareBeast · 04/03/09, 7:46 PM

Further to Natural's point about human error, has anyone looked at the effect that latency has on rotations etc. Being an Australian player, I play with anything up to 500ms ping (usually 2-300) and I know others have even worse latency and my personal feeling is that it does significantly hurt my DPS.

I know the hunter spreadsheets at least allow a user customised figure for latency as it greatly affects their rotations (or at least did in BC). Is it something us druids should be looking in to?

Monfalaris · 04/03/09, 8:50 PM

Originally Posted by Mijae

This will, of course, depend on total stats (they scale differently with AP/crit) and idol. The actual rating needed will also depend on if they fix the 0.81 multiplier bug reported on the PTR. Using BiS gear and shred idol you would need around 84% total armor pen, or around 660 ArP rating if fixed (including Sunder/FF). However, the Rip idol will still be worth more. Without the idol it would be closer to 90% pen (or 830 rating). Each are about 25% higher if bug is not fixed.

However, this does not account for the 2t8 bonus giving clearcasting on bleeds. This should really push the value up to where it's not feasible to drop Rake before t9.

True. However, in case they do fix the bug, 660 ArP rating is already really close to being attainable. How did you get those numbers?
In addition, I think the class devs really got lucky with the 2t8 bonus this time since it is about to tip the scales here, but, frankly, this only underlines the shortsightedness of rake not being affected by primal gore.
Well, at least we (they) should keep an eye on rake.

Mijae · 04/03/09, 9:52 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

Think about it this way: you're losing about 8% of your DPS (600/7100) when you lose 8% hit rating. That's close to what I'd expect with zero energy refund on yellow attacks. Are you refunding energy on misses?

Yes, I'm still trying to finalize the model change. Taking a quick look this probably is the case. I wanted to make sure I was capturing the cost of missed clearcasts. I probably took it too far.

Originally Posted by Monfalaris

True. However, in case they do fix the bug, 660 ArP rating is already really close to being attainable. How did you get those numbers?
In addition, I think the class devs really got lucky with the 2t8 bonus this time since it is about to tip the scales here, but, frankly, this only underlines the shortsightedness of rake not being affected by primal gore.
Well, at least we (they) should keep an eye on rake.

I didn't use a formula to get those numbers, but just plugged in a few ratings into my calculator to get an estimate. I tried putting together a set of full ArP, but there's just not enough right now to get passively.

Monfalaris · 04/03/09, 10:27 PM

Oh my fault, I already had ulduar gear in mind. Using RAWR I can get very reasonable 650 ArP and 750 ArP really pushing it. Bugs aside, this is already at or above your estimate. The only thing that stands is the 2t8 bonus which I really had not thought of. Even if rake DPE already falls behind shred DPE (which I am still skeptical of even given your estimate) the clearcasting procs from those bleed ticks will probably more than compensate for the difference. However, we have to keep in mind, that 2t8 is only more or less temporary. As soon as 2t8 becomes outdated, we will almost certainly drop rake from our rotation, having an even higher ArP level then.

Just curious, what was the reason behind this change? Was it simply to lower our dps? I think there are plenty of knobs to turn in order to achieve this goal.

Wulfmanjack · 04/03/09, 11:39 PM

I guess the recent changes where to lower the dps which was to high and also make the rotation easier.
1. If you have a bad rake uptime its not that important than before.
2. If you don´t use Fercious Bite its not that important than before, your rotation will be much easier and you also have 5 talent points to spend elsewhere.

From the newest ptr simucraft here are the damadge per executetime numbers (gcd)

Druid_T8_00_55_16
1. Rip 42225
2. ferecious bite 12336
3. rake  7215
4. shred 6248

In this model Rake DPE is 180,375 and Shred 148,761.
The only time Shred is maybe better than reapplying rake is when Rip is about to fade and you can prolonge it with shred (shred glyph).

I don´t know if the lower critchance of FB is implementet in this simucraft so its maybe even lower.

If we can get to the point where shred is equal to rake the rotation will be again much easier. Since Rake is nerfed Armorpen will affect even more the overall damadge with 3.1

Edit: Not using rake in the rotation will lower the gain from 2t8.

Mijae · 04/04/09, 1:45 AM

Originally Posted by Mijae

This will, of course, depend on total stats (they scale differently with AP/crit) and idol. The actual rating needed will also depend on if they fix the 0.81 multiplier bug reported on the PTR. Using BiS gear and shred idol you would need around 84% total armor pen, or around 660 ArP rating if fixed (including Sunder/FF). However, the Rip idol will still be worth more. Without the idol it would be closer to 90% pen (or 830 rating). Each are about 25% higher if bug is not fixed.

However, this does not account for the 2t8 bonus giving clearcasting on bleeds. This should really push the value up to where it's not feasible to drop Rake before t9.

I just noticed an error in my spreadsheet. When I removed Primal Gore from Rake I also removed the initial damage crits. This raises the DPE and Shred ArP equiv point to over 810 with the idol and 970 without. That would put Shred crits up to 14k which is pretty sick.

The damage listed from that simucraft look extremely low. Are those based on Naxx gear?

Wulfmanjack · 04/04/09, 2:16 AM

Originally Posted by Mijae

The damage listed from that simucraft look extremely low. Are those based on Naxx gear?

I´ve read they are using pre 3.1 gear but already with 2t8+4t8 setbonus. Also Rip Idol is used.

Played around with Rawr 2.06 included Best in Slot Ulduar Gear. Ended up with 735 armorpen Raidbuffed with Jewelcrafting. (Shred Glyph)

Average damadge per swing is:

Shred 10084
Rake 8776

Attacks:
Melee 30,65%
Mangle 0% (Manglebot)
Shred 33,26%
Rake 12,10%
Rip 23,97%
Bite 0% (Rawr doesn´t use FB in optimal DPS rotation)

Stat Value:

If the energy used for rake instead will be used for shred, the value of armorpen and shredglyph will skyrocket, but in rawr there is no option to exclude rake from the rotation.

nightcrowler · 04/04/09, 2:55 AM

Originally Posted by RareBeast

Further to Natural's point about human error, has anyone looked at the effect that latency has on rotations etc.

FeralbyNight (Cat & Bear simulation tool)
In my simulation I simulate latency. I usually use 90ms as default value but if you want to take time to compile the code you can easly change it. I've also find a way to take care of lag with the addon I'm developing, basically it's a sort of "pre-casting bar". As a general thing the effect of lag is about legligible till 200ms after that is really bad and after 500ms you start losing a lot of dps.

Monfalaris · 04/04/09, 12:01 PM

Thanks a lot Wulfmanjack, that is awesome information and pretty much what I was looking for. So, yeah, given RAWR is correct, we can pretty much confirm, that, as of the current state of 3.1, shred is already getting very close to rake when gearing up for a maximized ArP rating. I want to emphasize Fascs statement here:

Originally Posted by Fasc

You answered your own question basically. If you go back to Nightcrowler's simulation and read the preference of stats, Armor Penetration was exceptionally close to Agility, and that was before the removal of Rake from Primal Gore. That one change makes it so a bit more of our total DPS is from direct attacks and a bit less from DoTs which would boost the relative power of Armor Penetration even more. Ravenous Beast made Armor Penetration preferential from the start and now I see no reason to stress over the Rip Idol any longer.

It is important to realize, that the rake issue derives solely from the dominance of ArP. If we would use delicate scarlet rubies instead, rake wouldn't have these issues yet (and probably not until next expansion if there will be one).
I don't want to go too much off topic here, but I want to mention, that ArP dominance (and no rake crits) is a bad direction. If they want to make ferals easier to play with effects to pvp they should start removing all those requirements we need to match to actually pull off the possible dps (and not include more inconsistencies). SR, RnT, Mangle/Trauma, Trinket usage and keeping in mind every TF and Zerk cd in combination to the bleed cds (not to mention the positional requirement on shred) is just too much for most players, which is, frankly, no wonder. Additionally, casual players will probably not have access to multiple Tx sets so they will still use agility gems since they are the best hybrid gems. This makes balancing even harder.