Cat DPS Rotation - Page 70

Kazanir · 04/29/09, 4:11 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

And the "intuitive" 100% cap is stupid, because it doesn't actually mean 100% of the armor is gone. It's simply a relic of the old way Armor Penetration was calculated. It would be clearly wrong if it took you past 0 armor, but it doesn't. It just takes you past the arbitrary 100% mark.

If blizzard really didn't want us going past 100%, they shouldn't introduce multiple trinkets that get us halfway there when they proc. That's just mean.

Sigh. It's obvious from GC's post on the subject that they only intended ArPen to "penetrate) up to (A+B)/3 of the target's armor. Right now you can mitigate more because having 120% ArPen gives you .2 * (A+B)/3 "negative armor" applied to the target's remaining armor. Compared to their stated design for the stat, it seems like a clear programming error and I'm doubtful that it can last.

Allev · 04/30/09, 7:59 AM

I'd believe you if GC didn't reply to a post over that cap, with math, and didn't catch that the cap wasn't actually working. Even after talking to "Jimmy the Numbers" I'm not positive that a cap is intended, it's just meant as a scalar instead. It wouldn't be the first time a blue poster was wrong about the particulars of mechanics.

And it would go against their philosophy of giving a proc to a stat that is cappable.

Falk · 04/30/09, 10:51 AM

[Crusader's Locket] has an Expertise proc. Just sayin'!

Shamgarr · 04/30/09, 1:34 PM

I'm surprised to not see it mentioned here so I'm wondering if this bug isn't affecting everyone -

After acquiring my 4th piece of T8 and heading to the dummy with frustrating results, I found a post in bug reports on WoW forums that has yet to get a response (or fix). Apparently, what the 4-set is actually doing is making your savage roar last 8 seconds. The buff stays for the extended duration, but is doing absolutely nothing.

Needless to say this is extraordinarily frustrating... for the record this is using T8.5 Helm, Chest, Legs and T8 gloves, if that makes any difference. I also have the savage roar glyph.

Is anyone out there dpsing with 4 set and *not* getting this issue?

vbdotnetrulz · 04/30/09, 2:40 PM

Originally Posted by Antagonist78

Couple questions here (assuming that trinkets do stack)

Why [Winter's Icy Embrace], both [Conqueror's Nightsong Raiments] and even [Chestguard of the Recluse] rate better, [Relic Hunter's Cord] has [Pattern: Death-Warmed Belt], and assuming I want to stay away from pvp (or don't think I'd make the rating required for) [Furious Gladiator's Greatstaff] I'm assuming I could replace that with [Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned] would that be correct?

Or is this set just intended to stack as much ArP as possible?

As you stack armor pen it becomes better in comparison to other stats. With those items, Winter's Icy Embrace is a superior chestpiece to the others you have listed, however new items have been discovered. Read page 15 of the FeralbyNight thread as it is currently being discussed. Lotrafen is indeed a nice weapon, however a new polearm has been discovered: Dark Edge of Depravity

Shamgarr · 05/04/09, 1:46 PM

Last night I picked up Mjolnir, and am now wearing that with Grim Toll. Previously I pretty much just let the Grim Toll proc happen when it may and never paid it too much attention. However with the massive damage increase when these two are up simultaneously, I'd love to find a good way to plan ahead and store some energy for when the internal CDs come up. It definitely affects optimal rotation on a fight where you're free to tunnel vision, squeezing an FB in before the procs fade for instance is well worth a chunk of Rip downtime.

My question is what mods people are using to track internal CDs on procs like this, if any. I've seen a couple things where various trinkets are hardcoded into the mod but I doubt they're updated for Mjolnir - really what I'm after is just some customizable bar/timer that lets me count 45 seconds between procs. Right now I use Power auras with timers to track my savage roar rip etc, but this just goes off the duration of the buff and has no further customization avaiable (a trend that seems to hold with all the common timers I've looked into).

Is anyone aware of a timer mod that allows you to set an arbitrary timer when it sees a buff, independent of the buff's duration?

sal · 05/04/09, 2:13 PM

Is there a mod that tracks hidden cooldowns?

Looks like there is a couple, searching for "proc" on curse should give a list. I use dotimer ghost bars for various things... had the mod since release on a warlock.

Shamgarr · 05/04/09, 3:15 PM

I was able to get Proculas to work for me after all - while it's not "technically" customizable to set a timer for an arbitrary buff as I was looking for, editing the lua file and adding Mjolnir was pretty trivial. If anyone else is trying to use this mod for new trinkets, simply go to the trinketprocs.lua file under modules and copy-paste one of the trinket entries, put in the actual item and proc spellIDs and give it a unique ID # under proc info (I just threw a high number in). This should work fine until the mod is updated.

Centarion · 05/05/09, 4:43 AM

As of today, the 4pc-Nightsong bonus works properly - happy rotating with a vastly longer SR.

Shamgarr · 05/05/09, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Centarion

As of today, the 4pc-Nightsong bonus works properly - happy rotating with a vastly longer SR.

I was testing out the fixed set bonus yesterday on dummies, and I have to say it felt like I was working harder just to get similar numbers to my double 2-set (T7/T8). With no mangle glyph and no rip set bonus, there were a lot of cycles where I simply couldn't get 3 shreds in before the rip expired if I wanted to keep perfect mangle/rake uptime, effectively losing more than just 4 seconds on the rip. This also resulted in less FBs, as I was always fighting to keep up rip and shred in between.

In theory, you're trading a 4s duration of one finisher for 8s of another, so it ought to be a net gain in efficiency (though rip does cost 5 more energy and any shreds under 3 takes that duration down another 2). And with full raid buffs it should of course be far easier to maintain, but at the same time on most fights you have full raid buffs, maintaining cycles is complicated by other factors. If you need to run out, switch targets, etc, the odds of getting the 3 shreds in goes down a little more, again increasing the chance you lose more than just 4s of rip.

I'm wondering how others feel about the choice between the two set bonuses in the current progression content. Also, I'm still trying to find the "right" number of CPs to savage roar at in various situations - with the set bonus I've tried doing it at a lower number of CPs for efficiency but often get caught in bad situations of needing to shred to extend a dying rip, and needing to refresh savage roar soon.

kalbear · 05/05/09, 11:21 AM

I still think that the win isn't going to be when you get a 5CP roar, but when you do a 1CP roar. 22 seconds for 1 CP is pretty efficient, and it'll average to 26 or so. And this differs significantly from the behavior of rip and a longer duration due to the large CP requirement of rip; for rip, it'll always take the same amount of time, so the important thing is simply how quickly you're able to get 5CP again as well as something else in between rips. For SR, the advantage is that it allows lower CP SRs to work well, requiring less CP overall. And that savings is only magnified with smaller CP SRs.

Falk · 05/05/09, 4:18 PM

I wouldn't be surprised if the bonus was changed to something along the lines of "2 secs per combo point" because a 1pt finisher that lasts 22 seconds is absolutely ridiculous. (Disclaimer that I would be equally not-surprised if it wasn't changed)

The most significant benefit from losing 4 secs of Rip for 8 secs of Roar (and a min buff time of 22) is that it heightens DPS a shit ton on rapid target swaps. Freya and Yogg Saron come to mind as fights where spending less CP keeping SR up is a huge boost, and mobs rarely last long enough for Rip to unload the additional last two ticks.

Due to the heightened premium on shred that losing 4 secs of Rip from t7 results in though, a mangle-bot pretty much goes from 'very nice to have' to more or less 'mandatory' for single target burns.

Yaelle · 05/06/09, 5:45 AM

[Netherblade Breeches]
The concept of this set bonus is not at alle new, so I doubt it's going to get changed.
It's intended that this bonus benefits lower CP savage roar more.

sal · 05/06/09, 11:45 AM

Is it correct to assume minimum CP should be used to overlap roar ~4 seconds over rip?

Assuming 2T7 26 second rip (12 sec base, 4 sec + 6 sec glyphs, 4 sec T7) is 4cp SR (29 seconds) optimal then simply refresh SR as soon as 4cp is obtained after refreshing a rip? I have been refreshing whatever comes available if I don't have energy to bite at 5cp. This sloppy method wastes excessive energy clipping as much as 1/2 a timer to prepare for the next timer that could be used for damage.

I am assuming this based on the discussion of 4T8 where 1cp SR (22 seconds) 5cp rip (22 seconds) is used and clipping timers wastes energy. I assume with 4T8 enough CP from 2cp SR's allows maintenance to refresh 4+ seconds into the next rip.

Aldhissla · 05/06/09, 9:36 PM

It is interesting how the interaction between the number of CPs used with SR affects your "rotation". I am currently following the first method where I try to use 3-4 CP SRs, allowing a 1:1 Rip:SR ratio - attempting to maximise Rip uptime and not having collisions between timers, I will only FB if I get a few lucky crits/procs and feel I can generate enough CP for my next finisher in time.

Looking forward to 4T8, assuming the benefits from that outweigh the loss of the 4 seconds from Rip with 2T7 (and the obvious stat upgrades on the gear itself), I will be curious to see if any other more interesting strategies emerge. For example, a 5 CP SR would be 42 seconds, allowing 2 Rips to occur for each SR cast. Obviously you can get more "free" SR uptime if you cast it more often with fewer CPs (more CPs left to spend on FB), but whether or not you have the spare time in such short SR applications to FB without greatly impacting Rip uptime is another story.