FeralbyNight (Cat & Bear simulation tool) - Page 72

Leafkiller · 07/21/09, 4:52 PM

It is not that hard to get behind them.

Rojan1 · 07/22/09, 3:56 AM

Originally Posted by Rojan1

Newest 3.2 Patch notes:

Seems to me that this could favor the use of 2 chance on hit to proc ArP trinkets, like grim toll and mjolnir runestone. Simply equip grim toll 10-15 seconds before entering combat, and it could significantly lessen the chance of overlapping procs, likely making this the new BiS combo for trinkets. The longer the fight goes, and the more time off target you have will diminish this effect.

I don't have the knowhow to add this into the sim code, but maybe a line prohibiting a grim toll proc in the first 30 seconds of the fight could do it.

Ok, I tried, but changing the code and running the sim got way over my abilities very quickly. Basically, my idea is that the reason 2 ArP proc trinkets arent rated BiS is because of proc uptime overlap. From my WWS/WMO parses i see that average Grim toll uptime is about 20%, meaning that its up 10 out of every 50 seconds, on average.

I assume the Mjolnir runestone is similar, and if they start off internal CD, they will have a high percentage of overlap (say 80%). Meaning that 80% of the time, you would be way over cap, and wasting stats. Given that the iCD is 45 seconds, and I'm seeing 20% uptime, that means that it takes on average 5 seconds to proc when able. 5 seconds out of 50 is 10% proc "creep" per cycle. Since both trinkets have the same iCD and uptime, the creep is the same for both, and an initial separation of the cycles would not be likely to be overcome by rng.

With the new change that the iCD starts anytime you equip the trinket, you could very likely have no overlap in uptime if you offset them by 15 or 20 seconds. I am interested in seeing this evaluated in the Sim, but I don't know how to do it.

nightcrowler · 07/22/09, 4:39 AM

About tentacles:
It suggest mangle because it's difficult for many ferals to stay behind them so I've set it to do it. I'll probably go to add a check to enable/disable that in the next push.

About the new trinket mechanincs:
The dps gain is not worth the effort. You are losing at least 20 seconds of possible trinket proc and it's pretty difficult to achiev. When you equip a trinket you'll start triggering it's internal CD so for istance you should equip the second trinket 25 seconds before the fight start to make it avaiable 20 seconds after the fight begins. What are you going to do? Telling your raid leader to count from 25 downward everytime you need to start a pull? And how do you compute how much time it takes from the start to the first hit on the boss? Also any phase fight or with movement involved will reset it.

fr0d0b0ls0n · 07/22/09, 5:54 AM

On live:

Date: 2009-07-22 11:52:50
ID: 1
Error occured in: Global
Count: 1
Message: ..\AddOns\FeralbyNight\FeralbyNight.lua line 2189:
FeralbyNightHudFrame_powerbar_text:SetText(): Font not set
Debug:
[C]: ?
[C]: SetText()
FeralbyNight\FeralbyNight.lua:2189: CreateGUI()
FeralbyNight\FeralbyNight.lua:1162: ?()
FeralbyNight\FeralbyNight.lua:999:
FeralbyNight\FeralbyNight.lua:998

Panels show up shadowed but doing nothing, and /fbn does nothing too.

nightcrowler · 07/22/09, 9:07 AM

I've pushed another version and putted it on Curse. The main post link now redirect on cursegaming addon page.

Feral by Night v.3.239

Change log v.3239
- Added size and font option for boss mod monitor.
- Added a check for Drain Life on Yogg-Saron
- Added a check to toggle shred on tentacles for Yogg-Saron fight.
- Fixed low level target dummies suggestion monitor.
- Fixed "Blood of the Old God" proc into proc monitor.

tezen · 07/22/09, 4:35 PM

As I haven't been able to catch you online, is there a setting yet to have the suggestion for rake not show up while on a fight like hordir when you get stormpower or stormcloud or sometimes XT heart phase? In addition have you managed to fix some of the issues with a few of the bosses?

One thing I have noticed is when I run this addon with recount, things tend to get laggier in boss fights, I am not particularly sure what option might be causing this issue. I'd kill for something like that integrated into fbn lol.

wuffles · 07/22/09, 6:49 PM

I'm sure I'm opening up the opportunity to put my foot right in my mouth, but here it goes anyway: How close are we getting to FBN just playing the game for us if we keep requesting that every possible scenario be accounted for? I will admit, I'm intruigued by the addon but have yet to play around with it because I wanted to see what if any difference it makes for me personally as opposed to doing the "rotation" manually (and I've still got lots of personal improvement to make on that front). Does it just fail to work for the rest of the fight if you've got to make adjustments without the help of the addon? On the surface it seems as though the way it calculates the next move, that deviating from the suggestion momentarily (as described in the above scenario) does little to disrupt the addon's performance once things are "back to normal". Bug fixes are one thing, but it seems absurd to request that nightcrowler account for every possible game scenario for you because you can't figure out what you know you should be doing (like shredding instead of mangle spam on corruptor tentacles if you take a half second to circle the mob until you can shred) if the little box doesn't pop up telling you to do so.

Leafkiller · 07/23/09, 2:40 AM

Wuffles - I reported the mangle/shred on tentacles because I was not aware that nightcrowler had intentionally set it to tell me to mangle. I typically do jump behind and shred and ignore what it says - it is not hard. I am sure most ferals will tell you that there are many times where they choose to do something else then what the addon suggests. In part that is why nightcrowler has made it so configurable. For example, I do not have FBN tell me when to Berserk because on some fights I have very specific times I want to use it and usually if I turn it on for the fights I don't care when I Berserk, I forget to turn it off on the other fights...

I can also say that starting with Face Mauler and now using FBN, my ability to execute the rotation without the addon has gone up considerably. The addons help you understand at a much better level how to execute the rotation because they provide immediate feedback on optimal performance - while in the absence of them if your numbers are low, it is not always obvious where you are doing suboptimal things in your rotation. Even if you never raid with FBN, I suggest spending time on a target dummy using the addon as a teaching tool.

@nightcrowler - thanks for making the addon - I find it really useful

Jaerin · 07/23/09, 2:47 AM

Wuffles isn't that really the point of these forums usually anyways? Find ways to play your class to its fullest potential? With addons like these they allow you to make decisions in fights much much faster than you would without them. Granted it is possible to become too reliant on them, but you have to understand the rotation as well to play your class well.

The addon has the ability to approximate conditions many seconds into the future. So when it tells you not to do anything at all its more than likely because it has determined that you cannot afford to use the energy now because you'll need it later. This isn't something that you can easily do in the heat of battle. You can't always see those worst or best case scenarios when things are going to line up.

I don't think its playing the game for you because you still ultimately have to decide to follow its suggestion or not and honestly the addon has no raid awareness at all other than buffs/debuffs. It can't tell you that it doesn't matter what you should do because you're about to die to a void zone, but it can tell you that you should say shred instead of rake or FB because you have enough time and energy to do it.

In Classic WoW these addons could and did go a step further than we can right now and that is to assign one button to push in order to do whatever action the addon wanted. This allowed for healbot to uprank, downrank, prioritize, and increase efficiencies way beyond what anyone else could do. It made it a one button game. Today's game or addons don't even come close to that thankfully. If it could the game would be a 1000 times more trivial than it is now. Hard modes would be cake.

nightcrowler · 07/23/09, 6:51 AM

The discussion about addon "philosophy" is going to be interesting but I don't want to derail from the main topic. I just want to add some personal feeling about it. Actually I don't feel feral dps playable without any external help, with any, I mean that you should have at least a debuff-tracker, otherwise you'll be probably lost. FBN goes a step further and try to suggest other things and keep track of particular buffs. Actually, I personally use it with all the functionality and, apart from it, I only some interface addon like xperl/DBM/bar tender. I personally think that given enough addon-knowledge you can do basically everything using many other addon (powerauras, and the like) the good thing about FBN is that it cames with "everything you need" (or at least it's my aim).

As for the suggestion monitor I think there are many fight were I basically look at it once or twice but many things in a feral rotation are not that easy to manage and it's a big tool for me to skill them up until you can "feel" the next move. Where is the player skill then? Well, as said by wuffles you still need to decide if following the addon is the right route and not always is. You can, for istance think that mangle spamming will give you a better result on a particular add, or use swipe on some pull, those are thing really difficult (if ever possible) to implement in an addon but, also thing I'll never want to put there. I've added things like "use only shred when you have stormpower on hodir or things like that because without using external addon is pratically impossible to see if you have that buff, the same hold for interrumptions.
FBN is not something that plays for you is something that should help you making decision in a quickly changing environment.

Monfalaris · 07/23/09, 8:14 AM

Well, feral dps ist totally playable even without any kind of external help. I tested the very first version of the addon and, while having great respect for nightcrowlers work, strictly decided not to use it. While I also couldn't achieve any better dps while using it, the main reason was, that, for me, the main aspect of playing a computer game successfully is improvement and I do not want to base this upon an addon or the guy developing it or anything other than myself. Bring the player, not the class (or gear or addon) is still important for me in order to retain a level of interest. Doesn't it otherwise make this game boring?

With addons like these they allow you to make decisions in fights much much faster than you would without them. Granted it is possible to become too reliant on them, but you have to understand the rotation as well to play your class well.

But that again is the point. It isn't exactly you who makes these decisions. It is the addon doing it for you. You only react to the addon's suggestions. That is a big difference.

In the end, I am totally ok with other people using this great piece of theory/simulation craft, but I just cannot give them the credit for their accomplishment.

I am glad that this has been brought up and I am really interested in other peoples opinions but I actually wanted to ask something else.

@nightcrowler: Some time ago, we discussed the way of implementing movement to your simulation in order to find the impact of ArP/Agi. Back then, you said you would work on it. While the discussion of ArP vs. Agi has come to an end, I would like to know if you actually had some time to work on movement and its influence on the priority list and things like that? Any results?

nightcrowler · 07/23/09, 8:37 AM

@Monfalaris:
Yes I did, but not to a great extend indeed. With a fixed time frame (let's say 10 seconds without attacking every 40 seconds) Arpen, hit, and other static damage increase stats increase their value with respect to agility/crit rating, you can set te option in the later simulator with dps stop duration and frequency, if you want.

As a side note, I'm really interested in how you manage to do high-end feral dps without any external help. Actually the base WoW interface is not able to keep track of rip/rake, do you take them in your mind? If this is the case I think you are one of the few people (also there) able to do that.

foxglove · 07/23/09, 9:29 AM

Originally Posted by Sharandris

Auriaya: Tricky because of the inconsistent number of kills of the feral defender. Still, limiting Berserk usage to herself should be ok.

Time your berserk to keep yourself from getting feared. You'll get several extra seconds of DPS on the boss.

Monfalaris · 07/23/09, 9:38 AM

Did you find a hot spot for Agility being more valuable because of its benefits to bleeds and the fact that bleeds even out negative dps peaks (negative in terms of going to zero not below zero)? Maybe something like 16 to 21 seconds? Did you change the priority list to ensure the application of rake/Rip before leaving melee range or even planning ahead? We mentioned a lot of things around page 20 I think.

For the rest -> PM, as I don't think my personal interface setting is helping anyone or contributing to the discussion.

bthomenub · 07/23/09, 2:32 PM

Originally Posted by nightcrowler

@Monfalaris:
Yes I did, but not to a great extend indeed. With a fixed time frame (let's say 10 seconds without attacking every 40 seconds) Arpen, hit, and other static damage increase stats increase their value with respect to agility/crit rating, you can set te option in the later simulator with dps stop duration and frequency, if you want.

As a side note, I'm really interested in how you manage to do high-end feral dps without any external help. Actually the base WoW interface is not able to keep track of rip/rake, do you take them in your mind? If this is the case I think you are one of the few people (also there) able to do that.

Playing without addons/interfaces to assist you is not too difficult. Rip, rake and mangle all show up on the boss in the same way that all the other boss debuffs/dots do, you can see the icon and get a good idea of their duration. SR shows in your buffs with a duration, and all your cooldowns are watchable, so really I see no problem other than that they do not all appear in the same location. Clearcasting procs display a message, you get a new buff and a sound is played. I'm not going to pretend there aren't easier ways to track all these, and FBN is a great way of doing this and also getting other help as a feral.. but saying that the wow interface doesn't work or that people cannot manage with it is incorrect.

However, I did have problems on one raid using the basic wow interface. During one raid we had three cats (never raided with more than 2 previously). Two or three times during this raid my dots seemed to become lost amongst all the boss dots/debuffs. This only happened once or twice during a naxx clear, and it has only ever happened during that particular raid, so I assume it was due to the number of cats in the raid all applying the same dots (but would love to know if there is another reason for it). When it happened it made it impossible to track rip/rake until I re-applied them, so obviously my dps suffered.