◊ Thaeryn

Correct, I should have clarified. Idol swapping would be beneficial while killing the other two adds. Since that's not the part of the fight you're most likely to die, and it provides so little benefit for what's involved, I can't find a good reason to do it. If we ever have another fight like Sarth+3 with dangerous physical hits instead of magic, then we can definitely bring it back on the table though.

 

kalbear

Like I said, Thorim.

Possibly Algalon would benefit given that you are also tank swapping on that and you should be able to bounce threat off of each other, and avoidance against many smaller attacks is fairly strong.

 

◊ Thaeryn

<edited out because I'm a moron>

Constant cycling of Idols looks to be a pretty poor option for the benefits you would gain, nevermind the difficulty of timing the swaps. A mod/macro could help alleviate this, but I can't see the benefits being worth it.

For fights such as Thorim, where you are expecting a very large hit and would like the extra avoidance as a mini-cooldown, I could definitely see some worth. Just before the Unbalancing Strike comes off of cooldown, you would swap from Corrupter to Mutilation for 8-9 seconds of a double buff. You could think of it as popping a trinket in those cases. Definitely a mechanic to keep in mind as you work on progression fights, but not something I would try to do consistently.

 

kalbear

Why would you lose any GCDs? Again, you can swap idols during a GCD without penalty. If you simply do mangle, then swap while you're on GCD, you won't accrue any penalty for that. Also, mutilation applies on lacerates and swipes, not mangles, so you don't have to swap just for a mangle. For corruptor you do, but that's okay.

Point of fact, it kind of lends itself towards some kind of swapping mechanism because of that overlap. Corrupter always wants mangle, mutilator always wants lacerate/swipe.

A mod can't quite do the swapping for you; you'd need to have an idol swap that could do it on GCD separate from the attacks, most likely. But that's not bad, and it's not like bears have a complicated rotation.

I'll test this tonight hopefully and see whether it's a moot point anyway, but the

 

◊ Thaeryn

Just read up some more on the finer details of idol swapping. It may indeed be something we could work into macros without a problem, as long as the loss of threat/damage from resetting the swing timer is not an issue.

As part of the testing, can you see if a single macro that equips the Corruptor idol and uses Mangle will proc the buff, and the same with Lacerate/Swipe and the Mutilation idol? There may be a simple way to write the swaps into macros if that is in fact the case. This was tested previously in relation to dps idols here: The Druid Wiki - ToskksDPSGearMethod - Discussion - Idol-swapping macros revisited

Of course, the result there was that resetting the swing timer netted an overall loss of DPS.

[e] Actually just jumped on the PTR and tested a theory. These macro's work just fine, I was able to keep both idol's buffs up with near 100% uptime. The impact on my swing timer was horrendous, but in some cases, that doesn't matter.

Macro1:
Macro2:
Both of these will equip the idol and proc the buff from the idol from the ability in the same macro. Works like a charm. Sorry for misunderstanding what you were talking about kalbear.

 

kalbear

The main problem with that macro is that it swaps unnecessarily; you won't want to swap it all the time necessarily. But even if you do it won't be a problem in some fights. Like I said, Thorim's a great example where threat isn't nearly as critical as survival, and you could easily be doing this later on in the fight where survival really matters.

And it's easy enough to not worry about the penalty if you need; simply stop doing either mangle or lacerate/swipe. I'd probably have the macro set on swipe so that I could lacerate freely.

Glad to see someone else testing it

 

◊ Thaeryn

I would just shift/alt bind the macro to the same button as you bind Mangle/Lacerate/Swipe to. Then you can do it on demand.

 

menk

Perhaps this is a very stupid question, but nevertheless I have to ask it: With high-end-Ulduar25-gear even a stamina-oriented bear reaches something around 50% dodge. The diminishing return of agility and dodge rating is getting stronger and stronger. My question is: Is there a break even so it would make more sense to improve the amount savage defense absorbs by stacking strength and attack power?

 

Isambaard

I would have to say no, simply because you cannot reasonably get enough reduction from savage defense to make much difference against the size of hits that Ulduar bosses mete out. Even with the diminishing gains from dodge, small amounts of dodge are much more useful than small amounts of absorb.

 

◊ Thaeryn

It's essentially the same as block value for warriors. Ask a good warrior if stacking block value is the way to go in 3.2 and then quickly duck.

 

Boevis

It kinda is though, well, I guess not to "Stack" Block over other values, but because of Shield Block and Critical Block, it's going to be a lot more attractive to Warriors than AP is for druids. .77 Block also costs a lot less (.5 item value) itemization wise than 1.56 Strength (1.56 item value). .77 Block with Shield Mastery becomes 1 Block, and with Blessing of Kings, Abomination's Might, and Protector of the Pack this becomes 4 AP which results in +1 on Savage Defense. SD exists to give us better scaling on our weapons, and probably to silence the many complaints about Druid Tank itemization, as all "Tanking" Necks, Cloaks, and Rings come with previously worthless Strength, now it's just mostly worthless.

And I'll reiterate about Avoidance Diminishing Returns: Just because it takes more Agi/Dodge to increase your effective Dodge% doesn't mean that it's getting worse. Agility will always be our best mitigation stat (barring armor, but you can't really gem for that) until things dramatically change again, no matter how much Dodge you have (until 100%), the value of additional Dodge doesn't ever change, ie. Stop thinking of it as "Diminishing" because it really doesn't.

 

Riprawr

According to Nightcrowler in the FeralbyNight thread under Cat DPS...the 2 best tank threat stats are Agility followed closely by Armor Penetration. So ArPen is a good tank stat to add for threat just as hit is.

 

PrayForDeath

Interestingly enough, the dodge and agility components of Idol of Mutilation can stack with each other, meaning you can proc agi in cat form, then go bear and have both buffs for 14~ seconds. I tested it on the PTR.

This could be useful on tank-swap fights.

 

Ultadarra

wrong forum location - Deleted

 

Mijae

This is definitely not true. Agility is by far the worst stat for threat. Hit and Expertise are best. ArP, Str, and Haste are next with values (of course) dependent on gear and rotation.

Feral DruidStats spreadsheet
v3.2.0.0.xls - updated 8/4/2009

 

Boevis

Cat's and Bears are so very different that you cannot say "What is good for Cat DPS is good for Tank Threat". For starters, Bear abilities tend to have static threat values (ie. the damage doesn't matter as much) so not missing (Hit/Expertise) is more important than any form of Crit, whereas Cat abilities have a higher crit modifier, and crits generate more combo points, so critting has an increased value for cats. The major ability for bears is Maul, which is based off of our Melee Attack, making Haste a lot better for Bears than it is for Cats. Bears only get attack power from Strength and AP itself, Cats get AP from Agi. Bears (like cats) have a very high % of threat coming from direct attacks even considering the static threat, so Armor Pen is still potent for Bear DPS/TPS. And lastly, even with Kings Sotf and imotw, Crit rating still provides more threat per point than Agi. These factors, when calculated give the following in Terms of Threat: Expertise > Hit = Expertise(after dodgecap) > Haste = Strength (depends on current crit/haste/ap values, Haste is usually better) > Armor Pen = AP (again, depends on other factors, ArP is usually better) > Crit > Agi

That being said, Threat is never the primary concern of a Tank. Staying Alive is. Armor Pen has no impact on living (aside from killing the boss sooner), and in cases of low Expertise against a Parry-Haste boss, Haste rating can actually have a negative impact. The Dodge from Agility trumps the hell out of all the other "Threat Stats", and strength increases the value of Savage Defense (the only thing every other threat stat increases) by the most, followed by Expertise (below dodge cap), Crit, AP, Hit and Expertise (after dodge cap), and lastly haste.

When you're looking at the "the stat to stack", yes, it's Agility (provided the necessary amount of armor and stamina). But that has nothing to do with the threat it gives.

 

Loryli

To help explain what Boevis is telling you think of it this way:

If you have 0% dodge (impossible I know but for the sake of napkin math) and you add 1% dodge you are now mitigating 1% of the overall incoming damage. Say incoming DPS is 100 (ez numbers). With the 1% dodge it would be 99 DPS. Obviously a 1% decrease there as expected.

Now if you have 50% dodge and add 1% dodge you are now mitigating 2% of the overall incoming damage, not 1%. Think of it this way. Originally we are taking 100 DPS, with 50% dodge it becomes 50 DPS. With 1% more dodge that 50 DPS drops to 49 DPS, a 2% decrease in the current damage we are taking. In this way while dodge becomes harder to increase, it also becomes more powerful per point gained. It scales much like armor does in that respect.

So as Boevis says - Agility will always be our best mitigation stat, aside from armor.

 

foxglove

I think Riprawr might be misinterpeting Nightcrowler a bit; a link to the specific post would be helpful. The ranks are closer to what Mijae describes if you look at the TPS column for the relative stat values in this post: FeralbyNight (Cat & Bear simulation tool)

In order of TPS contributions from that table (which is for a simulation with a specific near-BiS gearset):

1. Hit/Expertise (2.18)
2. Haste (1.93)
3. ArP (1.85)
4. Strength (1.75)
5. Crit (1.03)
6. Feral AP (0.88)
7. AP (0.73)
8. Agility (0.66)

I'm guessing Riprawr is looking at "Night's Choice" stat rankings. Agility is a "best" tank stat because it contributes in a laundry list of ways (some significant and others not): to mitigation (via Savage Defense and a bit of armor), avoidance (dodge, obviously), a bit of healing from iLoTP, and threat (directly via crit and, in rage-limited situations, through Primal Fury and Natural Reaction).

If the only thing you're concerned with is TPS, though, it's really low, especially when you consider that you get half as much per item budget as you do for AP. Edit: That doesn't mean ferals are going to go gemming for haste or ArP in their tank sets; short of poor execution on Hodir (tank in FrR not getting the stormcloud), I can't think of a place that an agi-gemmed feral in reasonable gear with a decent rotation is going to have threat problems in Ulduar.

 

Helistar

Ok, after some silence on my log parsing attempts, here are the latest results. The C++ code is definitely not yet for public consumption (no interface at all), but if someone is interested let me know and I'll make it available.

The basic idea was: analyze a log file and extract two kind of information:
- hp dwell time for the tank
- damage/heal correlation

Problems first: as it turns out, it's not as easy as it seems. The logfile at times is non-causal, with weird contradictions which I've been unable to resolve. Manually, it would be possible, but procedurally.... I have no idea how to proceed. Since from the logfile I have no way to access the actual HP value for the tank (is this possible by coding an addon?) I use the heal+overheal events to resync my hp value to the maximum, but at times weird things happen. An example from a log:

t = 7/1 23:30:33.421: heal event (433, Judgement of Light from Paladin 1)
health transition from 34664/46000 to 35097/46000
t = 7/1 23:30:33.437: heal+overheal event (2091/1123, Living Seed from Druid 3)
health transition from 35097/46000 to 37188/46000 Overheal reported, but health < maxhealth??
health adjusted 37188 to 46000 (8812 / 8812)
t = 7/1 23:30:33.562: heal+overheal event (8812/1173, Nourish from Druid 3)
health transition from 46000/46000 to 54812/46000 OVER MAX HEALTH??
health adjusted 54812 to 46000 (-8812 / 0)
t = 7/1 23:30:34.062: damage event (-1581, Flame Jets from Ignis the Furnace Master)
health transition from 46000/46000 to 44419/46000

As you can see there are two consecutive heals which report heal+overheal, which is nonsensical since they occurr at two different times. I have no idea if this is related to lag across the clients and the server, with events being generated on one not necessairly able to see the others. Of course this may mess with the hp dwell time graph.

Another problem: I'm missing some healing. I trap the standard events, and I end up with some "positive correction" to be applied to the tank's health. The effect is not big, but, as above, it will mess up the hp dwell time graph. It must be some aura or something which is healing me and is not appearing in the logs. The value is too big for normal HP regeneration (for the fight below it's 11192 HP total in 6 mins).

One more problem: I have not found a way to compute the correlation among discrete events, so I transform the event sequence into a continuous function via interpolation. The question is: what kind of interpolation? Right now I'm using an ideal low-pass filter, which means sin(x)/x interpolation in time space (and a nice square function in frequency space). This explains why on the graphs you see negative healing or damage. BTW using a gaussian does not give very different results.

I'm now thinking about a different approach which consists in performing statistics on the heal events after the damage event, but I first need to get a clear idea of what I want and the some coding, so it'll not be for tomorrow

For the flashy graphics: here are the results from Ignis-25 (nice fight with no interruptions/phases). Healers are named Druid 1, Shaman 1, etc. Helistar (me) is the tank and the healing you see is ILotP. The % number is the % healed (to see for which ones looking at correlation is actually useful).



These are calculated with a 5 second filter cutoff (f_0 = 1/5 Hz).







In game time 5 seconds is quite long, so you get a general picture. The details can be seen by using a lower cutoff, here it's 1 second (i.e. 1 Hz):
You get a ton of "echo" due to the fact that damage (and healing) is roughly periodic (boss swing time).



If you want to see all the images, they are at:

Index of /wow/logparser/cutoff1sec

Index of /wow/logparser/cutoff5sec

 

Isambaard

I'm not sure Ignis is actually a good fight for what you're trying to do since healers do have to stop casting around the flame jet timer.

As for the overheal events, I suspect you're see ordering issues between server and client views of the events of combat. Its the same way when analyzing tank death you'll sometimes see tanks go to negative HP then be healed and remain alive.

 

Oltsu

Might the latter of these consecutive overheals add up to, say, 11192 in your example parse? Depending on how you actually sync the current health from the overheal messages, you could end up loosing some of the actual healing done due to erroneous overheal events. As to how to fix it, if that is the problem, you could convert the duplicate overheals to effective healing done.

 

Helistar

@Isambaard: true, at the same time all fight pose this kind of problem one way or another (the only exception I can think of is Patchwerk). In any case since I want to get an idea of how to simulate statistically the incoming heals, I won't base my model on a single fight.

@Otsu: The total overheal is a lot more than 11192, I have looked manually at the heal-overheal events but it's hard to decide which ones are "right" and which ones are wrong, so I have no idea which to sum to see if the 11192 could be explained. I'll look into scripting to see if it's possible to record the tank health directly, which would solve the problem once and for all.

 

spiritryu

Newest ptr changes.

 

• jonny

The Rake change is nice (although doesn't it tick every 2 secs?) & changes to Enrage mean we can free up a couple of points in Furor. Shapeshifting mana costs now reduced for all Ferals rather than just PVP ones (cant say I've ever had a problem with this currently).

As for the 15% avoidance nerf, does this mean we'll all start stacking stam gems in our tank gear now as the benefit will be much greater?

 

endle

With the amount of dodge you get per point of Agi decreasing, while the amount of Parry increases I beleive that the other three tank classes will find it balances out, more or less. However, how big an impact will this have on Feral tanks? I find it hard to beleive the only avoidance stat for Feral tanks will be reduced by 15%, so I suspect I am misunderstanding this change. Can anyone explain it to me?