Feral DPS Discussion - Page 22

Allev · 10/21/09, 10:27 AM

I'm not sure 4t6 is properly modeled in SC, since feral support didn't exist until WotLK. In addition, you can improve on the "standard" SimulationCraft cycle, the version that's up doesn't have much of a concept of energy pooling. At this point, though, you should quickly be discarding T6 as quickly as possible (except keeping 2 pieces around for the odd "I can't shred on this fight" scenarios).

Rawr is not a metric for how well you should be playing-- simulators are better for that. Rawr should be used as a metric for gear. In that context, the better question is, how much are its gear recommendations off by. You'll find that since it both overestimates bleeds AND overestimates FBs, the relative stat values are close to accurate; so most gear estimates won't be off by more than a few DPS.

• Polynices · 10/21/09, 1:06 PM

DPS on Heroic Dummies is useless for judging how you'll do in a raid fight unless you are fully raid buffed for the dummy (not likely). Full raid buffs do so much for your crit chance (in particular) that your rotation really changes and that has a dramatic effect on your DPS.

In any case, like Allev says just use Rawr for figuring out what is an upgrade not for figuring out what exactly your DPS should be.

Pants · 10/21/09, 5:31 PM

Originally Posted by Polynices

DPS on Heroic Dummies is useless for judging how you'll do in a raid fight unless you are fully raid buffed for the dummy (not likely). Full raid buffs do so much for your crit chance (in particular) that your rotation really changes and that has a dramatic effect on your DPS.

In any case, like Allev says just use Rawr for figuring out what is an upgrade not for figuring out what exactly your DPS should be.

For just practicing unbuffed cycles, I believe the level 70 dummies should give you an extra 15% crit or so (no vs. bosses crit depression, 10% extra crit due to level difference?).

ErrantSpark · 10/21/09, 8:28 PM

Oh yeah, I know the heroic dummy isn't a good estimate of how much DPS you would do in a raid. I only play super casually now so the tier 6 still serves me well. I did however put on some heroic gear to replace the pieces of t6 that I was wearing and I was able to consistently hit and even slightly surpass the DPS that SimulationCraft told me I should be doing, so I'm more or less content now. I was just worried that there was something hugely wrong with my cycle.

Murna · 10/22/09, 6:29 AM

I'm going inactive from WoW and thus won't update the guide anymore.
Whoever wants to continue my work and wants to update it every time something changes - feel free to use my original guide. Maybe you could leave a small note indicating the original one comes from me

Judging on the countless private messages I received since writing this guide, I'm convinced that keeping something like this all-in-one summary is good and important for our great druid community.

Mylus · 10/22/09, 2:08 PM

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.. I used to get 4080 with/without FbN, and I got some upgrades (245 ilvl helm, crafted wrist/boots) and it went to like 3.8k.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...lstrom&n=Mylus

Maybe its my rotation.. Usually I start off with FFF, then start attacking with rake then savage roar, then i mangle till i have no energy then use TF and berserk and shred till 5cp then rip, then I keep shredding to 4/5 and use SR, then I shred to 5cp then ferocious bite and then i get off one mangle/rip before berserk wears off then I am able to get rip back up and SR without those getting any downtime. I have 4.3k then, and then it just goes down.. When I have full energy after savage roar and have a OOC proc I use 5cp ferocious bite and then I should be able to get rip staying on.

Hakana4155 · 10/22/09, 3:21 PM

You should start your fight using Mangle, SR, Rake, and then Shred to 5 combo points then rip. You want mangle and bleeds up before shred because they buff the shred. You want to keep SR up at all tmes and try and keep mangle, rake and rip up as much as you possible can. I would only use FB in limited cases. When clearcasting procs always shred.

cana · 10/22/09, 8:17 PM

I was wondering if there are tests whether the move prediction of FbN or Facemauler will result in higher DPS.
And second, I'm not quite sure about the best setting of the "desired Rip uptime" slider.
In this post, nightcrowler stated that with a setting of 4-5, you should be able to always keep up Rip, but I don't know if this is the way to go.

coldbear · 10/22/09, 8:44 PM

Originally Posted by Murna

10. Use Berserk only at high energy, (but not higher than 85) not directly after TF and as often as possible. If you will get Hysteria or some boss mechanics will enhance your damage, save it for these situations.

Murna, I have struggled to come up with an answer to why the upper threshold should be 85 Energy for Berserk? Anyone care to elaborate?

The best I can come up with is that 15 is 5 more Energy than the following GCD will net you, giving us a very slim margin for making sure that we don't go max out at 100 Energy, thus wasting it.

@cana immediately above - as far as I know FaceMauler is no longer supported, and Nightcrowler actually worked on one of the earlier FaceMauler algorithms. FbN also has several different settings for skill weightings if you really want to get technical, so there's essentially a nearly infinite number of possibilities to compare here, especially depending on crit rates, gear, player skill and whatnot. For practical purposes, FaceMauler is dead and FbN is the newer, bigger model with more features.

Helistar · 10/23/09, 7:26 AM

Originally Posted by coldbear

Murna, I have struggled to come up with an answer to why the upper threshold should be 85 Energy for Berserk? Anyone care to elaborate?

Wild guess: berserk will eat a GCD, so if you berserk at 85, next ability will activate when you're at 95. In case your first attack is missed/dodged you'll only spend 1/5 of the energy cost, assuming 40 (which becomes 20 with berserk) that's 4 energy consumed bringing you to 91, which will regen to 101 (=100, 1 energy lost) over then next GCD. So it looks like it's a good way to optimize energy usage, making sure that you'll never waste energy, but at the same time making sure that you start berserk with as much energy as possible, since energy available during berserk is twice as valuable.

coldbear · 10/23/09, 1:18 PM

I've gone over Murna's excellent priority list for a guide video, the following is a script excerpt.

Any comments are appreciated - the major differences to Murna's version being that I think the Mangle debuff is more important to raid-wide dps than SR-on-a-feral is, as well as being a little more inclusive with steps 1 and 2.

1. If you have 3 or more targets in range in front of you and it doesn't matter which dies first, use Mangle to keep up SR and use Swipe (Cat) whether it's talented or not. If you have two targets and it doesn't matter which will die first, pick the one that will last the longest and proceed with single-target dps:

2. Keep up FFF unless you have a boomkin who puts up IFF in the first second or two - and keeps it up.

3. Keep Mangle up
[many 25man raids will have a Trauma-specced Warrior who does this automatically, or a Bear tank]

4. Keep SR up - you want 100% uptime
[Though in reality it will drop during Innervates/Battlerez/phase-changes/run-in-run-out mechanics etc]

5. Keep Rake up

6. Shred

7. get 5 CP then Rip - unless Rip is already up, in which case pool energy and wait

8. if < 30 Energy then Tiger's Fury

9. if Clearcasting procs then Shred unless Mangle or SR is about to run out

10. if you have 5CP and there's 8 seconds or more left on *BOTH* SR and Rip, then and only then Ferocious Bite
[probably 9 or more unless you have very high crit]

11. anticipate if SR and Rip will run out concurrently, and clip SR to desynchronize the timers with a low-Combo Point SR immediately.
[Don't worry about clipping SR, but don't clip Rip unless you're about to lose melee contact with the boss for an extended period of time, e.g. Onyxia flight phase, taking portal out of Yogg's brain room]

12. Berserk as early and as often as possible unless:
a. save Berserk to take advantage of a boss mechanic
b. try to stack Berserk with cooldowns like Hysteria or Shattering Throw
c. do NOT stack Berserk with Bloodlust or Heroism - it leads to wasted Energy or wasted Clearcast procs
[unless there's a boss mechanic where you can't avoid it, like XT hard mode heart phase]
d. try not to Berserk within 6s after Tiger's Fury, nor at low Energy and not at above 85 Energy

Talanik · 10/23/09, 1:49 PM

10. if you have 5CP and there's 8 seconds or more left on *BOTH* SR and Rip, then and only then Ferocious Bite
[probably 9 or more unless you have very high crit]

What? 8? 9? Tell me how you expect to build a minimum of 8, preferably 10 CP's in 8 seconds? You'd have to crit like every attack which rarely happens. Even at 60% crit, I only get 5 CP's in 3 moves about 50% of the time...Unless you consistently SR at 1-2 CP's.

Rolfcaron · 10/23/09, 3:50 PM

The idea is to get enough CP to get up a quick 1 or 2 point SR and then mash up 5 to get a 5point rip up as soon as possible (or 5 point rip then whatever you can get for SR if you get a good streak of combo points quickly). With a decent amount of ArPen you'll see an increase in DPS even if there are a few seconds where Rip is not up.

The 8-9 seconds remaining on Savage Roar and Rip is simplified however. Truly you should look for situations where you know you'll have an abundance of attacks or energy available after. The easiest to identify is Tiger's Fury coming off of cool down soon there after. Another harder to account for factor is chance of Omen of Clarity Procs (having 2t8 vs not having it) and your own crit chance. When looking at possible downtime of Rip you can also look at the damage gained by the Ferocious Bite vs several tics of Rip, which is affected by trinket procs (especially Grim Toll / Mjollnirs).

Editted: For clarity.

Allev · 10/23/09, 4:02 PM

Coldbear, I disagree in principle with a lot of a lot of things. Specifically:

- If the choice is between keeping rake up and extending a Rip with a shred, I'll always shred. Even with 2T9, or 4T10. There's an important distinction between a Rip-extending shred and an energy-burn shred.

- I find little convincing argument that you should do anything but your normal cycle on clearcasting procs. It certainly doesn't make a significant difference in the long-term. I feel as though changing what I'm planning to do can have a disruptive effect on my personal DPS cycle, even if the math works out.

- Point 10, as Talanik suggested, has a lot of leeway. Yes, Talanik, people do SR at 1-2 CPs, especially to squeeze in a bite. Strategies can range from FBing with as little as 6 seconds of leeway on each timer to never biting, and there isn't a lot of separation between one extreme and the other. It also depends on set bonuses like 4t9 (makes FB a better energy replacement for shred) and 4t8 (small SRs are great, so less timer on SR isn't a big problem).

- Very few achieve 100% uptime on Rip; yet every "never clip Rip" statement holds that as absolute truth. Think of the times where you're just a little short on energy and need to wait a second for energy regen. Now realize that, on average, that's as bad as clipping a Rip over SR. It's something you can avoid with a lot of planning ahead, but you're not going over what that planning ahead requires in the guide. (Nor has anyone ever explicitly stated a "how to plan ahead" guide.)

- I disagree with the berserk strategy. I find that using both TF and Berserk concurrently lets me use my Berserk right on its cooldown, giving me a greater chance to use its cooldown again. Especially at the start of a fight, you don't have a good opportunity to use both, early, without using them at the same time: If you berserk first, you're letting 15 seconds of TF time go unused (in other words, you threw out half a TF, on average). If you TF first, you need to either delay using other attacks so you can Berserk 6 seconds after (leading to SR/Rip/Mangle downtime), or you delay your Berserk, leading towards the chance of not using a Berserk at the end of the fight.

In conclusion: 5 and 6 aren't how I would play, and 10, 11, and 12 are more "empty" in that they're not "general" advice but rather specific to fight and circumstance.

Rolfcaron · 10/23/09, 5:21 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

- I find little convincing argument that you should do anything but your normal cycle on clearcasting procs. It certainly doesn't make a significant difference in the long-term. I feel as though changing what I'm planning to do can have a disruptive effect on my personal DPS cycle, even if the math works out.

Energy is equal to DPS, since we are not limited by time, and that determines our rotation. However in a clearcast scenario energy is no longer a concern, and simply the highest damage per time invested will be the greatest concern. And that is pretty clearly shred (highest damage for 1.5 seconds investment.) For many people simply using FBN, Power Auras, or any of the myriad of tools that can help track clearcasting makes this a fairly easy change to make. So in this case I wholly agree with the guide, and it's something that should at the very least be mentioned in any guide to Feral DPS.