Feral DPS Discussion - Page 24

Talanik · 10/26/09, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by Hammartime

Another question I have, not directly related to my previous posts:

Is anybody experiencing the following phenomenon?

You cast Rake. (Without a previous rake on the target)
Rake is not applied to the target.
Your energy is used as if you had used Rake.
Your combo point(s) are applied as if you had used Rake.

I thought I was imagining things when this first happened, given the focus for some ToGC fights. However, this has happened multiple times to me now, and I'm becoming more sure that I'm not crazy!

Anybody else?

I always chalked it up to lag, but if other people are having a problem apparently it isn't. Its a serious energy waste :/ Hopefully Blizzard gets on to it soon.

Thundrul · 10/26/09, 12:58 PM

Is anybody experiencing the following phenomenon?

You cast Rake. (Without a previous rake on the target)
Rake is not applied to the target.
Your energy is used as if you had used Rake.
Your combo point(s) are applied as if you had used Rake.

Personnally I've never had problems with the first rake application, but on the second rake cast, I see something similar. You can't clip a rake bleed with another rake bleed IF the bleed currently on the target was cast with ''more procs'' than you have now. In fact you can't clip a rake bleed (or any similar spell) with a longer, but less effective, rake bleed. That said the initial rake damage and the combo points are still applied, but the bleed timer does not reset.

I assume other classes see this behavior also for other spells. I'm unsure how this is handled for them.

This effect leads to : Will a '' NEVER CLIP A RAKE'' rule lead to a DPS gain, assuming you don't plan your procs?

Allev · 10/26/09, 2:42 PM

As for the rake-clipping topic: Verify first that your timer mod is updated and supports your gear.

As to Rolfcaron's last post: I agree that the when-to-shred-on-clearcast rules aren't "easy" right now for ideal play. Which is why, at the moment, I'd say that the guide shouldn't give advice on "keep your rotation" or "always shred", because neither answer is really "right".

Hammartime · 10/26/09, 3:05 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

As for the rake-clipping topic: Verify first that your timer mod is updated and supports your gear.

As to Rolfcaron's last post: I agree that the when-to-shred-on-clearcast rules aren't "easy" right now for ideal play. Which is why, at the moment, I'd say that the guide shouldn't give advice on "keep your rotation" or "always shred", because neither answer is really "right".

I'm not entirely relying on a timer for my rake. I've physically looked at my target, and checked my logs to see if rake was in fact ticking. (It wasn't)

Allev · 10/26/09, 4:43 PM

Having looked through my logs for the rake bug, I'm pretty confident that I haven't been seeing it, for the most part-- although I did see some wonky behavior after I switched to DPS on faction champions. Can they cleanse our bleeds or otherwise have an immunity to them?

Utkorg · 10/26/09, 5:00 PM

Having looked through my logs for the rake bug, I'm pretty confident that I haven't been seeing it, for the most part-- although I did see some wonky behavior after I switched to DPS on faction champions. Can they cleanse our bleeds or otherwise have an immunity to them?

i think there´s only the paly shield and CoS, which removes our bleeds...i´ll try to check this out on wednesday

Pelf · 10/26/09, 6:18 PM

I can confirm that Rake has been exhibiting some odd behavior since 3.2.

I haven't seen the situation where the Rake bleed does not apply at all on the first application; but, when I hit Rake and there is already a Rake on the target (forgive my clipping for the sake of confirmation), sometimes the CP will be generated, the energy will be expended, but the current Rake will continue at its existing duration. It's almost like it's the "more powerful spell is already active" error condition happening, but it's not stopping the cast, so the side-effects of the cast still occur (i.e. (1) CP generation, (2) energy expense).

At the same time, sometimes when I cast it, and I'm clipping an existing Rake, it will do what I remember it doing: (1) refresh the duration on the bleed, (2) expend the energy, (3) generate the CP.

As for whether or not, in the first situation, the initial damage of the Rake is actually landing ... I'm not sure. I need to remember to pay attention to that. If it's not only failing to refresh the duration on the Rake, but also not applying the initial damage, that's even worse than spending 35 energy for 1-2 CP and getting nothing else for it.

Smõkey · 10/26/09, 8:34 PM

Just posting to confirm I have witnessed the Rake bug as well. I will use rake and be awarded with a combo point, but the bleed itself is not being applied to the target. I use power aura's to monitor my bleeds/procs as well as visually looking at my unit frames to see that the bleed is not being applied, but I am recieving cp and using energy as if it were.

Can't confirm if it's a loss of damage or a visual error, as I'm not sure how to do those tests. But I have seen this bug numerous times.

Demnon · 10/27/09, 4:07 AM

No it's nowhere near the rip bug, it's extremly annoying in the rotation because if you don't see the dot up you refresh it automaticly and what if its actually bleeding but we don't see it? waste of energy for sure.
Not too sure if it's on certain bosses. Going to try look it up in my WWS.

Allev · 10/27/09, 10:46 AM

OK, you're not adding anything if you're just saying "me too." How about some details:

- Does it happen on a specific fight? I.e., cleanses/bubbles/inherent immunities might be playing a part. Or maybe the bleed isn't applying on the bubble phase of Twin Valkyr. Or is it every fight, randomly?

- Do you have a WWS/WOL/WMO/StasisCL/etc for the night? You can easily look at the combat logs in each of these tools, so either do that or link a parse where you noticed the problem at a specific point in time.

kbranch · 10/27/09, 11:36 AM

Some brief testing leads me to believe it's just the same "A more powerful spell is already active" problem we've had with rip for years. Rake's initial damage is applying the bleed, which is apparently now incorrectly checking the strength of the existing bleed rather than just overwriting it like it used to. Pretty simple to test, just watch your AP procs while spamming rake.

Unless somebody can show that it's happening with no rake bleed on the target at all, it sounds like the solution is to just not clip your rakes. Given that clipping rake is a pretty bad idea in the first place, it seems like a non-issue.

Negoveio · 10/27/09, 11:50 AM

I don't have any proof here Kbranch, but it did happen a few times with my first rake on the mob too.
Mangle + Savage Roar + Rake, and I was left with 1-2 cps, no bleed on the target. Have to assume I didn't pay attention to energy, but for sure the rake did hit, since I got cps and since I always walk around exp and hit capped.
Theres already a post on Blizzard forums, and I'm sure this is the most annoying thing we ever experienced with cat dps.

Pelf · 10/27/09, 1:49 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

- Does it happen on a specific fight? I.e., cleanses/bubbles/inherent immunities might be playing a part. Or maybe the bleed isn't applying on the bubble phase of Twin Valkyr. Or is it every fight, randomly?

There's no specific fight or portion of a fight where this happens and does not happen otherwise. It is consistent outside of the fact that sometimes the Rake overwrites the existing bleed and sometimes it does not, at which point it exhibits the behavior I mentioned above. This is consistent with a failure due to higher power due to trinket procs, raid procs, whatever.

Originally Posted by Allev

- Do you have a WWS/WOL/WMO/StasisCL/etc for the night? You can easily look at the combat logs in each of these tools, so either do that or link a parse where you noticed the problem at a specific point in time.

As it is quite consistent, I'm sure any of our recent WoL parses would contain an instance of this, but I have no idea how to search for it. Would you guys like a few links to our parses anyway?

EDIT: I would assume that an application looks like Player casts Rake, Target takes n Damage from Player's Rake, Target is afflicted by Player's Rake. I suppose you could look for that kind of sequence. What does a refresh look like? There are also bound to be multiple events in between these events. I'm not sure the searching capabilities even of WoL with regards to raw combat logs are robust enough for this kind of thing.

Allev · 10/27/09, 3:48 PM

Through the magic of WoL, I found it myself.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Remove the "Show all events" query and add a new query that looks for the spell "Rake".

You're refreshing Rake before the last tick, pretty reliably. Your parse says that you're seeing exactly what KBranch describes. I still blame your UI.

Pelf · 10/27/09, 5:36 PM

Originally Posted by Allev

You're refreshing Rake before the last tick, pretty reliably. Your parse says that you're seeing exactly what KBranch describes. I still blame your UI.

Yeah, I clip it a lot. My UI isn't displaying it as gone; I'm literally clipping it with full knowledge that I'm doing it. Luckily that's not what's at issue here.

[20:23:06.766] Shibumi casts Rake on Gormok the Impaler <- cast(1)
[20:23:06.905] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler *1139* <-initial
[20:23:06.905] Gormok the Impaler afflicted by Rake from Shibumi <- aura gain
[20:23:09.908] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 1783
[20:23:12.893] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 1783
[20:23:15.950] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 1784
[20:23:16.889] Shibumi casts Rake on Gormok the Impaler <- cast(2)
[20:23:16.980] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler *1596* <-initial
[20:23:16.980] Gormok the Impaler's Rake is refreshed by Shibumi <- aura refresh
[20:23:20.069] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 2584
[20:23:23.020] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 2585
[20:23:25.934] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 2584
[20:23:28.097] Shibumi casts Rake on Gormok the Impaler <- cast(3)
[20:23:28.151] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 676 <-initial
[20:23:29.039] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 2584
[20:23:29.039] Gormok the Impaler's Rake fades <- AURA FADE
[20:23:34.111] Shibumi casts Rake on Gormok the Impaler <- cast(4)
[20:23:34.218] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 676 <-initial
[20:23:34.218] Gormok the Impaler afflicted by Rake from Shibumi <- aura gain
[20:23:37.295] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 2412
[20:23:40.257] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 2413
[20:23:43.297] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 2413
[20:23:45.358] Shibumi casts Rake on Gormok the Impaler <- cast(5)
[20:23:45.420] Shibumi Rake Gormok the Impaler 675 <-initial
[20:23:45.420] Gormok the Impaler's Rake is refreshed by Shibumi <- aura refresh

So, looking at the bit we were able to get with your filter, we see cast(3) which isn't followed by a refresh. If we go with the notion that it was because the previously running Rake was applied with a proc of some kind increasing its power, then previously, as I remember it, that would have blocked the entire cast. Instead, it cast, dealt initial damage, did not refresh the bleed, and (ostensibly, from my memory) generated combo points. Then, the un-refreshed Rake faded.

EDIT: If you look at this World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis and paste this query [{"actorNames": ["Shibumi"]}], that's a bit before and after that range that's in the code block, above. I've been looking through this trying to find the thing that would have made the previously running Rake more powerful than the one that would have been applied when I cast rake at cast(3). There's clearly a difference as the Rake ticks go from 1700 to 2500 from before to after the refresh at cast(2). Ostensibly something faded before cast(3) which prevented the refresh?

Anyhow, I guess it's clear that the behavior changed. I suppose it could be looked at as an even greater penalty for failing to respect the full duration of your bleeds; though, I wouldn't say that it was working "properly".