Feral DPS Discussion - Page 30

ramenchef · 03/10/10, 9:14 PM

ArP Cap=(armor + C)/3
C=400+85*level+4.5*85*(level-59).
C=400+85*80+4.5*85*(80-59)
C=15232.5
Base armor is 10643.
10643*0.95(FF)*0.8(Sunder)=8088.68
ArP Cap = (8088.68+15232.5)/3 = 7773.727
Boss armor after ArP Capped = 8088.68 - 7773.727 = 314.953

The formula for the half armor value, C, is correct, but he and GC in that old post used the wrong value for the level. It is not target level but the attacker's level.

kalbear · 03/10/10, 9:24 PM

C is not 15232.5, apparently - not for a level 83 target. From the wiki link (which came from GC's explanation):

For a level 80 target, C=15232.5. For a level 83, C=16635

Now, I guess you could make the argument that bosses use armor pen and that that is the value that is used when a boss is armor pen vs. you, but I don't think that's correct. Everything in that lengthy dialog refers to the target's level, not the source.

Now, they got the ff/sunder info incorrect, but C should be correct (and was provided by GC). Here's an exerpt:

A level 80 warrior creature has 9729 armor. C=15232.5. So, the cap is (9729+15232.5)/3=8320.5. Let’s say a player has 30% armor penetration from armor penetration rating and no other modifiers that complicate the calculation (talents, Battle Stance, Sunder Armor, etc.). The game chooses the minimum of 8320.5 and 9729, so 8320.5. That is multiplied by 30% = 2496.15, and so that much armor is ignored. The effective armor on the target is 7232.85 (9729-2496.15). From a player point of view, the armor penetration rating didn’t ignore the full 30%, but instead ignored 25.66%. (85.5% as effective as expected).

Note that the player's level isn't mentioned here at all - only the level of the creature (target).

ramenchef · 03/10/10, 9:27 PM

He made a mistake when he posted that as he himself did not fully understand the formula. Follow up posts point it out as does the Combat Ratings thread on this forum.

Originally Posted by Aldriana

So, upon preliminary testing, this makes sense - (10643+15232.5)/3 is .8104 times 10643, which is where our factor of .81 in the above formulas comes from. The rest of the formula wierdness seems to come from the fact that Sunder/Expose/Faerie Fire/etc. seem to also lower the cap, as well as reducing the armor value.

So, for instance, if I drop a 5-point Expose Armor on the boss-level target dummy (which has 10643 armor, base), it's armor is reduced to .8 * 10643 = 8514.4 armor, and the cap is reduced to (8514.4+15232.5)/3 = 7915.633333 armor. So, when I attack it with 171 armor penetration rating on (=13.8841% reduction), the armor value is reduced by 7915.633333* .138841 = 1099.015 armor to 7415.385; thus, a gouge with 3521 AP (base damage: 814.451) should do 740.41 * 15232.5 / (15232.5+7415.385) = 547.783 damage, which matches the observed value of 547-548 nicely.

Or at least, it almost does. The problem is that a crit with Lethality, Prey on the Weak, and Relentless Earthsiege Diamond would be expected to do (2 * 1.03 * 1.2 - 1) * 1.3 + 1 = 2.9136 times as much, which would work out to 1596.02 damage, but the observed value is 1595-1596. So there's apparently some internal rounding in one or more steps such that this formula isn't exactly right (or the boss armor value is actually 10643.5, or some such).

Regardless: as a first cut at the formula, modulo minor rounding issues, seems to be something like

$\frac{A}{A+B(1-y)-x\frac{(1-y)B+A}{3}}$

for a typical boss mob. Note that the ((1-y)B+A)/3 term is really the minimum of that and B(1-y), but for a typical boss mob it will usually be the term as written.

A = the half armor value at 80, 15232.5
B = base boss armor, 10643
x = sum of arpen buffs(mace spec/battle stance/gear arpen)
y = product of arpen debuffs(sunder/ff) (1-.95*.8)

kalbear · 03/10/10, 9:46 PM

Thanks for the clarification and the correction; after looking at the other posts I have to agree. While it hasn't been tested in some time it's doubtful that aspect of it has changed significantly if at all.

In that case, 6470.944 is the armor value after reduction via shattering throw, 7234 would be the cap, and thus you'd be able to get 100% reduction of armor at that point with shattering throw. 314 armor provides 2.02% damage reduction, so shattering throw should increase all nonbleed damage by 2% during its duration. Which is something, though not hugely significant.

corrupt_raige · 03/11/10, 5:20 AM

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
So i messed with talents a little. I reworked my original copy pasted feral dps spec that EVERYONE has. First thing i did, took the two points out of Nurturing Instinct and put them into Feral Aggression. Why i had Nurturing Instinct in the first place is a mystery to me. I also took the 2 points out of Imp Leader of the Pack and moved them to Feral Aggression. My reasoning behind both these moves is basically, the healing boost is nice, when you're soloing or in pvp. but to maximize dps it can be sacrificed for that increase. Also, this maximizes both single target and AoE DPS. Although FB isn't used much in your rotation, you do get to sneak a few in there from time to time, like when you Berserk. And a 23k crit as apposed to 18k is very satisfying. =]
All other mandatory DPS talents are there. If you want 3% more damage with FB you can take the point out of Feral Instinct and put it into Feral Aggression, but Swipe is used much more frequently than FB so i don't think it would be wise.
But yeah, pretty much just got rid of two talents that are pretty much useless DPS wise and put them into the only dps talent. How come no one else has done this?
Another thing, why do you have Survival Instinct in your specs?

Vaccine · 03/11/10, 7:38 AM

Originally Posted by corrupt_raige

Another thing, why do you have Survival Instinct in your specs?

Clutch tanking and survivability. For 1 point its far more valuable than another point in FA or FI depending on your tastes.

For your other stuff, Imp LotP is a bit situational but on fights where it's useful, its huge (Anub, Sindra and Putri HM's etc...). A lot of people don't take I.LotP though so you're not quite the trailblazer you seem to think you are.

The FA vs FI argument has raged a lot in here during the days of 3.1 and Ulduar. It really comes down to personal taste. FB is a small enough contribution in the first place, so a boost on that is really a last resort for DPS points. Then again FI is more situational in it's use and I can't really comment on it as I got bumped to MT for ICC so haven't DPS's outside of Rotface. I can't really see much use for FI in T10 to be honest, at least in hard modes. Maybe Dreamwalker you'd get some use on Suppressors, but other adds you'll be following your priority, and on Deathwhisper you'll always want to follow your priority over AoE to minimise risk. Perhaps LK P1 but other classes can do it easier and youll really only be doing it to pump your own DPS on the meters rather than to aid the fight, as ghouls tend to die to incidental AoE + disease anyway.

It's all rather moot though as in 3.3.3 Mangle will be on a 60 Sec CD meaning you'll reclaim 3 points from Imp. Mangle in cat spec even for the mangle bot, giving you the choice to go Imp LotP, and either max both FI+FA or drop 1 in SI and go 7/8 in FI/FA again depending on your tastes, or even max all those an 1/2 ILotP.

Bonemage · 03/11/10, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

I can't really see much use for FI in T10 to be honest, at least in hard modes. Maybe Dreamwalker you'd get some use on Suppressors, but other adds you'll be following your priority, and on Deathwhisper you'll always want to follow your priority over AoE to minimise risk. Perhaps LK P1 but other classes can do it easier and youll really only be doing it to pump your own DPS on the meters rather than to aid the fight, as ghouls tend to die to incidental AoE + disease anyway.

I can't speak to LK hardmode but for normal SI is very useful in Phase 2 on the Valk's. Given swipes wide and long cone of effect, if your raid has them heading in the same general direction it will hit all three most of the time. Also given the facing and range issues they have for other attacks swipe is king on them, it accounts for 75% or more of my Valk damage on most pulls.

Ristaccia · 03/11/10, 11:39 AM

FI definitely is (and always has been) situational, and for some it might be feasible having two specs; one with the points in FI, and another swapping them to FA. That being said, in my experience, every instance since Ulduar has had at the least some fights where the DPS increase from FI will heavily outweight the extra points in FA, and ICC has been no exception. As some examples:

Marrowgar: Swiping multiple bone spikes in melee
Deathwhisper HM (Depending on strat): Swiping P1/P2 adds while white swinging Adherents in between their shields
Gunship: Self-explanatory
Dreamwalker: Suppressors as well as multiple 'large' adds up at the same time.
Sindragosa: Ice blocks (potentially)
LK: Cleaning up any leftover P1 Drudge Ghouls, P2 Valks, Raging Spirits during the P3 transition

Not all of these are 'make-it-or-break-it' situations, but they are definitely helpful additions and can definitely contribute to the success of the encounters.

Fugee · 03/11/10, 4:50 PM

I don't get how the list on the front page is bis when it goes over arp cap with gems and food, this is the list i got using rawr 2.3.11. Let me know if you see anything wrong with it.

[Sanctified Lasherweave Headguard]
[Sindragosa's Cruel Claw]
[Sanctified Lasherweave Shoulderpads]
[Vereesa's Dexterity]
[Sanctified Lasherweave Raiment]
[Toskk's Maximized Wristguards]
[Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General]
[Idol of the Crying Moon]
[Aldriana's Gloves of Secrecy]
[Astrylian's Sutured Cinch]
[Sanctified Lasherweave Legguards]
[Frostbitten Fur Boots]
[Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance]
[Band of the Bone Colossus]
[Deathbringer's Will]
[Herkuml War Token]

Berserk on weapon, 20 agi on gloves, 16 agi on boots.

Using agi food and these gems.

8x [Fractured Cardinal Ruby], 3x [Fractured Dragon's Eye], 3x [Rigid King's Amber], 2x [Accurate Ametrine], 2x [Glinting Ametrine], 2x [Deft Ametrine]

My druids a jc/enchanter so just fill in the proper enchants/gems with whatever your professions are.

ramenchef · 03/11/10, 5:51 PM

Go back through the last couple pages of this thread. You will find that you'll get more dps switching out the ashen band for frostbrood as rawr incorrectly models the ashen band proc. 2 rigid dragon's eyes and 1 fractured dragon's eye will also net a dps increase after you do the recommended ring change.

Murna · 03/11/10, 7:25 PM

Fugee - The BiS list on the front is made without profession buffs as I don't assume every cat to be Blacksmith/JC.

There are some target everyone wants to achieve:

ArP Hardcap
Hit/Expertise Cap
Crit Softcap

You can't reach all of them without JC. Obviously it's much easier, if you have 42 extra ArP through JC.

Fugee · 03/11/10, 9:54 PM

Originally Posted by ramenchef

Go back through the last couple pages of this thread. You will find that you'll get more dps switching out the ashen band for frostbrood as rawr incorrectly models the ashen band proc. 2 rigid dragon's eyes and 1 fractured dragon's eye will also net a dps increase after you do the recommended ring change.

It does this even on the new rawr? On mine its showing 10 second proc on a 1 minute cd on the ring.

Originally Posted by Murna

Fugee - The BiS list on the front is made without profession buffs as I don't assume every cat to be Blacksmith/JC.

There are some target everyone wants to achieve:

ArP Hardcap
Hit/Expertise Cap
Crit Softcap

You can't reach all of them without JC. Obviously it's much easier, if you have 42 extra ArP through JC.

I understand arp is top priority for every cat but even without being a jc the list on the front page has 1504 arp after the food, unless my math is wrong somewhere. There's a few wasted ilvls right there.

ramenchef · 03/11/10, 10:02 PM

The proc rate is wrong. It is supposed to be 1ppm, but Rawr lists it at 10%.

Nich · 03/11/10, 11:24 PM

I'm not sure if the arp gems/food/gear was rebalanced on the front page after Oathbinder was added.

With Oathbinder, I managed to find a BiS-ish list of gear that swapped out the ToGC cape for the Gunship cape, and only 11 (instead of the listed 13) fractured cardinal rubies. People with either or both of JC and BS will be able to make further refinements (probably more haste and agility to push up to the soft crit cap). This was also done with Bone Colossus instead of Ashen Band (with the edited proc rate), tho' it's not a huge DPS difference.

1407 arp, 234 hit, 136 expertise, 75.5% (in rawr 2.3.11) crit

Talanik · 03/12/10, 2:28 PM

Originally Posted by Fugee

I understand arp is top priority for every cat but even without being a jc the list on the front page has 1504 arp after the food, unless my math is wrong somewhere. There's a few wasted ilvls right there.

I can confirm this. 1504 is the total ArP from the BiS listed on the front page. Not only is your ArP calculation off, your hit is off as well. The gearset listed on the front page has 177 hit rating, not 161 like you stated.. Using Rawr, the DPS from the BiS list on the front page comes to 14527.64. That's with all possible gem bonuses reached.

My idea for a simple fix to that, without changing the gear itself, was to simply replace 4 of the ArP gems with more hit rating, in order to hit the cap. As you are already at the crit cap with that gearset, Pure hit and Str/hit gems become the next logical choice. I added in 2 [Rigid King's Amber] and 3 [Etched Ametrine] and came out to a total of 14787.17 with the following stats

247/263 Hit rating
126/132 Expertise
1404/1400 ArP
76.12% Crit

This is before professions as well.

As I was plugging in Fugee's list, Rawr decided to crash on me right before I replaced the last gem. However, before that his list only came out to 14500ish. I replaced his Dragon's Eyes with Cardinal Rubys just on the principle of calculating it without professions.

As far as I could tell, the BiS list posted on the front page is correct with the exception of a few gemming issues. There may be different combinations of yellow gems that may work better instead of the extra hit rating, but everything with Agility on it was valued fairly low after that 76% crit.

Taiyri · 03/12/10, 6:28 PM

Is it normal to have Rawr think that agility is better than Arm Pen even with an Arm Pen trinket equipped? I have to gem entirely armor pen to reach my soft cap with food but Rawr still shows going full agility as a 20dps increase, is that normal? I'm only just now getting into icc gear and still have a lot of 232 and 245 ilevel gear but it seems weird that rawr would show agility as better. Fully raid buffed I sit at about 66% crit and about 10 or 11k attack power. Is there some setting in rawr that I'm not using properly or is it just because I'm still so far from the crit soft cap?

Edited for idiotic phrasing...

Impossible3144 · 03/12/10, 7:18 PM

At that level of gear, I think it's going to be how much ArP is on your gear, as you're probably not at the point of worrying about the soft crit cap. It looks like you started gemming pure ArP pretty early. It's probably not worth gemming back, though, just focus on getting more gear with ArP on it (T10 being the obvious way). You should really only be softcapped until you get a better trinket, so don't push over 722 with gems.

Also make sure you have all the buffs you expect to have in a raid ticked, as that will affect stat values pretty significantly.

Ephram · 03/12/10, 9:52 PM

1. You have the wrong enchants on your boots and gloves, you want agi on both with your current gear.
2. Arp is your best stat up till the soft cap, you probably just didn't have all the buffs enabled.

Taiyri · 03/13/10, 10:53 AM

I'm not sure what I did differently but now it shows that I am gemmed correctly with the exception of my gloves. I swapped out a gem for the socket bonus and to bring me right at 722 armor pen with arm pen food so none is wasted. I just got my 264 headpiece and next will probably be shoulders assuming I can finally get my damn pants from VoA. Anyways, thanks for the help!

Edit: Also swapped my enchants, thanks Ephram.

Hezkezl · 03/13/10, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Fugee

I don't get how the list on the front page is bis when it goes over arp cap with gems and food, this is the list i got using rawr 2.3.11. Let me know if you see anything wrong with it.

[Sanctified Lasherweave Headguard]
[Sindragosa's Cruel Claw]
[Sanctified Lasherweave Shoulderpads]
[Vereesa's Dexterity]
[Sanctified Lasherweave Raiment]
[Toskk's Maximized Wristguards]
[Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General]
[Idol of the Crying Moon]
[Aldriana's Gloves of Secrecy]
[Astrylian's Sutured Cinch]
[Sanctified Lasherweave Legguards]
[Frostbitten Fur Boots]
[Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance]
[Band of the Bone Colossus]
[Deathbringer's Will]
[Herkuml War Token]

Berserk on weapon, 20 agi on gloves, 16 agi on boots.

Using agi food and these gems.

8x [Fractured Cardinal Ruby], 3x [Fractured Dragon's Eye], 3x [Rigid King's Amber], 2x [Accurate Ametrine], 2x [Glinting Ametrine], 2x [Deft Ametrine]

My druids a jc/enchanter so just fill in the proper enchants/gems with whatever your professions are.

You've listed 20 gems, and there are 20 sockets in the gear you've listed, not counting the Meta-gem slot in the helmet. That being said, are you completely ignoring the metagem requirement and the nightmare tear for activating it? Or did I miss something?

Fugee · 03/13/10, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by Hezkezl

You've listed 20 gems, and there are 20 sockets in the gear you've listed, not counting the Meta-gem slot in the helmet. That being said, are you completely ignoring the metagem requirement and the nightmare tear for activating it? Or did I miss something?

Figured it was obvious, tear goes into the weapon or belt to get the meta requirements.

Murna · 03/15/10, 10:53 AM

Hm, you are completely right. The stat summary below my two BiS lists were totally off. I don't really know how that could happen.

However, I fixed them and the gems too.

As you can see, I used a lot of [Rigid King's Amber] in my HM BiS list to come closer to the Hitcap.
RAWR actually rates Agility and Haste both a little bit higher than Hit. What are your opinions on this?

Also remember, that the BiS lists I used on the opening post are before profession and without heroic presence.

Hezkezl · 03/15/10, 3:52 PM

Originally Posted by Fugee

Figured it was obvious, tear goes into the weapon or belt to get the meta requirements.

Ah, I see. I completely missed out on the fact that the belt can have an extra socket via the readily available BS buckle. My apologies

I looked through the list and saw all the available gem slots, blues included, taken by other gems and had completely overlooked the buckle. Whups!

Tukutanu · 03/15/10, 9:52 PM

This is a little off topic, but I was watching the video guide that list in OP. I saw someone use feral charge to jump away from the boss and then back to the boss. How exactly is that being done? Is it a macro or something?

Pumbaa · 03/16/10, 12:13 AM

@Tukutanu
Can you be a bit more specific, what video? Are you sure it wasn't just a combination of Dash and FC?

I don't think there is any way that you can use FC twice in a row. And if there is, it is most certainly an exploit.