Mists of Pandaria: All Specs - Page 8

Rivkah · 08/03/12, 1:01 AM

I can't get into beta since the changes announced today to verify the arcane shot formula changes, so for now I'm assuming the tooltip on MMO is correct and only the base damage was reduced. Applying that change to my sims in the T14H gear setup, it looks like it amounts to about a .3% damage reduction for MM, .6% for BM and .8% for SV. In lower gear levels the impact might be more significant, although at those levels you could be using less arcane shots so it could even out.

The thrill of the hunt change doesn't seem to bump the benefit up enough to beat dire beast in my simulations at the moment.

They've said there are likely further damage reductions to our abilities coming so I'll update with more details when they arrive.

Nerec · 08/03/12, 3:52 AM

Originally Posted by Whitefyst

For non-MMs, all MSs can refresh the TotH buff, but MMs with Bombardment saving 20 focus, MSs cast with both Bombardment and TotH up cost no focus and will not have a chance to refresh the proc.

just to make it clear, this would imply that it was a hard nerf to toth when they changed ArcS to cost 20 focus instead of 22. Even greater then our gain through lower focus cost, implied with the picked talent. Don't know if it was intended or just the reason they push toth now to 20% base proc chance.

Nooska · 08/03/12, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by Goldengiff

Did some testing with BM on the Beta servers today and noticed that Frenzy wasn't performing very well. It often took quite a long time for it to stack to 5, including having stacks drop off the pet fairly often. This would seem to suggest that Focus Fire may be intended to be more of a longer cooldown for when you need burst rather than a 100% uptime buff.

When that happens, I usually find that my pet has unspecced for some reason, when I make it ferocity again, it consistently keeps up frenzy, I imagine it has something to do with focus granting/managing talents the pet has - or possibly that it doesn't inherit full hit and exp stats when unspecced (this is speculation, I haven't tested it specifically)

Rivkah · 08/04/12, 7:05 PM

Buff/Nerf Summary:

I did some raw calculations on a T14 heroic gear set. In this set I assumed 52k RAP and 15130.5 avg weapon dmg with a weapon speed of 3.0. With these stats here is a rough estimate of how much damage change there is to each ability (to a single cast):

Arcane Shot: 8% nerf (per shot)
A Murder of Crows: 13% nerf (per cast)
Dire Beast: 36% nerf (per cast)
Wild Quiver: 2.9% nerf (total damage over the fight- you will now get 1/2 as many wild quivers which each do almost 2x as much damage, but the normalization means that for weapons slower than 2.8 speed, the total wild quiver damage over the fight is reduced)

Notes:

MM mastery is down to 2% per pt but wild quiver was doubled to compensate
Dire beast and murder of crows formulas have changed. Murder of crows peck count is lower now
Arcane shot base damage was lowered

Current Formulas:

Hunter:

Aimed Shot: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * 4 + 39880
Arcane Shot: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * 1.1 + 2742
Barrage: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * 6.4 (total damage to the primary target over 16 ticks)
Black Arrow: RAP * 2 + 2490 (total damage, split over 10 ticks)
Chimera Shot: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * 3 + 5385
Cobra Shot: avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2
Explosive Shot: RAP * .333 + 415.5 (per tick, there are 3 ticks)
Explosive Trap: RAP * .0546 + 246.767 (initial damage), RAP * .0546 + 32.4038 (per tick, there are 10 ticks) - not retested (notes don't indicate a change)
Glaive Toss: (RAP * .1 + 436) * 8 (to the primary target, 2 will hit)
Kill Shot: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * 3 - not retested (notes don't indicate a change)
Multi-Shot: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * .6 - not retested (notes don't indicate a change)
Powershot: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * 8 (damage to the primary target)
Serpent Sting: RAP * .097 + 2030.22 (per tick, ticks every 3 sec)
Steady Shot: (avg weapon dmg + RAP * .2) * .7 + 4013
Wild Quiver: 100% autoshot damage (now normalized)

Pet:

Bite/Claw/Smack: (RAP * .21 + 208) * 1.8 (standard pet damage multiplier)
Blink Strike: pet melee dmg * 2
Kill Command: (RAP + 997) * 1.8 (standard pet damage multiplier)
Melee: (RAP / 14 * 2 + 311.111) * 1.8 (standard pet damage multiplier)

Summoned Pets:

Dire Beast: RAP * .3572 + 1246 per hit (does about 8 attacks but sometimes only 7), does not scale with BM mastery
A Murder of Crows: RAP * .206 + 560.834 per hit (30 attacks) - now treated as a debuff on target, does not scale with BM mastery

Esoth · 08/06/12, 3:08 PM

I updated my spreadsheet (http://www.esoth.com/files/mop/at_download/file) and saw Fervor pulling ahead as well. MoC is still on top for the next tier.

Whitefyst · 08/07/12, 1:53 AM

Originally Posted by Nerec

just to make it clear, this would imply that it was a hard nerf to toth when they changed ArcS to cost 20 focus instead of 22. Even greater then our gain through lower focus cost, implied with the picked talent. Don't know if it was intended or just the reason they push toth now to 20% base proc chance.

I cannot speak for other specs since I have not been studying them, but for MM I would not call it a hard nerf but instead consider it a logical and necessary change with how TotH has a chance for AS to save 20 focus when procced from a focus costing shot. Otherwise, TotH would have an incredibly high uptime with an AS rotation since AS would still cost focus when TotH was up. At the old 15% proc chance with assuming a bonomial distribution, TotH would the following chance to proc at least once per the following number of shots:

# Shots	Chance for at least one proc
1	15%
2	28%
3	39%
4	48%
5	56%
6	62%
7	68%
8	73%

Hence, on average you could have expected to have a TotH proc every 4 to 5 focus costing shots. With an AS rotation working out to a combination of:

CS-SSx2-ASx4-AS/MMM AI or (about 5.5 focus costing shots per CS cycle)
CS-SSx3-ASx3-AS/MMM AI (about 4.5 focus costing shots per CS cycle)

You would expect on average to get at least one proc every CS cycle. With assuming only 1 proc per cycle, even the max DPS cycle with the minimum number of SSs would cost only about 81 focus per cycle on average. With the 2 SSs generating 34 focus total, the net focus cost of the CS cycle would be -47 focus, requiring only 5.22 FPS regen to be balanced.

Thus, the old TotH would have made an MM's AS rotation be roughly focus balanced with the minimum number of SSs at the start of the expansion with no set bonuses. Having enough resources at the start of the expansion to already perform the max DPS AS rotation would have been a bad design situation for Blizzard since they would have had little room for improvement. Haste would have been significantly reduced in benefit until approaching the point where the 2 SSs casts have a cast time around the 1s GCD allowing another AS to be performed with little delay to the CS cycle. Since MMs do not want to approach a static 1s SS cast time since it greatly reduces the benefit of RF, BL, and otehr haste effects to the AS rotation, haste would have been almost totally worthless to an MM hunter until the AI rotation option became the better choice. Furthermore, considering that all of the level 90 talents cost focus with GT costing only 20 focus and being able to be used with replacing an AS a little more often than every other cycle, that increases the percentage of AS affected by TotH to be even higher. Hence, a change was needed to prevent a proc occuring almost every cycle and having much more than half the AS casts be affected by TotH.

Furthermore, with saving at least 60 focus per cycle, TotH would have resulted in over 180 focus saved every 30s making it at least 80% better than Fervor for an AS rotation.

With AS costing only 20 focus and no longer costing focus and being able to proc TotH when TotH is affecting its focus cost, the max DPS AS rotation cannot be performed almost every cycle. We need to cast an extra SS on many cycles. Increasing the proc chance on TotH to 20% changes the table to:

# Shots	Chance for at least one proc
1	20%
2	36%
3	49%
4	59%
5	67%
6	74%
7	79%
8	83%

Thus, we can currently expect a ToTH proc on every 3 to 4 focus costing shots, reducing the average number of shots per proc by 1. This greatly reduces the chance of a reproc of ToTH when TotH is up since only the CS, MoC, and Level 90 abilities like GT in the standard rotation have a chance to reproc TotH and each of those abilities have CDs. It also reduces the number of procs since you do not start getting chances from AS until the current proc wears off. Hence, we should expect a proc roughly a little more often than every other cycle as opposed to at least once per cycle on average.

This now saves a little more than 60 focus every other cycle, resulting in an average focus savings of about 100 or a little more per 30s, making it a comparable talent to Fervor, with Fervor being better since it provides pet focus as well as hunter focus and does not require an AS cycle to be affective.

This results in a better design situation for Blizzard since MMs AS rotation now has more room for improvement throughout the expansion instead of being near maxed out to start and since the benefits of ToTH and Fervor are more consistent.

Nerec · 08/07/12, 3:38 AM

I have some problem with the mechanic behind TotH and its handling. Maybe my mind is way off, but I want to clarify my thoughts and actual blind alleys:

I don't know exactly about travel time mechanic, but I believe TotH can only be procced after the last ArcS from the buff did hit the target? Thus after the last ArcS from TotH, there shouldn't be used another Focus costing shot to have the 20% chance again.
Or is this irrelevant because the last ArcS just consume the buff and the talent will only check against this. But this would give the last ArcS off the TotH the possebility to proc itself again.

With both option in mind, I tend to the first. This will give the problem, that after the consume of the TotH proccs we usually have a (near) filled focus bar and didn't want to cast a 2xSteady/Cobra. And therefor cast a focus costing shot that can't procc another TotH because the last ArcS still flying?! Or am I way off here?

Namarus · 08/07/12, 11:05 AM

I was looking at the profession changes and now Jewelcrafting gems offer double the value for secondary stats. Does anyone have any hard info on whether this means that hunters will be using secondary stat gems at all, or will we still stick with Agility?

gahddo · 08/07/12, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Goldengiff

Did some testing with BM on the Beta servers today and noticed that Frenzy wasn't performing very well. It often took quite a long time for it to stack to 5, including having stacks drop off the pet fairly often. This would seem to suggest that Focus Fire may be intended to be more of a longer cooldown for when you need burst rather than a 100% uptime buff.

The difference between using focus fire and not is a very thin line. In my more optimized simc profiles for bm:
Using focus fire at 5 stack - 143734.7
Not using focus fire ever - 142015.8
I'm going to try a mixture of parameters to only cast it around cooldowns and see what happens.

Whitefyst · 08/07/12, 1:02 PM

Originally Posted by Nerec

I have some problem with the mechanic behind TotH and its handling. Maybe my mind is way off, but I want to clarify my thoughts and actual blind alleys:

I don't know exactly about travel time mechanic, but I believe TotH can only be procced after the last ArcS from the buff did hit the target? Thus after the last ArcS from TotH, there shouldn't be used another Focus costing shot to have the 20% chance again.
Or is this irrelevant because the last ArcS just consume the buff and the talent will only check against this. But this would give the last ArcS off the TotH the possebility to proc itself again.

With both option in mind, I tend to the first. This will give the problem, that after the consume of the TotH proccs we usually have a (near) filled focus bar and didn't want to cast a 2xSteady/Cobra. And therefor cast a focus costing shot that can't procc another TotH because the last ArcS still flying?! Or am I way off here?

Good question on how the mechanics work and whether the last AS can double dip and both take advantage of the focus cost from the TotH buff and possibly have a chance to proc TotH. I would assume that the implementation is similar to the free MMM AI where there is actually a different shot between the focus costing AS and the focus free AS. Hence, while TotH is up, the focus free version of AS is fired, and since it is a focus free shot, it has no chance to proc TotH even though the stacks may be fully consumed by the time the shot hits the target.

I do not know for what spec you are worrying about, but keep in mind that most specs have other focus costing shots in their rotations besides AS, including KC for BM, ES for SV, CS for MM, and the chosen level 75 and 90 spec abilities for all specs. Hence, even though AS does not cost focus while TotH is up, the other shots still cost focus and have a chance to reproc the buff to the full 3 stacks.

Sure there is a chance to overcap focus if the proc occurs at a bad time, epsecially when you get a reproc, but keep in mind the following:
- Over 3 focus free AS casts, even with a regen around 5 FPS, you are only gaining about 15 focus over the 3 GCDs.
- In order to proc TotH, this means that you must have just cast a focus costing shot. Since the minimum focus cost for any of our primary shots is 20 focus and since over the 4 GCDs of the original shot that procced TotH and the 3 ASs that use the stacks we should normally gain not much more than 20 focus (except during periods of dynamic haste), at the worst case we end up breaking even on focus over those 4 GCDs or slightly gain some focus if have high static haste.

Thus, as long as you are not focus capped or very near focus capped before firing the focus costing shot that procs ToTH, you should not normally be focus capped once TotH runs out. Although if we are close to capping focus during that period and have our other focus costing shots coming off CD, we can and should use them to reduce our focus levels. Of course these focus costing shots have a chance to reproc TotH, but the reprocs will not result in focus capping either since once again the shot costs at least 20 focus and at most you are regaining two stacks of TotH resulting in a net focus loss of about 5 to 10 focus due to the reproc.

Hence, I believe that Blizzard did a really good job designing how this version of TotH works.

The only cases where I see TotH procs are unideal is situations where:
- We are under dynamic haste effects where our focus regen is high enough to result in a net focus gain over the 4 GCDs to proc TotH and use it. But even in this case, focus will only be overcapped is we are sufficiently close to capping before casting the shot that procs TotH. Even then, a TotH proc is better than no TotH proc.
- Important buffs like Steady Focus are about to run out requiring use to use shots that generate more focus. The two SSs gain about 50 focus when including the 17 focus per cast and the focus regen over the cast. Hence, you can overcap focus if you are above 35 focus when needing to start the 2 SS casts. Considering that in this scenario that you can control where you would normally be casting SSs in the cycle to be after the larger focus costing CS, you should not above 60 focus after a CS cast and will normally be lower in focus since you should have often been casting focus costing ASs prior to that CS that procced TotH.

Lokrick · 08/07/12, 3:29 PM

Originally Posted by Whitefyst

Good question on how the mechanics work and whether the last AS can double dip and both take advantage of the focus cost from the TotH buff and possibly have a chance to proc TotH. I would assume that the implementation is similar to the free MMM AI where there is actually a different shot between the focus costing AS and the focus free AS. Hence, while TotH is up, the focus free version of AS is fired, and since it is a focus free shot, it has no chance to proc TotH even though the stacks may be fully consumed by the time the shot hits the target. ...

For clarification, Arcane Shot with TotH does not operate like Aimed Shot!. The free aimed shot is indeed a separate spell in the meta data. Arcane only has one entry, which is fired with a discounted price (you can also see that the spell effect in the log is the same for both shots). The reason none of this is an issue is that Thrill of the Hunt procs when you fire, not when it hits. Therefore when you fire, either you spent focus or you did not. Thus, the last arcane shot in thrill of the hunt does not cost focus, does not proc thrill of the hunt, and should not prevent the very next shot from proccing thrill of the hunt (even if the prior shot did not hit). Verification of the "should not" is straightforward (though perhaps tedious) from logs.

Whitefyst · 08/07/12, 3:45 PM

Originally Posted by Lokrick

For clarification, Arcane Shot with TotH does not operate like Aimed Shot!. The free aimed shot is indeed a separate spell in the meta data. Arcane only has one entry, which is fired with a discounted price (you can also see that the spell effect in the log is the same for both shots). The reason none of this is an issue is that Thrill of the Hunt procs when you fire, not when it hits. Therefore when you fire, either you spent focus or you did not. Thus, the last arcane shot in thrill of the hunt does not cost focus, does not proc thrill of the hunt, and should not prevent the very next shot from proccing thrill of the hunt (even if the prior shot did not hit). Verification of the "should not" is straightforward (though perhaps tedious) from logs.

Thanks for the clarification. I am not on the beta, so am only able to make assumptions until I get the actual information from those on beta to correct my assumptions.

Anyway, the end results of the mechanics is the same regardless of the method that it is implemented and does not affect my analysis above.

Whitefyst · 08/07/12, 8:03 PM

Looks like the latest build buffed TotH's chance to proc to be 30% instead of 20%. Using a binomial distribution, the chance for at least one proc per focus costing shots cast is:

# Shots	Chance for at least one proc
1	30%
2	51%
3	66%
4	76%
5	83%
6	88%
7	92%
8	94%

For MMs with this buff, we can expect a TotH proc on average after every 2nd focus costing shot. Hence, with the max DPS CS, AS focus dump cycle of:

CS-SSx2-ASx4-AS/MMM AI (with level 75 and 90 abilities replacing an AS when off CD)

Hence, in an ideal proc situation where we had a proc every time on the average proc number of shots (2), we could get a proc every cycle and have all 3 stacks of the proc used that same cycle. Thus, the focus cost per cycle would be 75 focus on average (with not including the high focus cost of MoC). Since the 2 SSs gain 34 focus, that is a focus deficit of only 41 focus that would need to be covered by focus regen, which is easily done since only 4.56 FPS regen is required.

Of course, we cannot expect this ideal average case. We will have situations where it takes more than 2 focus costing shots to proc TotH. We will also have the cases where one of the later ASs in the cyle proc TotH and where stacks will still exist when CS and/or the level 75 and 90 focus costing abilities come off CD and are performed with the high liklihood of a reproc. Regardless, the buff increases the TotH uptime considerably.

Rivkah · 08/08/12, 1:42 AM

I won't post a detailed summary of the formula changes in the new patch listed on MMO until it hits the server and I can verify them. But I did modify my dev site to use the new formulas implemented as well as I could interpret them (there are some like the serpent sting and bite/claw/smack changes that I'm not sure I understood fully).

Based on my limited understanding of the changes, my simulated T14H gear saw the following drops in damage:

BM: 12% (from 133562.78 to 117945.31)
MM: 16% (from 116460.24 to 98211.84)
SV: 11% (from 115792.27 to 102676.46)

Note that my implementation of the spec simulations still needs tweaking so these numbers should be taken with a large grain of salt.

Based on those changes, I also did some testing on relative talent value:

Focus tier: Fervor is coming in ahead for BM, Dire Beast for MM, and both Fervor and Dire Beast are relatively close for SV. Thrill is weak all alround
Pet tier: Lynx Rush and Blink Strike are now fairly close for BM (with Lynx Rush in the lead), significantly above Murder. For MM/SV, Murder is in the lead but only slightly above Lynx Rush, with Blink Strike behind by a noticable amount
AoE tier: Glaive Toss still dominates noticably but the lead has shrunk (for single target dps)

Nooska · 08/08/12, 5:43 AM

Rivkah, I am wondering how you are simming the focus tier, Fervor coming in ahead of Dire Beast for BM seems off to me, as DB takes advantage of BM mastery (or will according to blue word, erhmm, last week I think it was), but also ahead of TotH seems odd. Is AS simply too low damage now or is it a matter of not being able to utilize the proc fully?
Reason I'm thinking this is that I haven't seen anything much in beta or notes to change BMs priority for sustained; ^HM>KC>^SrS>AS>CoS basically, and with more focus regen moving from CoS to AS in the 6 second cycle. Are you using FF in teh simming or letting it stay on the pet (and which value do you have FF at for pet/hunter respectively?)