cough I wish it only took that long to grind out 5 levels. Besides, Blizzard said that they don't want pets to be disposable. Certainly, I wouldn't expect Stun, Snare or Daze effects to work against bosses. That leaves only a handful of pets with potentially raid-useful abilities. I can certainly see Nether Rays being used as backup interrupters, and a Tallstrider would be mandatory if that effect worked... although I really can't see how it could go live in its current form. I'd expect it to be 5%, or possibly even 10%... -30% to hit for 8 seconds on a 20-second cooldown is empirically unbalanced.

Still, given that we don't have to train temporary pets just to learn new skills, 3 slots may just be enough (although I wouldn't say no to 4 )

I'm pretty sure you're saying what I think you are, but just to be certain...

Currently weapon dps is the only thing that effects steadyshot damage (as far as the weapon itself goes, stats aside), correct? A 100dps 1.0 speed weapon would Steadyshot as hard as a 100dps 3.0 speed weapon, I thought.

When people see the words "weapon range" and then "normalized" I feel people may think that it's like Multishot: weapon damage (the actual weapon damage listed on the weapon, so speed * dps, hence slow making a difference), THEN the attack power contribution is normalized to 2.8.

If the new Steadyshot is going towards this Multishot model as Sean suggests, I cant see procs from fast weapons anywhere near making up the damage gained from the slowest weapons.

Or do I have this arse-about, and the current model for Steadyshot is like the current model for Multishot, and in beta the new Steadyshot is like the very very old Multishot (and Mortal Strike, Sinister Strike, etc, of 3 years ago), which would be terribly broken.

Already covered before the post you quoted.

Short version: No.

Long version: Steady Shot currently and in the beta determines damage using weapon damage (not DPS, the actual damage value) normalized to 2.8 speed, plus 20% of your RAP and a flat modifier. In WotLK, it also incorporates your ammo's damage in an as-yet unknown fashion.

"Weapon damage normalized to 2.8 speed" is that not the exact same thing as DPS? Normalization is taking "attack power * weapon speed" and turning it into "attack power * 2.8" for the calculation of how attack power effects shots such as mulitshot and sinister strike. This was because having a 3.0 speed weapon would effectively double your attack power compared to having a 1.5 speed weapon, as far as instants are concerned.

When you "normalize weapon damage", what exactly are you doing? Taking the weapon damage from a 3.0 speed weapon, and changing it to a value that it would have if it was 2.8? Thats simply looking at the dps on the weapon and multiplying it by 2.8. Which would be to say, the dps value is all that matters.


edit: to expand on this, I believe this is the formula for Steady Shot:

150 + WeaponDamage/WeaponSpeed*2.8 + 0.2*RAP + [Dazed: 175]

"WeaponDamage/WeaponSpeed" -- this is the DPS of a weapon. It is the very definition of the DPS of a weapon. I dont see how a slower or faster weapon could have any impact.

So back to my original point, if they are making a change in WOTLK which favours slower weapons for steadyshot, it would be a drastic change to the current formula, and I think it would over-compensate for the advantages faster weapons have re: procs.

Thanks for that info, but I believe I understand how normalizing shots work. I remember crying when my multishots hit for 1k less than they used to.

However Zurai is saying you can somehow "normalize a weapon damage range". I'm saying all he is doing is taking the weapon damage, dividing it by the speed (which is simply finding its listed DPS), and then multiplying it by 2.8. Hence speed means nothing in that calculation, it's just a means to find the DPS, which is then multiplied by 2.8.

Normalizing a shot like multishot however, as you said, actually makes a difference. The weapon damage (1000-1000, 1-1, etc) is placed into the total shot damage in addition to the normalized attack power coefficient, and not simply used in a "whats the dps of this weapon" calculation.

No. Weapon Damage is a range of numbers. DPS is a single number. You can normalize without applying attack power, too:

Generic 3.0 speed crossbow deals 100-200 damage (50 DPS).
Generic 3.0 speed crossbow normalized to 2.8 speed deals 93.3-186.67 damage (50 DPS)

I'll use that weapon in the Steady Shot formula and see what happens.

150 + WeaponDamage/WeaponSpeed*2.8 + 0.2*RAP

3.0 speed 100-200 weapon A (50 dps)
2.5 speed 100-150 weapon B (50 dps)
The RAP/initial damage/dazed component doesnt matter, so lets ignore those.

Weapon A:
(100 to 200)/3.0*2.8 ---- (aka 50 dps * 2.8)
. = 93.333 to 186.666
. = 140 damage average hit

Weapon B:
(100-150)/2.5*2.8 ---- (aka 50 dps * 2.8)
. = 112 to 168
. = 140 damage average hit


So, I still dont see how this "normalizing weapon range", aka, "multiply the dps by 2.8", makes the speed of weapons relevant in Steadyshot dps on live. It's just something I thought would be well known, if a 3.0 weapon did more Steadyshot damage than a 2.8 weapon of the same dps.


edit: my post did some crazy text-size formatting, dots in front of the calculations seems to fix it.

You two are splitting hairs over steadyshot formulae btw, I'm pretty sure you both know exactly how it's calculated. Yes, a normalized damage range is effectively the same as normalized DPS, but only effectively - i.e. on average. In practice, the fact that the damage range and not the DPS is normalized is important to state since otherwise people ask "but why does my steadyshot hit for different values if it just scales with DPS and RAP?"

I was kind of hoping the 45 point talent would be some variation of hit and/or expertise for a pet. As it stands now, that would probably be a lot better than Aspect Mastery.

Here's to hoping someone important reads this forum.

I remember reading a blue post that hinted at the possibility of expanding our stable slots. They didn't make any promises though. I can't seem to dig it up.

Less steady shot, more exciting talk about these new pets and trees!

I too am slightly unhappy at the lack of +hit in Ferocity.

Also not happy with the Great Resistance talent: 3 points for 9%? Not that great to me. I was quite happy to spec my specific pets for each type of raid (ie: Fire/Shadow for MH). This blanket-resistance talent seems to be a nerf in the long run, "jack of all resistances and master of none".

Cunning seems to be an odd tree, it is utility in the latter stages but look at Tier4! Pure DPS!

Blizzard seems somewhat confused, in my opinion. While they're struggling to make each tree "viable", I believe they might just make each tree as bland as the other with only a few sprinkles on top to give the illusion of "choice".

Lick Your Wounds - a healing talent - in the Ferocity tree? I don't agree. If I want survivability, let me spec Cunning. If I want to pump out massive numbers, then thats my choice if I want to be a glass cannon.

It makes it much harder to balance, though.