Xinhuan

Well pre 3.0.8, the images were inserted at 135% threat, which pulled aggro instantly, it didn't matter if you gained the "MI fade buff" yet at that point.

However post 3.0.8, the images are inserted at 100% threat, which only pulls aggro after you gained the "MI fade buff". WoW's aura system with gaining and losing buffs has always been quirky at best and is probably latency affected as well. This is partly why I wondered if mob targeting mechanics is throttled to checking every 0.3 seconds or if it is based on hostile actions being applied on the mob, or possibly both, since gaining a "MI fade buff" isn't a hostile action at all.

 

Lak

Lets see if i understand this correctly.
When i pop MI my threat goes -4000000. After 30 secs when the images despawn, i regain my 4000k
Correct?

If so.
1. What happens if i pop MI at pull? Am i at -4000k threat from start or should i wait until i have actually gained some threat?
2. What happens if the images die (Like on Sapphiron or taking the wall on Sartharion), am i still on reduced threat for 30 secs or do i regain my 4000k as soon as they die?

And off topic, but still concerning threat: Does Invis wipe my aggro even though i dont leave combat? (On boss fights)

 

Junlex

To Lak:

1. Yes, you get the threat reduction regardless of your initial threat
2. The threat reduction is completely independent from the mirror images and will last 30 seconds regardless of what happens to them.

Successful invisibility drops your threat to 0 even though you don't leave combat on boss fights.

 

Anomi

I don't believe this has been addressed yet, but does anyone know if you generate additional threat while the MI aura is active?

If so,
Is it added to the total of your faded threat and it all comes back together at the end of the 30s?
or

Is the threat added separately and added together when the buff fades?

I'm curious about the 2nd scenario specifically because MI would then have interesting applications on bosses with threat wipes.

 

Docjowles

You still accumulate threat, sure. It just doesn't affect anything until the buff wears off. If you are close to the tank's threat, pop MI and go nuts with cooldowns, you can definitely come out of MI above the tank and pull aggro when it fades. This was the main reason the grey bar was added to Omen, so you could easily see where your threat is going to be once MI drops.

Edit: To answer your question a little better, you build threat with each cast, even when under the effects of MI. I'm not sure what would happen if a boss wiped threat in the middle of MI's buff. I suspect you'd leap back up from -4million to zero but that is an interesting little edge case to test.

 

Xinhuan

1. You generate the same amount of threat whether MI is active or not. All MI does is deduct -4mil from you during its 30 sec duration.
2. The amount deducted is a constant. While you deal damage, your threat goes up slowly (from -4mil to -3.9 mil etc)
3. When MI ends, your threat goes back up by 4mil.

That is to say, if 2 mages body pulls and both casts MI and all mirror images then dies, then whichever mage is less negative on threat will have aggro. The threat you generate while MI is active is only relevant in this edge case.

No, your threat doesn't leap up from -4mil to 0. Nor will it leap from 0 to 4 mil when MI expires, since it doesn't leap to 0 in the first place.

Simply put, while MI is active, there is a passive aura on yourself that deducts -4mil threat on you. You accumulate threat and reset threat as normal. That is to say, if you had 100k threat on a boss, then casted MI, you go to -3.9 mil. Were you to invis then, it resets your threat from -3.9 mil to -4mil and remain in combat.

 

Docjowles

Thank you for clarifying the behavior on a threat wipe. Thinking of MI in terms of a passive -4million threat aura simplifies a lot of these "what if's" a great deal.

 

Roywyn

[Edit]: In attempt to clear things up, I only made things worse.
Sorry about that, here's the correction.


The threat reduction by Mirror Image actually is 4M, as in 4 Million points of damage before Salvation/talents.
Assuming we reach maybe up to 10k DPS this expansion, Mirror Image still removes the threat of 10 minutes of straight nuking.

There were some inconsistencies with threat being counted in 0.01 steps, leading to some confusion.
Saw a lot of different numbers thrown around here, so I figured I should clear it up.


Remember when he bugged out after a wipe and kept his Flaming Maul frenzy buff?
Oh, good old times!

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DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Maje

That depends on semantics, if you look at the threat as Omen shows it then the reduction is 4.1 million but in 'real' terms yes it's 400k but the difference is moot since the value we see every day is the one Omen and other meters are showing and it's 4 million.

Just to clarify, say you're in a long fight and Omen shows you as having 6 million threat if you use MI you'll see yourself at 2 million threat etc.

 

Xinhuan

The bolded part above is wrong.

This is not an inconsistency. This is more so because of our initial definition of threat. In the beginning with Kenco wrote KTM, he defined 1 damage to cause exactly 1 threat in the absence of threat modifiers. This definition has remained in use since then, and is the definition that makes the most sense in common use.

After Blizzard revealed the threat API to us for addons to use, it is then discovered that 1 damage causes 100 units of threat. That is, Blizzard's scaling of threat is 100x larger. In order not to confuse users, addons continue to use and show the 1damage=1threat scaling, which is simply taking the Blizzard provided value and dividing it by 100. We don't need confused users to start dealing with numbers that are suddenly 100x larger.

Mirror Image and Fade causes you to have a passive aura that deducts 410065408 threat (Blizzard scale, yes that is 410 million) from you. In Omen's addon scale, this is -4100654.08 or -4.1 mil threat after you divide it by 100. For most purposes, we refer to it as simply 4 mil threat and omit the .1m since its not particularly relevant. There isn't a fight that lasts long enough for anyone to even reach 2 mil positive threat.

As such, this is wrong as well. In "real Blizzard terms", the actual threat reduction is 410 million, all current addons show it as 4.1 mil.

 

◊ manly

For what its worth, I only mentioned the 40000... number as a way to show that the number was big. I think for all intent and purpose you won't be pulling aggro with MI active, barring odd threat mechanics such as threat swap (remember the ogre boss in Shattered Halls ?).

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Zerstorung

This thread has been very helpful in understanding the details about MI threat, now I have some other questions.

Lets say you pop MI then get a Hand of Salvation, what threat value gets taken into consideration? Also, what happens when you use MI while Vigilance is active?

 

Zaldinar

Hand of Salv is a good question actually, as it could be rather catastrophic if it does Current Effective Threat * 0.98.

Vigilance would behave as normal, since it is based on attacks you make, which MI just makes your base threat ridiculously low, but doesn't influence any attacks you make after that, and it would be glaringly obvious if the negative threat transfered to the warrior.

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Jonny_Monroe

I would presume HoS behaves in the same way that invisibilty does (the 1st invis, the fading effect. Not the 2nd agro dump effect).

plenty of times I've left images up and let invis fade me for 2 seconds then cancelled it to cast before the 2nd invis reset my agro to 0, it has not resulted in generating agro (even though it bahaves like HoS, multiplying agro by 0.x)

What I suspect of MI is that -400000 is tacked on to the end of your threat but the actual threat is still remembered untouched.

Lets say I have 2k agro, then Pop MI. My agro isn't -398k but rather 2k [-400k]. All effects modifying my active agro affect whats outside the brackets there, the only entity in game that doesn't ignore that -400k in brackets is the boss. When MI expires that -400k modifier is cleared. So things like invis(fading) and HoS work perfectly normally even when MI is active. Obviously in this model the threat reported to the client is just a final number.

Thats just my guess at how it works though.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Zaldinar

I'll try to find a Pally to take a look at this tonight. But if anyone else has easy access to one its a ridiculously easy test. Go to Dr Boom, shoot any spell at him to enter combat and get some amount of threat, record threat using this macro:

Have the Pally put the Hand of Salv on you, spam your macro, record the steps your threat takes.

Wait for the CD on Hand of Salv, use the macro to establish staring threat, then pop MI, and have the Pally put the hand on you again, spam the macro again while its duration is active, then wait for the MI to finish, and get your final threat.


I completely agree Jonny that its very likely the extreme negative value is just tacked onto the end, but then again how often does a mage under MI get hand of salv? would we even have had many opportunities to observe this being an issue? If each tick it is:

Actual Threat *= 0.98;
Effective Threat = Actual Threat - Ridiculous Modifier;


Then that's fine. But if for some weird reason they actually apply the modifier to your 'actual threat' value, then remove it later. That is, at the start of the MI:

Actual Threat -= Ridiculous Modifier;

Hand of Salv effect:

Actual Threat *= 0.98;

End of MI

Actual Threat += Ridiculous Modifier;


That has the potential to be nasty.

To truly model the game, we first must research it.
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Proven TheoryCrafting Stuff, chain casting in a PTR near you soon.

 

Jonny_Monroe

As I mentioned in my reply above, hand of salv reduces your threat in a similar way that invis(fading) does. I would be surprised if they didn't use the same code. You are right that its an easy test to perform though, so no harm in giving it a look. I have a paladin friend who will gladly help with this tomorrow evening after our raid, so I'll post results then.

OMNOMNOM.

 

◊ manly

If I were to make a guess, I'd say the results will be identical to what you get out of partially invising during mirror image.

Needless to say, the potential for this to allow a permanent few hundred k' threat reduction would fix a lot of threat issues.

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Zaldinar

Permanent reduction isn't the potential I'm interested in Manly. Ridiculous increase is.

(Simplified stupid numbers and Pseudo-code)
Initial Threat = 1000;
MI Modifier = 4001000;

# Activate MI
Actual Threat = Initial Threat - MI Modifier; # now -4000000

# Activate Hand of Salv
Actual Threat *= 0.98; # Now -3920000.0000
Actual Threat *= 0.98; # Now -3841600.0000
Actual Threat *= 0.98; # Now -3764768.0000
Actual Threat *= 0.98; # Now -3689472.6400
Actual Threat *= 0.98; # Now -3615683.1872

# Hand of Salv clears, MI Finishes
Actual Threat += MI Modifier; # Now 385316.8128


I'm willing to say it would be ridiculously obvious if Vigilance did stupid things under MI, like providing massive negative threat to the tank or massive positive threat. Doing a quick test with Invis (which only provides 1 tick of threat reduction that is observable client side), I got this:

Initial Threat: 0
Threat after MI active: -410061408
Tick Threat: -410062088
Threat after Invis cleared: -410062088
Threat after MI cleared: 0

Which indicates that Invis only acts on your base threat, and the MI modifier is applied afterwards. Noting this was a 680 threat reduction, doing the same test using MI, letting it finish, then invising, showed this:

Initial Threat: 0
Threat after MI active: -410061408
Threat after MI cleared: 4000
Tick threat: 3320

Showing the same 680 reduction, which works out to 83% threat. Doing this test again with a different threat number:

Initial Threat: 942095
Tick Threat: 781939

Which again shows the 83% modifier. I'm fairly certain Hand of Salv will turn out the same way, but its worth confirmation.

To truly model the game, we first must research it.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...icId=109841969
Proven TheoryCrafting Stuff, chain casting in a PTR near you soon.

 

Miryei

I ran some tests today.
Ice lance-->sheep-->MI-->salv
2.5k before MI, 2k after
720 before MI, 576 after
So, salv does work correctly with MI, there is no ridiculous increase.

A note: If you plan on using mirror image as a temporary threat dump so that you can maintain dps while calling for salv, let your paladins know beforehand. It was difficult for me to explain quickly (in os10) why I should be getting salved when I wasn't even on the threat table.

With Dr Boom, ice lance-->MI
Did this several times, threat before MI was always identical to threat after. So, the threat causes by the mirror images is not transferred to you.

My Mirror images appear to do about 325 dps when active, though I'm not sure if this is affected by gear (I am hitcapped, my images are not) I only ran one test with a naked toon, and and they did 135 dps that time.
EDIT: ran more dps tests, the mirror images ARE affected by gear. Their hit chance appears to be roughly what mine would be if I did not have heroic presence/precision.