It makes sense that it must have something to do with the chance for a MBAM proc being consumed by a later AB stack, but I don't understand why this is more relevant going from 2->3 than it is from 3->4, given that the proc chance and damage increase are both linear.
The chance to get a proc is 8/16/24/32/40%. And its not 2->3 & 3->4 but 2->4 & 3->4. In the 2->4 case the chance of a consume by a later AB is 51,7%, and 3->4 has just a 32% chance to overwrite the proc. So not to use the proc on AB2 solutes in a much higher probability, to loose a proc, than not to use it on AB3.
The key is, to have exactly one MBAM proc in one rotation.
The chance to get a proc is 8/16/24/32/40%. And its not 2->3 & 3->4 but 2->4 & 3->4. In the 2->4 case the chance of a consume by a later AB is 51,7%, and 3->4 has just a 32% chance to overwrite the proc. So not to use the proc on AB2 solutes in a much higher probability, to loose a proc, than not to use it on AB3.
The key is, to have exactly one Mbarr proc in one rotation.
The question is, what is more of a dps loss? Consumption of a MBAM proc, or the lack of an AB4 stack?
If ABSpam04MBAM is the highest (other than pure ABSpam) rotation, this implies that stacking AB to max (4) is higher priority than using up a MBAM proc to avoid consumption. However, this would lead to ABSpam034MBAM as the next highest rotation, not ABSpam024MBAM, as stacking trumps consumption. However either this is not the case, and stacking trumps consumption as certain points in the rotation but not at others, or as someone else said ABSpam034MBAM is left out of third place because it does not provide enough dps increase over ABSpam024MBAM.
There must be a bug somewhere, I can't see how ABSpam24MBAM could possibly be more mps than ABSpam34MBAM.
It's due to the barrage procs. In ABSpam24MBAM you use your proc at the 2 stack if you get it from your 0 stack AB only. When you finish your 2nd AB you don't have time to see if you get a proc from that AB to use on the 2 stack. So you cast a 3rd AB and then cast a 4th AB (possibly getting a second proc overwriting the first in the process) then use your MBAM.
In ABSpam34MBAM you can use your procs from the 1st or 2nd AB at the 3rd stack. If you get a proc on the 3rd AB you won't see it to use until after the 4th one anyway.
This is just a rephrasing of the cast distribution that Kavan posted above, particularly:
ABSpam24MBAM is higher mps because you get to the 4 stack more frequently. In ABSpam34MBAM you are more likely to cut off at the 3 stack than to move to the 4 stack since the only way to get a 4 stack is if the proc is on the 3rd (or more) AB. The opposite is true for ABSpam24MBAM since the only way not to reach a full 4 stack is if you get it on the 1st AB.
I stand corrected. It probably should've been obvious that MBAM usage wouldn't be evenly distributed between the different stack sizes. Seems rather obvious now. I just checked this cast distribution by hand and got the exact same numbers. Thanks Kavan.
ABSpam24MBAM is higher mps because you get to the 4 stack more frequently. In ABSpam34MBAM you are more likely to cut off at the 3 stack than to move to the 4 stack since the only way to get a 4 stack is if the proc is on the 3rd (or more) AB. The opposite is true for ABSpam24MBAM since the only way not to reach a full 4 stack is if you get it on the 1st AB.
Thank you, this makes sense now. So what you're saying is, it's not that AB2MBAM is higher dps or mps than AB3MBAM, but that a rotation which religiously uses AB2MBAM and skips AB3MBAM sees a higher number of AB4MBAM, and therefore higher damage / more mana used?
My current rotation / decision tree seems to go something like this:
ABSpam04MBAM to ~30% mana.
Use mana gems at ~75% mana, evoc at ~30% to try to sustain ABSpam04MBAM as long as possible.
If mana gems + evo are on cooldown and I'm running low on mana, switch to AB4AM01234MBAM until I can get mana back up.
If I run completely OOM, pop the mana pot.
When all else fails, wand like hell.
This has me skipping all the intermediary ABSpam0xx4MBAM rotations in favor of AB4AM01234MBAM for mana regen, as this avoids consumption of MBAM procs and the free cast they provide. This seems to work well in the case where I get a bad string of ABSpam that burns down my mana to dangerous levels, as I can sustain AB4AM01234MBAM nearly indefinitely (until mana cooldowns return) and avoid wanding like hell pretty much regardless of RNG.
What I can't figure out is whether this is the optimal solution, or whether I should be dropping ABSpam04MBAM in favor of the lower mps ABSpam rotations at some point. I feel like I'd have to make this decision earlier in the mana pool, as the ABSpam rotations are more susceptible to RNG than AB4AM01234MBAM and have high mana costs; would the average increase in dps be worth doing so?
Edit: To put it another way, I found that when I plot mps over dps, the slope of the curve is nearly linear moving through the various rotations from ABSpam04MBAM to ABSpam0234MBAM, but flattens significantly when moving from ABSpam0234MBAM to AB4AM0234MBAM. This says to me that moving between ABSpam rotations simply moves me to a different point on a dps/mps curve that remains fairly linear, while moving to AB4AM0234MBAM moves me off that curve onto a more mana efficient curve, which I found to be preferrable in cases where mana is a concern.
There seems to be a misconception persisting that Evocation is a dps loss, which does not seem to be the case when used properly, even in a tank and spank.
Originally Posted by Casstor
Over a 100 second period, if your choice is using the higher dps rotation and evocating for 2 seconds or using the lower dps rotation:
Also, since there is a 54 mps difference between the two your 2 seconds of evocate would need to return 98 * 54 - 125*2 = 5042 mana for mps to also break even. I think this pretty well illustrates the reasoning behind choosing the rotation which allows you not to evocate over the one which allows you to continue using the same rotation, and then evocate when you go oom.
You'd have to be making a mistake for Evocation to not return that. In Kavan's example, he has Evocation returning 3560 mps, so 2*3560 = 7120, or easily enough to justify the higher rotation in your example. Even if we just assume we're at 20% paper doll haste and getting 20% from Icy Veins with no other buffs, a 5.55s Evocation against a 26k buffed mana pool is 2810 mps.
Originally Posted by Skarrd
Though I agree completely that evocation is something to avoid, I don't believe it to be something to make a rule. Obviously, if you're fighting patchwerk, don't evocate.
This is a comparison of the "cost" of doing something to make your rotation sustainable: downshifting versus using Evocation. The cost of downshifting from ABSpam to ABSpam04MBAM is very cheap, so it is a downshift you should make if ABSpam will run you oom before the end of the fight. If ABSpam04MBAM (the next highest rotation) is not sustainable to the end, then you have to evaluate Evocation versus another downshift.
The cost of shifting from ABSpam04MBAM to ABSpam024MBAM is 2.173 damage per mana.
The cost of integrating Evocation into ABSpam04MBAM is 2.011 damage per mana.
So for the particular gear and talent setup that Kavan used for those numbers, using Evocation with ABSpam04MBAM was the best option.
To supply another way of looking at it in keeping with the first example, suppose a 300 second fight. Given two charges on a mana gem consumable during that fight, a hypothetical mage with 26000 buffed mana has a mana pool for that fight without evocation of 32,800. If that mage evocates, his mana pool inflates to 48,400 at the cost of the time spent evocating.
While this is all dependant on gear, here are some of Kavan's most recently posted cycle numbers:
The question becomes: what rotations should we choose to do the most damage with our 32,800 or 48,400 mana pool?
ABSpam0234MBAM isn't even maintainable for 300s without help, because that uses 35,955 mana. If we used that for most of the fight and then used AB4AM0234MBAM for just enough to avoid evocating:
Now, let's assume evocation. I'm going to assume 20% paper doll haste and hitting Evocation at the tail end of Icy Veins. This is neither a best nor a worst case scenario, since, if you play very well, could certainly catch Evocation at the tail end of a combined Icy+Bloodlust+Scale of Fates and have it be much shorter. Therefore evocating will eat 5.5s (8/(1.2*1.2).
ABSpam04MBAM is not quite sustainable (294.5*177.71 is 52,335 mana), so we'll downshift one notch just enough to keep us under the 48,400 limit.
(177.71*194.5)+(138.71*100) = 48,435 mana
(7520.04*194.5)+(7435*100) = 2,206,147 damage
So, we gain 2,844 damage over the fight by using evocation and higher dpm cycles versus not.
Of course, Kavan lists Evocation in his tradeoff post as -3560mps, which I think implies a faster Evocation (or a bigger mana pool, or some of both). If you have 20% paper doll haste, Scale of Fates, and hit IV+Scales 20s into Bloodlust and then pop Evocation during the last second of the haste effects you get something like a 3.6s Evocation which would be ~4300 mps.
But even with my considerably slow evocation (5.5s), it is still not a dps loss.
So Evocation is probably not a dps loss even when used properly in a pure tank and spank; but it will depend on your gear, the fight duration, and even things like what trinkets you have available. (Scale of Fates, for example, being very attractive since you can use it in alignment with IV and catch an even faster Evocation during the last second of very accelerated casting.)
As a small side note, I like having PoM available when my cooldown burn + Evocation is coming, because if you happen to have a stack of AB on you, and you do an Evocation in ~4s (IV+BL+Netherwind+20% paperdoll haste), but those CD effects are all gone by the end of the Evocation, getting an AB off before your 6s AB stack expires is questionable when you factor lag and such. By using PoM+AB to instant cast one after Evocation, you save your stack.
Last edited by mattw : 10/08/09 at 1:53 PM.
Reason: fixed typo
There seems to be a misconception persisting that Evocation is a dps loss, which does not seem to be the case when used properly, even in a tank and spank.
You'd have to be making a mistake for Evocation to not return that. In Kavan's example, he has Evocation returning 3560 mps, so 2*3560 = 7120, or easily enough to justify the higher rotation in your example. Even if we just assume we're at 20% paper doll haste and getting 20% from Icy Veins with no other buffs, a 5.55s Evocation against a 26k buffed mana pool is 2810 mps.
And this is not the case.
This is clear from Kavan's post:
This is a comparison of the "cost" of doing something to make your rotation sustainable: ownshifting versus using Evocation. The cost of downshifting from ABSpam to ABSpam04MBAM is very cheap, so it is a downshift you should make if ABSpam will run you oom before the end of the fight. If ABSpam04MBAM (the next highest rotation) is not sustainable to the end, then you have to evaluate Evocation versus another downshift.
The cost of shifting from ABSpam04MBAM to ABSpam024MBAM is 2.173 damage per mana.
The cost of integration Evocation into ABSpam04MBAM is 2.011 damage per mana.
So for the particular gear and talent setup that Kavan used for those numbers, using Evocation with ABSpam04MBAM was the best option.
To supply another way of looking at it in keeping with the first example, suppose a 300 second fight. Given two charges on a mana gem consumable during that fight, a hypothetical mage with 26000 buffed mana has a mana pool for that fight without evocation of 32,800. If that mage evocates, his mana pool inflates to 48,400 at the cost of the time spent evocating.
While this is all dependant on gear, here are some of Kavan's most recently posted cycle numbers:
The question becomes: what rotations should we choose to do the most damage with our 32,800 or 48,400 mana pool?
ABSpam0234MBAM isn't even maintainable for 300s without help, because that uses 35,955 mana. If we used that for most of the fight and then used AB4AM0234MBAM for just enough to avoid evocating:
Now, let's assume evocation. I'm going to assume 20% paper doll haste and hitting Evocation at the tail end of Icy Veins. This is neither a best nor a worst case scenario, since, if you play very well, could certainly catch Evocation at the tail end of a combined Icy+Bloodlust+Scale of Fates and have it be much shorter. Therefore evocating will eat 5.5s (8/(1.2*1.2).
ABSpam04MBAM is not quite sustainable (294.5*177.71 is 52,335 mana), so we'll downshift one notch just enough to keep us under the 48,400 limit.
(177.71*194.5)+(138.71*100) = 48,435 mana
(7520.04*194.5)+(7435*100) = 2,206,147 damage
So, we gain 2,844 damage over the fight by using evocation and higher dpm cycles versus not.
Of course, Kavan lists Evocation in his tradeoff post as -3560mps, which I think implies a faster Evocation (or a bigger mana pool, or some of both). If you have 20% paper doll haste, Scale of Fates, and hit IV+Scales 20s into Bloodlust and then pop Evocation during the last second of the haste effects you get something like a 3.6s Evocation which would be ~4300 mps.
But even with my considerably slow evocation (5.5s), it is still not a dps loss.
So Evocation is probably not a dps loss even when used properly in a pure tank and spank; but it will depend on your gear, the fight duration, and even things like what trinkets you have available. (Scale of Fates, for example, being very attractive since you can use it in alignment with IV and catch an even faster Evocation during the last second of very accelerated casting.)
As a small side note, I like having PoM available when my cooldown burn + Evocation is coming, because if you happen to have a stack of AB on you, and you do an Evocation in ~4s (IV+BL+Netherwind+20% paperdoll haste), but those CD effects are all gone by the end of the Evocation, getting an AB off before your 6s AB stack expires is questionable when you factor lag and such. By using PoM+AB to instant cast one after Evocation, you save your stack.
Nice write up. Using evocation in the last seconds of Icy Veins/Bloodlust isn't something I factored into my calculations. First, I'm pretty sure the 3560 mps included things like replenishment and other forms of regen. I think these were things I didn't include in my original calculation - so I could see how they would influence one's result.
One thing, though, keep in mind that less than 0.5 seconds off of the rotation completely comprises the difference of using the evocation rotation. This means that if you miss the last second or so of IV+Scales, you miss the dps of the rotation without evocation. Also, I didn't notice in the calculations, but how did you account for the second of IV+BL+Scale usage that one rotation gets to use for dps that the other rotation needs to spend beginning Evocation? It's not a huge difference, but neither is 3,000 damage over a 5 minute fight.
I am running Arcane and used Rawr to determine the value of Talisman of Resurgence for my current outfit and specc.
What seems odd to me, is that Rawr shows an ambivalent behaviour. When i upgrade from my current Trinket: Sundial of the exiles my Dps rating goes up from 4380 to 4465, which means an increase by 85. On the other hand my ABSpam04MBAM (and all other ABSpamxxx Values too) goes down from 4437 to 4317, a decrease by 120.
Does that mean you get an increase in overall using of all your spells, but your main rotation as Arcane gets a decent decrease in dps output ? If thats so, is it worth to equip this trinket ?
I believe the DPS given for each rotation does not include activated trinkets. That should explain most of it, the other part being that the 128 int allows you to use more mana-hungry rotations.
I apologize if this has been asked before or discussed about, but what is the most optimal way of using our cooldowns? I always start the fight by using everything, but im having trouble figuring out when to use AP afterwards.. should i always wait until IV is up and use them both together? or use AP every time its up regardless of IV? (take into consideration that most fights are 5mins+ long)
I apologize if this has been asked before or discussed about, but what is the most optimal way of using our cooldowns? I always start the fight by using everything, but im having trouble figuring out when to use AP afterwards.. should i always wait until IV is up and use them both together? or use AP every time its up regardless of IV? (take into consideration that most fights are 5mins+ long)
I can't say if this is the most optimal...
However, I use AP/IV/Trinket all at the same time, once IV is back up (my longest CD). I find it most optimal since it uses AP and my trinket at the same time as IV, and also since I use them all together I'm not missing out on something, or skipping a certain thing, etc. I believe this is the way most mages utilize their cd's and trinkets. You'll have to crunch the numbers to see whether it's best for you.
IV has nearly twice as much CD as AP, so I would presume to find a sweet spot where you use them separately. A lot has to do with experience how long the fight lasts and then Rawr should tell you what to do anyway. More important is to use CDs (especially when stacking) at a time when you can be most certain that you can actually stand there and nuke for 20s.
In most ToC25HM fights there are certain time frames when you should use your cooldowns anyway. For example against Northrend Beasts to nuke down Acidmaw and in P3 when the boss takes amplified damage.
Also try and have all CD's available for when your particular raid uses Bloodlust/Heroism for that encounter. If you also use combat log parses you can examine the average fight time on a specific encounter for your raid and use that as the baseline to judge when to use CD's.
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It may depend on your trinkets/gear. I usually combo AP with Scale of Fates (+432 haste) early in the fight, then later in the fight I combo AP with IV and Tallisman of Resurgence (+599 spell power). Using IV+AP later in the fight typically times right about when I'm OOM, so this rotation lets me use the last moment of IV to evocate. If the fight duration allows, then I rotate back to Scale+AP.
If heroism is used in the fight, i'll use AP or Tallisman (or both) without any haste increaser. I recently realized that I was wasting my IV/Scale by casting it on top of heroism, which put me beyond the GCD. So now, I use Scale and/or IV outside of heroism.
When I used to have "% chance on cast" trinkets or tier bonuses (dying curse, abyssal rune, T8 praxis), I used an add-on to call out the proc, then tried to use AP in combo with the proc to maximize the baseline on which the % increase applied.
I try to follow the above advice about ToC fights, e.g. hitting Icehowl after he's stunned, Anub phase 3, and of course when you get the super buff on the Twins fight from getting enough correctly colored orbs.
While I don't typically do this, if you have an IA build, you might consider using AP when you get the spell power buff from absorbing, but personally I find this to be lower return on investment (and somewhat distracting) than the above strats.
I am doing AB Spamx4 MBAM+ Arcane barage and repeat and I have avg about 5.1K dps. I use my cool downs as they come off CD (Macros) . I fire Arcane Barage off at the 5th missle or right before it, run at about 250MS and 45 FPS.
What can I do to improve? (Last run was with Boomkin and SP. No other mage or E. Shammy)
Don't fire the arcane barrage after the 5th missile - clipping doesn't work anymore and it's a DPS loss to use arc barrage without stacking arcane blast before (small caveat if you are standing in fire and have to move).
Instead of casting the arc barrage after the arc missile (which should only be cast if you have the missile barrage proc, otherwise cast arc barrage or keep casting arc blast if you have the mana to spare), just go back to stacking arc blast.
In terms of CD management, I figured I'd throw my hat in the ring and see what people think. I base it on what I think the fight duration will be, but in general I open with Pre-Combat Speed pot and Arcane power, then at the next arcane power I bust IV. The next AP will have my combat Speed pot, and the 4th arcane power gets my second IV. On encounters that utilize late bloodlust, I get that for my 4th or 5th arcane power. In the event it's a really long fight, good management including lust leaves me with an IV for a 6th arcane power.
Don't fire the arcane barrage after the 5th missile - clipping doesn't work anymore and it's a DPS loss to use arc barrage without stacking arcane blast before (small caveat if you are standing in fire and have to move).
Instead of casting the arc barrage after the arc missile (which should only be cast if you have the missile barrage proc, otherwise cast arc barrage or keep casting arc blast if you have the mana to spare), just go back to stacking arc blast.
Further, you'll actually notice that many mages are not grabbing Arcane Barrage at all, opting for an extra point in the pushback talent, magic absorption, and/or the hit talent in the arcane tree.
Personally, i find it nice to have on fights that require movement at this point (which is pretty much all of them from my perspective, on hard mode at least). Some examples include moving out of fires on gormok, moving away from spawned infernals on jaraxxus, moving to switch colors on twins, etc.
Basically i can afford to have it now, however i would probably consider dropping it in the future (most likely for the hit talent).
Personally, i only mbam on 0 or 4, i know some people are mbamm'ing on 2 or whatever, but i like to just stick to a rotation, if you try to get too fancy you just end up lowering dps in the end. Watch your mana, switch to a lower mps rotation if you have to, but Arcane Barrage should not be part of any normal rotation, and in general should only be used on the move.
Im a bit confused about using Missile barrage on zero stacks. I know how it worked when the bug was still there, but then it got fixed and the optimal cycles changed back to normal from what I could see here.
Rawr was telling me to still cast on zero stacks but i was under the impression that it had just not been updated yet to reflect the changes. That was until I got the new version today and checked the forums and see that it is still part of the rotation.
My question is how does one get a missile barr proc on zero stacks now? Is it from when something happened during the fight that caused you to loose your stack or having to dump it with arcane barrage because you had to move?
If you don't have 4T8, it never happens. The rotations in Rawr are still named ABSpam04MBAM (etc) to account for the possability of having 4T8. You'll just never encounter that 0 situation without 4T8, so you can ignore it.
If you don't have 4T8, it never happens. The rotations in Rawr are still named ABSpam04MBAM (etc) to account for the possability of having 4T8. You'll just never encounter that 0 situation without 4T8, so you can ignore it.
ABarr has a chance to proc it still, so on the move if you have to use ABarr you may proc a MB then.
10/06/09, 12:35 PM
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