The Way of the Sword: Retribution in Cataclysm - Page 64

Kinmaul · 11/12/10, 3:17 AM

There's currently two nasty bugs on beta that don't happen on the live servers, both of which hurt our dps.

1.) HoL procs actually consume a holy power when you use Inq or TV. This is quite easy to test and is a dps loss for both mastery and zealotry (HoL procs during zealotry actually cause you to lose dps since the mastery proc consumes a holy power). The tool tip for our mastery clearly states that the ability should cost no holy power so this is definately a bug.

2.) You cannot activate Zealotry with a HoL proc unless you already have 3 holy power. This could be working as intended on beta, but on live you can activate Zealotry with a HoL proc even if you have less than 3 holy power.

I cannot post on the beta forums so if someone with beta access could post a bug report I'm sure everyone here would appreciate it.

Anaria · 11/12/10, 4:19 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Could someone on Beta get a (nice, slow) weapon enchanted with Avalanche and test if the following attacks can proc?

CS, TV, Judgement, Rebuke, HoW (it may be considered ranged physical and thus ineligible).

Please ensure the ability doesn't toggle autoattack, so we can get clean data. The slower your weapon, the higher % chance to proc, so you'll get faster results.

So I logged on and tested this myself with some extremely interesting results. I couldn't find (or think of) a way of making it so I didn't auto attack when I used the melee abilities so I carried on going until I got 2 avalanche procs - 1 from the regular melee swing and 1 from the ability I was testing. This does mean that the abilities I state do not proc it are technically inconclusive, but after extensive use I never got a double avalanche proc from them. Not ideal I know but hey, tell me a better way and I'll do it. All ranged abilities were used from a distance so that melee was not a problem. I performed the test on a level 85 Draenei with the template copy gear including Ashkandi, a 3.8 speed weapon.

Abilities that proc Avalanche:
Judgement
Crusader Strike
Divine Storm
Exorcism
Holy Wrath
Templar's Verdict
Censure DoT damage
Glyph of Exorcism DoT damage

Abilities that do not proc Avalanche (subject to above testing limitations):
Rebuke
Hammer of Justice
Hammer of Wrath
Consecration

Honestly I'm a little disappointed that Hammer of Wrath didn't proc it (Though this may be a silly functionality of the HoW that is used during AW, much like mage's hot streak pyro blasts work a little differently from their cast-time counterparts) but I didn't expect Divine Storm or Holy Wrath to proc it so that makes up for it really. I definitely never imagined that Censure or Glyph of Exorcism would proc it though - maybe we'll get the cool looking enchant after all (Pun not intended).

Another thing to add is that consecration now can crit. This is probably old news but I only just got to this thread and haven't read all of it yet and I just wanted to make sure this model was being used in spreadsheets and whatnot.

Also, I did some maths regarding the crusader strike vs. divine storm debate. I used actual averages taken from in-game data and by my reckoning divine storm breaks even at 5.38 enemies. This was not including the 15% extra crit that crusader strike gets from talents so it's slightly more in crusader strike's favour than that even. Six enemies seems a little excessive when most other classes seem to break even at 4. Can post the maths if requested.

Danath · 11/12/10, 4:24 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Redcape PMed me some interesting info about priority at 85. Based on his numbers Exo and HoW are superior to a 3 HP TV at all times.

I bring this up, because it basically means under 20% Zealotry has even less utility - you'd skip CS or TV to hit an Exo proc or HoW if it's off cooldown.

I've asked Redcape to post his findings on the Beta forums, because having not one, but two attacks above a 3 HP TV is a major sign that something is severely broken.

Changing Zealotry should be a low priority. Other aspects of our spec need correction, instead. TV needs to be our top desire. Mastery being RNG driven, requiring an active keypress, taking a GCD, and possibly being lost if not used is 4 penalties - other specs get no penalties (flat boosts to certain types of damage) or at worst RNG driven. Exo and DivPurp are also RNG hogs - 3 of our core elements are RNG driven. An RNG proc (AoW for Exo) is great, it shakes up the rotation, I'm all for it. 3 core functionalities based around the RNG is too many and places more in the hands of a computer picking numbers than a player performing well.

Oh, and we've had the new talents for a month and Communion still does not provide the 3% raid buff. It's worrisome when well publicized and identified bugs go unfixed, because it reduces confidence in under-the-hood corrections.

To be honest, I love an active proc like that, at least from a fun based gameplay point of view. It also reminds, graphically, good ol'Vengeance.
They just have to make it worth it, taking it off the GCD and maybe making so it lasts undefinitely until used. About Divine Purpose, I already spoke my mind. I want another skill giving us a HP, and that skill would be removed from Divine Purpose of course. RNG should be brought up as a mechanic on the third Holy Power point, not before that.

As for Communion, that's pretty ridiculous. Moreover, as far as the talent text goes it should provide 3% to raid and 5% (3+2) to us? It states by an additional 2%, I don't see where "an additional" would be needed if that was to be just 2% for us whilst all the others get 3%. I think it's meant to state 3 for the raid (including the Paladin) +2 (only for the Paladin), but maybe I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by Kinmaul

There's currently two nasty bugs on beta that don't happen on the live servers, both of which hurt our dps.

1.) HoL procs actually consume a holy power when you use Inq or TV. This is quite easy to test and is a dps loss for both mastery and zealotry (HoL procs during zealotry actually cause you to lose dps since the mastery proc consumes a holy power). The tool tip for our mastery clearly states that the ability should cost no holy power so this is definately a bug.

2.) You cannot activate Zealotry with a HoL proc unless you already have 3 holy power. This could be working as intended on beta, but on live you can activate Zealotry with a HoL proc even if you have less than 3 holy power.

I cannot post on the beta forums so if someone with beta access could post a bug report I'm sure everyone here would appreciate it.

I can't post as well. Anyway, these are two nasty bugs and I hope that both are fixed; I don't think even the second is intended, as HoL tooltip clearly states that you can use any skill HP related as you had 3 HP, and that includes Zealotry.

Danath · 11/12/10, 4:28 AM

Originally Posted by Anaria

So I logged on and tested this myself with some extremely interesting results. I couldn't find (or think of) a way of making it so I didn't auto attack when I used the melee abilities so I carried on going until I got 2 avalanche procs - 1 from the regular melee swing and 1 from the ability I was testing. This does mean that the abilities I state do not proc it are technically inconclusive, but after extensive use I never got a double avalanche proc from them. Not ideal I know but hey, tell me a better way and I'll do it. All ranged abilities were used from a distance so that melee was not a problem. I performed the test on a level 85 Draenei with the template copy gear including Ashkandi, a 3.8 speed weapon.

Abilities that proc Avalanche:
Judgement
Crusader Strike
Divine Storm
Exorcism
Holy Wrath
Templar's Verdict
Censure DoT damage
Glyph of Exorcism DoT damage

Abilities that do not proc Avalanche (subject to above testing limitations):
Rebuke
Hammer of Justice
Hammer of Wrath
Consecration

Honestly I'm a little disappointed that Hammer of Wrath didn't proc it (Though this may be a silly functionality of the HoW that is used during AW, much like mage's hot streak pyro blasts work a little differently from their cast-time counterparts) but I didn't expect Divine Storm or Holy Wrath to proc it so that makes up for it really. I really never imagined that Censure or Glyph of Exorcism would proc it though - maybe we'll get the cool looking enchant after all (Pun not intended).

Another thing to add is that consecration now can crit. This is probably old news but I only just got to this thread and haven't read all of it yet and I just wanted to make sure this model was being used in spreadsheets and whatnot.

Also, I did some maths regarding the crusader strike vs. divine storm debate. I used actual averages taken from in-game data and by my reckoning divine storm breaks even at 5.38 enemies. This was not including the 15% extra crit that crusader strike gets from talents so it's slightly more in crusader strike's favour than that even. Six enemies seems a little excessive when most other classes seem to break even at 4. Can post the maths if requested.

If you can, post them on the forums. Blizzard needs to see this, they said they would make Divine Storm usable again but that's just not the case with such results (six enemies?...).

Anaria · 11/12/10, 5:16 AM

Originally Posted by Danath

If you can, post them on the forums. Blizzard needs to see this, they said they would make Divine Storm usable again but that's just not the case with such results (six enemies?...).

Well I tried to post it on the beta forums but it's giving me the old no beta account attached nonsense (Another European player here) which is strange since I posted on the forums fine a couple of months ago. I'll just dump it all here so that some one else can copy pasta it to the forums if they have access.

As I mentioned I used averaged damages taken using recount against a training dummy with no buffs except Seal of Righteousness and Retribution aura. I used only non-crit data so crit anomolies were less likely; this means that the extra 15% crit that crusader strike gets is not represented here, and thus the actual result is even more in crusader strike's favour. The maths is modelled on 3 CS/DS and the resulting TV (or 0.4 of a TV in the case of DS) to fairly represent holy power gain.

Ability Damages:
Templar's Verdict - 15212
Crusader Strike - 6360
Divine Storm - 2760
Seal of Righteousness - 995 x 3 = 2985
Seals of Command (Which strikes every target hit by the seal, not just the primary) - 518 x 3 = 1554

3 Crusader Strikes + 4 Seal of Righteousness + 4 Seals of Command + 1 Templar's Verdict:
(3 x 6360) + (4 x 2985) + (4 x 1554) + 15212 = 19080 + 11940 + 6216 + 15212 = 52448

So our goal damage for Divine Storm to reach is 52448.

Take away the damage dealt by 0.4 TVs:
52448 - (0.4 x 15212) = 46363.4
Take away the damage dealt by seals from the 0.4 TVs:
46363.4 - (0.4 x 2985) - (0.4 x 1554) = 44547.8

This gives us the damage that needs to be dealt by 3 divine storms in order to break even: 44547.8

Damage that needs to be dealt by each individual DS:
44547.8 / 3 = 14849.267
Dividing by the damage dealt to each target of DS gives us the number of enemies required to meet our target:
14849.267 / 2760 = 5.38 (to 3DP)

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention this data was gathered at level 85 in ilvl 359 epic gear with Ashkandi as the weapon. All the gear is just the character copy template stuff, gemmed and enchanted.

Nalien · 11/12/10, 11:42 AM

From EJ > Class Mechanics > Paladins > Redcape's Ret DPS Spreadsheet 5.0 - Cataclysm Beta version

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Just realized on the good side - we'll want to pop Inq as fast as possible, which means we skip the first TV. This should help avoid fight starting threat pulls, since in my experience by the 2nd TV I've been safe to pop Zealotry or AW.

This makes me wonder, what happens with Avenging Wrath and Zealotry in these cases? We've used to align first AW on PowerUp buffs (trinkets, Berserking and whatnot) provided we have 5x Holy Vengeance or close, and preferably a hard hitter (such as Judgement pre-4.0.1.) to squeeze in that extra dps.
As it is now, there's Inq. to be taken care of as well, and perhaps threat in a way.
So the question is - how to make the best usage of AW and Zealotry? I didn't take a look at Cataclysm trinkets, but perhaps there's a cute one with +Str proc, or at least there will be at some point. Considering such procs occur very soon as you start attacking, they are likely to expire by the time we get 5x Censure, Inquisition and another set of 3HP.

This also leads to the next question, is haste underrated or the values are pretty stable as they are now considering the above? Haste leads to faster melee swings (though I imagine it is not as significant in a pretty short time frame) and decreases CS cooldown which allows us to get to 3HP for Inq faster and build up another set of holy power for Zealotry, as well as 5x Censure. Or AW and Zealotry have been kept in mind when you modeled haste? (Double checking with myself in case I have missed some points in these threads)

Exemplar · 11/12/10, 12:52 PM

If we continue to separate Zealotry and AW (very likely, since HoW is still better than 3HP TV), then you would probably want to pop one early and the other to match with the second set of procs. Most items have a 45 sec internal cooldown and in average proc within another 5 seconds or so.

HoW (50% AP) scales better than TV (AP/14 * 235% = 15%), an AP or Str proc would provide greater increase to HoW. At fight start you are above 20%, thus unable to use HoW unless under effects of AW. To get maximum gain you would want to use AW during the proc in order for your HoW to benefit from the gain.

Thus you would have a proc at fight start (0) and the next around 50 seconds. You spend 0 to 6 earning HP for Inquisition. Then 6 to 12 earning more. Pop Zealotry (so it will return off CD sooner). It wears off around 32 seconds. Wait 20ish seconds for the proc and engage AW. This gives a convenient window to refresh Inq and build up for a TV immediately after the AW+HoW macro you would be using.

The two circumstances where you would not want to sync in that fashion would be if you need cooldowns for a particular burn phase, or if that extra 20 seconds at the start means losing an AW over the course of the fight.

Haste is not underrated in the spreadsheets, but it's never "stable" compared to other stats. Haste increases autoattack, which increases AoW and HoL procs. Either of these throw off subsequent attacks since Exo at 85 is superior to TV. It's also impacted by your latency. It partially lets us "do more" and partially lets us only "do different".

sjogren · 11/12/10, 1:57 PM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

HoW (50% AP) scales better than TV (AP/14 * 235% = 15%)

Uh, what? A TV gcd gets AP/14 * wpnspeed * 2.35 from AP, that's above 50% as soon as your weapon is around 3.0 speed or slower.

Exemplar · 11/12/10, 2:45 PM

Originally Posted by sjogren

Uh, what? A TV gcd gets AP/14 * wpnspeed * 2.35 from AP, that's above 50% as soon as your weapon is around 3.0 speed or slower.

Whoops, correct. The magic number is actually about 3.24 speed (since neither of us used HoW's 15% spellpower (Aka 15% * 30% AP = 4.5% AP) coefficient). Still well below any reasonable 2H weapon speed.

However, HoW crits significantly more frequently than TV (Sanctified Wrath is huge).

In both Redcape's spreadsheet and mine, every stat scenario I tried (more crit, and/or haste) HoW increased from Str or AP more rapidly than TV. But this is in base gear. As weapon base damage increases, while HoW's base remains static, you'd reach an inflection point.

Thinking further I think it cannot be given a generic answer. The damage of fillers and possibly empty GCD under AW vs the guaranteed sequence of CS and TV (possibly interrupted by Exo) would vary, even at low gear levels.

sjogren · 11/13/10, 2:59 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Whoops, correct. The magic number is actually about 3.24 speed (since neither of us used HoW's 15% spellpower (Aka 15% * 30% AP = 4.5% AP) coefficient). Still well below any reasonable 2H weapon speed.

However, HoW crits significantly more frequently than TV (Sanctified Wrath is huge).

Well, it's even more complicated than that, of course, since there's spell damage debuffs, armor reduction etc. :-) I agree that HoW scales better, I just wanted to correct the weapon speed miss in your calculation.

Malleus · 11/13/10, 4:44 AM

Originally Posted by Redcape

AW, for comparison, is a 6.5% overall increase.

AW used on CD is up for 20s/2m, so on paper it should boost 1/6th of our total damage dealt by 20% - that's 3.33%. Of course our damage does have peaks and troughs due to HoPo generation, but it surely wouldn't account for that much of a difference. What am I missing that is making AW twice as good as the numbers say it should be?

sjogren · 11/13/10, 6:20 AM

Well, being able to use a nearly-always-critting HoW for one thing.

sjogren · 11/13/10, 8:51 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Mastery being RNG driven, requiring an active keypress, taking a GCD, and possibly being lost if not used is 4 penalties - other specs get no penalties (flat boosts to certain types of damage) or at worst RNG driven.

Just for the heck of it, I implemented an "elemental overload" version of hand of light (that is, instead of HoL giving a buff it procs a 3hp TV) in simulationcraft and compared numbers. The profile I ran is based on an epic-geared premade but without trinket procs and such implemented so the actual dps numbers aren't really relevant, I'm more interested in the comparison. The average fight length here is ~300s (10000 iterations, with fight lengths between ~200s and ~400s)

Real HoL: 14873dps, 35.3 TVs, rough scale factors: str 1.7, crit 0.65, haste 0.82, mastery 0.29
Hand of Elemental Overload: 15384dps, 38.5 TVs, rough scale factors: str 1.8, crit 0.69, haste 0.85, mastery 0.47.

I had expected the dps difference to be bigger, but I guess it comes down to auto-TVs only really generate more fillers and fillers are weak. Time spent waiting went up from ~5.3% to ~7.1% though, so definitely less gcd lockage. Most importantly, the value of mastery is getting closer to crit instead of being utterly useless, and it would make it easier to tweak the value of it if it's passive instead of consuming a gcd.

It was an interesting experiment, at least.

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Oh, and we've had the new talents for a month and Communion still does not provide the 3% raid buff. It's worrisome when well publicized and identified bugs go unfixed, because it reduces confidence in under-the-hood corrections.

Hmm, on the beta I'm pretty sure it works. I haven't grouped up with anyone to try it, but the other day I tested damage done with holy wrath before and after speccing into communion (no aura up) and it increased by 2%, and then I activated an aura and it went up by another 3%. We don't get any separate buff showing it's active but I guess that's because we already have the aura buff and they didn't want to clog up the buff list.

Redcape · 11/13/10, 11:32 AM

sjogren caught an error in my numbers for HoW. It should be 39% AP and 11.7% SP on beta. The new tooltip actually updates perfectly so it makes figuring out the numbers much less terrible.

This lowers the damage of HoW by about 15% or so. However, it doesn't change the optimal rotation, which still has HoW and Exorcism above TV. The differences between mixing those 3 up is less than 100 dps into 18k so it hardly matters (and may well vanish/reverse with different settings) but there it is.

On live the HoW numbers are 50% and 15%, which is what I was using up until now. Amusingly if you add the effect of Inquisition to the beta HoW it becomes almost exactly the same as the live HoW...

Exemplar · 11/15/10, 8:34 AM

Originally Posted by sjogren

Hmm, on the beta I'm pretty sure it works. I haven't grouped up with anyone to try it, but the other day I tested damage done with holy wrath before and after speccing into communion (no aura up) and it increased by 2%, and then I activated an aura and it went up by another 3%. We don't get any separate buff showing it's active but I guess that's because we already have the aura buff and they didn't want to clog up the buff list.

Just look at autoattack damage to be sure. The tooltip updates for modifiers. Spec communion and it shows "x 102%" with or without auras on live. If you can toggle between 102% and 105% with aura off/on, then it's fixed.

You'd think they'd want to at least put that in one of the Beta patch notes when they fixed it.