They're points where the mindblast cooldown lowers such that the simulator (which does not clip flays) selects to flay instead of waiting for a mindblast. It also did not incorporate the 2.4 GCD lowering. As such, I don't find either the dips or the independence of haste's benefit vs. +dmg to be surprising.
I'm sorry I didn't know about these facts. I assumed the graph to be generated with the current code, implementing the 2.4 change, included for those of us without matlab; that's why I found those gaps surprising... I assumed too much, it seems...
Could you maybe run a simulation with the current code and provide us with an up-to-date graph?
I've been reading alot of threads since my guild was giving me a hard time about not hitting 800 DPS or better (780 BTW)
I just want to ask some leet players if they see a problem with this rotation
On this rotation I seem to renew VT just as the last tick hits and the GCD on SW:D times just right.
I know that the GCD on MB is done alittle before SW:D and that leaves MB open for a second or two but with casting times and GCD it allows the instant cast of SW:D immediately after MB (no wait).
I've been reading alot of threads since my guild was giving me a hard time about not hitting 800 DPS or better (780 BTW)
I just want to ask some leet players if they see a problem with this rotation
On this rotation I seem to renew VT just as the last tick hits and the GCD on SW times just right.
I know that the GCD on MB is done alittle before SW and that leaves MB open for a second or two but with casting times and GCD it allows the instant cast of SW immediately after MB (no wait).
Honestly what do you think???
You're missing the boat and should go read the front post. You're guild should be making fun of you.
The thing that's always bothered me about gearing for haste rating is simply the artificial limitation VT puts on the situation. If you assume you're casting VT every 15 seconds (for ideal uptime), then the benifit from haste is lessened from an "over the fight" style benifit to "within the 'rotation'" benifit. (I only use the word rotation simply because it's a convenient word, not because I believe there is a rotation involved at all.)
Assuming for a minute that you have 3% haste, you would expect to see 3% more mindflay DPS assuming you filled all the 'extra' time given with flays. However, within the 15 second window the benifit from haste is so minimal that you wouldn't be able to even see another tick of flays, thus preventing you from actually seeing a DPS benifit.
With the above, ideal setup (SW:P before the VT, SW: D and MB off CD), you cannot move the VT. Within the 15 seconds, in order to get an extra second (and thus an extra flay tick), you would need to shave off 1/3rd of a second from a flay (post 2.4, 1/4th a second off flay and 1/12th a second off MB/SW: D). To me, this seems like benifit from haste would follow more of a step progression than a linear (or semi-linear) progression of benifit. I.E., no benifit up until X value, then no more benifit until 2X value.
I know that it seems like a very simplistic way of looking at things, but with the 15 second limitation imposed by VT, small benifits fail to add up over time simply because they don't provide more casts without scads of it(which is where the real benifit of haste comes from). All of the above assumes no lag, of course, and I'm looking to pick up a few of the better haste pieces simply to overcome my 120 or so ping times, but since lag issues would occur at each 'step', it seems that it's more of a shift than a real counter to the above. I just fail to see how improving the DPS of individual mindflay casts helps your overall DPS if you're not actually dealing more damage over the course of a boss fight.
Is there anything that I'm directly missing by the above? Something that I haven't looked at in depth is people becoming more lax with VT for the sake of more DPS, but I'm convinced that my role in the raid is never sacrificing group mana regen for the sake of higher DPS, which may be a misconception on my part. I've seen a lot of math that breaks down spell usage and judges the benifit from haste that way, but would love to see an ideal representation that shows an increase in DPS due to a smallish amount of haste (say...4% haste, compared to the exact same gear pre-haste) in a mapped out way. I will start to work on it myself, but my handiwork with excel/calc isn't too hot.
I've been reading alot of threads since my guild was giving me a hard time about not hitting 800 DPS or better (780 BTW)
I just want to ask some leet players if they see a problem with this rotation
On this rotation I seem to renew VT just as the last tick hits and the GCD on SW times just right.
I know that the GCD on MB is done alittle before SW and that leaves MB open for a second or two but with casting times and GCD it allows the instant cast of SW immediately after MB (no wait).
Honestly what do you think???
What Deenogger tries to tell I think, is that you should re-evaluate what you're doing with your gear right now. Some enchant choices are really bad (like the bracers..) and some items can easily be swapped in for better alternatives (seriously reconsider that belt for example).
For your gear, your dps numbers aren't bad. It's the gear that is holding you back and that is easily fixed.
Actually, I'm ah...fairly surprised you managed to hit 780 dps with that gear. You've got several blues, a couple very poor items, and some fairly questionable gems and enchants. Considering your guild is apparently 5/6 and 3/4, I'd say about 8 of your slots have appropriate gear for your progression level, and half of THOSE need better gems or enchants.
And as for your glove enchant...umm...
Your spec is also a little unusual; given your gear, I find it surprising that you wouldn't have mana issues doing a full burn rotation; this makes your choice of 1/5 Blackout, 5/5 Imp MB, 5/5 Shadow Weaving, but 0/3 Meditation a bit odd.
Not to mention only using MB when SWD is almost up is a noticeable drop in DPS, although I can see why you'd do that if you're having mana issues (but then again why 5/5 imp MB?). You're leaving MB open for a lot more than 1-2 seconds.
As for haste and VT, seems like a very viable point IF VT is actually that important that you can't lose any of it, as if you could you'd get to the point where you're supposed to VT but don't want to clip it and thus use a different spell first and then VT - which may or may not be a dps loss and will affect the benefit of haste (if any). While "forcing" VT every 15 seconds regardless is probably the right thing, I wouldn't jump to assume it without going over the numbers first and checking if delaying VT by a little is worth some flay gain (or better, earlier MB/SWD if they just came up). Not that simple to figure out but if the end result is that you should always refresh VT when it runs out even if that means waiting then haste becomes useless, at least in small amounts.
If you assume that VT must be cast every 15s no matter what, then you've reduced your choices to a recurring "how can I do the most DPS in the next 15s of dead time?" In that case, you'll get no benefits from haste until - at a minimum - you've added enough to fit another GCD into the 15s window. So...sure, you'll see a staircase, although the steps will be fairly uneven. (First, because the GCD drops as you add haste, so the stairs become progressively closer together. And second because there isn't always a good use for an extra GCD; sometimes your only option would be a - possibly clipped - mind flay.)
Of course, it isn't obvious that VT must be cast every 15s...
If you assume that VT must be cast every 15s no matter what, then you've reduced your choices to a recurring "how can I do the most DPS in the next 15s of dead time?" In that case, you'll get no benefits from haste until - at a minimum - you've added enough to fit another GCD into the 15s window. So...sure, you'll see a staircase, although the steps will be fairly uneven. (First, because the GCD drops as you add haste, so the stairs become progressively closer together. And second because there isn't always a good use for an extra GCD; sometimes your only option would be a - possibly clipped - mind flay.)
Of course, it isn't obvious that VT must be cast every 15s...
Well you can also cast VT every 16 or even 16.5 seconds if it works better that way. Generally the worst that happens is you miss a Pain tick, and even that doesn't happen always (since pain ticks once every three seconds).
On a related note, I've started clipping a few mind flays at 2 seconds if a high priority cooldown (touch or blast) is up. It's actually not as hard to do well as you'd think. I just watch the quartz timer until the seconds remaining reads 0.X and then cast immediately. Between lag and reasonable reflexes, I don't think I've missed the second tick yet, although I have hit it as late as 2.4 seconds. However, it seems like starting the mind blast cooldown a full second earlier is a huge win.
The other thing I've noticed while micromanaging my cycle is how often you have roughly between .5 and 1.5 seconds left on Mind Blast and nothing to do but Mind Flay. That simulator graph showed me how bad it was to cast a full mind flay when you only have .5 seconds left until blast, so I've started just adding deadtime in there, since it seems to be a net win. With 1.5 seconds, I often cast Mind Flay for 2 seconds and then Mind Blast. I'm not sure how this is affecting my damage, but it's definitely not dropping. It's probably just a minor improvement.
At any rate, I could easily see how another 100 points of haste would smooth out the cycle instead of adding more. Or maybe it will break even, smoothing out some issues but removing others. I'm not convinced that it's incorrect to use a flat, linear estimate for the value of a point of haste. Or at least for every 25 points of haste.
Not to mention only using MB when SWD is almost up is a noticeable drop in DPS, although I can see why you'd do that if you're having mana issues (but then again why 5/5 imp MB?). You're leaving MB open for a lot more than 1-2 seconds.
As for haste and VT, seems like a very viable point IF VT is actually that important that you can't lose any of it, as if you could you'd get to the point where you're supposed to VT but don't want to clip it and thus use a different spell first and then VT - which may or may not be a dps loss and will affect the benefit of haste (if any). While "forcing" VT every 15 seconds regardless is probably the right thing, I wouldn't jump to assume it without going over the numbers first and checking if delaying VT by a little is worth some flay gain (or better, earlier MB/SWD if they just came up). Not that simple to figure out but if the end result is that you should always refresh VT when it runs out even if that means waiting then haste becomes useless, at least in small amounts.
My guild is at the point right now where I'm starting to get outpaced by other DPS classes that have been gearing up (rogues/hunters/destro lock/arcane mage in particular), and I don't entirely mind it because as soon as we kill Kael, that gap is going to increase even more. I guess it all just comes down to a philosophy decision if you want to delay VT a bit to eke out a bit more DPS or if you want to get as close to a 5% return on damage as you can. I know I'm not going to be competitive with the rogues, and I'm not providing the second best reason to bring a spriest to raids by ignoring VT.
Then again, if the extent of the haste changes are drastic enough to get anywhere close, I'd love to abandon the above to get into e-peen fights with the rogues again. I just don't forsee that happening anytime soon, so I'll prolly sit down and work out the step function and pick up enough to jump up a 'tier' or two of extra DPS.
tedv: Although I can't provide a graphic right now, since full simulator runs take significant time (that graphic was about 6 hours of computer time to produce), the results from the waiting variants of the sim more than confirm your theory on simply waiting for the MB cooldown being the right move. When I implement 2s clipped flays, I expect the window where waiting is beneficial to drop, but it certainly seems to be borne out that waiting for cooldowns improves DPS.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
Yes I know that my gear and enchants are severely lacking...that is slowly getting rectifed.
I just about have the mats for the crafted Girdle of Ruination.
I hate the fact that I have to roll against warriors and druids for T5/6 gear and warlocks and mages for other gear. Apparently Spriests sit back burner to other classes.
What I was just wondering about was my rotation. That being said I did blow MB and SW:D every possible cooldown and popped my DPS over 800 but my mana was quickly depleated... any other suggestions other than potting at every CD.
Paladins and Warlocks are youre true enemies. ^^
Chaindrink Super Manapots, use Mageblood Potion, try 3/3 Meditation, 0/5 Blackout, 4/5 Imp MB, 4/5 Shadowweaving.
Stack Shadowdmg as far as possible in raid (Pot, Food, Oil). You can also ask a pally to put and hold JoW on bossmobs.
------
I tried to create a "2.4-starting-gear" and want to hear some opinions -> Silyth - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger
I'm used to 10% spellhit on gear (wanna have Inner Focus, 3/3 Medi and 5/5 MB), and tried to stack shadowdmg and
spellhaste. I'm not sure about spelldmg<->spellhaste-coeff. so i'va chosen za boots instead of fsw-boots.
Does anybody see improvements or have other suggestions on gear for starting into 2.4?
So with 2.4 releasing new gems that are spell haste, and with the GCD change, do you think it would be better to switch over to those gems? Maybe not the +8 spell haste gem, but the +4 spell haste +5 dmg gem?
So with 2.4 releasing new gems that are spell haste, and with the GCD change, do you think it would be better to switch over to those gems? Maybe not the +8 spell haste gem, but the +4 spell haste +5 dmg gem?
Until I see more evidence I've just been ballparking spell haste to damage at a 1:1 ratio, so that would be the equivalent of a Runed Living Ruby. Basically it opens up options for getting socket bonuses -- and it remains to be seen what the new meta gem will take. You won't be able to use these gems if you're still using a MSD for example. It does make [Swift Starfire Diamond] a much easier meta to use though.
So with 2.4 releasing new gems that are spell haste, and with the GCD change, do you think it would be better to switch over to those gems? Maybe not the +8 spell haste gem, but the +4 spell haste +5 dmg gem?
The most generous estimates are that 1 haste = 1 or 1.1 spelldamage, so if you believe the latter the haste/damage gem would be 0.4 better than a living ruby. Personally, I'd say it would take some research and would only replace Living Rubies if the added haste got you to a point of inflection for DPS. Something like getting enough haste to fit 2 MF's between two 5/5 imp MBs. *edit* It's been so long that I've been looking at plain red that I didn't even think of the value of using them for socket bonuses. >.> */edit*
I think theorycrafting is seriously overvaluing the effect of a hasted GCD in practice. There a two methodological flaws I see in the models so far and the conclusions we draw from them.
First and perhapse minor is that most of the calculations for the value of haste I've seen are using higher spelldamage than is available with any significant amounts of haste. For example, the "Best ear Available" thread in shadowpriest.com values haste as calculated at 1400 spelldamage when ranking gear. I doubt even a majority of posters here will be able to have that level of spelldamage when converting to haste gear, let alone someone only in T5 content where they are trading significant spelldamage for haste.
Secondly, and more importantly, the damage gains are modeled as gains from increased Mind Flay damage and they're continuous functions. That is, they assume you will gain 5% more damage from Mind Flay if your haste rating allows you to cast Mind Flay 5% longer. Instead our damage is a discrete function where Mind Flay does 1/3 of its damage every 1/3 of its casting time. In practice this means you'll gain a tick of mind flay here and two ticks there. Lowering the global cooldown 10% doesn't mean you'll have an extra 6 seconds with nothing to do but flay after 54 seconds, those six seconds are mixed in between 15 and 24/27 second dot durations and 5.5 and 12 second nuke cooldowns and the gains are not guranteed to show up neatly in third increments of your Mind Flay casting time.
Finally, though not a systemic problem with the theories, the problem in practice is that you're assumed to have infinite, or at least sub tenth of a second precision with your casting. If your Mind Flay lasts 2.75 seconds, it's assumed that you will be able to interrupt it exactly 1.83 seconds to cast a 1.4 second Mind Blast. If you end up interrupting it at 1.9 seconds you just lost all the benefit from that hasted Mind Blast, and if you interrupt it at 1.80 seconds you just lost all the value of 4 1.4 second global cooldowns, roughlt 1/7th of the benefit you would get in one minute of casting. And that doesn't even begin to account for overlapping cooldowns.
That last point is the main reason I'm not particularly excited about these changes. In order to get the full value of haste we have to be exceptionally precise in our casting. Go over some WWSs and just look at your dot uptime. It's a pretty simple task to reapply a dot exactly when the previous dot dropped but you're doing very well if you can keep your uptime over 90% on any fight where you do more than just stand and cast for a couple minutes. If you're only 90% accurate on something that lasts a quarter or half a minute, how accurate can you be with something that lasts less than a second?
One more thing since I already have a wall of text up. The value of haste increased a lot compared to what it used to be but that doesn't mean it increased a whole lot in absolute terms. Haste used to be theorycrafted at about 1/2 of a point of spelldamage, it's doubled to being roughly as valuable as spelldamage, but your overall DPS gains aren't going to be tremendous since the final values are still within a hundred or so points of each other at the top end. Shadowpriest.com's haste thread has a post 3/4 of the way down that page saying the previous best gear available does 1333 dps on a spreadsheed where the new best gear with 240 more haste does 1370 dps with consumables.
Arrian: Some good points, but two quick comments...
Originally Posted by Arrian
That last point is the main reason I'm not particularly excited about these changes. In order to get the full value of haste we have to be exceptionally precise in our casting. Go over some WWSs and just look at your dot uptime. It's a pretty simple task to reapply a dot exactly when the previous dot dropped but you're doing very well if you can keep your uptime over 90% on any fight where you do more than just stand and cast for a couple minutes. If you're only 90% accurate on something that lasts a quarter or half a minute, how accurate can you be with something that lasts less than a second?
True, but... Once you count lag and movement in, cast rotations are already pretty messy, and to max your DPS without any haste will require some split second timing. I'm not sure I agree that adding a realistic amount of spell haste really makes the problem worse.
Haste used to be theorycrafted at about 1/2 of a point of spelldamage, it's doubled to being roughly as valuable as spelldamage, but your overall DPS gains aren't going to be tremendous since the final values are still within a hundred or so points of each other at the top end. Shadowpriest.com's haste thread has a post 3/4 of the way down that page saying the previous best gear available does 1333 dps on a spreadsheed where the new best gear with 240 more haste does 1370 dps with consumables.
True, but simply adding some viable side grades is very helpful. I'm sure we've all been frustrated by waiting for a particular item that just wouldn't drop...
True, but... Once you count lag and movement in, cast rotations are already pretty messy, and to max your DPS without any haste will require some split second timing. I'm not sure I agree that adding a realistic amount of spell haste really makes the problem worse.
It does when you're sacrificing spell damage to get that haste. Which is the issue.
It does when you're sacrificing spell damage to get that haste. Which is the issue.
My sentiments exactly. I think I'll stick with the "If it's an upgrade without the haste, it's an upgrade with the haste" motto for comparing gear. Counting haste as being equal to x spell damage is oversimplifying things. I think you'll be sorely disappointed if you drop your Nethervoid Cape for Illidan's healing cape and expect your DPS to increase.
I am excited about the GCD change with regards to Bloodlust, though. Currently I sometimes actually lose DPS with Blooslust up because when I chain a SW: Death or Pain to the end of a spell with a 1.5 second cast it occasionally doesn't go through and that's kind of easy to miss in the middle of a fight. I don't spam my buttons since I used /stopcasting for so long and you can't spam those when there is possible pushback, I just cast and move on and sometimes miss the "This ability is not ready yet" message so I don't catch the missed cast until the next time I check my cooldowns which could be 5 or more seconds later.
This trinket could be a hell of a nice dps boost for us. Since the damage proc from the trinket wont cause VT return this seems like a specific boost to Shadow Priest (and affliction lock) dps without running into the trouble of infinite mana. I dont know what the proc rate is on this, which makes or breaks the quality of this trinket, but I have high hopes.
This trinket could be a hell of a nice dps boost for us. Since the damage proc from the trinket wont cause VT return this seems like a specific boost to Shadow Priest (and affliction lock) dps without running into the trouble of infinite mana. I dont know what the proc rate is on this, which makes or breaks the quality of this trinket, but I have high hopes.
With ilvl 125, low procrate and/or possibly a horrible hidden cooldown, I doubt that this trinket would be worth more than ~65 or so dmg.
This trinket could be a hell of a nice dps boost for us. Since the damage proc from the trinket wont cause VT return this seems like a specific boost to Shadow Priest (and affliction lock) dps without running into the trouble of infinite mana. I dont know what the proc rate is on this, which makes or breaks the quality of this trinket, but I have high hopes.
From what I've read, it's around a 10% proc rate. No word on a hidden CD yet.
Also, when it procs, it apparently shoots a shadow bolt. So it could very well be possible that Curse of Shadows, Imp. SB, our Shadowform bonus, Misery, etc. would affect the damage of it. And if that's the case, that would make it an amazing trinket.
Well comparing Timbal's Focusing Crystal versus Hex Shrunken Head:
Timbal's Focusing Crystal- 44 static spell damage and a proc
Hex Shrunken Head- 88 spell damage if kept on cooldown
Therefore the proc from Timbal's Focusing Crystal must provide equivalent dps to 44 spell damage to break even.
At current itemization levels 1 spell damage = 0.5 dps, with the high amounts of haste on Sunwell gear 1 spell damage will equal slightly over 0.7 dps.
The average damage dealt by the Timbal's Focusing Crystal proc is 380 assuming it doesn't benefit from CoS or ISB and cant crit or be resisted.
380/60sec = 6.33 dps per proc/minute
Without haste:
(44 spell damage)*(.5 dps gain per spell damage) = 22 dps
(22 dps)/(6.33 dps per proc/minute) = 3.47 PPM required to break even with Hex Shrunken head
With Sunwell amounts of haste:
(44 spell damage)*(.7 dps gain per spell damage) = 30.8 dps
(30.8 dps)/(6.33 dps per proc/minute) = 4.86 PPM required to break even with Hex Shrunken head
If it does indeed have a 10% proc rate you are looking at a max of 4 ppm with 100% VT and SWP uptime. It should be a very good trinket even if it does not benefit from ISB charges, Misery, Shadow Weaving, or Curse of Shadows.
02/05/08, 2:30 PM
,MF,MF,VT,MB,SW
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