Combat Guide for Cata [12/01/2011] - Page 2

• Aldriana · 12/21/10, 11:54 AM

I reforged it to haste before calculating EP. Much like you should do before using it as Combat.

Fogkin · 12/21/10, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

I reforged it to haste before calculating EP. Much like you should do before using it as Combat.

Ok, now this makes more sense and I'm getting the same numbers now. Thanks for the clarification.

Dyz · 12/21/10, 2:18 PM

Great work on the guide! I have one suggestion. You put up some very generic Tricks of the Trade macros. I had all those macros at one point on different buttons so that I could easily ToT multiple targets. I found this macro after scouring the internet:

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [help] [target=focus, help] [target=targettarget, help] Tricks of the Trade

It does three things. It allows me to set a focus to use during the fight and be able to ToT my focus without "clicking" them. Even if you have a focus, you can still ToT a target by targeting them. Typically I use this when first starting the fight. From then on, I can just hit the macro and it will ToT my focus.

If nothing is selected and you have no focus, it will ToT the Target of Target. Which is typically what I use in 5 Man Dungeons.

Malthrax · 12/21/10, 3:11 PM

I see no mention of Expose Armor, so I have to ask...

Assuming the group/raid has no other source of the 12% armor reduction debuff:
- should Combat be maintaining Expose Armor?
- Is it a pDPS gain? Or is the pDPS loss sufficiently offset by the rDPS gain?

Tinwhisker · 12/21/10, 3:26 PM

Originally Posted by Malthrax

I see no mention of Expose Armor, so I have to ask...

Assuming the group/raid has no other source of the 12% armor reduction debuff:
- should Combat be maintaining Expose Armor?
- Is it a pDPS gain? Or is the pDPS loss sufficiently offset by the rDPS gain?

If there is no other source of the 12% armor debuff in the raid, you should be doing it. Warriors, feral druids, hunters w/pet and assassination rogues (with spec) are better choices though. It is a personal gain but in 5man situations depending on fight length and complexity it may or may not be advisable.

• Aldriana · 12/21/10, 3:39 PM

Though its worth noting that Assassination Rogues can't actually spec for it. Or rather: speccing 2/2 Imp Expose Armor actually costs an Assassination rogue as much damage as it would for a Combat rogue to just keep it up in the first place. Also note that it's not a personal DPS increase for an Assassination rogue to keep it up, either through speccing it or just using it directly. So characterizing assassination rogues as a "better source of it" is sort of debatable.

That said, all druids - not just ferals - and all warriors are a better source of it, so in most cases you should be off the hook.

Huillam · 12/21/10, 4:43 PM

Originally Posted by ieatpaperbag

Engineering
Engineers are also able choose a utility enchant for their belt, the two that stand out are Nitro Boosts which gives you increased movement speed every 3 minutes and Ground Plasma Shield, which absorbs a respectable amount of damage every 5 minutes.

Both of them have "fail effects" wich can kill yourself or your entire raid.

Nitro Boosts can "explode" making yourself unable to control your character while flying. It sometimes results in Rocket Fuel Leak dealing 15% of your maximum health in Fire damage every sec (8s duration, can be removed using cloak of shadow).

Ground Plasma Shiled "fail" with Painful Shock : ae taunt in a 40 yards radius.

Sulphuric · 12/21/10, 6:13 PM

Nice that you cover almost every aspect of the combat role, but one thing that's been boggling me:

How do I go on about figuring the EP value of the 3 expertise racial when you only receive the benefit on one weapon?

I’m currently wondering what to choose between “Fang of Twilight” and “Crul’Korak, the Lightning’s Arc” as a human.

R = Reforged
() = Original stat value

Fang of Twilight
+97 crit * 0.95 = 92.15
+(97) 59 mastery * 0.9 = 53.1
R: 38 expertise * 1.6 = 60.8
Total EP = 206.05

Crul’Korak, the Lightning’s Arc
+(97) 59 crit * 0.95 = 56.05
+97 haste * 1.5 = 145.5
R: 38 expertise * 1.6 = 60.8
Total EP = 262.35

So in raw stats, the axe should be worth 56.3 EP more than the sword.

As 781 expertise rating is the cap, 1 expertise would convert to ~30 expertise rating (781/26). 90 * 1.6 = 144 EP (if it was awarded for both weapons).

Mainhand accounts for:
- Sinister Strike
- MH white hits
- Starting the MG ‘process’

Offhand accounts for:
- OH white hits (50% or 75%(?) damage reduction)
- Finishing the MG ‘process’ (can this be dodged/parried?)

It’s easy to see that the MH expertise is worth a lot more than the OH expertise, but it would be nice to have a rough number to base yourself on, so you can just multiply 144 with 0.xx to find wether it’s a benefit to go with a MH/OH sword, despite the sword having lesser stats.

And if I understood it right, you’ll still only cap the MH (as in, 26/23 in the character pane) as it’s not worth wasting the excess 3 on the MH side. And you’d still cap it 26/29 if you happen to have non-sword/mace MH and sword/mace OH? As the value of the offhand expertise is such inferior compared the the counterpart.

• Aldriana · 12/21/10, 6:49 PM

As it turns out, the value of MH expertise and OH expertise are actually very very close, as while SS, RvS, Evis, and Rupture are based off MH expertise, Combat Potency benefits from OH expertise. In the (near-BIS) gear set I use to run numbers in ShadowCraft:

dodge_exp:          1.59901062565
oh_dodge_exp:       0.806399170013
mh_dodge_exp:       0.792634813418

However, the exact split doesn't really matter that much. Even if one hand accounted for 2/3 of the benefit of expertise, that'd still drop the value of expertise from 1.6 to under 1.1, which would make it less valuable than both Haste and White Hit, at which point its clearly superior to start reforging to those stats instead of expertise. Hence, from a practical perspective, the exact split is less important than the fact that it almost has to drop behind haste and spell hit, and very likely white hit as well - which makes it clearly not worth capping for the second hand. In practice it drops behind *all* the other stats, but from a reforging perspective that tends not to matter very much.

Sulphuric · 12/21/10, 7:21 PM

Managed to leave out Combat Potency, hence the the extreme underestimation. But thanks for clearing that up, the sword should be ~16 EP ahead then.

Also, how would you compare a 1.5 mace/sword (expertise benefit again) against a 1.4 dagger (poison damage, Combat Potency procs)? What's the EP value for a 0.1 speed difference?

I'm aware there isn't dropping any 1.5 sword/maces this far into the expansion, but never know Blizzards plans for future tiers, so would be handy to know how to work that part out as well if the situation were to arrive

Nightroad · 12/21/10, 9:28 PM

I feel there should be a caveat added to the Meta Gem section. If the difference between matching or skipping a yellow socket is less than the difference between the Relentless and Chaotic meta it becomes worthwhile to meet the socket bonus and use a Relentless gem.

Using [Wind Dancer's Legguards] as an example and assuming the character is over the spell hit cap, which presents the lowest reasonable EP value for meeting the sockets, we get:

Skipping the bonus and using Chaotic 54(.95) + 80(2.7) = 267.3EP

Matching the sockets and using Relentless 81(2.7) + 20(1.5) + 20(1.1) = 270.7EP

For reference the difference between Relentless and Chaotic meta is 21(2.7) - 54(.95) = 56.7 - 51.3 = 5.4EP

Obviously not every piece of gear will exhibit this behavior but considering a scenario where every yellow socket is worth skipping AND the character is wearing Tier Pants it becomes valid to ignore that section of the guide.

Also, I very much appreciate the work and effort put into this.

ABUSEDGOAT · 12/22/10, 2:28 AM

This is a good guide but I still have a few questions.

Given the cost of landslide on our server (10k+ for the recipe, another 10k+ for the enchant) I'm wondering what the next best options are. I'm assuming hurricane/hurricane or hurricane/avalanche. I realize this is an endgame forum, but it seems no one uses this yet due to its cost.

Is it worth waiting until 30% BG at the start of a fight (assume 6-8 minutes) before using killing spree? I'm tempted to assume it's worth using KS near the start since all procs + potion are going to be up as well as AR after to help shorten the cooldown of your next KS. Is this better or should I use AR and wait until 30% before hitting spree? I realize after this point it's generally better to wait until 30% BG.

What's the ramp up time required for IP to be ahead of wound? IIRC it was around 30s in wrath.

Perhaps I missed it, but why is SnD size not that important? This was the case in wrath, but we now have a 6s glyph and a talent that favors using rupture/evis.

Is it safe to assume that if only a few seconds are left on a 30% BG it's better to use evis instead of rupture? The evis is a guaranteed 30% more damage, whereas rupture will only give a few ticks and then drop to 0% bonus.

juna51999 · 12/22/10, 2:33 AM

Perhaps you could include in your post somewhere the expertise required for heroics, and not raiding. As I understand it, you only need 24 expertise to be capped for heroics (level 87's). Also, is it clear yet what the exact amount of rating to hit 24 expertise is?

ieatpaperbag · 12/22/10, 7:39 AM

Originally Posted by juna51999

Perhaps you could include in your post somewhere the expertise required for heroics, and not raiding. As I understand it, you only need 24 expertise to be capped for heroics (level 87's). Also, is it clear yet what the exact amount of rating to hit 24 expertise is?

I really want to keep the guide focused on raid content. If you need 24 expertise, you can look up on the combat ratings thread that a level 85 needs 30.0272 expertise rating for one expertise meaning you need 721 expertise rating.

Miltrath · 12/22/10, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by ieatpaperbag

Mastery is one of combat's weakest stats but the value changes quite a bit depending on how much you have. Mastery acts on MG which baseline gives you an 18% chance for your MH attacks to cause you to do an extra OH attack, increased by 2% for every point of mastery you have (179.28 rating). MH attacks include both autoattacks and specials and the OH attack is considered a yellow attack that is normalized and can proc Combat Potency.

Could you go more in-depth about this? specifically, does it's value climb steadily point-for-point, or is it more of magic number scenario, and at what point does it become worth having?