The Art of Combat (Version 1) - Page 7

chipix · 10/19/12, 6:26 AM

Yes I misunderstood and miread the tooltip. So, we can delay it only for doing finishers on higher insight levels.
Thanks for the clarification.

Towely · 10/19/12, 6:49 AM

Have anyone done any tests on how much you actually loose, if you remove rupture from the rotation?
I know that in Cataclysm it was as low as 1%. How is it now?

phup · 10/19/12, 10:03 AM

Currently in Simcraft, a T14-Normal geared, combat rogue loses approx 1.3% by dropping rupture.

Omanko · 10/19/12, 11:15 AM

It seems that most of our gameplay decisions revolve around Bandit's Guile. I think it's fairly obvious that you should delay finishers through use of Anticipation in order to reach higher levels of Insight. However, I wonder if there isn't more we can do with it, namely extending the length of a BG cycle through energy pooling.

What I mean is, during Shallow/Medium Insight, is it viable to pool energy and not advance the cycle too quickly, using SS/RvS only to avoid capping and/or losing Insight. From what I understand, this does not affect the number of finishers we can dish out, and it also won't change the Insight level we're in once we do. What it does however is add time to the window in which we are at Shallow/Medium Insight, buffing our passive damage. It also shouldn't affect the total number of cycles we go through over the course of a fight... right?

Is this something we should actively pursue or is there something I'm missing?

Onodrim · 10/19/12, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by chipix

Yes I misunderstood and miread the tooltip. So, we can delay it only for doing finishers on higher insight levels.
Thanks for the clarification.

Up to a point, yes. In essence, Anticipation merely lets you postpone the dilemma of risking wasted Combo Points. Without Anticipation, and at 4 Combo Points, you risk wasting a Combo Point if you use Sinister Strike. Anticipation solves that problem; however, that's only the case if you store no more than four Combo Points as Anticipation charges before using finishing moves. To wit: If you're at 5cp4ac, and use Sinister Strike, you once again risk a wasted Combo Point. In that sense, Anticipation is merely a tool to counter the re-work of Revealing Strike and the introduction of Shadow Blades so that, in principle, you can always cast 5cp finishing moves without risking wasted Combo Points.

Secondly, you'd generate more than 5cp4ac before reaching Deep Insight. So, obviously, you'd have to cast some finishers before reaching Deep Insight, not least Slice and Dice.

Druss · 10/19/12, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by Omanko

It seems that most of our gameplay decisions revolve around Bandit's Guile. I think it's fairly obvious that you should delay finishers through use of Anticipation in order to reach higher levels of Insight. However, I wonder if there isn't more we can do with it, namely extending the length of a BG cycle through energy pooling.

What I mean is, during Shallow/Medium Insight, is it viable to pool energy and not advance the cycle too quickly, using SS/RvS only to avoid capping and/or losing Insight. From what I understand, this does not affect the number of finishers we can dish out, and it also won't change the Insight level we're in once we do. What it does however is add time to the window in which we are at Shallow/Medium Insight, buffing our passive damage. It also shouldn't affect the total number of cycles we go through over the course of a fight... right?

Is this something we should actively pursue or is there something I'm missing?

I believe the goal is to cycle to Deep as rapidly as possible as many times in a fight as possible since one you are there it has a set duration and essentially 6 times at Deep is better than 5 in a given time period. Equally we'll want to get out of no insight into Shallow ASAP and (during Deep) we will want enough energy to do plenty of offensive actions. So there might be something in many rapid SS's to get out of no insight and in then using abilities in the lead up to Deep that mean you don't have to refresh during Deep (e.g. SnD, RS, Rupture) but other than that your really going to want to elevate yourself out of shallow and moderate quickly and not try to prolong those phases for the sake of a mediocre passive damage gain.

Towely · 10/19/12, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by phup

Currently in Simcraft, a T14-Normal geared, combat rogue loses approx 1.3% by dropping rupture.

If its really that low in reality. Then cutting out Rupture is really viable.
Not having to watch the timer, and time and plan your finishers for maximum rupture up time. Makes the rotation a lot easier.
And to be honest i don´t see why one would keep rupture in the rotation at all.

sinnaa · 10/19/12, 1:02 PM

Originally Posted by Towely

And to be honest i don´t see why one would keep rupture in the rotation at all.

While it is only show as a 1.3% increase, it is an increase none the less. With proper timers, it isn't really asking you to do a lot. You should already be watching them for RVS and SnD. There are a lot of solid add-ons for this kinda of things (I use rogue combat bars)

If you aren't concerned with maximizing your damage, then it is feasible to drop rupture. However, you might as well not gem properly either ;-)

Omanko · 10/19/12, 3:11 PM

Originally Posted by Druss

I believe the goal is to cycle to Deep as rapidly as possible as many times in a fight as possible since one you are there it has a set duration and essentially 6 times at Deep is better than 5 in a given time period. Equally we'll want to get out of no insight into Shallow ASAP and (during Deep) we will want enough energy to do plenty of offensive actions. So there might be something in many rapid SS's to get out of no insight and in then using abilities in the lead up to Deep that mean you don't have to refresh during Deep (e.g. SnD, RS, Rupture) but other than that your really going to want to elevate yourself out of shallow and moderate quickly and not try to prolong those phases for the sake of a mediocre passive damage gain.

But does pooling even change the number of times you go through an Insight cycle? The time spent in Deep Insight never changes either; all that's different, is that there's more time in Shallow/Medium Insight. If you chain SS/RvS to advance the Insight level quickly, all that happens in the end is that you spend more time outside of Insight (since as I said, the number of cycles remains the same, as you do the same amount of strikes). Of course, you'd also store combo points as much as possible, and unleash finishers once you do reach Deep.

Pancake3 · 10/19/12, 3:19 PM

Originally Posted by Druss

I believe the goal is to cycle to Deep as rapidly as possible as many times in a fight as possible since one you are there it has a set duration and essentially 6 times at Deep is better than 5 in a given time period. Equally we'll want to get out of no insight into Shallow ASAP and (during Deep) we will want enough energy to do plenty of offensive actions. So there might be something in many rapid SS's to get out of no insight and in then using abilities in the lead up to Deep that mean you don't have to refresh during Deep (e.g. SnD, RS, Rupture) but other than that your really going to want to elevate yourself out of shallow and moderate quickly and not try to prolong those phases for the sake of a mediocre passive damage gain.

It's a double-edged sword no matter what. We want to get out of no insight ASAP sure, but doing so would require us to pool up energy beforehand.....except that before no insight we're in deep insight, which means that we're pooling energy when we have a buff and spending energy when we don't which seems counter-productive to me.

Originally Posted by Omanko

But does pooling even change the number of times you go through an Insight cycle? The time spent in Deep Insight never changes either; all that's different, is that there's more time in Shallow/Medium Insight. If you chain SS/RvS to advance the Insight level quickly, all that happens in the end is that you spend more time outside of Insight (since as I said, the number of cycles remains the same, as you do the same amount of strikes). Of course, you'd also store combo points as much as possible, and unleash finishers once you do reach Deep.

edit: nvm, rethought what you're saying, and I think you are basically arguing the same thing as Druss: manipulating the amount of time spend outside of deep insight to shift more time out of no insight and into shallow/moderate insight. Which sounds good and all, except that I still think it's not going to have much impact unless you pool during deep insight, which just seems odd.

Omanko · 10/19/12, 3:24 PM

Originally Posted by Pancake3

If you pool in order to extend the duration of shallow/moderate insight then that means a lower uptime of deep insight.

Why? The duration of Deep Insight never changes, nor does the number of strikes you do (and consequently, the number of times you enter Deep Insight).

Pancake3 · 10/19/12, 3:25 PM

Originally Posted by Omanko

Why? The duration of Deep Insight never changes, nor does the number of strikes you do (and consequently, the number of times you enter Deep Insight).

Yeah, I realized that after my edit and edited again :P

phup · 10/19/12, 4:53 PM

Energy pooling in zero or shallow insight seems to be bad in (almost*) all situations. It is going to take the same amount of energy and actions to move to the next level, so why wait on energy to pool from 50 to 85 in zero or shallow insight when you can SS now and wait for energy in the next level of insight where that waiting does more damage.

the only insight level where this type of pooling could be beneficial is moderate when you are just about to transition to deep. If you carry 50 energy into deep insight instead of 5, you can do more stuff while you're in deep. Ideally, you have also just refreshed SnD and RvS before advancing to deep, so all energy and cp's are spent on stuff that benefits the most from deep insight.

Of course, there's a tradeoff. In a 7 minute fight lets say you get deep insight 10 times. Because you pooled, you got 10 extra abilities in deep insight. Let's say 8 sinister strikes and 2 eviscerates. Those same abilities were done in zero insight by the rogue who didn't pool. Does the 30% extra damage on those 10 actions outweigh the fact that by the end, he will be 2 stages farther than you in insight progress since he did those SS in zero where it advances insight? And he could potentially get an extra deep insight that you don't?

I don't know the answer, and I have issues getting the pool resource action to work how I want it to in simcraft, but I may mess around with it and see what simcraft thinks is better.

*as mentioned in the op guide and elsewhere, pooling is probably good in any insight level if you are not about to advance the level and you need to reapply RvS.

Omanko · 10/19/12, 5:17 PM

I'm still not getting why people would get an extra Insight. Obviously, you don't pool for no Insight; but pooling in Shallow may be beneficial. What it comes down to is this: you have X amount of energy over the total fight. This is completely unaffected by Insight levels. What you can influence is the distribution, i.e. when the energy is spent.

You want to minimize your time spent in no Insight. You want to maximize things done in Deep Insight. But what about Shallow/Moderate? Of course, you can advance levels as quickly as possible - but as I said before, this does not, in fact, mean that you will get MORE Insights over the course of the fight. You won't magically get more energy to spend on builders, just because you use it up faster.

Also, remember that the majority of our damage is passive. Extending periods of even Shallow Insight boosts that damage significantly, if it comes at the expense of time spent in No Insight. And it does; Deep Insight always lasts the same! So what you are doing is extending the duration of the other two modes, while keeping the number of cycles constant. This should definitely be a DPS increase, shouldn't it?

There is of course the factor you mentioned, namely pooling/spending in a way that sets up the optimal Deep Insight phase. This should also be done, definitely. Refreshing SnD, pooling energy, having Anticipation stacks, etc... before going into Deep Insight will make sure you get the most damage in while you're in that phase.

But what I'm more interested in is the time between. So far I haven't seen a convincing counter-argument, but I'm sure that there are aspects I have overlooked, and ones that can do with further optimization. It would also be interesting to see some arithmancy done on all this... number magic is not my forte.

Pathal · 10/19/12, 5:31 PM

The end of Deep Insight is anchored to a fixed value (15s) after reaching max insight. It's not a value determined via your overall APM.

What this means is that, if you reach BG30 2s quicker, you end your Deep Insight 2s quicker. Which over time means your insight cycle is shorter, and gives you the chance of getting another full cycle in since you can immediately start generating BG stacks once BG30 ends. To expand upon this, the more full cycles you get, the more DPS BG generates, since BG30 becomes a larger and larger % of DPS, while BG0 and BG10 are active less and less. This results in a net gain of DPS.

BG0 being no insight, BG30 being Deep Insight.