SimulationCraft for Warlocks (4.0.3a numbers at 80 and 85) - Page 61

• Zakalwe · 03/22/09, 4:19 AM

It looks like Fip put a DP-using lock in the non-DP tests and removed it for the DP tests, so I wouldn't look to those numbers. And if there's a bug, it's not the spirit contribution - the sim does take that bug into account. But the numbers do look odd, so I'll look into it.

Oh and the 0.0 is the execution time - totems are instant cast.

The spell power is in the spell damage log entry, labeled as p_power.

supplicium · 03/22/09, 4:34 AM

Also when taking into consideration Dp benefit you have to look at it in context with up time.

here is a quick chart to see what spellpower you would need to be equal too totem of wrath

UP Time	Spell Power
90%	3111
86.2% *	3249
85%	3295
80%	3500
75%	3734
65%	4320
50%	5600

* This was the uptime I got on my 50k iteration sim earlier tonight.

Remember this is only the power required to be equal benefit to ToW and not better than.

fip · 03/22/09, 8:15 AM

Ya my numbers were very very crudely implemented and I even admitted it in my post. They were only meant to give a very very baseline look at DP. Uptime is obviously a factor, and Supplicam's numbers are definitely accurate there. Personally looking at the parses of when I went DP, on any standard boss fight my DP uptime was always 91-95%. Fights like Sapph drop that down to 86% so I'm curious if it's just RNG luck on my side or what.

However, like I even said in my post: DP Lock is only valuable if you don't have an Elemental Shaman. The Elemental totem is down all the time, no uptime concerns and doesn't fall off in any cases where a pet would have to disengage the mob (moving for lava walls, boss flying into the air). Even with Ulduar gear, where we will probably see a ~400 spellpower increase (and I'm already at 3,000 SP on live fully buffed as Demo, although that includes the Fel Armor bug, which I believe blue said is fixed in 3.1) We'd only be seeing a small (40 or so) spellpower boost over Elemental Shaman. Not really worth it for a 5-600 dps loss.

Anyways, the results of my crude test were what I expected and don't really need to be discussed more. I'm spending most of my time examining the model and making sure that everything is being done to make it accurate. Zakalwe continues to impress me with the quality of his work on this :-p

• Zakalwe · 03/22/09, 8:59 AM

I found a bug with flametongue totem, but even with that fixed my tests are showing DP as a ~500 DPS increase over flametongue for 0/40/31.

I can't spot any further bugs, and I doubt there are any - I think the numbers only sound unrealistic because we're forgetting that the imp is effectively double dipping from these buffs: He gets part of the spell power indirectly from the warlock as well as the full spell power buff directly.

32103940 · 03/22/09, 5:39 PM

Originally Posted by Ravelvan

On the PTR I have 482 haste rating and can maintain the 1:1 ratio fairly consistently. I do, however, have to stand at almost exactly 30 yards, any closer and I lose the rotation fairly easily. Looks like you have considerably more haste than I do, so I would think this should make it easier for you. At least, how I have it worked out in my head is that the base requirement is:

(Soulfire Cast Time) < (Incinerate Travel Time)

The faster you cast, the closer you can stand.

Edit: Oops, I'm too slow.

I have trouble understanding how a 1:1 incin:soulfire ratio is even possible since you only gain Decimate when incin lands, but lose it instantly on a successful soulfire cast.

Granted you start with 2 incins, follow it with 1 hasted soulfire, you lose Decimation immediately, long before you even finish casting the third incinerate. How then can you follow this incinerate with a hasted soulfire?

Warlocomotif · 03/22/09, 5:56 PM

Originally Posted by 32103940

I have trouble understanding how a 1:1 incin:soulfire ratio is even possible since you only gain Decimate when incin lands, but lose it instantly on a successful soulfire cast.

Granted you start with 2 incins, follow it with 1 hasted soulfire, you lose Decimation immediately, long before you even finish casting the third incinerate. How then can you follow this incinerate with a hasted soulfire?

It relies on traveltime of incinerate being longer than cast time of soulfire.
IE: If you have decimation, and you cast incinerate->soulfire, then that incinerate hits shortly after you finish casting soulfire, giving you a new decimation to repeat this with.

aimson · 03/22/09, 9:01 PM

I saw the 0/22/49 ( Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft ) spec mentioned before, but did not see any replies to it and it doesnt seem to be one of the tested simcraft specs. It would be very interesting to see a test of this as on a dummy I do considerably more dps with this spec, compared to the 0/40/31 spec.

Naforce · 03/22/09, 9:06 PM

Originally Posted by aimson

I saw the 0/22/49 ( Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft ) spec mentioned before, but did not see any replies to it and it doesnt seem to be one of the tested simcraft specs. It would be very interesting to see a test of this as on a dummy I do considerably more dps with this spec, compared to the 0/40/31 spec.

Which exact numbers are you doing with these specs? Also, are you using the correct glyphs? It could also be very much a thing that has to do with your rotation as well, though I must say I am interested in that spec as well!

aimson · 03/22/09, 9:18 PM

Originally Posted by Naforce

Which exact numbers are you doing with these specs? Also, are you using the correct glyphs? It could also be very much a thing that has to do with your rotation as well, though I must say I am interested in that spec as well!

I hit around 4300 dps with 0/40/31, with normal crit numbers, and this one reached 5100 with normal crit numbers. This was without using soulfire in the first spec though, it should make up for some of the difference. I used same glyphs for both, immolate+conflag+lifetap, though for the second I am wondering if imp or lifetap is better (depending on your spirit ofc, I only have 330+4p t7, but I dont expect to keep that long after 3.1). But for now I used same for both.

Keep in mind that due to no molten core in the second spec, it suffers less from having to do CoE myself, but would still be interesting to see numbers on it. I think I mess up the rotations equally much on both since its more or less the same when not using soul fire in the first, only did a few tests so the numbers may not be accurate either, but critnumbers looked normal considering empowered imp and 2p t7 bonus etc (around 30% on both incinerate and conflag, with 23% "passive" critchance).

Sumbish · 03/22/09, 10:26 PM

Re: Imp being buffed by DP
As a quick hack I took the imp away from the 40/31 lock and reran the tests and it looks like DP boosts the imp by 200DPS, possibly more. This is not a completely valid test of course but serves as a rough check. Note the shaman was using searing for that test to isolate DP from flametongue.

I'm still not entirely convinced that 140SP should give the boosts it seems to, especially as the 21/50 mage has no pet to scale and is getting 400DPS. So I compared 40/31 (with Imp) to flametongue vs no flametongue (no DP/wrath) and I only get 23 DPS difference - perhaps this is the bug you found?

Morrigan · 03/22/09, 10:40 PM

Edit: nevermind.

Ruic · 03/22/09, 11:31 PM

I have three concerns/comments after reading through:

1) I am finding myself actually having too much haste for a 2x Incinerate 2x Soulfire rotation as I am beginning my second Soulfire cast before my second Incinerate hits. I have 738 haste using a Spellstone. Is anyone else having a similar problem? Is the best way to fix it just wait a half-second before casting my second Soulfire?

2) I find it hard to believe that not using Conflagrate below 35% is a DPS increase in 0/40/31; my Conflagrate is critting for about 15k on average. What was the DPS differential between using it and not using it?

3) Since Glyph of Life Tap is 20% again, are the iterations considering it used when needed again or overused to keep the spirit buff up?

Ravelvan · 03/22/09, 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by Ruic

1) I am finding myself actually having too much haste for a 2x Incinerate 2x Soulfire rotation as I am beginning my second Soulfire cast before my second Incinerate hits. I have 738 haste using a Spellstone. Is anyone else having a similar problem? Is the best way to fix it just wait a half-second before casting my second Soulfire?

You don't need to do 2x Incinerate 2x Soulfire. If you just start with 2x Incinerate you can then just alternate between Soulfire and Incinerate, one of each. If you need to stop and refresh a DoT or Lifetap, you just have to make sure you stop after having cast Soulfire, you can then pick right back up with only 1x Incinerate, 1x Soulfire after you are done refreshing whatever needed to be refreshed. You can also "end" the rotation by casting two Soulfires in a row.

In order to have "too much haste" I think you would have to have so much that you could cast a Soulfire, an Incinerate, and begin to cast the next Soulfire all within the travel time of one Incinerate.

Edit: My point being, I think it's impossible to have too much haste. The time between 2 Soulfire casts is going to be at least 2 seconds (since GCD is limited to 1 second), which is longer than the travel time of a max range Incinerate.

supplicium · 03/23/09, 12:02 AM

Originally Posted by Ravelvan

In order to have "too much haste" I think you would have to have so much that you could cast a Soulfire, an Incinerate, and begin to cast the next Soulfire all within the travel time of one Incinerate.

At max range the travel time of an incinerate (it's a slower spell) is about 1.3 seconds.

Also you may want to consider using a firestone, as they are nearly equal on dps (neck and neck) it would solve a major problem.

Vux · 03/23/09, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

The key to the rotation assumed by the simulator is being able to get a decimation-affected soul fire cast off before the previously casted incinerate hits the target. The flight time of incinerate from 30 yards is about 1.4-1.5 seconds, so it's a pretty tight squeeze, but I've been able to do it reliably with around 400 haste.

I just did some testing on Incinerate's flight time. I stood at exactly 30 yards, turned on /combatlog, and casted Incinerate 10 times, waiting for Incinerate to land before casting again.

Next I created a shell script to extract only the relevant lines, so I ended up with something like this:

3/22 19:46:15.421  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:19.031  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,2984,2983,4,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:20.843  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:24.359  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,2714,2713,4,302,0,0,nil,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:26.375  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:29.781  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,6026,5725,4,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:31.500  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:35.015  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,5840,5539,4,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:36.625  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:39.953  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,3705,3404,4,412,0,0,nil,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:41.656  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:45.046  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,8147,7845,4,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:47.093  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:50.312  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,2969,2668,4,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:52.921  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:46:56.250  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,2994,2693,4,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
3/22 19:46:59.250  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:47:02.578  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,5913,5612,4,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
3/22 19:47:06.109  SPELL_CAST_START,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,47838,"Incinerate",0x4
3/22 19:47:09.437  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x01000000007CA753,"Vux",0x511,0xF1300079AA001A65,"Heroic Training Dummy",0x10a28,47838,"Incinerate",0x4,4785,4484,4,598,0,0,1,nil,nil

Then I used Excel to calculate the differences between the time I started casting and the time that Incinerate landed.

I did this at exactly 30 yards and then repeated for 20 yards to confirm my results. However, I found something rather odd: Incinerate's velocity seems to increase the closer you are to the target. I repeated at 15 yards, this time with 20 casts, and sure enough the velocity increased again. Here are the results:

3.3969		Average Incinerate travel time at 30 yds (10 casts)
8.831581736	Average Velocity of Incinerate (# yds/sec)

2.9564		Average Incinerate travel time at 20 yds (10 casts)
6.764984441	Average Velocity of Incinerate (# yds/sec)

2.84055		Average Incinerate travel time at 15 yds (20 casts)
5.280667476	Average Velocity of Incinerate (# yds/sec)

I have 762 haste and was having some difficulty keeping up the weaving going perfectly at max range. So I was trying to get the exact velocity for Incinerate, so you could backwards calculate just how close you should stand depending on how much haste you had. But because the velocity changes, it looks like it's not possible to do that. Does anyone see anything inaccurate about my methods above? Or have any suggestions on how to figure out the exact distance to stand at depending on how much haste you have?

-----

[Edit]:

Originally Posted by Warlocomotif

You seem to be taking the time difference between spell_cast_start and spell_damage- this is wrong.
You should be going for when the spell finished casting.

The most effective way that I can think of is by casting something immediatly after you finish casting, and take that "spell_cast_start" as the "spell_cast_finished" of your spell. You can also take your current time and reduce it by your cast time.

Ahhhh, thanks. My Incinerate cast time was 1.94 seconds. So subtracting that out, the times are:

1.4569		Average Incinerate travel time at 30 yds (10 casts)
20.59166724	Average Speed of Incinerate (yds/sec)

1.0164		Average Incinerate travel time at 20 yds (10 casts)
19.6772924	Average Speed of Incinerate (yds/sec)

0.90055		Average Incinerate travel time at 15 yds (20 casts)
16.6564877	Average Speed of Incinerate (yds/sec)

So the travel time at 30 yards is indeed 1.4-1.5 seconds at 30 yards. However, I still find it odd that speed changes based on how close you are to the target. The closer you are, the slower it goes.