Arms DPS: 4.0 and Cataclysm - Page 23

Miloh · 04/25/11, 3:51 PM

Both Punisher's Band (new JC craft) and Band of the Gurubashi Berserker will certainly shore up the lack of rings that don't have Haste. Both are better than the current drops from heroic dungeons, Valiona, or Valor Points.

Similarly, Deathcharged Wristguards should be an upgrade over Electron Inductor Coils, again due to dropping undesirable Haste.

Of course, the above items being upgrades is also contingent upon your personal preference for capping Expertise (see discussion related to this topic further above).

Althor · 04/26/11, 8:41 AM

Thanks to Bazinbear from Spinebreaker I have made some changes to the Arms Warrior action lists and code in SimulationCraft which will show up in the next release, 410-1.

Arms gained around 250 DPS from some small tweaks to Heroic Strike, Slam and picking up Tactical Mastery in place of Drums of War. It gained a further almost 2000 DPS when I implemented the ability to use Charge while in melee range which is apparently possible on a lot of raid bosses.

There are some other changes that will likely follow however this is a pretty big boost to Arms DPS so I thought it worth mentioning now.

Deathwing · 04/29/11, 12:19 PM

I haven't tried all the raid bosses, but I couldn't find any that I could use intercept while still in the boss's hitbox. I didn't try Nefarian, I expect him to be one. Do you mind posting which bosses you can actually use charge?

MystEU · 04/29/11, 1:37 PM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

I haven't tried all the raid bosses, but I couldn't find any that I could use intercept while still in the boss's hitbox. I didn't try Nefarian, I expect him to be one. Do you mind posting which bosses you can actually use charge?

I believe that the twin dragons was one of the encounters it was possible to charge in melee range. That should be one to check out at least or perhaps it was fixed? I won't be raiding until later this weekend to see for myself.

Back to some Arms talk, stance dancing to DPS in berserker stance save for your initial Rend and Overpowers is definitely showing its potential moreso now that MS is also keeping up Rend. I noticed a pretty generous damage increase when pulling it off correctly with all of the macros set up. Something along the lines of a 1k DPS boost on some places. It is noticeable. I may have some logs by the weekend if others don't get to posting some of doing this before I get around to it.

Grimraven · 04/29/11, 1:52 PM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

I haven't tried all the raid bosses, but I couldn't find any that I could use intercept while still in the boss's hitbox. I didn't try Nefarian, I expect him to be one. Do you mind posting which bosses you can actually use charge?

Chimaeron and Cho'gal for sure.

Shha · 04/29/11, 2:06 PM

Valiona/theralion, nefarian and everything there (Onyxia and even adds on pillars even though they are small)

Glory · 04/29/11, 5:00 PM

Also Al'Akir is working at Max Hitbox Range. But you have only chance to do it if your gap is in melee range, as you need charge to get back to the boss if the gap is out of melee range.

Junox · 05/01/11, 12:20 PM

Hey.. I've been using a small xlsx file for item comparisons, and thought I should share it.

http://4x86.com/itemcomparison.xlsx

Basically plug in values for the SEP of stats and then plug in the stats for the 2 items. It just saves time from doing something by hand. Note: I don't know what the real SEP values are for 4.1 so I just guessed.

Korebian · 05/02/11, 6:35 AM

EDIT, nevermind

Deathwing · 05/02/11, 10:57 PM

Overpower now has a 1.5-second cooldown and global cooldown (Taste for Blood's Overpower cooldown has not changed).
Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall no longer have stance requirements.

First change is a little dps loss, but I don't mind. 1s OP is a really bad design, and maximizing your dps around is not at all intuitive. Basically, arms will become MS something something MS.

Second change is nice as well.

I'm surprised I didn't see anything about stance dancing.

Ecatombe · 05/03/11, 8:46 AM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

Overpower now has a 1.5-second cooldown and global cooldown (Taste for Blood's Overpower cooldown has not changed).
Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall no longer have stance requirements.

First change is a little dps loss, but I don't mind. 1s OP is a really bad design, and maximizing your dps around is not at all intuitive. Basically, arms will become MS something something MS.

Second change is nice as well.

I'm surprised I didn't see anything about stance dancing.

I think that the change is not affecting the Overpower we are using in our rotation (the TfB's one), so there should be no dps loss (assuming Expertise capped).

Runtime · 05/03/11, 9:23 AM

The wording in the patch notes could have been better. From my reading I took it as overpower has a 1.5 second GCD, the overpower dodge proc has a 1.5 second ICD, and taste for blood is retaining the 5 second ICD.

The Removal of the stance requirements I think was more intended as a pvp change but it will have some interesting implications in pve as well. I can see tanks using retaliation for extra aoe threat. Though it wont be necessary, I still think I would prefer to switch to defensive stance when I pop shield wall in a raid to further reduce the damage I'm taking.

Irageat · 05/03/11, 11:44 AM

I just practiced some hours to utilize my output and I experienced some really odd behaviour of the new TfB. I try to force 2 OPs between 2 MS to smooth out overall rotation and increase dps slightly. My general solution is MS OP 1,5GCD OP MS. By trying to force those cycles I observed that TfB is earlier reapplied then it should be. Usually TfB lasts from 9sec until 3sec and begins again at 9sec ( TfB has a 5 sec CD but Rend ticks every 3 sec ). But sometimes it resetted earlier at 3.xx > 3,00. I tested the new Rend application and basically it just adds 15sec+ your remaining time until the next Rend tick. So there shouldn't be any modification to the 6 second rule. There is either some strange delay/glitch within the WoW-engine or the reapplication of Rend is not exact. Can somebody confirm this?
- I'm analyzing my combat log right now and as it seems there is some mispositioning of the new rend which leads to an discrepancy between the rend ticks. -
EDIT: For the post below me and the question about Rend application. If applied with full buffs and procs it ticks with the same amount for the full duration. If reapplied after without buffs / procs the damage is lowered.

Junox · 05/03/11, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by landsoul

My inclination is that with every MS, it will reapply on a full timer (as a new Rend) with the current buffs. It depends on how they program it. If they decide to not make it a new Rend, and just increase the duration of the current Rend then it will use the stat set of when it was first applied. We'll know when the patch comes out or if someone on the PTR can confirm it (I'm too busy to do it)

Did we ever find the answer to this? If not, I'm going to check this out on a dummy later today.

edit: Tested this out on a dummy. For the first try, I immediately applied Rend, then only spammed Mortal Strikes to keep it up. This was done until 1,000,000 damage. For the second try, I spammed Slams until my Heart of Rage popped, then I popped a potion and my gloves cooldown, giving me 20489 AP (up from 11539). At that point I would apply Rend, use MS on CD, and wait until 1,000,000 more damage was done than when I had originally applied Rend.

11539 AP when applied:

Count: 89

Tick: Min 1923 Avg 2175 Max 2727
Crit: Min 3961 Avg 4326 Max 4918

Count: 87

20489 AP when applied:

Tick: Min 1923 Avg 2217 Max 2992
Crit: Min 3961 Avg 4501 Max 6164

While the second "Average" and "Maximum" counts are higher than the first, this is likely due to me using additional cooldowns I hadn't used in the first run (potion, synapse springs on gloves) that made the numbers slightly higher for 10-20 sec. If rend kept the AP values from when it was first applied, it would be significantly higher than I show on average for the 2nd trial, so it is definitely re-applied with your current stats when you Mortal Strike (or it might reflect stat changes without having to be reapplied-- in either case it's still better to MS on cooldown).

hellord · 05/03/11, 12:22 PM

I personally like much the 1s cd of Overpower cause it gives a change of pace. It also gives OP a big increase in damage per gcd which is a big reason to swap to battle during execute phases.
This change effectively gcd-cap us to an even higher extent and I don't really like the effect it will have due to latency.

The requirement change on reck/ret/sw is a nuisance tbh. Actually we are preferring berserk stance for optimal dps output and the problem with sw is not the stance change (which is still welcome in case you need the defensive cd), but the weapon requirement. Retaliation change is nice for prot burst threat on a pull and Reck is already in our currently best stance. Especially considering the relative value of OP during reck is much lower.

I'd really like to see some decent and meaningful change to battle stance rather than random changes like these. It's really hard to understand what kind of problem they are resolving removing stance requirements from spells with so situational utility, especially because every change so far rendered stances completely obsolete.