WotLK talent Preview/Discussion - Page 100

Tankietka · 09/26/08, 4:48 AM

Originally Posted by Shha

Arms problems - the "procs" have doubtful value. They in general are beneficial, but they up the maintenance while providing doubtful benefits. Human reactions arent meaningless. If using some procs gives me 0.5% dps buff, but takes my attention, I would probably rather give up on it.

In case of Overpower proc it does not seem like only 0.5% DPS increase, especially for low-end gear, when there are problems with keeping full MS/WW/Slam rotation. Yes, my sim can be giving crap results and have some bugs, we will see.

As for problem with keeping up Rend/Overpower, I was worrying about "real fight" usage too. After some thoughts about what is the easiest way to do "the maintenance", I think it won't be so bad after all. For example:

1. You can spam Overpower button to use as soon as possible without need to "react" to proc.
2. Rend reapplying - I don't see any problem with that. Even if on your ui it is hard to see (on mine my debuffs/buffs can be made bigger for better visual feedback) sooner or later there will be mod available that will show big, flashing info at the center of your screen about Rend fading. Certainly it is not as bad as Slam/Swing synchronization.

Originally Posted by Shha

a) Overpower mechanics. Stance dancing is bad. Period. Why lose 3% crit to get doubtful mechanic, that can or cant work. Just compare - 1 button macro spam vs tracking rend duration, TfB procs and such. Dont get me wrong - Id like some more micromanagement - but such micro should yield visible benefits. Current OP use benefits are well below the natural variation in dps based on rng.

As for doubtful mechanic and whether 3% crit is better - well, we are on opposite sides here. I really hope/believe Blizz can make it worthy (if it's not already). We will see whether being optimistic or pesimistic was closer to truth when new talents will go live, after all balancing passes

.

Apart from my faith in Taste for Blood, I was thinking about what cpkfolief suggested in WotLK talent Preview/Discussion.
It would be great if 2-3 rotations were available, scaling differently with gear. That would mean the end of the-one-and-only rotation for everyone no matter at what raid level they are. You could start with one rotation at low-level-gear, then at some point you could switch to different one for better results.
Currently I find it a bit boring being forced to use the same rotation for the whole expansion.

Darian_TruBlade · 09/26/08, 4:48 AM

Originally Posted by Machinator

I had not implemented a two roll system, however once I did it did not make much difference. I plugged my current armory gear in, MH Torch of the Damned, OH cleaver. Str > Crit > Hit. And crit > hit until the crit cap was hit at about 45% with no hit gear. Its not much of a stretch when you get thinking about it. Compare 1% crit to 1% hit, crit gives a little more rage(RED), more damage both white and special, more bloodsurge procs, and flurry uptime. Yes 1% crit is more expensive than 1% hit, but all the bonuses of crit add up.
I thought it was odd too but it all adds up to me.

I've done a very rough run of the numbers, and I'm not seeing the same results. I'm not going to claim my spreadsheet is a good measure of anything as it's fairly rudimentary. Still, I'm seeing Hit as notably superior to Crit and Str. One or both of us probably have error/inaccuracies that are leading to the discrepancy. From my perspective a number of the factors you cite as favoring Crit are not as powerful as they first appear.

Critting a white attack does not always generate additional rage due to how easily TG caps out. Conversely, hitting more white attacks makes TG rage generation more consistent and thus is more likely to increase rage generation.
Hit and Crit both increase damage done by white attacks and specials. Crit might have a slight advantage on specials due to Impale, but Hit makes up for that by indirectly increasing crit rate of specials via the two roll system.
Additional Bloodsurge procs are notable, as is the additional crit each gets, but they also benefit from hit and indirectly from the additional crit hit provides (again, the two roll system).
Flurry uptime is definitely increased by Crit, but at a rate of diminishing returns. Hit has a minor effect on Flurry uptime (gotta love that two roll system).

I'm not saying you're wrong to think that Crit doesn't come with considerable benefits, but I am saying that hit comes with a similar set of benefits in addition to being 30% cheaper. Obviously this is a matter to be settled by a more sophisticated spreadsheet than I have.

• Morsexy · 09/26/08, 5:21 AM

Originally Posted by Gruntle

The replies from Ghostcrawler were really nice in my opinion. That they are actually even considering changing the stance penalties/buffs is a hell of a lot better than the previous deadening silence on the subject. I'm also happy that they recognize how bad Unending fury is.

As to not getting into the beta, just get over yourself

, being in a SWP guild doesn't automatically make you a good tester. I think the feedback from a 15 year old BG-farmer with no raiding experience could very well be as valuable as the feedback from a top-of-the-world raiding guild main tank, WoTLK is more than just 25-man raiding.

I agree, and frankly I could care less about me personally. I'm not a best tank in the world. BUT GC did say "best tanks in the world" "other forums". Thats basically who I am talking about and Elitistjerks.com.

Having done both sides of the game, and given that a dps warrior is a total 'not gonna do it' in 5 mans, I would rank the 10% more damage taken in any setting (PvE and PvP) 2nd just behind behind reasonable AoE threat as a tank.

I mean I'd love a CC and a whole bunch of other stuff, but given how DK stances work, the lack of a CD on druid or dk stance changes ( as opposed to our .5 sec GCD on stance changes ), this seems like an easily done and quite important change. So no, I wont get over some warrior who isn't 70 yet getting an invite over any number of "best tanks in the world".

Gruntle · 09/26/08, 6:26 AM

Originally Posted by Darian_TruBlade

I've done a very rough run of the numbers, and I'm not seeing the same results. I'm not going to claim my spreadsheet is a good measure of anything as it's fairly rudimentary. Still, I'm seeing Hit as notably superior to Crit and Str. One or both of us probably have error/inaccuracies that are leading to the discrepancy. From my perspective a number of the factors you cite as favoring Crit are not as powerful as they first appear.

Critting a white attack does not always generate additional rage due to how easily TG caps out. Conversely, hitting more white attacks makes TG rage generation more consistent and thus is more likely to increase rage generation.
Hit and Crit both increase damage done by white attacks and specials. Crit might have a slight advantage on specials due to Impale, but Hit makes up for that by indirectly increasing crit rate of specials via the two roll system.
Additional Bloodsurge procs are notable, as is the additional crit each gets, but they also benefit from hit and indirectly from the additional crit hit provides (again, the two roll system).
Flurry uptime is definitely increased by Crit, but at a rate of diminishing returns. Hit has a minor effect on Flurry uptime (gotta love that two roll system).

I'm not saying you're wrong to think that Crit doesn't come with considerable benefits, but I am saying that hit comes with a similar set of benefits in addition to being 30% cheaper. Obviously this is a matter to be settled by a more sophisticated spreadsheet than I have.

I'm also getting hit>crit (with a 2-roll model), but also finding ArP rating to be very competitive, 7.4 rating per % reduction is really really good in terms of comparing the dps gain. The total armor reduction goes up by 10% with 3.0x, but ArP stays a very good stat. This is because all of the other stats were also affected by this 10% nerf.

Also, when including a Deep wounds model (a rolling model where every crit is allowed to do 0.48*wpn damage extra) crit gains a lot in value and ArP loses (bleeds are not affected by armor I believe?). Deep wounds is of course not accessible at 70 and I'm not sure whether the model I'm using is correct (I get something like a 10-15% dps increase from it so it seem a bit over the top).

Kaan · 09/26/08, 9:05 AM

Tested TG at 3.0 Patch PTR and it appears that Executioner is still a -840 Armor debuff (at least in the tooltip). I'm wondering if anyone could confirm/deny this. Would be very nice if this is true -> nobody needs to enchant their weapon with Mongoose. *g

Also Heroic Strikes with TG and ~16% Hitrating was missing a lot less than BT/WW/Slam, I think because my HS Critrate was 56% only with Rampage and Incite talented -> Crits can't miss. And having over 50% Critchance lowers the chance that a Miss will ever happen. Anyways, I would say I'm not "unconvinced" if TG can be a decent spec. 15% Miss is evantually too much, but it is feasible.

Borodin · 09/26/08, 9:49 AM

Yes Executioner is still a flat -840 Armour. This essentially gives it built-in negative scaling beyond 70 since target armour values will be increasing as you level whilst the enchant remains static.

Remember they introduced negative scaling for classics like Lifestealing and Crusader - they won't have to for Exe.

So by 80 or before we will be looking around for the next big thing in Weapon enchants.

Graul · 09/26/08, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Kaan

Crits can's miss. And having over 50% Critchance lowers the chance that a Miss will ever happen. Anyways, I would say I'm not "unconvinced" if TG can be a decent spec. 15% Miss is evantually too much, but it is feasible.

They can if Heroic Strike is affected by the apparent double rolls that happen on yellow attacks.

Lithose · 09/26/08, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by cpkfolief

From a damage perspective all I see is warriors getting better. A few talents have had their point allocations reduced, and or had their returns increased. To name some -- 2H Weapon Spec, Imp. Mortal Strike, and Booming Voice. These aren't huge obviously, but it's more than we had before.

The last thing I'd like to note, and I think this is just as important if not more important. Rogues and hunters got healing debuffs, and they got CC effects, sure. Can they put on shields to gain 6k armor, change stances to take 20% less damage, AND have the ability to reflect spells back on to their casters? No. Do rogues and hunters get an ability that passively ticks heals to them when they take damage? No.

On your first point, every class has had damage increases, remember, the goal here is that most classes will be even on "damage", so using damage as a balance point is nill, we can expect that to a constant, even if its done in different ways.

The second thing..Can warriors cloak to stop all spells? Can they vanish? Can they activate a +dodge skill which lowers their incoming melee damage as much as a shield without penalizing their outgoing damage like a shield does? Obviously the answer to these questions is no, but that is getting in to "apples" and "oranges", the classes are different, their skills are based on those differences. Rogues don't have plate, so they have high dodge, hunters don't have plate or high dodge so they have superior snaring abilities and now a reverse blink.

Its futile to make a post comparing ability to ability. The classes, from resource pools on up are built different..But there is some "homogenization" between them, in general they all have things that help perform certain tasks (Damage, Range/mobility, control.) If the damage is being brought in line, and MS is, then why isn't control being homogenized just a little more?

Granted, I'm not advocating warriors get kidney shot, or scatter shot, or freezing trap or some such non-sense. Obviously this would be broken and overpowering, but there does need to be an effective single target CC with a sub 2 minute cool down. Frankly, I think heroic throw is a excellent candidate for this, perhaps attach to it a 5 second disorient effect (It shouldn't be as powerful as repetence, since intimidating shout+Intercept stun would remain as CC options.) but we should have a reliable, short duration, 1 minute CC. (I emphasize however, short just enough to give us some more control, again, we do have intercept/fear, so control is there.)

Machinator · 09/26/08, 1:30 PM

Originally Posted by Darian_TruBlade

Critting a white attack does not always generate additional rage due to how easily TG caps out. Conversely, hitting more white attacks makes TG rage generation more consistent and thus is more likely to increase rage generation.
Hit and Crit both increase damage done by white attacks and specials. Crit might have a slight advantage on specials due to Impale, but Hit makes up for that by indirectly increasing crit rate of specials via the two roll system.
Additional Bloodsurge procs are notable, as is the additional crit each gets, but they also benefit from hit and indirectly from the additional crit hit provides (again, the two roll system).
Flurry uptime is definitely increased by Crit, but at a rate of diminishing returns. Hit has a minor effect on Flurry uptime (gotta love that two roll system).

EDIT 2: This is all wrong, hit tables are backwards. Dont mind me.

I think you are overestimating the effects hit on crit in the two roll system, so lets try some numbers and find where we disagree.

Lets say a character has 0% hit gear, and 45% crit which is close to the cap. Weapon mastery, precision, ect. No Relentless for simplicity.
White Hit table

Miss 25%
Dodge 3.6%
Glance 25%
Crit 45%
Hit 1.3%

Special Hit/Miss

Miss 21%
Hit 79% which makes the following

Special Hit table

Dodge 2.8%
Crit 35.6%
Hit 61.5%

Adding 1% hit the specials look like this

Dodge 2.9%
Crit 36%
Hit 61.1%

Adding 1% hit gives
1% more white hits - which gives about 1% more damage and .8% more rage due to HS, avoidance.
~.45% more special crits at the cost of about the same in special hits - counting impale is about .54% more special damage
1.3% more bloodsurge

Adding 1% crit the specials look like this

Dodge 2.8%
Crit 36.4%
Hit 60.8%

Adding 1% crit gives
1% more white crits - which gives same same bonus as 1% hit
~.8% more special crits at the cost of special hit - with impale ~.96% more special damage
1.6% more bloodsurge
Some insignificant amount of flurry/rampage/deep wounds uptime (45% crit anyway)

Since white damage is roughly the same, though admittedly a little spikier, that part is a wash. 1% crit adds .96% special damage, and 1% hit adds .54% special damage. 1% crit is 22.1 rating and 1% hit is 15.76 rating.
Value of 1 rating on special damage
Crit = .96/22.1 = .043%
Hit = .54/15.76 = .034%

This is not adding in the extra bloodsurge, uptimes, or relentless earthstorm diamond.

Well I hope thats more fun to read than write. Hopefully someone can either point out where I am wrong or confirm it.

Edit: Do dodged specials cost rage?

Shha · 09/26/08, 2:03 PM

Your calculations dont match my experience with 2 roll system.

0% hit 45% crit expertise capped

1st roll
Miss 21%
Hit 79%
2nd roll
55% hit
45% crit

Final table
Miss 21%
Hit 79%*55%= 43.45%
Crit 79%*45%= 35.55%

1% hit 45% crit

1st roll
Miss 20%
Hit 80%
2nd roll
45% crit
55% hit

Final table

Miss 20%
Hit 80%*55% 44%
Crit 80%*45% 36%

0% hit 46% crit

1st roll
Miss 21%
Hit 79%
2nd roll
54% hit
46% crit

Final table
Miss 21%
Hit 79%*54%= 42.66%
Crit 79%*46%= 36.34%

Therefore lets compare

1% hit increases our dps by 1.34% hits and decreases amount of crits by 0.34% compared to 1% crit. Thats a clear upgrade. In fact the crit loss isnt even big, therefore I wouldnt overestimate the effect on deep wounds/impale.

Solifer · 09/26/08, 2:08 PM

Hm, everyone cares about viability in a raid - so everyone likes intervene? Or is it just me, who hates that 10% agro reduction on it, which makes it unusable on a tank? For me, this kills the saveguard talent completely, as it was very nice in raids for using it on the 2nd tank, even with that nerf to 30%.

Darian_TruBlade · 09/26/08, 2:17 PM

Originally Posted by Machinator

*abridged*

Adding 1% hit gives
1% more white hits - which gives about 1% more damage and .8% more rage due to HS, avoidance.
~.45% more special crits at the cost of about the same in special hits - counting impale is about .54% more special damage
1.3% more bloodsurge

*abridged*

Adding 1% crit gives
1% more white crits - which gives same same bonus as 1% hit
~.8% more special crits at the cost of special hit - with impale ~.96% more special damage
1.6% more bloodsurge
Some insignificant amount of flurry/rampage/deep wounds uptime (45% crit anyway)

Since white damage is roughly the same, though admittedly a little spikier, that part is a wash. 1% crit adds .96% special damage, and 1% hit adds .54% special damage. 1% crit is 22.1 rating and 1% hit is 15.76 rating.
Value of 1 rating on special damage
Crit = .96/22.1 = .043%
Hit = .54/15.76 = .034%

This is not adding in the extra bloodsurge, uptimes, or relentless earthstorm diamond.

*abridged*

Don't worry, it was a good read (though I've abridged it for space considerations). You do have a mistake in your two roll system. Dodge is a part of the first roll, not the second. That alone won't drastically change matters, but it's notable for the sake of accuracy.

Secondly, unless you simply forgot to mention it in your brief section on the benefits of Hit, Hit increases your chance to hit with damaging specials (the only ones we're really concerned with here) by 1%. Effectively, 1% more white and yellow hits. I don't see any explicit mention of this.

Taking that into consideration, we have the following factors.

Hit:
+1% White and Yellow Hits
+~.45% Yellow Crits (~.495 more damage with Impale)

Crit:
+1% White Crits
+~.76 Yellow Crits (~.84 more damage with Impale)

Hit's crucial advantage here should be obvious. It competes with Crit for White Damage evenly, gives more than half of Crit's effect on Yellow Damage, and increases Yellow Damage unchallenged via the increased hit chance. The .35% more special crit damage and miscellaneous bonuses of Crit can not hope to pull even with a 1% damage increase. Add to this the fact that Hit is 30% cheaper to itemize and it should be clear why Crit is not as effective a stat as Hit.

If we flip flop the numbers and put ourselves 1% away from the hit cap with a meager 20% Crit we get the following numbers instead.

Hit:
+1% White and Yellow Hits
+~.2% Yellow Crits (~.22 more damage with Impale)

Crit:
+1% White Crits
+~.99 Yellow Crits (~1.09 more damage with Impale)

Even in this situation, the two are even (counting misc benefits, though perhaps Crit might have a slight advantage) except that Hit remains notably cheaper to itemize than Crit. Removing 30% of the effectiveness of Crit from either case makes it hard to believe that Crit could possibly be equal to or better than Hit at any level of itemization.

Now, I may have made a mistake somewhere, but I think I've at least made it clear why I continue to be skeptical about Crit being a better stat than Hit.

Edit: Ssha basically beat me to the punch.

Uglesh · 09/26/08, 2:25 PM

Originally Posted by Solifer

Hm, everyone cares about viability in a raid - so everyone likes intervene? Or is it just me, who hates that 10% agro reduction on it, which makes it unusable on a tank? For me, this kills the saveguard talent completely, as it was very nice in raids for using it on the 2nd tank, even with that nerf to 30%.

I think you are overlooking the "spirit" of the talent. It's for baling out a person who pulled aggro. In fact dropping someones TOTAL threat by 10% is actually VERY dramatic and we typically mean the mob will return to the tank.

The other "plus" is that this gives us a way to help drop the threat of people in raids pre-emptively who may not have the ability to drop aggro. Just a way to slightly min/max in another way.

Grayson Carlyle · 09/26/08, 2:38 PM

Originally Posted by Machinator

Special Hit table

Dodge 2.8%
Crit 35.6%
Hit 61.5%

Adding 1% hit the specials look like this

Dodge 2.9%
Crit 36%
Hit 61.1%

I really wish I could reply with a simple "wat?" because that's so obviously wrong, but that would be against the forum rules.

Adding 1% hit to a 100% hit table, cannot conceivably change the relative ratios of that table. After the 1% hit is added, it will still be the same table, but that new table now takes up 80% of the overall table instead of the previous 79%.

I also don't believe dodge is part of the second table.

IIRC, it looks like this:

1st:
Parried
Dodged
Miss
Hit or Crit

2nd
Crit
Hit

-edit- Shha very nicely explained it as I was eating lunch while writing this post, so I was rather slow

Njial · 09/26/08, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by Uglesh

I think you are overlooking the "spirit" of the talent. It's for baling out a person who pulled aggro. In fact dropping someones TOTAL threat by 10% is actually VERY dramatic and we typically mean the mob will return to the tank.

The other "plus" is that this gives us a way to help drop the threat of people in raids pre-emptively who may not have the ability to drop aggro. Just a way to slightly min/max in another way.

I would agree with this in general, but this kind of thing has limited utility, and people also have a tendency to bitch when they have to start doing things that their class doesn't normally do. For example, I know a lot of warlocks that hated when they had to tank on certain fights. Resist gear is another good example that affects everyone. Now you could argue that this is in the spirit of tanking even if it doesn't work the same. There are a couple things that kinda throws a spanner in the works.

On certain fights an OT getting out of melee range is bad. Sure, dropping threat on that one person is good, but if the boss has an agro drop like Gurtogg or Twins things can get real messy real quick. This is especially true if the boss is untauntable, which most historically are.

Also, to me, the threat dump seems more a deterrence to using it on a tank than trying to get us to put it on dpsers. If the threat drop does the trick, then the damage reduction is kinda meh.

Intervene has always been a bit tricky to use in a raid setting. I think I've used it more for the mobility for getting out of encapsulate on melee on Felmyst or Sent tanking on M'uru than I ever have to save someone. If your healers are doing their job it should be wasted much of the time anyway for damage reduction. Now in 5s and 10 mans things are a bit different. It seems to use it in a 25 man you either have to plan for it, ie (be ready to intervene the squishy) which yet again it seems healers could do better.

It might be useful for trying to force a tank transition. Fights like Gurtogg, Brut, and Twins come to mind. If you are trying to get agro back, and the tank is a bit up there on threat, it wouldn't be too bad, and would smooth out the healing on two possible tanks. It just seems like Blizzard doesn't have a clear vision for Intervene, so as a result,we don't either.

Darmon · 09/26/08, 4:40 PM

I searched this thread about Sword Spec, but didn't found anything beside 6 sec internal CD.

Testing Arms spec on PTR, my recount showed something like:
Melee (Sword spec) count 4
Slam (Sword spec) count 4
Mortal Strike (Sword spec) count 1
Deep wound (Sword spec) count 3

As far as i know live version of it, only melee and HS/Slam can proc sword spec, but looking to the recount it seems that any dmg ability can proc it now, and it procs a duplicate effect, looking at Deep wound details.

Machinator · 09/26/08, 4:46 PM

Thanks for pointing out that I had the two tables switched around somehow. Looking back now its kind of a "wtf was I thinking" moment as it doesn't even make much sense the way I had it. That will teach me to post too soon after waking up.

I now get Exp = Hit > Crit > Str > Haste > ArP

Though I still have a couple more questions
Do dodged specials cost rage?
How are people modeling deep wounds? I am reading conflicting things on how they "roll".

Originally Posted by Gruntle

I'm also getting hit>crit (with a 2-roll model), but also finding ArP rating to be very competitive, 7.4 rating per % reduction is really really good in terms of comparing the dps gain. The total armor reduction goes up by 10% with 3.0x, but ArP stays a very good stat. This is because all of the other stats were also affected by this 10% nerf.

What base armor and debuffs are you using to get that? I am using 6200, 5 sunders and FF for now because I havent checked what will stack but I still dont see how ArP is competitive. I show it as less than half of hit, using proper tables.

Uglesh · 09/26/08, 5:12 PM

Originally Posted by Njial

Also, to me, the threat dump seems more a deterrence to using it on a tank than trying to get us to put it on dpsers. If the threat drop does the trick, then the damage reduction is kinda meh.

Intervene has always been a bit tricky to use in a raid setting. I think I've used it more for the mobility for getting out of encapsulate on melee on Felmyst or Sent tanking on M'uru than I ever have to save someone. If your healers are doing their job it should be wasted much of the time anyway for damage reduction. Now in 5s and 10 mans things are a bit different. It seems to use it in a 25 man you either have to plan for it, ie (be ready to intervene the squishy) which yet again it seems healers could do better.

It might be useful for trying to force a tank transition. Fights like Gurtogg, Brut, and Twins come to mind. If you are trying to get agro back, and the tank is a bit up there on threat, it wouldn't be too bad, and would smooth out the healing on two possible tanks. It just seems like Blizzard doesn't have a clear vision for Intervene, so as a result,we don't either.

I agree that it's a deterence to intervening the tank (which use to be a decent way to get some rage for LOL-prot DPS)... but honestly I think it's going to need a tweak. It seems like a great thing for 5 mans and heriocs as it will pull ppl's ass out of the fire when you are dealing with the half retarded masses in PuGs. Where I see the problem is in 25 man settings. Assuming they get some semblance of "balance" to all DPS classes and they don't allow tank threat to get WAY above any possiblity of dps'ers pulling aggro... A few classes will still be bound by the contraints of threat. Those classes will likely be "balanced" with the threat ceiling in mind. Now imagine if every 30 seconds the OT could drop their threat by 10%?? Heck with Warbringer you could intervene and charge back to the boss missing minimal DPS time.

If anyone ever wonders about the effect of a flat % threat decrease they should try to 2 tank VR. I recall several fights where the 3rd tank died early and our dps was crying because even not doing anything they were pulling aggro because the tanks kept dropping and couldn't build back enough threat between kicks.

Grayson Carlyle · 09/26/08, 6:13 PM

Originally Posted by Machinator

Do dodged specials cost rage?
How are people modeling deep wounds? I am reading conflicting things on how they "roll".

Dodged attacks do cost rage, as do parried, but I'm unsure of the specific number. It was 20% or 25% of the cost, but this was pre-TBC when that value was known well.

From this thread, Deep Wounds appears to be more than (last_crit * 0.48)/6 on each tick, but less than if each crit's Deep Wounds were rolling into each other fully such that final Deep Wounds damage is total_crit_damage * 0.48. In this thread at least, the exact mechanism has not been discovered.

Shha · 09/26/08, 8:05 PM

To clarify some stuff.

a) Sword Spec always could proc of any damaging ability. They never changed it. Its WINDFURY that was reduced to only proc from white/heroic - and I find it very common misbelief that sword spec behaves same way.

b) Deep Wounds still elude proper modelling for me. However some data thats actually useful for approximate modelling

1) Base deep wound damage is 8% of your weapon damage on the char screen.
However! The % modifiers to physical damage work twice - they increase DW damage two fold. For example - Wrecking Crew adds 10% to your damage - and thus any DW effect procced DURING Wrecking Crew Uptime will be increased by 10%. Additionally though, the ticks that OCCUR during Wrecking Crew uptime are increased by 10% again. So to make an example with deathwish (+20% damage)

- Critted without DW and ticking without it - normal DW damage
- Critted under DW, ticks after DW fades - +20%
- Critted without DW, popped it right after - ticks are +20%
- Critted with DW and ticks during DW - ticks are 120%*120% = 144% of normal ones.

That applies to 2h spec, Deathwish, all kinds of enrage, Ferocious Inspiration, Blood Frenzy, any specific + damage buffs (berserking in BG etc).

Therefore for example base DW damage assuming following:

200 dps 3.5 speed weapon 4900 ap WITH blood frenzy, Trauma, 5/5 2h Spec, Wrecking Crew up

Base white damage = 1925
8% x1925= 154

Modifiers counted twice : 1.02 (BF) 1.05% (2h spec) 1.1(Wrecking Crew)
Modifiers counted once : 1.3 (trauma)
Final base damage = 154x1.02^2x1.05^2x1.1^2x1.3= ~278

2) Now the stacking part is the hard one. However my experience shows that they can be approximated decently. With 40%+ crit and slow 2h, they AVERAGE at 1.8 multiplier of base one. They NEVER go over 2x . In general:

a) The limit is 2x base
b) It seems to be a good approximation to count 1.8 multiplier for 2h weapons, and 1.9 multiplier for 1handers (that crit more often and come closer to the limit)
c) It takes progressively more and more crits to get closer to the limit. Its almost impossible to actually reach it
d) Therefore deep wounds can be treated as function of weapon damage - not normalized. Yes getting a faster weapon , stacks the "rolling" buff slightly higher, but it has a lot less impact that weapon unnormalized damage - so slow weapons of same dps will produce MORE deep wound damage.

Gruntle · 09/26/08, 8:27 PM

Originally Posted by Machinator

What base armor and debuffs are you using to get that? I am using 6200, 5 sunders and FF for now because I havent checked what will stack but I still dont see how ArP is competitive. I show it as less than half of hit, using proper tables.

I'm using a 7700 armor boss, so that might be the difference I guess (same debuffs). Can likely not check it for a 6200 boss until monday. It's not unlikely that I've made a mistake somewhere though. Will see if I can get the sheet into some kind of presentable shape next week.

Barmbul · 09/26/08, 11:28 PM

Here is some fun spec arms sword, don't use a rotation just spam slam, stay in zerker use HS and execute for rage dumps no rotations. I was able to maintain 1600-1800 dps self buffed on lvl 70 test dummy. Was only able to get 1330 with TG and 1200 with a Arms rotation.

Graul · 09/26/08, 11:46 PM

After spending a few hours on the 70 dummies, I am wondering now if [Tsunami Talisman] is finally better than [Dragonspine Trophy]. It's only anecdotal evidence, but DPS over a few hours worth of six minute fights was always more consistent with the TT over the DST. It might look very different if you have 24% hit, but it seems like it might be the case at least for now. Not that this will matter much for more than four weeks or so, and I've already found the TT to be more helpful during solo leveling than the DST anyway.

Here is some fun spec arms sword, don't use a rotation just spam slam, stay in zerker use HS and execute for rage dumps no rotations. I was able to maintain 1600-1800 dps self buffed on lvl 70 test dummy. Was only able to get 1330 with TG and 1200 with a Arms rotation.

Using a Blade of Harbingers I sit at around 1750 doing that very same thing, although it's extremely boring.

Barmbul · 09/27/08, 12:51 AM

I just find it ironic that we can out dps TG fury and all the new shinny arms talents by spamming good old TBC slam

Lasie · 09/27/08, 1:08 AM

Originally Posted by Graul

After spending a few hours on the 70 dummies, I am wondering now if [Tsunami Talisman] is finally better than [Dragonspine Trophy]. It's only anecdotal evidence, but DPS over a few hours worth of six minute fights was always more consistent with the TT over the DST.

Interesting. Is that simply because of the impact of the 10+hit on a TG spec and static crit, or some change to haste rating or proc effects that i'm not aware of on beta/PTR?

Maybe it was just unlucky DST procs?

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler

First, we're not dramatically overhauling warrior stances. At least not now. We have talked about it quite a bit, and it's something we might do in the future, but it does require a lot discussion. So we aren't taking away the penalties and we aren't adding a bonus to Arms for now. However, if there are less dramatic changes that totally "fix" Battle Stance for you, feel free to mention those. An example might be putting Pummel into Arms (perhaps with a talent).

This is kinda a problem, since a lot of the base "issues" that the warrior class stems from stance penalties and how stances are outdated. Changing stances first, and then balancing abilities around the new stances is a lot easier then balancing abilities around one stance, and then changing stances to find out those abilities are overpowered/underpowered in those stances.

If you've got a crumbling statue, you fix the base/foundation first before you repair the various other parts of the statue.