Zegai

You also have to consider the extra 5% crit damage.

Sword Spec:
C = crit chance, D = non-crit swing damage
(1-C)*D * 1.05 + 2*D*C*1.05 = 1.05*D + 1.05*C*D damage
(1-C)*D * 1.05 + 2.2*D*C*1.05 = 1.05*D + 1.26*C*D damage
With +3% crit damage meta:
(1-C)*D * 1.05 + 2.03*D*C*1.05 = 1.05*D + 1.0815*C*D damage
(1-C)*D * 1.05 + 2.23*D*C*1.05 = 1.05*D + 1.2915*C*D damage

Axe Spec:
(1-C)*D + 2.05*D*(C+0.05) = 1.1025*D + 1.05*C*D damage
(1-C)*D + 2.25*D*(C+0.05) = 1.1125*D + 1.25*C*D damage
With meta:
(1-C)*D + 2.08*D*(C+0.05) = 1.104*D + 1.08*C*D damage
(1-C)*D + 2.28*D*(C+0.05) = 1.114*D + 1.28*C*D damage

I probably messed up somewhere but.. that shows a rather big axe damage advantage. The 5% extra damage on crits does a lot for that.
You also have to consider that sword spec has a inter. cooldown, but will be able to proc more Sudden Death.

 

Solifer

Discussing SD might not be that usefull right now since we don t know if it will be a X %chance on hit (maybe with an internal CD) or X procs per minute.

I guess it will be a PPM to make it more valuable for 2h weapons...

 

Charsi

With the changes to Sword Specialization and Axe Specialization, is Apolyon still top of the pile in patch 3.0.2? Glancing at Shivering Felspine's stats, and accounting for the fact that it's a polearm and will effectively have 5% crit on it, I am starting to wonder if I might not have been better off. It seems I trade three sockets (currently loaded with strength gems) and stamina for one socket and roughly 4% crit.

 

Voxx

And you trade the Sword Spec for that 4% crit. Not to mention that you're a human, and gain another 3 expertise (maybe not needed but worth mentioning for future reference). Pardon me for not jumping the bandwagon that crit is the best stat ever because it affects Deep Wounds, but the fact that it affects Deep Wounds and Deep Wounds does substantial damage doesn't mean that 5% crit and crit damage is going to jump weapons that aren't very close to best in slot to being best in slot.

Apolyon still has 8.3 dps over Felspine, that translates to roughly 116 AP, then has an additional 6 AP over Felspine. You get about 3.92 crit from Felspine (2 sockets and weapon stats) as well as 21 haste and 5% crit damage.

So
Apolyon: 122 AP, 5% extra attack, 3 expertise
Felspine: 3.92 crit, 21 haste, 5% crit damage

Considering that Sword Spec can be compared pretty closely in terms of dps gain to the full Axe Spec gain, I'd be inclined to say Apolyon is still better than Felspine.

The other thing I'm really not understanding is why people seem to insist that keeping Deep Wounds "rolling" is going to be a huge dps increase. There's no dps loss whatsoever from having Deep Wounds fall off if you still crit in bursts. Critting 6 times in 6 seconds and then no crits for 12 seconds and Critting 1 time every 3 seconds are going to yield the exact same dps in terms of Deep Wounds, the only difference is that Deep Wounds maintains a steadier, lower tick in the latter of the two. Consistency for Deep Wounds ticks has almost no benefit whatosever. The only reason Axe Spec's 5% crit has an effect on Deep Wounds damage is because you're critting MORE, not more OFTEN.

Actually, the 5% crit from Axe Spec is going to make Deep Wounds go from (using Sepulture's Deep Wounds numbers) go from 819638 to 860619.9, a difference of 40981.9 damage. A difference of 24.2 dps (judging from his total damage done / his dps you can tell he was dps'ing for about 1693 seconds). 24.2 dps is nice, but it's not groundbreaking.

 

Boorach

I took the "rolling" statement to mean the tick damage continued even if another crit occurred during the deep wounds duration therefore stacking the damage rather than to having a continuous stream of deep wounds ticks as opposed to a burst of overlapping damage followed by a dry spell.

How has the recent change to the TG hit penalty affected DPS and rage accumulation? (RL is keeping my WoW time to a minimum atm so no PTR or Beta for me!!)

 

Borodin

Well of course 3% less miss means more DPS from specials. No additional rage income though as that comes from white damage done or damage taken.

Of course with 3% more yellows landing you will waste less rage on missed specials...

Probably it's a net 2% damage increase or so given the proportion of damage which comes from yellows. That's more than a normal talent-point's worth of extra damage (they are usually worth 1 to 1.5% DPS increase says Blizzard).

 

Shha

For me its more like i can reallocate 47 hit to other stats. Due to not having to use heroic gems (with less itemization), and ability to use 2x JC crit gem it tuns out to be a nice 24 crit and 28 "stat" increase (stat being str or crit whichever i like more). So in fact its close to 2.5% crit.

 

hellord

The reason why crit is good is that for every crit you do add 48% weapon damage.
Consider a hit that is 1 Weapon Damage (normal hit, a WW, OP non crit) and a crit with no DWounds will do 2.20WD.
With axe spec you get 2.25WD and with DW you get an extra 0.48.
It's not about rolling, is about the differences between now and patch 3.0:
LIVE: a crit will give you 2.20 and restart DW on last crit, refreshing it but wasting all the damage left from previous, so you need a crit every 12 seconds to make DW maximize its dps
PATCH 3.0: every crit will pay (2.20+0.48)WD so you have no "wasted" DW damage.

The difference in AP is compensated by crit much more than on live.
Sword is not THAT bad but is not superior spec like it has been.
Apolyon for an arms isn't a no brainer cause you loose 5% crit from spec to gain AP, maybe a fury can use it better.
Apolyon is still best weapon in TBC, but if you are not a human or you capped expertise it's not so MUCH better.

ArP Whore

 

Voxx

I wasn't saying crit is a bad stat, I'm just a little frustrated at the seemingly endless amount of people that say crit is so much better because it keeps Deep Wounds rolling. The rolling feature of Deep Wounds makes it useful, it doesn't mean that the longer you can keep the buff from falling off the better it is. Which is what seems to have been implied over the last couple of pages of discussion.

Axe "proc": (2.25 + 0.48) WD 2.73 WD on Average Axe Proc
Sword "proc": 2.0 WD + ((2.20 + 0.48) WD * 0.4) = 3.072 WD on Average Sword Proc

An average extra attack from Sword Spec is still worth more dps than an average "extra" crit from an Axe.

Axe's 5% crit damage applies to all attacks though, which is a benefit, but a Sword proc can come from a glancing attack while a glancing attack can't crit.

I'm not so sure that Axe spec really is the superior choice. It seems to me that they're very close, with Sword still being slightly better. One of the deciding factors about Sword Spec vs Axe Spec as they used to be was that Sword Spec could also crit on the extra attack, yielding (essentially) another extra attack. The fact that Deep Wounds mechanics have been changed so that it factors into how useful crit is makes crit better vs other stats like Attack Power or Strength, but in terms of Sword vs Axe it makes very little difference because the 5% proc from Sword spec has a chance to crit and gain the exact same benefit from Deep Wounds that Axe Spec does.

I realize my wording is perhaps not the best but I'm rushing to finish this post between classes. If we just wanted to model the damage gained from Sword Spec vs Axe Spec without including rage generation then you get something like this:

Over 100,000 damage done with a 40% base crit (45% with Axe Spec)

Axe: (100,000 * 0.45) * (2.20 + 0.05 + 0.48) = 122,850 damage
Sword: ((100,000 * 0.40) * (2.20 + 0.48)) + (100,000 * (0.478 * (2.0 * 0.4 * 0.48))) = 125,555.2 damage

Unless my math is wrong (which it very much could be because of my rush) Sword Spec still comes out on top and that's including the reduced effectiveness from the internal cooldown it's had placed on it (a couple pages back the internal cooldown's effect was modeled).

 

Gern

How are most protection warriors spec'ing for the next month? Something like this, Or am I missing something?

 

Darian_TruBlade

I'm fairly certain that Warriors retain some fraction of the rage cost of a missed special. Due to the cooldowns on our abilities this equates to a reduction in rage consumption whenever we miss.

"A man's IQ, yearly income, sexual prowess, ingenuity, physical appearance and generally every other aspect of his character can be condensed down to four digits: his Arena rating." - Zechsy [70 Rogue - Skullcrusher (EU) - 10/23/2007]

 

Tphirey

I think most of the consensus is to drop 3 points from Shield Spec, put 1 more point into Incite then you have 2 points to put somewhere like cruelty, imp charge, etc.

 

Zegai

@Vox: you have a 0.478 that should be a 0.0478 in the sword spec calculation, no?

Using a very rough method, considering sword procs as yellow hits and 50% yellow/50% white attacks that deal exactly the same damage:

0.40 crit
1000 dmg/hit
500 white hits, 500 yellow hits

sword:
crit modifier:
2.51 white (deep wounds + relentless)
2.71 yellow (deep wounds + relentless + impale)

5% procs = 50 extra yellow hits
at 0.40 crit:
white:
1000*(500*0.60+500*0.4*2.51) = 802.000 white dmg
yellow:
1000*(550*0.60+550*0.4*2.71) = 926.200 yellow dmg

total dmg = 1.728.200

axe:
crit modifier:
2.56 white
2.76 yellow

at 0.45 crit:
white:
1000*(500*0.55+500*0.45*2.56) = 851.000 white dmg
1000*(500*0.55+500*0.45*2.76) = 896.000 yellow dmg

total dmg = 1.747.000

Very slight difference, not considering the sword spec cooldown nor if it is a white or yellow attack effectively.

 

Alexplayswow

While it is a consensus to drop SS, it is almost a consensus incite isn't worth the points either. Same philosophy goes for cruelty. You don't need crit as Prot in WOTLK. You generate so much threat/rage without it it's really just a secondary thought now.

And who would want to level as Prot? Once fury gets fixed and Arms gets a little buff here and there, you'll be sailing in either of those rather than Prot.

 

Eyegore

From what I hear threat, at least single target, is essentially a non-issue on the beta, so I personally am planning to keep shield spec and drop incite entirely putting those points instead into cruelty. If you want to try to push your dps while tanking that may not be the way to go, but if you have the rage to be spamming heroics then threat sounds like it will be the last thing you will need to be worried about. Cruelty buffs the abilities you will be using in a rage starved situation as well however, at which point threat may in fact be a concern. Other than that the referenced spec looks about like what I plan to try first when the patch hits.


Also about deep wounds "rolling": I gather the term has been borrowed from the behavior of ignite, now that if behaves the same. But ignite rolling refers specifically to situations whereby a new crit happening at the exact right time while an ignite is on the target causes EXTRA ignite damage to occur, not merely the expected carrying over of the damage currently pending on the present dot into the new one. If rolling is going to be used to describe the expected behavior of deep wounds rather than a bug that can result in extra damage (which I have not heard anything about deep wounds inheriting from ignite) we may be setting ourselves up for some confusion and repeated clarifications in future. Just FYI.

 

hellord

@ Voxx
I can't ensure you my math is right, but I took a different approach.
Instead of calculating damage I made a "simuation" of a ~6 minutes fight

100 white hits
40 slams
60 MS
30 OP (probably generous)
6 Bladestorm (total 42 hits)
50 executes

I suppose Impale and DW and 40% crit from gear/cruelty/eventual buffs. This is calculated with level 70 values, but I have no evidence it should change at any level.

I tried to split the static damage component of slam and MS so they won't affect WD (even if MS has a bonus applied to the WD part aswell)

Axe spec
[MS](60*220)+60WD = 13200*0.55+13200*0.45*2.73 = 23476+60WD
[Slam](40*140)+40WD = 5600*0.55+5600*0.45*2.73 = 9959+40WD

Then I added 30 OP, 100 white and 42 BS as WD (30+100+42+40+60)WD = 272WD

23476+9959 = 33435 (static bonus)

(272*0.55)WD + (272*0.45*2.73)WD = (149.6+334.152)WD
33435 + 483.752WD


Sword Spec
[MS](60*220) = 13200*0.6+13200*0.4*2.68 = 22070
[Slam](40*140) = 5600*0.6+5600*0.4*2.68 = 9363

I took into account execute hits, so we have 322 hits capable of proccing an additional WD
322*0.05 = 16.1 + 272 = 288WD

22070 + 9363 = 31433 (static bonus)

(288*0.6)WD + (288*0.4*2.68)WD = (172.8+308.736)WD
31433 + 481.536WD

In this math I am also excluding that Execute will get aswell +5% crit and 5% crit damage bonus, but even not counting it I see Axe being superior as spec by ~6% on the special bonus (MS+Slam static bonus) and by ~0.5% on the weapon damage.
In TBC swords have been much better than axes if you compare end game (Cat's vs soul cleaver and Apolyon vs BoH or Felspine) so even after patch swords can probably make up the difference between specs.
But once you can have a sword and an axe of the same ilvl it seems that axe will win, and nobody would deny that crit gives us some other benefits over damage and DW: Trauma, BF and WC uptime.

Mace is a bit more complicated to calculate since it depends on armor debuffs and ArP equipped, but it is probably inferior to both axe and swords.

ArP Whore

 

Fruffy

I think your math is a little off, you're method does not consider that each of those occurrences can happen several different ways. Assuming there are 6 attacks in any 6-second time period immediately following a sword spec proc, the math can be done to determine the probability that exactly one of those attacks would have procced sword spec using a binomial probability--you can then do the same calculation for 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 attacks to proc. Then we need to determine what the probability is that each of these events occurs immediately AFTER a sword spec proc by multiplying buy 0.05, then weight each event by the number of procs you would have clobbered and add them up.

1 proc: .232 * .05 = .0116.....0116*1 = .0116
2 proc: .031 * .05 = .002.......002*2 = .004
3 proc: .002 * .05 = .0001.....0001*3 = .0003
4, 5, 6 proc: too small to bother

Add them up and on average you lose 1.6% of sword spec procs.

I'm pretty sure this math is correct, but not 100% certain.

 

Alexplayswow

IMO, the most efficient prot build for raiding and dailies would be: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warr...00000000000000

 

Voxx

Thanks for pointing out the error in my Sword Spec calculation Zegai. Now that I've taken another look at it it seems that the rough calculations that I've been making can swing in the favor of either spec rather easily and if you really want to take a definitive approach you'd have to do very extensive modeling and take into account things like increased proc chances, ratios of white to yellow damage, Flurry uptime etc.

Considering how close the two specs seem I'm going to go ahead and assume that the deciding factor is always going to be whichever item has the better stats. Apolyon vs Felspine for example. If you really wanted to determine which spec was 100% the best in an otherwise equal situation, the napkin maths that I've been doing (and I assume most others have as well) just isn't accurate enough.

If I can get interested enough in finding out the answer I might do some extensive modeling over the weekend.

 

suffer

Is there some information in this thread about TG spec leveling from 70-80? I've been trying to determine what sort of +hit and +expertise is going to be most effective as I make the trek to 80. I've been through a lot of pages so far and most posts are about the amounts you need at the level cap....or so it appears anyway.

Thanks in advance.

 

Fruffy

Regarding Axe spec Vs. Sword Spec.

My understanding is that DW ignores armor just like other bleeds...has anyone taken this effect into consideration yet when comparing the two specs?

Another item I haven't had a chance to think about yet is the two-roll system and how it affects the relative value of crit, meaning if you're not hit/expertise capped, crit has a somewhat diminished value, correct?

 

Soloman

I've been wondering if anyone has tested the threat of a 37+/X/12+ build yet.

Basically it's arms build with at least Unrelenting assault.


The current form of Unrelenting assault allows revenge to be used up to 3 times per dodge/parry/block.

Meaning your rotation could be either 4x revenge (and if you use the revenge glyph for the free Heroics you'd have unlimited heroic strikes) or SS, 3x Revenge.

Was testing it a bit on the PTR and lemme tell ya it felt pretty strong. Just wondering if prot would currently beat it or if it may in fact be a higher TPS spec.


Ofc this was orginally designed as a DPS spec with some OT overtones so I'm sure someone could design a more optimal MT spec out of it if they were determined. (dropping some arms points for more prot etc.)

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

for example picking up imp revenge, last stand and shield mastery.

It's a thought tho for those who hate respeccing.

 

Boorach

Once we hit lvl80 and have TG with a weapon mastery (axe or sword depending on what we have) how important will it be to ensure we have that weapon type in both hands? For example, we have an epic axe and an epic sword of similar levels (say 203dps) and another axe around 185dps. Would we be better off using the inferior axe in the OH or sticking with the sword?

 

levk

You can't have TG and a weapon spec, only 2h spec.

 

Boorach

Ah yes, my mistake!!