Krazen

I'm curious as to where the 'gem armor pen until softcap' methodology came from, because it doesn't seem to be backed up by the spreadsheet.

The World of Warcraft Armory

I've tried out several combinations of gear (mostly excluding 258 items) very close to the 788 armor pen softcap. Regardless of what set I use, I never get a SEP of over 1.01 or so, and I could only get over 1 by using one of the strength trinkets.

Is there some additional rationale outside of the spreadsheet math?

 

suffer

Your forgetting that UW procs on white hits only. Cleave is not a white hit.

 

Moozhe

You're missing his point. When you are spamming Cleave, you are reducing the number of white hits, not getting any rage from the Heroic Strike Glyph, and you spend a lot of rage on each Cleave. You will still land offhand hits while Cleave spamming, but depending on your Hit Rating and RNG you may not generate enough rage to keep spamming Cleave. That's where Unbridled Wrath comes in handy.

That is why is spec into UW and Improved Berserker Rage. Both keep my Cleaves going on fights like Twin Valkyrs and Anub'arak.

 

Shha

I dont think he missed any point. The original question was about UW vs AM - and if you dont assume that cleave procs UW it hardly even makes sense.

AM = 1 rage/3 sec
UW = 1 rage/hit. If you assume only OH hits thats ~1 rage/2.5 sec - for FIVE points. thats 1 rage/12.5 sec per point - 4 times weaker then AM. Only if you assume that cleaving 3 mobs would proc it 3 times it would make sense to compare those 2.

UW is a tricky thing - it definitely is a completely useless and garbage talent - mostly because it only procs on white HITS - which means it doesnt do ANYTHING when you are rage starved due to white misses, and adds some rage when you actually are fine on it (when your hits connect). Changing it to proc from on-next-swing attacks like heroic strike/cleave , or maybe instants too, would bring it in line with other talents (still wouldnt be so amazing). However I think most of us can agree - warriors dont need buff atm - especially not on aoe fights like anub.


@ Krazen. That is obviously a good point. Most people make simple mistake about ArP - they gem for it even if it shows dps decrease initially, only because SEP *at the cap* gets over 1.0. No matter that first 5-6 gems they change to ArP drop their dps - they only look for the effect of last one.

ArP as such depends on your gear - the nerf seems to be pretty well aimed for 3.2 content (although ArP WILL pull ahead in 3.3 im sure - read below) - its very well balanced vs str. Following factors affect your ArP vs STR values:

1) Attack power. The more the better ArP gets - its pretty obvious as STR gives static increase to AP.
2) Crit. The more the worse ArP gets - mostly because deep wounds dont benefit from it. However the effect is MUCH smaller then 1).
3) The more ArP the better ArP gets

Which results in following gear effects:

1) The "better" (higher ilvl etc) your gear is, the more you get out of ArP. Better gear = more ArP (scaling positively) and more AP. it obviously has crit increase too, but the effect is much smaller. At 245 gear lvl, ArP rarely is truly ahead of str - it takes some 258 items to reach that point.

2) The more leather/mail/agility jewelry you wear, the better STR is. Agi gear increases our crit (reducing arp value), and actually DECREASES ap - even upgrading from 245 str item to 258 agility equivalent will most likely result in drop of AP.

Therefore a 245 geared warrior with few leather pieces (like the badge helmet, valkyr boots etc), will usually have ArP value significantly below 1. A 258 geared warrior (weapon especially - as weapon dps can be sort of "converted into AP , and a lot of it") with plate gear on, will benefit hugely from capping ArP. Its all relative.


Having said that - I personally dont bother about capping ArP anymore. With my gear (mostly plate, decent amount of 258 gear), ArP is above 1.0. But very very slightly. If ArP SEP is at 1.02 - you really can relax on minmaxing. It means switching like 6 20 str gems to 20 arp - would yield me a 5 dps increase... At the same time, staying below the cap lets you do some item switches (like breaking 4 piece bonus for cleave fights etc) that would raise your ArP without going over cap.

 

Moozhe

Shha:

You have to keep in mind that UW and AM are in different talent trees, and have different conditions for taking them.

You can't just drop a point from Unbridled Wrath and put it into Anger Management. And taking a point out of, say, Improved Berserker Rage, would not be worth it, since it's 10 rage every 20 seconds, or 1 rage every 2 seconds, vs 1 rage every 3 seconds.

Bottom line is, if you don't need to keep up any shouts during raids, Unbridled Wrath is the best way to spend your excess points.

 

Shha

1 rage every 2 sec vs 1 rage every 3 is a net loss of 1 rage every 6 seconds or one cleave every 2 minutes. In absolutely perfect conditions it could account to a bit more then 1 cleave over anub fight (if you count cleave as a ~70 rage move due to lost of white swing). In reality due to losing GCD to use it, you cant use berserker rage perfectly, and it almost always is occupied with some dps loss. Id take anger management over imp berserker rage in a heartbeat. Imp BR died when they changed BT/WW cds from 5/10 to 4/8 since wrath start. We simply dont have GCDs to use it anymore effectively.

IF you dont have to keep shouts on, then sure - 4 points (not 5) can be considered beneficial in UW. The ONLY reason being - there is nothing better. Even with 4 points though the impact on dps will be minimal. And situation where you cant be MORE useful with a shout is very very rare. Fight like anub? 1st DPS warrior goes with imp commanding, 2nd runs imp demo. Being able to imp demo adds for some slight damage decrease is worth way more then UW honestly (Prot warrior can spend his talents better then imp demo for this fight, and a Prot paladin cant reliably keep his debuff on ALL mobs ALL the time - we tested it - and noone really tanks adds with bears anyway).

Thats one thing. Other is - the topic was UW vs AM, and you switch it to a discussion of shouts vs UW or imp BR vs UW. If you have one extra point and a choice of spending it between UW and AM, you should clearly choose AM.

 

Lanaux

Speccing into either UW or AM is pointless at high-end gear, the amount of rage donated by each talent totals for 1% of your bar at a time, and when you can overflow your rage bar with a back to back crit from both hands the amount gained is completely negligible. Your talent points are better spent in conveniences like Booming voice so you're less likely to let a shout fall off in the heat of an encounter.

 

Moozhe

It became a discussion of 1 point in Imp. Berserker Rage vs Anger Management because you can't choose between Unbridled Wrath and Anger Management.

The different Fury specs are basically core DPS talents with no buffs/debuffs, DPS talents with Booming Voice/Commanding Presence, or DPS talents with Demoralizing Shout.

In none of those specs can you choose between Anger Management and Unbridled Wrath. The only spec that I've found you can fit a point into AM is by using a 5/5 Demo Shout spec and dropping one point from either Imp. Execute or Imp. BR, depending on which you prefer.

The problem with Anger Management is that it's on the same talent line as Deep Wounds and Impale. It is definitely not worth dropping a point in Impale for Anger Management. Therefore you can't keep your spec 18/53/0 with AM, it needs to be 19/52/0. And you can only free up a point from the deeper tiers of Fury talents.

Unbridled Wrath is for people who want to min/max their DPS in 25-mans who don't need the raid buffs/debuffs simply because they are covered elsewhere already.

 

callion

Well this is what I read on wiki:
Unbridled Wrath - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

 

Moozhe

I can back this up with this data I filtered from my combat log:

It clearly shows that Unbridled Wrath occurs 12 times, while only 6 white hits are registered. The other 6 points of rage gained are from Heroic Strikes landing.

 

Moozhe

And another snippet showing that it does, in fact, work with Cleave:

 

Nevena

Nevermind, misread

 

suicuique

@Nevena:

I disagree. Each of the points Shha made stands. While crit increases damage and as such profits ArP too, it does increase the portion of DW in total damage, which is completely unaffected by ArP. As such Crit benefits STR (which affect 100% total dmg) more than it benefits ArP (which affect total dmg - DW portion), thus devaluing ArP relative to STR.

Similarly points 1) and 3) can be argued to be true in a qualitative way.
That Blizz removes ArP has other reasons. The most obvious is simplicity. Another is scaling.

 

Krazen

Yeah, I've came to the same conclusion. I basically toyed with the spreadsheet some more.

I got ARP up to 1.1 str by using 258 plate gear and a Death's Verdict, but very few players have that kind of gearset.


In icecrown, ARP will probably get better, but you might be able to hit the ARP softcap without gemming for it, too, which is 90% of the point of these tradeoff values.

 

DarkS

Isn't needed to play with gear. I just added +100 STR (Phoney Stats) on my current gear and ArPen SEP jumped from 0.9538 to 1.06...

 

Lanaux

retracted.

 

Shha

Deep wounds IS an attack that is calculated by itself. its 48% of your "weapon damage" which in "tooltip language" means the damage on your char screen - not the actual attack damage. In other words deep wounds do 0.48*(Average weapon damage+AP/14)*Average weapon speed*multipliers (everything from 2h spec to raid % dmg increases like pally aura, mandle etc). There is no room for ArP there.

I stand corrected though about unbridled wrath. I could swear I did tests some time ago and heroic wouldnt proc it - I guess I was wrong.

 

Nevena

Ah my mistake, I see what he was saying. I thought he was suggesting ArP's value went down the more you had if you stacked crit

 

Kurg

I made the switch to IBR a month ago or so, and now I can't imagine playing without it. It is a bit tricky to fit in, but once you get the feel for it there really aren't any GCD clashes. Ive been consistently able to fit it in in conjunction with HS/cleave in between BT/WW. Though I am at the point now where I rarely have rage problems, it is very nice to be able to start every fight/pull with a full rage bar. Sure AM is passive and requires no thought, but on a rage-per-point basis, IBR beats it out with 30/point opposed to AM's 20/point. I think if one just plays around with it for a bit the GCD clashes can be avoided.

 

Machinator

My guild is going to start working on Anub 25 hard mode now and I was wondering if it would be beneficial to make a set specifically to maximize cleave since I suspect sheer dps will be a problem for us.
Some quick spreadsheet/sim work rates haste and arp quite high and hit rating lower than I would expect. However while cleaving wouldn't cleave be the highest priority on rage rather than the normal rotation aside from WW? Anyone have any tips or targets for this fight as fury?

"Information is ammunition."

 

Bereadytodie

Hit rating is lower because the adds that spawn continuously are not bosses and therefore you require less hit rating to avoid misses. A few tips would be to make sure you are positioned well to make sure that your whirlwind hits all 4 targets, if your tanks are bad at positioning the adds I've noticed whirlwind only hits 3 targets every now and then.
Basically you spam cleave and keep WW on cooldown with added bloodthirsts / slam's when you have enough rage.

 

Shha

I definitely prioritize cleave last still. Reason is simple - it costs way more rage then BT/Slam. Slam is lets say 1/3 of cleave damage (a bit more with 3.6 weapon probably but still), but its less then 1/3 cleave rage (if you count rage loss). Same with BT. Cleave is best DPS ability, but still not best DPR.

In game it will become quite obvious when you think about the possible outcome. Losing a BT to do a cleave might feel nice, but then realize you will still be low rage. If you DONT do a cleave, you get a white MH swing, which basically fills your entire rage bar and lets you not sacrifice any more skills. If you prioritize cleave you might end up losing that cleave later anyway, OR at least lose a lot more then 1 BT - maybe 2 maybe 3, and some slams. On other hand between starting with filled rage bar when adds appear, extra rage from bloodrage, you shouldnt ever have to miss more then ONE cleave to last till adds die.

 

• landsoul

I suggest having some extra haste, hit, and crit in your gear if you want to min/max on anub HM. Rage is really a bitch on that fight and it would help get you more cleave strikes at the same time as your normal rotation, which is what matters there. I think however that just using one of the HM swords in your offhand and an agi piece will be enough. ANy more probably overkill.

Visit my Youtube Channel for an increasing selection of warrior videos, including Undermanning, PvP, and LK Raids:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LandsoulWoW

 

Illuminati

On the subject of min maxing for anub: considering you always have five sunders on him whenever he isnt burrowed, would it be better to only go for 30% arpen to reach the softcap and then gem for other stats?

 

Slamfist

I'm curious to know how people have their abilities bound to keys.

I've always been an fps player, and as a result, I still use WASD (and QE) to move in WoW. Somebody in my guild called me a clicker, since I have to click each ability to use it. How much of a difference does this really make, and what are some of the most useful keybinds to have?