Tankietka

EDIT: According to Blizz comment from this thread on official forum DeepWounds double dipping has been hotfixed, so these calculations are no longer correct.

I needed a bit more precise info about how Deep Wounds behave, so I've tried to gather data and analyze it. Below you can find the outcome.

Environment:
Data was gathered on Heroic Dummy from the time period of almost 8 minutes on live server. Textual form can be found here.
No external buffs were present on target, no Battle Shout nor any other buff on me.
Build used: arms (2/2 Trauma, 3/3 Deep Wounds, 3/3 Two-Handed Weapon Specialisation, 2/2 Blood Frenzy, 5/5 Wrecking Crew)

Gear:
Saliva Corroded Pike 169.2dps, 3.6 speed
AP: 2936

Basic data:
base DeepWounds dmg (no buffs, no talents) = 0.48*3.6*(169.2+2936/14) = 654.8 = DWdmgBase
base DeepWounds tick dmg = 654.8/6 = 109.1 = DWTdmgBase

Deep Wounds should be theoretically affected by the following buffs: Trauma (*1.3), Wrecking Crew/Enrage (*1.1), Two-Handed Weapon Specialisation (*1.06), Blood Frenzy (*1.02).

Two-Handed Weapon Specialisation is always present, so

DWdmgBase*1.06 = 694.1 = DWdmg
694.1/6 = 115.7 = DWTdmg

Analysis:

Case 1
Application of first stack of DeepWounds without any buffs present.

Let's assume that all newly gained buffs are affecting DW as soon as it is applied.

115.7*1.3*1.1*1.02 = 168.8

It's too high for a real value (154), so some of these buffs were not counted in.

115.7*1.3*1.02 = 153.4

Due to truncation/rounding of results by both me and in-game 153.4 is good enough to match expected value of 154.

Hypothesis: DW is affected by Trauma generated by the same crit hit but not affected by Enrage from the same source.

Case 2
Application of DeepWounds with Trauma and Enrage already present.

Please note that DW tick of 153 is the last tick of previous Deep Wound and has no influence on next one.

Let's assume that Enrage will now affect DWdmgBase.

DWdmgEnrage = DWdmg*1.1 = 763.5
DWTdmgEnrage = 763.5/6 = 127.3 (tick value from base damage affected by Enrage)

Applying rest of buffs we have

127.3*1.3*1.02 = 168.8

It's too low for expected value (186). Seems like some buffs must have been used more than once.

Hypothesis: buffs that are "on target" (Trauma, Blood Frenzy) affects only ticks damage, while buffs that are on character (for example Enrage) can affect both base damage and tick damage.

Let's try to use Enrage also on tick damage.

127.3*1.3*1.02*1.1 = 185.7

Close enough to expected value of 186.

Why Two-Handed Weapon Specialistion does not work the same? My assumption is that it's from talent and static so is treated differently than dynamic Enrage buff.

Case 3
Case apparently identical to case 2, but with different final DW tick damage.

Last tick of 153 should not count in next DW damage (same as in case 2), so why final tick is higher than in case 2? I was puzzled very long until I tried to carry on last 153 tick to next DW even though it already "ticked".

But how it is carried on, is it added to base damage or to final tick? After several trials it seems that remaining damage value is added to final tick, but is not getting again all tick buffs (that would be too overpowered).

This is tick value without carry:
127.3*1.3*1.02*1.1 = 185.7

remaining damage: 153
remaining damage per tick: 153/6 = 25.5

25.5 + 185.7 = 211.2

Seems close, but not close enough. At this moment I realized that 153 tick is the one without Enrage, which wasn't present at the time of application of previous DW. So maybe now it should be added?

25.5*1.1 + 185.7 = 213.7

Now it's close enough.

Hypothesis: sometimes one tick of DW is carried on to next DW even if it already did it's damage. When this happens remaining damage is added to final tick value, without doubling buffs like Trauma or Blood Frenzy but if wasn't affected by Enrage it is now added.

Case 4
New DeepWounds over still ticking old one.

Basing on case 3, we get

remaining damage: 3*427 = 1281
remaining damage per tick: 1281/6 = 213.5

Tick value without carry:
127.3*1.3*1.02*1.1 = 185.7

Final tick:
213.5 + 185.7 = 399.2

Close enough to expected 400. Please note that additional tick damage from remaining damage did not get Enrage buff this time as it already has it.

Case 5
Four crits in a row, without DeepWounds tick in between - with old DW still ticking.

Similar calculations as in previous cases for each crit. All DW damage from each crit is carried to DW generated by next crit. Also we have another case of damage that already ticked being carried over.

First crit:
remaining damage = 4*153 = 612
remaining damage per tick: 612/6 = 102
final tick: 102*1.1 + 185.7 = 297.9

Second crit:
remaining damage per tick: 297.9 (all ticks from first crit are carried)
final tick: 297.9 + 185.7 = 483.6

Third crit:
remaining damage per tick: 483.6 (all ticks from second crit are carried)
final tick: 483.6 + 185.7 = 669.3

Fourth crit:
remaining damage per tick: 669.3 (all ticks from third crit are carried)
final tick: 669.3 + 185.7 = 855

Case 6
Three crits in a row. No old DW ticking.

Calculations as in case 5.

First crit:
final tick: 185.7 (base enraged DW value)

Second crit:
remaining damage per tick: 185.7 (all ticks from first crit are carried)
final tick: 185.7 + 185.7 = 371.4

We got expected tick value after second crit already. Why? Only explanation I have is because third crit was from Execute.
EDIT: As stated in this comment Execute crits generate normal DW, so behaviour from this case is currently without explanation.

Hypothesis: Execute crits proc minimal (close to 0) DeepWounds on live.

Case 7
Two crits in a row, but only one DeepWound.

You can notice that there is only one "Deep Wounds is refreshed" info. Calculations also result in final tick value of 940.8 after two crits and 755 if only one is counted.

Hypothesis: if two crits happen at around same time, one of them can be "overlooked" in DeepWounds generation.


Hypothesis summary:
1. DeepWounds is affected by Trauma generated by the same crit hit but not affected by Enrage from the same source.
2. Buffs that are "on target" (Trauma, Blood Frenzy) affects only ticks damage, while buffs that are on character (for example Enrage) can affect both base and tick damage.
3. Sometimes last tick of DeepWounds is carried on to next DW even if it did it's damage. When this happens remaining damage is added to final tick value without doubling buffs like Trauma or Blood Frenzy but if it wasn't affected by Enrage it is now added.
4. Execute crits proc minimal (close to 0) DeepWounds on live. EDIT: as stated in this comment Execute crits generate normal DW, so behaviour from case 6 is currently without explanation.
5. If two crits happen at around same time, one of them can be "overlooked" in DeepWounds generation.

Formulas:
DWTdmgBase = 0.48*(wdps+ap/14)*wspeed/6 (no buffs nor talents)
DWTdmg = DWTdmgBase*1.06 (Two-Handed Weapon Specialisation)

1. No Enrage buff when applying DeepWounds
tick damage = DWTdmg*1.3*1.02

2. Enrage buff present when applying DeepWounds
tick damage = DWTdmg*1.3*1.02*1.1*1.1 (double Enrage buff)

3. Carrying over remaining damage from previous DeepWounds
rDmg = remaining damage
a) tick damage = rDmg*1.1/6 + DWTdmg*1.3*1.02*1.1*1.1 if previous DeepWounds did not have Enrage included
b) tick damage = rDmg/6 + DWTdmg*1.3*1.02*1.1*1.1 in other cases

Final thoughts:
First of all would be nice if someone checked the above for errors :-).

Seems like Blizzard's code around DeepWounds has problems with synchronisation and/or bugs, which isn't something new or suprising.

In log with data there are also cases with [Mirror of Truth] proccing, I did not included them here as calculations are the same. The only change is higher ap in base DeepWounds damage.
Also, I did the above calculations for every DeepWounds from mentioned log. In all cases I got expected results, however it is always possible I've made some mistake which I did not notice - feel free to check.

Would be nice if someone used the above findings for Fury warrior case - to check whether DeathWish buff is similarily as Arms' Enrage used twice in calculating final DeepWounds damage. If that's the case I think we could assume that all similar buffs behave the same.

EDIT: Interesting case to check would be Arms and Fury warrior on the same target and Trauma falling off in the middle of Fury warrior's DeepWounds. That would give the answer whether Trauma is indeed calculated individually for each tick.

 

dysent

Very interesting information.

It'd be good to check - assuming hypothesis is true and execute produces minimal deep wounds - if the is same true for bloodthirst and other attacks which operate off of AP or a different fixed damage source than of weapon damage.

That might change the theoretical value of BT vs Slam in fury rotations at higher amounts of crit.

Obviously there should also be further testing to verify that execute really does produce smallish deep wounds ticks, or if this was a case of two applications occurring at same time as per your hypothesis #5.
(edit: and also whether or not this is specific to SD executes or occurs for regular executes as well)

 

Daerlan

There's some nice data here.

I'll make it a point to do some testing soon on whether Death Wish operates identically. I do know, however, that Landsoul, our recent spreadsheet author, has at least claimed that all DIMs (Damage Increasing Multipliers) -- e.g. Thaddius's Charge buff, Malygos's Spark buff, etc. -- apply doubly to Deep Wounds as a rule. I haven't followed the discussion closely enough to know how carefully this was verified, but it's borne out to be accurate in every anecdotal instance I've noticed. My inclination is that Death Wish shouldn't be an exception, since Deep Wounds is initially calculated off of Weapon Damage on the character sheet (and using Death Wish increases that value like other DIMs) and then the damage itself is apparently increased again by any DIMs when actually dealt.

I'm also cross-posting something I wrote for the Fury DPS Discussion thread that didn't receive any responses. It's a behavior I noticed in Deep Wounds when generating extremely rapid back-to-back crits. Specifically, it seemed to me that although extremely closely placed crits occasionally delay the ticks of Deep Wounds, there is still a forced tick every ~3 seconds. It doesn't directly relate to anything you've posted here insofar as I can tell, but as we're investigating the overall behavior of Deep Wounds, it may become useful later. My previous post is appended below:

P.S. I forgot to mention one further hypothesis I developed about the timing of Deep Wounds ticks that I've been planning to test: It's possible that the delay between the critical strike that triggers Deep Wounds and the re-application of the buff is directly related to the Deep Wounds ticks I saw seeping through. For example, if you crit a target every .9 seconds, and there is a 200-300 millisecond delay on the buff refresh event server-side, there would still be enough time for the ~1 second tick delay on Deep Wounds to complete, resulting in a tick of damage to occur. It may be that server or network lag is directly factoring into the timing and calculation of Deep Wounds damage when crits register within a few hundred milliseconds of each other, which speaks directly toward your concern about Deep Wounds having buggy synchronization.

 

• landsoul

Definition: All DIM's that modify the damage range of the weapon found in your character sheet also apply again to the actual damage Deep Wounds does and is called double dipping. Where a DIM is a Damage Increasing Multiplier such as Hysteria, Death Wish, Wrecking Crew, etc. A wound tick may only double dip if the DIM is present on the character on the time of the crit.

What interested me is #3. on your hypothesis. This isn't really relevant however because if you are doing your job the boss should be dead before the last tick of your DWounds occurs. So you can rule that out.

I did a couple whacks on a dummy today and I can confirm that Bloodthirst does just a hair less than it should by a few percent, but I'm not sure where the discrepancy lies. Also, Simultaneous crits produce much less than expected. I get ~185 ticks on a double crit (within 200ms) and 161 on a single crit. Seems like a syncing issue. There's not much that can be done for either of these, except the idea of having differing weapon speeds because synced weapon speeds seem to sync up under certain circumstances. Not worth gawking over yet though.

I definately think though we should investigate more the "simultaneous crits" and the bloodthirst discrepancy.

Visit my Youtube Channel for an increasing selection of warrior videos, including Undermanning, PvP, and LK Raids:
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alkis

It does double dip and GC still claims that Deep Wounds is OP without understanding this bug exists. I wrote up this post on the european forums:

World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> GC: Deep wounds bug

I am not sure of GC checks the EU forums at all. If not it would be nice if any people in the US can either link to it or just point it to GC and explain in a simple way what the bug is so that they can fix it. Once it is fixed they can come back and re-evaluate if Deep Wounds needs nerfing, buffing or be left alone.

 

Daerlan

I think the double dipping issue with DIMs is independent of the necessity of a nerf for Deep Wounds -- at least, that would be the current line from Blizzard. GC has specifically stated that the concern is not with Thaddius or Loatheb, which is mostly in reference to the effects of double dipping, even if the specific cause is not consciously in his mind.

The main issue with Deep Wounds (potentially) being overpowered has to do with the fact that it's completely unmitigated with armor -- the only warrior ability treated as such -- and thus will result in strange scaling issues down the line, which will cause problems for future balancing. That, however, is minorly offtopic for this thread, so I'll leave it alone now.

 

Tankietka

I think that Case 6 and Case 7 are two different cases. In case with Execute crit, there are 2 entries in log with "Deep Wounds is refreshed" info for two crits, so both of them were counted for DeepWounds and difference in final tick can only be because of Execute bug. In Case 7 however for two crits we have only one "Deep Wounds is refreshed" entry in log hence my conclusion that one of these crits was not registered for DeepWounds at all.

Unfortunately in Case 5 we have example that sometimes this happens not only for last ticks. In this case the expected result can only be reached if fourth tick from the first DW is carried over.

Would be nice if you could provide log in which this happens for analysis, or do the analysis yourself :-).

 

Daerlan

When I originally did the test run for this, I had another person tracking the exact timestamps. I'll re-run the test and post a quick analysis. :p

 

Jayde

I'm not sure about this, though... after all, players have quite a lot of % modifiers floating around in their own right. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant amount of the Deep Wounds 'overpoweredness' has to do with this broken mechanic. At least for Protection Warriors, regularly getting Tricks of the Trade + Enrage + 1H Spec + Ferocious Inspiration at the very least would have a notable increase to the end result of Deep Wound damage.

It could be that it needs further adjustment, but it seems risky to evaluate changing the ability without fixing the bug first.

 

hellord

I actually tested on live and Execute is doing exactly same DW as a white swing.
The issue with Execute and DW may happen with crit sequences, where an execute (or another special, don't know really) crit is ignored in the DW stack; but surely on its own Execute is able to proc regular DW ticks.

ArP Whore

 

dirtydeeds

3.0.8 is Deep Wounds nerfed or not?

Sorry for my ignorance but there were rumors of a nerf, but now I can't find any documentation of one. I'm only posting this here because these data in the OP would be irrelevant if there were a nerf.

Thanks

 

◊ Birdemani

There has been a few mentions of changes to Deep Wounds, but according to those on the PTR everything was still the same. It's possible we could see something new in 3.1 along with all the other class balance changes that patch is supposed to contain.

Relwin: Besides, the BB is not some ivory tower of WoW knowledge, it's just less stupid here than elsewhere.
DeeNogger: Not less stupid, better stupid. The BB takes stupid very seriously. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go misspell the word fire.

 

Tankietka

Thank you, I've updated opening post. Seems like now we do not have explanation for DW behaviour from case 6.

 

Rhaegal

Since I haven't seen this addressed yet - I'm 99+% certain that the Deep Wounds damage will be calculated every tick based on the presence or absence of Trauma/Mangle on the target. This behavior has been observed for druid bleeds (i.e., Rake/Rip ticks do less damage after Mangle falls off, and more again when it's reapplied, without having to reapply Rake/Rip). In fact, before 3.0.8, the initial damage of Rake wasn't modified by Mangle, so the "right" way to open up a fight was Rake -> Mangle so the DoT would get applied sooner but still tick for fully multiplied damage. Caster DoTs reacted similarly to debuffs like Curse of Elements and the pre-3.0 version of Imp Scorch (+15% fire damage).

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

germonik

It's not rumors. GC has basically stated it will be nerfed. It isn't in 3.08 (or wasn't on the PTR at any rate).

Most likely it will come with 3.1. I imagine since they already swung the nerf bat at arms (with SD) they do not have a decision on what to buff before nerfing deep wounds.

 

dysent

Did you test with SD execute, or standard ~20% execute?

The original case#6 uses SD - it's possible that there is a bug related to SD and not to execute itself if you're testing with regular executes.

Alternatively might it be a result of the execute glyph or imp execute talent?

Hard to think of what else would cause the weird DW behavior in case #6

 

alkis

We are derailing, but GC has also specifically said they know how things work because they designed them. I am wondering, did they really design Thaddius to give a +384% DIM on DW? Did they really design Malygos with 4 stacks to give a DIM in excess of 2000% on DW? If they did, then I would agree with you that it is well known, but chances are they did not.

You assume that the double dipping with DIMs on DW is well known by both the community and the developers, but I do not see enough evidence to support this. Another thing to consider is the number of new DIMs added with Wrath: WC for arms, Imp.DS for protection. On top of these you have other DIMs that were not really applicable to warriors pre-3.x. All of the buff DIMs and the mechanics of some new encounters are amplifying how strong Deep Wounds already is as a talent.

As for the fact that DW is unmitigated by armor and thus it is OP, why aren't other non-armor mitigated abilities not considered OP as well? Feral/rogues bleeds and rogue poisons for starters.

Since EU is not really well represented in the US forums, it is up to you US players to bring this to the developers attention. Worst case, they will say: thank you very much, we know about this already. Best case, deep wounds is not nerfed too much because double dipping makes it way OP. There is very little to lose here.

 

• landsoul

Even without Double dipping they say it does too much. They are aware it double dips. They'd be stupid if they didn't.

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footloop

What? This seems obvious if you already know about it, but it's still an incredibly easy thing to overlook and I don't think you should be nearly so certain that they were already aware of it. Over the course of beta the devs made a decent number of little mistakes where they stated an ability worked differently than everybody else knew it did, and that was for things that are spelled right out on tooltips and whatnot. It would not be surprising at all if they didn't realise how much benefit DW gets from damage multipliers.

That's not necessarily the only reason it's too strong, but bringing it to the public's attention and making sure the devs are aware of it is important.

 

suicuique

Why all the talk about double dipping?

Even on encounters without such issues DW accounts for 15-20% of total dmg done by the warrior.
(just beating on the boss dummy without sundering or any other external buffs results in 16% of my total dmg done by DW)
I'd reckon this could be judged OP for such a talent.
This is surely not just a Loatheb/Thaddius/Sparks issue.

 

Borodin

Well simply because double dipping exacerbates any other issues there may be with Deep Wounds.
And if Blizzard have overlooked it their assessment of the talent may be incorrect and cause them to overcompensate in any proposed nerf.

It's just common sense to start by fixing a blatant, simple bug like double dipping then re-evaluating.

 

footloop

Because even on non-gimmick fights you're going to have your 10% enrage buff, deathwish, 3% raid damage buff, possibly tricks or hysteria, and any other similar effects that I'm missing. Even removing the double dipping from the enrage buff would lower DW damage by a noticeable amount, the other effects on top of that just make it worse.

In a way this is moot, because the end result of them either nerfing the double dipping or just nerfing the overall ability while leaving double dipping intact will leave DW doing the same amount of damage either way. But it would be nice to have it fixed so that it is not ridiculously strong on any fight with a % damage multiplier.

 

alkis

It is not moot. The damage difference between warriors with and without hysteria, will be larger with double dipping than without.

 

hellord

Excluding gimmick fights, arms warriors would be severly nerfed just by fixing double dip, since wrecking crew is up 99% of the time. If they didnt fix it yet is cause they probably don't have any idea on how to increase arms dps after fixing and eventually nerfing DW and in general fury dps.

I can't see how can be so hard reworking a bit on stances (especially on battle stance) to give some buff to compensate, something like imp berserk stance only available in high tiers.
I also can't understand why warriors can't have a druid-like mechanic that automatically changes stance upon using another stance ability, thus making arms warriors able to effectively use whirlwind/pummel/intercept without having to mash a macro that swap stance AND use the ability, thing that is heavily affected by latency.

To understand how much DW will be nerfed we first need to understand how much lower they want warriors to do.
And will then fix/rebalance DW to a lower % of weapon damage (increasing the n° of ticks or ticks timing won't change the overall damage).
Putting a limit to stacks will definetly nerf the value of crit above a certain level, especially with fury specs, so I doubt they'll do anything than making DW a 2 pt talent with the same per point effect or lowering it to something like 30% WD.

I guess they'll have to buff wrecking crew AND mortal strike to make up for the difference without changing fury mechanics and this at the same time should give some boost in PvP.

If they fix it they have to compensate, if they didnt fix yet is, imo, cause they have no idea on how to buff arms nor how much fury needs nerf.

I suspect they'll just wait for 3.1 before taking any serious action in any direction.

ArP Whore

 

◊ Birdemani

Edit: (changing my original post) Just noticed this was posted in the Fury warrior thread with links showing a significant drop in damage from Deep Wounds which aligns with the following blue post.
MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Attn Blueeep Wounds Hotfix?


The changes should most likely be noted in the original post.

Relwin: Besides, the BB is not some ivory tower of WoW knowledge, it's just less stupid here than elsewhere.
DeeNogger: Not less stupid, better stupid. The BB takes stupid very seriously. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go misspell the word fire.