Windwalker (DPS): a flurry of tender fisting. - Page 2

Yörgle · 04/04/12, 12:13 PM

Thanks, done !
We can see that DW and 2H are pretty similar.

Tiger Fury is NYI, though, so I think it'd be to early to draw any conclusion.

• Hamlet · 04/04/12, 12:30 PM

Here's how I would model Tiger Strikes:

On a given melee swing, that swing will benefit from TS if any of the prior 4 swings procced it. If the proc rate is a constant 10%, that chance is simply (1 - 0.9^4) = 34.4%. Add that many extra auto-attacks and scale down average swing time correspondingly. (Might have to test the properties of the extra swings later and adjust accordingly, i.e. seeing what all they can proc).

That should be a solid model for 2H. DW is tricker--I'll try getting into it more later--but the concept should apply.

Draugdae · 04/04/12, 4:52 PM

Another monk and I were looking at parses on a target dummy using comparable ilevel weapons (I believe he was using ilevel 16 white weapons). He also removed all gear, so base stats with no hit rating. The two ~5 minute logs (1 DW, 1 2H) both had very similar Tiger Strikes uptimes.

2H: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

DW: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

I haven't had a chance to run my own logs yet or to really dissect these much further than confirming the similar damage between special attacks and the expected difference in white damage (with DW > 2H).

Ubergeek248 · 04/06/12, 12:24 AM

I do agree that the spec feels unfinished, but if the monk were to go live as it stands right now, I think this thread would be missing an important point.

Namely, the tiger statue buff lasts 6 seconds with 2 charges per statue. A 15% buff to 2 players for 12 seconds is probably worth the ~1.7 second cast time if all you're missing is auto attacks. So assuming you've got someone in your raid capaple of clicking the statue every 6 seconds ad nauseum, the proper rotation depends on buying yourself time to recast your tiger every twelve seconds without capping energy (or chi during the subsequent energy dump).

With that said, this will probably not be how it works live. You'd be buffing your best DPS by a straight 15% the entire fight....that's possible currently with 5 rogues and a lot of coordination, but 1 monk doing that would almost certainly be too good. I believe there is room here for something interesting, however. Maybe 5% with 15 second duration would be more reasonable, not to mention less ridiculous to keep up.

Kavoc · 04/06/12, 2:12 PM

From the premades weapons given to us, I think it is safe to assume they will use slow/slow for DW. I'm not big on the numbers, but it might benefit if somebody gets their hands on another combo for weapon speeds to rule out another being better?

While they use energy, my main is a DK and I find it to be quite a lot alike. I tried test dummy with mastery>haste and found the mastery procs up quite a bit and usually both popping at the same time.

It may be due to my dk history but I didn't seem to find it like a rogue much. I found myself spending chi more than energy in a sense that I was having so many procs that I was more trying to keep energy from capping while using my chi at the same time. This rarely caused any downtime. I'll try to get some WoL up at some point this weekend. Ill be going for haste>mastery tonight and see how it goes.

Clárissa · 04/06/12, 3:03 PM

Can OH weapon attacks proc Tiger's Strikes or is it purely MH only? Nothing has really been said on this question, and I think it's an important one.

nextormento · 04/06/12, 3:28 PM

It all boils down to having a double resource system: rogues spend 'bar-resources' to gain 'round-resources' while death knights spend 'round-resources' to gain 'bar-resources'; however, regardless of what you spend on what, both rogues and death knights (and monks in the future) design their cycles around the expenditure of 'round-resources' while avoiding capping on the 'bar-resource' through 'energy management' or 'runic dumps'. There's one thing that puts monks closer to rogues than to death knights though: a dk can keep pushing buttons without ever using runic power (admitedly nerfing their damage to the ground), whereras rogues (and monks) need to perform energy moves to keep doing stuff.

After all, historicaly, death knights have been compared to rogues too, so I found it appropriate to go back to basics (not to mention that, while I've played every melee spec, I main a rogue). I'm fully confident that monks have their own thing going on, and will achieve a different feeling than that of the older classes.

On another unrelated topic, I've updated the OP to the next build. I thought about using dashed-out text or colours to denote changes; however, changes and bits of info come in way too fast for it to make sense, so I'll be noting in the 'change log' the most interersting or discussion worthy topics. For instance, I find midly interesting the new dot on Blackout Kick which may be a pvp nerf on burst but also adds a tiny little bit of depth to the cycle; the +damage on Rising Sun Kick is more of a no-brainer debuff though. We got a new talent (suposedly for the lvl30 tier) that offers some of the intricacies we're used to see in other classes, and opens some questions: can the Chi Spheres be used by other monks? can they be scattered around the room so that when burst is needed the monk can run around and regain full chi?. Note that devs added some notes (in the shape of a spell) that states that the windwalker cycle is a work in progress.

Originally Posted by Clárissa

Can OH weapon attacks proc Tiger's Strikes or is it purely MH only? Nothing has really been said on this question, and I think it's an important one.

From the logs posted above, and the expectancies we have on its uptime, yes it can proc from either hand. Note that the DW log actually points to two different spell IDs though. I can think of a couple reasons why that might be: it could be that the proc from each hand only benefits that hand; however, that doesn't seem to be the case so, at the moment, I'm not sure why are there two different spells.

Hidden · 04/06/12, 6:21 PM

Originally Posted by Yörgle

Regarding weapon choice, there are only two factors that might, in my opinion, make us chose one over the other (2H vs DW) : the stats and the way auto-attacks hit due to Tiger Strikes and Way of the Monk.

The stats will be presumably in favor of the 2H.
About the auto-attack, I gave a shot at making a spreadsheet to see the DPS of a 2H and two 1H at level 85.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...WlPbmtmQnlkS0E

For the moment, it has several flaws but I hope to solve them soon :
• no expertise taken in account (basically, the attacks either miss or land, due to the "Hit" setting ; no dodge and parry)
• no glances
• Tiger Fury not simulated as I have some difficulty to formalize an average impact of this spell.

Don't hesitate to comment it, point out any mistake or help me about the flaws mentionned above.
... And keep in mind this is my first SS.

(Also, sorry if my english isn't perfect. ^^ I tried my best.)

To be honest that spreadsheet is fairly useless if you don't take into account AP at all since DW scales better with AP than 2h does.
I cannot really check if those are the exact values in MoP right now but I'll just use the following values (remember: some of these changed in MoP) from the top of my head:
Miss: 7.5%
Dodge: 7.5%
Glancings: 24% of doing only 75% damage
DW Pentalty: 19% Miss
OH damage: 50%
Single Roll

Thus in non-edge cases you get the following formulae for auto-attack DPS:
2h: (WDPS+AP/14)*0.24*0.75+(WDPS+AP/14)*max((0.61+min(0.075,Hit)+min(0.075,Exp)-Crit),0)+2*(WDPS+AP/14)*min(Crit,0.61+min(0.075,Hit)+min(0.075,Hit))
1h: (WDPS+AP/14)*0.24*0.75*1.5+(WDPS+AP/14)*max((0.42+min(0.265,Hit)+min(0.075,Exp)-Crit),0)*1.5+2*(WDPS+AP/14)*min(Crit,0.42+min(0.265,Hit)+min(0.075,Exp))*1.5

Since you can already see there's a lot of variables in there I'll also create a spreadsheet on it. I'm going to edit it in as soon as I'm finished.

Edit:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...zdXRfeHc#gid=0

Doesn't include Tiger Strikes yet since such procs usually require circular calculations and an inclusion of bug/latency effect estimation which we simply don't have so far.
Since hit would be the only deciding factor on its % damage increase here (assuming misses cannot proc it), you're probably best off simply simulating its effect for different hit values and including those results in the spreadsheet then.

Doesn't include the 40% damage/attack speed bonuses either since they currently equal each other when it comes to overall DPS so the relative results would be equal no matter if you included them or not. I'll keep it like that for as long as that's the case since it allows the spreadsheet to stay class-independant to some degree.

By the way, the values which are in the spreadsheet baseline are roughly those of a full BiS Rogue on live servers excluding any Rogue-specific bonuses when going for haste mainly. Weapon DPS used are those of Madness HC on MoP beta server right now.

However, as you can clearly see, unless Tiger Strikes has a significant effect on weapon type balance (unlikely) or character screen stats are really low compared to your weapon DPS, you'll usually be better off DWing as it has always been in the past for classes who could do either. If you compare 2h and DW scaling, 2h benefits more from upgrading your weapon DPS while DW benefits more from upgrading any of your stats.

Hothgor · 04/07/12, 12:42 AM

Some interesting changes of note not listed on MMO Champ patch notes:

Abilities:

Blackout Kick does less damage than Tiger strike to go along with its reduction in Chi cost. It can be used regardless of health, and has no cooldown.
Rising Sun Kick no longer has a 30% chance to award an extra attack, now increases damage take by all enemies within 8 yards by 10% for YOUR abilities.
Charging Ox Wave has a 1 minute cooldown.
Jab now awards TWO Chi instead of one. Still costs 40 energy.

Talents:

Celerity reduces the cooldown on roll and Chi Torpedo by 5 seconds.
Momentum increases your movement speed by 25%, stacks twice. (note, says 30% on tooltip, buff is actually 25%)
Power Strikes: Tier 2, Jab awards 1 extra Chi, 15 second cooldown. (note, 3 chi per jab)

Hidden · 04/07/12, 1:30 AM

What I'm seeing regarding abilities right now:
First off, damage still doesn't seem to be dependant on weapon type (same ability for DW and 2h for all abilities).
Abilities also have some varying damage ranges so I'll just use the average of what I observed.

Chi Generators
Jab/Club/etc.: ~60% of AP as damage, generates 2 Chi, costs 40 Energy

Chi Spenders
Rising Sun Kick: ~240% of AP as (single target) damage, increases damage taken by your abilities in an AoE around you by 10% for 15 sec., 8 sec. cooldown, costs 2 Chi
Tiger Palm: ~120% of AP as damage, does ~50% more damage against targets >50%, costs 1 Chi
Blackout Kick: ~120% of AP as damage, does 3 ticks with ~24% of AP as damage over 8 sec. against targets <50%, costs 1 Chi
Spinning Crane Kick: ~180% of AP as AoE damage over 3 seconds, costs 1 Chi
Fists of Fury: ~700% of AP as frontal AoE damage over 4 seconds, disables auto attack while channeling, 45 sec. cooldown, costs 3 Chi

Some napkin maths based on these values assuming 20% (times two different procs) proc chance for mastery and an average of 150% AP as damage per mastery proc and no haste:
Fists of Fury
Jabs required: 1.5
Mastery procs: 0.6
> Time spent on cycle: 4+1.5+0.6=6.1 seconds
> Energy balance of cycle: 10/second-60/6.1 seconds= +0.164/second => Energy-positive
% of AP as DPS: 700%+1.5*60%+0.6*150%=880%/6.1 seconds=144.26% of AP as DPS MINUS 65.6% of auto-attack DPS

Rising Sun Kick
Jabs required: 1
Mastery procs: 0.4
> Time spent on cycle: 2.4 seconds
> Energy balance of cycle: 10-40/2.4= -6.67/second => Energy-negative
% of AP as DPS: 360%/2.4 seconds=150%
% of AP as DPS accounting for Energy: 360%/4 seconds=90%

Tiger Palm (>50%)
Jabs required: 0.5
Mastery procs: 0.2
> Time spent on cycle: 1.5 seconds
> Energy balance of cycle: 10-20/1.7=-1.765/second => Energy-negative
% of AP as DPS: 240%/1.7 seconds => 141.18%
% of AP as DPS accounting for Energy: 240%/2 seconds=120%

Blackout Kick
Jabs required: 0.5
Mastery procs: 0.2
> Time spent on cycle: 1.5 seconds
> Energy balance of cycle: 10-20/1.7=-1.765/second => Energy-negative
% of AP as DPS: 180(up to 252)%/1.7 seconds => 105.88(up to 148.24)%
% of AP as DPS accounting for Energy: 180(up to 252)%/2 seconds=90(up to 126)%

Going by that the optimal priority will most likely look like this:
Only use Fists of Fury for AoE (a 20% ability DPS increase will most likely not make up for a loss of 65.6% of auto attack DPS during that time). Use Spinning Crane Kick for AoE whenever Fists of Fury is on cooldown - its 60%/second while being Energy neutral is way too low to ever use it single target.
For single target only keep the Rising Sun Kick debuff up in normal phases and keep it on cooldown in high Energy regen phases (e.g. during Bloodlust or Energizing Brew) or when at high haste/mastery levels.
Otherwise simply use Jab + Tiger Palm + any mastery procs >50% and Jab + Blackout Kick + any mastery procs <50%.

While there are less GCD gaps now (and at high haste and mastery levels you're actually GCD capped), the rotation still doesn't seem to be any complex yet.

nextormento · 04/07/12, 10:56 AM

In Tiger Palm, the %AP per strike you're taking is 240%. Wouldn't it be 120+50+.5*60+.2*1.5=230%?

I think the '% of AP as DPS accounting for Energy' would be more intuitive if you called it 'damage per energy' or '% of AP per energy'. In any case, for Blackout Kick you noted 240% as the non-execute damage: it should be 180%.

As for the analysis, Palm/Blackout are more energy efficient, but Blackout Kick won't reach full efficiency if overwriting the dot (under 50%); since it falls back to the same 90% of Rising Sun, using Rising Sun Kick on cooldown strikes me as a perfectly reasonable move under the 50%hp mark.

I must add that baking the damage of Jab and the mastery procs into the finishers is somewhat strange (albeit interesting); I personaly don't think a combat cycle can be segregated in multiple units (or cycles) in this manner: at any point that you are offered the choice to fire a finisher expending chi, the damage from Jab is already past and the mastery procs will need to be consumed regardless of your finisher of choice. That is: once you need to decide to spend chi on Palm or Rising Sun, you'll need to pick the highest damage per chi move, not the most energy efficient one, because that potential efficiency is already gone.

Hidden · 04/08/12, 5:34 AM

Originally Posted by nextormento

In Tiger Palm, the %AP per strike you're taking is 240%. Wouldn't it be 120+50+.5*60+.2*1.5=230%?

I think the '% of AP as DPS accounting for Energy' would be more intuitive if you called it 'damage per energy' or '% of AP per energy'. In any case, for Blackout Kick you noted 240% as the non-execute damage: it should be 180%.

As for the analysis, Palm/Blackout are more energy efficient, but Blackout Kick won't reach full efficiency if overwriting the dot (under 50%); since it falls back to the same 90% of Rising Sun, using Rising Sun Kick on cooldown strikes me as a perfectly reasonable move under the 50%hp mark.

I must add that baking the damage of Jab and the mastery procs into the finishers is somewhat strange (albeit interesting); I personaly don't think a combat cycle can be segregated in multiple units (or cycles) in this manner: at any point that you are offered the choice to fire a finisher expending chi, the damage from Jab is already past and the mastery procs will need to be consumed regardless of your finisher of choice. That is: once you need to decide to spend chi on Palm or Rising Sun, you'll need to pick the highest damage per chi move, not the most energy efficient one, because that potential efficiency is already gone.

Tiger Palm, according to my tests, does roughly +50% damage at >50% HP. So that's 60% of AP (since 60% is 50% of 120%) extra damage. Thus 180% + 30% + 30% = 240% is correct.

I fixed the small typo for Blackout Kick but it's not really damage per energy. It's the DPS you do with that cycle if you account for the limited energy, e.g. a cycle that takes 4 seconds but costs 60 energy is only doable every 6 seconds (with 2 free GCDs) if you account for energy. So that's basically the relevant stat as long as you have no increased energy regeneration.

Using RSK on cooldown doesn't make any sense even below 50% as long as you're not GCD capped. Blackout Kick is still equal DPS at worst and refreshing that DoT provides a DPS benefit in case you're moving away from that target through fight mechanics.

Lastly, my analysis includes all factors you want to put into the decision of what finisher you want to use. If a finisher is the most energy efficient one as you put it, it's also the most Chi efficient one since Chi has a fixed Energy cost. However my analysis also gives some data on highest burst DPS, potential higher DPS cycles once you have more energy regeneration and overall GCD usage (and thus gaps in your rotation) depending on which finishers you're using at what priority level.

Edit:
Remember, however, my values are a) only the current beta values and Blizzard is apparently still working on the rotation and b) somewhat rough since I don't know the exact ability scaling yet - it's fairly hard to determine as long as tooltips are completely off and abilities have fairly large damage ranges.

nextormento · 04/11/12, 6:24 AM

With build 15589 we are getting very few changes: double chi gains from Jab rolled into Muscle Memory, the dot from Blackout has been reduced to 6'' and the tiger statues no longer have the on-click effect. On the flip side, we were given the damage formulae that were missing. Interestingly, Jab, Blackout Kick and Fists of Fury are based off both weapons. Also, the chance to proc combo breaker has SP on it, which is unexpected and possibly a bug/typo.

note: for those not familiarized with the variables that we see in the mmo-ch database, 'MWB' and 'mwb' are the higher and lower-end damage of the main-hand weapon, ('OWB' and 'owb' are those of the offhand), while 'MWS' and 'OWS' are the weapon speeds.

Slashgordon · 04/11/12, 7:12 AM

One thing I have noticed is that White Tiger Statue's Effigy procs' damage is calculated based on your spellpower. I am fairly sure this is a bug as, well we have no spellpower. In addition has anyone done any real testing to see whether we are infact getting increased energy regeneration from haste? The tooltip on my character sheet doesn't mention anything about haste regen and it doesn't feel a whole lot different to me. Not quite sure whether this is simply an oversight on the character sheet, a proper bug or whether we aren't meant to gain increase energy regen from haste. (Highly unlikely, all the other energy users do) As it is currently haste seems like an exceptionally unattractive stat though I am sure (hope!) that this will change over the course of beta.

*edit*
Just did some tests and no, we are not getting a bonus to energy regen from haste currently, have submitted a bug report.

Draugdae · 04/11/12, 9:22 AM

Originally Posted by Slashgordon

One thing I have noticed is that White Tiger Statue's Effigy procs' damage is calculated based on your spellpower. I am fairly sure this is a bug as, well we have no spellpower. In addition has anyone done any real testing to see whether we are infact getting increased energy regeneration from haste? The tooltip on my character sheet doesn't mention anything about haste regen and it doesn't feel a whole lot different to me. Not quite sure whether this is simply an oversight on the character sheet, a proper bug or whether we aren't meant to gain increase energy regen from haste. (Highly unlikely, all the other energy users do) As it is currently haste seems like an exceptionally unattractive stat though I am sure (hope!) that this will change over the course of beta.

*edit*
Just did some tests and no, we are not getting a bonus to energy regen from haste currently, have submitted a bug report.

I did testing on 4/10/12 and was getting bonus energy from haste, compare the following two logs:

With haste gear: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
With no haste: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

In both cases I started with 100 energy and spammed jab for about 440 seconds using no other abilities. Notably, in both cases you would expect around 110-112 jabs. With haste I was able to get 117, which would be impossible without haste contributing to energy regen.