TankSpot - Damage Per Second Discussion

General How do Haste and Attack Power Mix?

Doebringer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:33:17 GMT

I've been leveling my warrior aggressively lately, and through learning the mechanics of how they work, I've developed a theory that Haste, instead of merely being a neutral stat, *may* be bad for Arms Warrior DPS overall. Though I do not wish to debate the benefit of haste for white swings(I understand that well enough, i think), when one mixes in the fact that Attack Power, whether as a stat on gear or derived from strength, increases 'Damage per Second', as opposed to just Damage, a negative effect can be seen on the damage of individual white swings, and subsequently, all our Damage dealing abilities(like rend, overpower, etc.)

I tried posting about this on the official WoW forums, but was met with outright disdain and elitism, and so I come here(my first post ever) to hopefully get a better answer. As I see it, there are 2 possible scenarios:

Here's my thought process with some example numbers to explain what I'm talking about:

Scenario 1:

Let's assume a weapon with speed 4.0 that deals 100-300 damage. That's 200 average damage, and 50 DPS.

Now let's assume it's equipped by a player with 1400 attack power. Every 14 attack power increases his DPS by 1, so that's +100 DPS, which on that weapon translates to a new damage range of 500-700(average 600), and a dps of 150.

With me so far?

Let's say he gets enough haste to lower his weapon swing to 3.0. The base weapon is still 100-300, so that's 66.67 DPS. The same white swings(average 200), but they come in faster, so the DPS increases.

But, this warrior has 1400 Attack power, remember? That increases his DPS by 100. So it's *actually* 166.67 DPS. But, 166.67 DPS on a weapon speed 3 weapon is an average of 500 damage per swing. That's a damage range of 400-600.

So, 400-600 speed 3.0 is in fact more DPS than 500-700 speed 4.0; BUT, and here's where I'm confused:

That would *decrease* the actual damage of his individual swings(from an average of 600 to 500), and therefore, all his 'weapon damage' based abilities, like rend, Overpower, Mortal Strike, etc. Thus *overall* he'd see a DPS decrease, though his white swings would see a DPS increase.

Scenario 2:
Same warrior. Same 1400 attack power with a 50DPS weapon, speed 4, that has a 100-300 damage range. Same amount of haste that lowers his attack speed to 3.

100-300 damage + 100DPS from AP = 500-700 Damage, with a speed of 4.0, that's 150 DPS.

Haste that reduces his attack speed to 3.0 applied AFTER the damage increase from AP, which results in the same damage of 500-700, but now hitting every 3.0 increases his DPS to 200(up from 150) from white swings, while his other damaging abilities remain unchanged. This would be the preferable scenario, but my test so far indicates that scenario 1 is how it works.

In essence, when calculating your swing damage, does the wow Engine apply Haste to your weapon speed, and THEN your attack power to your DPS, or does it apply Attack Power for your DPS, and THEN haste for your swing speed?

Warrior Fury Warrior: Bloodsurge Proc Preference?

Squirrelnut — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:27:51 GMT

I ran a normal 10m ToC last night to get a few more emblems to buy my ilvl 245 shoulders. I attempted to emulate a rotation similar to the Fury Guide recommendation:

0.0 Whirlwind
1.5 Bloodthirst
3.0 Free GCD (instant Slam if available)
4.5 WAIT 1 second
5.5 Bloodthirst
7.0
8.0 Whirlwind

However, as I look back through my log of the run I see a TON of missed Bloodsurge Slam procs (used 30 out of 92 I think).
WoL Log: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
Is that common (actually recommended?) due to giving preference to Whirlwind & Bloodthirst > Slam procs?

The other major concern is the fact that as a Fury Warrior I am frequently responsible for keeping Sunders up on targets which would hurt Bloodsurge proc use as well.

I want to improve my DPS output and besides obvious gearing upgrades which can be theorycrafted from a spreadsheet, I am interested in the less blatant but just as important ability prioritization and timing side of things.

I was hoping more experienced end-game Fury Warriors would weigh in since I have been a Prot Warrior for all of Wrath and have a lot of catching up to do now that I am stepping into a DPS role to help the guild out until Icecrown release.

EDIT: To clarify some questions,
- Is it really a DPS increase to bypass a Bloodsurge Slam proc by waiting 1 second so that you can WW or BT half a second faster?
- Does keeping Sunder up out-weigh the importance of using Bloodsurge Slam procs?

Warrior 50/21/0

zomgheals — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:31:21 GMT

Was wondering if this spec would be more efficient than getting bladestorm?

The World of Warcraft Armory Or even remove 1 out of wrecking crew so it's 4/5 and put 1 in bloodfrenzy 2/2

If not, why?

Thanks for help

Warrior Fury Warrior: Heroic Strike vs Cleave

Squirrelnut — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:53:22 GMT

I was wondering when it becomes more viable to use Cleave then Heroic Strike? Here is my nub understanding from reading the tooltips:

Heroic Strike (rank 13):

Weapon damage + 495
15 rage
On next swing hits 1 target
Glyph = +10 rage on crit

Cleave (rank 8):

Weapon damage +222 to target and +222 to another target in range (+444 total)
20 rage
On next wing hits 2 targets
Glyph = hits 3 targets (+222 x 3 so up to +666)

So just based off of those numbers it sounds like a waste of time to use Cleave unless there are 3 targets in range because of rage starvation and limited damage increase over HS

However, if utilizing a spec similar to the following: 18/53
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

You would take advantage of 3 points in Imp Cleave which increases the bonus damage done by your Cleave ability by 120%

Would that mean Cleave would result in:

1 target: +488.4
2 targets: +754.8
3 targets: +1021.2

If that is the case then speccing into Imp Cleave combined with the Cleave glyph would suggest Fury warriors should definitely replace Heroic Strike spam with Cleave spam whenever there are 2+ targets? Would rage starvation even it out making it still only ideal to spam Cleave when 3+ targets?

I am new to Fury so forgive my ignorance :D (and yes I know you only do HS or Cleave when well over 50+ rage because it isn't worth risking your normal ability rotation on a rage dump).

EDIT: Also what is the range on Cleave, 5 yards?

Warrior arms warrior wtb rotation advice.

orgg — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:35:28 GMT

i used to be a fury warrior, but now i switched to arm warrior b/c the guild need. i start to read arm warrior rotation and i need some advice.

from my research, arm warrior expert have different rotations;
rotation a:
1. rend
2. MS
3. exec
4. overpower
5. slam

rotation b:
1. rend
2. exec
3. overpower
4. MS
5. slam.

my question to all the arm warrior expert in 3.2 patch
question 1, if boss is 100% - 20%, should i use rotation a or rotation b.
question 2, if boss is less than 20%, should i use rotation a or rotation b.

can all the arm warrior exp provide a reason why they prefer to use rotation a or rotation b.

thanks

Orgg

Warrior Expertise gear problem (fury)

Liviofang — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:13:33 GMT

Okay here is my issue my main spec is Prot and my guild ask if I could do some dps when needed; that was fine by me. I had saved up dps gear from places like Htoc and other Heroics. Only problem is that I found out that fury Warr's need expertise capped. I'm not even close, QQ, what do I do? Is it wrong to gem expertise where I stand?

People say to go arms but I don't really want to. I did all the research for fury already and don't wanna go all over it again with arms, plus I like to dw2handers.

Warrior Is mace spec the new Arms

woodyman — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:50:29 GMT

sorry if this has already been covered.

But with the larger benfits of Arp now is mace spec with extra 15% arp (i think)
The new away to go on the arms tree??

Warrior Fury Speccing into Enrage - Thoughts

Tallus — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:37:42 GMT

I'm looking for some thoughts and opinions on speccing into Enrage if my hit is already 2% high enough to drop some points from Precision and a few utility talents that are overwritten in raids as it is. I figure 10% Dmg increase from damage I am already taking anyways can't be a bad thing right? Is taking the extra hit more beneficial than this talent? I would assume on fights like Anub'arak, especially phase 3, would be almost 100% uptime with Leeching Swarm?

As far as rage generation goes I'm typically generating enough for a HS every other White when I was riding the hit cap right at 5% prior to getting the shoulders I am currently wearing, and taking the points out of commanding presence and putting them into Unbridled Wrath should make up part of the difference.

Warrior Victory Rush Priority? (3.3)

Kahmal — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:15:11 GMT

I know such a situational attack isn't important in the the Warrior's Rotation, but with the increase critcal strike chance buff to the glyph, I just wanna reassess when Victory Rush should be used.

Does Arms does it currently out perform Slam since it's an instant?

And is I would it's damage be superior to a Bloodsurge since it is attack power based?

Warrior Ugh, went back to Fury and my DPS is abysmal.

Lyssa — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:54:29 GMT

Last night I had a tough time breaking 2.5k DPS during 10-man reg TOC and managed to get 3.3-3.4k on Anub then on a Ony run. Pretty abysmal, right?

The only thing different from my current armory I was wearing a pair of Valorous Dreadnaught Legplates with 75ap/22crit enchant, +34exp and +10str/+15stam gems and I swapped to The Diplomat over my Rifle of the Platinum Guard.

I'm wondering if gemming for expertise is what is killing me? Before the raid I had swapped my +34str gems for the +34exp, but even with the +34str gems I was still only hitting up to 3.5k all the time. Landsoul's excel kept upping my DPS as I replaced those str for exp gems. I did get a point where replacing str for exp was lowering my DPS, but it would have taken another exp gem to get there. Up until that point my DPS was climbing on the excel.

I was trying the rotation from Thegreatme's guide:

0.0 Whirlwind
1.5 Bloodthirst
3.0 Free GCD (instant Slam if available)
4.5 WAIT 1 second
5.5 Bloodthirst
7.0
8.0 Whirlwind

For the CDs, I'm spacing out recklessness and deathwish as recommened as well as BattleShout and DemoShout.

If I shouldn't be gemming for exp (which it looks like I shouldn't be) where else would I get the exp from to cap? Am I putting too much stock in Landsoul's excel?

As I stand now, unbuffed, I'm at:
4624 ap
343 hit / 37.58% arp
38.37% crit
11/8 exp

TIA for any comments or criticisms!

Warrior ARMS Ability Damage formula check

Severed — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:06:37 GMT

I'm working on some spreadsheets for my Arms spec and would appreciate if someone could verify that my maths/assumptions are correct:

Unless modified by talents/debuffs, MS/EX/OP/HS/SLam all have a base chance to crit of what is listed in the char sheet

NormalizedAPBonus = ( AP / 14 ) * 3.3
RawAPBonus = (AP / 14 ) * WeaponSpeed
AvgWepDmg = ( min + max ) / 2

Avg white hit = ( AvgWepDmg + RawAPBonus ) * 1.06
where 1.06 = 2H Wep Spec talent

HS Hit = ( AvgWepDmg + RawAPBonus + 495 ) * 1.06
HS Crit = HS Hit + HS Hit * (1.2)(1.03)(1.05)
where 20% impale bonus + 3% meta + 5% Poleaxe

EX Hit = ( 1456 + .2 * AttackPower + 38 * Rage ) * 1.06
EX Crit = EX Hit + EX Hit * (1.2)(1.03)(1.05)

MS Hit = ( AvgWepDmg + NormalizedAPBonus + 380 ) * (1.1)(1.1)(1.06)
MS Crit = MS Hit + MS Hit * (1.2)(1.03)(1.05)
where 10% bonus from talent, 10% from glyph, 6% 2HWepSpec

OP Hit = ( AvgWepDmg + NormalizedAPBonus ) * (1.2)(1.06)
where 20% bonus from talent, 6% 2HWepSpec
OP Crit = OP Hit + OP Hit * (1.2)(1.03)(1.05)

SL Hit = ( AvgWepDmg + RawAPBonus ) *1.06
where 1.06 = 2HWep spec
SL Crit = SL Hit + SL Hit * (1.2)(1.03)(1.05)

Any comments/corrections on the above are welcome

Warrior Fury rotation comparision

GronkerLonker — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:42:42 GMT

Quietsch suggested to move the discussion about two possible Fury Warrior rotations to a new thread, to keep Thegreatmes GuideThred clean.
I think he's right, as the guide is pretty good and this is more a theorycraft experiment, which should not further polute the thread and the more general QA growing there.

So what happened so far?
The guide contains the currently most reasonable rotation for a fury warrior:
0s:WW-> 1.5s:BT-> 3s:2.5s gab for Slam or other stuff -> 5.5s:BT -> 7s: -> 1s gap not usable -> 8s:end of rotation and next WW

blauberri innitiated this (it's all your fault :D) with mentioning a rotation using an eventual BS proc after the WW:
0s:WW-> 1.5s:Slam-> 3s:BT-> 4.5s:2.5s gab for Slam or other stuff -> 7s:BT -> 8.5s:end of rotation and next WW

At first glance I thought it a good idea to trade in the slightly longer duration of the rotation (.5s) for an additional Slam.
So I made a little pic comparing the both rotations:

However Thegreatme and Quietsch made me aware of two things I didn't take into account:
1) Over the course of long fight the rotation delay sums up more and more.
2) There is a good chance of BS not procing after the first BT, which would lead to a rotation duration of 8.5s anyway if you Slamed after WW but not giving the advantage of beeing able to Two-Slam.

And now the fun begins as we try to figure out under which circumstances and if at all, the rotation using Slam after WW could be a good choice.

I try to summarize now what was calculated on this issue so far:
I tried to compare the rotations in regard to how much more damage the 2 Slam rotation would have to give to replace the one Slam rotation.

So I set average damage of a rotation with one slam (no matter if after WW or BT) with WW + 2*BT + Slam = x and the average damage of the rotation with 2 Slams with WW + 2*BT + 2*Slam = y.

We have now 2 rotation sets. Lets call them RotA (including rotation with one Slam after BT if possible and rotation with no Slam if not possible) and RotB (RotA plus rotation with 2 Slams if possible and rotation with one Slam after WW and none after BT).
Using only the first rotation you would always have a duration of 8s no matter if Slam procs or not after the BT. That would make the average "DPS" of the rotation x/8s.

So: x/8s = RotA

Using the proc chance of BS, I assumed, that you would have the followng scenario if you use instant Slam after WW too if it procs:
I thought 80% of the time you would have exactly RotA as BS would not proc after WW leaving you with no choice.
This is not correct, as Quietsch pointed out, that WW has a 40% chance to proc BS so we have RotA only 60% of the time
(Note that the proc of BS after BT if Slam was not used after WW is already included in the average damage of RotA):

0.6*x/8s

Now of the remaining 40% when BS procs after WW, we have another 20% chance of BS procing after BT too and an 80% chance that we cannot use Slam a second time.
However the duration is now .5s longer no matter if BS procs a second time or not.

So we add to the damage above:
0.4*0.2*y/8.5s + 0.4*0.8*x/8.5s

That means 20% of 40% a rotation with y damage (2 Slams) and 8.5s duration and 80% of 40% a rotation with x damage (1 Slam and no Slam) and a 8.5s duration. The overall average damage of RotB beeing:

0.6*x/8s + 0.4*0.2*y/8.5s + 0.4*0.8*x/8.5s = RotB

So now we set both rotations equal to get the relative dps of both and get:

0.6*x/8s + 0.4*0.2*y/8.5s + 0.4*0.8*x/8.5s = x/8s

Crunching the number through the calc we get:

0.075*x/s + 0.08*y/8.5s + 0.32*x/8.5s = x/8s

get x to one and y to the other side:
0.08*y/8.5s = x/8s - 0.075*x/s - 0.32*x/8.5s

extract x:
0.08*y/8.5s = x*(1/8s - 0.075/s - 0.32/8.5s)

get y to be alone:

y = x*((1/8s - 0.075/s - 0.32/8.5s)*8.5s)/0.08

crunch again and we finally get:

y = 1.3125*x

That means the damage of y (remember: WW + 2*BT + 2*Slam) has to be 1.3125 time bigger than that of x (WW + 2*BT + Slam) to be better.
(This time I posted the detailed steps of the calculation to bette lay any mistakes open I may have made)

By thinking this through again I think I realize the following:
1) The delay of BT itself is not an issue, as we look at the rotation of it's own.
2) The rotation using a Slam after WW has a longer duration and thus can not fit as many times into a specific combat timespan (say a battle of 5 minutes).
Again that is not an issue, as we consider this by taking the longer duration of the rotation into account using 8.5s as dps modifier for the case of a Slam after WW and 8s as dps modifier for the case of no Slam after WW.
So we already considered the diffrent durations.
This gets clearer by looking at the units. the unit of x and y is damage / second and thus it already takes time into account.

Now we can detail it even further by inserting the specific skills for x and y:
WW + 2*BT + 2*Slam = 1.3125(WW + 2*BT + Slam)
Huddel it up and we get:
0.6875*Slam = 0.3125*WW+0.625*BT

Divided by 0.6875 and rounded:

Slam = 0.46*WW + 0.9*BT

So to reach an equal dps with both rotation sets, your Slam would have to have an average damage of almost half your Whirlwind plus 0.9 time your Bloodthirst. I don't think this is ever gonna happen with decent equip or am I wrong?

Thus it would prove to me after all, that you can relax, and use slam only after the first BT not meddling around with a second WW -> Slam rotation.
I really wouldn't have thought that. And hey math really is worth something after leaving school :D.

Now this does not take into account the BS procs from HS. The next step may be to have a look at how much HS would have to improve the chance to trigger an additional Slam after the WW Slam (as everything else would not improve the damage of that rotation).
Thegreatme did begin with an HS proc calculation, maybe this could fit in here too.

And as a last note, I think the Slam after WW can be worth it if you already know you'll be using something else in the long gab after the first BT (what about a WW->Slam->BT->Execute->BT rotation if Execute is available?).

Deathknight Gemming question for Frost DW

Oranuworu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:05:24 GMT

Currently I play frost DW on my Death Knight. My armory link is:
The World of Warcraft Armory

I am currently gemmed for about Half arpen and half Strength. I run about 38% arpen. I'm wondering if I should swap my arpen gems over to Strength gems. With the Sigil and glyph of obliterate, my Obliterate hits like a truck. I'm thinking of keeping the arpen gems or going complete arpen because obliterate and white attacks make up most of my dps and thus benefit from the arpen. Strength would help out my diseases, Frost Strike, and Howling Blast but IMO not enough to out weigh the benefit of arpen on Oblit and white attacks. I am fairly new at the spec and don't have the gold to swap out gems on a whim. Could someone with more experience with the spec and gearing/gemming for Frost DW offer suggestions as to the benefit of arpen vs. str?

Thanks.

Deathknight Armorpenetration

Faceripp — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:23:33 GMT

I am soooo confused... i have no idea how much Armorpenetration i should have (%) on my DK... I have 19.15% Armorpenetration, should i even socket anything with Armorpenetration? Im unholy btw.

Warrior Fury--Aggro Concerns with a DK Tank?

almightypancake — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:08:18 GMT

Over the past few weeks, I've had the privilege to raid with a few highly skilled DK tanks. Unfortunately, I'm either constantly on their heels in aggro OR I don't pay attention and pull aggro.

I'm not referring to the first few seconds of the fight, as I'm careful to always give them a little time to establish aggro. Once I get the ball rolling, though, I'm pumping out around 4-4.5k tps and averaging between 5.5-6k dps. I initially thought it was me using heroic strike too much, but the same thing happens in cleave situations as well.

Is this a common problem, or should I be being more careful?

The World of Warcraft Armory