[Satrina]

** Updated 28 October **

More testing today. Since there was a PTR patch last night, it covers re-testing at the same time. I'll only put a couple of data points for each test so it doesn't get stupid long. All tests were done with a mage, as before (except for the Expose Armour test, duh). I changed to the basilisks in Terokkar as well since they have more health and can take the beating to test 5 Sunders + Devastate.

Expose Armour
Got a rogue to throw a two point Expose Armour on the mob, vanish, and then I did a Devastate. No Sunder in the combat log and no Sunder animation on the mob. So, there you go - the Sunder effect is separate from the Devastate effect. Since the rogue's threat was reset from the vanish and EA was still up, I had him hit until he drew aggro:

28 October: New and improved EA test (see post #44)

Warrior: Social aggro mob
Rogue: Make combo points, EA, vanish.
Warrior: 53 damage Devastate when mob turns back after rogue vanishes, no Sunder is applied due to EA
Mage: 262 damage
262/1.495/1.10 = 159 adjusted threat
159 - 53 = 109 threat remaining.

Appears that in the case where you're Devastating with no Sunders on and no Sunder will be applied by Devastate, the innate threat is 109.

For 0-4 Sunders before Devastate we'll assume that the Sunder generates its 301 threat, since the Sunder is a separate effect and that's the way the threat calculated out previously. As you'll see, the numbers still bear this out.

Devastate only
Warrior: 301 + 46 raw threat
Mage: 765 raw threat
765/1.495/1.10 = 465 adjusted threat
Innate = 119

Warrior: 301 + 45 raw threat
Mage: 763 raw threat
763/1.495/1.10 = 464 adjusted threat
Innate = 119

One Sunder, Devastate
Warrior: 602 + 89 raw threat
Mage: 1356 raw threat
1356/1.495/1.10 = 825 adjusted threat
Innate = 134

Warrior: 602 + 102 raw threat
Mage: 1378 raw threat
1378/1.495/1.10 = 838 adjusted threat
Innate = 134

Two Sunders, Devastate
Warrior: 903 + 117 raw threat
Mage: 1920 raw threat
1920/1.495/1.10 = 1168 adjusted threat
Innate = 148

Warrior: 903 + 134 raw threat
Mage: 1947 raw threat
1947/1.495/1.10 = 1184 adjusted threat
Innate = 147

Three Sunders, Devastate
Warrior: 1204 + 148 raw threat
Mage: 2489 raw threat
2489/1.495/1.10 = 1514 adjusted threat
Innate = 162

Warrior: 1204 + 149 raw threat
Mage: 2491 raw threat
2491/1.495/1.10 = 1515 adjusted threat
Innate = 162

Four Sunders, Devastate
Warrior: 1505 + 182 raw threat
Mage: 3063 raw threat
3063/1.495/1.10 = 1863 adjusted threat
Innate = 176

Warrior: 1505 + 181 raw threat
Mage: 3062 raw threat
3062/1.495/1.10 = 1862 adjusted threat
Innate = 176



And now the one everyone's been waiting for...
Here, we won't assume that the Devastate grants the threat from Sunder when 5 Sunders are already up. We count the threat from 5 Sunders (1505 threat) and the raw damage of the Devastate, and see what falls out. If we get more than 400, we know that we are getting the Sunder threat as well as the Devastate innate. If not, we aren't.

Five Sunders, Devastate
Warrior: 1505 + 200 raw threat
Mage: 3091 raw threat
3091/1.495/1.10 = 1880 adjusted threat
Innate = 175

Warrior: 1505 + 194 raw threat
Mage: 3084 raw threat
3084/1.495/1.10 = 1875 adjusted threat
Innate = 176

We get no Sunder threat once 5 sunders are on. That's good news for this:

Battle and Berserker Stance
I just threw a single Devastate on and assumed the Sunder threat was going on as well:

Warrior: 45 Devastate in Battle Stance
Mage: 409 raw threat
409/0.80/1.10 = 465 adjusted threat
Innate = 420 (= 119 + 301)

Warrior: 44 Devastate in Berserker Stance
Mage: 410 raw threat
410/0.80/1.10 = 466 adjusted threat
Innate = 422 (= 121 + 301)

Yes, you get the Sunder in Battle/Berserk, along with its threat. However, once the tank has got 5 Sunders on the mob you won't get the Sunder threat, as shown above.


Summary
1) The innate threat for Devastate has been increased per Sunder that is on the mob: 119/134/148/162/176 (These numbers should be pretty close - the mage was using unarmed hits for 1-4 at the end to draw aggro. Still could bear some independent testing for verification).

2) While Devastate is applying Sunders (i.e. the first 5 Devastates that land), you gain the 301 threat for the Sunder in addition to the Devastate innate threat. Note that the Sunder is a separate effect; its threat is not part of the Devastate innate threat.

3) Once 5 Sunders are stacked, Devastate will refresh the Sunder stack but does not apply a new Sunder, and as such does not gain the threat for a Sunder. Devastate threat at 5 Sunders is 176 + (1/2 damage + 175) [the damage portion is subject to mitigation]

4) You get the Sunder threat as normal in Battle and Berserk stance if you apply one of the first five Sunders. Once 5 Sunders are on, you will only get 176 + (1/2 damage + 175) [the damage portion is subject to mitigation], multiplied by stance modifier/Salvation/etc.

5) Expose Armour still blocks the Sunder component of Devastate. If there are no Sunders on the mob, and Sunder will be blocked from landing on the mob, the innate threat of Devastate is 109.

6) We also see that there is no difference in innate threat when we apply 4 Sunders and then Devastate and applying 5 Sunders and then Devastate. That tells us that the Sunder for the Devastate being performed counts towards the innate threat. So, we get:
Revised 28 October
- 109 innate for Devastate with no Sunders, and no Sunder landing (per EA test, above)
- 119 innate for Devastate adding the first Sunder
- 134 innate for Devastate adding the second Sunder
- 148 innate for Devastate adding the third Sunder
- 162 innate for Devastate adding the fourth Sunder
- 176 innate for Devastate adding the fifth sunder, and Devastate with five Sunders already in place

Added 28 October
This isn't an exact science. We can probably massage those numbers into a reasonable sequence: 105/120/135/150/165/180 (105 + 5 x #Sunders) and still be pretty much right. Or maybe they really are oddball as above. Here's where some independent testing would really be keen.

Personally, I like this. We get a nice extra kick of threat in the first 8-10 global cooldowns of a fight. Once the Sunders are stacked, Revenge and Shield Slam are still integral parts of the tanking rotation, but we still gain an extra 75 threat per Devastate over what we have now. Good changes, in my opinion.

I'd like to see some independent tests to compare with, and as always, am grateful for anyone to point out any errors I've made so that they can be corrected quickly.

[Arrowson]

wait, so we get the 300 innate threat from sunder plus innate from devistate for the first 5 then no more sunder threat ?

[Satrina]

Clarified it a bit. Yes, that's how it appears to work.

[Arrowson]

Ok, thanks.

I kinda like this to, give us real nice start up threat that tapers out a bit. Its nice, willn't make things to easy and will protect us from blizz taking out the big ol' nerf bat and smashing our TPS in the future.

[Meia]

Interesting. I'm not sure if I like that. Plus, what are the implications of letting SA wear off, and then reapplying. I mean it is a pretty considerable threat bonus in that regard. Especially since I might only find 4-5 GCD's to spare on a devestate while tanking between SS and Revenge.

It is an obvious buff, I'm not denying that. But we'll have to see... It'll be really interesting in the first 5 applications of devestate generate more threat than revenge as well, we're in for a ride then in terms of theory craft.

[Arrowson]

If it does become worth it to let sunder wear off them im sure it willn't be long til blizz increases the duration of sunder

[Satrina]

Source: Meia Interesting. I'm not sure if I like that. Plus, what are the implications of letting SA wear off, and then reapplying. I mean it is a pretty considerable threat bonus in that regard. Especially since I might only find 4-5 GCD's to spare on a devestate while tanking between SS and Revenge.

That was one of the things that crossed my mind right away, too. I've had my Sunders knocked off by other debuffs, so when that happens we'll get a nice boost mid-fight.

As for deliberately letting them slide off, I'm not sure the dip beforehand would be worth it. Someone needs to do some math on that to be sure, though.

[Arrowson]

I don't think a 2k boost in Threat in the middle of the fight is worth the instablity it will bring before the sunders wear off

[Kazeyonoma]

very interesting, thanks for the tests satrina, if I can, I'll try to do independent testing this weekend once i update my patch as well. Hopefully we come up with similar numbers unlike all of my previous stupid tests =P

[Meia]

Practice makes perfect Kaze

[Crimsonstorm]

I suspect that its 101 + 15 per sunder.

[Meia]

I've calculated some REALLY interesting stuff on this, hoping to get it posted soon.

[Bitesize]

Just what I was expecting. It's really a fairly ideal solution, coming from a perspective of not wanting to give warriors a major long term threat boost for single target fights that are balanced around the kind of TPS warriors do now. Though it does give a solid fixed boost for each use over the previous incarnation. It also still has clear benefits for 5-man tanking and such, where Devastate becomes an excellent tool for providing more threat on trash pulls where you'll be gaining the Sunder threat for pretty much every use. Maybe that'll help mitigate some of the issues with overgearing 5-mans.

[Satrina]

A little piece of comparative maths:

With the current Devastate's innate 101, you need 200 damage in the combat log to match Sunder's 301. At 7700 armour (typical SSC boss, per Elitist Jerks) less 2600 for 5 sunders (5100 => 32.6%) that's 297 raw damage, 175 of which comes from Devastate, so 1/2 weapon damage needs to be 122.

Change the innate to 176, and you need 125 damage in the combat log, or 185 raw damage, with 175 of that coming from Devastate, so 1/2 weapon damage needs to be 10.

You can't not beat Sunder when it's stacked 5 times with the new innate value.

[Rak]

The other bonus that people seem to not be thinking of in this thread is that Devastate will cost 3 less rage if you spec into imp sunder. This will be a huge threat boost, if you ask me.

[Meia]

The scenario is messed up, and the numbers are skewed a bit. Also, due to the lack of a useful ability to use during the free up GCD's, most all situations fall in favor of Dev Devastating the whole fight. And if it by chance falls off, you'll get a threat boost covering most of the threat you missed.

If you'd like to read the theory and numbers anyway, read on, but otherwise it has been debunked. As one gears up devastate scales to even larger deficits as well. A least we've come to a conclusion of sorts.

Keep reading on in this thread as an expose armor theory seems to be underway.

~meia

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've created a situation that is based in a world where rage is unlimited, and you are using cooldowns to their maximum effect, the mob has no armor. Shield Slamming and Revenging on Cooldown, and devastating in between those GCD's. We have an offtank applying TC and Demo Shout.

The theory I'm concocting here is whether, due to devastate's high initial threat that drops off fairly drastically, it would be better to let it drop off every 30 seconds, only to reapply it when you get the most bang for it's buck.

Over 66 seconds we Shield slam 11 times, revenge 11 times, and devastate 18.

The first 5 devastates happen in the first 13.5 seconds.
The next 8 devastates happen in the next 30 seconds. (when devastate could be allowed to fall off)
The next 5 devastates happen in the next 20.5 seconds. (GCD's aren't as perfect as the fight goes on)

The first 5 devastates generate:
1. 420threat+35DevDamage+damage
2. 435threat+70DevDamage+damage
3. 449threat+105DevDamage+damage
4. 463threat+140DevDamage+damage
5. 477threat+175DevDamage+damage
=2244threat+525DevDamage+(damage*5)

The next 8 devastates happen within the next 30 seconds. These generate the following threat:

175threat+175DevDamage+ damage
(175x8)+(175x8)=1400threat+1400DevDamage+(damage*8)

The next 5 devastates that happen after the 30 second period can be viewed in 2 different ways.

The first is if 5 sunders have already been applied. In which case you complete the same math as above, but subtract the extra 35 damage per devastate that is applied as if you were applying the debuffs fresh. Because the full 175DevDamage for 5 sunders isn't done, but a portion of it is with each devastate application if you were starting from zero sunders.

Here is the math for the first look:

175threat+175DevDamage-(35+70+105+140+175)+damage
(175x5)+(175x5)-525=875threat+350DevDamage+(damage*5)

The second way to look at it is if you were applying 5 fresh devastates. These would generate the same amount of threat as the first 5.

1. 420threat+35DevDamage+damage
2. 435threat+70DevDamage+damage
3. 449threat+105DevDamage+damage
4. 463threat+140DevDamage+damage
5. 477threat+175DevDamage+damage
=2244threat+525DevDamage+(damage*5)

Here's where we get to the meat of the idea.

By adding up the threat of the 8 devastates in the 30 seconds after the 5th sunder is applied, and then the next 5, we come up with the numbers for if you simply devastate through this portion of the fight without letting devastate fade. Here's the math.

8). 1400threat+1400DevDamage+(damage*8)
5). 875threat+350DevDamage+(damage*5)
= 2275threat+1750DevDamage+(damage*13)

By comparing this number to the amount of threat another 5 fresh devastates would apply after sunder wore off we can see the actual threat difference.

Full Devastate Cycle: 2275threat+1750DevDamage+(damage*13)
Fade Devastate Cycle:2244threat+525DevDamage+(damage*5)

The difference is 31threat, 1225DevDamage, 8 weapon swings at 1/2 damage, and the difference armor makes in total damage. To quantify the extra damage Bitesize supplied a pretty good example of a King's Defender. A KD would do on average 130 damage per devestate, 8 times for 1040 damage. That is a decent amount more of threat to overcome the gap.

What can we take from this?

Well, in a perfect situation where you use every free GCD to devastate, you would have to make up that 31threat and 1225DevDamage and 8 weapons swings doing half damage(about 1,000 total damage), using 8 GCD's and at least 9ragex8Dev=72rage. If you can do that, then all of the sudden, allowing sunder to fade becomes a threat increase, it might not be as efficient if you can't do it using 72 rage, but it would be a threat increase.

Also to note is that as your weapons get better and your AP rises, devastate's damage will scale at half the speed. This acts in favor of not letting sunder fade. But it also correlates into you having more rage during the time that devastate would have faded to use for generating threat.

However, in a non perfect situation, which is what I'm generally in, where I have to apply things like TC and DS myself, the difference becomes that much smaller, you lose out some of those at least 2 of those devastates for TC and DS, which would decrease the difference pretty drastically. Not to mention you would need the rage to keep all of this going on at once, as well as the coordination to set each ability off at the end of a GCD, rage providing.

Interesting stuff if you ask me.

~meia

Edit1: added the damage multiplier for each devastate.
Edit2: added some more theory due to half melee damage caused by devastate
Edit3: added in some theory about how weapon and AP make devastate scale.

************************disclaimer**************** ***********
I am not a mathematician, I am usually not that much of a theory or math crafter. That being said, I feel like my numbers and theory IS pretty solid, but take it all with a grain of salt. If you see any flaws in my math or theory, please tell me and I will try to correct them. If I'm completely off base and totally wrong tell me, and tell me why, and I'll remove this post and put on the dunce hat.

[Bitesize]

Hmm.

You didn't really account correctly for the weapon damage portion of each Devastate in the cycles. It's all just "+damage". Just using "damage" as a variable for 50% of your weapon damage is fine, but in the full Devastate cycle where you use 8 Devastates rather than waiting for the Sunders to fall off would read more like "2275threat+1750DevDamage+(damage*13)" and the other one would be "2244threat+525DevDamage+(damage*5)", would it not?

[Meia]

Where is the 13 and 5 multiplier coming from?

[Meia]

OOOOHHHHHHH I get it I think. It isn't the same amount of damage between the Cycled 13 and the faded 5.

Edit: so as not to spam, then you are correct, that is 8 attacks at 50% damage along with the other amounts of threat factored in, in favor of not letting sunder fade.

[Bitesize]

The 8 + 5 Devastates in the first rotation, and the 5 Devastates in the second rotation. When I use "damage" there I'm referring to the 50% weapon damage portion of one use of Devastate. To see the full difference between those two possible rotations, you would have to account for how many times that damage is being applied, right?

With a King's Defender and 700 AP, 50% of your average weapon damage (pre-mitigation) would be 130 damage. The first rotation hits 8 more times with that damage, adding another 1040 damage into the first rotation that the second doesn't get. That varies by weapon and such obviously, but it's good to get an idea how much of a difference that is.