When to Execute?

[ebs2002]

So, I've been doing a bit of theorycrafting on the use of Execute, and if you've been following the Arms DPS thread, you've seen some of my spreadsheets for determining when you should Execute, and when you should continue your rotation.

I've attached my most recent spreadsheet. Here's a quick walk-through.

What this spreadsheet does

This spreadsheet is solely used for the purpose of determining our maximum damage potential, specifically what our rotation should be. It's not actually giving us a DPS number (yet), so the spreadsheet isn't applying any scenarios like how much rage you have, etc.

All that being said, and to answer your question:
If you are at 100 rage and have execute available, you will do more damage over the long term if you burn your rage with slams first.

If you are burning rage with slams and still sitting at 100 rage, that means that you are taking in more rage than you are spending. What to do then? Use Mortal Strike if it's up.

If you are using Mortal Strike, and slamming on every cooldown, and you're STILL sitting at 100 rage, then you should execute, because you're wasting rage. This situation is known as being in "unlimited rage" (you use everything you can to try to get rid of the rage and you still can't)

Clear so far?

Now, if you are NOT sitting at 100 rage all the time, you should only execute if your rage is below the number the spreadsheet tells you. AND, you should not use Mortal Strike, because slam does more damage per rage, and since you're not in unlimited rage, each rage point is precious.

What this spreadsheet does NOT do (so far)
- It does not give you a rotation, like prot warriors have.
- Right now, it does not even give you a priority list (it will eventually). UPDATE: However, you can look at your Damage/Rage numbers and build your own priority list
- It does not calculate how much damage you will do over any period of time. The only considerations it makes is how your next swing is affected when you slam (rage and damage lost), and calculates how much damage each of the abilities should do.
- It does not take into consideration Sword Spec procs
- It was not designed for any spec other than an arms spec (sorry prot and fury warriors! Coming in a later release, though!)

General Guidelines
1) Only edit fields that are yellow.
2) Supports all talents/gear (that I'm aware of) that can affect abilities available to us as an arms spec (including Imp Execute/Imp WW/Unending Fury, which aren't attainable at the moment). This was included to allow me to expand the sheet down the line
How to use
- Plug in the data in the yellow fields (use your buffed AP for best results).
- The field in green is your "When to Execute", or the point at which Execute Dmg-per-Rage is equal to your other ability's Dmg-per-rage.
- If your rage is below or at that number, Execute is the better ability
- If your rage is above that number, the other attack is the better ability
- Note: it is possible that your target number is below the rage cost for that number (ie, below 15 rage for slam). If this is the case, you should wait until you can afford to dump, and then dump. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but trust me; your rage is better spent if you are patient.

Notes
- This spreadsheet does seem to support that, if you didn't have Imp Execute, Sudden Death or a glyph (ie, the spec from 2.4), spamming execute is less damage than maintaining your slam rotation. Take that as you will.
- DW/1H spec isn't included here yet

To Do (coming at a later release)
- Expand information to support Fury builds and Dual Wielding

Changelog
10-22-08
- added Mortal Strike data to see the dmg/rage. For me at least, MS is not good as a rage dump. Also, factored in Imp Slam and the damage lost from suspending the swing timer
- added a primitive rage formula to give us a better idea of how much rage Slam "really" costs
10-27-08
- Re-worked entire sheet to be more robust

[ebs2002]

Hey guys, please check this out and give me any/all feedback, including:

1) If I missed anything that affects your Execute damage or your Slam damage
2) What features you'd like to see
3) Any future spreadsheets you'd like to see

I get a kick out of theorycrafting when new data is available

[Kazeyonoma]

I'll check it out when I get home tonight curnguz

[Rishkkin]

wow thanks ebs !

as far as what I'd like to see : a dual wield versus 2hander comparison for sudden death / deep wound when taking weapon spec into account :P

[Rishkkin]

just played a little with it, it seems that you need big quantities of AP just to change 1 rage point (200 AP from 1750 to 1950 == 1 rage pt difference)

it gets to be a lot of micro management especially since our AP fluctuate a lot during some fights (depends on procs, etc)

Still gives nice pointers though !

I'll see if I can write an add-on based on that and will display what dump to use.

[Rishkkin]

ho and... sticky ?

[Kazeyonoma]

good call done.

[ebs2002]

just played a little with it, it seems that you need big quantities of AP just to change 1 rage point (200 AP from 1750 to 1950 == 1 rage pt difference)

it gets to be a lot of micro management especially since our AP fluctuate a lot during some fights (depends on procs, etc)

Agreed. That's why I considered making a mod to alert you when you should execute (ie, if Execute is available, and it fits that formula, write "EXECUTE!!!" to the screen). It would use the same formula the spreadsheet uses, only it would read all the input data (weapon damage, current attack power).

I'm not sure how possible it is, but it seems like you should be able to do that sort of conditional testing. If not, displaying the value on the UI should be enough.

a dual wield versus 2hander comparison for sudden death / deep wound when taking weapon spec into account :P

What does this mean exactly? You want to put in a spec and weapon stats, and then compare what? How frequently Sudden Death procs? How much damage you'd get out of deep wound?

I'm not against doing it, I just don't know exactly what you want to find out with it

[Rishkkin]

Agreed. That's why I considered making a mod to alert you when you should execute (ie, if Execute is available, and it fits that formula, write "EXECUTE!!!" to the screen). It would use the same formula the spreadsheet uses, only it would read all the input data (weapon damage, current attack power).

Yeha, trying to see if I can use dogtags to do that, but I'm just starting to use them, so we'll see

I'm not sure how possible it is, but it seems like you should be able to do that sort of conditional testing. If not, displaying the value on the UI should be enough.

Like I said, if it doesn't works with dogtag, I'll see if I can make an add-on for that

What does this mean exactly? You want to put in a spec and weapon stats, and then compare what? How frequently Sudden Death procs? How much damage you'd get out of deep wound?

I'm not against doing it, I just don't know exactly what you want to find out with it

Yeah, I'm trying to see whether using sword / axe a 2 hander versus 2 1 handers will provide the best DPS output. Due to the change to 'on hit' of SD, it WILL favor dual wielding and sword spec. However, if you intend to get hight Deep Wound Damage a 2Hand Axe is teh way to go. Based on that I'm trying to draw the lines of when should you take 1 over the other ? Does dual glaives SD spam will outperform a S4 2 hander for example. hope this is more clear now

[ebs2002]

I got ya, unfortunately that would be a big project to map effectively, mostly because of the rage dumping and rage generation formulas and a lack of a set rotation right now (plus the fact that arms isn't a rotation, it's a lot of chance).

I can tell you how many sudden death procs you can expect in a given minute, but I can't tell you how much damage they would do because that's based on your rage when it procs (although I can assume 30 rage or something, that's not going to be very accurate though).

I can tell you how much damage in a minute you can expect Deep Wounds to do with a given crit rate, spec and weapon setup.

But it doesn't seem mathematically possible at this time to write a program/spreadsheet that will tell you the definitive spec you should use. You'd have to test that out yourself on a dummy

[Rishkkin]

For the execute, I would assume, the perfect scenario where you always had the time to "dump" before executing, I know numbers would be higher than "real" but still you would have your maximum DPS

[ebs2002]

Absolutely, but once you get into the rage generation model, it gets a little crazy. Overpower happens randomly (30% chance every 3 seconds), crit chance is random, etc.
Not to mention the fact that Slam suspends your swing timer, and you only slam at a certain rage...ugh, it just sounds messy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a larger project than I can take on right now

What I can do, though, is tell you how much damage you'll get from Deep Wounds, Whirlwind, Bloodthirst, Bladestorm, MS, Rend, Overpower, etc. It won't include slams (although instant-slams after a BT crit can be included). Execute after a sudden death proc can assume it's at the dump point that I calculated with this spreadsheet (and I can factor in Heroic Strike for fury's dump).

The only thing that's missing is Heroic Strike and Slam's damage. For arms, slam contributes 10-15% damage, so you could sort of guess how much damage you'll get from slam. For fury, I have no idea how much heroic strike does now, but we could dig up some fury WWS to get a rough estimate there, too.

From that data we can extrapolate an expected DPS range. But it won't be clean, and I'm not sure how reliable it would be.

It certainly could tell us if one is far better than another, though.

[Rishkkin]

It certainly could tell us if one is far better than another, though.

that's the point I'm trying to figure out :-D

Have you calculated Overpower and Mortal Strikes as rage dumps too ?

Based on the calculation, I made a dogtag during lunchtime today that tells me to dump rage (use slam) should my rage get > 37

I'll be trying to make that more "dynamic" (based on whether sudden death is up or not, will probably factor in Taste for blood too assuming it is a better dump than execute, same for MS if it's up, etc.

[ebs2002]

I have not calculated Overpower because it would need to take into effect a lot of other things (increased crit chance can lead to an increased chance of deep wounds, etc). I'd imagine that if overpower is up, you want to use it for that reason.

I can do Mortal Strike's Damage-per-Rage easily enough, though.

[ebs2002]

The numbers are in, and initially it looks like you should never MS. Slam is just better.

However, my calculations doesn't include the loss of damage when you slam. Working it out now, to factor out what slam's real damage is, considering the loss in swing time

[Rishkkin]

wow thanks ebs !

[ebs2002]

Got the number. At 3500ap with a BoH, each slam costs you 192 white damage.

Factoring that in, with a BoH at
2000AP, slam does 64dmg/rage. Your target for execute is now 41.3
2500AP, slam does 71dmg/rage. Your target for execute is now 38.9
3000AP, slam does 79dmg/rage. Your target for execute is now 37.1
5000AP, slam does 107dmg/rage. Your target for execute is now 32.8

Note: in NO CASE did Mortal Strike's dmg/rage exceed Slam's.

Therefore, you should not use Mortal Strike in your rotations, if you're in an unlimited rage scenario. Slam is always better for rage-dumping.

Now, that's not to say that you should chain slam and ignore MS. MS doesn't hurt your rage generation by delaying the swing timer. I haven't figured out how to take that into consideration yet.

The updated spreadsheet is now available at the top of this thread.

[Krenian]

HAH!

So there is a method to my madness when I stated MS is not needed in a rotation due to it's horrible 30 rage dump and slam's just better even if there's a .5 delay to your weapon swing.

I do have some brain matter left from school, it seems.

[ebs2002]

There is a method to your madness, Tony, yes

However, the one thing it doesn't take into consideration is that while MS does less damage than Slam, using MS won't slow your rage generation any, while chaining Slam will become unsustainable.

I have some methods brewing in my head about how slam-chaining is limited by the GCD (suspends swing timer by 0.5secs, but you can only slam once every 1.5secs...so you can only slam 3x between swings with a 3.x speed weapon).

This means we can cap the rage lost with slam, and assume that you slam 3x between each white swing. Then, determine how much rage you're losing doing it that way. Say you wind up losing 15 rage between white swings. Well, that equals 1 slam, which means that each slam is really only doing 66% damage due to the lost rage.

Or something. It's still a little muddy in there. One update to my spreadsheet was enough for today, I'll revisit this later

[Krenian]

The thing is that you have to control the amount of slams you're doing. With a 0.5 cd, plus the 1.5 GCD, that's 2 seconds down. So in six seconds, you could do 3 slams which have a higher power potential than MS does, for half the rage.

3 slams = 45 rage every 6 seconds

1 ms = 30 rage every 6 seconds

So you're getting one and a half MS worth of rage for 3 attacks that do more damage than MS.

That's why you need to be careful and watch the rage bar. If you see you're getting low, stop the rotation a bit and hit bloodrage or something or another.

Or some muddled something or another. I'm just having a lot of thoughts in my head atm with the whole changes.