Slow Weapon & Deep Wounds -- Math Challenge

[shiz98]

And here we go:

Case 1
(-5% hit, -15% Dodge/Parry)

Ability    Normal   +Rend
-------------------------
SS         5.44     5.56
Devastate  2.37     3.59
Rend       ----     14.07

Case 2
(-3% hit, -7% Dodge/Parry)

Ability    Normal   +Rend
-------------------------
SS         5.34     5.46
Devastate  2.37     3.47
Rend       ----     15.49

Case 3
(-0% hit, -0% Dodge/Parry)

Ability    Normal   +Rend
-------------------------
SS         5.27     5.38
Devastate  2.37     3.33
Rend       ----     17.17

Obviously the average duration between Rends isn't much use except in the last case. In the first two, we'll use it back-to-back on occasion if it failed to land a hit; the 1.5s difference is what's bringing it lower. In case 3, it's just suffering the natural pushback caused by other abilities taking priority. In this case, we can assume that it's down 2.17 seconds for every full duration it's up.

I think a histogram of time-between-rends will be useful - I'll go ahead and make one.

Edit: Just to be clear, Rend got priority over Devastate only. This seemed the logical choice to me, but let me know if you need it somewhere else.

[Zapp]

That guy on the EJ site has some incorrect numbers.(Yomon). He thinks that TC has it's coefficient multiplied when I can assure you it doesn't. He left 1H mastery out of his equation. I can't post there yet because of a 24 hour lock out on new accounts.

As far as rend goes I've been toying with it. Does it make slows better? Gonna try and figure that out.

[shiz98]

I did a bit of napkin math on slow/fast rends. For the [item]Red Sword of Courage[/item] vs [item]Titansteel Bonecrusher[/item], the difference was 11.89 DPS/TPS.

Math:

380 + (MWB + mwb)/2 + AP/14 * 2.4

Slow:
380 + (467 + 251)/2 + AP/14 * 2.4
= 380 + 359 + AP/14 * 2.4

Fast:
380 + (299 + 160)/2 + ap/14 * 2.4
= 380 + 229.5 + AP/14 * 2.4

Diff: 129.5
W/ Bleed Buffs: 129.5 * 1.2 * 1.3 = 202

Using 17s per rend:
11.89 TPS/DPS increase by using the fast weapon

So basically, if you are using rend in your rotation, you're still better off with a fast weapon. On the plus side, they numbers are closer, so if you don't have a good fast weapon, you don't have to feel as bad using a slow weapon

[shiz98]

Looking at whether we should actually use rend at all, I've come up with the following:

(This is using numbers from the slow weapon)

(380 + 359) * 1.2 * 1.3 + (ap/14) * 2.4 * 1.2 * 1.3
= 1153 + ap * 0.267

Branching off, if we get the 35% bonus for the target having high health...
= 1557 + ap * 0.361

Using 4k AP:
1153 + 1068 = 2221
1557 + 1444 = 3001 (High mob health)

If we use rend every 17 seconds, we've got the following DPS/TPS:
130dps
177dps (High mob health)

Ok, so there's a nice DPS benefit from rend. But what about the losses from other abilities?

Assuming our SS does 4000 threat per hit, on average, we lose about 16tps by using Rend in our rotation.

If Devastate does 1000 threat per hit on average, we lose about 121tps by using Rend in our rotation.

So by using rend, we lose about 130/140 TPS from other abilities (I chose numbers a bit on the high side, so this might be less in a real-world scenario).

Bottom Line:
You always want to use a fast weapon for single-target tanking. It does slightly less damage from DW/Rend, but the HS threat makes up for it. From a pure DPS perspective, you might do more damage with a slow weapon, but the numbers will be close.

Should you use rend at all? This is also a close decision. The numbers are pretty close for when the mob has less than 75% health. Personally, I'd say maintain it for that first 25% at a higher priority over only Devastate.

Better threat numbers for SS/Devastate would be a great help in getting more accurate results. I'll probably end up coming back here and updating this once I generate some.

[Magnuss]

Shiz let me just say thanks alot for continuing the effort on this. i stopped using rend recently because it wasnt really putting out an increase for my rotation. if i had to move or wasnt properly paying attention and jerked 1 GCD, then rend seemed to be more of a burden then it was worth. i notice however that you are doing your calculations based off of the red sword of courage and titansteel bonecrusher (which is exactly what i was using up until yesterday). im curious, would these numbers remain as close when looking at higher end naxx 25 gear?

[shiz98]

Heh, I'm glad somebody is able to use it

As for scaling, that's an interesting issue. The thing is that Rend scales with different stats than shield slam and devastate, so a flat comparison won't really work. I'd like to get tighter numbers at three levels of gearing: Pre-Naxx (based on my own gear), Post-Naxx (I'll probably go look at Cider's equipment here), and a made up level of gear that might be appropriate in the next tier or two of content. That should give a pretty clear picture of the scaling.

And once that's done, I think I'll probably merge the Rend + DW discussion into a single post that's accessible to people who don't want to dig through tons of math.

[nolsoth]

when your useing rend in your rotations have you got it macro'd into a dps spam? or just clicking it from your bars?.

reason i ask is last week i was doing 10 man OS and on sarth i was playing round with rend to get some numbers on the damage but i was being cheap and had the spell book open and just clicking it everytime the debuf was close to running out. And if i recall correctly the total damage of my rend over the course of the fight accounted for .9% of my total damage output which i didnt really feel was that significant, compared with the bulk of my damage coming from HS and SS.

i think ill try and make a spam macro with rend on it and try it out again this week when i do sarth again and mayby post the results for oyu to have a look at?

[shiz98]

I used a simulator which basically has zero lag and super-human reflexes. Its will be able to get more overall damage from an ability better than any human player, ever.

Did you have Imp. Rend and Trauma/Mangle up? You're right that 0.9% is pretty low. I'm looking at a best-case scenario here, which might be why it is higher. That being said, 130TPS isn't really that much overall when you're totaling 3k.

The simulator applied rend only when SS, Conc. Blow, Shockwave, and Revenge were on CD. It would use just attempt to maintain the debuff. It didn't actually get full uptime on it due to how often SS was being used, but it got close. So in the ideal threat rotation, you're not even using Rend all that much anyway.

[tankedtank]

I've been trying to figure out if a slow weapon proves more threat than a fast with DWs. I've read it's been proven that fast is better due to HS spam.

My question is this; has anyone done any theory crafting with DWs w/ slow weapon but has gear itemization focused on parry? Yes it will reduce our survivability as dodge is much better avoidance but I've been wondering if a warr has a high parry rating that if the slower weapon will prove mightier as our swing timer will get a boost. Now keep in mind I'm focusing on max threat and where survivability is not much of an issue.

Any thoughts?

[Disruptor]

I've been trying to figure out if a slow weapon proves more threat than a fast with DWs. I've read it's been proven that fast is better due to HS spam.

My question is this; has anyone done any theory crafting with DWs w/ slow weapon but has gear itemization focused on parry? Yes it will reduce our survivability as dodge is much better avoidance but I've been wondering if a warr has a high parry rating that if the slower weapon will prove mightier as our swing timer will get a boost. Now keep in mind I'm focusing on max threat and where survivability is not much of an issue.

Any thoughts?

I got somehow a huge amount of parry in my survivablity gear since most, best mitigation tank gears have parry. But in my opinion focusing on parry is not worth it. First of all moth current bosses got big - huge swing timers. I have around 23% parry ( more parry than dodge O.O ) and still it is not really worth it. Even with a slow weapon calculate raidbuffs like 20% haste and Sapphiron or other bosses will hardly hit in the first 40% after you ve done a hit. And the cap for parry is really low ( something about 4x%, if i remember correctly ) .It might work for Sapphiron or PW since you can parry cleave etc as well. But seriously, if they implement any DW bosses that hit faster than Gluth or Loatheb i think Block / SBV will do the work. Even now i see my TPS sometimes going nuts with SBV gear. Especially created for TPS with hitcap, huge amount of SBV / SB / Exp in combination with spikes / ret aura / thorns / dmg reflecting block talent will outtps parry with a slow weapon. My highest spikes with bl etc were about 19k TPS without any boss buffs like thaddius or loatheb.


Anyway i got one question as well. In theory, if you have TPS gear and no rage problems at all should not rend work for the last GCD before SS CD resets? f you use SS, 2 dev and no SnB procced, SW / Conc / HT is on CD and debuffs are managed by the raid shouldn't a rend be more useful than a dev? At least that is the situation i use Rend in and for 25s i even spec imp. Rend since i got that situation a few times in a boss fight. And Rend is very useful for many encounters like Malygos or any encounter in Naxx where you cant move for some seconds or get range from the boss ( maexxna, shadow dance, saph etc. )

[Kahmal]

Would a Slower Weapon still generate more DPS single target or would the Heroic Strike Speed make up for it?

And if either or, would a slower weapon be more ideal for fights where rage is harder to come by?

My idea is...for a fight like Patchwerk where Rage is always capped SPAM Heroic Strike like crazy with a quick weapon. But fights where such actions can leave you rage starved use a slow Main Hand to count a bit more on Deep Wounds and Rend (if this shit is worth it)

P.S I really hope this Slow Weapon Theory falls through because I passed on Broken Promise and advised the other Warrior to pass it to the Paladin as well. >.<

[shiz98]

I've actually been reworking my spreadsheet to make it able to answer these questions better - it's not there yet, but I do have HS uptime factored in now.

You'll probably want to be using a slower weapon if your HS uptime is below 75%.

I'm working on a post with regards to slow vs fast for single and multitarget tanking, including whether Rend is a good idea or not. Hopefully I can have it done by the end of the weekend...

Edit: Sorry, I should clarify - DPS wise, you want to use a slow weapon if uptime is less than 75%. TPS wise, your uptime would need to be somewhere around 30% for it to be worthwhile.

[Zain]

Hopefully I don't come across as conceited, but as of right now in the game, all of this talk is completely 100% useless, seeing as how Last Laugh - Item - World of Warcraft
is not only fast at 1.6, but has the highest dps by 15, over the 2nd best in slot, Broken Promise - Item - World of Warcraft . The entire fast vs slow argument is rather unneeded, because of the vast amount of difference in the damage done by the weapons. Also, as far as rend damage goes, the slow speed vs high speed will be smaller than compared 2 weapons of the same dps, because the fast weapon is a whole 15 dps higher. So even if rend was better with the 2.6, it wouldn't be enough for one to even consider using it over Last Laugh.

(also, as far as enchants go currently: Accuracy. Bar none.)

[shiz98]

The entire fast vs slow argument is rather unneeded, because of the vast amount of difference in the damage done by the weapons.

Absolutely. At the pinnacle of current content, there's no need to bother discussing this. Keep in mind, however, that Ulduar is coming "real soon now," and that Naxx/OS/Maly is probably equivalent to Kara/Mag/Gruul from TBC in terms of progression. Chances are that this will crop up eventually.

It's also worth noting that not everyone interested in maxing out their threat generation will be farming Naxx.

[Zain]

Absolutely. At the pinnacle of current content, there's no need to bother discussing this. Keep in mind, however, that Ulduar is coming "real soon now," and that Naxx/OS/Maly is probably equivalent to Kara/Mag/Gruul from TBC in terms of progression. Chances are that this will crop up eventually.

It's also worth noting that not everyone interested in maxing out their threat generation will be farming Naxx.

Yea. I just keep seeing these posts and discussions about it, and I finally decided to give my input. With the way things seem to be working out, as long as the best tanking weapon in the game comes off of a substantially harder boss than the last tank weapon came from (ie, not having TK and SSC out at the same time) since we'll only be given Ulduar; It seems like these questions won't have to be asked, but rather will be solved for us by obvious increases in the stats and dps of weapons.

Edit: And I don't mean to be rude here, but if all you can do is farm heroics or 10mans, then worrying about the best items you can get... really won't mean much because your choice of items are limited anyway, and you won't have the extra defense/stam/other stats available to play around with them enough to make a difference. (and it's hard to test how much of a difference stats make when you're fighting 5/10man bosses)

[Grunnus]

While your point is solid, before Ulduar Last Laugh is the best weapon regardless, but what most people are asking is that they do not have Last Laugh they are wondering about whether to equip Red Sword of Courage or Broken Promise while spec'd into DW. Last Laugh is just the best of both worlds pre-Ulduar.

[Joel_D]

I went from red sword to bonecrusher for a while to gain the expertise. Vs aptchwrek in 10man i gained 300 dps with the red sword so i am useing that again as main weapon.