Splamming

[shiz98]

I've mentioned this approach to Arms DPS a couple times, I think, but never really got anywhere with it (it's rather difficult to model). I had at one time been working on a spreadsheet related to it, but I had limited time to work on it and ebs's execute spreadsheet trumped much of its usefulness. So anyway, here are my thoughts on the matter.

First of all, the spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Not too different from your standard Arms spec. You sacrifice SD, BF, and Wrecking Crew for Death Wish, Weapon Mastery, Precision, and Flurry. WM/Precision don't do all that much for you, but freeing up a few itemization points for other DPS stats is always nice. The big thing here is Flurry.

The idea for the build is pretty simple: Slam. Sit in battle stance and do the Rend/Taste for Blood thing, while spending free GCD's slamming. Mortal Strike is your rage dump.

You're missing wrecking Crew and Blood Frenzy. This hurts your DPS. You're missing SD, which is also a minus. What you get in exchange is better slamming due to Flurry.

Seems like a loss (and may well be one). The advantage with this spec lies in rage efficiency. Simply put, you can slam your ass off before running dry. In a high-rage environment a splam spec simply won't put out as much damage as a traditional Arms - it can't. But if your rage intake is fairly low, slam is pretty amazing.

Basically, this takes your low-rage scenario from the Arms spec (which involves more slamming due to the rage efficiency) and tries to optimize around it.

Normally I'd crunch some numbers on this, but it's rather difficult - in order to get an accurate DPS number for the splamming you have to refine your results iteratively due to the complex rage/slam relationship.

I'll be trying this out when I hit 80 (soon! soon!), which should give me a good idea of when it's workable. Ideally it's superior up to that 10% slam bonus.

So what do you all think about this? Feasible spec?

[ebs2002]

According to my calculations, the higher your haste is, the WORSE slam gets in a limited rage scenario. If you're swinging at a 2.5speed, slamming once between white hits sets your swing timer to 3.0speed, which slows your rage generation 16.67% (two slams slows your rage generation 29.6%).

Compare this to swinging at 3.0 speed originally. One slam slows your rage generation 14.3%, and two slams slows it 25%.

Another way to look at it is that slam doesn't just cost 15 rage, it costs 15 rage PLUS the rage you're losing from delaying your swing timer. The more haste you have, the more rage your slam "costs" you, because delaying your swing timer is worse at high haste than it is at low haste.

My take on it, then, is that if you want to go this spec, you're WORSE off by splamming, and better off keeping a more regular rotation (or at the very least, keeping MS on cooldown)

[shiz98]

Yes, it is true that rage benefits from haste suffer from DR when slamming. However, you still do generate more rage overall. For example:

If I swing every 3s for 30 rage, then I'm making 10 rage per second. If I slam thrice in that period, I'm making 6.7 rage per second. If I swing at 2s normally at 30 rage per second, I make 15 rage per second. If I slam twice in that period, I make 10 rage per second. That 33% haste (or however much - I've never bothered with the math behind it, to be honest) still increases my rage income.

Another way to look at is is that the most slam can slow the swing down by is 50%. With flurry, this is down to 25%. That's a 25% increase in white damage and rage.

Consider that without the haste, you'd still be slamming the same amount.

[shiz98]

Well, I got a chance to play around with it last night, and with a frost DK (or enh Shaman), I had too much rage to make it worthwhile. This would probably only be a good build in a 10 man with limited melee buffs, if that at all.

[Mephs]

This isn't a worthwhile spec because you essentially are giving up 10% of your damage over an entire fight for more white swings, and a 3 min cooldown.

You'd lose DPS doing that in other words.

[ebs2002]

I agree that flurry is still a buff. The point I was making is that you should NOT just rely on slam spamming, because slam is LESS efficient. Instead, you should be using all abilities you have available to you.

One thing that I think may make this spec a little better is converting all that extra rage into heroic strikes as well (yes, you can slam AND heroic strike at the same time)

[shiz98]

This isn't a worthwhile spec because you essentially are giving up 10% of your damage over an entire fight for more white swings, and a 3 min cooldown.

Right, but it's also working on the assumption that you don't have enough rage to maintain a standard arms rotation. It's impossible for it to do more dps in a high-rage scenario, but it might come out on top if you're particularly starved.

The point I was making is that you should NOT just rely on slam spamming, because slam is LESS efficient. Instead, you should be using all abilities you have available to you.

But even with haste, isn't slam still more rage efficient than any other ability?

[ebs2002]

But even with haste, isn't slam still more rage efficient than any other ability?

No. Not when you take into account the rage you LOSE from slam delaying your swing timer.

[shiz98]

Right, up to a max of 25% less rage. The question is whether or not the 25% rage/white damage cost allows you to be competitive with a standard rage-starved Arms build.