Icecrown Boss Attack Speed

[schnazzberry]

Hey, first post.

Does anyone know where I can go to find the attack speed of bosses in Icecrown?

I'd like to figure how many attacks we're dodging per minutes with lowered dodge values but faster bosses as compared to slower harder hitting bosses. Plan is to post all the math here after I've figured it out and show if dodge still has any worthwhile value in Icecrown.

[Satorri]

I haven't seen this data presented anywhere yet, but then I also haven't been looking.

Do you know how to collect combat log data for parsing? A few of the bosses have semi-variable attack speeds, or have phases of different speeds. The best way would be to either identify by phase or just for your purposes average the number of swings taken over the length of the fight.

I'll be the last person to talk you out of this sort of thing, but there has been a lot of (admittedly anecdotal) discussion on the value of dodge in ICC, what do you imagine being able to illustrate here?

Theoretically speaking it doesn't exactly matter how fast a boss swings unless it is so slow that you don't have a reasonable statistical chance to see a dodge (which doesn't happen, or you're taking so few hits it doesn't matter), otherwise 10% dodge is worth the same total damage reduction for either attack speed.

The value of avoidance, of course, is not just about total damage reduction but about damage interruption. The distinction aesthetically in fast vs slow swinging bosses is that on a fast swinging boss you'll see a slightly more staggered damage intake but each dodge may not be particularly game breaking, where as against a heavy slow hitting boss one avoid creates a longer gap between hurts and singly negates a major ouch.

I've been trying to find a way to illustrate this intelligently, but still the clamor from the peanut gallery is that "avoidance makes damage spiky" which is, of course, silly since it removes spikes of damage, it doesn't cause them. That phrase is usually a buzz word for, "makes damage taken less predictable so I don't require a constant stream of effective healing."

[Deathshay]

I would advise you to use some tool to extract data from recount, since it can be set to record timing of events too. From there, it is simply a mater of sorting the data in ability sources and get the number vs time of the events to an outside data file, where you can run graphs on it. I personally lack the experiance in lua and wow xml to pull off something like that, but it might be entirely posibly (I know how I would do it in other languges though).

[Martie]

I'd say it's variable.

Bosses have special abilities that function like melee attacks like Marrowgar, don't really melee that much like lady deathwhisper, have soft enrages like Saurfang and Putricide or have some kind of attack speed mechanic at the core of the encounter like festergut.

Looking at some of my guilds logs, I see nonfrenzied Saurfang hitting at somewhere around 1.2 attacks/second, 0-stack festergut hitting at about 2 attacks per second, Putricide hitting a little faster then 2 attacks per second, and the blood-queen at 2 attacks per second again.
Of course, these are rough numbers.

[proudmoore]

I think you mean 1 attack every 2 seconds, there. 2 attacks per second is even faster than Patchwek was (~0.8). All values post JotJ, and without other multipliers such as frenzy, Inhaled Blight etc. All values approximately +-0.15s (barring obvious flaw with decimal places, but who's counting?)

I make both Festergut and Rotface to have swing timers of approximately 1.7s. Prof Putricide is of the order of 2.0s

Princes Taldaram and Valanar are both of the order of 2.3s.

DBS is of the order of 1.1s before Frenzy. Marrowgar of 1.8s

[immerc]

but still the clamor from the peanut gallery is that "avoidance makes damage spiky" which is, of course, silly since it removes spikes of damage, it doesn't cause them.

I think the real expanded version of the "avoidance makes damage spiky" thought is "if we compare two tanks, one with high avoidance and low mitigation, vs. one with low avoidance and high mitigation, the one with high avoidance and low mitigation 'is spiky'".

Back in the days when druids had obscenely high armor but very low avoidance, healers often commented that although the druids were major mana sponges, the damage they took was more predictable and didn't burst the way warriors and paladins did. Druids used to take crushing blows all the time, but a crushing blow to a druid was a fairly minor thing. Two back-to-back crushes on a druid was less of a spike than two regular back-to-back hits on a warrior, because the warriors had higher avoidance but significantly lower armor.

High avoidance makes it much less likely to take 3 hits in a row, so the odds of a 3-hit spike are much lower, however typically when you get high avoidance, you're trading off EH in some form. This means that although a low avoidance, high EH tank is much more likely to take a 3-hit spike, a 3-hit spike is less dangerous to a high EH tank than it is to a low EH tank.