A new protection rotation

[Martie]

Damn, it's been a long time since I posted here.

Anyway, after much math and other things, I think I've come up with a rotation superior to CS-Judge-CS-Filler-CS-HotR.

The rotation would be
HotR - Filler - HotR - Judge - HotR - Inquisition
HotR - Filler - HotR - Judge - HotR - SotR
Repeat.

Filler is, of coure, Avenger's Shield if possible, Holy Wrath or Consecration otherwise.
Two things to note is that the SotR is boosted by Inquisition, and that the chance of having a Sacred Duty proc for the SotR is 75% due to the Judgement position in the rotation. According to my numbers, it's about 8% more threat than the base rotation.

I think it can be improved even further by using SotR if you have Inquisition or Sacred Duty up, and Inquisition otherwise, but I haven't figured out how to model that yet.

Opinions?

[Meloree]

The shorthand for this rotation in Theck's calculations is ISH9, I think.

I suggest looking up all the modelling he did on it.

[econ21]

I don't understand this rotation though - how can inquisition last long enough to get into a new cycle of the rotation, let alone affect ShoR? I have set up Power Auras to show me when it is active and it only seems to have about a second or so left by the time I am starting a new 939 cycle. Maybe I am just slow to go through my rotation. Can someone spell it out a little more?

[theckhd]

Inquisition lasts for 4 seconds per holy power, or 12 seconds total. The 939 cycle is only 9 seconds long. So if you alternate between Inquisition and SotR as your finishers, you'll get the Inq effect for each SotR.

I've already modeled this rotation pretty extensively though. It's rotation #12 in the Single-Target Rotation Simulations post. ISH9, as we called it, is a theoretical increase if you have:

• Very low hit & expertise (~2% hit and 16 total expertise in those simulations)
• High stack of Vengeance (>70%)

If either of those conditions fails, it falls behind 939. Admittedly, a lot of us are tanking bosses under those conditions right now. However, we're also casting considerably more WoGs in those conditions, which makes the whole argument pretty moot. For your "average Joe" tank who's grinding heroics, or tanks who still thinks it's worth aiming for hit-cap and expertise soft-cap, ISH9 is completely irrelevant.

[econ21]

Thanks - but is the rotation any relevance for "cleave tanking" while grinding heroics? Often you start off with say three mobs on you, but they quickly get thinned out, so you'd want to switch from Inquistion to SotR sooner or later. More generally, should we be using Inq rather than SotR when fighting more than one mob or is there a higher cut-off point for the number of mobs? Reading the AOE rotation post in your matlab thread, I was a little unclear on this - you mentioned prioritising SotR for cleaving tanking, so is inquisition only recommended for "real AOE fights" of more than 3 mobs?

[theckhd]

The AoE rotation post hasn't been updated for level 85 yet. I want to go through and fine-tune the queues that it's using, and just haven't had time.

For heroics, your rotation choice will likely be more dependent on what you're trying to do. If you just want maximum damage on 3+ mobs, then use Inq, HotR, and AoE abilities. If you're trying to minimize damage taken or burn down a particularly dangerous mob, then use SotR on the burn target (or WoG if you're in danger).

I find that I'm rarely in the first position. I'm usually either burning down the kill target, or have pulled enough crap that I need to WoG-spam.

@Martie: Also, I'm running the simulations again with the SDSotR*>Inq>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW queue right now. The results are as I remembered them in my PM to you last night. I've also changed the notation so that it's a little clearer that SotR* takes precedence over Inquisition:

Code: Select all

8% hit, 26 expertise

    1   SotR>CS>J>AS>HW                    18307   11117      0   0.0   424   3191
    2   SotR>HotR>J>AS>HW                  17408   10439      0   0.0   399   3292
    3   SotR>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW               18500   11185      0   0.0   401   3202
    4   SotR>CS>AS>J>Cons>HW               18272   11071     51   0.2   377   3724
    5   SotR>AS>CS>J>Cons>HW               17936   10893    493   1.6   412   4079
    6   AS>SotR>CS>J>Cons>HW               17945   10904    583   1.9   339   4184
    7   SD>SotR>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW            18373   11111    173   0.6   399   3183
    8   Inq>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW                15243    9287   2353   7.8     0   3244
    9   2SotR*>Inq>CS>AS>J>Cons>HW         16363    9943      0   0.0   250   3993
   10   SotR*>Inq>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW          18133   10956      0   0.0   190   3236
   11   SotR*>Inq>CS>J2>AS>Cons>HW         18571   11220      0   0.0   195   3228
   12   SotR*>Inq>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW       18176   10831      0   0.0   201   3270
   13   SDSotR*>Inq>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW     17938   10709    224   0.7   141   3420
   14   SotR*>Inq>CS>AS>J>Cons>HW          18357   11119     53   0.2   202   3686
   15   SotR*>Inq>CS>AS*>J>Cons>HW         18292   11080      1   0.0   208   2947
   16   SotR*>Inq>HotR>AS>J>Cons>HW        17961   10732     51   0.2   209   3883
   17   Inq>SotR>2SDSotR>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW   16512    9999    297   1.0   244   3041
   18   SotR>CS>J>AS>HoW>Cons>HW           19057   11528      0   0.0   393   3204
   19   SotR>CS>J>HoW>AS                   18965   11506      0   0.0   425      0
   20   SotR>CS>HoW>J>AS                   18969   11508      0   0.0   390      0
   21   SotR>CS>HoW>AS>J>Cons>HW           18569   11338      0   0.0   405   3182
   22   Inq>SotR*>CS>HoW>J2>AS             19114   11595      0   0.0   176      0
   23   Inq>SotR*>HotR>HoW>J2>AS           18739   11219      0   0.0   198      0
   24   SotR>HoW>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW           18807   11505      0   0.0   383   2008
   25   HoW>SotR>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW           18981   11629      0   0.0   324   2287
   26   HoW>Inq>SotR*>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW      18567   11431      0   0.0     0   2425
   27   HoW>CS>SotR>J>AS                   18675   11407      0   0.0   303      0

Trying to use SotR only when Inq is up and you have a Sacred Duty procs is a DPS loss compared to just alternating Inq and SotR (#13 vs. #12). This isn't all that surprising. You have a 75% chance of each SotR being a crit in the ISH9 queue. You have a 100% chance of SotR critting if you only cast while under SD, but you cast fewer of them. You also lose some of them due to avoided SotR's, which is less noticeable in this sim due to the inflated hit/exp stats. It should cause a much larger difference in the low-hit, low-expertise region where you'd be considering ISH9 in the first place.

You'll also run into situations where Inq is up, SD didn't proc, and you're sitting on 3 Holy Power. In this situation, the sim just skips both and goes on to other fillers to make use of Inq. A more realistic model might be to refresh Inq in that GCD despite the overlap in uptime. I.e. SDSotR*>Inq*>else. I'm adding that to the list of queues now, I'll let you know if it's any better.

[theckhd]

Looks like utilizing that Holy Power to refresh Inq is a slight DPS gain, as expected. However, still not enough to catch up to the alternating rotation:

Code: Select all

8% hit, 26 expertise:

   11   SotR*>Inq>CS>J2>AS>Cons>HW         18554   11211     0   0.0   200   3215
   12   SotR*>Inq>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW       18210   10851     0   0.0   212   3259
   13   SDSotR*>Inq>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW     17980   10734   212   0.7   125   3414
   14   SDSotR*>Inq*>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW    18141   10807     0   0.0   153   3296

And again, at these hit and expertise levels, regular old 939 is in the 18.5k/11.2k region, neck and neck with #11.

[Nikachelle]

I might be looking at my buffs wrong, but I was finding that if I use 3 HoPos to refresh Inquisition BEFORE Inquisition has actually fallen off, it doesn't actually refresh it but instead continues to countdown from the same seconds it was at before. I only noticed this a few times and stopped paying attention to this afterwards, but does anyone know if this is accurate? If it is, it doesn't make much sense to me.

[Martie]

How about the Sotr*>SD>Inquistion>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW rotation?
It should be more HotR's thant the alternating rotation, but they'd all be boosted by something.

(If I suggested you ever don't use your holy power, I made a mistake - when you have 3 holy power, you should spend it.)

[tlitp]

Not that it is terribly relevant (not to a bunch of WoG-happy snowflakes, anyway), but the formulation approach gives fairly* similar results.

* unlike the sim, the analytical model has the HoW conditional already baked in; getting a perfect match is therefore impossible.

[theckhd]

I might be looking at my buffs wrong, but I was finding that if I use 3 HoPos to refresh Inquisition BEFORE Inquisition has actually fallen off, it doesn't actually refresh it but instead continues to countdown from the same seconds it was at before. I only noticed this a few times and stopped paying attention to this afterwards, but does anyone know if this is accurate? If it is, it doesn't make much sense to me.

I haven't noticed this myself, but I admittedly haven't been looking that closely. I'll check this when I get home.

How about the Sotr*>SD>Inquistion>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW rotation?
It should be more HotR's thant the alternating rotation, but they'd all be boosted by something.

I don't understand what you mean here. Is that SotR*>SDSotR>Inq(*?)>HotR>else? (I've usually used "SD" alone to stand for Judgement iff !SacredDuty).

In other words:
SotR if Inq is up && 3 Hopo
SotR if Sacred Duty is up && 3 Hopo
Inq if 3 Hopo
and so on?

I can throw that into the mix and see what happens.

Not that it is terribly relevant (not to a bunch of WoG-happy snowflakes, anyway), but the formulation approach gives fairly* similar results.

* unlike the sim, the analytical model has the HoW conditional already baked in; getting a perfect match is therefore impossible.

Argh, I knew we had this discussion at some point in the past. But I haven't had more than 4 hours of sleep a night for almost a week now, so I couldn't remember where the hell it was.

[Malthrax]

*filler*

Opinions?

Show your work?

[Martie]

I don't understand what you mean here. Is that SotR*>SDSotR>Inq(*?)>HotR>else? (I've usually used "SD" alone to stand for Judgement iff !SacredDuty).

I'll put it in other terms. (It's possible that I misunderstood the method you used or did something wrong.)

Every other cooldown is HotR.

The first open spot is the filler.
The second open spot is Judgement.
The third open spot changes based on what buffs you have. If Sacred Duty and/or Inquisition are active, it's SotR, otherwise, it's Inquisition.

[Martie]

*filler*

Opinions?

Show your work?

HotR rotation.
Skill, damage, seal damage

Code: Select all


HotR      15614,5      1700,4
AS/HW      18248,13      
HotR      12595      1308
Judge      16787      
HotR      12595      1308
Inquisition      0      
HotR      15614,5      1700,4
AS/HW      23722,57      
HotR      15614,5      1700,4
Judge      21823,1      
HotR      15614,5      1700,4
Shor      50541,4      1700,4

Censure    28085,76
Melee seal   12842,18

total   270816,14      


Standard CS

Code: Select all

CS      13369      1308
AS      18248,13      
CS      13369      1308
Judge      16787      
CS      13369      1308
ShoR      22216      1308
CS      13369      1308
AS/HW      18248,13      
CS      13369      1308
Judge      16787      
CS      13369      1308
Shor      33324      1308
      
Censure   23404,8   
Melee seal 10701,82

Total    250394,88

Note that these are the results of the spreadsheet. I'm quite sure about most of the math behind it, except for the AS/HW thing. I used 75% of AS damage + 25% HW damage. (Half of them will be AS no matter what, the proc works out to about 50% as well.)

[theckhd]

Every other cooldown is HotR.

The first open spot is the filler.
The second open spot is Judgement.
The third open spot changes based on what buffs you have. If Sacred Duty and/or Inquisition are active, it's SotR, otherwise, it's Inquisition.

Yep, that's SotR*>SDSotR>Inq>HotR>(fillers).

Code: Select all

~2.8% hit, ~16.7 expertise
   10   SotR*>Inq>CS>J>AS>Cons>HW              16661   10060     0   0.0    461   3090
   11   SotR*>Inq>CS>J2>AS>Cons>HW             17011   10270     0   0.0    496   3099
   12   SotR*>Inq>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW           16986   10116     0   0.0    534   3211
   13   SDSotR*>Inq>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW         16748    9992   222   0.7    353   3401
   14   SDSotR*>Inq*>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW        16979   10107     0   0.0    317   3270
   15   SotR*>SDSotR>Inq*>HotR>J2>AS>Cons>HW   17010   10135     0   0.0    582   3267

This is the low-hit/expertise gear set. So at high Vengeance (first column) this is roughly equivalent to ISH9 in this particular gear set. The differences between 12, 14, and 15 are all small enough to be fairly meaningless. I'd have to work out the analytical solution to get anything more accurate, though for <30 DPS it's probably not worth it.

Also:

Note that these are the results of the spreadsheet. I'm quite sure about most of the math behind it, except for the AS/HW thing. I used 75% of AS damage + 25% HW damage. (Half of them will be AS no matter what, the proc works out to about 50% as well.)

This isn't correct. If you're ignoring Cons, it'll end up being closer to 66% AS, 33% HW, and will vary significantly with your hit and expertise. See the Analytical Model of 939 post in the MATLAB thread if you're curious about the details.