Calculation: Pull threat comparison

I've devised a spreadsheet to compare different pull sequences on their threat value. Here's the spreadsheet: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApevROGqFVNNdHNvTWY3WDZwVnFBVTJwTU9Ia09UZmc&hl=en#gid=0

Values were taken from Theck's MATLAB model, r211.
The caclulated pull sequences are:
- The Inq-AS pull: DP-Inq-AS-(939)
- The EXO-J-SotR pull: DP-Exo-J-SotR-(939 with a 0.5sec delay to use Judgement again before the next SotR)
These two pulls lay at the base of the project, since I had an argument with another paladin about which of our pull sequences were better threat.

-The Inq-Exo-AS pull: DP-Inq-Exo-AS-(939)
-The Exo-AS-SotR pull: DP-Exo-AS-SotR-(939)
-The Exo-AS-Double SotR pull: EXO-AS-(939 with a DP-SotR after the first SotR)

-The Exo-J-AS-Double SotR pull 1: EXO-J-AS-(939 with a DP-SotR after the first SotR)
-The Exo-J-AS-Double SotR pull 2: EXO-J-AS-(939 with a 0.5sec delay to use Judgement again before the first SotR, and with a DP-SotR after the first SotR)
-The Inq-Exo-J-AS Pull: DP-Inq-Exo-J-AS-(939 with HW>Cons while Inq is up)
These three pulls take 3 seconds from first damage landing to melee contact.

Below is a graph comparing the last 3 pulls for the first 15 seconds.


As you can see, Inq beats SotR and double SotR by quite a significant margin. So there's some use to that ability anyway.
A few things I have noticed while working on the model:
-HW is not so bad at low Vengeance, but gets worse very fast.
-Double SotR is not very good. You're wasting a GCD to use an ability that's actually lower damage than CS+any other ability you could cast (except HW at high Vengeance). Also, the second SotR will never benefit from a possible SD proc.
-Inq has the advantage of guaranteeing your Holy Shield buff being up.

Thanks to Theck and tlitp for helping me make sense of it all and providing me with the numbers.

We're still not done yet.

First of all, it looks like there's an error in cell BA-89, the SotR damage is lower than it should be for 60% Vengeance.

Second, we need to account for Sacred Duty. The easiest way to do this is to multiply any SotR preceded by J by:

sotr_factor=(mdf.phcrit+mdf.mehit.*mdf.sd1.*(mdf.phcritm-mdf.phcrit));

where
mdf.sd1=mdf.rahit.*0.5
mdf.phcritm=2
mdf.phcrit=1.0447

sotr_factor should work out to be around 1.419.


Third, we need to account for Avenging Wrath. Since it's also off the GCD, you can simply add that as a time period where we do 1.2x damage. For the Inq rotations, you'd probably want to pop it with Inq (iirc, despite being off-GCD, you can't cast it during the Exo cast, and it will almost certainly be better to do it before Exo than after). For the double SotR rotation, you'd want to cast it with the first SotR, so that you get the benefit for three SotR casts (SotR-DP-StoR-(939)-SotR). The rotations are all fairly close as is, so the position of AW will make a big difference. The combination of being later in the cycle (and thus everything doing more damage from Vengeance) and hitting 3 SotRs under AW will likely pull those rotations ahead.

Spreadsheet updated: corrected bad data entry, added Sacred Duty, added Avenging Wrath.
Graph for the first 15 seconds:



Since AW is still active for the double SotR pulls, here's one for the full 30 seconds:



With Avenging Wrath, the double SotR pulls are able to catch up after 24 seconds, but not pull ahead.

Errors:
-AM-109 has the wrong value for SotR (it's using the 50% Veng value rather than the 40% value).
-You have two erroneous procs of SoT from Consecration and Holy Wrath (neither of those proc seals). O97 and O111 should be zero, P97 and P111 are correct.

Excellent work so far, I'm impressed how well Inq has held up through all of this. I expected it to fare much worse, but it looks like after 30 seconds, it's neck and neck with my double-SotR opener.

But....

There's still one more thing we've neglected. Tricks of the Trade gives you a 15% damage bonus for 6 seconds that does not stack with AW. This will generally not be available at t=0, as your rogue will probably give you a GCD or so before engaging the boss. It's probably safe to treat it as starting at t=3.0 and lasting until t=9.0.

This should easily bring the double-SotR rotations ahead of the Inq rotation, since it will close the gap that occurs during the first 9 seconds, which is the only thing that keeps Inq ahead. Inq+AW on the pull can't take advantage of the Tricks damage boost. We might want to try one more rotation, which is Inq+Exo+AS but with AW held off until after Tricks wears off.

The initial offensive casts (say the first three, Exor/J/AS) do not benefit from debuff-based modifiers. As such :

• for all three, replace mdf.spdmg (1.1124) with 1.03
• for Exor, replace mdf.Exorcrit (1.057) with 1.032; assuming a generic target, the guaranteed critical hits can be ignored

Updated, corrected wrong values, added Tricks to the double SotR pulls (not to the Inq pull).

15 seconds graph:



30 seconds graph:



It seems that even with Tricks added to the other pulls, the Inq pull seems to be the better choice for pulling.

tlitp wrote:The initial offensive casts (say the first three, Exor/J/AS) do not benefit from debuff-based modifiers. As such :

• for all three, replace mdf.spdmg (1.1124) with 1.03
• for Exor, replace mdf.Exorcrit (1.057) with 1.032; assuming a generic target, the guaranteed critical hits can be ignored

Well spotted. I'll get it in in the next update.

AW should cover cells DO-100 and DP-100, since it starts at t=9.5.

It's interesting to note that the third SotR under AW is essentially what catches the double-SotR queues up with the Inq rotation. From that point on, they're essentially identical from a long-term threat perspective. But Inq arguably does a better job of it, since it starts off stronger and doesn't have the disadvantage of being able to miss. The fixes to Exo/AS/J on the pull should hurt it more proportionally than the SotR openers, but the changes in 4.0.6 should make it the hands-down winner (faster Censure stacking means more Censure and SoT damage within the Inq window).

Small update, corrected some more wrong values, and added an Exo-J-AS pull without double SotR.

15 ssecond graph:



30 second graph:



These show that double SotR is worse than not using DP at all.

Two more corrections :

• any serious Rogue will use the corresponding glyph for TotT, bringing the damage boost down to 10%
• any serious tank will use double-potting, therefore you should consider adding Golemblood for the pull. In [SM], add this line right before the player.str line :
  

  Code: Select all

  gear.str=gear.str+1200;

Really interesting work. Just a couple of questions:

1) How much hit and expertise are these values based on?

2) Why is the swing timer at 1.75 seconds, while all the tanking weapons have 2.6 speed (2.36 buffed if I'm not mistaken)?

Marblehead wrote:Really interesting work. Just a couple of questions:

1) How much hit and expertise are these values based on?

2) Why is the swing timer at 1.75 seconds, while all the tanking weapons have 2.6 speed (2.36 buffed if I'm not mistaken)?

Hit: 2.8%, Expertise: 16.7, stats are based on Theck's default gear set used for his Matlab Thread.
Standard swingtimer is indeed 2.36 buffed, but this one takes Reckoning procs into the calculation.

tlitp wrote:Two more corrections :

• any serious Rogue will use the corresponding glyph for TotT, bringing the damage boost down to 10%
• any serious tank will use double-potting, therefore you should consider adding Golemblood for the pull. In [SM], add this line right before the player.str line :
  

  Code: Select all

  gear.str=gear.str+1200;

I'm not sure the golemblood assumption is a good one, given the cost of potions. In addition, it locks you out of an armor potion for the duration of the potion cooldown. The extra threat from golemblood isn't needed on the pull, and probably isn't worth the loss of versatility on your armor potion.

This is very interesting - I confess I never thought of starting a pull with DP-inquisition. But it does sound attractive. Quite aside from the single target threat calculations, it gets your holy shield up early (as the OP said) and also will add punch to your AOE moves if it is a multi-mob pull.

I've been using the theckhd double punch (AW-ShotR-DP-ShotR), but you have to a wait a bit for that and it is snap aggro that is my only threat issue atm. And I sometimes find by the time I am ready for the double ShotR, I get interrupted by some combat mechanics - e.g. the need to move out of the fire, whirlwind, pick up adds etc.

One possible drawback to starting with inquisition is the lag between starting the pull and getting in melee range. With a stationary Exo-J-AS pull, I often feel there is a gap when I am out of melee range and have no abilities to use. This might mean some of the inquisition is "wasted". Do the results depend on getting off a ShotR while still under the buff of inquisition?

Is a corollary of these results, that one should not use Divine Plea in combat to get 3 holy power? Intuitively, it seems like rather a good use of GCD but not apparently according to these numbers. Quite aside from the initial pull, I've been routinely popping DP when it is up for a double ShotR, but maybe I should just be sticking to 939?

I started using the Inq pull myself recently (coming from the Exo-J-SotR pull), and noticed that on stationary pulls (boss coming to you) the Exo-J-AS sequence is timed pretty well.
One drawback I did notice is, because both AS and J are on CD, you lose a LOT of mana in the first melee rotation...