Enchant Weapon: Blade Ward - testing results

[steadypal]

Q u o t e:
Is the proc chance increased on blade ward?

Or is this some sort of bug on ptr, any info on the topc would be greatly appreciated.

The proc chance on ptr has increased astoundingly making it actually look like it could be useful for once.



This is a known issue, thank you.




GG blizz,,,, is blade ward useful now? and blizz,,, this is a known issue, it is not supposed to be useful..

[defeated]

What is absolutely hilarious, is thats my post ROFL.

Defiance of Blackrock hahahh

[Dakiros]

Has anyone done any recent testing on Blade Ward on the PTR? I'm using it on my Shiver (more to try it out than anything) now but am considering changing to Accuracy since my hit is lower than I'd like it to be.

[Tolaana]

I'm currently smacking the heroic training dummy in Darnassus around with it on Broxigar PvE. Will post a log in a bit when it's been a bit more time. It will be slightly inaccurate, as the dummies don't hit back so it stack it up higher. I did have a five stack a few minutes into this, and overall it does look like the proc chance has been increased by a fair amount.

I got about 20-30 minutes or so of just swinging on the heroic target dummey before someone else showed up, so I went and swung at Thrym from 100%-0%. Did use some judgements though, to keep my health up since just plain old SoL wasn't enough. The log file is uploaded at http://www.filefront.com/14096183/WoWCombatLog.txt

Has both the heroic dummy test and the Thrym test on it, may want to separate them. Thrym lasted 27 minutes and some seconds. Will upload to WWS tomorrow if someone wants.

[Magnusharkov]

I'm currently smacking the heroic training dummy in Darnassus around with it on Broxigar PvE. Will post a log in a bit when it's been a bit more time. It will be slightly inaccurate, as the dummies don't hit back so it stack it up higher. I did have a five stack a few minutes into this, and overall it does look like the proc chance has been increased by a fair amount.

I got about 20-30 minutes or so of just swinging on the heroic target dummey before someone else showed up, so I went and swung at Thrym from 100%-0%. Did use some judgements though, to keep my health up since just plain old SoL wasn't enough. The log file is uploaded at http://www.filefront.com/14096183/WoWCombatLog.txt

Has both the heroic dummy test and the Thrym test on it, may want to separate them. Thrym lasted 27 minutes and some seconds. Will upload to WWS tomorrow if someone wants.

would be great to see any more analysis on this, cheers for looking into it.

[Slept]

I wrote an Excel macro to parse the results.

Target Dummy

Combat Time (sec) 1987.062
Buff Procs 71
Buff Procs per min 2.143868687

Damage Procs 0
Damage Procs per min 0
Total Damage 0
Damage per Proc NA
Damage per min 0

Thrym

Combat Time (sec) 1516.094
Buff Procs 37
Buff Procs per min 1.464289154

Damage Procs 20
Damage Procs per min 0.791507651
Total Damage 22056
Damage per Proc 1102.8
Damage per min 14.54791062

Apologies for the crappy formating.

[Janduin]

From the patch notes:

Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack.

Could the higher proc rate per unit time for paladins on the PTR simply be because SoV ticks can proc it now (not certain if this is the case, but possible considering the above patch note excerpt)? I have done zero testing, just a theory...

[steadypal]

From the patch notes:

Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack.

Could the higher proc rate per unit time for paladins on the PTR simply be because SoV ticks can proc it now (not certain if this is the case, but possible considering the above patch note excerpt)? I have done zero testing, just a theory...

hmm, dont know if that will effect blade ward procs, but it MIGHT effect the blood draining buff from falling off while ur not attacking the mob... HMM

[Janduin]

hmm, dont know if that will effect blade ward procs, but it MIGHT effect the blood draining buff from falling off while ur not attacking the mob... HMM

Well, isn't that part of the reason Blade Ward sucks for us? Our only true melee attacks are HotR and autoattack, whereas for warriors everything can proc it? If SoV ticks can proc it now that might even it out for us. I don't know if they can, just an idea.

[Digren]

Analytical Results for Avoidance Gained from Blade Ward
Posted original here, you can look upthread to see where the analysis came from.

Postulate: Stacking the proc results in less avoidance, because you can consume two charges with one parry, rather than just one charge. Thus, I'll calculate the avoidance gained from BW assuming that each proc lasts 10 seconds or falls off to find an upper bound for the avoidance gained from BW.

Assumptions:
Boss Swing Rate: 2.4
Base Parry & Talents: 10

Variables:
Parry from gear: P
ProcPerMinute: PPM
Parry gained from BW: p = DR(P,200) {Diminishing Returns function applied on base parry from gear and 200 Parry Rating}

The probability for any particular boss hit to consume the proc would be 0.10 + P + p.

With a boss swing rate of 2.4, there are 4.167 boss swings in 10 seconds.

The probability the proc is consumed is therefore: avoid10=1-(1-.1-P-p)^4.167.

The probability that consumption was gained via BW: p/(0.1+P+p).

The number of avoided hits consumed via BW: avoid10BW = avoid10*p/(0.1+P+p)

Over one minute, avoid60 hits are avoided via BW, where avoid60BW= avoid10BW*PPM.

Effective avoidance = avoid60BW/25

Avoidance = PPM/25*(1-(1-.1-P-p)^4.167)*p/(0.1+P+p)

Best Case Scenario:
No parry from gear: P = 0, p = 0.039.
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-0.1-0.039)^4.167)*(0.039)/(0.139) = 0.0069

Defense Minimum Gearset Scenario:
Parry from gear pre-DR: 5.6%.
P = 0.05, p = 0.033 {These are totally approximate - haven't checked actual DR numbers}
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-.1-0.05-.033)^4.167)*0.033/(0.1+0.05+0.033) = 0.0055

Typical Avoidance Gearset Scenario:
Parry from gear: 10%, p = 0.0244 (60%DR) {These are totally approximate - haven't checked actual DR numbers}
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-.1-.1-.0244)^4.167)*0.0244/(0.1+0.1+0.0244) = 0.0038


Considering most avoidance stackers have at least 70% DR from dodge, 26 AGI provides ~0.0035 dodge.


TL;DR: If you stack no parry, this enchant is more avoidance than 26 AGI. If you stack typical avoidance pieces (Kyzoc's, Sand-Worn, Callous-Hearted), this enchant is about equivalent avoidance to 26 AGI. Warriors gain an extra 28% avoidance from this enchant due to more specials that can proc it, and this enchant beats agi hands down. No clue about DK's.

How much of this is still accurate with what went live?

In a thread in the gear forum, using back-of-the-hand math, I worked out Mongoose to be about 0.0056 dodge. If the above analysis for Blade Ward remains accurate, then Mongoose remains the better enchant (of the two).

Disclaimer I don't like Mongoose either, compared to the relative reliability of Agility. When rolling dice with avoidance, I'd rather always have the same number of dice than sometimes have +0.0021 dice and sometimes -0.0035 dice (when compared to the agi enchant).

[majiben]

http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t63945-3_2_ ... ost1334171

That and the following posts may be of interest to you.

[Digren]

Indeed, thanks. It looks to me that both Blade Ward and Mongoose remain on the bottom of the pile, though given the nerf to Exceptional Agility as well, one of the them has to be the "best" of the avoidance enchants.

I'm happier and happier with my switch to Blood Draining, though, personally, as somewhat reliable healing feels better to me than dealing with this avoidance debacle at all.

[Braundo]

Yeah, once I get a decent weapon I'm planning on rolling with Blood Draining as well at this point. It seems like the most sensible choice with the AD changes and the slight nerf to agility.

[cordelia]

Analytical Results for Avoidance Gained from Blade Ward
Posted original here, you can look upthread to see where the analysis came from.

Postulate: Stacking the proc results in less avoidance, because you can consume two charges with one parry, rather than just one charge. Thus, I'll calculate the avoidance gained from BW assuming that each proc lasts 10 seconds or falls off to find an upper bound for the avoidance gained from BW.

... SNIP ...

Avoidance = PPM/25*(1-(1-.1-P-p)^4.167)*p/(0.1+P+p)

...

Defense Minimum Gearset Scenario:
Parry from gear pre-DR: 5.6%.
P = 0.05, p = 0.033 {These are totally approximate - haven't checked actual DR numbers}
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-.1-0.05-.033)^4.167)*0.033/(0.1+0.05+0.033) = 0.0055

Typical Avoidance Gearset Scenario:
Parry from gear: 10%, p = 0.0244 (60%DR) {These are totally approximate - haven't checked actual DR numbers}
Avoidance = 1.33/25*(1-(1-.1-.1-.0244)^4.167)*0.0244/(0.1+0.1+0.0244) = 0.0038

How much of this is still accurate with what went live?

All of the above is still completely accurate. The key is that the numbers given above are an upper bound.

We currently have a much higher proc rate than 1.33 PPM. It's probably higher than 3 PPM, which would give us an upper bound of 1.24% avoidance at the defense minimum and 0.84% avoidance in an avoidance gearset.

With such high proc-rates however, the upper bound is no longer our main issue. We need to figure out the actual probability of stacks double and triple stacking. The actual avoidance given will be lower than these upper bounds. How much lower? I don't know yet.

In a thread in the gear forum, using back-of-the-hand math, I worked out Mongoose to be about 0.0056 dodge. If the above analysis for Blade Ward remains accurate, then Mongoose remains the better enchant (of the two).

The EJ post quotes a 46% uptime for Mongoose. Is that what you used? That gives an average AGI of 55 from Mongoose, over double the AGI enchant. However it would be subject to massive DR from dodge.

Disclaimer I don't like Mongoose either, compared to the relative reliability of Agility. When rolling dice with avoidance, I'd rather always have the same number of dice than sometimes have +0.0021 dice and sometimes -0.0035 dice (when compared to the agi enchant).

I've always been unconvinced by this argument. Avoidance is a crapshoot to begin with.

The probability of 2 consecutive blows while you have avoidance a, is (1-a)^2, which for 50% avoidance comes out to 0.25. The probability of 2 consecutive blows with mongoose active @ 50.5% avoidance would be 0.245, or a 2% decrease in probability of 2 consecutive hits. You're going to get hit with 2 consecutive hits 25% of the time. What difference does it make whether 46% of the time this occurs 25% of the time, and other times 24.5% of the time?

The probability of 3 consecutive blows while you have avoidance a, is (1-a)^3, which for 50% avoidance comes out to 0.125. The probability of 3 consecutive blows with mongoose active @ 50.5% avoidance would be 0.1212, or a 1.52% decrease in probability of 3 consecutive hits.

Let's take this to the extreme of the avoidance stacker. 60% avoidance with 0.3% avoidance gained via mongoose, and 0.15% gained via agility. The probability of 4 consecutive hits is 2.56%. With 60.15% avoidance, it's 2.52%. Over the course of a 5 minute boss fight, there's 125 melee attacks. There's a 96.09% chance of the 4 hits occurring with mongoose, and there's a 95.8% chance of 4 hits occurring with Agi. Happens either way.

There's a 27.6% chance of the 5 hits occurring with mongoose, and there's a 28.3% chance of 5 hits occurring with Agi. But remember that mongoose has a proc rate, and it must not be procced for all 5 hits, which would reduce the probability even further. OK, I guess I really don't know whether it's worth it. Depends on the goal of avoidance, I guess. If your goal is to reduce the chance of the worst-case-scenario, than agi is better. If your goal is to reduce the incoming damage for healing, then mongoose is better.

[cordelia]

Slightly better napkin math w.r.t to the upper bound for Blade Warding:

Avoidance = PPM/25*(1-(1-.1-P-p)^4.167)*p/(0.1+P+p)

Assumptions: JoV, ShoR, HotR, SoV app, and white hits proc Blade Warding. Only HotR and white hits have SoV app. If ShoR or JoV do not apply blade warding, please post and I'll adjust the formulas appropriately.


Expected PPM:

- Assuming a hasted swing speed of 1.3, you will get 2 proc chances every 1.3 seconds from melee + SoV, and 1 proc chance every 6 seconds from HotR.
- Assuming a 1.6 speed weapon, and a 9% parry/dodge and 3% miss rate:
PPM = 0.88+0.88*0.88 + 0.88*(1.6/6) + 0.88^2*(1.6/6) + .97*(1.6/9) + .97*(1.6/6) = 2.44 PPM
- Assuming a 1.6 speed weapon and hit/expertise cap, you have a 7.5% parry rate:
PPM = 0.925+0.925*0.925+ 0.925*(1.6/6) + 0.925^2*(1.6/6) + 1*(1.6/9) + 1*(1.6/6) = 2.70 PPM

Expected Parry from Gear, and parry gained from BW:

This assumes the player is gearing at close to optimum values to maximize avoidance.

- Assuming 50% unbuffed avoidance gearing: 10.6% will be miss, leaving 39.4% as parry/dodge.
39.4% - 20% = 19.4% that must be distributed @ 1.88:1 ratio, giving 6.74% additional parry.
Total parry: 16.74%. 10% from base and talents, so 6.74% post-DR, ~7.54% pre-DR, or ~340 parry rating.
200 additional Parry rating would result in 3.11% post-DR additional parry.
P = 6.74%, p = 3.11%

- Assuming 55% unbuffed avoidance gearing: 10.6% will be miss, leaving 44.4% as parry/dodge.
44.4% - 20% = 24.4% that must be distributed @ 1.88:1 ratio, giving 8.47% additional parry.
P = 8.47%, p = 2.88%

- Assuming 60% unbuffed avoidance gearing: 10.6% will be miss, leaving 49.4% as parry/dodge.
49.4% - 20% = 29.4% that must be distributed @ 1.88:1 ratio, giving 10.21% additional parry.
P = 10.21%, p = 2.63%


Correct Napkin Math, sans Reckoning

Boss Avoidance: 9% parry/dodge and 3% miss:
50% unbuffed avoidance:
Avoidance = 2.44/25*(1-(1-.1-.0674-.0311)^4.167)*.0311/(0.1+.0674+.0311)
= 0.921%

55% unbuffed avoidance:
Avoidance = 2.44/25*(1-(1-.1-.0847-.0288)^4.167)*.0288/(0.1+.0847+.0288)
= 0.833%

60% unbuffed avoidance:
Avoidance = 2.44/25*(1-(1-.1-.1021-.0263)^4.167)*.0263/(0.1+.1021+.0263)
= 0.743%

Boss Avoidance: 7.5% parry:
50% unbuffed avoidance:
Avoidance = 2.7/25*(1-(1-.1-.0674-.0311)^4.167)*.0311/(0.1+.0674+.0311)
= 1.02%

55% unbuffed avoidance:
Avoidance = 2.7/25*(1-(1-.1-.0847-.0288)^4.167)*.0288/(0.1+.0847+.0288)
= 0.922%

60% unbuffed avoidance:
Avoidance = 2.7/25*(1-(1-.1-.1021-.0263)^4.167)*.0263/(0.1+.1021+.0263)
= 0.821%

NOTE: It is critical to remember these are UPPER BOUND values for Blade Warding. In actuality, procs will overlap, decreasing the value of procs.