Advanced Training 101: 969 and FCFS Theorycraft

[jere]

Amh may not have been accounting for miss chance or partial resists.

[amh]

I mashed boss miss chance into the 60%, but no, no partial resists :) As you can see my "formula" was somewhat simpler than Theck's, because I assume you're block-capped. One proc every five seconds in that case means you only get hit once every five seconds on average - it still sounds a bit low. Would have to check some logs to see what it actually turns out to be.

[theckhd]

Amh may not have been accounting for miss chance or partial resists.

Misses and partial resists are factored into the 933 value for damage, because ability_recalc.m (which is what generated that number) factors partial resists in along with the talents, avoidance, crit, etc.

I think Amh just made an error in the calculation, but I was going to be nice and not point it out.

Trying to go through it step by step:

Damage per hit = 933
swing timer = 2.4
avoidance = 60% = 0.6
time=20 seconds

In 20 seconds, you should receive 20 / 2.4 = 8.333 attacks. You'll avoid 60% of those, or 8.33 * 0.6 = 5. You'll block 40% of those, or 8.33 * 0.4 = 3.333.
I suspect this is where he made the mistake, because "hits taken" should be 3.33 instead of 5, assuming "hit's taken" is supposed to mean the number of attacks which trigger a HS proc. My guess is that it is, because 5 * 933 = 4665, which is the total damage he gives for HS.

HS damage done should then be 3.333 * 933 = 3110 damage, which is 3110 / 20 = 155.5 DPS, right in line with my calculation.

[amh]

I was going to be nice and not point it out

Numbers confuse me, it's ok ;)
I did find my error. To get hits taken, I did

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time / sw-timer * avoidance

which should've been

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time / sw-timer * chance-to-be-hit

.. which would have resulted in the 155.5 dps you've got.

[Pala]

Thank you very much for posting all this. I read it this afternoon and tried to highlight some points in my guild's forum. I'm always pointing to Maintankadin links and there are several people going through their 70's and hitting 80 that were wondering about threat. Threads like this make Maintankadin my favorite forum to frequent.

edit: Just saying "9 6 9 6" out loud helped me boost my Hodir threat like crazy. Our warlock got to maybe 80% when he had always been close before. Plus I did 3.2k dps on him so I'm a believer now! Sadly I found myself catching up to the MwT (Main warrior Tank - trademarked ) on Kologarn all the time and also on Auriaya. Thanks again again for this.

[Worldie]

TL:DR 969 is the best rotation we can do.

Well, we knew it already, we got somewhere to point people at when they ask why

[Aghrea]

Very good explanation !

I think it needs to be sticked

[theckhd]

Very good explanation !

I think it needs to be sticked

I'm not sure this is sticky-worthy. It's too niche to be widely useful. I just wanted it to be somewhere, so when people start raising questions about 969 I have a good resource I could point to and say "go read that."

[Argali]

IMO, this should be linked in the basic FAQ or advanced FAQ under the section concerning 969 with something like "Explanation here". If it can't get in there, please sticky!

[Xenix]

There is one thing in this analysis you treat as constant, but which should be considered as a variable when seeing how various 969-substitutions affect your threat: the boss's swing timer will be a major consideration for subbing in anything over holy shield.

As it is, you show that on average with a 2.4 sec/swing HS is worth 414 threat/sec. Multiply those to get 994 threat per boss swing. You can then divide that number by the tps (calculated as threat of the move divided by 9 seconds) of using another ability to see at what boss swing speed letting holy shield drop for another ability will no longer be a threat increase. Based on your previous numbers:

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Ability   Damage  Glyphed    Threat   Glyphed      TPS   Glyphed
AS        2562       5124      7100     14200      789      1578
HoW       2525        n/a      6998       n/a      776


I calculate the following swing timer equalities:

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Ability     TPS   Swing Timer
AS          789          1.26     
AS+Glyph   1578          0.63
HoW         779          1.28


So, when you the boss's swing timer is that much or less, Holy Shield should do more threat than substituting a different ability into your rotation. (As an extreme example, for a boss like Algalon who attacks approx. 2 times per second, even a glyphed avenger's shield is a threat loss over maintaining holy shield).

Of course, these numbers will change a bit once we hit 3.3 due to Chill of the Throne decreasing our avoidance which will make us only block capped with Redoubt + Holy Shield up. I'd bet if you rerun the simulation to take that into account, you'll find that HS provides even more of our threat in 3.3 since Chill of the Throne will make us block a higher percentage of incoming hits once Redoubt is considered, which would in turn make the required swing timer for equivalence even slower.

[jere]

Are those numbers pre or post Judgements of the Just/TC/IT/IW?

[Xenix]

Those are based on the boss's actual swing timer, so they would be post-JotJ/parry haste/whatever else affects his swing timer. Also edited the previous post to correct "The boss attacks that many times per second or more" to "The boss's swing timer is that much or less"

[theckhd]

That's a good point, though keep in mind that HS threat is capped at 8 charges, or 994*8/9 = 884 TPS. Which is still better than AS or HoW substitution, but not quite as good as glyphed AS.

That said, in current content there are few bosses that attack fast enough for this to be a consideration. The only sub-1.5 speed bosses I can think of are Algalon and Patchwork. I could see it being a more important consideration in ICC though, with weaker hitting bosses with faster swing timers.

The Icewell Radiance effect will likely be less of a boost than you'd expect. Most tanks aren't block-capped, so they gain no additional block % from the dodge reduction. Even a tank that is block-capped will only see a small amount of increase unless they've geared far above block-cap. On the other hand, the increased Redoubt buff uptime and effectiveness may be a noticeable effect.

[Xenix]

Not quite correct - that's 994 threat -per boss swing- not, -per block-. Keep in mind that per boss swing is based on your own previous numbers with an ~40% block chance. It's actually 2586 threat per block by your numbers which means it caps out at 2586*8/9 = 2300 TPS, or well above a glyphed avenger's shield if all charges are used.

And yes, Icecrown Radiance won't increase the effect of holy shield directly, but it will make the redoubt proc actually have an effect on the boss's hit table (pushing us to ~70% block when it's up), which will be the main reason HS will do more threat in 3.3, at least in ICC.

[theckhd]

Not quite correct - that's 994 threat -per boss swing- not, -per block-. Keep in mind that per boss swing is based on your own previous numbers with an ~40% block chance. It's actually 2586 threat per block by your numbers which means it caps out at 2586*8/9 = 2300 TPS, or well above a glyphed avenger's shield if all charges are used.

And yes, Icecrown Radiance won't increase the effect of holy shield directly, but it will make the redoubt proc actually have an effect on the boss's hit table (pushing us to ~70% block when it's up), which will be the main reason HS will do more threat in 3.3, at least in ICC.

Ah, I assumed you had meant blocked swings. That makes more sense though, 994 threat per block is far too low in retrospect.