Theck's MATLAB thread - Cataclysm/4.x

[Awyndel]

Personally I like to keep the standard structure even when in aoe. I sub CS with hotr, chose AS/HW based on amount of targets, sub judge with cons, use hp on inq/wog ( sotr on the 3 target situation ) . It's just less confusing them some priority or fcfs for 9's, and it keeps your mana on a decent level coz not many judges get subbed.

Maybe it's silly and you guys will figure out something way superior, but for now it's easier and nice on mana.

[knaughty]

Does anyone see any benefit to modeling different combat lengths? Before they started talking about having Divine Plea generate HP, I found myself wondering how many HP we should save up before hitting inquisition. Now that seems like a mostly moot point to me, but maybe someone can think of an interesting and sufficiently common scenario where knowing combat time may affect the outcome.

Fight length mattered a TON for AoE tanking before the DP change. There was a seriously complicated bit of situational thinking related to when to use Inq/Cons/HW that was driven into 3 dimensions of parameter space by "How stupid are your DPS?

With the DivPlea change? Pop DP, Inq, HW, Cons. Interleave HotR.

For single target tanking, pop DP on the pull so you can ShoR as soon as the boss gets to melee range. Deep in the fight, I'd probably go WoG -> DP -> WoG to soak a big hit.

[theckhd]

Is it safe to assume that, when DP comes back up part way through a long, single-target fight, it's optimal to do ShoR-DP-ShoR? If for some reason we were really concerned about aggro or total dps, that is.

Yes, it's safe to assume that will be a DPS increase. That said, I would probably keep it handy for an emergency WoG-DP-WoG.

Does anyone see any benefit to modeling different combat lengths?

Not especially. There are basically two types of fights a tank cares about: Short and Long. Short is stuff that dies in 30 seconds, and for that we don't need to do simulations. Just do what you can to front-load threat as much as possible, and if one or two things peel off of you as they die, it's not a big deal.

Long fights are long enough that you'll get many 9-second rotations in, so a stochastic average like what I've calculated is an excellent model. Note that I'm not including bloodlust or Avenging Wrath in any of these calculations, so you won't see a huge difference between a 3-minute fight and a 5-minute fight.

[M.C.]

I've even included Inquisition rotations (though I didn't post them) in the list of priority queues to sim out - the simulation doesn't know (or care) that we don't get it until 81.

Would you mind posting your simulation results for Inquisition? Since you already have them and all...

[wrathblood]

Has anyone here done some reasonably reliable testing on WoG scaling, particularly after it was nerfed (though before is fine)?

[Awyndel]

Wog didn't get nerfed. It got changed. The scaling is lower but the base is higher. Much like sotr.

[mclem]

Toying with the idea of re-enchanting my old tank-DPS weapon (non-heroic Gutbuster, currently enchanted with Berserking) to a threat tank weapon (currently using normal Last Word) - but, potentially, I've got a reasonable chance of getting the Bloodvenom Blade (heroic) in the next couple of weeks, which on *paper* is a better bet.

However, I'm a dwarf. How much should the fact that I have a +3 to expertise when using a mace influence this decision; how improved are the two existing maces I'm using in light of that?

Unfortunately, the best option - going for a heroic Gutbuster - isn't realistic thanks to being needed each week for 25-man content.

[theckhd]

3 expertise skill is roughly 23 rating (23.0661 exactly). From the stat scaling analysis, I'd estimate expertise as 36 DPS per 10 rating if you're below the dodge cap and 18 DPS per 10 rating above it.

So that 3 expertise skill should be between 41.5 and 83.0 DPS above and below the cap, respectively.

[mclem]

Mmm, thanks. Need to stew on this some more, I think. Gut feeling is that Bloodvenom Blade is the way to go, but I guess it'll depend on where the opportunities lie.

[lorddening]

My Armory and Talents: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... Oat&gn=Who

Please forgive the executioner enchant. I have too much hit to take accuracy, crit is a decent threat stat, and this is sort of my way of biting my thumb at Blizz for providing us with lackluster tanking enchants. Plus it looks cool.

First wanted to thank Theck for his awesome posts and research.

I had a quick question about the model. My question relates to talents.

Continuing down the line, we have Crusade and SotP clocking in at around 60 DPS per point. A far cry from the Crusade we knew and loved in Wrath, but still one of the more potent choices we have. Crusade fared better in earlier simulations, before it was discovered that it's additive with Wrath of the Lightbringer rather than multiplicative.

I note that you analysis is based on using Heroic Last Word. This is a fast tanking weapon.

I use a slow, DPS weapon (The Bloodvenom Blade).

It is my understanding that part of the reason a slow weapon outperforms a fast weapon is that our seal of truth (censure) scales with weapon damange, not weapon DPS. SotP affects censure damage. Therefore, I would suspect that SotP would result in a great DPS increase using a slow weapon, than a fast one.

While Crusade and SotP are even under this model, is it safe to assume that when a tank is using a slow DPS weapon, SotP would, point for point, outperform Crusade?

The reason I am asking is that I think that the WoG build is amazing, and I would like to pick up another 2 points in PotI. Using a slow DPS weapon my sense is that taking two points out of crusade would be the best way to minimize my threat loss.

Any suggestions?

My Talents: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-tale ... Oat&gn=Who

Thanks again.

[theckhd]

No, in this case that's not a safe assumption.

Seal of Truth scales with weapon damage, but Censure does not. The reason slow weapons are generally higher dps than fast weapons is because we proc Seal of Truth with many of our special abilities, and those procs are significantly larger with a slow weapon because the AP component is not weapon-speed-normalized. The formula for SoT is:

0.21*(weapon_damage+(AP/14)*weapon_speed)*SotP*SpellDmgDebuff

Because of the AP term, if we increase weapon_speed from 1.8 to 2.6 we see a significant increase in damage. Thus, we can reasonably expect SotP to increase in value with a slow weapon.

However, Crusade also scales with weapon damage. Crusader Strike is weapon-speed-normalized, meaning that it uses the formula:

1.5*(weapon_damage+(AP/14)*2.4)*(Crus+WotL)*PhysDmgRedux

In other words, it doesn't matter what your weapon speed is, the AP contribution is constant. However, a slower weapon will have a larger weapon_damage, so there will be some increase.

Your intuition would be that since SoT gives more significant scaling with weapon speed, SotP should overtake Crusade with a slow weapon. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Even though SoT scales better, SotP only modifies it by 6% per point, and it's only getting 21% of the weapon speed increase. Crusade, on the other hand, gives 10% per point, and it modifies an ability that's doing 150% the weapon_damage increase, though PhysDmgRedux will bring that down closer to 90%.

Here's what I get if I run the talent simulation with heroic BVB:

Code: Select all


Talent                  DPS/pt    Cons>HW
SotP                      66.5      66.5
Hallowed Ground            0.0      16.0
WotL                     326.3     321.1
Reck                     136.8     136.8
Arbiter of the Light      30.4      30.4
JotP                      38.7      38.7
Crusade                   70.6      70.6
RoL                       55.4      55.4
Grand Crusader            50.8      50.8
Sacred Duty              297.3     297.3

SotP goes up by 6.2 DPS per point, but Crusade goes up by 8 DPS per point. So Crusade actually pulls ahead of SotP with slower weapons.

[theckhd]

Time for some collaborative fun with the AoE module (which, by the way, isn't updated in the repository yet, I'm still fooling with priority queues).

Based on Knaughty's feedback, I'm calculating primary-target damage and "guaranteed" AoE damage from Cons/HW/HammerNova and AS on 3 or less targets. For 3 or more targets, AS isn't factored into the guaranteed damage.

Right now I've been playing with queues, which is where you folks come in. My method is basically:
1: Generate a bunch of data for different queues that make sense
2: Look at the results and try and get some insight from them
3: Figure out if there are any variations that are worth simulating
4: GOTO 1

Here's what I have already:

Primary target:

Code: Select all

                                              # Mobs
   Q#   Queue                        1     2     3     4     5    Empty   E%
    1   ShoR>HotR>J>AS>Cons>HW      9105  9097  9092  9090  9088     0   0.0
    2   ShoR>HotR>AS>J>Cons>HW      8970  8959  8953  8949  8947    19   0.2
    3   ShoR>HotR>AS>Cons>J>HW      8738  8720  8711  8706  8702    15   0.1
    4   ShoR>HotR>AS>Cons>HW>J      8456  8431  8418  8411  8405   101   1.0
    5   ShoR>HotR>Cons>AS>HW>J      8460  8434  8421  8413  8408   118   1.2
    6   ShoR>HotR>Cons>HW>AS>J      8465  8437  8423  8414  8409   110   1.1
    7   ShoR>HotR>HW>Cons>AS>J      8498  8470  8456  8447  8442    96   1.0
    8   ShoR>AS>HotR>Cons>HW>J      8489  8462  8449  8441  8436   378   3.0
    9   AS>ShoR>HotR>Cons>HW>J      8476  8450  8437  8429  8424   387   2.9
   10   AS>HotR>ShoR>Cons>HW>J      8282  8257  8244  8237  8231   121   1.2
   11   AS>HotR>Cons>ShoR>HW>J      8214  8188  8175  8167  8162   122   1.2
   12   HotR>AS>Cons>ShoR>HW>J      8214  8188  8175  8167  8162   106   1.1
   13   HotR>Cons>AS>ShoR>HW>J      8259  8233  8219  8211  8206   109   1.1
   14   HotR>Cons>HW>AS>ShoR>J      7829  7795  7779  7769  7762   267   2.7
   15   Cons>HotR>AS>ShoR>HW>J      8237  8211  8197  8189  8184   115   1.1
   16   Cons>AS>HotR>ShoR>HW>J      8283  8257  8243  8235  8230   226   2.0
   17   Cons>HW>AS>HotR>ShoR>J      8029  7995  7978  7968  7961   559   5.2
   18   HotR>Cons>HW>AS>Inq>J       6749  6709  6689  6677  6670   513   5.1
   19   HotR>AS>Cons>HW>Inq>J       6804  6769  6752  6741  6734   514   5.1
   20   Inq>HotR>AS>Cons>HW>J>Inq   7077  7039  7020  7009  7001   177   1.8
   21   Inq>HotR>Cons>AS>HW>J       6961  6924  6906  6896  6888   413   4.1
   22   Inq>HotR>AS>Cons>HW>J       6992  6957  6940  6930  6923   398   4.0
   23   Inq>AS>HotR>Cons>HW>J       7013  6976  6958  6947  6940   734   5.7
   24   AS>Inq>HotR>Cons>HW>J       6951  6915  6897  6886  6879   739   6.1

Guaranteed:

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                                             # Mobs
   Q#   Queue                        1     2     3     4     5    Empty   E%
    1   ShoR>HotR>J>AS>Cons>HW      1838  1829  1662  1173  1171     0   0.0
    2   ShoR>HotR>AS>J>Cons>HW      1949  1938  1745  1181  1178    19   0.2
    3   ShoR>HotR>AS>Cons>J>HW      2003  1986  1790  1224  1220    15   0.1
    4   ShoR>HotR>AS>Cons>HW>J      2045  2019  1818  1244  1239   101   1.0
    5   ShoR>HotR>Cons>AS>HW>J      2018  1992  1800  1253  1248   118   1.2
    6   ShoR>HotR>Cons>HW>AS>J      1945  1916  1744  1259  1253   110   1.1
    7   ShoR>HotR>HW>Cons>AS>J      1954  1926  1751  1259  1253    96   1.0
    8   ShoR>AS>HotR>Cons>HW>J      2043  2016  1801  1185  1180   378   3.0
    9   AS>ShoR>HotR>Cons>HW>J      2061  2035  1809  1165  1159   387   2.9
   10   AS>HotR>ShoR>Cons>HW>J      2188  2162  1928  1254  1249   121   1.2
   11   AS>HotR>Cons>ShoR>HW>J      2208  2182  1946  1268  1263   122   1.2
   12   HotR>AS>Cons>ShoR>HW>J      2201  2175  1941  1269  1264   106   1.1
   13   HotR>Cons>AS>ShoR>HW>J      2179  2153  1925  1275  1270   109   1.1
   14   HotR>Cons>HW>AS>ShoR>J      2152  2119  1902  1292  1285   267   2.7
   15   Cons>HotR>AS>ShoR>HW>J      2192  2166  1935  1275  1270   115   1.1
   16   Cons>AS>HotR>ShoR>HW>J      2144  2117  1888  1234  1229   226   2.0
   17   Cons>HW>AS>HotR>ShoR>J      2073  2039  1811  1166  1159   559   5.2
   18   HotR>Cons>HW>AS>Inq>J       2322  2283  2035  1337  1330   513   5.1
   19   HotR>AS>Cons>HW>Inq>J       2416  2381  2103  1312  1305   514   5.1
   20   Inq>HotR>AS>Cons>HW>J>Inq   2480  2443  2158  1349  1342   177   1.8
   21   Inq>HotR>Cons>AS>HW>J       2455  2419  2143  1359  1351   413   4.1
   22   Inq>HotR>AS>Cons>HW>J       2471  2437  2153  1343  1336   398   4.0
   23   Inq>AS>HotR>Cons>HW>J       2412  2375  2086  1262  1255   734   5.7
   24   AS>Inq>HotR>Cons>HW>J       2376  2340  2061  1267  1260   739   6.1

Thoughts:
On the guaranteed side of things (ignoring Inq for the moment), high AS priority is good for 3 or fewer mobs, we seem to do better with HotR>Cons>HW>AS queues.

There's a trade-off going on with ShoR, which was expected. Lowering ShoR in the queue tends to drop single-target damage but boost AoE damage.

I have Inq coded to only cast when its duration is less than 1.5 seconds, except for queue #20. In #20, the first Inq behaves as normal while the second one (at the bottom of the queue) just checks for 3 Holy Power. This seems logical, as it's basically saying "I have nothing else to cast in this GCD, but I could refresh Inq a little early to alleviate clashes later." It doesn't seem to have much of an effect unless AS is included (i.e. 3 or fewer mobs); compare to queue #22.

I want to run a few HotR>Cons>HW>AS queues with Inq yet, and probably one of the higher single-target queues with Inq replacing ShoR.

Does anyone have other suggestions/insights/etc? I'm about to go to bed, but I'll have some time to work on this (and hopefully finish it up) this weekend.

[knaughty]

Does anyone have other suggestions/insights/etc?

Well, it's not a very interesting insight, but looking at your "guaranteed" data-set for the columns related to 4+ mobs the tanking strategy of "hit whatever isn't on CD already" is way too close to optimal...

It would be lovely if there was some actual thought and skill involved, but if you're smart enough to switch to HotR and keep Consecrate and Holy Wrath on CD you appear to be 90% of the way to optimal.

[daiceman]

Could you do some sim's using WoG in aoe situations? Since they bumped up paladin healing threat, I've been wondering how much TPS 1,2 and 3pt word of glories would do in an AoE situation, and how it would compare to just using ShoR, or refreshing Inq early.

[kenshin648]

What are the numbers for the 1h sword version of quel'delar?