Stat weights

[Arctagon]

It feels wrong to dedicate an entire thread to this, but since we don't have any threads for general Feral discussion I don't have much of a choice.

I'm using HotW, and I get these stat weights. As you can see, mastery is at the bottom with hit and exp. There wouldn't have been much point in pointing this out if they were all close together, but the difference between crit and mastery is really big.



Has anyone else got similar stat weights before?

[Tinderhoof]

I am guessing it has to do with your really high Haste levels to begin with. You are at 2800 Haste but only 2500 Mastery (assuming this is you http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/b ... n/advanced). Why did you reforge Mastery away from your staff for Crit? Regardless because your haste level is so high already it is going to be a boost to Wrath spam. Now if you were able to get rid of some of that haste (like fixing your staff) you would likely see Mastery start taking the lead again. Some suggestions:
1. Get rid of the Beerfest trinket. It is really terrible. Any of the blue trinkets from heroic dungeons would be better. Work on getting a Darkmoon Fair card. It will hold you till Heroic Terror. If you can't afford it the DO one is not bad.
2. If you have engineering why do you have not the tinker on you gloves. That is like the biggest profession boost for a Feral in the game.
3. You have a 502 weapon and you have enchanted Windsong. Get the correct enchant on it.
4. Why do you not have the Kalaxxi exualted ring?
5. Since you have not upgraded anything with valor points it's a good bet you have some laying around. Replace your cloak. I know you might replace it tomorrow. If you have to rent it, then do so.

Based on your kill counts and the amount of LFR gear you are sporting that you have had some bad luck. You can't assume your luck is going to change tomorrow. You need to make improvements on the off chance your unlucky streak continues.

[Helistar]

1- How many iterations did you use? The error bars are big enough to make all secondary stats identical.

2- even with your values, assuming you reforge 200 stats/item for a total of 3200, going from the best stat to the worst one is a 416 DPS difference, i.e. less than the standard deviation of an ideal simulation. You'll never notice it a real scenario......

3- .....and in any case you should not believe stat weights: change the stats and rerun the simulation with the new ones, some of them interact in a non-linear way, even if we don't have haste caps like casters, CP generation can play weird tricks.

4- aren't you missing some eng gear improvements?

5- I agree 110% with the trinket suggestion from Tinderhoof, hunt for the Flashing Steel Talisman and upgrade it, it's not only a better trinket, it's also the best burst trinket (not that it's really needed this tier, but you never know).

[aggixx]

- even with your values, assuming you reforge 200 stats/item for a total of 3200, going from the best stat to the worst one is a 416 DPS difference, i.e. less than the standard deviation of an ideal simulation. You'll never notice it a real scenario......

416 DPS is pretty non-insignificant amount when it comes to min/maxing, just because it's small enough that you won't be able to tell the difference doesn't mean it's worthless to bother. That said, if you do all of the things Tinder suggested it will net you far more than just tweaking your reforges.

3- .....and in any case you should not believe stat weights: change the stats and rerun the simulation with the new ones, some of them interact in a non-linear way, even if we don't have haste caps like casters, CP generation can play weird tricks.

SimC scale factors aren't the end-all be-all that some people like to think they are but to say that you shouldn't believe they have any value is silly. For feral at least it's actually pretty rare where optimizing your gear given the scale factors provided by SimC would yield anything but near-optimal DPS, assuming you're executing the same rotation that SimC is and you actually ran enough iterations for the scale factors to be accurate.

The default action list in the current release version of SimC is pretty messed up somehow so I wouldn't count on it for stat weights, the results you got aren't far off from what I would guess you would get with that action list. The current build of SimC has an updated action list and a release with that action list should be out sometime soon.

Here's the results I got:

[Arctagon]

Tinderhoof: While I appreciate that you take your time to look over my profile and point out everything you spot, this was not part of my question. Had I wanted a check on my profile, I would have asked for it. I was merely wondering what could cause the stat weights to turn out like demonstrated. Since you commented anyway, I will answer you.

Up until recently I have never bothered going for expertise and hit because they are, as you know, valued less than the other secondary stats. However, I wanted to see how playing with a hit/exp build turned out. The delightful fluidity of the build is indeed very tempting.
... Because my gear has no native expertise at all, I need to get all of it through reforges, which vastly limits how much mastery I can reforge into. Combined with the fact that my gear isn't exactly rich on native mastery, I don't get much mastery in total.
... If you had paid attention, you would have noticed that my gear has an absolutely ridiculous amount of haste. The amount I can get rid of through reforging is unfortunately limited, so there is nothing I can do to reduce it further without switching out pieces of gear.

Last month I rerolled to tank so that I could raid with my guild. For that reason, all my best gear goes to that spec. Some gear pieces are however shared, namely the weapon and the trinkets. Due to this, I lock in these three pieces when I reforge my Feral gear, because I need to retain the optimal reforges for my tanking spec. That is why you see mastery to crit reforges on a few pieces.

Now, if I had actually asked for a review on my character, I would have given information like this, so that such confusions could have been avoided.

1. Get rid of the Beerfest trinket. It is really terrible. Any of the blue trinkets from heroic dungeons would be better. Work on getting a Darkmoon Fair card. It will hold you till Heroic Terror. If you can't afford it the DO one is not bad.

Do you really think I would have kept the Brewfest trinket if I had the option of replacing it? It appears that I have some super frustrating curse that prevents me from getting any trinkets through heroics. :c Was like this in Cata as well. And the trinket isn't that terrible for Guardian with all the crit on it.
... Regarding the DMF trinket, I have been pondering on it quite a bit, but I came to the decision of not acquiring it. It's too expensive to be worth it, we are talking about my off spec, and there are alternative trinkets that perform around the same.

2. If you have engineering why do you have not the tinker on you gloves. That is like the biggest profession boost for a Feral in the game.

I only recently acquired engineering. Since I'm not using my Feral spec that much today, I haven't got around to fixing this yet. Rest assured that I'm well aware of it and will fix it.

3. You have a 502 weapon and you have enchanted Windsong. Get the correct enchant on it.

With a better weapon dropping from a boss that is on farm, I don't see the point of wasting thousands of gold on a temporary weapon. I was originally planning on enchanting it with Dancing Steel, but after I talked with a good friend of mine, who is also officer in my guild, I decided not to. He suggested that I wait until I get the other weapon because it's from a boss that is on farm, and I fully agreed with him.

4. Why do you not have the Kalaxxi exualted ring?

I do. It's in my tanking set. Even if I can reuse some of my tanking gear in my Feral set, I like having two different sets with as few overlapping pieces as possible. That way, I can be as free as I want with the gear I have.

5. Since you have not upgraded anything with valor points it's a good bet you have some laying around. Replace your cloak. I know you might replace it tomorrow. If you have to rent it, then do so.

I prioritize upgrading my main spec gear. That's where my upgraded pieces are. Other than that, I'm making sure I have enough VP to fully upgrade the staff when I get it.

Based on your kill counts and the amount of LFR gear you are sporting that you have had some bad luck. You can't assume your luck is going to change tomorrow. You need to make improvements on the off chance your unlucky streak continues.

... wat. If you mean that I have been unlucky with gear drops in LFR, then I don't understand what you are referring to, as 8/15 of my Feral gear is from LFR. Otherwise, most of the gear from raids is in the tanking set.

1- How many iterations did you use? The error bars are big enough to make all secondary stats identical.

It appears I used 10k. I usually use 10k iterations when I sim for DPS only. When I'm simming for stat weights, I usually use 25k, so I forgot to turn it back.

4- aren't you missing some eng gear improvements?

See my answers to Tinderhoof.

5- I agree 110% with the trinket suggestion from Tinderhoof, hunt for the Flashing Steel Talisman and upgrade it, it's not only a better trinket, it's also the best burst trinket (not that it's really needed this tier, but you never know).

See answer to previous quote.

The default action list in the current release version of SimC is pretty messed up somehow so I wouldn't count on it for stat weights, the results you got aren't far off from what I would guess you would get with that action list. The current build of SimC has an updated action list and a release with that action list should be out sometime soon.

Here's the results I got:
[img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1086121/simc_pr ... 21.png[img]

My version of SimC is 510-5. I only get an error when I try to open the program itself, so I keep to 510-5 until I get something that works. I have no idea how much of a difference there is between my version and the latest one, but I assume it's pretty negligible.
... In the meantime, which action list should I be using? Or more specifically, which action list did you use to get those results?

While I'm at it, I have noticed that the gear summary at the bottom of the 'Simulate' tab in SimC has some lower stat numbers than on the Armoury. Why is this?

[Dargasky]

you really aught to read through that post again and edit it...... or delete it for that matter.

[Arctagon]

What is this? I don't even...

If you want to post in this thread, I'd rather you post something contributive.

[Tinderhoof]

Tinderhoof: While I appreciate that you take your time to look over my profile and point out everything you spot, this was not part of my question. Had I wanted a check on my profile, I would have asked for it. I was merely wondering what could cause the stat weights to turn out like demonstrated.

And since you asked I did answer your question:

Regardless because your haste level is so high already it is going to be a boost to Wrath spam. Now if you were able to get rid of some of that haste (like fixing your staff) you would likely see Mastery start taking the lead again.

The version of the move list you have for HotW may still favor Haste a bunch like it did whe HotW Wrath spam was still broken. With the amount of Haste you already have I am not shocked at all it is going to tell you to try for more. If you used DoC, or NV and ran the calcs again I am sure you would see different results.

... wat. If you mean that I have been unlucky with gear drops in LFR, then I don't understand what you are referring to, as 8/15 of my Feral gear is from LFR. Otherwise, most of the gear from raids is in the tanking set.

No I mean based on how much gear you had FROM LFR that you were getting unlucky with drops from the heroic and normal mode kills. I did not know this was your offspec.

I do. It's in my tanking set. Even if I can reuse some of my tanking gear in my Feral set, I like having two different sets with as few overlapping pieces as possible. That way, I can be as free as I want with the gear I have.

I have no idea what you mean by "I can be as free as I want with the gear". However if you have plenty of higher level Bear gear sitting around unless you are going to lose Agility it will be better for DPS then the stuff you are wearing now. This is biggest for the items with 0 gem slots, like Rings (yes you should be using the Kalixxi ring in your dps set too), Wrist, neck, and cloak. The higher ilvl will be worth more agi regardless of what you have reforged (you should also be hitting Hit/Exp in Bear gear).
While it may seem nice to keep 2 sets, it really is just hurting bag space and your pocketbook. Since most of the proper Bear enchants are good for Cat as well, there isn't a good reason to keep lower ilvl gear around just for cat (if you get 4p for Feral that would be the exception).

Was like this in Cata as well. And the trinket isn't that terrible for Guardian with all the crit on it.

The Woundripper Medallion is vastly better then the coaster for Bear. If you have the VP to update your staff laying around rent the trinket during the raid and return it till you get a Terror drop (even LFR is way better then coaster for Bear).

[Tinderhoof]

you really aught to read through that post again and edit it...... or delete it for that matter.

I agree with Arctagon. This is not constructive nor polite. Please keep your comments on point.

[Arctagon]

And since you asked I did answer your question:

Yes, you did. Thank you for that. Do you mean that the value of haste goes up because of HotW and its potential for Wrath spam?

The version of the move list you have for HotW may still favor Haste a bunch like it did whe HotW Wrath spam was still broken. With the amount of Haste you already have I am not shocked at all it is going to tell you to try for more. If you used DoC, or NV and ran the calcs again I am sure you would see different results.

Well, NV isn't better than HotW overall, and I haven't had the time to get into the DoC rotation yet, which is why I currently go with HotW.

No I mean based on how much gear you had FROM LFR that you were getting unlucky with drops from the heroic and normal mode kills. I did not know this was your offspec.

Alright, I wasn't completely sure how to interpret your comment.

I have no idea what you mean by "I can be as free as I want with the gear".

What I mean is that I can reforge, gem and enchant my gear without having to worry about my other spec. I value that freedom quite a lot. A situation were I'm going to reforge/gem/enchant a piece of gear, trying to accommodate for both specs, can sometimes be difficult to find a proper solution to. This is the main reason why I'm keeping two sets.

However if you have plenty of higher level Bear gear sitting around unless you are going to lose Agility it will be better for DPS then the stuff you are wearing now. This is biggest for the items with 0 gem slots, like Rings (yes you should be using the Kalixxi ring in your dps set too), Wrist, neck, and cloak. The higher ilvl will be worth more agi regardless of what you have reforged (you should also be hitting Hit/Exp in Bear gear).
While it may seem nice to keep 2 sets, it really is just hurting bag space and your pocketbook. Since most of the proper Bear enchants are good for Cat as well, there isn't a good reason to keep lower ilvl gear around just for cat (if you get 4p for Feral that would be the exception).

Yes, I definitely see where you are coming from. I have been thinking about this myself, but I ended up with going with two separate sets nonetheless. I just like it that way better.

The Woundripper Medallion is vastly better then the coaster for Bear. If you have the VP to update your staff laying around rent the trinket during the raid and return it till you get a Terror drop (even LFR is way better then coaster for Bear).

I try to avoid renting as there is a chance I forget to sell it back after raid. I also tend to forget about renting itself in the first place. Thanks for the heads-up, though. I will consider it for next raid.

[aggixx]

I hear Woundripper Medallion is quite good for bear, not a bad idea at all to consider buying it for your guardian set (it's not the greatest for feral but anything {I mean literally anything} beats coaster). Buying items with VP will always be a larger upgrade than upgrading an item (except for a weapon of course), it's just not quite as good in the very long term side of things.

1. Get rid of the Beerfest trinket. It is really terrible. Any of the blue trinkets from heroic dungeons would be better. Work on getting a Darkmoon Fair card. It will hold you till Heroic Terror. If you can't afford it the DO one is not bad.

Do you really think I would have kept the Brewfest trinket if I had the option of replacing it? It appears that I have some super frustrating curse that prevents me from getting any trinkets through heroics. :c Was like this in Cata as well. And the trinket isn't that terrible for Guardian with all the crit on it.
... Regarding the DMF trinket, I have been pondering on it quite a bit, but I came to the decision of not acquiring it. It's too expensive to be worth it, we are talking about my off spec, and there are alternative trinkets that perform around the same.

The reason he suggested you replace it is because the Coaster is extraordinarily terrible. Perhaps you were more aware of this than most people who see a 470 epic trinket and assume it's probably better than all the 463s, but you don't quite seem to understand HOW bad it is.

The proc has a 10% chance to proc on CRIT, a 10 second duration, and a 50 second cooldown. That means that not only it's max theoretical uptime is awful (20%) but in practice your actual uptime on the proc will be even worse. AP, at least in the amount budgeted, is a very very weak itemization for feral, and crit is nothing special either. There are actually level 85 trinkets better than the 470 coaster.

And since you asked I did answer your question:

Yes, you did. Thank you for that. Do you mean that the value of haste goes up because of HotW and its potential for Wrath spam?

Not really, haste is a great stat for hurricane spamming but Wrath spam is going to be a waste of time if you don't have a really damn good caster weapon (eg: better than your melee weapon).

[Arctagon]

The reason he suggested you replace it is because the Coaster is extraordinarily terrible. Perhaps you were more aware of this than most people who see a 470 epic trinket and assume it's probably better than all the 463s, but you don't quite seem to understand HOW bad it is.

The proc has a 10% chance to proc on CRIT, a 10 second duration, and a 50 second cooldown. That means that not only it's max theoretical uptime is awful (20%) but in practice your actual uptime on the proc will be even worse. AP, at least in the amount budgeted, is a very very weak itemization for feral, and crit is nothing special either. There are actually level 85 trinkets better than the 470 coaster.

I might very well not have understood how bad Coaster actually is, but it doesn't change the fact that I have been unlucky with trinket drops. I think I will give renting a try, though, so that I don't need to use the Coaster during raids.

Not really, haste is a great stat for hurricane spamming but Wrath spam is going to be a waste of time if you don't have a really damn good caster weapon (eg: better than your melee weapon).

That assumes there are several targets in the boss encounter, though.


Do you think you could answer my questions about SimC that I posted earlier? If you have any answers to them, that is. I'm especially wondering about the one with the action list.

My version of SimC is 510-5. I only get an error when I try to open the program itself, so I keep to 510-5 until I get something that works. I have no idea how much of a difference there is between my version and the latest one, but I assume it's pretty negligible.
... In the meantime, which action list should I be using? Or more specifically, which action list did you use to get those results?

While I'm at it, I have noticed that the gear summary at the bottom of the 'Simulate' tab in SimC has some lower stat numbers than on the Armoury. Why is this?

[aggixx]

That assumes there are several targets in the boss encounter, though.

And there are a couple encounters like that, the rest of them it doesn't matter on.

My version of SimC is 510-5. I only get an error when I try to open the program itself, so I keep to 510-5 until I get something that works.

I have no idea what you mean, if you're getting a crash or an error with the newest version feel free to open a ticket with the crash information and someone will help you out.

I have no idea how much of a difference there is between my version and the latest one, but I assume it's pretty negligible.

Not negligible at all. The difference between your version and the most recent revision (note that when I say revision I mean the most recent "development" build, the changes in which aren't necessarily available in a precompiled release yet) is probably fairly significant, especially because your version is months old as far as I can tell. With the help of a handful of other people I've tracked down a couple bugs in the last couple months or so, the biggest one being thrash damage calculation which has important implications on it's use in the action list.

The generated action list does about 3.5k more DPS than the one you were using in the OP, if I remember correctly.

In the meantime, which action list should I be using? Or more specifically, which action list did you use to get those results?

The action list generated by SimC in the most recent is a slightly watered down version of the action list that can be found in the newest post in the SimC rotation discussion thread. You're not technically going to get "accurate" results using the action list on anything but the current SVN revision.

While I'm at it, I have noticed that the gear summary at the bottom of the 'Simulate' tab in SimC has some lower stat numbers than on the Armoury. Why is this?

Armory is probably inaccurate in some way if anything. You're better off comparing to your stats in-game, but there shouldn't be anything different if what you're wearing in-game is exactly the same as what you're importing from armory.

[Dysheki]

Tinderhoof: While I appreciate that you take your time to look over my profile and point out everything you spot, this was not part of my question. Had I wanted a check on my profile, I would have asked for it. I was merely wondering what could cause the stat weights to turn out like demonstrated. Since you commented anyway, I will answer you.

It feels wrong to dedicate an entire thread to this, but since we don't have any threads for general Feral discussion I don't have much of a choice.

I'm using HotW, and I get these stat weights. As you can see, mastery is at the bottom with hit and exp. There wouldn't have been much point in pointing this out if they were all close together, but the difference between crit and mastery is really big.



Has anyone else got similar stat weights before?

No.

Would that have been better? Seriously, there needs to be a Civility 101 class for a lot of people.

[Tinderhoof]

Please lets stick to the topic. While not presented or asked for in the best way there is still good information in this thread, and I really don't want to lock it. Thanks guys.

[raffy]

Stat-weight calculations have always been tricky. I actually think this feature probably causes more harm than good, and should only be used by experienced simc developers like Aggixx.

First, there are two distinct questions:
1. in general, what stats are best for Feral druids?
2. for my gear, what stats are best for me?

From my understanding, if you import your profile into simc and generate stat-weights, the deltas are computed against the current gear, so the resulting distribution will be relative to #2. For #1, you need to change more settings and widen the deltas.

Second, you need a shitload of simulations to get reasonable results. Especially if you have a fight duration swing of 20%. For example, simc will use Berserk incorrectly when it doesn't divide nicely into the combat time. If you have a 6 minute hard-enrage (or a combat time that ends before 6 minutes), blowing Berserk at the 3 minute mark is a mistake.

Third, I find almost no value in simulating gear that doesn't exist (or that you do not have, or are unable to get soon). Try to isolate questions about your own gear vs questions about some ideal BiS profile. For example, in Catus, I have a simulation option that lets you perform a stat-weight evaluation across all possible reforging of your current gear. This prevents simulating an unobtainable profile.

Lastly, it is very common when exploring something complex, to encounter things that do not make sense or are not immediately intuitive. For example, recently I was playing with Rake clipping and I produced the following graph (http://raffy.antistupid.com/wow/catsim/ ... plier4.png). Contrary to the belief that Rake clipping is best above a certain threshold, it is actually a DPS increase as long as it is a positive gain over the existing Rake.

[Arctagon]

I have no idea what you mean, if you're getting a crash or an error with the newest version feel free to open a ticket with the crash information and someone will help you out.

Oh, uhm, it's an error saying I'm missing a file. I'll open a ticket.

Not negligible at all. The difference between your version and the most recent revision (note that when I say revision I mean the most recent "development" build, the changes in which aren't necessarily available in a precompiled release yet) is probably fairly significant, especially because your version is months old as far as I can tell.

I might have been vague, but what I meant with 'version' was the releases, i.e. the one I'm using now and the latest release.

The action list generated by SimC in the most recent is a slightly watered down version of the action list that can be found in the newest post in the SimC rotation discussion thread. You're not technically going to get "accurate" results using the action list on anything but the current SVN revision.

The most recent ... revision? Do you know any estimate of when this revision will be released?

Armory is probably inaccurate in some way if anything. You're better off comparing to your stats in-game, but there shouldn't be anything different if what you're wearing in-game is exactly the same as what you're importing from armory.

Huh, I have never experienced that Armoury is inaccurate with the amount of stats earlier. If I compare directly to the stats in-game, in-game shows, as an example, 15670 agility, while the gear summary in SimC shows 13864 agility. That's a significant difference. The same goes for stamina, all the secondary stats, except for haste and dodge, and also armour. Also, all the stats are lower in the gear summary than they are in-game.

No.

Would that have been better? Seriously, there needs to be a Civility 101 class for a lot of people.

Please lets stick to the topic. While not presented or asked for in the best way there is still good information in this thread, and I really don't want to lock it. Thanks guys.

I apologize if anyone was offended by what I wrote. I was tired when I wrote the post, and when I'm tired like that I don't think as clearly as I usually do. It was never my intention to offend anyone. Sorry.


Raffy: I'm not sure if you're talking generally or are referring directly to me?

Also, that last paragraph there caught my interest. Although, without any elaborate explanation, I can't say I understand much. What do the axes describe? And what is the difference between the red and blue part of the graph? Just two different Rakes?

[raffy]

Raffy: I'm not sure if you're talking generally or are referring directly to me?

Also, that last paragraph there caught my interest. Although, without any elaborate explanation, I can't say I understand much. What do the axes describe? And what is the difference between the red and blue part of the graph? Just two different Rakes?

Just in general.

Edit:
X-axis in all cases in ratio of (Rake damage if you apply Rake now) / (Existing Rake damage)
Y-axis for the top is DPS% (see titles)
Y-axis for the bottom is Overall Rake%

Red = clip if ratio > 1
Blue = clip if ratio <= 1

Anything <= 1 is "essentially replace traditional combo generators with Rake" and the lower the ratio gets, the more likely you'd Rake-spam regardless of you clipping over a Rake that had potion+2 trinket procs+1 weapo proc+springs.

[Dysheki]

I apologize if anyone was offended by what I wrote. I was tired when I wrote the post, and when I'm tired like that I don't think as clearly as I usually do. It was never my intention to offend anyone. Sorry.

No problem, we all enjoy a respectful environment here and I will even apologize myself. I shouldn't really have said anything anyway.

[Arctagon]

Edit:
X-axis in all cases in ratio of (Rake damage if you apply Rake now) / (Existing Rake damage)
Y-axis for the top is DPS% (see titles)
Y-axis for the bottom is Overall Rake%

Red = clip if ratio > 1
Blue = clip if ratio <= 1

Anything <= 1 is "essentially replace traditional combo generators with Rake" and the lower the ratio gets, the more likely you'd Rake-spam regardless of you clipping over a Rake that had potion+2 trinket procs+1 weapo proc+springs.

It seems as though the top graphs say that the higher the ratio, the lesser the DPS gain. That doesn't make much sense to me as the higher the ratio is, the higher the Rake damage will be if you apply Rake now.

I'm not sure I understand why there are two graphs in each coordinate system and why they have so different values, either.

No problem, we all enjoy a respectful environment here and I will even apologize myself. I shouldn't really have said anything anyway.

/brohoof


On another note, I was finally able to set aside some time to fix the gear. I went through almost everything using the stat weights Aggixx provided, and it turned out that even the gear with sockets were better on the Guardian side, so only the tier pieces plus shoulders are Feral exclusive now. I have also put tinkers on my gear, and they are indeed fun to play with, especially since I've never had engineering before. Unfortunately, Armoury doesn't show them. Anyway, now I have a lot more mastery, even with hit and expertise near their caps.

What I'm going to do now is to try getting into the DoC rotation, as I was planning to do that sooner or later.

[aggixx]

The most recent ... revision? Do you know any estimate of when this revision will be released?

Sometime soon I think, probably when PTR settles down a little more. There hasn't been a new release in more than 2 weeks now. It just depends on when someone feels that the sim is in good working order and wants to setup a release.

Huh, I have never experienced that Armoury is inaccurate with the amount of stats earlier. If I compare directly to the stats in-game, in-game shows, as an example, 15670 agility, while the gear summary in SimC shows 13864 agility. That's a significant difference. The same goes for stamina, all the secondary stats, except for haste and dodge, and also armour. Also, all the stats are lower in the gear summary than they are in-game.

You're not by any chance comparing to the "stats from gear" column are you? Because that's the flat amount of stats before anything is applied to it. Armory does do some buff calculation I believe, as well as there being other sources of agility than just from gear.

[raffy]

It seems as though the top graphs say that the higher the ratio, the lesser the DPS gain. That doesn't make much sense to me as the higher the ratio is, the higher the Rake damage will be if you apply Rake now.

Yes, that was my point from my original post: not everything is going to make sense. Or really, our understanding of how these things interact is often incomplete.

There are only a few possible AP/Mastery-increasing procs: potion, 2 trinket, weapon, springs. What the plot is saying is that, the moment any of these things proc, you should reapply Rake. Waiting to reapply Rake only if it is a large DPS gain is actually a DPS loss because it doesn't occur that much. Different durations, different ICD, staggered procs, these all result in strange Rake ratios. Not clipping when there is a moderate DPS gain also misses the opportunity to extra DPS that might not exist a few seconds later (it's 5% more damage now, but in 3 seconds, I lose a proc), I call this lookahead clipping.

I'm not sure I understand why there are two graphs in each coordinate system and why they have so different values, either.

The top plot is DPS gain relative to not performing any Rake clipping (ie. only clipping the last Tick or waiting for expiration). It is a DPS gain almost everywhere because even when you're mindlessly Rake spamming, and you get a proc, it's being applied right away (rather than not benefiting from it all, if you weren't clipping.) Basically, this plot validates that there is value in clipping Rake, the question is, when?

The mid plot is the same as the top plot, except shifted down (setting Ratio >= 1 as 0%) which is the point where you'll Rake back-to-back w/o a proc (since X >= X.) There is a big discontinuity here, because a large portion of damage shifts from Shred/Mangle/Ravage to Rake.

This discontinuity can also be seen by looking at the bot plot, which shows the overall percentage of your damage as Rake.

You can think of the Ratio spectrum like:
Ratio >= 0.00 :: Mindless Rake spam, overwriting strong Rake with wussy Rake
Ratio >= 0.95 :: Typical Rake spam, will not overwrite with significantly weaker Rake
Ratio >= 1.00 :: Smart Rake spam, will not overwrite weaker Rake
Ratio > 1.00 :: Aggressive Rake clipping, will clip if new Rake is an improvement of any kind
Ratio >= 1.15 :: Picky Rake clipping, will only clip if new Rake is obviously better

[Arctagon]

You're not by any chance comparing to the "stats from gear" column are you? Because that's the flat amount of stats before anything is applied to it. Armory does do some buff calculation I believe, as well as there being other sources of agility than just from gear.

I was comparing to this:


What kind of buff calculations?

The mid plot is the same as the top plot, except shifted down (setting Ratio >= 1 as 0%) which is the point where you'll Rake back-to-back w/o a proc (since X >= X.) There is a big discontinuity here, because a large portion of damage shifts from Shred/Mangle/Ravage to Rake.

Do you by any chance mean 'X >= Y' or something?

This discontinuity can also be seen by looking at the bot plot, which shows the overall percentage of your damage as Rake.

I didn't think about it until now, but according to the bottom plot, Rake constitute less of our total damage when the percentage DPS gain is high. Is this also something that's supposed to not intuitively make sense? Another thing I came to think about is that one of the highest percentage DPS gains comes from applying a Rake that is equally strong, i.e. with ratio 1.00 (X = 1.00).

You can think of the Ratio spectrum like:
Ratio >= 0.00 :: Mindless Rake spam, overwriting strong Rake with wussy Rake
Ratio >= 0.95 :: Typical Rake spam, will not overwrite with significantly weaker Rake
Ratio >= 1.00 :: Smart Rake spam, will not overwrite weaker Rake
Ratio > 1.00 :: Aggressive Rake clipping, will clip if new Rake is an improvement of any kind
Ratio >= 1.15 :: Picky Rake clipping, will only clip if new Rake is obviously better

Yes, and it seems that, according to the graph, the highest DPS gain is 1.00 < X < 1.15, or the second last one in your list if you will.

Either way, an addon would likely be required to see when it is worth and not worth to clip Rake.

This all seems very weird, because looking at it analytically, clipping a Rake right after it has been applied will waste a lot of potential damage, thus also energy, thus also DPS, which the graphs don't seem to agree with.

[raffy]

Do you by any chance mean 'X >= Y' or something?

X >= X as in "Assuming no procs, your new Rake is (X) always as good (>=) as your current Rake (X)" which would imply Rake spamming.

I didn't think about it until now, but according to the bottom plot, Rake constitute less of our total damage when the percentage DPS gain is high. Is this also something that's supposed to not intuitively make sense?

No, this does make sense: the lower the ratio, the more likely your going to clip Rake. You energy regen is basically a constant for a given fight. So if your Raking more, your overall Rake % must increase.

Another thing I came to think about is that one of the highest percentage DPS gains comes from applying a Rake that is equally strong, i.e. with ratio 1.00 (X = 1.00)

This all seems very weird, because looking at it analytically, clipping a Rake right after it has been applied will waste a lot of potential damage, thus also energy, thus also DPS, which the graphs don't seem to agree with.

Equally strong (Ratio >= 1.0) is the left side of the discontinuity; Clipping anything better (Ratio > 1) is the right side.

Ratio >= 1.00 :: Smart Rake spam, will not overwrite weaker Rake
Ratio > 1.00 :: Aggressive Rake clipping, will clip if new Rake is an improvement of any kind

Note: 0.6% DPS is like 7000+ DPS

Either way, an addon would likely be required to see when it is worth and not worth to clip Rake.

That was the theory before, when the ratio was 1.12 -- that's really difficult to do in your head. Ratio > 1 is much easier to approximate: anytime you get a proc, apply Rake. I'll sim this one when I get a chance.

We should move this discussion to the other thread.

[aggixx]

Yeah, those numbers are just stats from gear. Armory also accounts for base stats and I think it also accounts for Leather Specialization but I'm not 100% sure.

There's a "raid-buffed" stats column under stats in the HTML report, that's what you want to look at for comparison..