Legion Theorycrafting [7.3, All specs]

[Deleted]

So is the thinking now that taking Steady Focus and True aim, thus having a pet and not using the currently favoured Lone Wolf setup, is going to be the way to go in Legion? That's what I'm inferring from that Sim but I'm not sure how accurate the sims are at the moment. I kinda hope it's the case as the play style is more fun!

[Deleted]

Little bit off-topic, but...
I was fooling around in old raids, and Beast Tamer's shoulders dropped for me and it got me thinking. Shouldn't they be forgotten BiS for BM or am I missing something?
link

[MrTharne]

Little bit off-topic, but...
I was fooling around in old raids, and Beast Tamer's shoulders dropped for me and it got me thinking. Shouldn't they be forgotten BiS for BM or am I missing something?
link

The equip effects are nothing compare to the massive stats losses.

[Deleted]

It basically gives you massive amount of mastery. In fact, it should be, more or less, equivalent of lvl1 Spiritbound which, if I'm not mistaken, gives you 11k DPS.

[Deleted]

Massive? isn't it just ~150-200 mastery? I guess somewhat more if we consider it's *1.03 at the end of the calculation.

Even if it's 600 or 1000, a heroic 5man item has +600 secondary +~300-400 to another secondary and +700 agility and +1000 stamina more.

[Effinhunter]

So is the thinking now that taking Steady Focus and True aim, thus having a pet and not using the currently favoured Lone Wolf setup, is going to be the way to go in Legion? That's what I'm inferring from that Sim but I'm not sure how accurate the sims are at the moment. I kinda hope it's the case as the play style is more fun!

I would stick with Lone Wolf, Lock-and-Load, Patient Sniper, Barrage and Sidewinders. Not only is it much better at AoE of any type, but it's also more forgiving of human error.

@Tsoni Beasttamer's

Does not appear viable in Legion. Too much stat loss (similar to past expansion recommendations since BC to skip it)

Simcraft settings: 450s +/- 20%, 50k iterations, Simcraft Source



@Salsa Expected Tuning

Sloot had an interesting interview with Watcher yesterday that talked a bit about what tuning is expected in the next five weeks. Watcher also dropped a pretty big bombshell about a change to raiding addons that is likely to affect many of you.

https://www.twitch.tv/slootbag/v/84678318?t=02h55m17s

Here is the basic, important information
1.) The devs seems comfortable with the stratification of the dps classes right now. If there is any major tuning, it will be to bring outliers back inline. The example he gives is that if fire mages are 20% higher than everyone else, they would tune them down to only being 5% higher than everyone else. They understand that spending 3 weeks on an artifact and then having everything change would be traumatic.
2.) Addons will no longer be able to access position information in progression settings (i.e., raids). Watcher says that Blizzard does not like the radars and similar interfaces that have popped up in fights like Archimonde that made the fight easier than Blizzard intended. They are still going to allow position information to addons in the world zones, which means they are not breaking Treasure addons and world markers. They are breaking raid-based position addons that automate positioning, present arrows for where you need to go from your current position, etc.

#1 should answer your questions. #2 is really important for raiders to understand. If you've become accustomed to things like the Wrought Chaos radar on Mythic Archimonde, your raid team is going to need to figure out a way to work around that.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

I'm having a real god damn hard time trying to decide between Hunter and Mage. Hunter is pulling slightly more ahead because MM/BM seem to be on top of their game in regards to raiding and Mythic+ whereas Mage is basically Fire or bust until it's either nerfed or the other two specs buffed even though I'm not a fan of Arcane and Frost.

I even like Survival a lot more than Frost and Arcane which makes Hunters a well-rounded interest even though I think the BM artifact and all of the models are a crime against humanity... but then I think about how much I really like Fire and whether or not that one spec is enough to last for an expansion. I haven't looked at both halls though or their class quests so maybe I'll spoil myself to see which is more appealing.

Even worse is that the one I pick will be the one I am paying to transfer to another realm so I'd hate to get main remorse after the fact. I'd power level the hell out of one or the other with the invasion but I simply don't have enough motivation or time to do so.

[3clipse]

Here is the basic, important information
1.) The devs seems comfortable with the stratification of the dps classes right now. If there is any major tuning, it will be to bring outliers back inline. The example he gives is that if fire mages are 20% higher than everyone else, they would tune them down to only being 5% higher than everyone else. They understand that spending 3 weeks on an artifact and then having everything change would be traumatic.
2.) Addons will no longer be able to access position information in progression settings (i.e., raids). Watcher says that Blizzard does not like the radars and similar interfaces that have popped up in fights like Archimonde that made the fight easier than Blizzard intended. They are still going to allow position information to addons in the world zones, which means they are not breaking Treasure addons and world markers. They are breaking raid-based position addons that automate positioning, present arrows for where you need to go from your current position, etc.

#1 should answer your questions. #2 is really important for raiders to understand. If you've become accustomed to things like the Wrought Chaos radar on Mythic Archimonde, your raid team is going to need to figure out a way to work around that.

#2 would also make Mythic Kormrok much more annoying since you no longer have an addon telling everyone exactly where to go for optimal soaking. That's sort of an annoying change, although I get their reasoning.

[Effinhunter]

So, it's that point of the prepatch where people have begun passing around comparisons of all the specs using the sample T19P profiles in Simcraft. I saw one of these today, along with someone concerned about where classes/specs are in the list. I'm not going to share this image as it would just cause unnecessary controversy. However, I do think the T19P profile for hunters should be updated a bit so these kinds of comparisons are more accurate and do not show us in an unfavorable light.

What I'm assuming the T19P profile is supposed to show is the BiS mythic dungeon gear and a reasonable artifact for pre-raid. What we have right now for Hunter_MM_T19P in Simcraft is an artifact with 23 artifact traits with only 19 purchased and no Legacy golden trait, a partial dungeon set bonus, and an overloading of the Deadly Aim trait to 6. If the goals as I see them of the T19P profile are to provide a BiS mythic dungeon gear expectation before raid, this is missing nearly 20k dps from what I would expect of most high end raider profiles before raid (honestly, most hunters should be going for 850 crafted as much as possible (other than the dungeon set and maybe BiS mythic dungeon trinkets), since we have no crafting cap, but that's not the point of the T19P, as far as I can tell).

Here's what I think the T19P should be instead. It uses haste/mastery gear wherever possible, the Traitor's Oath set, and the two best trinkets we have. In fact, as far as I can tell from sims right now, it seems these two 840 ilvl trinkets are better than the trinkets that I know of that are coming from Emerald Nightmare. I included those trinkets in this sim just to show what I'm seeing right now. I would love to be wrong about this. It would suck to have no trinkets to look forward to out of the first raid. It's not unheard of though. Do you guys remember how long the Lucky Double-Sided Coin stayed BiS?

Anyway, if you see a spec comparison between all the dps classes, try to use the following T19P, which uses less total artifact points (20 vs 23) and still manages to be roughly 20k dps higher than what is currently in Simcraft for the mythic dungeon MM set (Hunter_MM_T19P).

New MM_Hunter_T19P, no crafted
Simcraft settings: 450s +/- 20%, 50k iterations, Simcraft Source


My recommended Hunter_MM_T19P profile: http://effin.highfiveguild.com/sims/mm/mm_profile.simc

Essentially, it finishes the set, uses the recommended 20 artifact trait, and uses nothing but haste/mastery gear everywhere else. If you are doing crafted (and I think everyone should), simply replace what you can with the 850 crafted gear except for the shoulders and wrists (to keep the set).

The BM and SV T19Ps seem similarly undervalued right now.

[Effinhunter]

Tweaking the MM APL for a bit more performance. Currently focusing on potion and Trueshot CDs.


Simcraft settings: 450s +/- 20%, 50k iterations, Simcraft Source

Basically, don't use your last potion on CD. Instead use it as a reaction to Bullseye stacks during the <20% execute phase. You can either Trueshot at over 22 stacks or 25 stacks, and this is really going to depend on how fast your raid kills the boss during the execute phase. If you're going to use Trueshot at ~26 Bullseye stacks, then it appears you'll want to use your potion at 23 or 24 stacks (potions last longer than Trueshot, and you'll get some potion time at the max stacks too). If you use Trueshot at 23 stacks, then use your potion at 22 or with the trueshot itself. The Trueshot will result in faster ability usage, and you'll get to max stacks with potion still under effect as well.

I'm thinking of updating the Artifact guide image to go for Bullseye first, even if you don't get to use it as much during your Mythic Dungeon bosses (too short) while you're leveling artifact to 20 for the raiding triangle (Legacy, Rapid Killing, Bullseye). You'll want to practice Bullseye and how to game it during your pre-raid preparations, so you're more of an expert with it for Ilgynoth (2nd Emerald Nightmare boss) and other bosses/situations that give you an execute window to game with multiple mobs. Because of how long the add phase lasts in Ilgynoth in comparison to the single target boss phase (only 50s for the eye in the tree phase), you should be able to spend quite a bit of time in P1 (add phase) with many if not full Bullseye stacks (and maintaining high Bullseye stacks will be a HUGE difference in dps as you would be essentially maintaining a significantly higher critical strike chance). There are two ways to do this: 1) your raid is nice enough to keep one add at 20% or lower health and you hit it with ancillary damage from Sidewinders and Barrage, 2) you evenly burst down 2+ adds and make sure to hold a barrage until they're both below 20% health so you get the rapid build up from it. #2 is more likely to have periods of downtime because once dpsers see an add with low health, that add tends to die quickly due to dots and natural tendencies of raid dps to focus on it. Unfortunately, because you have to transition into the tree on this boss, the 6s buff time is going to result in Bullseye falling off before you have a chance to use your 30 stack on the boss. But, Bullseye at high stacks will help you kill priority adds faster so P1 is less dangerous.

BTW, are most guilds thinking their strat on this boss will be to group 20 ichors on boss and dps them down at once or stagger things in (more like the bombs on vents in BRF's Blast Furnace)?

Anyway, we'll go over this a bit more when we start looking at specific boss fights in Emerald Nightmare. Right now, I'm still focusing on higher level APL/gear/talent/relics/etc.

Edit: Updated first post MM APL

[Kasuka]

I haven't seen much discussion of how the SV buff to Mongoose Bite and Mastery has affected the spec's dps. Any sims/thoughts on that?

[eathdemon]

some people are saying they nerfed bullseye from 3% to 1% per satck, if true is it still worth being your first big trait?

[Effinhunter]

It greatly increased mastery's contribution to SV, but it is still one of the worst secondaries for SV, unfortunately. See scale factors in first post, but take scale factors with a grain of salt. They're only really useful for that gear point and can change a bit wildly. There's a rumor of a 15% and 19% haste soft breakpoints, but I haven't been able to confirm that (granted, I haven't had much time to focus on SV tweaks).

Slight tweak to MM APL. This one is holding barrage when target is at 21 and 22 percent health, so that Barrage is available to build up Bullseye stacks quickly at 20% boss health.


Simcraft settings: 450s +/- 20%, 50k iterations, Simcraft Settings

Very small gain for a long fight, but this is going to be very important once parsing windows get down to 3m or less. What we're doing here is making sure that Barrage gives us 13-18 Bullseye stacks (13-18% more crit) over Barrage's short cast time instead of many GCDs. Quicker potion use, more time spent in crit, etc.

- - - Updated - - -

People have asked about the raid release schedule. Blue post out today that makes it more concrete and official-like:
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/7...aids-schedule/

[silverstarzs]

Trueshot at over 22 stacks or 25 stacks, . . . . ~26 Bullseye stacks

Effin - what's your thinking about getting +20 stacks. In some very quick experiments in beta I found it troublesome to get/keep more than 20 stacks. The stacks expire in 6 seconds, and barrage CD is 20 secs.

Obviously if you have a whole bunch of mobs, all at sub 20%, in front of you, it will be easy - but that seems like a very very niche situation.

also - a note - bursting shot is also a way to add stacks if you have some -20% mobs to hit.

[3clipse]

So I'm seeing reports that on beta Bullseye was nerfed from 3%/stack to 1%/stack. Not knowing any other changes that might be made, that seems like it could seriously hurt MM's DPS.

[bouchbagfett]

Is there any objective data/sims that show BM is clearly better than MM for Mythic+? I assume the best judge is something that would quantify repeated 45'sih sec aoe pulls. But depending on pacing perhaps just sustained AOE damage.

[Effinhunter]

So I'm seeing reports that on beta Bullseye was nerfed from 3%/stack to 1%/stack. Not knowing any other changes that might be made, that seems like it could seriously hurt MM's DPS.

It should be 1% in the sim. Here's the spelldata dump:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/si.../allspells.txt

Spell id is 204090

Says:

Hotfixed: Base Value (3 -> 1)

- - - Updated - - -

Effin - what's your thinking about getting +20 stacks. In some very quick experiments in beta I found it troublesome to get/keep more than 20 stacks. The stacks expire in 6 seconds, and barrage CD is 20 secs.

Obviously if you have a whole bunch of mobs, all at sub 20%, in front of you, it will be easy - but that seems like a very very niche situation.

also - a note - bursting shot is also a way to add stacks if you have some -20% mobs to hit.

If your main target is under 20%, then there really isn't a way to not cap unless:
1) the mob dies
2) you stop hitting any abilities

- - - Updated - - -

I'll post the updated artifact guide for going after bullseye first in 16. I mentioned that I would be doing this earlier in the thread, but I haven't gotten to it yet.

[silverstarzs]

If your main target is under 20%, then there really isn't a way to not cap unless:
1) the mob dies
2) you stop hitting any abilities

puzzled . . . Lets say we get 15 stacks from barrage - 1.5 sec cast time. We have 4.5 seconds to get another 15 stacks from something else before those first 15 expire. All our other shots will only hit the main target once. we can get perhaps three shots on that main target (say sidewinder plus two aimed shots). That's 18 stacks. So to cap it seems to me that you have to assume 12 hits on sub 20% adds in that 4.5 seconds. When I was hitting world bosses that did not happen. Am I missing something or mis-understanding something about this mechanic?


Then the barrage first 15 stacks expire in 6 seconds and it is a 20 sec CD, so there will be 14 seconds (70% of time) when we cannot refresh with barrage, and it seems like it will generally/typically be difficult to keep it anywhere near cap then.

And yea, if you have 6 sub 20% adds sitting in front of you - no problem, but that is not so common.

[eathdemon]

puzzled . . . Lets say we get 15 stacks from barrage - 1.5 sec cast time. We have 4.5 seconds to get another 15 stacks from something else before those first 15 expire. All our other shots will only hit the main target once. we can get perhaps three shots on that main target (say sidewinder plus two aimed shots). That's 18 stacks. So to cap it seems to me that you have to assume 12 hits on sub 20% adds in that 4.5 seconds. When I was hitting world bosses that did not happen. Am I missing something or mis-understanding something about this mechanic?


Then the barrage first 15 stacks expire in 6 seconds and it is a 20 sec CD, so there will be 14 seconds (70% of time) when we cannot refresh with barrage, and it seems like it will generally/typically be difficult to keep it anywhere near cap then.

And yea, if you have 6 sub 20% adds sitting in front of you - no problem, but that is not so common.

every time a attack lands, its refreshed.

[Effinhunter]

puzzled . . . Lets say we get 15 stacks from barrage - 1.5 sec cast time. We have 4.5 seconds to get another 15 stacks from something else before those first 15 expire. All our other shots will only hit the main target once. we can get perhaps three shots on that main target (say sidewinder plus two aimed shots). That's 18 stacks. So to cap it seems to me that you have to assume 12 hits on sub 20% adds in that 4.5 seconds. When I was hitting world bosses that did not happen. Am I missing something or mis-understanding something about this mechanic?


Then the barrage first 15 stacks expire in 6 seconds and it is a 20 sec CD, so there will be 14 seconds (70% of time) when we cannot refresh with barrage, and it seems like it will generally/typically be difficult to keep it anywhere near cap then.

And yea, if you have 6 sub 20% adds sitting in front of you - no problem, but that is not so common.

It's a refresh as Eathdemon stated. It is not a decay system that requires you to get everything within 6 seconds. You just have to hit an ability that hurts the mob/applies something within the 6 second timer to keep it going.