Legion Theorycrafting [7.3, All specs]

[tynar]

Hello

I have the world quest 840 mastery trinket but i also have the Tempered egg of Serpentrix 855. Which one would be better overall ?

[Kwaai]

It has been a while since I played WoW. I was used to being able to show advanced tooltips and finding out how the damage of an ability is being calculated. I can´t for the life of me figure out where I can find that now. For example, Aimed Shot states that is 215% weapon damage, but it obviously scales with Agility as well. Where can I find these equations now?

Thanks!

At some point all weapon damage attacks (or at least most of them, if I recall correctly) were normalized and use a formula that incorporates AP. Wowpedia has that formula as:

normalized_damage = base_weapon_damage + (X * Attack Power / 14)

I'm not sure if that's current, but it's something like that.

[Effinhunter]

Hello

I have the world quest 840 mastery trinket but i also have the Tempered egg of Serpentrix 855. Which one would be better overall ?

This is kind of a tossup in sims, but I would probably use the 840 mastery trinket for progression. There will be no trinket-based variability in your dps, and it will be a more dependable trinket.

[tynar]

Thank you for your answer, 840 mastery trinket it is.

[Crunchwrapz]

I have the 2nd golden trait as BM and the legendary boots (Qua Pla) that reduce KC CD by 3 seconds every Dire Beast. My MM is almost at 2nd golden trait.

When should I make the switch over to MM for Mythic+ and raiding? I'm currently at around 865 ilvl and 885 wep BM, 887 MM. I also get about 85-93 percentile in heroic EN as BM (240k+ DPS).

Thanks

[Azortharion]

Should've switched a long, long time ago.

[Crunchwrapz]

Without even having the 2nd golden trait as MM?

[Azortharion]

Yeah. It can't possibly be very far away either, even if you're a bit behind on Artifact Knowledge, 20 traits isn't much.

[Effinhunter]

I gave him the same answer in game. Having those boots certainly can cushion you a bit from the massive single target loss you'll experience as BM before the 26th trait. But grinding out that 20th MM trait is doable within a week, especially if you have Artifact Knowledge research at even a level 3 or 4. It's worth doing (going MM instead of BM) for raiding. If you get to 26 BM traits, that's a reasonable point to switch to BM. But before that? Not advisable.

Another thing I would recommend to people who are making this switch late is that you switch your loot specialization to MM when you are farming EN Normals and Heroics. I finally got my first legendary from the normal first boss in EN last week. Any raid in EN seems to have a high chance of dropping something, and hopefully you'll get the boots or belt if you just stick to farming normal / heroic, at the very least. This is another ridiculous RNG-drop fest, sort of like trying to get a good Kihras last expansion. It's what Blizzard seems to think is fun.

[teverin]

I gave him the same answer in game. Having those boots certainly can cushion you a bit from the massive single target loss you'll experience as BM before the 26th trait. But grinding out that 20th MM trait is doable within a week, especially if you have Artifact Knowledge research at even a level 3 or 4. It's worth doing (going MM instead of BM) for raiding. If you get to 26 BM traits, that's a reasonable point to switch to BM. But before that? Not advisable.

What do you mean by that last part? I have been playing BM and have 22 points in it. I also got the legendary belt that halves my aspects. With that belt and 22+ points in BM should I just stick to BM? I mainly do M+ (and dislike MM).

I'm hoping the SV buffs keep coming because I can see that belt being very strong.

[Effinhunter]

What do you mean by that last part? I have been playing BM and have 22 points in it. I also got the legendary belt that halves my aspects. With that belt and 22+ points in BM should I just stick to BM? I mainly do M+ (and dislike MM).

I'm hoping the SV buffs keep coming because I can see that belt being very strong.

If all you're doing is Mythic+, especially 1-9, I'm sure you're fine. But if you look at the breakdown for trait investment, you'll see that BM lags behind in single target significantly until you reach 26.

[teverin]

If all you're doing is Mythic+, especially 1-9, I'm sure you're fine. But if you look at the breakdown for trait investment, you'll see that BM lags behind in single target significantly until you reach 26.

Have you guys looked at how the SV buffs might effect its usefulness in M+?

[Renley]

Edit: Nevermind me.

[Fakiegeff]

I need some wisdom here since i dont have any competent marks guildmates to discuss with. So marks rotation, lets say during single target, which of these cases sounds like it would be best, assuming using barrage instead of crows because most bosses have lots of adds in EN:

A) windburst/barrage on cooldown with extreme prejudice, ignore vuln windows or possible extensions etc, just interrupt (not literally interrupt a cast) what you are doing to use windburst and barrage

B) windburst/barrage as soon as you can, so long as you arent in the middle of a vuln window, but delay them if you can use another vuln aimedshot, or perhaps even vuln aimedshot + marked shot + more vuln aimedshots

c) saving windburst as a vuln activator/extender weaving between sets of aimedshots and whatnot, probably use barrage outside vuln windows.

Currently im getting some heinous low percentiles (30-80) on heroic/early mythic EN bosses as marks for my ilvl 873 bracket, but historically ive usually been 95-99 on most things since my guild started doing logs x expansions back. I doubt everyone and their mother are prepotting+potting on heroic fights so im pretty sure theres something wrong with what im doing compared to it just being proc rng or because im a cheap bastard

What i do tends to agree with azors guide on icy veins, im just unclear on best practice because the guide has marked shot + accompanying aimedshot(s) above windburst, but also aimedshot below windburst.

[ydraw]

Has anyone simmed 835 Shard Of Contempt from Magister's Terrace timewalking? The proc seems absurdly powerful.

[Effinhunter]

...
A) windburst/barrage on cooldown with extreme prejudice, ignore vuln windows or possible extensions etc, just interrupt (not literally interrupt a cast) what you are doing to use windburst and barrage

B) windburst/barrage as soon as you can, so long as you arent in the middle of a vuln window, but delay them if you can use another vuln aimedshot, or perhaps even vuln aimedshot + marked shot + more vuln aimedshots

c) saving windburst as a vuln activator/extender weaving between sets of aimedshots and whatnot, probably use barrage outside vuln windows.

...

So, to kind of kill two birds with one stone, here is a sim showing Agiliter's updates to the APL (mm_agiliter_changes_apl), compared with Agiliter's updates but with using windburst/barrage on CD (mm_barr_wind_on_cd_apl), compared with the old APL that TheJazz had presented (mm_current_apl). All of this is with a 870/900 ilvl profile.


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

Basically, the difference between doing a super optimal rotation where Windburst and Barrage are used perfectly versus just using them on CD usually sims between 500 and 900 dps difference (and above, we're seeing a higher end difference due to the 870/900 gear ilvl profile). That's hardly the difference between parsing in the 30-80 percentile and the 95-99th percentile. Parsing well usually means maximizing your time spent in vulnerability and using that vulnerability wisely (i.e., getting as many AiS within vulnerability as possible, extending vulnerability with Windburst if possible, and using Marked Shot only within vulnerability). With single target bosses, especially, fight length will also determine your ceiling percentile unless you just get really lucky with crits, or you have the legendary boots and are able to fit an extra True Shot into a fight length. Movement can be especially problematic due to 40% of our damage being AiS. Missing AiS in a fight due to a chaotic strat or reacting to bad guildies can have a significant impact. Getting a bit lucky with a few crits and LnL procs during your opener doesn't hurt, either.

[Jayeazy]

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

The best one edited by agiliter is currently the simc default but uses the same WB and Barrage conditions as the old-new one, the dps increase is with the addition of those extra action lists I had neglected from his apl the first time around. Even between them and the edited one, at 100k iterations the average cast difference for WB was 0 and .2 for Barrage. The condition to not barrage if Vuln will drop before you can MS means that occasionally a Barrage is delayed by that gcd and Marked cast before Barrage, which is probably costing a Barrage usage every like 5 runs if that happens enough times in the fight. It would take multiple situations like that in a fight for a Barrage loss to happen, but it's obvious that trading a single missed Barrage for multiple buffed Marked Shots is way better, giving the ~900 difference.

[Azortharion]

Throw a pastebin to the proper new-new-new new APL and I'll put it in SimCraft.

[Jayeazy]

Throw a pastebin to the proper new-new-new new APL and I'll put it in SimCraft.

The top result there is already the default. I referred to the mm_current_apl from that sim as old-new because it was one of the wip apls that went back and forth, it's not actually from the current simc but wasn't the old simc default either.

[Spiralphoenix]

Has the new (to 7.1) Potion of Prolonged Power (2500agi / 60 sec) been compared with Deadly Grace yet?