[Guardian] Rend and Tear vs. Pulverize

[ManyHeadedDruid]

Many guides say Pulverize is bad offense- and defence-wise, without any explanation. I tried to figure out the logic behind it but I couldn’t find it. What do you guys think?

Since Lunar Beam is situational, I’ve only compared Pulverize to Rend and Tear. I’ve considered both defence and offense.

Defence

To calculate the defence value a few things are important:

1. The amount of damage reduction;
2. The time it takes to set it up;
3. How hard it is to maintain.

Damage reduction

The damage reduction seems simple enough, pulverize decreases damage taken by a flat 8%, Rend and Tear by 6% with 3 stacks up. In AoE situations this is the same, if 3 stacks of Rend and Tear are up on all mobs. So looking purely at damage reduction, pulverize is better.

Setup time

Haste lowers the cooldown of Trash so I will assume it is 5 for now. This means the defence value of each is:

Rend and Tear:
0 seconds (first trash) 2%; 5 seconds (two stacks) 4%; 10 seconds (three stacks) 6%

Pulverize:
0 seconds (first trash) 0%; 5 seconds (two stacks) 0%; 6,5 seconds (pulverize after GCD) 8%

In fights with adds, Pulverize is already up when they spawn, since it’s a buff on yourself. Trash however needs to be applied to 3 stacks (12 seconds), for Rend and Tear to get close to the potential Pulverize has.

From this point of view Pulverize again seems the better choice. It takes less time to reach its full potential in damage reduction, and with spawning adds this effect is even stronger.

Maintaining the buff/stacks

Maintaining the full Rend and Tear after building it up requires you to use trash once every 15 seconds. With a 5 second cooldown on trash this seems easy enough.

To not let pulverize drop off, requires you to put up two trash and use pulverize within 20 seconds. With the current rotation usually you can use trash almost always on cooldown, which gives you an opportunity window of 10 seconds to spend one GCD on Pulverize. With the current boss mechanics, this seems doable for every guardian druid.

So on this aspect indeed Rend and Tear is easier to keep to its full potential, but it’s easy enough as well to keep pulverize up.

Conclusion Defence

Pulverize seems superior from a defence point of view. If you have trouble keeping the stacks up (seems unlikely) of course Rend and Tear is the better choice, if you succeed executing that.

Offense

While defence for me is most important, offense is interesting to see as well. The guides state again that Rend and Tear is superior. But is this true?

Rend and Tear

Rend and Tear damage is simply a 6% flat multiplier to your damage. The 15 seconds it needs to build up to its full potential is negligible in a full raid fight unless adds spawn frequently (in which case the setup time of Rend and Tear lowers its value). For this reason, to calculate the Rend and Tear dps I simply used:

R_dps = T_dps ∙ 6%

Where R_dps = Rend and Tear dps, T_dps = Total dps output without Rend and Tear.

Example Rend and Tear

With an ilvl between 863 and 865, 150 000 is in the highest percentile.

150 000 ∙ 6% = 9 000

When there’s adds on the boss Rend and Tear becomes a bit stronger because the overall dps goes up. Assuming the overall dps can go as high as 200.000 the dps from Rend and Tear will be:

200 000 ∙ 6% = 12 000

 
Pulverize

Pulverize is much harder to calculate, the equation for it should be this:

T_dps = S_c / S_cd ∙ ((A∙ (1 + 2∙(4% + M/70000))) / 3.5 + W_dps) ∙ 2.5 ∙ (1 + N_T/200) ∙ (1 + V/40000) ∙ (1 + 16% + C/35000) ∙ (1+H / 32500) ∙ (1-D_r)

T_dps = damage of spell/ability, in this case Pulverize, S_c = Spell coefficient = spell specific multiplier, for Pulverize it’s 567%, S_cd = Spell base cooldown, 12 seconds for pulverize (2 base trash stacks), A = Attackpower= Agility, M = Mastery, W_dps = Weapon dps, N_T = number of traits, V = versatility, C = Crit, H = Haste, D_r= Damage reduction on the boss, from testing this seems 30%

Filling out these numbers gives you the DPS pulverize does per second.

Of course Pulverize also consumes the DoT from trash, which needs to be subtracted from the DPS done by Pulverize. This can be done using the same equation, since the initial effect stays the same, you only lose the DoT, which is calculated by S_c = 60,5% over 15 seconds.

Example pulverize

Taking into account these stats (in the ilvl 863-865 range): A= 21155, C = 3597, M = 10573, H = 3872, V = 462 N_T= 25

Would result in a dps output of 15k on Pulverize
With these same stats the trash DoT dps loss would be 1.8k
This means the dps output from Pulverize is 15k – 1.8k = 13.2k

Of course the dps in AoE situations stays the same.

Conclusion Offense:

Looking at the examples, it seems that even in offense Pulverize is superior, with a difference of 4.2k dps.
In AoE situations, the difference might be less significant: 1.2k
Looking at these calculations it will take long before we reach the ilvl where rend and tear – especially on single target fights – is actually superior.

Conclusion:

I still don’t understand why guides suggest that Pulverize is worse in defence as well as offense.
Did I make mistakes in the calculation? Or Pulverize is really the better choice?

Looking forward to hear what you guys think!

[Drekor]

I'm not seeing you account for lost damage due to the GCD of using the ability.

[Cannibalus]

I'm not seeing you account for lost damage due to the GCD of using the ability.

Was about to say that. We can't really afford to spend another GCD, i'd rather do a swipe and hope to reset mangle for damage + rage gen.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Was about to say that. We can't really afford to spend another GCD, i'd rather do a swipe and hope to reset mangle for damage + rage gen.

The GCD is indeed the gamechanger here. You could be losing out on a mangle/thrash/gg moonfire if shit hits the fan, even if you do it perfectly and you do it during a swipe GCD 100% of the time. You still need to subtract all the damage swipe would be doing. When it consumed lacerate in WOD, it was a net dps loss compared to using the lacerate. I expect the same now. Especially with the buffed moonfire damage on GG.

[Folly]

I'm not seeing you account for lost damage due to the GCD of using the ability.

I did similar math, but instead of focusing on flat damage. I just looked at the AP%. At the end I got a very similar ratio between the two, and then I realized what Drekor stated. The opportunity cost of the GCD, of just the damage of the Swipe, is enough to push the offensive towards Rend and Tear before considering the potential Gore proc. Further when considering multiple targets, Rend and Tear out right trounces Pulverize since the Swipe would hit multiple targets and the 6% has to be factored on all targets.

With regards to defense, pulverize over a long fight or an add spawn fight should be better. But in trash situations getting some mitigation online immediately will compensate for the less long term. The reason I bring this up is Mythic+. Often the bosses are not the challenge of these and given up a little potential mitigation on bosses for definitive mitigation on trash (and better dps)

[ManyHeadedDruid]

Thanks guys!

Probably that's what I missed indeed. I'll do the math in the weekend.