Thoughts on Different Talents (and Stat Weights)

[DarkSavior]

Very interesting read. Thanks. Confined most of my suspicions.

It would be nice to see what keeping dots on 2+ targets for the duration of the fight would do to the results.

[Twintop]

Very interesting read. Thanks. Confined most of my suspicions.

It would be nice to see what keeping dots on 2+ targets for the duration of the fight would do to the results.

I'm working on it, stay tuned!

Both talents need a complete redesign (honestly, i'd say scrap that whole talent tier, both for healing and shadow priests and give it another theme).

What i recently was thinking off (a raid support tier much like the shaman lvl 75 tier):
- Talent 1: Vampiric Dominance
- Talent 2: Buff to the raid cooldowns (DH, Barrier and VE), reducing cooldown and something like the Barrier Glyph for Barrier, a damage reduction buff for DH, a smart-heal function for VE. This would require a swap for the lvl 75 and 45 rows.
- Talent 3: Cascade - remove the damage, it's already an either/or spell compared to halo/DS, and give us another lvl 90 talent.

I second this overall. I don't think Blizzard has enough time to get a new tier of talents designed, implemented, and tested in time for MoP launch, though (unless they're already working on it...then maybe. MAYBE). We can hope for changes in 5.1 or a 5.0.4++ patch. :\

[Flaubertlives]

My worry is, that when they see Mindbender as a clear winner, it gets a nerf, and we're left with 3 useless talents until they take their thumb out their nether regions.

[Yvaelle]

@Twintop

I was going to post on your blog the other night but I'll do it here before I forget again:

Why is it that haste in your 'Best All' scenario is so much lower than your 'Best Per' and 'Best Two Per' scenarios? If it were an average of the 45 scenarios, then the other scenarios would need to account an 0.32 PP value for haste (cumulative loss) to average with the two you've chosen to graph: that strikes me as incredibly low.

Intuitively it seems wrong as well because MF/VT/Pain/DP all scale extremely well with haste and still represent a significant portion of our damage combined (not to mention GCD reductions for all other abilities), so I would expect haste around ~50% PP or higher until at least the GCD cap (~33%), no? My guess is that Best All isn't an average but some alternate scenario you did? Thanks for any clarification!

I think it was until the DP nerf.

It was the nerf from 15% proc rate down to 5% that ruined DI, after that ToF became the generally strongest option - but I'm sure the DP nerf only made it even less valuable (as shown above).

---------- Post added 2012-08-01 at 10:59 PM ----------

My worry is, that when they see Mindbender as a clear winner, it gets a nerf, and we're left with 3 useless talents until they take their thumb out their nether regions.

I don't think they will do that just because currently all our talents kind of suck, versus most classes which are gaining real dps out of their talent choices.

[Twintop]

@Twintop

I was going to post on your blog the other night but I'll do it here before I forget again:

Why is it that haste in your 'Best All' scenario is so much lower than your 'Best Per' and 'Best Two Per' scenarios? If it were an average of the 45 scenarios, then the other scenarios would need to account an 0.32 PP value for haste (cumulative loss) to average with the two you've chosen to graph: that strikes me as incredibly low.

Intuitively it seems wrong as well because MF/VT/Pain/DP all scale extremely well with haste and still represent a significant portion of our damage combined (not to mention GCD reductions for all other abilities), so I would expect haste around ~50% PP or higher until at least the GCD cap (~33%), no? My guess is that Best All isn't an average but some alternate scenario you did? Thanks for any clarification!

The average of all 45 includes 15 sims that have SW:I and the 15 sims that include FDCL. The PP value for these two groups of 15 are as follows:

	Int	SP	Spirit	Hit	Crit	Haste	Mastery
SW:I	1.000	0.8151	0.5734	0.5734	0.4451	0.4111	0.4593
FDCL	1.000	0.8180	0.6143	0.6143	0.4469	0.3986	0.4589

Compare this to just the 15 with MB:

	Int	SP	Spirit	Hit	Crit	Haste	Mastery
MB	1.000	0.8138	0.5565	0.5565	0.4491	0.4544	0.4086

Considering that the top 10 (2 per each 5) sims all have MB, you can now see why SWI and FDCL drags Haste's PP value down.

[Yvaelle]

The average of all 45 includes 15 sims that have SW:I and the 15 sims that include FDCL. The PP value for these two groups of 15 are as follows:

	Int	SP	Spirit	Hit	Crit	Haste	Mastery
SW:I	1.000	0.8151	0.5734	0.5734	0.4451	0.4111	0.4593
FDCL	1.000	0.8180	0.6143	0.6143	0.4469	0.3986	0.4589

Compare this to just the 15 with MB:

	Int	SP	Spirit	Hit	Crit	Haste	Mastery
MB	1.000	0.8138	0.5565	0.5565	0.4491	0.4544	0.4086

Considering that the top 10 (2 per each 5) sims all have MB, you can now see why SWI and FDCL drags Haste's PP value down.

Thanks! All the more reason for Mindbender then

[Kaesebrezen]

Thanks! All the more reason for Mindbender then

There are no reasons for Mindbender, only tons of reasons against FDCL and SW:I

[Yvaelle]

There are no reasons for Mindbender, only tons of reasons against FDCL and SW:I

Not true, there is a great reason for Mindbender - super cute shadow-octopus of DOOOOOOOM!

(but ya beyond the cosmetic, they all kind of suck)

[Twintop]

Updated with new charts as of the new SimC profiles and the patch from yesterday (Build 15929). Full post here: http://warcraft.twintop-tahoe.com/?p=150

[Blain]

I dare to say: By the end of MoP, FDCL will be either a DPS loss or worse than it's now.

Explanation: Mastery and Haste increase the damage (per execute/time) of Mindflay, while Mindspike damage only scales with Spellpower. At a certain haste/mastery point, Mindflay will always be stronger than FDCL, and that point will be reached (using the stats of the QA 460 itemlvl items) by the last raiding tier.

Mindspikes greater SP coefficient might be enough to offset some of thoses effects, but in the end this will result in Mindbender getting better over the course of the addon, while FDCL will stay the same.

I would love to see FDCL to be changed to: Turns your MSp into a Dot, ticking for x% of MSp-Damage for y Sek, would solve the scaling issue (because it could benifit from Mastery crit and haste) and is easier to balance because the burst potential is lower.

[Crudelitas]

i like this idea!

[Spoir]

What happens when using Power Infusion on yourself and mindfully casting dots at the start and right at the end? Like we do for temp buffs now?

Like, get 3 orbs
PI
DP
VT
SWP
in the final few seconds of the buff recast dots again

Did something change that I'm not following? Or is the value not there for haste buffs?

[Twintop]

What happens when using Power Infusion on yourself and mindfully casting dots at the start and right at the end? Like we do for temp buffs now?

Like, get 3 orbs
PI
DP
VT
SWP
in the final few seconds of the buff recast dots again

Did something change that I'm not following? Or is the value not there for haste buffs?

IIRC, DP isn't affected by Haste. For SWP and VT, it would increase the rate they tick at. This is true for any ability or proc that increases stats (haste/int/crit/mastery/etc.) and is factored in during SimC sims.

[Spoir]

On the ptr I was getting an extra tick of DP. Wasn't sure if Simc would accurately recast on procs though.

[Yvaelle]

IIRC, DP isn't affected by Haste. For SWP and VT, it would increase the rate they tick at. This is true for any ability or proc that increases stats (haste/int/crit/mastery/etc.) and is factored in during SimC sims.

Devouring Plague is affected by haste.

Does simcraft not scale DP to haste?

[Twintop]

On the ptr I was getting an extra tick of DP. Wasn't sure if Simc would accurately recast on procs though.

Devouring Plague is affected by haste.

Does simcraft not scale DP to haste?

At work right now so I can't check, but I'm sure if that's the way DP behaves then SimulationCraft sims it properly.

This is where the "If I" in "IIRC" comes in. I wasn't 100% certain.

[dpqt]

Not true, there is a great reason for Mindbender - super cute shadow-octopus of DOOOOOOOM!

(but ya beyond the cosmetic, they all kind of suck)

plus every minute you have the opportunity to go from 1% to 100% hp by voidshifting your mindbender (assuming you have vs off cd), as opposed to every 3minutes. do more dps alive than dead.

[Spoir]

plus every minute you have the opportunity to go from 1% to 100% hp by voidshifting your mindbender (assuming you have vs off cd), as opposed to every 3minutes. do more dps alive than dead.

Where is the fun in that? Take life from a rogue! Much more entertaining and 100% uptime!

Serious note, why not target a hunter pet instead of your sfiend/mindbender?

[Deleted]

afaik you can't use it on pets anyway?

[Kaesebrezen]

afaik you can't use it on pets anyway?

You can once again since one of the latest builds.