SimulationCraft and Imp's Firebolt

[Spoiledkid]

I wanted to know if my Imp loses some dps uptime when chasing Direhorn Spirit and switching back to Horridon so I ran some simulations and compared results to my logs. The logged fight in question lasted 720 secs so I simulated a similar fight.

SimulationCraft (530-2) shows Imp should cast 241 Firebolts during 720 seconds Patchwerk-fight (2.99 sec interval). But my logs show Imp casted 272 Firebolts (averaging 2.65 sec interval). 272 Firebolts is 12,9% more Firebolts than simulated. Imp's Firebolt should do 11,6% of my total damage, so 12,9% more Firebolts should mean 1,5% higher total damage (in 720 sec simulation). That would put Fel Imp ahead Observer by 0,47% (unless Observer results are off as well).

So is there something they changed in 5.3 and Imp is generating energy faster or is there just a bug in SimulationCraft?

[Caides]

I wanted to know if my Imp loses some dps uptime when chasing Direhorn Spirit and switching back to Horridon so I ran some simulations and compared results to my logs. The logged fight in question lasted 720 secs so I simulated a similar fight.

SimulationCraft (530-2) shows Imp should cast 241 Firebolts during 720 seconds Patchwerk-fight (2.99 sec interval). But my logs show Imp casted 272 Firebolts (averaging 2.65 sec interval). 272 Firebolts is 12,9% more Firebolts than simulated. Imp's Firebolt should do 11,6% of my total damage, so 12,9% more Firebolts should mean 1,5% higher total damage (in 720 sec simulation). That would put Fel Imp ahead Observer by 0,47% (unless Observer results are off as well).

So is there something they changed in 5.3 and Imp is generating energy faster or is there just a bug in SimulationCraft?

Some pets are supposed to "chain cast" now as opposed to just casting, waiting, casting, waiting. Atleast last I read. It's only supposed to be Wild Imps and Doomguard/Terorguard, though.

[Dreyo]

From my understanding the imp's energy expenditure rate is higher than its energy generation rate. It will then wait to have energy above some threshold before autocasting (higher than the actual cost) so that it has energy available for activated abilities if you want one.

This means there will be some pausing involved.

[Medieve]

There may be a bug in Patchwerk. Run it again a few times and see if anything changes in game or if the results are pretty steady. Try it naked, with a few reforges, see if haste affects energy regen (my guess, but only a guess to keep the imp competitive with other pets that get more attacks as haste levels continue to improve), full geared, team up with a spriest or similar for spell haste, see if that does anything, etc. If all of those results are higher than what the sim shows, then sim is off, and will have to be investigated.

I haven't gotten the pets to perform in game the way the sim predicts across the board, and I haven't had the time or drive to figure out why, but they all seem to be off in the same degree, so it may not matter overall.