Focus Fire Usage

[Hiraishin]

Hello, I was reading somewhere... I think it was on RogerBrown's guide, that Focus Fire can be used during BW, how come that it can be used during BW? is it not a dps loss?

I'm not so much of BM player anymore, so I'm a bit out of date in this regard, how you guys use focus fire? as soon as you get 5 stacks? or delay it a bit?

Considering AOC make our BW come out of cd before getting the 5 stacks of frenzy.. I'm so annoyed of how and when to use Focus fire >.<

Thanks

[Littlepinch]

As far as i know you use Frenzy Stacks as soon as it hit 5 stacks ( Unless ) - BW is about to come off CD then you would delay it till after BW. Frenzy is to help your focus management outside of BW.

[Hiraishin]

Yes, but.. (Unless) BW is about to come off, that should happen all the time, since BW has 40 somthing sec of cd, we are using BW quite often and it mostly gets to a point where it happens both together everytime.. the 5 stacks of frenzy and BW coming off CD

[kcsaenz]

There is almost no difference between using focus fire perfectly and not using it at all.

[Jaja]

Yes, but.. (Unless) BW is about to come off, that should happen all the time, since BW has 40 somthing sec of cd, we are using BW quite often and it mostly gets to a point where it happens both together everytime.. the 5 stacks of frenzy and BW coming off CD

You use BW then Focus Fire when it ends. The frenzy stacks are quite nice during BW.

[Deleted]

You use BW then Focus Fire when it ends. The frenzy stacks are quite nice during BW.

I think this is the safest method to use, as someone mentioned above the difference between letting the pet keep all stacks and using it perfectly is pretty small. If you have AoC and pop it after BW ends that's usually pretty solid uptime on both buffs. If you want to perfect your play i'm sure someone can dive into the math and tell you the exact breaking points of where is turns from a dps increase to a dps loss. But i'd argue it's a lot of work for a small reward.

[eschatological]

FF still uses a GCD I believe, so at the very least, don't use it DURING BW. I pop it at 5 if there's even more than 10s left on the BW CD.

[Aldarana]

The idea behind using FF during/before BW is that when the stacks are consumed it give your pet focus and pet's basic attacks do double damage when the pet has over 50 focus, it also costs twice as much. Stacked with BW that's a 120% increase on the basic attack, but it only works once, so I'm not sold on weather this is a dps gain. Like others have said the difference is minimal, less than RNG, so you or someone else could do the math and find out the exact answer but as has also been said that'd be a lot of work for not much reward.

[Speedlance]

Use focus fire on CD, except when you get stampede up again, then you pop RF, FF, BW and rabid (or not if you let it autocast) then stampede, you can sync it with trinket procs or other buffs if you got them available. You'll really notice the dmg gain if you line up perfectly. I can do 1.5mill (ilvl 564) burst in my opener.

[Alvarie]

I don't even have FF on my bars anymore, there is a less than 100 DPS difference between using it at 5 stacks, and letting your pet just keep all the frenzy stacks throughout the fight.

[Bullettime]

I don't even have FF on my bars anymore, there is a less than 100 DPS difference between using it at 5 stacks, and letting your pet just keep all the frenzy stacks throughout the fight.

Pretty much. I can drop Focus Fire from the cycle entirely and only see a DPS change of about 150 DPS.

Focus Fire was a much bigger deal at lower gear levels when our Haste was really low but at this gear level, it doesn't do much of anything. Running around with 40% Haste and then Rapid Fire being up so frequently on top of that just ends up pushing Cobra under GCD. Even with its impact on RPPM like our cloak and gem, only seeing about a 150 DPS loss with 570ilvl. 150 less DPS out of a 310k theoretical. That's a drop in the bucket for less button bloat.

The Focus Fire mechanic hasn't seemed to scale with gear very well and hopefully it gets changed in WoD. If it weren't for the cloak and meta gem, it would be a DPS decrease to use it atm which is sad. It was like this in Cata as well where by the time you got a full set of T13 gear, you basically dropped Focus Fire off your bars.

Hello, I was reading somewhere... I think it was on RogerBrown's guide, that Focus Fire can be used during BW, how come that it can be used during BW? is it not a dps loss?

I'm not so much of BM player anymore, so I'm a bit out of date in this regard, how you guys use focus fire? as soon as you get 5 stacks? or delay it a bit?

Considering AOC make our BW come out of cd before getting the 5 stacks of frenzy.. I'm so annoyed of how and when to use Focus fire >.<

Thanks

You can use it once during Bestial Wrath and it turns the next Bite into a pseudo Kill Command due to the Focus return mechanic and Wild Hunt while having the increased pet damage from BW. The next Bite/Claw/Smack after using it during BW hits pretty damn hard.

[Megabloks]

I don't even have FF on my bars anymore, there is a less than 100 DPS difference between using it at 5 stacks, and letting your pet just keep all the frenzy stacks throughout the fight.

I just simmed myself without using FF and simmed 13k less. I think you guys aren't counting enough for auto shots, claws, meta gem, and cloak procs. Not to mention it increases you and your pets focus regen which reduces the amount of time you spend using cobra shot twice over.

From my sim I used focus fire for 10.5s during the fight, but I cobra shot for 20 seconds less than the sim without FF in it. The sim without FF also had 37 less auto shots(~5k DPS), 10 less AS(~2k DPS), less wild hunt claws (~7k DPS), 5 less Meta gem procs(~1.5k DPS), and 26 less cloak ticks(~1.5k DPS). All for 10.5 seconds of casting FF.

The flipside of this is the sim without casting FF had 41 more pet melees (~4k DPS).

DISCLAIMER: ALL RESULTS MAY NOT BE THE SAME EVERYONE SHOULD SIM THEIR OWN CHARACTER TO FIND THEIR OWN RESULTS, THESE ARE MY OWN.

[HonneurVilified]

EDIT: After simming you, Alvarie, I'm seeing a 12K DPS loss with Focus Fire. Are you sure you disabled BOTH Focus Fires from the priority? Or are you using a custom priority?

150 DPS loss? I'm not seeing that at all, am I doing something wrong? For my character:


with Focus Fire on and



with Focus Fire off. My pet has a 100% uptime on the frenzy_effect with it off.

Femaledwarf corroborates this, though it gives a 15K DPS loss as opposed to Simcraft's 9K DPS loss.

I don't think talents are the issue either; at the very least, the difference with Blink Strikes instead of AMoC was actually larger (347 -> 335).

[Bullettime]

I just simmed myself without using FF and simmed 13k less. I think you guys aren't counting enough for auto shots, claws, meta gem, and cloak procs. Not to mention it increases you and your pets focus regen which reduces the amount of time you spend using cobra shot twice over.

From my sim I used focus fire for 10.5s during the fight, but I cobra shot for 20 seconds less than the sim without FF in it. The sim without FF also had 37 less auto shots(~5k DPS), 10 less AS(~2k DPS), less wild hunt claws (~7k DPS), 5 less Meta gem procs(~1.5k DPS), and 26 less cloak ticks(~1.5k DPS). All for 10.5 seconds of casting FF.

The flipside of this is the sim without casting FF had 41 more pet melees (~4k DPS).

DISCLAIMER: ALL RESULTS MAY NOT BE THE SAME EVERYONE SHOULD SIM THEIR OWN CHARACTER TO FIND THEIR OWN RESULTS, THESE ARE MY OWN.

Will tweak some more. May have simply overlooked something.

[timoseewho]

I also sim 14k less on fd (gonna try simcraft later) and I use FF strictly at 5 stacks or when I know my pet will despawn for some reason (can only think of blackfuse atm for belts). I don't use FF ~10s before BW or during BW.