Thread: Why Bladestorm?

Page 1 of 6
1
2
3
... LastLast
  1. #1

    Question Why Bladestorm?

    TL;DR AT BOTTOM I GUESS.

    Well, title. Sounds stupid but I'm completely and utterly dumbfounded. Apparently it is consensus that Bladestorm is objectively better than Dragon Roar, and many exceptional Warriors take it for every single fight.

    What I don't understand is why some people take it for single-target.
    I don't claim to be a Warrior master and know everything because clearly these Warriors are better than I am, but I can't really think of a reason why you would do that. Sure, for raw damage it does more but... I don't know.

    Bladestorm seems really restrictive regarding to when you can use it. You can't delay a Colossus Smash(subsequently you can't use it if you are within 4 GCD of a CS and don't want to delay it for another GCD for Bloodthirst to get enraged, I guess you can pop Berserker Rage if you want), you have to use it when enraged, you can't use it if you will ragecap during it(I get 50 rage or so, give or take, when I'm spinning and auto attacking without melee haste buff), and you really don't want to cancel it early to do anything that isn't a shout.

    This seemingly restricts its usage to after a CS and the following Bloodthirst or forcing Berserker Rage which you might have had to use in the CS, and then if there are no mechanics coming up that would force you to stop bonking them on the back of the head(Bladestorm ticks can be parried, by the way.)

    But it does a lot of damage. And you can keep auto-attacking while spinning.

    By comparison, Dragon Roar seems much more flexible. Before a CS, after a CS, you just have to be Enraged. You don't need to dedicate 6 seconds to only spinning and shouting. Yes, it does DR if it hits multiple targets, but(and this may just be me raiding 10 man) I've never accidentally roared and hit more than Norushen, for example. I know that's purely anecdotal evidence, so ignore it if you like.

    I don't know if I'm missing something beyond "yeah well Bladestorm does more damage!" but it doesn't seem right to me. I'm hoping a more experienced/better Warrior than me can shed some light on this. I have already consulted a couple but they only really made me more curious. I can't even send a PM on MMOChampion until I post 10 times, so I can only hope that someone like Collision can see this and tell me I'm an idiot(I'm being honest here, I want to be proven wrong completely).

    Thank you.


    TLDR: Why take the functionally restrictive Bladestorm over Dragon Roar for purely single target scenarios?

  2. #2
    Pit Lord
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Orgrimmar
    Posts
    2,324
    cause its an epic skill from warcraft 3 and very fun

  3. #3
    High Overlord JainaIsAMan's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Post-Third War Azeroth
    Posts
    187
    'Cause.
    ~Jalopy

  4. #4

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by JainaIsAMan View Post
    'Cause.
    ~Jalopy
    Pretty much what he told me lol.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Jalopy View Post
    You wouldn't.
    god damnit

  6. #6
    Well for pure single target you don't take bladestorm. That means for Iron Juggernaut this tier, you just have to watch of for the bombs as they will count towards the diminishing return. For any other fight there is almost always an opportunity to use Bladestorm on multiple targets, which nets you a lot more damage than Dragon's Roar. Norushen is your example, on that fight you can easily use Bladestorm to hit the boss as well as a few of the adds.

    As to your question of "when" to use it; simply use it between CS's. If I know that no adds are coming, and I want to use it as a single target ability I normally use it the last BT cycle before a new CS becomes available. A bt cycle is 4,5 seconds and consist of a BT and two open slots, a CS cycle is 6 seconds and consists of four abilities [RB - BT - SB - RB]. Your framework rotation looks like this:

    BT - [CS cycle] - [BT - open - open] - [BT - open - open] - BT - [CS cycle].

    With bladestorm you use the two open spots in a BT cycle for bladestorm, I prefer to use it before a CS cycle:

    BT - [CS cycle] - [BT - open - open] - [BT - Bladestorm] - BT - [CS cycle].

    Bladestorm lasts four seconds so it fits perfectly into a normal BT cycle.
    Last edited by Oliria; 2014-02-16 at 09:18 AM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Oliria View Post
    Norushen is your example, on that fight you can easily use Bladestorm to hit the boss as well as a few of the adds.
    Thank you for your reply. This was the only odd thing about your post that stood out to me. I always thought it was about killing the adds faster and not about the overall damage, ie spinning there trying to cleave. Bladestorming while auto attacking doesn't really seem like it's more "bursty" than raw GCDs comprised of raging blows and a heroic strike or something. Dragon Roar also helps with this burst(and it knocks them around a bit to interrupt their cast), if you want to keep comparing. I know it does more to the boss to cleave everything but right that minute, and I may be wrong here, I prioritize immediate add death. If I am wrong or missing something, please tell me. I only want to improve.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Just remeber that you can cancelaura bladestorm, so the timing isnt even that restrictive.
    And yeah its a single target DPS boost for every Boss where at least 1 add is involved. Reason being that DR loses dmg when used on multiple targets.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by burk23 View Post
    Just remeber that you can cancelaura bladestorm, so the timing isnt even that restrictive.
    And yeah its a single target DPS boost for every Boss where at least 1 add is involved. Reason being that DR loses dmg when used on multiple targets.
    Yeah, I have a cancelaura for Bladestorm, but it's never really something you want to do, and apparently would actually be less damage than Dragon Roar if you have to cancel it before like 4 ticks or something. Don't quote me on that, I only heard it offhanded somewhere and I can't source it.

  10. #10
    I guess that comes down to a choice of tactics. If you absolutly have to kill an add as fast as possible, there might be situations where you are better of using dragon's roar. But bladestorm allows you to kill of a bunch of adds (the damage bladestorm does to each add is way higher) while still maintainin damage on the boss. Dragon's roar would not kill the adds (atleast not on 25m heroic, not sure about the health in other difficulties/raidsizes) and then you would have to "waste" your rotation on killing adds.

    You want to kill the adds and the boss, bladestorm yields a much higher damage to both than Dragon's roar. I am not sure I see the purpose of having the burst of Dragon's roar over the substantially higher damage of bladestorm.

  11. #11
    :late edit: I fuxed up bladestorm, forgot to include that it has 7 ticks, with the first one starting at 0.00, not 1.00. Conclusion remains the same.

    There's only one true single-target fight this tier, the ole' iron juggernawtttttt. That's why everyone uses bladestorm on every other fight.

    Look at it this way: (BIS TG Numbers)

    Dragon Roar: 126 + 140% Attack Power, ignores armor, always crits.
    110k Attack Power (Average, ranges from 80k-150k)

    (1.4 * 110,126) * 1.6 * 1.1 * 2.09 = 567k damage per use/gcd.
    Coefficient * Attack Power (Plus 126) * 60% mastery enrage * 10% base enrage * critical strike multiplier (2 + 0.09 for amp trinket)

    Bladestorm: 120% Damage per second, 180% per GCD.
    Main Hand Average Damage: 98k (Everything accounted for, without colossus smash)
    Off Hand Average Damage: 62k
    Total: 160k Weapon Damage per second
    1.5 * 160k= 240k damage per GCD

    4 ticks and bladestorm has done more damage than dragon roar. The other 3 ticks will be diminished in usefulness, as on the 5th tick bloodthirst will be delayed 0.5 gcd, on the 6th/7th tick enrage is not extremely likely to be up for, and bloodthirst will be delayed another gcd.

    Total Damage: 800k for 5 ticks, (160/1.6/1.1) 91k * 2 for the final 2 ticks = 182k + 800k = 980k.

    Naturally, we have to take into account the 2 globals that bloodthirst is delayed. This is done by subtracting possible damage gain from 2/3 of a RB/BT and the 13.334 rage it would have granted from BT/Enrage.

    (2/3 RB + 13.334 rage + 2/3 BT damage)

    RB is 228% Weapon Damage:
    82k * 2.28 = 187k
    52k * 2.28 = 118k
    Total: 305k * (2/3) = 204k~

    13.334~ rage lost from heroic strike = 0.45 * HS Damage = 82k * 1.1 * 0.45 = 41k~
    BT Damage:
    0.9 * 82 * (2/3) = 49k~
    Enrage loss from 1 MH/OH swing. 134 - ((82 + 52) / 1.6 / 1.1) = 57k

    Add it all up:
    204 + 49 + 41 + 50 = 344k~

    Subtract that from bladestorm:

    980k - 344k = 636k damage.

    Add in inefficiencies that are impossible to fully calculate here, such as delaying the use of your fillers (Heroic Throw/Bloodsurge Wild Strike/Battle shout), and that would very likely drag the average damage of bladestorm below dragon roar, but not by very much.

    Anddddddd.... I just convinced myself that a 4-5~ tick bladestorm with a cancelaura macro could possibly be better than dragon roar on a single target. I'm gonna implement it in simcraft and see if I can do anything with it.


    But as far as other fights where dragon roar may be a better choice, there's the issue with diminishing returns on dragon roar.

    Dragon Roar Damage:
    1 Target: 100% Normal Damage
    2: 75%
    3: 65%
    4: 55%
    5: 50%

    :Edit: Note, this includes immune targets, so if you use dragon roar on IJ and clip the mines by accident, bladestorm would have been a better choice.

    If DR normally does 100k on 1 target, if it hits 2 it will do 75k to both targets, 65k on 3, etc. This is why people should take bladestorm on paragons, as it really is a better choice that dragon roar for priority-target damage when there are incidental aoe targets around. If Bladestorm is effectively 90%~ as good as paragons on a sheerly single target fight, then it's without a doubt better for single-target damage if dragon roar is going to be diminished by 75-50%.

    Naturally, this doesn't mean blow your cooldowns on reckstorm, as that is still padding on a fight like that. :P
    Last edited by CollisionTD; 2014-02-18 at 02:31 AM. Reason: multiplying iz hard

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Oliria View Post
    I guess that comes down to a choice of tactics. If you absolutly have to kill an add as fast as possible, there might be situations where you are better of using dragon's roar. But bladestorm allows you to kill of a bunch of adds (the damage bladestorm does to each add is way higher) while still maintainin damage on the boss. Dragon's roar would not kill the adds (atleast not on 25m heroic, not sure about the health in other difficulties/raidsizes) and then you would have to "waste" your rotation on killing adds.

    You want to kill the adds and the boss, bladestorm yields a much higher damage to both than Dragon's roar. I am not sure I see the purpose of having the burst of Dragon's roar over the substantially higher damage of bladestorm.
    Yeah, I suppose you're right. In 10m the health of adds is a lot lower and it's actually a good chunk of their hp on demand, plus and interrupt. I always saw it as the faster you kill the adds, the faster you can get back to you training the boss. I'll try Bladestorm next time. Thank you for your patience!

    Quote Originally Posted by CollisionTD View Post
    SNIP
    WOW! Thanks a ton! I did not expect such a thorough post, but I really appreciate it, that's awesome. The two things that I were really worried about were;

    Quote Originally Posted by CollisionTD View Post
    3 ticks and bladestorm has done more damage than dragon roar. The other 3 ticks will be diminished in usefulness, as on the 4th tick bloodthirst will be delayed 1 gcd, on the 5th/6th tick enrage is not extremely likely to be up for, and bloodthirst will be delayed another gcd.
    and

    Quote Originally Posted by CollisionTD View Post
    Naturally, we have to take into account the 2 globals that bloodthirst is delayed.
    but you certainly set those straight. I was so skeptical on losing GCD, yet Bladestorm still excels. It bothered me that the last tick was usually un-enraged without doing Berserker Rage as soon as you start spinning and that the skipped bloodthirst could potentially mean a missed Bloodsurge proc(not even sure if you could math this but I thought it was worth a mention). I was always curious about cancelling Bladestorm early, but dismissed it without doing any math because I'm silly. Guess I should take a page from your book next time!

    By the way, if anything about that "3-4 ticks of bladestorm > dragon roar" simcraft tidbit ever comes to fruition, please let me know the results!

    Thank you again! Thanks everybody!

  13. #13
    Yeah, the only way to get enrage on the 6th tick is berserker rage. The 5th tick can be covered by bloodthirst enrage procs.

    BT-Crit-0.00
    Enrage has a delay in application - 0.25
    Bladestorm - 1.5
    2.5
    3.5
    4.5
    5.5
    6.25 enrage falls off
    6.5
    7.5

    I didn't even bother looking into bladestorm being optimal on IJ, just due to how that was the only example of a truly single-target encounter. I'm also an idiot and didn't realize I could use a caster command to cancel bladestorm on simcraft. -.-

    You guys can try it out for yourself:

    Code:
    actions.single_target+=/bladestorm,if=enabled,interrupt_if=!cooldown.bloodthirst.remains
    Just replace the current line on the action list with the above. It will always run bladestorm when it reaches that line, and will interrupt it when bloodthirst comes off cooldown. I didn't spend a lot of time optimizing it, as I'm sure it's doing some screwy stuff like delaying CS thanks to the CDR trinket... but even with this thrown together line:

    Dragon Roar talented:


    Bladestorm talented, cancelled after 4~ ticks.


    I'm going to make sure there aren't weird screwy things happening with simcraft before officially calling dragon roar dead, but that doesn't look great.


    This is just an example of what you could do with that line, tossing as many things as I can together:
    Code:
    actions.single_target+=/bladestorm,if=enabled&trinket.proc.strength.up&buff.enrage.remains<4,interrupt_if=!cooldown.bloodthirst.remains
    *ahem* Will use bladestorm if talented when either trinket slot procs a strength buff and enrage has 4 seconds or less on the buff. Will be interrupted whenever bloodthirst comes off cd.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jalopy View Post
    You wouldn't.
    get on my level

    <3 <3 <3
    Last edited by CollisionTD; 2014-02-18 at 02:32 AM.

  14. #14
    Last time I checked, Warriors don't use it for single target fights.

    Checking the top ranked Warriors for Juggernault, they all use Dragons Roar.
    Last edited by Trix; 2014-02-16 at 02:28 PM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Trix View Post
    Last time I checked, Warriors don't use it for single target fights.

    Checking the top ranked Warriors for Juggernault, they all use Dragons Roar.
    That's simply because the idea of bladestorm being a better talent than dragon roar on IJ wasn't ever considered. I think some people tossed it around, but probably thought in the back of their head "There's no way that'd work, that'd be silly."

    Jalopy has the highest non-asian/hacked log ATM, in which dragon roar accounted for 3.4% of his overall damage. On my top parse (#19) it did 2.2% of my overall damage. Bladestorm has been accepted as being 90-95% optimal for single target dps, and if you hack off 10% of dragon roars damage for Jalopy's parse:

    3474959 * 0.1 = 347495
    Total Damage done over fight: 347595 / 217 = 1.6k dps removed from his parse, which drops him exactly 0 US/EU ranks.

    Keep in mind this is before the optimizations mentioned above for bladestorm, and that trinket proc timing is vastly more important for ranking on IJ than deciding whether or not to take bladestorm/dragon roar.

  16. #16
    Collision, why do you have to prove us wrong all the time, this is starting to get annoying.
    My Stream
    NollTvåTre Looking for Raiders

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Thank god for Collision

  18. #18
    Cuz if you manage to not hit bombs with DR it was a dps gain over Bladestorm. But Collision's latest finds might mean that we'll go Bladestorm on every single boss. IF it isnt Simcraft just being silly.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Warriorsarri View Post
    Collision, why do you have to prove us wrong all the time, this is starting to get annoying.
    It does seem like it's his hobby by now.

  19. #19
    I've been using Bladestorm with a Cancelaura macro built into Charge on IJ for about 4 weeks, utilizing it in a fashion similar to what Collision theoried here, but I'm a bit handicapped by still not having an offhand warforged weapon. Maybe Garrosh will be kind this week.

    Our raid's STR DPS warforged RNG is pretty bad, especially for weapons.

  20. #20
    Yeah this whole theorycraft stuff is great except it tends to make us all second guess ourselves and change shit more often than not. Even things that were widely accepted as norm. We could very well a week later be saying "oops, guess I was wrong!"

    Keep in mind, the difference between BS and DR is going to be extremely minor; and going to be alot more down to your own execution. I know I am going to see a rush of people start using BS on IJ now; remember his Action Line that he got such good results with BS is from using it with proc and cancelling after 4 ticks. So if you take BS and start using it to avoid the knockback; you are going to end up with worse results than if you'd used DR properly (with CD's, etc).

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •