Serenity and TEB Stacks

[The Monarch]

This is exactly the reason. Ideally you start Serenity with 0 energy and 2 Chi, you spam BoK till you're going to cap energy then 1 Jab to 4 Chi then back to spamming BoK. This is essentially a "free" Jab that only costs a GCD because you will regen the energy back before Serenity is over, thus leaving you with full energy and 4 Chi when Serenity is over. If you go into Serenity with 4 Chi then you didnt wait long enough to use it; in those 2 globals to use that 4 Chi, you can regen enough energy to Jab, thus putting you at 2 Chi and near 0 energy.

Any time spent at 100 energy is wasted energy. You can use Serenity as a DPS cooldown and a regen cooldown by maximizing the amount of Chi and energy you generate during that time.

By the same logic though, jabbing during Serenity is wasting 2x chi. Are you not better off wasting <45 energy instead of wasting 2 chi?

[Babylonius]

By the same logic though, jabbing during Serenity is wasting 2x chi. Are you not better off wasting <45 energy instead of wasting 2 chi?

How would it be wasting 2 Chi? If you start at 2 Chi in Serenity then Jab once to get to 4 Chi, you're generating 2 more Chi and wasting 45 less energy.

[The Monarch]

Because the 2 chi you spend on the BoK is instantly regenerated, therefore it is generating as much chi as the jab is. I know the formatting is crap but look at the arbitrary example I posted earlier, you'll end with more total resources if you aren't energy capped for more than 4 seconds.

[Babylonius]

Because the 2 chi you spend on the BoK is instantly regenerated, therefore it is generating as much chi as the jab is. I know the formatting is crap but look at the arbitrary example I posted earlier, you'll end with more total resources if you aren't energy capped for more than 4 seconds.

It looks like you may be correct. Your example does have your 2nd Jab costing 35 energy instead of 45, but I can't find a reason that it is wrong. I will amend my previous statements until proven otherwise. Don't Jab during Serenity.

[The Monarch]

It looks like you may be correct. Your example does have your 2nd Jab costing 35 energy instead of 45, but I can't find a reason that it is wrong. I will amend my previous statements until proven otherwise. Don't Jab during Serenity.

I was just accounting for the additional 10 energy being generated between casts.

[Rockets]

(example timeline)

I don't think Serenity's on the GCD, is it? So you should be able to fit ten GCD actions (BoK or Jab in this case) into the uptime of the buff, basically an extra BoK at GCD #0. Not that that affects your logic really though. So just to clarify:

Using Jab:

Use	GCD	Energy	Chi
Ser+BoK	0	20	2
BoK	1	30	2
BoK	2	40	2
BoK	3	50	2
BoK	4	60	2
BoK	5	70	2
BoK	6	80	2
BoK	7	90	2
Jab	8	55	4
BoK	9	65	4
(Serenity falls off here)
BoK	10	75	2

Not using Jab and just allowing energy to cap:

Use	GCD	Energy	Chi
Ser+BoK	0	20	2
BoK	1	30	2
BoK	2	40	2
BoK	3	50	2
BoK	4	60	2
BoK	5	70	2
BoK	6	80	2
BoK	7	90	2
BoK	8	100	2
BoK	9	100	2
(Serenity falls off here)
Jab	10	55	4

In both cases you do 10 BoKs and 1 jab, so the damage is the same and it's just a question of whether the extra chi is worth the energy cost. By using Jab during Serenity you end up with 20 more energy in this example, while by allowing energy to cap you finish with 2 more chi instead. Effectively you're trading 20 energy for 2 chi -- that's a pretty good deal, especially since it doesn't cost you the GCD.

So yeah, assuming we value 2 chi as 45 energy, it's better to just let energy cap as long as you waste less than 45 energy by doing so.

The next question is: how much haste do you need to hit this breakpoint? Base energy regen is 10 E/s, so you generate 10 E/s * 10s * (1+haste) energy over the 10s duration; basically 100 + your haste%, so at 15% haste it's 115, etc. If you enter Serenity with X energy then you'll have 100 + haste% + X by the end, so literally the wasted energy is just X + haste%.

So it's straightforward: look how much haste you have on your character sheet, add 5% for the raid buff, and subtract that from 45. Actually it's simpler than that, you can just assume you'll get 5 energy from the raid buff and do it as 40 - listed haste. If you have more energy than that when you start Serenity, then you should jab before it finishes; otherwise just go ahead and energy cap and use Jab as your first GCD once Serenity falls off.

Notably, Bloodlust is 30% haste, so if you have more than 10% character sheet haste then you should always jab during Serenity+Bloodlust no matter how much energy you start it with. Trinkets with haste procs will also mess with this, etc.

[Jocias]

I don't think Serenity's on the GCD, is it?

I just tested. It's not on the GCD, but I think something interferes with its casting, as I've tried to use it in some situations where it didn't activate. Either that or I suck at hitting my hotkeys. It seems to happen frequently enough, though, that fat fingering hotkeys seems unlikely.

[Lumiair]

I just tested. It's not on the GCD, but I think something interferes with its casting, as I've tried to use it in some situations where it didn't activate. Either that or I suck at hitting my hotkeys. It seems to happen frequently enough, though, that fat fingering hotkeys seems unlikely.

Not just you, there's definitely something that keeps it from activating even though it's off the GCD. SUPER annoying when you have zero energy and two Chi expecting to start spamming then having to wait to get two Chi again. >.>

[Deleted]

Lets make it a bit more complicated ( or easier, depending on your view ) and start adding trinket procs during serenity. Do you still do the trade of with a Jab during Serenity to not energy cap or go for BoK/RSK( which I guess has been slightly ignored for argument sake ) all the way.

[Babylonius]

Lets make it a bit more complicated ( or easier, depending on your view ) and start adding trinket procs during serenity. Do you still do the trade of with a Jab during Serenity to not energy cap or go for BoK/RSK( which I guess has been slightly ignored for argument sake ) all the way.

Trinket procs would have no effect on using Jab or BoK, Jab doesn't scale with trinkets well enough to out damage BoK and make up for the energy difference.

Our lv100 talents are full of habit breaking caveats. Chi Explosion: don't worry about Tiger Palm unless you get a Combo Breaker. Serenity: don't worry about capping energy.... its not easy to ignore those things after they were the core of WW dps for a whole expansion.

[Deleted]

Trinket procs would have no effect on using Jab or BoK

Could you explain what you mean by this. Cause I think I might be misunderstanding what you mean here.

I see now that we have all moved away from using Jab in Serenity ( I think ). Which is a shame, because I was also wondering what the effect a combo breaker proc would have on the effectiveness of Serenity, that is caused by using Jab.

[LoKSET]

If I understand you correctly it has no effect whatsoever - a combo breaker proc is just a free BK, in Serenity all BK are free so... no point.
From what I managed to do in SC using Jab during Serenity resulted in roughly 120 less wasted energy but the overall dps was lower - so yeah, don't jab. However the difference is so miniscule that if you don't like wasting resources you can go right ahead - it's not gonna ruin you or something.

[Orion Antares]

Could you explain what you mean by this. Cause I think I might be misunderstanding what you mean here.

I see now that we have all moved away from using Jab in Serenity ( I think ). Which is a shame, because I was also wondering what the effect a combo breaker proc would have on the effectiveness of Serenity, that is caused by using Jab.

That actually brings up another good reason not to Jab during Serenity. If you get that proc then it's wasted.

[Babylonius]

Could you explain what you mean by this. Cause I think I might be misunderstanding what you mean here.

I see now that we have all moved away from using Jab in Serenity ( I think ). Which is a shame, because I was also wondering what the effect a combo breaker proc would have on the effectiveness of Serenity, that is caused by using Jab.

I mean that trinkets proccing won't tell you to use Jab over BoK. Based on the examples like the ones from Rockets, you shouldn't use Jab during Serenity, and no amount of trinket procs will change that. Trinket procs will just exaggerate the dps difference between Jab and BoK, making BoK even more of a priority.

A combo breaker proc during Serenity would be completely and utterly wasted, you'd use it on the next BoK which would be free either way.

- - - Updated - - -

If I understand you correctly it has no effect whatsoever - a combo breaker proc is just a free BK, in Serenity all BK are free so... no point.
From what I managed to do in SC using Jab during Serenity resulted in roughly 120 less wasted energy but the overall dps was lower - so yeah, don't jab. However the difference is so miniscule that if you don't like wasting resources you can go right ahead - it's not gonna ruin you or something.

Did you factor in that the 120 more energy would equate to 3 more Jab/BoKs after more regen from 6 more filled GCDs? Not saying your wrong, just tossing out the idea.

[LoKSET]

Overall you end up with two less BK in the 450s fight length. I wouldn't be too surprised if those are exactly wasted procs which you could have utilized properly outside of serenity. But as I said it's extremely close. In a real life situation the difference could be bigger since you'll typically align Serenity with TEB and trinkets and wasting a GCD on a low damaging Jab is lowering your damage.