Cat/Bear powershifting

[Nightcrowler]

LAST EDIT September 05, 2008. 14:00 am (CEST)


BUG FIX:
- changed the ap scaling of lacerate.
- now you use also swipe if you have 5 lacerate stacked.
- now the swing timer reset between powershifts.
- added more notes


I've finished my simulations for the cat/bear powershifting.

The stats:

Boss armor reduction: 24%, Attack Power (cat): 8500, Attack Power (bear): 6728, Cat crit: 40%, Bear crit: 36%, Hit: 9%, Expertise 10, Haste: Bloodlust+Moonkin buff + WindFury, agility: 925.

Latency 100ms.

All the stats are intended after talents and buffs.
7060 mana, base intellect and spirit (night elf) + raid buffs (ImpMoW, Divine Spirit, Arcane Intellect, BoK).
Mp5:
Average MP5 In combat: 268, Average MP5 out of 5sec rule: 496 (Blessing of Wisdom + Spirit regen if out of 5 sec rule + 1 mana battery).

RIP (+2 ticks) and Mangle (+6 sec duration) Glyphs.

All DPS talents active


The cycle:

Cat only: 2SR/5RIP with a wait time of 81-2*lag before SR: wait - SR - mangle - shred... - RIP - Shred... - Wait
Cat/Bear: 1SR/5RIP + Bear: SR - mangle (if needed) - shred... - RIP - Shred - Powershift (Mangle, Lacerate, Lacerate/swipe, Mangle; maul when possible) - Powershift.
Bear only: Mangle (every CD) / Lacerate (or swipe if lacerate is 5 stacked) every GCD /Maul (if you have more than 25 rage) Rotation.

Note cat only:
- In the cat cycle I use Berserk after SR and Tiger's Fury when I have less than 40-lag energy.

Note Bear only:
- In the bear cycle I use maul when I have more than maul+mangle energy.
- The threat is based on the lvl 70 threat scaled with the ability damage (for istance I've supposed flat maul threat to be (lvl 70 flat threat)*((lvl 80 maul)/(lvl 70 maul)) ).

- I've used 2 opposite scenarios, one with only the rage generated by hitting the target and by talents and the other with infinite rage (basically rage is always = 100)
- I used enrage each CD.

Note Cat/bear shift:
- As for cat and bear, but enrage is used only if you are in bear form from less than 2 seconds.
- You powershift from cat to bear at 11+lag energy, if you have more energy you must wait for another shred in order to put you at the powershift threasold.
- You powershift from bear to cat if one of the following rule apply:
Energy > 85-lag
or
You have completed the 2 x mangle, 2 x lacerate cycle.
- If berserk is active you will stay in cat form.


Report


CAT ONLY


DPS: 3008.64, TPS: 2136.14

**************************************
CAT

White cat: 1140.11, Yellow cat: 1868.53
White: 37.8945% (SR: 24.2703%)
Mangle: 5.76728% (SR: 19.3551%), Shred: 36.5971% (SR: 18.2968%), RIP: 19.7411% (SR: 17.7162%)
Rake: 0% (SR: nan%), Ferocious Bite: 0% (SR: nan%)
SR Total Value: 20.5069%, (RIP Value without SR)/(SR Value): 79.2111%, Savage Roar uptime: 90.7493%

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 75.7993%, Mangle debuff uptime: 89.5226%, Mangle-RIP debuff downtime: 0.0499625%
Average Cycle Time: 20.46



CAT - BEAR (Powershifting)

DPS: 3137.89, Cat: 80.895%, Bear: 19.105%, TPS: 2467.86

**************************************
CAT

White cat: 775.867, Yellow cat: 1762.53
White: 30.5653% (SR: 22.9815%)
Mangle: 3.07404% (SR: 19.3737%), Shred: 46.2676% (SR: 17.697%), RIP: 20.093% (SR: 17.1837%)
Rake: 0% (SR: nan%), Ferocious Bite: 0% (SR: nan%)
SR Total Value: 19.2606%, (RIP Value without SR)/(SR Value): 86.3956%, Savage Roar uptime: 59.3929%

**************************************
BEAR

White bear: 126.884, Yellow bear: 472.608
White bear: 21.1653%
Mangle bear: 26.5597%, Maul: 24.4568%, Lacerate: 25.3775%, Swipe: 2.44079%

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 86.609%, Mangle debuff uptime: 93.4022%, Mangle-RIP debuff downtime: 0.0246333%
Average Cycle Time: 25.2589, Powershifts each 12.9707 seconds (average), Out five seconds rule time: 61.6086%, Average time before oom> 10 min



BEAR ONLY (rage starvation, you are not being hit)


DPS: 1982.2, Bear: 100%, TPS: 2418.83

**************************************
BEAR

White bear: 437.029, Yellow bear: 1545.17
White bear: 22.0477%
Mangle bear: 24.231%, Maul: 29.1974%, Lacerate: 16.4254%, Swipe: 8.09855%

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 97.4313%, Mangle debuff uptime: 99.6628%



BEAR ONLY (Unlimited Rage)

DPS: 2961.83, Bear: 100%, TPS: 4901.52

**************************************

BEAR

White bear: 0, Yellow bear: 2961.83
White bear: 0%
Mangle bear: 18.403%, Maul: 62.8984%, Lacerate: 10.8422%, Swipe: 7.85638%

**************************************
OTHER INFOS

Bleed debuff uptime: 99.7065%, Mangle debuff uptime: 99.9761%

------------------------------------------

Conclusion:

The "new" powershifting is a minimal gain in dps 4.2% vs. the old powershifting (20% without going oom on a 10 min fight or 25-30% going oom in 2-3 minutes with the nerfed WotlK mechanics and about 7-8% with the live TBC mechanic).
Powershifting between cat and bear generate more threat than doing dps in bear form (could be good for off-tanking if not taking damage, but probably including swipe the bear tps will go higher but that bear is also equipped and specced for dps).


SO:
Powershift is RIP, shifting from cat to bear increase DPS but not by a large margin like the old powershift and the overaggro risk will be probably too high.


FAQ

I would also be curious as to what spec you're using, do you have reduced mangle CD?


Yes.



do you have increased atk pwr in bear form?


If you mean Master Shapeshifter (+4% damage) then yes, If you mean motherbear then no.



also, did they change rip so that it benefits more from a 5cp rip vs a 4cp rip?


Yes.

Each 2 seconds you will have 1 tick, for a total of 6 tick (8 tick with the glyph).
RIP does: ((ap*0.01*combo_points)+(39+99* combo_points))*1.1*(1+mdebuff*0.3) damage x tick (where 1.1 is from naturalist)



also, does mana regen from the raid that only effects 10 people effect you while shifted?


I've supposed so.



Are you including auto-attack reset swings from Cat -> Bear and Bear -> Cat?


Fixed



Cat White DPS > Bear White DPS.


Yes. That's why you go back to cat suddendly after the last mangle GCD expire.



I don't like this new powershift, the very change I see here is a big TPS increase (+low DPS +hight TPS), I'm afraid about Rip ticks while in Bear Form.


Yes probably is not worth. On a side note, are you sure that RIP ticks while in Bear Form are multipied by threat modifier, I'm not so sure.



What about Bear Specials and OoC procs?


Bear specials are computed in the simulation, OOC proc is 3.5ppm not changed by haste so it's:
5.833% for each white hit in cat form
14.583% for each white and maul hit in bear form



For the Bear simultion Swipe would be more damage than Lacerate (and potentially less threat), especially with the Feral Instinct buff to it's damage (although a 5 stack of lacerate may be worth keeping going).

swipe will not be better than lacerate untill you will have 5 stack lacerate always up (5 stack lacerate > swipe dmg wise) and you will always have the bleed debuff up.



Blizzard have made it clear they don't want Powershifting. If it turns out Cat/Bear shifting is more dps than Cat I wouldn't count on it lasting till live.

Well the increase is not too much, and you also need low latency and an optimal cycle with no downtime to do it efficiently.



I'm curious about these base numbers. What did you use as a basis for choosing these AP and crit values? Are you not expecting any expertise beyond the talent? I would count on quite a bit more weapon haste than you currently have: Imp WF alone is 20%, Swift Retribution is 3%, if you average the gain from Bloodlust is 30%*40/300=4%. While I haven't verified I'm pretty sure these stack multiplicative so 1.2*1.03*1.04 = 128.5% before haste rating (which I'm sure we'll have).

I've raised the haste according to your buff, as for expertise one value is equivalent to another one, it will raise the dps of all the different cycles. As for ap/crit value, I'm actually at about 5k ap and 50% crit raid buffed, I've assumed a 35% increase in ap (according to the 35% increase in stats I've seen in Wotlk) and a 10% crit nerf due to the agility nerf. Obviosly real value will differ from druid to druid. As for Bear AP basically the only difference from cat is Bear AP = (Cat AP / 1.1) - Agility - (flat ap), I've assumed a cat with 925 agility, slight change in the relative ap will not change the simulation a lot, I suppose.



I thought testing was showing a SR/FB/Rip type cycle as best dps?

If you don't powershift the value are about the same (about 1% difference) and you should waste 5 talent point to improve FB, The FB cycle will be better only with a crazy powershift (going oom in 2-3 minute).



Also note that cycles and dps numbers can shift drastically based on set bonuses. Are you including any current mechanics?


No, we don't know how will behave the set bonuses yet.



also something I just remembered, taking into account that ferocious bite now can basically become a guaranteed crit and you can get 80% refunded if you miss, have you tried a dps rotation that uses FB instead of rip? and instead works in rake to keep a bleed going, or maybe even still rip, or even possibly lacerate from bear form



I've tryied them all, all of them are a DPS lost with powershifting. Without powershifting a 5SR/5RIP/5FB rotation is about the same as a 2SR/5RIP one.

DPS: 2996.23, White: 1109.3, Yellow: 1886.93

White: 37.0233% (SR: 22.1588%)

Mangle: 5.03139% (SR: 17.1605%), Shred: 36.7744% (SR: 17.1475%), RIP: 16.7714% (SR: 18.2076%), Rake: 0% (SR: nan%), Ferocious Bite: 4.3995% (SR: 20.4302%)

SR Total Value: 19.3257%, (RIP Value without SR)/(SR Value): 70.9818%
RIP/Bleed debuff uptime: 62.9944%, Mangle debuff uptime: 94.2185%, Mangle-RIP debuff downtime: 0.0154433%, Savage Roar uptime: 80.8364%

Average Cycle Time: 40.7456.

Using rake is a loss.



wont you use Tiger´s Fury at all ?


Obviosly yes. Remember that TF adds a flat 131 dmg to RIP ticks, but the 131 dmg will be multiplyied by mangle and shred damage multipyier.



What's this about TF increasing dmg per tick from rip? is this true?

If it is, does it apply to rips already up for the TF duration, or increase all rip ticks from a rip applied during TF - and if it's the second one, is it a dps gain to aim to coincide rip applications with TF cooldown?

AS RIP I've assumed it, but I need to test it, but the dps increase is minimal, really. For your 2nd question: The best way will be to apply it before shreding. because RIP, Rake and FB uses only ap but Shred and Mangle uses dmg. So for the first 3 ability you will get only the 131 dmg but for Mangle you will get 131*1.6*1.2 and for Shred 131*2.25*1.3*1.1.

[Bullshifter]

I'm not following the cat to bear powershift for increased dps? Sorry, maybe too technical for me Nightcrowler, hehe...

[Nightcrowler]

I'm not following the cat to bear powershift for increased dps? Sorry, maybe too technical for me Nightcrowler, hehe...

With the new furor you will retain all the energy regenerated uppon shifting.

Basically instead of doing 2 cp SR - mangle - shred till 5 cp - rip - shred till 2 cp - wait (about 80) energy - repeat


You will do 1 cp SR - mangle (if needed)- shred till 5 cp - rip - shred - shapeshift - go bear (mangle/lacerate/maul etc..) till 90 energy - shapeshift - repeat

[Seraphk]

Nice Nightcrowler.

Well, at least it's not efficient enough to consider it a more efficient form of powershifting like I initially thought. However, saving 40 energy using Mangle Bear rather than Mangle Cat still translates into the same amount of energy we got from powershifting. Though, I can see how we wouldn't have to refresh Mangle debuff nearly as much as we powershifted resulting in less energy "gained" overall which is less DPS gained overall.

Pretty cool to know that when people see me going into Bear while Kitty DPS I can direct them to this info.

[Stormrage]

Pretty sure when its all said and done it'll be a dps loss to go into bear. Maybe I'll be wrong.

[Bullshifter]

Yah, I'm kind of having trouble envisioning a situation where waiting for energy up to 90 while doing the "suck" dps in bear form would result in an overall dps increase- not arguing against the mathheads in here, but it just seems counterintuitive, not to mention mana intensive. I would like to see some more theorycrafting on the subject.

[Mosshorn]

The idea is that, when waiting for energy in cat form, you're just doing White DPS. Cat DPS is all about the yellows. So while you're getting the energy back for your specials, you can pop over to bear, and use some specials there (Lacerate, Mangle) that will do more damage than cat White DPS.

[Fighterx]

Id probably rather have my 20% threat reduction than do 150 more dps... maybe thats just me. Guess it depends on where things are going. Its too early to discuss this sort of thing since they havent tweaked dps numbers yet...

[chalid]

The Cat Form energy regeneration mechanics you are seeing in the current beta build are a bug resulting from "powershifting" being partially fixed. We changed energy regeneration on Cat Form so that it occurs continuously no matter what form the Druid is in. However, the second half of the change did not make it in before the data pull for the build. When Furor triggers on shifting to Cat Form, your energy will be set to the minimum of its current value and 40. So, if you are over 40, it goes to 40. If you are less than 40, you gain no energy, but keep the amount you gained through normal regeneration. If Furor does not trigger or you do not have the talent, energy is set to 0.

So, while thie idea is nice, it does not work as you can only wait for 40 Energy in Bear.

[ShadowEric]

Chalid, what you posted already changed:

I just changed Furor to read as follows with 5 talent points:

Gives you 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to 100 of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin form by 10%.

So, fully-talented, you will no longer lose any energy from shapeshifting out and back into Cat Form.

Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...0&pageNo=7#134

[Froppy]

Just throwing this out there when considering powershifting:

While I understand how this is working and why you would do it, I wonder how your mana will play into this.

Typically you don't have a large mana pool and if you are constantly switching in a 10-15 minute raid/boss fight, I can see how it would be difficult to keep your mana pool up. Especially if you were to consider the utility that druids usually bring (Brez or innervate on a healer).

I powershift in Live on boss fights when I'm dps'ing and it seems on a longer fight it's really easy to run out of mana (but I guess since you're not potting like casters you can rely on that). Just throwing this out there... I've ran into situations where I've potted and been down to 400 mana and have to sit there for 10-20 seconds while I regen enough mana to go back to cat. Sure that's my own fault and I screwed the pooch there... but when that happens your DPS is close to zero.

[Toranshalur]

I like this idea

Though i'm pretty sure swipe > lacerate for dps, will have to wait for 80 to see ofc.
It's definately something to consider especially in a situation where raid damage is occuring. Now we have an excuse to stand in the fires

[wyrdone]

8500AP O.O

Granted my cat is right about 5K buffed right now at 70.

I love the 3k DPS though.

Any clue how this compares to an equiv geared rogue?

[Bullshifter]

Yah, from what I've seen 8500AP should be pretty reasonable to expect decently geared at 80. Nightcrowler does most of his tests around there.

[Nyctete]

I would also be curious as to what spec you're using, do you have reduced mangle CD? do you have increased atk pwr in bear form?
also, did they change rip so that it benefits more from a 5cp rip vs a 4cp rip?
also, does mana regen from the raid that only effects 10 people effect you while shifted?

great work!

-Nyc

[Nyctete]

also something I just remembered, taking into account that ferocious bite now can basically become a guaranteed crit and you can get 80% refunded if you miss, have you tried a dps rotation that uses FB instead of rip? and instead works in rake to keep a bleed going, or maybe even still rip, or even possibly lacerate from bear form

-Nyc

[Tryna]

wont you use Tiger´s Fury at all ?

131 DMG for 6 seconds ~ 131 +dps (whitedmg) and with the talent 60 Energy restore -> shred -> bear (mangle / maul / lacerate) -> cat and so on.....

i mean u could use tigers fury instead of shifting in bear do some extra dps in cat + another shred ..

dont know ^^
maybe im just talkin shit :P

nice work crowler rly gz

[Amgyn]

i don't beleive the haste effects from bloodlust will stack with WF totem and moonkin aura.

nevermind i think they do...

[Nightcrowler]

Changed my first post with the newest simulation, added bug fixes and FAQ.

[Toranshalur]

What's this about TF increasing dmg per tick from rip? is this true?

If it is, does it apply to rips already up for the TF duration, or increase all rip ticks from a rip applied during TF - and if it's the second one, is it a dps gain to aim to coincide rip applications with TF cooldown?

Many thanks for all this work on the powershifting stuff, seriously i don't think ur getting enough credit for it