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  1. #1

    [SimCraft] Andromalia's Howto SimulationCraft Thread

    Installing:

    Download link: http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/downloads/list Make sure you get the .zip file for Windows.
    There's nothing to install really. You download the .zip file (windows) and extract it all to a folder. I like to call my folder simulationcraft in my my documents folder but it doesn't really matter where you stick it.

    Running:

    Go into the folder and look for simcqt.exe That's the graphical version of simulationcraft and is the easiest to use.



    When you open it, you are presented with:



    This page gives you a very nice over view of what things mean. I'll go over each tab individually so that you can try to get the most out of it, without directly copying what's already in simulationcraft on the welcome page.

    Options tab:
    This is the Options tab and it's very important to check a few things here.



    Globals sub tab:
    Version: Live is obvious. If you're going to sim the PTR make absolutely sure your simulationcraft version is current.
    Iterations: The higher this number the more accurately the sim will reflect what will actually happen in real life. If you're doing a quick dps run down use 10000, if you want actual stat weights, skip this option, we'll override it with a huge number in a later tab.
    Length: 500 is a good number for Cata fights as it represents a fight around 8 minutes. Most of the Cata fights right now are long, especially given the gear level of most guilds right now. Use a number that fits what your guild is doing on a fight very close to tank and spank or with minimal add switching.
    Vary Length: I usually ignore it, it'll randomly knock off or add the % you set here to the fight.
    Adds: You can set a number of adds here and sim things like fel storm on them. Very useful.
    Fight Style: This is where a lot of people are wrong about simulationcraft. You can sim a heavy movement fight by changing this to helter skelter. For pure raw scaling factors Patchwerk style is probably better.
    Target Race: Pretty obvious what this does, change it according to what type of boss you want to sim against.
    Player Skill: You want to sim closer to what you would do? Set it to your skill level. Want to see what you would do if you were a bot? Set it to elite.
    Threads: Set this number to your cpu cores. Dual core =2, quad =4 single =1 and for you weird trip core amd people tricore=3. This merely acts to help load balance and make your sim run faster.

    Buffs sub tab: Select which buffs are adequate to your raid composition.
    Debuffs sub tab: Select which debuffs your raid comp can put on the boss
    http://raidcomp.mmo-champion.com/ is a great way to help you fill in these tabs.

    Scaling sub tab: This is the tab where you actually tell simulationcraft that you want it to tell you how your stats are and will affect your gear. Select the appropriate scale factors. I've selected the warlock ones for you



    Plots sub tab: If you're a visual person you can plot scale factors on a graph. I generally don't use it as it makes the sim take even longer than it already does.

    Import Tab:




    There are a few different options for importing. Generally I like to see what I can do with what I have (BiS doesn't do me any good until I can reach it). Make sure you select the appropriate spec in the Globals sub tab before clicking import!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Simulate Tab:

    This tab doesn't do much of anything unless you a) import a character or b) copy in a profile. This tab is very important. This is where we can see what would happen if we went back and regemmed all spirit (just kidding) or all haste.

    I've taken the time to point out a couple of things with my KICKASS mspaint skills



    1: This is general information about your character and what information in found during the import about glyphs, spec, etc etc. DOUBLE CHECK IT.
    2: These are the actual actions your character will take during the simulation. You can change these if you want to sim something like “what happens if I fill with soulfire?” Obviously we'd change the actions+=/incinerate to soulfire as a filer spell. There's a particular part in my sim that I'd like all the hit > int people to look at because of cool downs etc”
    “actions+=/immolate,if=(remains<cast_time+gcd|!ticking)&target.time_to_die>=4&miss_react”
    The &miss_react tells simulationcraft to recast immolate if it misses because it's a key spell. But what about soulfire? It's missing that!
    “actions+=/soul_fire,if=buff.improved_soul_fire.cooldown_remains<(cast_time+travel_time)&buff.soulbur n.up&!in_flight”

    If you read it carefully, it basically says if the ISF buff isn't there, cast soulfire (and some info about precasting it to make it land as it falls off). If it misses, it will recast due to the missing buff.
    3: Here you can test different reforges. As you can see, simulationcraft is smart and you don't have to add up the numbers for yourself. Just simply enter in the 2 stats you want to reforge.
    4: Gems are a bit more tricky than reforging. You will want to enter the actual stat values of each gem with a _ in between.
    5: You can also change the enchant. Some special ones may require text instead of stat values (look at my chest and main hand)
    6: I highlighted this because it represents the overall picture of your gear. It probably should have been #3 but screw it, I'm too lazy to change it now.
    7: These are comments (see the # sign). You don't have to change these if you want to screw around and give your chest 5000 intellect.

    When you are satisfied with what you have in this tab, DONT CLICK SIMULATE YET. We aren't quite finished.

    Overrides:

    Here we can enter in any special commands we want. I'm not even going to try and post them all in this thread. Google is your friend and so is the Examples Tab. The main override we care about for scaling stats is iterations. The more the better.

    iterations=50000 or 100000
    we can also use it to simulate adds*!
    raid_events+=/adds,count=(how many),cooldown=(how often?),duration=(how long are they there)
    *This will override the adds setting from the global sub tab. It is an override afterall.
    Once you have your extra iterations (and whatever else you want) You are free to click simulate!

    The simulation:

    It will take a while, especially with high iterations and it may bog your computer down some (hey it's a simulation, give it a break!) Once it's done you are presented with:

    The Results tab:



    A few things to note:

    1: Overall notes about race/class/spec/level
    2: Scale factors tells me a) where the damage I'm doing is coming from and b) where to focus my stats. You can see from my sim that int → hit → crit → haste → mastery is not necessarily the way to focus your gear
    3: DPET gives me a rough idea of what spells are doing the most damage for what it costs me to cast them. I want to prioritize the spells that are higher on this graph (excluding special cases such as soulfire for ISF)
    4: Again, simulationcraft gives us a nice graphical view of how our stats weigh in.
    5: My stat values aren't as accurate as they could be because I did not use very many iterations.

    Feel free to ask questions. Hope this was helpful!

    ---------- Post added 2011-01-07 at 09:39 PM ----------

    Unfortunately I simply don't have the time to analyze everyone's logs. Please use the example below as a guide on the things to look at and compare.
    Last edited by andromalia; 2011-01-17 at 05:44 PM.

  2. #2
    bored, may as well

    chimaeron but feel free to browse the guilds logs for other fights: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-nm...?s=4877&e=5214

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...locet/advanced

  3. #3
    sticky this post?

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Velocet View Post
    bored, may as well

    chimaeron but feel free to browse the guilds logs for other fights: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-nm...?s=4877&e=5214

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...locet/advanced
    Just for fun, I ran some sims on your guild mate. Here's what I found:

    By default, he's using 20int/20hit for red sockets, 40 hit for blue sockets and 20int/20 haste for yellow. As we all know from previous threads this is not correct. Here's what his sim came up with:



    Now lets regem him properly. 40int in all the red sockets, 20int/20hit in the blues and 20int/20haste in the yellows. What do we get?



    A net increase of over 100 dps in just a few gems!!! (your guild mate needs to regem!)

    Let's look at his parse vs the ideal sim (fight is argaloth, fairly close to patchwerk style)

    His


    SimulationCraft's


    Let's look at one of the bigger affliction spells: Haunt.
    Your guild mate managed to cast haunt 17 times (add hits+crits for total casts that hit the boss). The simulation (over an average of 50,000 pulls) could cast haunt an average of 21.5 times over the course of the same time frame (209 seconds). This basically nerfed him for 10% of the fight since haunt basically buffs all the shadow damage you do.

    Let's look at another spell: soulfire
    Your guild mate managed to land soulfire 11 times vs the sims average 11.2. Looks like he's extremely good at keeping his ISF buff up. Let's see how well he timed them:



    Uh oh...only 65% uptime. He's casting them enough, but they aren't landing very well.

    [20:02:32.869] xxxx Improved Soul Fire fades from xxxx
    [20:02:34.375] xxxx gains Improved Soul Fire from xxxx

    Looking at the log browser and soulfire casts vs the soulfire aura we see several gaps like this inbetween the aura fade and application. A lot of those on a very short duration fight will really hit the uptime hard.

    These are the things you want to look at to improve yourself. The tools are there, use them!

    *******NOTE THE WARLOCK SIMMED ABOVE WAS NOT THE WARLOCK I QUOTED**********

    Just for kicks...the above warlock on that algaloth had 19k effective dps for the fight. I'll throw him the bone for a bit of it for having to move during flame phase (which really isn't very much movement). That's a large margin from 23.4k but still fairly respectable.
    Last edited by andromalia; 2011-01-08 at 06:29 AM.

  5. #5
    Brewmaster Zinnin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by andromalia View Post
    Uh oh...only 65% uptime. He's casting them enough, but they aren't landing very well.

    [20:02:32.869] xxxx Improved Soul Fire fades from xxxx
    [20:02:34.375] xxxx gains Improved Soul Fire from xxxx

    Looking at the log browser and soulfire casts vs the soulfire aura we see several gaps like this inbetween the aura fade and application. A lot of those on a very short duration fight will really hit the uptime hard.
    Don't forget that you cannot have ISF up during a Bloodlust buff which is about 20% of that fight duration bringing his uptime to 85%, factor in the few seconds in between applications and it isn't as bad as you make it sound.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by zinnin View Post
    Don't forget that you cannot have ISF up during a Bloodlust buff which is about 20% of that fight duration bringing his uptime to 85%, factor in the few seconds in between applications and it isn't as bad as you make it sound.
    I didn't post the entire 11 because it took forever to edit the name out over and over. There were a few 3-4 second gaps.

  7. #7
    Nice guide. I do want to stress how useful the raid conditions are (seen on the examples tab). You can get very close to reality by using these.

  8. #8
    Nice guide. Even though I'm sure google has the answer, google also has alot of shit to go threw to get to the answers. May you perhaps post where to download/get it so people can take use of your guide?=)

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Noorac View Post
    Nice guide. Even though I'm sure google has the answer, google also has alot of shit to go threw to get to the answers. May you perhaps post where to download/get it so people can take use of your guide?=)
    Damnit, it didn't copy over from OOO writer >.>. Fixed the OP.

  10. #10
    I've been using simcraft for a long time now. Pretty crappy that you can't import custom made characters now (from for example wowhead profiler). This used to be possible.

    Anyway. On my recent sims it shows that haste is still more valuable than crit, even after having gained the 7th immolate tick. Int, obviously is the most valuable stat of them all.
    success comes in the form of technical solutions to problems, not appeals to our emotional side

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by nocturnus View Post
    I've been using simcraft for a long time now. Pretty crappy that you can't import custom made characters now (from for example wowhead profiler). This used to be possible.

    Anyway. On my recent sims it shows that haste is still more valuable than crit, even after having gained the 7th immolate tick. Int, obviously is the most valuable stat of them all.
    While you can't import them, you can edit them all by hand. It will take the talent trees from wowhead.

  12. #12
    Deleted

    Simcraft

    Everyone tells me to use Simcraft to learn what stat gives you the biggest DPS increase, but nobody actualy tells me HOW to use it, and i couldnt find a guide on Google for Warlocks in cata. So can anyone tell me how to use the bloody program? Thanks.

  13. #13

  14. #14
    Hello Mr. Baker.
    Please guinea pig my lock, Mr. Baker: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../halion/simple
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-t5xpw3jfd7q58ptg/

    PS: Why did Joony quit?
    Tell Mrs. Stone I said Hi.

  15. #15

  16. #16
    Velocet asked me a very good question earlier. "I'm over the haste plateau, but the sim says haste is still best for me below int and hit...what gives?"

    I threw an extra 200 haste on his feet and here's what I found:

    Without the extra haste:



    With 200 more haste (all other stats remain constant):

    Note that haste now has a lower weight than it did before.


    Red circles indicate spells that changed fairly significantly. With some extra haste, we were able to blow an extra conflagrate. This also led to more incinerate casts. We can also take a look at our imp who was able to cast an additional 4 firebolts on average over the course of 50000 iterations. That's more opportunties for free soulfires, which didn't really happen here. We can safely say with a sample size of 50,000 pulls that any extra soulfires off of 4 extra imp casts was pretty negligible. In fact, because of our extra incins, soulfires contribution to overall dps actually went DOWN with more haste (excluding ISF).

    Now look at the blue circles. These are things that I pointed out just to show how a lot of other things will stay static. BoD is 1 minute no matter how much haste you have. it's going to tick 3 times (if we clip it 14s remaining) no matter how much haste we have. Look at our ticks and count. 11 casts with 33 ticks 33/11 is 3 ticks per cast. Same goes for immolate. The ticks are a bit off but for the most part immolate did not change very significantly. 14% of our overall dps came from immolate regardless of the 200 extra haste.

    The verdict? We are able to get enough extra casts off to trump an extra 200 crit or 200 mastery. These extra casts netted us about 300 dps.

    Just for fun, what happens if we go by the accepted general stat weights of int > hit > crit > haste > mastery and add 200 crit instead?



    The extra critical strikes weren't enough to trump the additional spell casts. Note now that haste is an even more valuable stat than it was before. SimulationCraft has actually tested how your dps would react with a bit more haste and a bit less haste (as well as the other stats). More haste would help make use of those additional crits by a bit more.
    Last edited by andromalia; 2011-01-08 at 11:27 PM.

  17. #17
    thanks andro! <3

  18. #18
    Bloodsail Admiral Natrii's Avatar
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    Amazing...sticky please.

  19. #19
    I'm confused...the simcraft says with my gear i'm only able to output 15.5k dps in a raid environment apparently, yet in 5 mans without all buffs and what not, i am able to pull 18k+ usually, anyone know what's up with this? Armory link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/senjin/shancane/

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by hotshot237 View Post
    I'm confused...the simcraft says with my gear i'm only able to output 15.5k dps in a raid environment apparently, yet in 5 mans without all buffs and what not, i am able to pull 18k+ usually, anyone know what's up with this? Armory link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/senjin/shancane/
    loads of reasons.
    1) you're under hit cap - you won't miss on dungeon bosses but you will on raid bosses
    2) you have a 5% damage buff assuming you're talking about random dungeons (luck of the draw iirc)
    3) dungeon bosses have significantly shorter durations compared to raid bosses. you'd life tap less, have a higher % heroism uptime and maybe achieve a higher % uptime on cooldowns such a demon soul.

    just a few reasons off the top of my head, probably not all.

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