The Cat Guide - 4.3

[Fiana]

Ravage is 950% + 56, Shred is 540% + 56. DPE of Ravage is only higher than Shred if:

(9.5x+56)/60 > (1.2)(1.3)(5.4x+56)/40 %The 1.2 and 1.3 are from Rend and Tear and Mangle debuff respectively, x is your character sheet weapon damage
That inequality is equivalent to this one:
380x + 2240 > 505.44x + 5241.6, leads to
-125.44x > 3000.4, which suggests x must be negative for it to happen. Well, weapon damage is never negative, so DPE of ravage is never higher than DPE of shred.

The calculations that took into account the 1.5 CPs for shred and 2 CPs for ravage involve the same inequality, except
2(380x + 2240) > 1.5(505.44x + 5241.6)

Solving that, we can see the adjusted ravage is better when weapon damage is >1820.

To determine the crit chance where shred is always better, instead of multiplying the left-hand side (LHS) by 2 and the right-hand side (RHS) by 1.5, I used (2) on the LHS and (1+k) on the RHS, k is your crit chance (I used 2 for the ravage side because I was assuming that we would have hit the effective crit cap for it). Doing similar algebra, let x->infinity, k converges to 0.5036.

Note that none of this involves 2T12. Including that will introduce a 1.1 factor on the RHS and change about everything. If you want to see those calculations (I didn't really mess with 2T12 much, but I can do some if you want to see them) you will need to wait till tomorrow.

))
Ok. Nice math. Looks to be true.
But I have bad news for you. You can't use ravage instead of shred because you have to be stealthed to use it. So your math is pretty much useless.

Now lets look how the real fight looks like.
We are taking first 5 (just 5!) seconds of the fight. Everything above is pretty much the same.

1. mangle - shred - tf - rake - [shred] - rip (mangle fight opening)
2. ravage - mangle - tf - rake - [shred] - rip (ravage fight opening)

Lets skip weapon damage calculations. Lets assume that shred hit is 20k, shred crit is 40k, with 50% crit chance average shred will hit for 30k. Ravage crit is 45k. Rounded statistical data from my 200 25HM ragnaros pulls.
Shred cost is 40 energy, ravage cost is 60 energy. Making damage per energy(assuming crit) pretty much the same. 30k for 40energy = 45k for 60 energy.

But its not the most interesting part.

You need to get 5 combopoints as fast as possible to apply rip.
In first case you need to have at least 2 crits out of 3 total hits to get 5cp.
In second case you need to have 1 crit out of 2 hits.
I guess we have to use Bernoulli binomial distribution to calculate chance to get 2 crits out of 3.
It will be 3 * 0.5^3 *0.5 = 0.375 37.5% chance.
In second case we will have 50% chance.

In first case in 2 fights out of 3, after 3 hits you will end up with 4cp and you will have to use another shred to apply rip. You will lose additional cp from shred crit (31.5% chance)
In second case every second fight you will be able to apply rip after 3 hits. Chance to lose aditional cp is just 25%

So we are getting 12.5% chance to get 1 second of rip damage(15k*0.125=1.875k) and 6.5% chance to finish our opening with 1 additional CP.
We will lose 0.8k damage from 2pt12 set bonus.

Its definitely a theoretical gain.

But gain is so miserable that I'm not going to use it any more.

[Deleted]

Solving that, we can see the adjusted ravage is better when weapon damage is >1820.

Seeing as the current best weapon only has 840 weapon damage, this will not happen during cataclysm.

---------- Post added 2011-09-14 at 09:21 AM ----------

))
Ok. Nice math. Looks to be true.
But I have bad news for you. You can't use ravage instead of shred because you have to be stealthed to use it. So you math is pretty much useless.

The energy you use on Ravage would have been used on Shred instead if you didn't. So that's why you should compare it to Shred.

[Elunedra]

some while back i did the math and it turned out that its only worth it while the target was above 90% hp so you get 50% extra crit witch gives a higher DPE.

also what if we get an OOC proc? Ravage would probely be the best option. dont forget we NE's can shadowmeld and ravage if we stand in melee behind the mob. (i am not sure if SM uses up the OOC proc)

[Fiana]

I don't think you understand how the set bonus works. It literally increases the damage of mangle and shred by 10%, so it doesn't matter how often it ticks.

You really call "literally increases the damage of mangle and shred by 10%" decent explanation of how it works?

Look at logs. its more than simple.
You use shred/mangle, it applies dot. Dot ticks after 2.5 seconds in average after your hit. It will tick again after 4.5 seconds without refresh. It will tick every 2 seconds if you keep refreshing it. Refresh will set dot damage to 10% of hit, but it can be refreshed with newer hit before tick if you spam fast enough and your ping is low. So quick shred after mangle will be potential dps increase(its useless to even care about it)

[23:46:36.955] Lurel hits Baleroc 2009
[23:46:37.295] Lurel Mangle Baleroc 7954 (B: 3409)
[23:46:37.673] Lurel crits Baleroc *4461*
[23:46:38.301] Lurel crits Baleroc *7476*
[23:46:38.973] Lurel crits Baleroc *7804*
[23:46:39.178] Lurel Shred Baleroc *34107*
[23:46:39.452] Lurel Fury Swipes Baleroc *12819*
[23:46:39.649] Lurel crits Baleroc *7164*
[23:46:39.790] Lurel Fiery Claws Baleroc 398
[23:46:40.356] Lurel Ravage! Baleroc *47285*
[23:46:40.356] Lurel hits Baleroc 3508
[23:46:40.850] Lurel hits Baleroc 3310
[23:46:41.421] Lurel crits Baleroc *8589*
[23:46:41.465] Lurel Rake Baleroc 9316
[23:46:41.843] Lurel Fiery Claws Baleroc 1402

Anyways, in my case timeline will be
1s mangle 2s shred 3s rake 3.5s mangle dot tick 4s shred 5s rip 5.5s shred dot tick 6sec shred 7sec shred + rip dot tick ... etc
1s ravage 2s mangle 3s rake 4s rip 4.5s mangle dot tick 5s shred... 6s shred + rip dot tick 6.5s shred dot tick ... etc


We are losing 1 second of fiery claws at pull in second case . But damn it... there is no point to even talk about it. The difference is not worth it.

---------- Post added 2011-09-14 at 08:47 AM ----------

Seeing as the current best weapon only has 840 weapon damage, this will not happen during cataclysm.

Its kinda weird. Math seems to be ok, at least I can't find any problems with it. But statistically ravage hits 50% harder than shred.
There should be some kind of explanation for it. Any ideas?

---------- Post added 2011-09-14 at 08:59 AM ----------

some while back i did the math and it turned out that its only worth it while the target was above 90% hp so you get 50% extra crit witch gives a higher DPE.

Not worth it. I used guaranteed ravage just to get my rip faster.
If you will want to spend 120 energy, 2 ravage will give you 4CP without any chance to proc more, 3 shreds - 4.5CP in average. Never less than 3 and sometimes 6.
Ravage damage is nearly the same as shred damage. No reason to use it.

Shadowmeld+ooc looks interesting, but you will lose several autoattacks. Anyways, I'm happy tauren and I just don't care. (/dance)

[Nathanyel]

uah Mihir, why did you mention Claw? If they listen to you, they're gonna make that ability mandatory again! :P

[MasterNewbie]

Seeing as the current best weapon only has 840 weapon damage, this will not happen during cataclysm.

Not weapon weapon damage, but your character sheet weapon damage. I don't recall what mine was at the time I quit, but I think 1820 is achievable. Though that number is heavily dependent on your effective crit chance.

[Deleted]

Anyways, in my case timeline will be
1s mangle 2s shred 3s rake 3.5s mangle dot tick 4s shred 5s rip 5.5s shred dot tick 6sec shred 7sec shred + rip dot tick ... etc
1s ravage 2s mangle 3s rake 4s rip 4.5s mangle dot tick 5s shred... 6s shred + rip dot tick 6.5s shred dot tick ... etc


We are losing 1 second of fiery claws at pull in second case . But damn it... there is no point to even talk about it. The difference is not worth it.

You don't lose any seconds, since the dot is recomputed after every shred/mangle hit. So the final fiery claws damage will be exactly the same, regardless of when you shred/mangle, as long as the number of shreds & mangles is the same.

[Fiana]

Not weapon weapon damage, but your character sheet weapon damage. I don't recall what mine was at the time I quit, but I think 1820 is achievable. Though that number is heavily dependent on your effective crit chance.

Its 1612 - 2419 for Fandral's heroic.

I did pretty interesting research.

I wrote a small macro for my keyboard

Stealth
Ravage
Mangle
Shred
Esc (to drop agro)

I did over 100 iterations with my feral druid on boss training dummy. In cat spec, with pve gear, without trinkets (to avoid procs). No buffs(even motw).

Average numbers:
Shred: crit 20170 hit 9970
Ravage: crit 29910 hit 15230(8 hits)

Total Ravage damage was 40% out of all damage. Total shred damage was 20% of all damage.

It means that statistically, without raid buffs, ravage is doing 2x more damage than shred.

I was pretty much impressed by this result. It means that ravage hits like truck, huge 100% amount of extra damage for just 50% more energy.

But as I already said it does not work like this in raid environment. In raids ravage does just 50% more damage than shred.

I wonder what is that source of extra shred damage buff in raid environment. And why ravage is not affected.

[Deleted]

You don't lose any seconds, since the dot is recomputed after every shred/mangle hit. So the final fiery claws damage will be exactly the same, regardless of when you shred/mangle, as long as the number of shreds & mangles is the same.

Example of how fiery claws works:

Assume mangle hits for 15k, and shred for 25k on average.

0.0 mangle 15K
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 15k/10 = 1.5k. Number of ticks remaining: 2 (since its new). So 0.75k damage per tick for 2 ticks.
1.0 shred 25k
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 1.5k + 25k/10 = 4k. Number of ticks remaining: 3 (since it just got refreshed). So 4/3 = 1.33k damage per tick for 3 ticks.
2.0 rake
2.5 fiery claws 1.33k
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 4k - 1.33k = 2.67k. Number of ticks remaining: 2. So 1.33k damage per tick for 2 ticks.
3.0 shred 25k
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 2.67k + 25k/10 = 5.17k. Number of ticks remaining: 3. So 1.72k damage per tick for 3 ticks.
4.0 rip
4.5 fiery claws 1.72k
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 5.17k - 1.72k = 3.44k. Number of ticks remaining: 2. So 1.72k damage per tick for 2 ticks.
5.0 shred 25k
5.0 rake tick
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 3.44k + 25k/10 = 5.94k. Number of ticks remaining: 3. So 1.98k damage per tick for 3 ticks.
6.0 shred 25k
6.0 rip tick
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 5.94k + 25k/10 = 8.44k. Number of ticks remaining: 3. So 2.81k damage per tick for 3 ticks.
6.5 fiery claws 2.81k
Fiery Claws total remaining damage: 8.44k - 2.81k = 5.63k. Number of ticks remaining: 2. So 2.81k damage per tick for 2 ticks.

Etc.

[Deleted]

...
Stealth
Ravage
Mangle
Shred
Esc (to drop agro)
....

I wonder what is that source of extra shred damage buff in raid environment. And why ravage is not affected.

Tell me you took Rend and Tear talent under consideration and Your target had a bleed active during those tests...because macro clearly states it didn't...

---------- Post added 2011-09-14 at 03:13 PM ----------

))
We are taking first 5 (just 5!) seconds of the fight. Everything above is pretty much the same.

1. mangle - shred - tf - rake - [shred] - rip (mangle fight opening)
2. ravage - mangle - tf - rake - [shred] - rip (ravage fight opening)

Why shred before any bleed on the target...?

[Fiana]

)
Its really basic knowledge. Read your abilities description.
Shred the target, causing 540% damage plus 56 to the target. Must be behind the target. Awards 1 combo point. Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Shred damage.
Mangle the target for 540% normal damage plus 56 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects for 1 min.

[Deleted]

http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/51269/r - Increases damage done by your Maul and Shred attacks on bleeding targets by 20%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Ferocious Bite ability on bleeding targets by 25%.

So your shred before rake/rip is missing this 20% bonus.

[Deleted]

http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/51269/r - Increases damage done by your Maul and Shred attacks on bleeding targets by 20%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Ferocious Bite ability on bleeding targets by 25%.

So your shred before rake/rip is missing this 20% bonus.

) Its really basic knowledge Fiana. Read your talent description.

[Nathanyel]

Sorry if this was mentioned before, haven't raided since mid-4.0 (got 2T12 through valor, but didn't really test it) but does Fiery Claws actually work in a smart/stacking way? o.O I thought the feral version of the "fire damage on hit" for physical classes was the worst one, since we usually spam Shred whenever possible, and each re-application the next second would simply overwrite the previous one.

[Deleted]

It works as it should. It adds the "new" FC damage to the existing one so all works like it should. And our "fire damage on hit for X seconds" is better than you think, mainly because of the amount of shreds we do, for sure the bonus gives more than DK's.

[Macor]

All in all reading this comments i still wonder why the hell would you even open mangle>shred instead of mangle>rake>shred since you loose 20% dmg buff on 1st shred in rotation, mostly i open mangle>rake>shred>sr>tf>etc delaying 1st rip since at most fights you highes dmging ability is shred folowed by melee than rip>rake and i mostly keep 95%+uptime on bleeds. Am i doing something wrong tho?

note: pff saw too late Ekthelion mentioned it
note#2: and Mihir :P

[Deleted]

I think making SR one step earlier would make Rip application earlier so I would suggest this: Mangle > rake > SR > [shred].... The difference though should be marginal. It all depends generally on the uptimes

[Tygroen]

I wouldn't delay rip for even that long. I always apply rip first, before I even touch SR, granted its a period of maybe a few seconds, but still.

Also, dude, Rend and Tear, Rend and Tear, Rend and Tear. Of course ravage hits harder, but it delays getting all of your debuffs up for consistent shredding (either that or you end up wasting combo points or something). Mangle>Rake>Shred>TF>Rip>Rake>SR. And that's a massive load of energy you dumped which even further delays applying those debuffs. I'm sorry, but I'm sure most are pushing towards like 50% crit or something ridiculous, thinking that ravage is so far advantageous to get rip up faster is just silly.

[Simbah]

wilde attacke - zerfleischen - krallenhieb - schreddern - tiger furor - zerfetzen - verheeren - schreddern....

[Zheryn]

You really call "literally increases the damage of mangle and shred by 10%" decent explanation of how it works?

...

Anyways, in my case timeline will be
1s mangle 2s shred 3s rake 3.5s mangle dot tick 4s shred 5s rip 5.5s shred dot tick 6sec shred 7sec shred + rip dot tick ... etc
1s ravage 2s mangle 3s rake 4s rip 4.5s mangle dot tick 5s shred... 6s shred + rip dot tick 6.5s shred dot tick ... etc

We are losing 1 second of fiery claws at pull in second case .

I still don't understand your reasoning about "only losing 1 second of fiery claws if using ravage at start". It's not like the uptime on fiery claws matters, it's only extra damage from mangle/shred. Our damage won't be higher if we have a good uptime on fiery claws like with rake or something. Also, in your example when you say we're losing 1 second of fiery claws, you don't take into account that in the first scenario we use mangle and shred which means that the fiery claws tick will hit for much more than in the second scenario where it will only tick from a mangle instead of a mangle+shred.

Would be much easier to just count 2T12 as 10% extra damage to shred and mangle and calculate it from there instead of trying to add on the fiery claws afterwards.

Edit: Saw Mihir explained it perfectly at last page:

Example of how fiery claws works