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  1. #1
    Mechagnome funkyfloyd's Avatar
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    mind flay clipping

    ive been doing a lot of research on spriest dps and this may be a no brainer but i need a definition of 'clipping' i really dont want to assume it means what i assume it means, which my research indicates may be wrong.

    a scenario of mf clipping would be appreciated too. thanks.
    'Let no man deceive himself. If any one among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.'
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  2. #2

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Recasting a DoT/mind flay in this case, when it hasn't expired yet.

    For example:

    A DoT has 18 sec duration.

    The boss will go up when the fight is 17 seconds in, where he will still suffer from DoTs.

    You let the DoTs do their damage, and refresh this DoT before it has come to its end. The best way for your dps, while clipping DoTs, is to do it right after they ticked:

    DoT ticks every 3 seconds.
    Because of the situation the boss puts you in, you will have to clip. You can choose to do it right after the DoT has dealt its tick, or wait longer.


    Clipping it right after it ticked makes your DoT do next damage after last tick in 3 + 0.5 = 3.5 sec (taking it that you clip around 0.5 sec after it ticked, reflexes and whatnot).

    Clipping it 2 seconds after it ticked makes your DoT to next damage after last tick in 3 + 2 = 5 seconds.


    What would you prefer, same damage every 3.5 or every 5 seconds ?
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  3. #3
    Mechagnome funkyfloyd's Avatar
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    Re: mind flay clipping

    with all the numbers that are floating around how can i possibly know if ive clipped?
    'Let no man deceive himself. If any one among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.'
    Translation: you are a fool.

  4. #4

    Re: mind flay clipping

    dot timers ;D

  5. #5
    Puts the "Super" in Supermod Venara's Avatar
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    Re: mind flay clipping

    Because you know that SW:P, for example, lasts 18 secs. That means it will tick at 15-12-9-6-3-0. So now you are in a situation where you have to clip. You look at your SW:P and see it's at 12 secs, meaning if you recast in the next 0.5 secs you will minimize dps loss.
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  6. #6

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Get a addon with dot timers or do like me and configure power aura to show the timers.

  7. #7
    Mechagnome funkyfloyd's Avatar
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    Re: mind flay clipping

    can you suggest some mods?
    either ones that tell me what when the ticks are hitting (on all dots)
    or as one person suggested a dot timer
    'Let no man deceive himself. If any one among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.'
    Translation: you are a fool.

  8. #8
    Mechagnome funkyfloyd's Avatar
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    Re: mind flay clipping

    another no brainer here, but please humor me.

    clipping is bad/good? seems to be both?
    'Let no man deceive himself. If any one among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.'
    Translation: you are a fool.

  9. #9

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Quote Originally Posted by funkyfloyd
    another no brainer here, but please humor me.

    clipping is bad/good? seems to be both?
    It depends on the situation really. If you're going to lose your target for a period of time, while damage still deals damage, then you rather cut a few seconds off your current DoT in order to apply a new one, which overall, will deal more damage.

    Thumb rule: Never clip unless you're not going to be able to get in range with your target for some time.

    I don't know much about shadow priests, but it might possibly be better in certain situations to clip your DoTs so your other spells, which just got off CD/wore off, can be refreshed. You will have to go to EJ for that or ask someone else who's good at maximizing his DPS on his priest, really

    http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormscale&cn=Jeffx

  10. #10

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Tbh you don't need to go into too much of a headache about it, more of a min/max ordeal.
    If you're happy the way your DPS is turning out stick to it, should only make a negligible difference seeing as your SW:P should auto refresh the majority of the time.

    MF clipping is more of an issue with your latency, you could just use:

    #showtooltip
    /stopmacro [channeling]
    /cast Mind Flay

    If you want an easy ride though.

  11. #11

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Quote Originally Posted by funkyfloyd
    another no brainer here, but please humor me.

    clipping is bad/good? seems to be both?
    At the very highest level, mastering clipping means when to, and when not to clip. That is influenced by basically 2 things: Cooldown management & mana issues. If you have mana issues (possible if you have newish gear) then you want to worry more about refreshing your dots (mindflay included, SWP excluded) after they have run their course, more than keeping 100% uptime. that .5 seconds of lost dot-uptime is a hit to DPS, sure, but if its that or refreshing your dot 3-5 seconds early (and thereby more often, which means much more mana over a long fight) then its not to be worried about.

    When you have no mana issues, and you're working on pure DPS, you need to look more at priorities of spells, GCD impact and uptime. Here is where you minimize clipping by, for example, re-dotting immediately after the 2nd to last tick of a dot, for every dot, or if you miss the immediate refresh, waiting for the final tick- trying to get the time between your last tick of the old spell, and the first tick of the new spell, to as close to the 3 sec rule as possible.

    Mindflay excluded- you want to try to chain these as best you can, while *not* clipping off that last tick of dmg from the channel all the time - this is where lag can play a hurtful role

  12. #12

    Re: mind flay clipping

    http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ntHorizon.html

    Extremely efficient dot tool for Shadowpriests and other dot users

  13. #13

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Quote Originally Posted by funkyfloyd
    ive been doing a lot of research on spriest dps and this may be a no brainer but i need a definition of 'clipping' i really dont want to assume it means what i assume it means, which my research indicates may be wrong.

    a scenario of mf clipping would be appreciated too. thanks.
    There are a few definitions already but I don't actually like any of them... there are 2 forms of clipping, one is accidental and one is purposeful.

    Accidental clipping occurs when you want to cast 3 ticks of MF with a single channel but because you moved too early or began casting a new spell too early 'clip' the last tick of MF. This means you spent a majority of the entire MF channel but only gained 2 ticks of MF. I guess in an extreme case it could be 1 tick but you'd certainly notice this. Accidental clipping is usually an unknown clip of the last tick.

    Purposeful clipping is where you deliberately stop the MF cast in order to cast another spell. You do this because all of your DoTs & MB have a higher priority than MF. The ideal way to clip in this circumstance is to clip MF at exactly 2 ticks. That means you don't spend any extra time getting to the 3rd tick. Of course doing this in practice is extremely difficult and perhaps not possible consistently, however it's what you aim to do. If you clip too early and only get 1 tick of MF it would have been a better option to choose SW, hence why you want to clip as close to 2 ticks as possible.

  14. #14

    Re: mind flay clipping

    second and last post got it right.


    People say SW is useless, but in a situation where lag comes up, or you're dealing with boss mechanics, it's a good way to make up for an accidental clip.


    The whole idea is annoying though. So much of playing Shadow is based on stupid timing. One mis-step and your dps takes a punch to the gut. I'm all for a spec requiring skill to play, but with Shadow, there isn't a lot of reward for it... basically you're working your ass off and dealing with the BS explained in this thread, all so you can stay in the acceptable range of dps numbers.


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  15. #15

    Re: mind flay clipping

    I'm not to the point of dot timers and tick management just yet, although I intend to get to that point. At two days of lvl 80 with my priest, I'm to the point of keeping my dots up and casting mind blast after cooldown as a priority over mindflay (basic priority casting).

    What I'm curious about, until I do start using dot timers, is would I lose or gain dps by clipping mindflay in order to refresh my dots or cast a mindblast if I had no idea where mindblast was in regards to ticks?

  16. #16

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul
    What I'm curious about, until I do start using dot timers, is would I lose or gain dps by clipping mindflay in order to refresh my dots or cast a mindblast if I had no idea where mindblast was in regards to ticks?
    If I'm reading you correctly, you would gain DPS. Mind Flay is your filler and all of your other spells have priority over it. Depending on how much time is left on the MB CD or your DoT times, you might want to 1) do nothing at all, 2) cast SW, or 3) clip MF immediately after the 2nd tick.

    It's all about how close you are to needing to cast one of your other spells. If you're really, reallllly close (≥1 sec) then doing nothing is probably best so you don't delay reapplying the DoTs or MB with a GCD. If there's not enough time for 2 ticks of MF then you can SW (is that correct?), and if there is enough time for 2 MF ticks, then clipping off the 3rd tick to reapply a DoT or cast MB is a DPS gain.

    Your goal is to do whatever you can before MB is up without delaying it once it is. So don't cast something that is going to make you have MB usable but not able to use it immediately because of GCD. Make sense?

    With VT and DP, if they are about to end and you can squeeze in 2 ticks of MF (and MB is not up), then that's what you do, you "clip" the 3rd tick of MF so you can reapply the higher priority spells, DP and/or VT. If you can't fit in 2 ticks, then SW or nothing is your other options.

    Bottom line is, MB and your DoTs are your #1 priority and should be put up ASAP, which is where clipping comes in.

    Someone correct me if I'm off base here, thanks

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  17. #17

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Thanks Glowyrm. I hadn't thought of using sw:d as a one global cooldown filler. I'm looking forward to giving that a shot tonight. So until I start breaking down MF ticks with a dot timer, I think I can pretty much follow these rules based on how you explained it....

    - Less than a global cooldown: wait
    - Time for a global cooldown: sw:d
    - More than a global cooldown: MF until a priority cast is up

    Its a tricky process, priority casting as a shadow priest, but its keeping things interesting.

  18. #18

    Re: mind flay clipping

    SWD is your 1gcd filler, not SWP. refreshing SWP unnecessarily is pretty much a mana and dps loss.

  19. #19

    Re: mind flay clipping

    Yep, typo. Fixed

  20. #20

    Re: mind flay clipping

    MFClip is a great addon to help you time your MFx2

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