Hello again. I just wanted to update everyone on the exploits of my up and coming "warrior main tank" on the separate realm so I didn't have the impetus to shower him in BoA gear or extra cash from my other toons.
So far things have been much easier than I remember them being the first time I did the leveling process on my warrior. For one thing, I did it the hard way the first time, but for another, adding the extra survivability really is the way to go, and with the changes to Improved Revenge, hitting shield block virtually guarantees that you will (a) have plenty of rage from shield specialization, (b) have Revenge procced for a while, and (c) kill them dead. Now, to be fair, there have been some challenges I haven't been able to overcome. For one thing, I am not able to solo group quests of 3 or more unless they're at least 2-3 levels behind me (more if they require more people). I've done pretty well with some 2 person quests, but the 5 person quest to end the Tranquillen reputation grind did not go so well at 22. I'll come back later to take it out once I hit 25, I think.
Meanwhile I've been adding to my gear by running dungeons with the LFD tool, and even at the low 20's and late 10's I've been seeing mostly insta-queues. I've already picked up some decent blue gear, and (while I don't really have a good measuring stick for this) I'm sitting on about 900 health at level 22, which seems pretty good.
I'm reminded again why I hate questing in the vanilla areas so much, though. All the constant quests to "go pick up X from some obscure location in the middle of the other continent" (even though you're barely able to ride a mount) which gets turned back in to the original quest giver to be followed by "now take Y back to the same place you just were (middle of other continent) and ask if she needs anything from here" (inevitably she does, and you just continent hop for an hour to get 3 quests done). I don't think I mind the quests so much, as the fact that the difficulty involved in so many of them is just the annoyance of getting to wherever it is you're supposed to go to do whatever. The actual task is kind of boring, and not always as lore-filled as some would try to argue.
All in all, I'm looking forward to the changes in Cataclysm to the questing system. I'm still hoping to find the time to finish Loremaster before it gets here (since 3,000 quests seem even more daunting, even if you can do 25 of them in the same time it takes you to kill a bug in Mulgore and then gloat about your exploit to someone in Brill, and then turn the quest in to some dude in Sillithus (a quest that, no doubt, came from the Hillsbrad Foothills).
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Thoughts on rotation for Cataclysm Fury Warriors (as of beta build 12694)
So, I noticed some subtle changes to the fury rotation recently, and I wasn't going to invest a lot of time into trying to guess the rotation for Clysm, but since the Bloodsurge design is getting a bit of a nip/tuck, I'm starting to wonder about it.
Looking at the single target rotation, we have essentially two abilities we're likely to use. Bloodthirst and Raging Blow. Now, Bloodthirst has a 3 second cooldown and no obvious limitations on its use, so that's going to be the capstone of our rotation. Since there is the 1.5 second gcd, that means no matter what else we do, BT will be every other hit (unless something comes up that makes more sense to hit instead). Raging Blow has a 6 second cooldown, so it's going to occupy space between alternating Bloodthirsts (assuming you can keep enraged "pretty much" all the time).
So, here is our rotation:
BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ -> BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ ... etc.
The blanks signify the "gaps" in our rotation that we would be filling with things like Slam if bloodsurge were procced, Sunders, Shouts, etc.
They've said that HS will be off the gcd, which means you can hit it anytime within this rotation you like provided you have the rage for it, so that will not be considered here.
In addition, since they've changed the Bloodsurge design to have a 30% chance to proc off each "hit" from either Bloodthirst or Raging Blow (HS is not included as of this build, and you also have to consider that the effect is only available once per 6 seconds), this works out to a preliminary chance of having a Slam proc (in the first 4.5 second rotation) of about 67%, and eventually it averages out to about 41% chance each subsequent open space. So this means that our Clysm rotation will essentially only have about 3 open spots in our rotation every 22.5 seconds. Some things won't affect us, as I believe that pummel is staying off the gcd as will be HS (under current designs), but this still leaves all the sunders/shouts/etc.
On the one hand, this should be fine. Each warrior will have at MOST 2 shouts they need to use (but one costs rage, and probably would only be used if the tank didn't talent for it) and sunders. So, on average, that will basically give us exactly the opportunity that we're wanting to have, with one open spot every 22.5 seconds for, I dunno, something fun?
Of course, the variation in this rotation will be availability. Raging Blow is only available to use if you are enraged. Slam is only useful if Bloodsurge has procced, otherwise casting Slam is like nailing your toes to a stop sign so the raid can play tetherball with your head -- it's a huge headache.
I think what I'm most afraid of is that this rotation is SO set in stone. There really is no wiggle room at all. Our current rotation is mostly like this, but because of the 4 second, 8 second cooldowns which don't "quite" mix with the gcd's, we end up with a lot more spots where things could go, but they're more costly. For example, our rotation now starts with a BT -> WW -> 1 second spacer -> BT
That 1 second spacer "could" be used for an emergency sunder or a procced slam, but it will also delay the next BT by 0.5 seconds, which makes you have to pause to consider whether having the extra attack etc. in that second is worth losing the 0.5 seconds from the extra gcd, especially since right after your gcd from that next BT, you're looking at a 2.5 second free space which is easily one extra ability, plus another awkward 1 second space.
Now, BRILLIANTLY, Blizzard placed the 0.5 second gcd reduction on slam as an additional proc from the T10 set, which makes slam actually fit nicely into those awkward pauses... a la:
BT -> WW -> Slam -> BT -> Slam -> (Some other Ability) -> and so forth.
But since that only procs 20% of the time that Slam is instant, the remaining pockmarked mess looks the same:
BT -> WW -> awkward 1 second pause -> BT -> Slam -> awkward 1 second pause -> and so forth.
The catch is though, those two awkward 1 second pauses there actually give us some room to fire extra stuff, or do nothing, or whatever is called for, but possibly at a slight loss to us. If Victory Rush is procced, we can throw those in and take the 0.5 second hit. If sunders are about to fall off.... If shouts are wearing out.... etc.
I think I like that we're going to be having a nice tight rotation, but if it's this tight, it may make some of the other utility we used to provide seem kind of sketchy. If we can't be enraged (at least nearly)100% of the time, it will make our rotations very difficult to keep up with, what with hovering over the Raging Blow button and watching, and having nothing else to press really if it doesn't light up.
Of course, I'm assuming that just like the post they made about ret paladins recently they're trying to make our white damage "significant" so that haste remains "more attractive for us" and perhaps that will make all this theory crafting about yellow strike rotations null and void, but that's a separate rant for another time.
For now, that's what it looks like we have to work with, and we'll have to wait and see how things go.
Incidentally, because I haven't said anything about it here yet, notice that our rotation is pretty tight, and the cost is right at 66.15 rage per 4.5 second rotation, which works out to 14.7 rage per second. Dual Wielding, with 0 haste, that will require your main hand weapon to generate 9.8 rage per second and your off hand weapon to generate 4.9 rage per second (well, minus any "additional rage sources"). This makes it seem as though a standard white melee hit with a 3.5 second timer should yield about 34.3 rage, or with a 2.0 second swing timer about 19.6 rage.
And I know that the new Battle Trance talent is very handy, but bear in mind that you're looking at 1 proc of that per 20 Bloodthirst strikes, so figure that means one free swing every 60 seconds, reducing our rage per second needs to 14.36 rage per second. Not exactly a huge change, but that's what it does.
I figure if they're going to make this rage normalization work at all, it will have to be balanced around having "some" haste, but it can't be a significant amount since we'll already have to be stacking hit rating out the wazoo to make up for the hit penalty from dual wielding, especially if white damage is meant to be "significant" in Clysm.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on a rotation come Clysm. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and find out what else the future has in store for us.
Looking at the single target rotation, we have essentially two abilities we're likely to use. Bloodthirst and Raging Blow. Now, Bloodthirst has a 3 second cooldown and no obvious limitations on its use, so that's going to be the capstone of our rotation. Since there is the 1.5 second gcd, that means no matter what else we do, BT will be every other hit (unless something comes up that makes more sense to hit instead). Raging Blow has a 6 second cooldown, so it's going to occupy space between alternating Bloodthirsts (assuming you can keep enraged "pretty much" all the time).
So, here is our rotation:
BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ -> BT -> RB -> BT -> ____ ... etc.
The blanks signify the "gaps" in our rotation that we would be filling with things like Slam if bloodsurge were procced, Sunders, Shouts, etc.
They've said that HS will be off the gcd, which means you can hit it anytime within this rotation you like provided you have the rage for it, so that will not be considered here.
In addition, since they've changed the Bloodsurge design to have a 30% chance to proc off each "hit" from either Bloodthirst or Raging Blow (HS is not included as of this build, and you also have to consider that the effect is only available once per 6 seconds), this works out to a preliminary chance of having a Slam proc (in the first 4.5 second rotation) of about 67%, and eventually it averages out to about 41% chance each subsequent open space. So this means that our Clysm rotation will essentially only have about 3 open spots in our rotation every 22.5 seconds. Some things won't affect us, as I believe that pummel is staying off the gcd as will be HS (under current designs), but this still leaves all the sunders/shouts/etc.
On the one hand, this should be fine. Each warrior will have at MOST 2 shouts they need to use (but one costs rage, and probably would only be used if the tank didn't talent for it) and sunders. So, on average, that will basically give us exactly the opportunity that we're wanting to have, with one open spot every 22.5 seconds for, I dunno, something fun?
Of course, the variation in this rotation will be availability. Raging Blow is only available to use if you are enraged. Slam is only useful if Bloodsurge has procced, otherwise casting Slam is like nailing your toes to a stop sign so the raid can play tetherball with your head -- it's a huge headache.
I think what I'm most afraid of is that this rotation is SO set in stone. There really is no wiggle room at all. Our current rotation is mostly like this, but because of the 4 second, 8 second cooldowns which don't "quite" mix with the gcd's, we end up with a lot more spots where things could go, but they're more costly. For example, our rotation now starts with a BT -> WW -> 1 second spacer -> BT
That 1 second spacer "could" be used for an emergency sunder or a procced slam, but it will also delay the next BT by 0.5 seconds, which makes you have to pause to consider whether having the extra attack etc. in that second is worth losing the 0.5 seconds from the extra gcd, especially since right after your gcd from that next BT, you're looking at a 2.5 second free space which is easily one extra ability, plus another awkward 1 second space.
Now, BRILLIANTLY, Blizzard placed the 0.5 second gcd reduction on slam as an additional proc from the T10 set, which makes slam actually fit nicely into those awkward pauses... a la:
BT -> WW -> Slam -> BT -> Slam -> (Some other Ability) -> and so forth.
But since that only procs 20% of the time that Slam is instant, the remaining pockmarked mess looks the same:
BT -> WW -> awkward 1 second pause -> BT -> Slam -> awkward 1 second pause -> and so forth.
The catch is though, those two awkward 1 second pauses there actually give us some room to fire extra stuff, or do nothing, or whatever is called for, but possibly at a slight loss to us. If Victory Rush is procced, we can throw those in and take the 0.5 second hit. If sunders are about to fall off.... If shouts are wearing out.... etc.
I think I like that we're going to be having a nice tight rotation, but if it's this tight, it may make some of the other utility we used to provide seem kind of sketchy. If we can't be enraged (at least nearly)100% of the time, it will make our rotations very difficult to keep up with, what with hovering over the Raging Blow button and watching, and having nothing else to press really if it doesn't light up.
Of course, I'm assuming that just like the post they made about ret paladins recently they're trying to make our white damage "significant" so that haste remains "more attractive for us" and perhaps that will make all this theory crafting about yellow strike rotations null and void, but that's a separate rant for another time.
For now, that's what it looks like we have to work with, and we'll have to wait and see how things go.
Incidentally, because I haven't said anything about it here yet, notice that our rotation is pretty tight, and the cost is right at 66.15 rage per 4.5 second rotation, which works out to 14.7 rage per second. Dual Wielding, with 0 haste, that will require your main hand weapon to generate 9.8 rage per second and your off hand weapon to generate 4.9 rage per second (well, minus any "additional rage sources"). This makes it seem as though a standard white melee hit with a 3.5 second timer should yield about 34.3 rage, or with a 2.0 second swing timer about 19.6 rage.
And I know that the new Battle Trance talent is very handy, but bear in mind that you're looking at 1 proc of that per 20 Bloodthirst strikes, so figure that means one free swing every 60 seconds, reducing our rage per second needs to 14.36 rage per second. Not exactly a huge change, but that's what it does.
I figure if they're going to make this rage normalization work at all, it will have to be balanced around having "some" haste, but it can't be a significant amount since we'll already have to be stacking hit rating out the wazoo to make up for the hit penalty from dual wielding, especially if white damage is meant to be "significant" in Clysm.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on a rotation come Clysm. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and find out what else the future has in store for us.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Glyph of Taunt for Tanks
So, I did a tiny bit of investigation today into why a tank would take the glyph of taunt even if he already had over 8% hit rating, and as it turns out, there IS actually a reason.
Since this is something that I had wrong before, and hadn't really had issues with (well, to be fair, I rarely MT anything, and when I do, I've glyphed so much for AoE threat that I only use taunt occasionally, so a 6% miss chance might not show itself easily) I thought I'd go ahead and write a quick post in case anyone was interested for future reference (assuming this won't change for Clysm, which it probably will).
The catch to this that makes it confusing for everyone is that taunt works like a SPELL. It's pretty much the only thing we have that does, so I can understand why it's confusing.
Since it's a spell, it has a 17% spell miss chance, and not an 8% melee miss chance that you're used to. For this reason, you have to use spell hit ratings to see how it works instead of melee hit ratings, and you'll find that it requires 446 hit rating to guarantee that taunt will work every time.
Now, there are mitigations, for example, if you have a boomkin or faerie fire etc. in raid, that will reduce that to 14%, or 368, and if you have a draenei (why would you, aren't you horde?) you can reduce that by another 1%, leaving you with needing 342 (barely over 341) in order to guarantee 100% landing of taunt.
That's a lot of hit rating to have to add to your gear, especially when most of the tank gear doesn't include a substantial amount of hit rating to begin with.
Now, on the other hand, if you glyph for taunt, you only need to achieve 9% (respectively 6%, 5% with raid buffs) to guarantee the taunt lands, and that's a more moderate level 237 hit rating (respectively 158, 132).
The 158 hit rating will only get you 4.82% melee hit rating, but that's not nearly as important to you anyway, since pound for pound, expertise is what you "really" want. I mean, in an ideal world, you'd want to have enough to not have to count on raid composition, so you'd want to shoot for the 237 hit rating mark (which still leaves you with only 7.23% miss chance reduction). I happen to know a tank with over 8% hit rating and also the taunt glyph, and that's really awesome, but at the same time, his expertise is lower than the recommended 26, so in that case, he's probably seeing as much of a loss of threat from dodges/parries as he would be from miss if he could trade out the hit rating he's over the 237 mark for expertise. Not that he has any problems in that area, because believe me that's NOT the case, but for all you other warriors who aren't as up on the lore, I think if you're the raid's MT, and you KNOW you have a boomkin, I'd try to adjust your hit rating slightly to about 158 hit rating mark, and funnel whatever else you have options for into expertise (while pretty much gemming/enchanting for pure stamina/mitigation) and TAKE THE GLYPH OF TAUNT. If you're NOT your raid's MT, your taunts may actually not be as vital. In fact, you may really want to have more "spread the love" glyphs, so you can keep a pack of mobs on you easily while the MT is taking the big whallops. On the other hand, you may be the tank assigned to keep adds off the clothies, and if that's the case, you'll want to have this glyph in those fights where one add can one shot a clothie in about the same time it takes your vigilance gcd to wear off so you can try a taunt again.
So, in summary:
Without glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
446 hit rating needed to guarantee a taunt is successful,
With glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
237, 158, 132 hit rating depending on your raid buffs.
And since hit is not easy to come by, you should consider that something to consider.
Since this is something that I had wrong before, and hadn't really had issues with (well, to be fair, I rarely MT anything, and when I do, I've glyphed so much for AoE threat that I only use taunt occasionally, so a 6% miss chance might not show itself easily) I thought I'd go ahead and write a quick post in case anyone was interested for future reference (assuming this won't change for Clysm, which it probably will).
The catch to this that makes it confusing for everyone is that taunt works like a SPELL. It's pretty much the only thing we have that does, so I can understand why it's confusing.
Since it's a spell, it has a 17% spell miss chance, and not an 8% melee miss chance that you're used to. For this reason, you have to use spell hit ratings to see how it works instead of melee hit ratings, and you'll find that it requires 446 hit rating to guarantee that taunt will work every time.
Now, there are mitigations, for example, if you have a boomkin or faerie fire etc. in raid, that will reduce that to 14%, or 368, and if you have a draenei (why would you, aren't you horde?) you can reduce that by another 1%, leaving you with needing 342 (barely over 341) in order to guarantee 100% landing of taunt.
That's a lot of hit rating to have to add to your gear, especially when most of the tank gear doesn't include a substantial amount of hit rating to begin with.
Now, on the other hand, if you glyph for taunt, you only need to achieve 9% (respectively 6%, 5% with raid buffs) to guarantee the taunt lands, and that's a more moderate level 237 hit rating (respectively 158, 132).
The 158 hit rating will only get you 4.82% melee hit rating, but that's not nearly as important to you anyway, since pound for pound, expertise is what you "really" want. I mean, in an ideal world, you'd want to have enough to not have to count on raid composition, so you'd want to shoot for the 237 hit rating mark (which still leaves you with only 7.23% miss chance reduction). I happen to know a tank with over 8% hit rating and also the taunt glyph, and that's really awesome, but at the same time, his expertise is lower than the recommended 26, so in that case, he's probably seeing as much of a loss of threat from dodges/parries as he would be from miss if he could trade out the hit rating he's over the 237 mark for expertise. Not that he has any problems in that area, because believe me that's NOT the case, but for all you other warriors who aren't as up on the lore, I think if you're the raid's MT, and you KNOW you have a boomkin, I'd try to adjust your hit rating slightly to about 158 hit rating mark, and funnel whatever else you have options for into expertise (while pretty much gemming/enchanting for pure stamina/mitigation) and TAKE THE GLYPH OF TAUNT. If you're NOT your raid's MT, your taunts may actually not be as vital. In fact, you may really want to have more "spread the love" glyphs, so you can keep a pack of mobs on you easily while the MT is taking the big whallops. On the other hand, you may be the tank assigned to keep adds off the clothies, and if that's the case, you'll want to have this glyph in those fights where one add can one shot a clothie in about the same time it takes your vigilance gcd to wear off so you can try a taunt again.
So, in summary:
Without glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
446 hit rating needed to guarantee a taunt is successful,
With glyph of taunt, you're looking at:
237, 158, 132 hit rating depending on your raid buffs.
And since hit is not easy to come by, you should consider that something to consider.
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