Okay, so I took some time off.  Real life shouted at me, kicked my butt, and otherwise said “no more raiding for you”.  Five months or so later, I’m back.

Sadly, while I took a break, so did my website, apparently.  Between some server maintenance and upgrades, all of my content from the site was lost, and the entire thing was sitting broken for a number of weeks.  Unfortunately, being the apathetic, lazy, fundamentally bad webmaster that I was apparently trying to be, I didn’t have a running backup of the site.  So, I lost pretty much everything was gone, just like that.  I was fortunately able to recover some information between shadow copies on random servers, and my local backups and works-in-progress, but it’s not the final product that I had running before.

So – I’m sorry.  It will not happen again.  I’ll be applying my typical webmaster love to even this site from this point on.  Not much more to say about that.

As for the past content I was able to scrounge up, I’ve posted most of it.  It’s in rough shape, with little to no links, most likely typos and other artifacts of the development cycle, but that’s life.  If I have the free time and drive some day to go back and polish up the older posts, I may do so.  However, I’d rather not do that at the expense of fresh stuff, so we’ll see if it ever happens.

Since 3.1’s buffing of the ArP rating conversion, a trend has been pushed on pretty much every physical DPS that values ArP highly – the “Armor Penetration soft-cap”. The only problem with this? It’s not the ultimate in gearing philosophy.

There are currently two trinkets that proc ArP:

Grim Toll
Mjolnir Runestone

And, with the introduction of patch 3.3:

Needle-Encrusted Scorpion

The concept of an “ArP soft-cap” is to build enough ArP from gear to create a situation where, when your Armor Pen trinket procs, you are just at the 100% Armor Pen effectiveness cap.

Before we go any further: An ArP trinket is absolutely NOT required to do competitive damage, by ANY class or spec.

The problem with the so-called “ArP soft-cap” is that the entire concept isn’t based around maximizing your DPS as a whole, but rather, about maximizing the benefit of your ArP-proccing trinket.

Now, as I make that bold statement, I’ll temper it with another: at a low-to-moderate level of gearing, using an ArP-proccing trinket can often be the optimal solution, due to the raw power of temporarily boosting you up to the ArP effectiveness cap. The determining factor is how much passive ArP you can obtain through gear and gemming. The breakpoint to look for is where gearing/gemming for a high level of passive ArP beats out the Str that would otherwise take the place of those red component sockets (a net loss when comparing to ArP), and the benefit of the ArP-proccing trinket (a net gain when comparing to other trinkets around the same item level). If that red component loss is more than made up for by the trinket-proccing gain, then the trinket is the way to go. However, as your gear level (and, accordingly, your total passive ArP from gear) increases, the potential value you lose by going ArP-trinket + Str grows and grows, eventually to the point of making it worthwhile to drop the trinket setup in favor of maximizing your passive ArP.

It might just be easier to demonstrate what I mean visually. I present you with my very own, Super-Magnificent Stupendous ArP Setup Comparison Diagram.

Now, inevitably, this declaration of a breakpoint in the gearing will lead to the inevitable question: At what point does maximizing your passive ArP beat out using an ArP trinket? The answer is dependent on your gear availability and your spec. The better the gear you have available that can contribute passive Armor Pen (between passive stat allocation, and sockets that can be filled with yummy red gems), the more attractive the high passive ArP option becomes. Also, the breakpoint is different between Arms and Fury, due to Fury garnering more from Str (and therefore, giving ArP slightly closer competition).

My response to “Which setup should I use”? Use Rawr or Landsoul’s spreadsheet. These tools take your passive ArP and the procs of the trinkets into account. In the spreadsheet, make liberal use of the “Manual Modification” section when comparing total gemming changes, or consider copying the entire sheet for side-to-side comparison. For Rawr, just mark everything relevant as available, and Optimize away!

If you’re absolutely dying for quick-and-dirty numbers, I’d say roughly 60-70% for Arms, and roughly 75-85% for Fury.

Kalroth’s Simple Armor Pen Calculator

Protip! It is possible to use two ArP trinkets. If the two trinkets proc at the same time, you’re obviously SoL, as you’re essentially wasting an entire trinket proc for the duration of the overlap. However, if you offset the trinkets by power-switching in one trinket shortly before entering combat, you will activate its internal cooldown, and effectively stagger the two procs. It can be a lot of maintenance, and I highly recommend against such a setup during any fight with long waiting phases (Mimiron) or movement phases (Yogg-Saron), as the downtime may push the two procs closer together, to the point of overlap.

Tags: 3.2.2, 3.3, Armor Pen, armor penetration, ArP, cap, gear, optimize, stat, Strength, theorycrafting

Dullahan Says:
January 9th, 2010 at 3:58 am

Question, I’m doing a lot of tinkering around with my warrior and his gemming. I just went from having all +20 strength gems, to mostly ArP, excluding my +10 Str and Crit Strike and my Nightmare Tear for my Meta, in order to hit the ArP soft cap with a grim toll. My dps has its ups and downs, depending on the fight, and I would like to find some solid groun, if not improve it. However, I digress. Is it wise to gem for ArP even though I’m 189 points under the soft cap? Or should I wait until my gear allows me to hit it?

Here is my armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Elune&n=Dullahan

If you have any other tips on play styles, or just how I should optimize my gear for better dps, I would greatly appreciate them.

Protip: I am Sariana’s brother, from Elune, and friends with Ragonbadger, if you remember them.

Thanks!

Greater Assault
Icewalker

One gives AP. One gives Hit and Crit. If you’re Fury, or if you can make use of the Hit as Arms, pick up Icewalker. Otherwise, the straight AP is the way to go. As always, go with Rawr/spreadsheet.

Okay, cool.

However, I would never recommend either of these enchants as your standard boot enhancement.

Wait… What?

It’s all about the Runspeed. There’s two options here:

Tuskarr’s Vitality (TV)
Cat’s Swiftness (CS)

The choice is yours; even though the latter is a Burning Crusade enchant, it provides the same 8% boost as the Wrath one. The difference is 15 Stam versus 6 Agility, and is a total toss-up. Given the copious amounts of Stam on our gear already (I’m currently sitting on a 25 thousand health pool completely unbuffed, and that’s as Arms, without the second weapon), I personally lean towards Cat’s Swiftness. More DPS is always a good thing, too.
But… The “pure DPS” enchants look much more attractive!

I don’t care.

As melee, we have one goal that supersedes all else (aside from living): Stay on target. If you’re not in melee range, you can’t use melee abilities. Therefore, if you’re not in melee range, you’re essentially not doing anything – gaining rage, spending rage, or maintaining buffs / debuffs.

Anything that can help us increase our time-on-target will always be a fantastic opportunity in any situation where we are moving. Between moving out of the green stuff, moving to new targets, or moving around the battlefield for any other reason, there’s a lot of non-stationary action going on in Wrath raiding.

There is some math floating out in cyberspace for Mages that leads to the conclusion that if one spends at least 4 seconds out of every minute moving, then runspeed overtakes the other available enchants. Since we’re moving more than any mage would, this 4 second rule is met in the vast majority of raid encounters.
I’m not quite convinced

Think of it this way. Runspeed scales with the rest of your stats in a way that the the other boot enchants cannot hope to achieve. The more damage you deal while on-target, the better runspeed is, as it reduces the time you’re not dealing that damage.

Say you deal 5k DPS. If you must move for 4 seconds in a minute (an extremely conservative estimate of a typical raid encounter), you can convert 8% of that time into damage dealt at 5K DPS. In this case, you’re saving .08 * 4 = .32 , roughly one-third of a second. .32 * 5000 = 1600. So, Tuskarr’s essentially nets you 1600 damage over the course of that minute, which translates into an effective 27 DPS. The actual damage output gain is higher than this, though, as the earlier you get to your target, the more long-cooldown rotational abilities (read: Whirlwind) you can fit in before the target dies or you need to move once again.

This is also completely ignoring the survival benefits of the enchant, which are not trivial. Runspeed is the epitome of raw utility.
Alright, I’m sold, and not looking back!

Well, I wouldn’t dismiss the stat boot enchants out of hand. They absolutely have a place in our arsenal, in any fight that exhibits little to no movement. Any sort of stand-and-deliver (Patchwerk, Vezax, Ignis) inherently lacks a movement component, so the “pure DPS” enchants will provide more to your output than runspeed. This also includes any fight where the movement is not critical to performance – Iron Council, and arguably Anub’Arak (as the DPS time is fully stationary).

The key is to understand the encounter as a whole, and from that you can determine how to maximize your play. Maximizing your play, in reference to boot enchants, may mean carrying around some scrolls of [runspeed enchant of choice] and ["pure DPS" boot enchant of choice], to swap out necessary.

If, after all of this, you’re still not ready to ditch the “pure DPS” boot enchants, I challenge you to an experiment. Put runspeed on your boots for one entire week of raiding. Do heroics with it, tank with it, PvP with it, whatever. Then, after that one week, go back to your old enchant. I can almost promise that you will feel weighed down, tethered without runspeed.

PS. And if you’re an Engineer, count your blessings.

PPS. If anybody could provide a source for the “4 second rule”, I’d greatly appreciate it. The best I’ve found through my GoogleFu is the Mage Compendium over on Elitist Jerks. I’d really love to see the source data on this.

UPDATE! Found one source of mathematical foundations for determining the breakpoint of “pure DPS” and runspeed: Enhancement Shaman on the Theorycrafting Thinktank

Tags: 8 percent, boot, ca’t swiftness, enchant, feet, gearing, greater assault, icewalker, melee, optimize, run speed, runspeed, scaling, tuskarr

#
Veneretio Says:
October 14th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

Sound logic and a very nice piece of food for thought. I must say though, it’s unsettling reading your work. You seem to have a very similar writing style to myself.
Reply

*
BWarner Says:
October 14th, 2009 at 11:21 pm

I’ll admit – I’ve been reading your blog / posts on Tankspot for quite a while now, Vene. Your blog played a large part in spurring me on to start my own. The whole “talk to yourself to create the illusion of an actual conversation” I totally stole from you, too, though I don’t use it too often.

Glad to see you lurking around these parts, and thanks for the compliment!
Reply

#
BWarner Says:
October 15th, 2009 at 11:28 pm

Some discussion of this post over at WowInterface.

Pre-potting
What is it?

Also known as “double-potting”, this is a trick to maximize your potion usage. With the changes to potions since Wrath’s release to eliminate chain-potting, we can only use one potion per fight – or that’s the intent, anyways. This functionality can, however, be skirted somewhat.
Explain

The mechanic works like so: Once you use a potion, the game checks to see if you’re in combat or not. If you’re out of combat, then the one minute global potion cooldown starts working its way to usable again immediately. If you’re in combat, then it will hold off initiating the minute-long cooldown until after you drop combat. As soon as you drop combat, the cooldown starts ticking down as expected. Most importantly, once the cooldown starts, it will not get stopped for any reason – even if you enter combat once the cooldown has started.
How do I use it?

We can use this knowledge to our advantage. Because of the long duration of the Indestructible Potion, we can “pre-pot” just before combat starts, and get nearly two full minutes of potion upfront. For our typical 6-minute-long fight, we have now boosted our 97.2 AP potion from a 1/3 uptime (2 minutes of the 6 minute fight) to a 2/3 uptime. Or, we can mix and match: use an Indestructible upfront, and use a Wild Magic/Speed during a burn phase on a Val’kyr shield.
Anything else?

You always want to pre-pot an Indestructible, because any other potion simply lasts too short. Even if you can get 13 or more seconds out of your 15 second Potion of Speed or Potion of Wild Magic, it’s at an inopportune time – debuffs are still being applied, and if you’re Arms, you’re not yet solidly into your rotation quite yet. Because of this limitation of duration, there should really only be a few types of players using this trick. This would include any tank (Prot Warriors, Prot Pallies, Feral Druids, and any Tanking DK), any DPS Warrior, and any DPS DK with the Bladed Armor talent.

The only potential downside to this is accidentally potting too close to the pull, to the point that you’re “pre-potting” after you’re already in combat. Get used to the pull mechanics of all of the fights as quickly as possible, so that you can maximize your pre-potting without accidentally locking yourself out of a later (and slightly more beneficial) normal in-combat potion.
Trinket Swapping
What is it?

This is a trick to maximize the effect of your Proccing (as opposed to on-use) trinkets by manually controlling when they can proc. While proccing trinkets seem rather straight-forward, understanding exactly how they function can allow us to manipulate the mechanics, and potentially maximize the benefit we receive from the proc part of the trinket.
Explain

There are two types of trinkets, “On-Use” (those that you click to activate), and “Proccing” (those that are activated passively on a certain event). For those on-use trinkets, there is some sort of cooldown attached, typically two minutes, sometimes a minute and a half. This is on the tooltip, and is shown on the trinket itself, and is referred to an external cooldown (because you can see it). For the proccing trinkets, there is a similar hidden cooldown called an internal cooldown (ICD). This ICD is what keeps a trinket from chain-proccing. The typical length on a proccing trinket’s ICD is 45 seconds.

When a trinket procs, the ICD starts ticking down immediately, so that it has a chance to proc again exactly 45 seconds later. However, that’s not the only action that activates a trinket’s ICD. The other way is to equip a trinket. That’s right – the simple act of equipping a trinket triggers the internal cooldown. We now have enough information to capitalize on the mechanic.
How do I use it?

We know equipping a trinket will trigger the ICD. We also know that the ICD has a 45 second duration. We can now control the time of our trinket’s initial proc. The potential benefit is that we can push the proc back about 15 seconds after the target has been engaged, so as to give time for all debuffs to applied, and for us to get our personal rotation up and going, before our trinkets proc. All we have to do is now switch the position of our two trinkets a certain time before we enter combat. 45 seconds (ICD) – 15 seconds (time we want left on ICD when combat starts) = 30 seconds. So, if you sort-of guesstimate about 30 seconds out from the pull, simple swap your trinkets in their slots, and engage as you would otherwise.

The amount of time you want to push it back varies from pull to pull. A typical 10-15s might be perfect for a straight single-target fight. For Anub’arak, however, you want to delay your trinkets until the first wave of adds come, so your increased AP/Haste/whatever is applied to AoE damage as opposed to a single target. The benefit (and potential detriment) comes down to knowledge of the fight and of all potentially related mechanics; if you trinket swap too close to the pull, you’re potentially losing total trinket proc uptime, which is a bad thing.

UPDATE! Another good use for this technique is to offset trinkets. For example, say you have the Grim Toll and the Mjolnir Runestone available. If they both proc at the same time, one of the procs is effectively wasted, due to overcapping your ArP by a significant margin. Using this technique, though, we can offset the proc timers, by switching just one of the trinkets out with a trinket you do not plan on using, and then re-equipping it 10-15s before engaging. Given the hassle of managing both procs, I would not recommend a MR/GT setup, but it is totally doable, as long as you are consciously controlling them. (Be aware, though, that any type of fight with significant downtime will start to push the two procs together, which is a bad thing. Again, I don’t recommend using a MR/GT combo!)
Anything Else?

I’d just like to throw this out there before I get any angry hate mail: This is a highly advanced technique that I would not recommend unless you are extremely comfortable with your play and are looking to absolutely eke out every last bit of DPS juice.

This works with any DPS class/spec that is currently using a proccing trinket.

This only applies to effects that have an internal cooldown. For example, you cannot force a delay on Berserking, because Berserking does not have any ICD to activate.

There is a rather glaring drawback to this technique – you can’t always know how far out the pull is going to be. This comes down to skill and experience with your raid. You need to be really attuned to your raid and the tank that is actually pulling you into combat. You can watch for certain “tells” of the raid and watch the tank’s movements to anticipate how imminent the pull is, but there has to be some sort of consistency to allow this technique to really shine.

I am currently using an addon called Procodile to show the status of my trinkets’ ICDs. However, this currently does not show the activation of a trinket’s ICD based on equipping a trinket.

Be aware that using or switching an on-use trinket will activate a 15 second cooldown across all on-use trinkets, so don’t be surprised when you’re looking to use a trinket early on and see a cooldown where you don’t expect one.

I’ve considered creating a macro to “powerswitch” your trinkets, but because of the limitations (no conditionals on what trinket exists where, and the fact that you would have to manually update the macro based on which trinkets you’re currently using) I’ve decided that manually swapping the trinkets through the character panel works perfectly fine in the cases you’d want to do this.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
3 Responses to “Tips and Tricks”

*
joshconesjr-jubei’thos Says:
October 4th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

dang it

sunder and demo along with rend and minor rage guesstimating

now ive got to think about swapping trinkets
Reply
o
BWarner Says:
October 6th, 2009 at 10:41 am

Like I said, this is a control technique, and is very advanced. It’s absolutely not expected raid behavior, but is going far above and beyond typical play.
Reply
*
rubenvincenten Says:
October 12th, 2009 at 4:52 am

Nice tactics. I knew that both were possible, but never thought about abusing them like this

Excellent write-up as well. Explained very thoroughly and clear.

I like buffs. They help me do what I do, better. While you can’t always control what buffs you get from the other members of your raid (Heroic Presence, why do you taunt me so?!), you can control what buffs you give yourself – namely, the consumables that you use to improve your performance.
Food

Dragonfin Filet
Hearty Rhino
Snapper Extreme / Worg Tartare
Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak
Spicy Blue Nettlefish / Spiced Wyrm Burger
Fish Feast

Depending on how valuable ArP is for you at your current gearing level and taking into account your spec, Hearty Rhino is probably your food of choice. If you’re in the very endgame raiding as Fury, or if you are at a basic (moderate) level of gearing as Arms, this is the food you want to be running with. Learn to love Rhino, as you’ll be eating a lot of it.

If your ArP hasn’t quite broken the breakpoint of becoming more valuable than Strength, fear not. Dragonfin Filet is a great option. One quick note: when playing with a spreadsheet, simulator, or calculation program, ensure that you are taking the food buff into account, before deciding to make the switch to ArP or not (many people forget to include the potential 40 ArP into their modeling, throwing off their final Armor Pen calculations).

I’d recommend shying away from the Hit or Expertise foods, though these can be a good option to “fill in the gaps” of your gearing. If you can pick up a big upgrade gearwise and you cannot pick up the Hit or Expertise lost from the piece you upgraded from through swapping in alternate gear, then go for it. It’s generally a lot more hassle than it’s worth, though, to plan around a food buff that contributes a ‘cappable’ stat, and is generally not the optimal approach.

I included the Fish Feast here for one reason – it’s cheap cheap cheap, and generally always available. (In any raids I’ve attended within the last year, I’ve typically always had my choice of 2 or 3 Fish Feasts for any given pull. The more Fish Feasts down simultaneously, the better our chances of downing the boss. It’s a scientifically proven phenomenon.) I’d recommend this for one, and only one situation: the very early attempts on an extremely difficult boss, where the issue is a fight mechanic rather, and there is no serious DPS requirement. Even still, I prefer to stick with my best food, as 80 AP simply cannot match the performance of 40 ArP or 40 Str.

The Crit food is… available. You might be able to make use of it in certain gear situations. I’m not going to recommend it to anybody, but be aware that it exists as an option. Go with Rawr/Landsoul’s spreadsheet/Simcraft on this one, and make absolutely sure that you want to go Crit over Str or ArP. I haven’t seen an instance where I’d choose it yet, but I’m sure there is some situation in which it might be best.

And just… don’t use Haste food. Ever. Please.
Flasks / Elixirs
Flask:

Flask of Endless Rage

Battle Elixir:

Elixir of Mighty Strength
Elixir of Armor Piercing
Elixir of Accuracy
Elixir of Expertise
Elixir of Deadly Strikes

Guardian Elixir:

Elixir of Protection

You almost always want to run with a Flask of Endless Rage. Have 5+ stacks of them made, and be set forever.

If you absolutely insist on using Elixirs, even though the Flask is better from a DPS perspective, I listed the relevant ones above. All the same comments as with the food apply. Note that the Strength elixir is 50, as opposed to the 45 value of the rest, so it may pull ahead for Fury, depending on your particular setup.

There’s also one other Elixir that I intentionally skipped over when initially wrote the article, but am coming back to note on request – Elixir of Demonslaying. While this provides more AP than the Flask of Endless Rage, there are two severe drawbacks to this elixir. First is the obvious “target must be a Demon for it to apply” restriction. Given the rather distinct lack of Demons in Wrath, this is not trivial. For comparison, there were a vast number of fights that benefited from this Elixir in The Burning Crusade: Illhoof, Prince Malchezaar, Magtheridon, Anetheron, Kaz’Rogal, Azgalor, Archimonde, Supremus, Mother Shahraz, Illidan, Stormrage, Brutallus, Eredar Twins, M’uru (Phase 2), and Kil’Jaeden . There’s one in The Wrath of the Lich King so far: Lord Jaraxxus, and none foreseen in Icecrown Citadel. The second drawback is the extremely short duration of the flask, to the tune of 5 minutes.

In other words, I wouldn’t worry about using Flask of Demonslaying, unless your progression is on Lord Jaraxxus. If he’s on farm, the only time you might use it would be if you’re going for a Tribute chest and need to be absolutely certain of success. It’s just not worth it otherwise.
Potions

Indestructible Potion (IP)
Potion of Speed (PoS)
Potion of Wild Magic (PoWM)
Potion of Insane Strength (PoIS)

Here’s where the fun comes in – The Armor potion is your best DPS potion, regardless of spec and gearing level. That’s a consequence of Armored to the Teeth, and the fact that Indestructible lasts for 2 full minutes, as opposed to the others’ 15 seconds. Let’s quickly run over some numbers here – I’ll use my current stats as a point of reference. I don’t normally use SEP too frequently, but it makes sense to use it here as a means of comparison.

Note that the values do slightly change from adding 1 of each stat to adding the larger amounts that are given by these potions. However, the difference in SEP is so small that it’s not worth going out of my way to account for in the calculations, and it certainly doesn’t change the results.
Using Arms SEP values:

Str: 1 (The identity of Strength Equivalency Point, after all)
Haste: .43
Crit: .87
Armor: .012

Using Fury SEP values:

Str: 1
Haste: .66
Crit: .86
Armor: .011

Now, we multiply each SEP by the amount of the stat given with each potion, further multiply by the duration, and then divide by the total fight length (using 6 minutes for my comparisons here). This will give us our SEP for the given duration. I will then multiply that result by a given constant that will convert that SEP into a DPS value.
Arms (SEP to DPS conversion: 1.60)

PoIS: 1 x 120 = 120 x (15/360) = 5 x 1.6 = 8 DPS
PoS: .43 x 500 = 215 x (15/360) = 8.96 x 1.6 = 14.3 DPS
PoWM: .87 x 200 = 174 x (15/360) = 7.25 x 1.6 = 11.6 DPS
IP: .012 x 3500 = 42 x (120/360) = 14 x 1.6 = 22.4 DPS

Fury (SEP to DPS conversion: 1.96)

PoIS: 1 x 120 = 120 x (15/360) = 5 x 1.96 = 9.8 DPS
PoS: .66 x 500 = 330 x (15/360) = 13.75 x 1.96 = 26.9 DPS
PoWM: .86 x 200 = 172 x (15/360) = 7.17 x 1.96 = 14 DPS
IP: .011 x 3500 = 38.5 x (120/360) = 12.83 x 1.96 = 25.1 DPS

Keep in mind that Haste loses its value relative to raw Attack Power or Crit Rating in any sort of multi-mob situation. That is, these values are calculated for single-target damage only. Increasing your Haste with increase your single-target damage some, but will only increase your multi-target damage in the number of Cleaves you are able to use for those 15 seconds. On the flipside, increasing your Crit or your Strength / Attack Power will not only increase your single-target damage, but increase the damage done to all targets hit by all of your AoE moves (including Cleave, Whirlwind/Bladestorm, and Sweeping Strikes), as well as all normal rotational abilities.

In other words, the Indestructible Potion is the clear winner here in the overwhelming number of situations.

Occasionally, there will be instances where a short burst of extremely high DPS is needed, and that this need outweighs the total benefit that can be had from the Indestructible Potion. One example might be XT’s heart phase when attempting to trigger the hard mode, if the timer is close enough where the extra “juice” might help out. In this case, you will want to go with either the Potion of Wild Magic or the Potion of Speed. Which you choose is dependent on your spec and on the type of situation (multi-mob or single-target).

Have fun getting “in the buff”.

Tags: armor penetration, ArP, buff, cap, Crit, Critical Strike, dps warrior, elixir, Exp, Expertise, flask, food, Haste, Hit, potion, rating, Str, Strength
This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 4:09 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7 Responses to “The Well-Buffed Warrior”

*
A. Martin Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am

I’m a little confuse about the haste buffs… From the food buff section, you write that haste is bad (which is a general consensus, for Arms, at least), but then you “prove” mathematically that Potion of Speed, which packs a huge amount of haste, is actually quite good for DPS… could you please elaborate on this?
Reply
o
BWarner Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:10 pm

For Arms, Haste is indeed a poor stat. The saving grace of the potion comes from two things: One, there’s a lot of Haste in the Potion of Speed (500) compared to Crit in the Potion of Wild Magic (200). Two, it stacks well with other temporary buffs (trinkets, cooldowns, that sort of thing).

For Fury, Haste is significantly better, so it’s not surprising that it pulls ahead. It’s still not our favorite stat by a long shot, but it is much, much better.

When comparing food, you’re looking at 40 of any given stat, so you can (and should) choose the best stat point-for-point. When comparing potions, you’re looking at 500 of one stat and 200 of another, so it’s no surprise that a poor stat, in large doses, can be competitive with a much better stat.

I know you put the quotes around “prove”, but remember the limitations of this calculation. This is a single-target, stand-and-deliver style fight.
Reply
*
Akadia Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 9:51 am

I’m really a big fan of IP, but in you calculations you only use 1 potion. If you’re using IP shouldn’t you be using 2, 1 before the pull and 1 during the encounter? Which basically doubles the the DPS gain of IP.
Reply
o
BWarner Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

Absolutely! I am a huge advocate of pre-potting, as it’s totally free stats. I considered adding in the note about pre-potting, but instead included it in the next article: Aerowow | Tips and Tricks

This doesn’t technically double the DPS gain of IP, because the I’m comparing each potion directly. The two potion usages are totally separate. I’m always going to prepot an Indestructible, as the duration on the other potions is simply too short to make them useful as a pre-pot. The second potion that I use is totally separate from this first potion usage, and that (the second potion) is the comparison that I’m making here.
Reply
*
Kaldron Says:
September 27th, 2009 at 12:22 pm

Maybe you should mention the Elixir of Demonslaying its superior to the flask in the fight against Lord Jaraxus.
Reply
o
BWarner Says:
October 11th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

Made a note of it in the article. Realize, though, that the use of this elixir is extremely limited. There’s been a total of one fight in the whole of Wrath where Demonslaying is applicable – Jaraxxus, as you mentioned. Plus, not all targets in that encounter are Demons, which only serves to lessen the benefit of the elixir.
Reply
*
Orognar Says:
September 28th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

How would the popping of various cooldowns (Deathwish, recklessness etc.) which have cooldowns similar in duration to the other potions affect things. Obviously the cooldowns would have 100% synergy with the shorter length potions, however only 25% of IP’s buff would be amplified by say deathwish. Is this a major factor worthy of consideration?
Reply

Alright, we’re moving on to the Arms trash, now.  This one will be a bit shorter, but fear not – you will still get all the juicy goodness as before.  Again, this is for DPS, not for tanking.

The mandatory, “Non-trash”:

Heroic Strike, 3/3

Come on now.  You’re going to be using Heroic Strike, no matter what kind of Warrior you are.  Pick this up.

ARMS

You’re picking up Rend (2/2), Charge (2/2), and then go back for Deflection (3/5).  That’s pretty much it for the trash talents, everything else in the tree is more or less dictated for you.  Simple, huh?

You don’t really need Tactical Mastery as Arms.  You’re not really switching stances at all (better to equip a shield and one-hand to Shield Bash for an emergency interrupt than to Switch to Fury and Pummel), and if you are pinch-tanking, you’re pretty much in a rough Unrelenting Assault build (read: Revenge spam).

FURY

Deflection (2/5) to get you to Tier Two, Pick up Tactical Mastery (3/5), and then go back and put two more into Deflection (now 4/5).

The reason we are picking up Tactical Mastery here is because of stance dancing for Shattering Throw.  You naturally keep 10 rage when switching stances.  With all three points invested in Tactical Mastery, you now keep 10+15=25 rage when switching stances.  Shattering Throw costs 25 rage to cast, and requires Battle Stance to use.  With 3/3 TM, you will never switch from Berserker to Battle, have to wait for a white hit, cast Shattering Throw, and then be able to switch back to Zerker.  This is MINIMIZING the personal cost of proving Shattering Throw for the raid’s benefit.

Anger Management

This is… not really considered a trash talent.  You don’t “need” this talent to get further down in the tree, as it’s on the same tier as Incite and Deep Wounds, and Imp Overpower for Arms.  So it’s not really considered a trash talent in quite the same way.

However, it is worth mentioning, as it’s a one point talent that is often considered for use in both Arms and Fury builds.

Anger Management is a good talent.  If you can afford to pick up this talent, do so.

One rage per per three seconds is very good.  For Fury, picking this up is like picking up THREE POINTS in Unbridled Wrath.  For Arms, picking up this talent is like picking up FIVE POINTS in Unbridled Wrath.

It really depends, though the sacrifice you make to pick this up.  For Arms, I’m strapped for Talents as is, (employing an Incite build).  I’m currently using 2/3 Incite without picking up this talent, though the math is showing that each point in Incite is worth about the same point in Anger Management.  For Fury, as you generally have a couple of points to play with, and Improved Execute is so poor nowadays, it’s a bit easier to pick up.

However, if you’re Arms, and using an Imp Execute build… it’s probably not worth the sacrifice needed to put the point in Anger Management.

No Iron Will?

Nope.  This is the “bad trash”.  This is the stuff you want to avoid.  Unless you have a specific need for it, don’t pick it up.  You’ll get more suvivability and DPS out of Deflection than you will in Iron Will.

“Specific Need” – What situations might I want Iron Will?

If you’re tanking as a DPS Warrior in the gauntlet for the corner pack of mobs in Thorim on 25s, then you can pick up Iron Will.  But then, Deflection would probably be better, anyways.

I’ll also reserve judgment

But it’s just trash talents anyways!  Can taking Iron Will really hurt?

Yes.  You’re going to pull aggro at one point or another in your career.  You’re going to pick a mob up off a healer, or you’re going to pull aggro on a mob in the main room of Thorim during phase two, or you’re going to pick up the boss if the tank goes down.  In ALL of these situations, Deflection will benefit you more than Iron Will.

I’ve found ONE place in Wrath so far that having Iron Will helps – King Ymiron, the last boss in Utgarde Pinnacle.  Do you really want to spec for that one Heroic boss?  Really?

However…

I will reserve judgment on Iron Will concerning Faction Champions in the Coliseum.  Iron Will may prove to to be useful for this fight in particular.  We’ll see how it pans out.

They’re filler.  They’re all less-than-optimal, and you probably wouldn’t take them, if you had a choice.  But you have to get down the tree somehow, right?  This little two-part will cover your option in how to most intelligently make your way to the meat and potatoes of your respective DPS Warrior spec.

Today, we’re going to cover the options we have to get through the first three tiers of the Fury tree.  I will be using Wowhead’s excellent talent calculator as reference.  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#L  This most applies to Fury Warriors, but can be applied to Arms specs employing an Improved Execute build, as well.

>>Tier One

>Armored to the Teeth (AttT)
Increases your attack power by 1 for every 180 armor value you have.
3 ranks

This is not really considered “trash”, but an obligatory talent that was mostly intended to keep higher armor items (plate) from falling behind the down-armored mail or leather options.  While that goal failed in this talent, here it is today.  It requires buffing at each tier of raiding, due to the fact that armor does not increase as quickly as the other stats do.  Hence, the buff it got when Ulduar was released, and the buff it is getting when Crusader’s Coliseum comes out, and most likely will get with each successive tier of gearing.

>Booming Voice (BV)
Increases the area of effect and duration of your Battle Shout, Demoralizing Shout and Commanding Shout by 25%.

While this is not a direct stat increasing talent, it buffs our ridiculously short shouts.  Its value really depends on how much you are using shouts.  If you are one of three or more DPS Warriors, and are not on Shout duty, then feel free to immediately skip this talent.  However…

If you are tasked to maintain shouts, then this talent may have relevance.  Without this talent, it’s tough to even reach your tank on Malygos with your Battle/Commanding shouts.  The benefit of shout duration also plays a role – 50% increased range and duration on shouts means a few things:
>Increased range means less running around to rebuff, and more coverage per GCD of shouting.  If you are a fan of running all around to buff your allies, spread all about the battlefield, then more power to you.
>The increased duration means less GCDs used on shouting per fight.  This applies for both your buff shout and your Demo Shout.
>Both of these together save energy cost (rage) as well.  Less rage spent on buffing means more rage available for offensive abilities.

>Cruelty
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 1%.
5 ranks

This is another good talent surrounded by the trash talents that we are covering today.  It’s pretty self-explanitory.  You should have this, no question.

>>Tier Two

>Imp Demo Shout (ImpDS / IDS)
Increases the melee attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 8%.
5 ranks

Back in the day, BC era, 2/5 into Imp Demo Shout was the standard for DPS Warriors.  More than that had no effect on raid bosses, and were wasted talents.  In Wrath, however, all 5 talent points are in play.  And, given some recent testing (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18031053148&sid=1), Demo Shout is even better than many had assumed previously.  To summarize the data, you reduce a boss’ physical damage by 10% with the base Demo Shout, and 1% additional per point invested.  These numbers are slightly simplified, but are close enough to provide the guidance necessary as to whether or not you would like to put points in here or not.

Demo shout should be up at all times on a raid boss, obviously.  If you are a Fury Warrior, you have an extremely easy way to lower the tank’s damage taken by 5%.  Speaking from a tanking perspective, that’s worth it.  Add to that the fact that the big moves (Thorim’s Unbalancing Strike is being tossed around as one current example) will get significantly more damage reduction, this is a fantastic way to spend 5 points.

>Unbridled Wrath (UW)
Gives you a chance to generate an additional rage point when you deal melee damage with a weapon.
5 ranks

Using data found here: http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/rezarel/288-3_1_ptr_ppm_test_results.html .  Basically, each point of Unbridled Wrath give you a 3PPM (proc per minute) chance to gain one rage, on up to 15PPM.  While is is obviously good, it’s not great by any stretch of the imagination.  For myself, as Fury, I’m getting UW at about a 40-60DPS upgrade.  As Arms, it’s a whopping… wait for it… 3 DPS upgrade for me.  Earthshattering, I know.

We’ll be generous, and say that I get 65 DPS from 5/5 UW (speaking to Fury, here).  Basing off of 6k dps, that’s just over 1% of a DPS increase, for 5 points invested.  Not worth the investment, given other options.

>>Tier Three

>Imp Cleave
Increases the bonus damage done by your Cleave ability by 40%.
3 ranks

This ability (and therefore, the talent) is purely situational.  It is useful on trash, and on some bosses.  The trash issue is nothing, so it really comes down to: will the bosses you are currently progressing on benefit from Improved Cleave?  If you’re on Mimiron, Imp Cleave works well, just target the middle and go to town.  Freya can benefit from Cleave, arguably.  If you’re tasked to the adds on part three of Yogg-Saron, possibly.  For most everything else, you’re using Cleave to pad the meters.  That’s a bad reason to use Improved Cleave.

If you are using Imp Cleave, don’t forget the cleave glyph, which may or may not be applicable, depending on the situation (it usually is, if you’ve already determined that Cleave is your optimal rage dump).

>Piercing Howl
Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
1 rank

I love this talent.  It’s a half-duration AoE Hamstring, that Dazes the targets (that’s slightly different from Hamstring).  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on bosses, so you can’t really get the benefit to Heroic Strike when attacking a Dazed target.  However, it works great on adds – Freya, anybody – and in pinch kiting situations.  This is pure utility that I always make an effort to pick up.

It’s a great way to get basic PvP capability from your PvE spec, too.  Your fellow Wintergraspians and Battleground buddies with thank you.

>Blood Craze
Regenerates 2% of your total Health over 6 sec after being the victim of a critical strike.
3 ranks

And then we come to a very PvP-oriented ability.  You can generally skip this, except in very extreme examples (3-guardian Freya comes to mind).

>Commanding Presence (CP)
Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Battle Shout and the health bonus of your Commanding Shout by 5%.

And, we’re back to Shouts.  Let’s take a look at some numbers.  Your base Battle Shout is 548 AP, and your base Commanding Shout is 2255 health.  Each point of Commanding Presence increases these abilities by 5%, up to 125% their original value.

Commanding         Battle
2255 hp (base)    548 ap (base)
2367 hp (+112)    575 ap (+027)
2480 hp (+225)    602 ap (+054)
2593 hp (+338)    630 ap (+082)
2706 hp (+451)    657 ap (+109)
2818 hp (+563)    685 ap (+137)

So, in essence, using Commanding Shout, one gives 50 more Stamina to the entire raid, and using Battle Shout, one gives 137 more AP to all physical DPS (and the tanks).  This is a huge deal, raidwide.

>>Putting it all together

So, now that we’ve taken a look at each talent individually, what do we come up with spec-wise?  Assuming Armored to the Teeth (3/3) and Cruelty (5/5), we have 7 more telent points that we must spend to get to the juicy goodness of the rest of the Fury tree.  What sort of “starter builds” can we come up with?

>Buff Shouting Build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZGx00x

This is the base of the Shouting build.  As I am the sole Warrior in my guild, I am currently using a modified version of this build (I take the 5th point out of Commanding Presence to grab Piercing Howl), when I am Fury.

>Demoralizing Shout build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZGE

5% less physical damage on the tank, in addition to the 10% base Demo Shout, and Booming Voice to complement it.

>Personal DPS build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZhxg

This will maximize your own damage output, absolutely, if all the other buffs are being handled elsewhere.  There is no question of that.  However, this provides the absolute minimal benefit to the raid as a whole.

>>But, which is the best option?

This depends on the content being tackled, and on the raid composition.  It really comes down to the value of the improved buff, be it 5% less physical damage on the tank, or 50 stam for the raid, or 50 more personal DPS.

As a loose and fast rule, I prioritize the trash talent selection like so: If you are the sole Warrior, choose a Buff Shouting Build.  If there are two Warriors, the second Warrior takes an Imp Demo Shout build.  However, if there is no Paladin with Imp BoM available, the first two Warriors would both take a build centered around Commanding Presence, one for Battle, and one for Commanding.

>>Glyphs

And don’t forget your glyphs to complement your talent selection!  Cleaving is extremely effective if you’re in a high (3+) mob situation with regularity and need that extra oomph.  Battle is nice, but is kind of assumed, given the limited array of options in the minor glyph department.  And, well, that’s all of the applicable glyhs, sadly.

>>Arms Note

Unbridled Wrath really is that bad.  If you are Arms, you SHOULD NOT have points in this talent.  Really.  If you are running with multiple Warriors, it is better for you to do some sort of shouting, and let a Fury Warrior take UW.

>>Making your spec your own

Don’t be too afraid to play with these base builds just a little bit.  If you’re on Imp Demo Shout, but need Cleave, drop the points in Booming Voice for it.  Personally, I employ a Buff Shouting build as the sole Warrior in my guild, but steal the 5th point from Commanding Presence and pick up Piercing Howl for the raw utility brought by the talent.  The guiding principle in this is twofold – one, the talents are best utilized maximized, so spreading points everywhere is to be avoided.  And two, the talents work most effectively when complimented, so always try to select buffs that increase in effectiveness wih the other talents that are selected.  Booming Voice is a fantastic example of this second concept, as it boosts the shouts, which are being boosted by either Imp Demo Shout or Commaning Presence.  Synergy is a great thing.

PS.  As I was writing this up, we have gotten a slight improvement to our buff durations and range come 3.2.  Our Commanding and Battle Shout ranges have been increased at the base level from 20 yards to 30 yards.  While this is a good thing, don’t think for a minute that it negates any of the positive effects of increasing even the new 30-yard range through Booming Voice.

Welcome all, to my new little corner of the Web!

I’m sure you’re wondering why “Hello World”.  Well, it’s actually an old computer programming thing.  Basically the first program a person would learn how to write is called a “Hello World” program – it’s just a few lines of code in its entirety, and the only thing it did is “print” (or output) the line “Hello World” on the screen.  Basically, a way to say, “Hey, I exist!  Woohoo!”

So, in keeping with the fine tradition of computer programmers everywhere, this post will contain no actual content.  Instead, it will merely serve as a way of breaking ground on my first blog post, ever.  That’s right – not only is this the first post on a new WoW-themed blog, it’s also the first blog ever hosted by Yours Truly.

I can see the internet crowd collectively staring at the screens at this point.  “So, it’s a blog.  Whoopdee doo.  You haven’t yet told us what it’s going to be about!  Come on, give us topics, give us a perspective!  Give us an idea of what you’ll be rambling about here.”  Fair enough.  This blog will primarily be about anything and everything that pops into my head while playing World of Warcraft.  Talk about a broad generalization, right?

Probably the best idea of telling you what you can expect, is to understand where I’m coming from.  Therefore, a quick overview of who I am is in order.  As a person: I am a college student, pursuing a degree in Music Performance.  I enjoy web design, football, and lounging on the beach.  I live in the Florida panhandle; the upsides are the killer beaches and perpetually warm weather, with the downsides being the humidity and hurricanes.  (The beaches are totally worth it!)

As a gamer: I started playing in January of ‘08, just about a full year ago now.  I am interested in a few other current and near-future MMOs, notably EVE Online, and the upcoming Old Republic / Aion.  However, the only game I’m really into at the moment is WoW.  My primary character is a DPS Warrior, who got this ridiculous notion in her head that she can tank, as well.  I enjoy raiding, working the Auction House, discussing class mechanics and optimizing my performance (meta-gaming, you could call it), playing with addons, and I’ve recently been starting in on some PvP action.  Really, the only thing I haven’t done yet is heal, and I am (slowly) working on getting a healer leveled to remedy that very situation.

Fittingly, my posts can and will encompass all of these aspects at some point.  Just, you know, hopefully not all at once.  I will most likely also delve into the realm of leadership, membership, psychology, social interaction, and probably even smoothies, eventually.

Yes, that’s right: smoothies.

I keep up with the current WoW community as a whole – MMOChampion, ElitistJerks, and I (every so often) browse the Blue Tracker in my free time.  I frequent the Class Mechanics threads, I play in the Rawr and Excel spreadsheet playgrounds, and test on target dummies and raids, both on the live servers and on the test realms.  Yes, I do get a kick out of browsing WWS reports, but I certainly don’t live by them.

Two questions really drive me: Why, and how?  So, fittingly, that is the way that I view many aspects of life, including gaming. Expect both commentary and analysis on a wide range of topics that are either very WoW-intensive, or occasionally only tangentially related to Warcraft topics.

However, don’t think that I’m in any way elitist, holier-than-thou, or a boring guy who just goes ON and ON about raid THIS and raiding THAT.  I like to have fun in Warcraft, otherwise, I wouldn’t play!  I enjoy maximizing my characters’ performance, I enjoy discussing upcoming patch changes.  Some might not, and that’s perfectly alright.  There’s really only one way to tell if a person is playing the game “right” – and that is, if they are having fun.  I can’t emphasize this enough!

Keeping this in mind, I may occasionally call out an incorrect method, a less than optimal method of operation, or a flat-out bad approach to something.  Understand the audience that I am targeting with these comments – while everything is intended to be accessible, a casual player may (just as an example) get all the gold they need with nothing more than listing the ore they run across on the AH.  If I am discussing more intensive auction practices I may end up calling a certain approach “wrong”.  Temper these critiques with your own common sense, apply at your own discretion, and always remember that I am never attacking a person – my comments are almost always about actions.

Before we even set out, some quick ground rules.  This is not the place for “First” posts.  It’s childish, it’s content-less, it’s a waste of your time and mine, and will be deleted immediately.  This is also not the place for “Grammar Gestapo” posts.  I can’t stand grammatical errors either, and I can be my own police when it comes to typos, literary gaffes, and flat-out misspellings (the latter being pretty rare, to be honest).  And trust me – if I miss something when skim-proofing, my guildmates will be sure to mock me about it.  I’m not saying that I’m rejecting a “type” of person outright, I’d just prefer a more mature approach to comments here, and would like the content to be the primary focus.  Much appreciated, and I look forward to plenty of stimulating discussion.

Well, that about does it for my break into blogging!  I’m going to spend the next day or two working on finalizing the back-end of the site, screwing with databases, messing with plugins and gidgets and gadgets of all sorts.  Oh, how I love new toys!  Expect the first content post in a few days’ time.

PS.  For for those of you coming from aerowow.wordpress.com, the sort-of / not-really predecessor to this blog, welcome!  I know you’re coming in droves, so get a feel for the new home.  (By the way, that was heavily sarcastic… I’m going to have a grand old time learning a new “voice” by writing in this medium.)