Ironic problemFollow

The quote from that thread:



The druid thread that Murna does is not maintained well. There are a number of top druids I have seen comment on the matter in other forums outside of EJ, but I don't think anyone cares enough to try to get that thread updated. You will even see the misc down-talk of that thread specifically on the o-boards of all places, because it seems to attract so much attention being that it is EJ, but it has some misinformation that people have to constantly correct when people assume EJ has it right when they ask their questions on the o-boards. Yawning (a feral druid on the alliance side my server in a world top 75 guild) seems pretty big about trying to smash these "you need x arpen before gemming" blanket statements on the o-boards and one other community I seen. And I see why; it doesn't help in the long run to have these generalizations of when to gem arpen unless you understand the why. So it's generally easier to just say that everything depends on everything. How much haste you have affects how arpen behaves, how much crit you have affects how arpen behaves... run rawr, run toskk, run simc, and don't try to generalize a rule set to follow and instead, just figure out how the stats weigh in for your specific gear set.

Even still, 400 passive is basically the old Ulduar generalization without a trinket. If you have an arpen trinket, 400+ is probably fine even after gems, but it's not fine at all if you don't have an arpen trinket and Murna does not really make that clear. Saying that it depends on your gear, especially trinkets doesn't really do much at all to clarify that 4 or 500 is good to gem arpen if you have an arpen trinket, but you need 650/700 and possibly as much as 750 in one gear set I looked at if you don't. Instead, everyone's left to assume that 4 to 500 is all you need trinket or no trinket because Murna doesn't clarify that "especially trinkets" really means that the 4 to 500 number means you have one of the three arpen trinkets and you'd need a lot more if you didn't have any of those trinkets.



While I agree, I don't really consider it lazy, as to do so, would pretty much require that you count shreds per rip, because that's the only real way you can guarantee pooling energy would be a DPS increase. You need to get those 3 shreds off per rip, and if you pool accidentally without realizing your count, you lose a rip extension. This is less likely to happen on such a stand still fight as saurfang, but it will lead to problems on other fights.

Basically the only reliable time you can pool up energy, is during the last bits of the duration of a Rip where you've already done 3 shreds on that rip. Yes, you can pool some before those 3 shreds are complete to ensure you can refresh a rake or mangle, but you have to be careful how much you're pooling and where your shred count is. It starts getting into the land of "very opposite of lazy"




I haven't updated my script within that thread. I lost interest almost immediately in posting my updates when the changes I made got a comment something along the lines that the changes were too subtle and we can't be sure that it actually does anything for us. A druid alliance side my server (not Yawning the one I above mentioned) uses one of my scripts and feels he gets 2 or 3 hundred more DPS out of it than the one I do have up on EJ and he told me that when ICC buff was at 5%. And that just comes from all the micro managing.

The nice thing about the assortment of scripts in that thread though, is that if you wanted, you could take the time to look them over and essentially self-teach yourself the code. You could then go to a dummy and fraps yourself and when you notice a condition that occured that you didn't like, or know you could avoid, you can basically just code the script to account for it (This way the scripted rotation is tailored to your gear and what you're capable of with that gear). I've probably looked through 2 or so hours of fraps oopsies in a rotation to get mine how I like it.

The problem with that idea, is that it seems the larger community who views these kinds of things as open source code end up feeling that things get too long or too complicated when you start trying to micro manage the rotation down to things that are probably only worth 67 DPS here, and 43 DPS there and might not work out to the advantage of everyone else that uses it because their gear is different. FBN was a piece most people didn't have the patience to flip through to figure out how it worked (on the code level) largely, probably, because of how long and complicated it had gotten, accounting for different idols, set bonuses, etc. There's a little more to it than that, but I digress.

Edited, May 13th 2010 1:30am by Torzak

Proc, static would be counted in the 400+

No, it's not.

Some things are obvious as far as coding goes.




In Furion's piece here, if your combo points are more than 2, SR expires in 8 or less, Rip is present:

You're quite likely to SR depending on how much time is left on rip relative to roar. The question is, is it needed to always renew SR just because those events occur? Are there no other events that should help dictate? It's like a flat rule set whether you've got 3, 4, or 5 combo points.



You could complicate it and split it into two pieces:
The first for 3 & 4 combo points

And the second for 5 combo points

At first, it'd basically look like two identical pieces of code except one says "if ComboPoints(more 2) and ComboPoints(less 5)" 3 or 4 and the other says "if ComboPoints(more 4)" 5

In the first piece, you could add an omen of clarity check (unless BuffPresent(OMEN)) so that the code doesn't execute if you do have ooc proc. By doing this, the script would move down to the next part that should be executed. Which would be where the code says that if ooc is present, you should shred. You consume no energy to do the shred, you push closer to a 5point roar from a 3 or 4 point roar, and you allow a new ooc proc to possibly proc directly behind when the first was consumed (We should all try to use ooc procs as quickly as we can so a new one can proc in its place; it can't proc if it's already there). The way it is on EJ, you would SR first and let the proc sit there til after, all while you still have 6, 7, or 8 seconds left on Roar.

In the second piece, you wouldn't want to consume the ooc proc immediately because you'd already be at 5 combo points... so for this one, you wouldn't add an "unless" command for ooc and just let it suggest to you to SR whether ooc proc is there or not. To consume an ooc proc with a shred immediately while already at 5 points, would benefit you ever so marginally in that a new ooc might proc right behind it, but you'd be throwing away future combo points. So in that piece, you would want to Roar first, and then consume the ooc proc after to help build to the next 5 combo points.

A small recap: Split the SR code into two pieces to better take advantage of ooc procs, the first for 3 & 4 combo points where you do consume ooc proc before SR, and the second for 5 combo points where you SR before using the proc.

When you read this small change by itself, it might seem simple to some of you reading. But now add an energy check into those two pieces. I'll ask a question: What benefit is it to you to clip SR just because Ovale says it'd be a good time to do so, if by doing so you have zero energy directly after the renewal of the SR? You clip SR at 8 seconds remaining only to find yourself at zero energy? Why not just wait 2 more seconds, and clip with SR at 6 seconds remaining, so you will have pooled up the energy to do something immediately after you renew SR? By doing this, you will have kept 2 additional seconds on the old SR before doing the new SR all because you knew you wouldn't be able to do anything immediately after the SR anyway.

You're moving along, and then SR expires in 8 or so seconds, you had just shredded down to basically zero energy (because of a rip extension as furion's code does prioritize rip extending shreds some), and now the addon says to SR while you're at 22 energy. Seemingly instantly, you're at the 25 energy required to SR and so you do, putting you down to zero energy, or 10 directly after the global. As the addon was telling you to redo SR, rake fell off. But you have to wait nearly 2.5 secs (25 more energy plus the 10 after you SR'd) before you can renew the rake.

So in the first piece for the 3/4 combo point Roars, you add an energy check for 48+ energy if rake will expire within 1 second. Now, you won't be told to SR unless you can immediately follow it up with the rake that's about to wear off. So instead of clipping at the 8 seconds left on SR, maybe you clip at the 6 seconds, which means you got two more seconds out of the old Roar, simply because you knew you wouldn't be able to do anything after the Roar's 25 energy was consumed because you'd have to just sit there with no energy after you roared.

So instead, it looks like this:

You're moving along, and then SR expires in 8 or so seconds, you had just shredded down to basically zero energy (because of a rip extension as furion's code does prioritize rip extending shreds some), and now the addon says to SR in grey while you're at 22 energy. From there, your energy pool ticks up to 48 (instead of 25), and it lights up to SR (48-25cost +10 within the global =33 energy or at most 200 milliseconds until you could rake) (because it's been coded to check energy and when rake will expire). Immediately after you clip the 6secs remaining SR, you renew the rake that was falling off basically at the same time. And now, you've gained 2 secs on the old Roar and lost nothing. How much is that worth in terms of DPS? How often does that exact scenario come up?

Now, add mangle to the SR code because it follows almost the same rules as rake as far as how you try to maintain it.

How complex can I really make the code? How long before energy checks and mangle/rake timer checks etc before it becomes a headache to try to come in behind someone else and fix an error or update the code because they quit and no longer play (look at fbn)? I think my personal code is 3 times as long as Furion's because of micro managing like this.

You don't always have to test something a thousand times to know if the change is for the positive or the negative.

Torzak makes a good case for being able to script for reliable, small dps increases without the large statistics requires on EJ (see, I read the post!).

But... this is why I tank on my druid and dps on my mage. We should not need to discuss whether changes to a modeling program result in an outcome above the noise level on a video game board.

You are certainly correct as far as that theorycrafting goes Torzak (and wow, that must have taken a while to type ). However, there are often external factors that can greatly affect the outcome. For me, latency (from both my ageing 37yr old reflexes and my Aussie 350-700ms ping) can have a massive effect.

I can agree with the theorycrafting of the current scripts with regards to energy pooling and use of Tigers Fury etc, but for me, if I don't hit TF at basically zero energy, I can almost guarantee that I will waste some energy. Same if I pool energy - if I follow the script and get an OOC proc as I am supposed to be shredding then I will almost always hit 100 energy before I can get the 2nd hit off. Unless the theorycrafting has taken my circumstances into account, I can't really be sure that a particular change is going to necessarily a DPS increase for me.

At the end of the day though, any change in these scripts is going to be of less benefit to me than fixing my own game and not stuffing up by accidently hitting SR when I should be hitting Rip, or being too slow reacting to an OOC proc and hitting a sub-optimal ability. So I strive (as do we all) to improve my performance in many ways - practice, keeping up with the latest theorycrafting, talking to you scrubs and trying to not drink too much before we finish raiding!

Out of curiosity, isn't taking 5/5 Furor and switching out and into catform when you're out of energy worth it?
Because I think that only costs 1 global cooldown and you lose 1 or 2 melee attacks to get back to 100 energy, doesn't sound wrong to me. Or am I missing something here?

Furor in bearform *gives* you rage. Furor in catform lets you *keep* energy. Basically while out of catform your energy will still refill, up to the cap determined by Furor, but you cannot use this to gain energy faster than the standard recharge rate. If you get 20 energy per second, shift out at 0 and back in 2 seconds later, you will have 40 energy.

Some questions that I feel like I should already know the answers to, but I don't:

If Savage Roar and Rip are both running and I decide not to ruin my rotation by blowing Ferocious Bite, I should just Shred away to avoid energy capping while waiting for either Savage Roar or Rip to fall off, right? Sometimes, when I do this, I find myself with five combo points and both Rip and Savage Roar about to expire.

Should I blow the 5 combo points on a Rip (thereby clipping a tick or two) and quickly Shred to refresh Savage Roar once it's about to fall off, or should I blow the combo points on Savage Roar and Shred away until I have 5 points again and can apply Rip? I've tried both, the latter often (if RNG hates me) resulting in Rip falling off a couple of seconds before I can refresh it.

Basically, is it better to let Rip fall off than to refresh it, or should I, if I find myself in that situation again, always clip Rip to avoid the DoT falling off completely?

I'm using BadKitty for a more concentrated overview of my various buffs/debuffs, but I might just have to set the pop-up countdown notice to more than five seconds.

Was going to try it out last night, but I found myself in the position of having to bring my Shaman along for the weekly raid.

I was just thinking of doing the same thing after I noticed it coming up during Arthas dps on Saturday. During phase 1 I just get to sit there and ponder life's mysteries while tanks, healers, and whoever gets the plague learn to pull their heads out of their asses.

Other things to do:
--run numbers and confirm whether it's better to FB during Berserk or just spam Shred (if no other CDs need refreshing). I think FB may be better if you can minimize energy, but Shred comes out on top practically.
--regem my kitty gear for armor pen after realizing that I only need 8 gems to hit the soft cap, and my pieces of gear that aren't being used for hybrid bearcat can supply 6 sockets. I thought I would need to be a lot more comprehensive, and thus need to do it at the expense of tanking (read: agility).

Yeah, and most of the time I have a good feel for my FBing. It's during Berserk, when energy is halved, that I am unsure whether it's better to spam shreds or to slip a FB or three in there and risk eating more energy.

Yeah - I find my most common FB time is just after beserk has finished particularly as TF is normally about due by then. It's the only fairly regular spot - other FB's tend to come down to a string of lucky crits.



Edited, May 19th 2010 10:52pm by RareBeast