Don't pull good dps. Pull AWESOME dps.

[Malhavok]

Good day.

My name is Malhavok, i'm playing retri for some time now. I've been stalking Iiris for quite a long time too.

I can read, and use this ability, to read EJ forums, also i'm running regularly SimCraft simulations for my character and optimize my gear using wowreforge.com and my own python methods to help me waste no rating point (currently 2 rating above 26 exp and 2 rating above full % of mastery, math shows it couldn't be done better for my current gear). It was just to show, that i know the basics.

I'm not happy with my DPS. SimCraft tells me ~24k with full raid buff and pre-potting disabled. The same setting for Iiris give about 27k dps in SimCraft. But when i check combat logs at WorldOfLogs (yes, i stalk You Iiris, stalk a lot), i see major disproportion. Iiris is actually pulling that 26k, and i'm at terrible 16k. That have to change.

From WoL and armory profile analysis comes the following questions:
- is Iiris really receiving tricks from rogues? or is it a WoL bug?
- when Iiris had normal version of Heart of Rage, he still used Darkmoon Card on raid. was that intended, or was just my stalking not good enough? (i've seen heart of rage on armory profile, and darkmoon card procs on WoL)
- why so much expertise? the soft cap is 26, Iiris used to have around 30 with glyphed SoT

Note: i've checked the most recent raid log, i'm impressed with Iiris popping dps cooldowns, when there is proc from heart of rage hc. It looks awesome. Earlier he was using the perfect cd rotation (AV, 10 seconds, GoAK, 5 sec, golemblood, 5 sec, Zeal), but now it's obvious gain from 2k str bonus makes AV + Zeal at once better idea.

Another set of questions:
- could Iiris post his newest UI, and addon list? especially addons, that are any kind of dps and ICD helpers (i'm using ClcRet with a bit tweaked rotation for both rotation check and cd management)
- how many seconds before end of ICD on heart of rage, it is good to pull GoAK? i think i've seen on WoL, that Iiris pulled GoAK, and then received almost perfectly proc from Heart of Rage and popped dps cd.
- SimCraft advices 0.5s clash period for CS and HW, Cons and J (any of pointed skills won't be used, if the cooldown on CS is less than 0.5s). What clash period would Iiris advice? Does it differs from the commonly known? (i've only recently changed value in mine clcret, so it may show improvement on nearest raid.)
- Is there any good way of measuring ApM (Actions per Minute)? (i'm doing my best, but i'm only a human. what i call best, might be only good if measured correctly.)
- Does Iiris use custom lag tolerance, or the default one? What is his average ping? (yes, i want to know everything that may have any impact on dps)
- Is Iiris using any useful macros, other than standard mentioned on EJ, or standard focused rebuke / repetance ?
- is there anything, that i might have missed?

Thanks for the time, hope to get at least some answers. Thanks to them i hope to pull better dps, and be a better player overall.

Malhavok

--
The point is not to be good. The point is to be the best.

[Iiris]

Hello Malhavok!

First I want to tell that the optimality of gaming varies a lot in our farm raids depending on my mood. Sometimes I'm tired and don't really care about syncing all my stuff correctly or trying to top the meters so I just play the "normal" and hope the raid ends soon, and sometimes I'm all fired up and popping double pots here and there, trying to sync everything perfectly, taking risks like running through some aoe crap so I can continue dpsing and so on. Just saying this to tell that my cd usage isn't necessarily the best possible in every log you see.

Now with the questions.
- If WoL shows I've gotten tricks then I probably have, but I don't think they have given me any in long long time. Last time I think was when we had only me and 2-3 melee in some progress raid one of them being rogue. They usually give them to each other or warriors. Would like to see what kind of threat problems I would have with tricks when I'm pulling agro almost every time even without them =D.
- I used DMC before the latest patch when it was clearly the best trinket. I think I had it in one raid after the patch before I had calculated that the normal Heart would be better than it. Before the patch it was 3-4% of my dps and after 1.5% so a significant nerf to the trinket.
- I have much expertise because I don't have Nefarian's weapon yet. Shoulders are the best offpiece with 4 set so can't swap the helmet, HC Heart is the best even with some "wasted" expertise, there just really isn't anything better I could swap for the slots at this stage. And I said "wasted" because there are some fights where you have to hit the boss in the face (at least with our tactics) so expertise over soft cap isn't COMPLETELY useless.
- About the dps cooldowns. I normally pop GoAK instantly after I get to melee, 1hp inq, get to 3hp and pop all my shit (this usually takes some time depending on luck to build up the GoAK stack). Syncing the Heart of Rage trinket with cooldowns is pretty hard because it might proc from first auto attack or after 15sec of engaging. Usually it procs nicely at the start and you get nice cooldown stacks but after that its all luck and I don't delay my cooldowns for it at all after the start.
- I'm not gonna post my whole UI since its pretty much default excluding the "dps making" addons. I use EventHorizonContinued to track my skill cds and dps cooldown durations(done some tweaking to it regarding this, added couple spells and changed the skill order). NeedToKnow for all useful buffs and debuffs I need to watch for in boss fights. And retrot helper's holy power bar (yes its ugly but it works without annoying delays and is easy to use), I don't use anything else than the holy power bar from this addon.
- Heart + GoAK ICD thingy was covered before.
- About the clash periods, I don't really have any precise numbers for when I use or when I don't since if you look how EventHorizon shows the cds they are just bars alongside each other so I just don't use anything if CS cooldown is about to finish soon. I guess I have just built up a good "hunch" when to and when not to use anything before CS with my experience using this addon.
- Never heard of measuring apm in WoW. If you are using your every global cd as fast as possible and maximize your melee time without dying, you are fast enough.
- I have WoW default lag tolerance set to 0ms and I've done the well known wow ping fix to my operation system (http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/15500-Smart_fix_allows_you_to_drop_your_ping_by_150).
- Only macros I use are mouseover macros for hand spells, focus rebuke, LoH on targettarget, my target or focus and /startattack on CS, DS and Judge.

I hope these answers gave you some clarity and feel free to ask anything else that comes to your mind. And thanks for the dedicated stalking =).

[Malhavok]

Thank You for the full answer to all of my questions!

Another set of questions (much smaller than the previous one, also, for ease of reading i'm splitting them into bigger paragraphs):

big threat problems.
================
especially at start. i understand, that tanks are not reforging to hit / exp just to have improved survivability, but it sometimes just cripples my dps badly... hanging at ~ 95% of threat at start, means usually, that next CS (not to mention TV) will end up in a pull... I'm using HoSal usually when needed, but 20% threat is not really much. I'm also screaming like a little girl on TS, to get some HoSal from other paladins. Better, but not perfect. Pulling all cooldowns at start, or even pre-potting would probably result on dps stop from my side, only not to pull aggro.

Is there something fundamental, that i'm missing?

I'm thinking about pulling HoSal right before dps cooldowns, but i'm not sure, is amount of threat removed with each tick reevaluated for current threat (and couldn't find info about it), and i'm not sure would it really matter (i'm "only" at ~ 95% of tanks threat, but thats not big in actual values)...

It's good to hear, that threat is not only my problem, but how are You, Iiris, dealing with threat ?
(note: i play 10m, and we usually have only 1 hunter, sometimes 2, and no rogues, that might be another reason for sucky start threat)


heart of rage and working with CDs
===========================
You, Iiris, wrote, that You're not waiting with dps cooldowns for HoR. But, when You see, that ICD finished, and You have almost dps cd's ready (like 8 seconds to getting off cooldown), are You waiting with 3HP ready, to be able to pull Zeal + AV at once, when heart of rage procs? It would look like a net gain (loss from not used TVs and not gained HP from CSs, but gain from pulling 20% more damage + zeal + 2k additional str)
Or maybe it's not really that important ?


Thanks for reading! Your answers are very useful, and clarify a lot of things!


PS.: i've set clash period to 0.5s, and it works wonders. i was usually second or third at maloriak (and i'm summon abberation interrupter in that fight <- proud of myself), but at yesterdays farm, i was able to top all, even hunters.
PS2.: i've also started applying inquisition when having any amount of HP, not "must have 3", and it results in about 99% uptime for it. At what time You, Iiris, are refreshing Inq? EJ adviced it around 4 or 5 seconds i think...
PS3.: after exchanging DMC for HoR, i'm now 167rating above the exp cap, and have all exp reforged away... i know now, why You are above the cap, exactly...

[Iiris]

Hello again Malhavok!

I have threat problems very often. The main reason why tanks can't do much threat in the start is because they don't have vengeance stacked yet, throw in some crucial high threat skills that miss in the start and you are screwed.

Normally I just use all my cds as fast as possible anyways because well... you gotta do dps =D, and pray for some dodge and parry from boss. Of course you can't do this in progress raids or when your raid leader is angry, the best way to avoid this is wait for like 10 secs before you pop everything. Use HoSalv when your screen starts to flash red because of threat, usually it's enough and I don't take even one hit but I'm very close pulling agro every time. I'm just glad I'm not playing warrior... they have the same problems as us or even greater and they don't have their own salv.

Waiting for as long as 8 secs with 3hp doesn't sound wise, maybe when there are 1-2 secs left in the cd I do this. I think you shouldn't stay at 3hp and wait for some random procs for long time since you are losing all those TVs and HP.

I just refresh my Inq at any hp amount I'm at the time when it's about to drop (don't let it drop). 4 piece t11 helps a lot with handling Inq.