IN+IF+PC feels stronge

[Rigwaltz]

I don't know if it's just me or maybe just how the heroic dungeons are going. But IN+PC with 5 stacks of IF feels great. I'm timing my PC with 5 stack IF and double IN and I'm doing pretty well on single target. I'm not sure simcraft can test this correctly if this gain over MI or not with the timing issues. Or I'm just having fun blowing things up.

I'm also having some fun with thermal void and IF. With the ability to have 2 procs of FFB, I am finding that I can hold and time at least 1 bolt to match up on 5 stacks.

Any thoughts on these combo for single target over MI? I'm sure both of combo would lose on short fights but over a normal course ? I do not know.

[Frosted]

We practice theorycrafting, not "feely-crafting"

[Magiclol]

"feely-crafting"

Kinky..

[Komma]

As of this moment, nobody has been able to come up with a detailed plan on how to use Incanter's Flow, that also shows promise in calculations and simulations. It is easy to say "use stuff at 5 stacks" and argue that you're making a gain somewhere, but that doesn't account for all the situations such as having multiple procs and spells, or when to

It also doesn't help that IF's peak and trough are only 8% off from the median of 12%. Even with perfect gaming, it is hard to see more than a 1-2% overall gain. Even in simulations this is non-trivial to reproduce, and it only gets harder in actual raiding with a lot of RNG involved from pull to pull.

[Rigwaltz]

This is theorycrafting. My theory is simcraft can't correctly test IN + IF + PC due to timing. PC 1.5 min cd, IF 10sec cycle and ice nova 45 sec. In testing in heroic dungeons I'm finding on single target it's doing just well damage as MI. Over a 8 min fight you would be able to burst ~ 5 times with PC + 2IN + IF 5 and also should be able to align 1 IN + 5IF in between each PC CD (total ~ 3; 1IN + 5 IF). The amount of variables seems rather larger for simcraft to cover. My question is have other people tested this ? IN + 100% in damage to target + 30% increase damage of PC and + 20 % spell power of 5 IF sounds like it should out dps MI.( yes I understand you will not have + 20% spell for the length of PC but you should be able to get 2 IN).

[Rigwaltz]

As of this moment, nobody has been able to come up with a detailed plan on how to use Incanter's Flow, that also shows promise in calculations and simulations. It is easy to say "use stuff at 5 stacks" and argue that you're making a gain somewhere, but that doesn't account for all the situations such as having multiple procs and spells, or when to

It also doesn't help that IF's peak and trough are only 8% off from the median of 12%. Even with perfect gaming, it is hard to see more than a 1-2% overall gain. Even in simulations this is non-trivial to reproduce, and it only gets harder in actual raiding with a lot of RNG involved from pull to pull.

Thanks komma. I thought it would be to much. I guess we will just have do in game testing and try not be bias. Because it's pretty fun setting it up.

[Komma]

This is theorycrafting. My theory is simcraft can't correctly test IN + IF + PC due to timing. PC 1.5 min cd, IF 10sec cycle and ice nova 45 sec. In testing in heroic dungeons I'm finding on single target it's doing just well damage as MI. Over a 8 min fight you would be able to burst ~ 5 times with PC + 2IN + IF 5 and also should be able to align 1 IN + 5IF in between each PC CD (total ~ 3; 1IN + 5 IF). The amount of variables seems rather larger for simcraft to cover. My question is have other people tested this ? IN + 100% in damage to target + 30% increase damage of PC and + 20 % spell power of 5 IF sounds like it should out dps MI.( yes I understand you will not have + 20% spell for the length of PC but you should be able to get 2 IN).

I think you might be underestimating the level of sophistication that SimC has been achieving with Ice Nova. But first, a few comments and corrections.

1. IF is a 10 second cycle, but 5 stack IF is only a 2 second window. This means that depending on the duration of the cast/GCD just before 5 stack, you can't necessarily do double Ice Nova within a single 2 second window. Here's an example, where we assume 1.3s GCD:

Code: Select all

T = 0.0: Cast Ice Lance T = 0.5: 5 stack starts T = 1.3: Cast first Ice Nova T = 2.5: 5 stack ends T = 2.6: Cast second Ice Nova

There is no guarantee of fitting in 2 Ice Novas, and waiting for the next cycle 10 seconds later means putting a 10 second wait on all your CDs. That is a definite loss.

2. Ice Nova has a 25 second recharge time. Prismatic Crystal has a 12 second duration. This means that you are often presented with a question: Should I wait on using IN, if a 2nd recharge will not happen within this 12 second window? The answer will often be "no", because you cost yourself usages. Most of the time, maximizing usage is worth more than stacking it with PC. Therefore, you also guarantee "2 IN for PC".

3. Heroic dungeons benefit heavily from shatter, which happens when you do Freeze -> IN -> IN. This greatly inflates your Ice Nova DPS. Most of the analysis done so far has been on boss targets which are not freezable, and hence Ice Nova cannot benefit from Shatter.

4. Incanter's Flow usage in its basic form is a scheduling and allocation problem. It is easy to be overly fixated on the 5 stack and forget about costs. PVE DPS, by nature of our non-stop casting, is a continuous process. This means that there is "no free lunch"; For every Ice Nova you cast at 5 stack, you shift another spell away from 5 stack. Higher Ice Nova damage means lower Ice Lance, Frostfire Bolt, Frostbolt damage, and you also incur the penalties of losing usages on spells, especially when many procs are happening. How much do we gain from shifting Ice Nova intentionally to 5 stack, and timing it with PC? How much do we lose from having to sit on 2 charges of Ice Nova, reduced damage, usages on IL/FFB, and potentially even costing PC usage due to timing? The answer is not clear.

This reminds me of when we did 2T16 optimizations: for every Ice Lance that you attempted to bank and combo behind a Frostfire Bolt, you lost some Frostbolt damage ON TOP of losing Ice Lances due to FoF munching. As it turns out, Ice Lance banking was a DPS loss with 2T16.

In general, most banking/gaming strategies have been DPS losses in simulations, despite many players believing they are gains. One frequent offender is "stacking CDs". It is much easier for a player to focus their attention on some spells having boosted damage by a few %, than it is to recognize that they've lost 1-2 procs/usages by doing so. Most of the time, the costs outweigh the benefits.

[Frosted]

We should have a discussion about what theory is - it's not any random idea you think up.

SimC has no problem dealing with timing issues, the primary issue is us figuring out a strategy that actually works. I saw some very minor gains that I commited to SimC a few minutes ago that were basically using IN when PC is not anywhere near coming off CD, and IF stacks > 3. The gains were VERY small though, 0.3% DPS increase.

There are a few problems that make figuring out a meaningful strategy difficult:

1) IN has a long cooldown
2) IF stacks are not worth much, relative to the strength of Nova itself
3) IN on PC is better than going from 1 to 5 stack for an IN use.

Due to these three factors, any loss of IN charges is never worth the gain you get from stacking it with other talents (IF / PC), and PC > IF when optimzing for IN charges you can bank without losing any future charges.

If you think about a opener -> first PC timeframe, you have

1) 2 starting INs (which go into opener PC)
2) 90s until next PC. So you can get 3 INs from this period of time. One of those (the last one coming up) can safely be saved for PC. So really, you only get 2 "free" ice novas to play with, for every 6 you use. So you're optimizing a subset of your IN uses, and IN doesn't even do that much of our total damage. IN is ~12% of your total DPS on single target, and you're only able to optimize 1/3 of what goes into that. The swings you are going to see in that kind of optimization are very small.

Next, we have to think about how often we're using these INs are 1 stack vs 5. If we average it out and say with 0 optimization we're using them around 2-3 stacks, then shifting the 1/3 of INs we can optimize to 5 stacks (a huge stretch due to the GCD issues komma pointed out above), we're looking at only getting a ~8% gain (12 -> 20%) on 1/3 of 12%, so we're going to increase our DPS by what, 0.32% DPS? (Which, coincidentally, is near exactly the DPS gains I saw in SimC when I did this - which was 0.3%). Aka, almost meaningless.

[Rigwaltz]

Excuse me, I'm sorry that I misused the definition of theory. I meant hypotheses >.> but I guess of a lot of theory crafting are hypotheses. Maybe should change it hypotheses crafting. By the way theories start off with obervation then a idea and then a hypotheses is formed. If the hypotheses is tested multiple times and found to be true then it becomes a theory. Now, most of the theory crafting to me seems to be observations and hypotheses testing.

Most simcraft dps ranking talents rank MI at the top. I noticed not much of a differences in the numbers on same boss fight between with different talents. That's why I asked the question is it better?

Thank for you working the simcraft data. I do not pretend to be a "theory crafter" and not a expert in simcraft. The whole scenario just a approximation for you test. The scenario was half assed and just thrown together in response to written off attitude. Interesting you found gain but not worth it.

Of course I don't sit on procs or wait for absolute 5. I try to hit the window of 4..5..4. The long cd of IN worked in my hypotheses worked by allowing time to be able set it up great scenario use it. Off hand I thought the cd for IN was 45 sec after double nova.

Food for thought, you don't have be insulting in response to a question. There are no dumb questions. Up to late 18th century you might have been thought stupid for questioning bloodletting.

[Frosted]

If I thought it was a half added idea, I wouldn't have gone and tried it. it's a good idea, just hard to find real gains with. I think most of the discussions we have in IRC about it come to the conclusion that IF really just needs higher peaks and lower valleys, so that the payoff for doing something like losing charges for more damage on the charges you do use is worth it when done well.

Also, I was just giving you shit for "feeling", relax.

[Komma]

For what it's worth, Frosted took your idea and made sure the sim avoids casting IN at low IF stacks. Thanks for the contribution.

Just assume Frosted is an angry Worgen yelling at people to get off his lawn. Comes from trolling the MMO-C forums too much, I'd bet.