Last night, I didn't really learn anything from my time with the Heroic Dummy in regards to which spell rotation/priority works best, but I did learn some stuff on how to go about evaluating my DPS on the Heroic Dummy.
So, I am going to share with you, gentle readers, what I did and how it was all wrong.
What I did:
I decided to evaluate one minute of my rotation and stopped all casting right at a minute.
How it was all wrong:
I had wildly different numbers for the same rotations (3990 dps - 4500 dps). Unfortunately, a minute was not enough time for crits to even out to around my stated crit percent, so, for example, on one eval, I had 31% of my Mind Flay ticks as crits. On another eval, I had 46% of my Mind Flay ticks as crits. That was a significant difference.
What I'll do different:
I will cast until I'm Out of Mana on each eval. I didn't want to do this initially because it is a bit subjective - i.e. I don't have mana for the next priority spell, but I do have enough for this one over here. That's why I like the timed idea better, but I suppose, enough time will have elapsed and enough damage accumulated that the end of the session hopefully won't be significant.
-
What I did:
I wore my normal raid outfit.
How it was all wrong:
I have the Nibelung staff, which has a proc. On one of my sessions, it proc'd and dang if I didn't score 500 more DPS on that fight! doh!
What I'll do different:
Since I want to remove as many variables as possible, I'll equip a staff that doesn't have a proc. I'm not looking for raw numbers, but rather I'm looking to compare numbers to each other.
-
What I did:
I did exactly one eval per rotation.
How it was all wrong:
As I mentioned earlier, the time I DPS'd did not allow for crit normalization; add to that the fact that I only did one eval per rotation and you can easily see how my (Normal Rotation without self buffs) > (Normal Rotation with self buffs). Yeah, I was scratching my head at that one also - What, you mean that extra 174 spell power doesn't mean a thing?? yeah, no.
What I'll do different:
Along with the increased session time, I need to run multiples of each test to normalize and average my data. I'm not sure if 5 is (good) enough, but I think that's what I'm going to start with.
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What I did:
I didn't write down what I wanted to evalute. I had a fuzzy list in my head and wrote it down as I made my evals.
How it was all wrong:
It wasn't really wrong, just disorganized. I don't need to get the spreadsheet out, but hey, having a plan is a good idea.
What I'll do different:
Actually, a spreadsheet isn't such a bad idea. If I do make one, I'll post a screenshot of it here just so you guys can marvel at my Excel 1337ness. You were impressed by my weight chart? You ain't seen nuthin' yet!
Ok, now that confession time is over, let me tell you what I'll be looking at and evaluating:
SW:P - Shadow Word: Pain
VT - Vampiric Touch
MB - Mind Blast
DP - Devouring Plague
MF- Mind Flay
SF Shadow Fiend
SW:D - Shadow Word: Death
First up:
My Normal Rotation (SW:P, VT, MB, DP, MF. I clip my MF to cast MB when it's up, but I don't clip it to cast anything else). Also known as NR.
Verses
NR without clipping.
Verses
NR with clipping MF to cast any higher priority spell(VT, MB, or DP - SW:P is refreshed by MF) produces Winner1. The idea is to get the best rotation before adding spells.
(What follows is one path that I may take. Once I throw in new spells, I need to go back to the NR vs. NR w/o clipping vs. NR w/ clipping for DoTs stage to fully evaluate the DPS gain/loss I may be seeing. I don't have a lot of confidence that I'll be that thorough...)
Winner1 & SF (SF placed after MB and before MF) whenever it's off cooldown, produces Winner2. Note, this should only produce a DPS increase, but it remains to be seen.
The better of Winner1 and Winner2 & SW:Death (SW:D is placed after MB and before SF and MF), produces Winner3.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to hit the dummies before the raid tonight, but hopefully I can. If I can't, then during the raid, I'll make sure to pop my SF every cooldown as well as hit SW:D whenever I'm moving, which is what I should have been doing anyways if a DoT doesn't need refreshing.
Also, I will try very hard to NOT refresh DoTs BEFORE they expire. The argument for not refreshing before expiration is as follows:
Suppose DoTX ticks 5 times in 15 seconds; that's one tick every three seconds with the first tick coming in at 3 seconds, and subsequent ticks at 6, 9, 12, and 15 seconds.
If I refresh early, say just before the last tick, then for DoTX that was being refreshed, the last tick occurred at :12 and the next tick (tick #1 of the new application) will land at :18. I've just gone 6 seconds between ticks. Bad.
If I refresh just after the 5th tick, then I go the normal 3 seconds between ticks. At most, I should go 4 or 5 seconds if I'm finishing up a cast/channeled spell.
I'm going to have to pay special attention to VT in this regard, as I can start casting it before it has its last tick in order for it to land just after the last tick and maximize my up time. SW:P and DP have no such concerns as they are instant casts.
Wow. Looking back, this post actually resembles something useful. Dang, how did that happen?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Weekend Rendezvous
So, as I mentioned on Monday, my wife and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary by ditching the kid and puppy and spending Friday night together.
We had a gift certificate for 14 West Restaurant, so we decided to have dinner there. Here's a copy of the menu so you can follow along at home.
We both started off with the 14 West Signature Lobster Corn Chowder. Me, with the fried oyster and bacon, my without. It was very good, and the rolls that accompanied it, delicious!
My wife ordered the special as her entree, which was Chilean Sea Bass in a Thai BBQ sauce on a bed of Spinach and sticky rice.
I had the Sea Scallops on Sautéed spinach, with an apricot chipotle glaze.
Both entrees were very good. I ended up liking hers better than mine, but that said, the scallops were very tender, tasty, and yummy.
For dessert, I ordered the Creme Brulee while my bride ordered the Carrot Cake to go. The "burnt cream" was very good with the crust being just right, the custard being slightly warm on top and cool on bottom, and the dish had little specks of vanilla at the bottom. Very good!!
The Carrot Cake was...a bit disappointing. Now, I'm not a big Carrot cake fan to begin with, but from what my wife said, it was a bit dry, although the flavor was good. I really liked the icing.
Next up was the Get-Away Hideout. Now, my wife made the reservation and took great pains to keep it secret from me. It wouldn't have made much of a difference, because even after arriving at our destination, I didn't know what Sybaris resorts were all about.
Well, let's just say that I'm a BIG fan now! We got the Paradise Swimming Pool Suite, and it was awesome! I loved the jacuzzi tub, the steam room, and our own private pool. Suffice to say, swimsuits were optional....heh heh.
We spent most of the time on Saturday shopping and got back home in the early afternoon. It was a grand weekend, to say the least!
We had a gift certificate for 14 West Restaurant, so we decided to have dinner there. Here's a copy of the menu so you can follow along at home.
We both started off with the 14 West Signature Lobster Corn Chowder. Me, with the fried oyster and bacon, my without. It was very good, and the rolls that accompanied it, delicious!
My wife ordered the special as her entree, which was Chilean Sea Bass in a Thai BBQ sauce on a bed of Spinach and sticky rice.
I had the Sea Scallops on Sautéed spinach, with an apricot chipotle glaze.
Both entrees were very good. I ended up liking hers better than mine, but that said, the scallops were very tender, tasty, and yummy.
For dessert, I ordered the Creme Brulee while my bride ordered the Carrot Cake to go. The "burnt cream" was very good with the crust being just right, the custard being slightly warm on top and cool on bottom, and the dish had little specks of vanilla at the bottom. Very good!!
The Carrot Cake was...a bit disappointing. Now, I'm not a big Carrot cake fan to begin with, but from what my wife said, it was a bit dry, although the flavor was good. I really liked the icing.
Next up was the Get-Away Hideout. Now, my wife made the reservation and took great pains to keep it secret from me. It wouldn't have made much of a difference, because even after arriving at our destination, I didn't know what Sybaris resorts were all about.
Well, let's just say that I'm a BIG fan now! We got the Paradise Swimming Pool Suite, and it was awesome! I loved the jacuzzi tub, the steam room, and our own private pool. Suffice to say, swimsuits were optional....heh heh.
We spent most of the time on Saturday shopping and got back home in the early afternoon. It was a grand weekend, to say the least!
Professor Putricide
Last night's raid was dedicated to wiping on Professor. Well, after we zerged Sarth 3D for the mount (which is soooooo last week, according to Daxie.)
We made significant gains during our time with the end boss of the Plague wing of ICC:
We cut our transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2 from three unstable experiments to just two.
We pushed through Phase 2 to Phase 3 three times.
We wiped at 1%.
Then we wiped at 2%.
Then we killed him.
...and there was much rejoicing!!
This fight, much like Dreamwalker, was one that I've seen from start to kill with The Ebon School. We endured together; we labored together, and last night, we saw all our hard work pay off.
One of the things that has really helped us (and me personally) is becoming more aware of the environment and sacrificing DPS to get out of "the fire" or the line of fire (malleable goo.) I can honestly say that I've become a better raider as we've gotten our act together on this boss.
An example of getting better is throughout last night's attempts, I was working on my personal Damage Taken ranking. Of course, I was doing the dance how our raid leader was calling it, DPSing my brains out, and doing whatever job might be required of me, but through it all, I tried to be conscious about avoiding damage while doing all that.
The results for the night were pretty good on the Damage Taken meter. I ended up 24th a couple of times and moved from being consistently in the top 10 to consistently being in the bottom 10.
The next item up for me is my DPS. I have a 5945 gear score, and I struggle to crack the top 10. Yes, we have some great DPS in The Ebon School, and yes, I'm aware of the "hybrid tax,", but still, I need to figure out if and how I can put out more DPS. So, tonight, I'm making a trip to the dummies as well as possibly adding some different addons to track my DoTs and lag.
I've already been to shadowpriest.com and gleaned some useful tidbits from it. One such tidbit is using Shadow Word: Death when I'm on the move. Now, I've taken SW:D totally out of my rotation, but with ICC's highly mobile fights, it makes sense to pop it if I don't have another instant cast spell that has a higher priority while I'm running.
Also, I learned that reapplying DoTs should never be early. By overwriting DoTs, I not only miss out on the last tick, but also have to wait x amount of seconds before the reapplication has its first tick. All that equates to lost DPS and the possible need to get a different DoT tracker addon.
I currently use PSP for my shadow priesting, and come to think of it, I just use it to see what I should be casting next; it does have a timer attached to it, so maybe I need to just pay more attention to that part of it. Something else to add to the target dummy session.
So, in short (well, actually long...), I need to take it to the next level, which means some practicing is in order. Now I just need to figure out what an acceptable time frame is to compare my DPS on the dummies. OOM? 4 minutes? 5 minutes? I'll just have to play around and see what works best.
We made significant gains during our time with the end boss of the Plague wing of ICC:
We cut our transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2 from three unstable experiments to just two.
We pushed through Phase 2 to Phase 3 three times.
We wiped at 1%.
Then we wiped at 2%.
Then we killed him.
...and there was much rejoicing!!
This fight, much like Dreamwalker, was one that I've seen from start to kill with The Ebon School. We endured together; we labored together, and last night, we saw all our hard work pay off.
One of the things that has really helped us (and me personally) is becoming more aware of the environment and sacrificing DPS to get out of "the fire" or the line of fire (malleable goo.) I can honestly say that I've become a better raider as we've gotten our act together on this boss.
An example of getting better is throughout last night's attempts, I was working on my personal Damage Taken ranking. Of course, I was doing the dance how our raid leader was calling it, DPSing my brains out, and doing whatever job might be required of me, but through it all, I tried to be conscious about avoiding damage while doing all that.
The results for the night were pretty good on the Damage Taken meter. I ended up 24th a couple of times and moved from being consistently in the top 10 to consistently being in the bottom 10.
The next item up for me is my DPS. I have a 5945 gear score, and I struggle to crack the top 10. Yes, we have some great DPS in The Ebon School, and yes, I'm aware of the "hybrid tax,", but still, I need to figure out if and how I can put out more DPS. So, tonight, I'm making a trip to the dummies as well as possibly adding some different addons to track my DoTs and lag.
I've already been to shadowpriest.com and gleaned some useful tidbits from it. One such tidbit is using Shadow Word: Death when I'm on the move. Now, I've taken SW:D totally out of my rotation, but with ICC's highly mobile fights, it makes sense to pop it if I don't have another instant cast spell that has a higher priority while I'm running.
Also, I learned that reapplying DoTs should never be early. By overwriting DoTs, I not only miss out on the last tick, but also have to wait x amount of seconds before the reapplication has its first tick. All that equates to lost DPS and the possible need to get a different DoT tracker addon.
I currently use PSP for my shadow priesting, and come to think of it, I just use it to see what I should be casting next; it does have a timer attached to it, so maybe I need to just pay more attention to that part of it. Something else to add to the target dummy session.
So, in short (well, actually long...), I need to take it to the next level, which means some practicing is in order. Now I just need to figure out what an acceptable time frame is to compare my DPS on the dummies. OOM? 4 minutes? 5 minutes? I'll just have to play around and see what works best.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Update
I'm still kickin'.
Daxxy the druid is healing her way to 80, one PuG at a time. She's up to level 46 already!
Daxynn the pally has been gettin' some love lately and recently dinged 44. I've been leveling her in dungeons as well and am really liking the tanking role with her.
Daxie the priest just bought her last two crafted items - the primodial saronite boots and legs. We downed (upped?) Dreamwalker last night for the second week in a row and got some very good attempts on Professor (made it to phase three once).
Dwarfvader snagged some 264 legs off a VoA25 pug and bought the 264 frost badge chest. Yay on him.
Vanco has switched back to DPS and is much happier. I'm working on fleshing out his Triumph badge gear as well as saving up Frost badges.
Teurion has quit again. This time, he gave me all his gold and some badge items. He tried to transfer the toon to my account, but Blizzard said, "nuh uh!"
Later on, I'll have to make a post about my weekend rendezvous. My wife and I celebrated 19 years of wedded bliss (Mar 29, 1991) on Friday by booking a hotel room. Oh, what a room!
Daxxy the druid is healing her way to 80, one PuG at a time. She's up to level 46 already!
Daxynn the pally has been gettin' some love lately and recently dinged 44. I've been leveling her in dungeons as well and am really liking the tanking role with her.
Daxie the priest just bought her last two crafted items - the primodial saronite boots and legs. We downed (upped?) Dreamwalker last night for the second week in a row and got some very good attempts on Professor (made it to phase three once).
Dwarfvader snagged some 264 legs off a VoA25 pug and bought the 264 frost badge chest. Yay on him.
Vanco has switched back to DPS and is much happier. I'm working on fleshing out his Triumph badge gear as well as saving up Frost badges.
Teurion has quit again. This time, he gave me all his gold and some badge items. He tried to transfer the toon to my account, but Blizzard said, "nuh uh!"
Later on, I'll have to make a post about my weekend rendezvous. My wife and I celebrated 19 years of wedded bliss (Mar 29, 1991) on Friday by booking a hotel room. Oh, what a room!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Dreamwalker....LIVES
I didn't see in a recent perusal of my posts if I had noted that on the 13th, I saw the dragon healed to full on ICC10. Well, I did.
Last night, I had the privilege of being part of The Ebon Schools' very first ICC25 run to get the green dragon back on her feet. It was pretty cool!
This is the first boss that I've suffered through the wipes, changes in strats, and the refining process with The Ebon School, so it was pretty special to see our hard work pay off.
It didn't hurt that I won a chest piece off her for the minimum DKP...With that addition, I've moved up to 3rd best geared shadow priest on the server. Never thought that I'd be there!
Tonight will be the wipefest that is Putricide. We got a couple of attempts last night, but tonight we're going to hit it in earnest!
Last night, I had the privilege of being part of The Ebon Schools' very first ICC25 run to get the green dragon back on her feet. It was pretty cool!
This is the first boss that I've suffered through the wipes, changes in strats, and the refining process with The Ebon School, so it was pretty special to see our hard work pay off.
It didn't hurt that I won a chest piece off her for the minimum DKP...With that addition, I've moved up to 3rd best geared shadow priest on the server. Never thought that I'd be there!
Tonight will be the wipefest that is Putricide. We got a couple of attempts last night, but tonight we're going to hit it in earnest!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Bike Ride
7.04 miles
37:16 mins
66 deg F
It was sunny again today with about a 20 mph wind. I rode into the wind on the way out so I could have it at my back for the trip back.
I rode the first 1.44 miles around the neighborhood with my wife, then put the hammer down and cruised down and back Honey Creek road.
37:16 mins
66 deg F
It was sunny again today with about a 20 mph wind. I rode into the wind on the way out so I could have it at my back for the trip back.
I rode the first 1.44 miles around the neighborhood with my wife, then put the hammer down and cruised down and back Honey Creek road.
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