rip/rake uptimes

[irollswirldruid Profile]

Hi everyone,
sorry if there already is a thread dedicated to this but i've tried looking around everywhere and have now decided to just start a thread about how to improve rake and rip uptimes. I've learned that the best druids out there are at least maintaining at least 90% uptime on both and i'm only able to keep at best, 70% uptime for both. I've read several things suggesting clipping bleeds at 1 second or 3 seconds and when buffed with DoC, to automatically clip previous bleeds with buffed bleed. So, i guess im asking how're they able to maintain 90% and what the best strategy is to go so? here's my armory if applicable: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/b ... irl/simple

[Helistar Profile]

The absolute #1 suggestion is: install an addon which cleary indicates the presence of the DoT and the remaining duration. The default interface is very ill-suited to this kind of things.
Personally, I use EventHorizon, but it's not the frendliest of solutions..... (configuration = edit the files). There's a section of the forums devoted to addons, you can have a look there for several alternatives.

[irollswirldruid Profile]

Ok ya definitely, I've been running the addon Tellmewhen, read somewhere that one was a good one, but ill check out yours and others.

[Alpheus Profile]

I'm using DroodFocus with LUI and have set up DF to play a chime whenever DoC procs. DroodFocus now also shows little indicators for whether your bleeds were buffed with SV/TF/DoC.

[Sorbic Profile]

Alpheus can you share a screenshot how your UI is set ? Trying to get ideas.
I'm also using Lui3.0 trying badkitty right now but not convinced yet
Heard many good things about droodfocus and wanna try this one out a next addon, maybe you can share you config file(s) ?

[irollswirldruid Profile]

awesome, i greatly appreciate all the ideas! with these addons now, are we just waiting until our bleeds reach 1 second then reapply or clipping sooner? or even until they're off?

[Sibylle Profile]

It depends on the situation, but I would suggest if you are having problems with uptimes that are too low, don't worry about all the details just yet. Focus on keeping Savage Roar up as well as Rake and a 5-ComboPoint Rip. That'll keep you busy for a while, until you get the hang of it (I speak from experience! ).

Later on, you add in advanced techniques like "energy pooling" (basically, you hold off any special attacks until a certain amount of energy has accumulated, however always making sure that you don't cap energy) to avoid wasting part of your bleed by refreshing it too early. But in a boss fight, any Rip with under 10 seconds left is worth refreshing in my opinion, because to re-gain 5 ComboPoints often takes longer than that, unless you have Tiger's Fury available.

As a rule of thumb, when I have 5 ComboPoints and my Rip and Savage Roar both have 15+ seconds left, I use Ferocious Bite instead. Any other time, I let some energy pool and then use Rip or Savage Roar, depending on which one needs refreshing most.

[Abranor Profile]

Ovale with Nerien's Ovale Scripts will certainly do a good job at helping your uptimes. It's constantly analyzing your current bleeds, tigers fury, ap boosts from pots, etc and helps you know which attack is optimal in that snapshot of time. It certainly will help you optimize your DPS. I'm surprised no one in this thread has recommended it yet.

[irollswirldruid Profile]

Thanks sibylle for the tips, i'll definitely try pooling more often. i'm getting better at maintain 5 point SR and rip up most of the time but i'll definitely try pooling more.

And abranor, ovale was definitely the first thing i tried out when starting my druid because i didnt know what to do and it helped me basically learn the rotation better. with ovale though, i feel like some of the moves it recommends arent necessary and that the recommended ability seems to change often leaving me with performing an ability that shouldnt have been cast. but, i'll give it another go and see if it significantly helps my performance since a ton of work has been put into the script to perform the best dps. Again, thank you all for you input thus far.

[Abranor Profile]

And abranor, ovale was definitely the first thing i tried out when starting my druid because i didnt know what to do and it helped me basically learn the rotation better. with ovale though, i feel like some of the moves it recommends arent necessary and that the recommended ability seems to change often leaving me with performing an ability that shouldnt have been cast. but, i'll give it another go and see if it significantly helps my performance since a ton of work has been put into the script to perform the best dps. Again, thank you all for you input thus far.

I had some of those feelings too at first, but after using it more I started seeing why things would change during a rotation due to trinket procs or TF buffs wearing off. If you use debuff tracking bars in conjunction with Ovale you can use them together and you'll start understanding why a move may change.

Good luck!

[Tinderhoof Profile]

Ovale with Nerien's Ovale Scripts will certainly do a good job at helping your uptimes. It's constantly analyzing your current bleeds, tigers fury, ap boosts from pots, etc and helps you know which attack is optimal in that snapshot of time. It certainly will help you optimize your DPS. I'm surprised no one in this thread has recommended it yet.

Nerien's Ovale Scripts is Leafkillers feral script. Leaf is an author for that add on and his most up to date script is part of that addon.

[Leafkiller Profile]

And abranor, ovale was definitely the first thing i tried out when starting my druid because i didnt know what to do and it helped me basically learn the rotation better. with ovale though, i feel like some of the moves it recommends arent necessary and that the recommended ability seems to change often leaving me with performing an ability that shouldnt have been cast. but, i'll give it another go and see if it significantly helps my performance since a ton of work has been put into the script to perform the best dps. Again, thank you all for you input thus far.

I know that the Rake refreshing can be a little disconcerting in the script at times. This is because we have determined that overwriting Rake with more powerful Rakes is a DPS gain. Here is an example of what can happen: The fight starts, you Rake, you Shred, your Bottle of Infinite Stars procs, you Rake again, you Shred, you TF+Berserk, you Rip and then you overwrite Rake a third time. Each time Rake is being overwritten it is because the new Rake will tick for at least 12% more damage. While it is the case that Shred does more damage than Rake, it is not a huge difference and there is no guarantee that you will be casting TF as soon as I just described. You might have an Omen proc for a free Thrash and end up taking several GCDs before casting TF. The bottom line is that simulations show that clipping Rake for a 12% damage increase is always an overall dps up regardless of how much time is left on the Rake.

The other part of the script that is a little counter-intuitive, especially given the title of this thread is the very aggressive approach it takes for using Ferocious Bites, even when it results in Rip downtime. This is the nature of SotF though. The energy gain from SotF results in a lot of DPS, enough that in general maximizing combo point usage is more important than maximizing Rip uptimes. I still recall the first time aggixx measured this and told me it was close to a 1% dps loss when he took out the aggressive FB code. Once we figured out how to include aggressive SR refreshes in the rotation the dps delta was even more. If you have SotF and try to optimize Rip uptime by wasting combo points, you are losing more DPS than you think.

The bottom line is that the rotation is not the same as it was in Cata or in Wrath even if you ignore the HTs from DoC or the 45 second hybrid windows of HotW. SotF has had a profound impact on the rotation. Additionally, we now have the ability in Ovale to track and compare the tick damage of Rake and Rip which allows us to be incredibly precise on when to overwrite them. This would have been useful in the past expansions, but it wasn't until we were trying to deal with DoC that the pain of writing an optimized rotation pushed for us to ask for the capability and it was jeshu (Nerien) who offered to and made the enhancements to Ovale for us. BTW, this capability could easily be adapted to the Shadow Priest and Warlock rotations both in Simulationcraft for testing and Ovale for helping people up their dps.

[irollswirldruid Profile]

yes concerning the ratio for rakes and rips, im not quite sure how to read it and overwrite accordingly. i see numbers go up and down for each spell but im not sure what that correlates to (im sorry if theres a different section in the forums thats explains this.)

how many people use ovale too? i ran MV with it on tonight and i significantly noticed my rake uptimes increase up into the 80 percentile on some fights yet my rip uptimes are still pretty terrible. reading the previous post though, i guess if its a dps gain to cast FB instead of rips, sounds good to me. but it still perplexes me how some druids are still able to keep both in the 90 percentile. im not quite sure what im doing wrong when i try without ovale. i have tellmewhen loaded and refresh rips buffed/non buffed when only one second left. But, if clipping rake early causes a dps gain and greater uptimes, then maybe i should do that with rip? i suppose it depends on the fight though too. i dont know just thinking aloud. thanks for all the clarification and tips so far though, i greatly appreciate it.

Logs with ovale:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... 773&e=4287

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... =303&e=652 (feng)

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... 277&e=2733 (spirit kings)

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... 929&e=5529 (will of emperor)

[Alpheus Profile]

yes concerning the ratio for rakes and rips, im not quite sure how to read it and overwrite accordingly. i see numbers go up and down for each spell but im not sure what that correlates to (im sorry if theres a different section in the forums thats explains this.)

how many people use ovale too? i ran MV with it on tonight and i significantly noticed my rake uptimes increase up into the 80 percentile on some fights yet my rip uptimes are still pretty terrible. reading the previous post though, i guess if its a dps gain to cast FB instead of rips, sounds good to me. but it still perplexes me how some druids are still able to keep both in the 90 percentile. im not quite sure what im doing wrong when i try without ovale. i have tellmewhen loaded and refresh rips buffed/non buffed when only one second left. But, if clipping rake early causes a dps gain and greater uptimes, then maybe i should do that with rip? i suppose it depends on the fight though too. i dont know just thinking aloud. thanks for all the clarification and tips so far though, i greatly appreciate it.

Logs with ovale:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... 773&e=4287

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... =303&e=652 (feng)

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... 277&e=2733 (spirit kings)

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-8 ... 929&e=5529 (will of emperor)

Judging by your logs from Elegon and Spirit Kings you don't seem to have TF and Berserk macro'd together and you seem to be forgetting 1-2 TF's for every Berserk cycle (towards the end). Spirit Kings rip downtime seems to imply you've been moving too much (thus losing CPs on AOE or spending more CPs on low-efficiency savage roars).

[raffy Profile]

Inline Aura is an awesome mod for feral:
http://raffy.antistupid.com/wow/ia2.jpg

Puts your buffs/debuffs right on your buttons.

I customized mine to show DoC stacks and Predatory Swiftness on Healing Touch, highlight Shred on Clearcasting, glow FB on BitW range, and highlight Wild Charge on free pvp Ravage.

[Konungr Profile]

Inline Aura is an awesome mod for feral:
http://raffy.antistupid.com/wow/ia2.jpg

Puts your buffs/debuffs right on your buttons.

I customized mine to show DoC stacks and Predatory Swiftness on Healing Touch, highlight Shred on Clearcasting, glow FB on BitW range, and highlight Wild Charge on free pvp Ravage.

You should make it highlight Thrash on Clearcasting...

[Alpheus Profile]

Inline Aura is an awesome mod for feral:
http://raffy.antistupid.com/wow/ia2.jpg

Puts your buffs/debuffs right on your buttons.

I customized mine to show DoC stacks and Predatory Swiftness on Healing Touch, highlight Shred on Clearcasting, glow FB on BitW range, and highlight Wild Charge on free pvp Ravage.

While cute, the main issue isn't tracking the timings themselves, but knowing what buffs you had when you applied the bleed. Nerien's shows ratios and DroodFocus has little bubble for some buffs, ideally there'd be an indicator showing whether the new dot's damage increase exceeds a certain threshold (ie. 12% for rake).

[Konungr Profile]

Inline Aura is an awesome mod for feral:
http://raffy.antistupid.com/wow/ia2.jpg

Puts your buffs/debuffs right on your buttons.

I customized mine to show DoC stacks and Predatory Swiftness on Healing Touch, highlight Shred on Clearcasting, glow FB on BitW range, and highlight Wild Charge on free pvp Ravage.

While cute, the main issue isn't tracking the timings themselves, but knowing what buffs you had when you applied the bleed. Nerien's shows ratios and DroodFocus has little bubble for some buffs, ideally there'd be an indicator showing whether the new dot's damage increase exceeds a certain threshold (ie. 12% for rake).

Luckily, with DroodFocus, each of the bubbles (Red - SR, Yellow - TF, Blue - DoC/NV) are all over 12% damage modifiers, the only problem now boils down to procs: Weapon Enchant, Trinket, Engineering, Agi Potion. If there were a way that we could calculate how much of a damage increase these things were, we'd be completely set. I'll get in contact with Meranannon (author of DroodFocus) and see what we have to do about setting up a Lua script or additional bubbles for some of these procs. (I requested the bubble feature for Thrash already, since it's part of our single-target rotation now too.

[Leafkiller Profile]

Luckily, with DroodFocus, each of the bubbles (Red - SR, Yellow - TF, Blue - DoC/NV) are all over 12% damage modifiers, the only problem now boils down to procs: Weapon Enchant, Trinket, Engineering, Agi Potion. If there were a way that we could calculate how much of a damage increase these things were, we'd be completely set. I'll get in contact with Meranannon (author of DroodFocus) and see what we have to do about setting up a Lua script or additional bubbles for some of these procs. (I requested the bubble feature for Thrash already, since it's part of our single-target rotation now too.

My Ovale script is taking into account weapon procs. This is definitely an limitation with what Droodfocus has done. When you contact Meranannon, the key thing that we need to know is not what buffs were used on the existing Rip/Rake, but rather how much of a DPS increase is it overwrite them at any given time - which is simply a numerical number. In Ovale we are calculating this number as a ratio: expected tick damage/current tick damage.

Also the rules for Rip and Rake early clipping are very different.

For Rake we will clip at any time if we can get at least a 12% damage increase.

For Rip (assume 5 combo points for these rules):
1. If we are in the BitW phase and the target is going to live for at least 30 seconds more, and we can get at least a 14% damage increase, then use Rip instead of FB. This is being opportunistic because FB does not do a stat refresh on Rip.
2. If we are outside of the BitW phase and we have DoC up and Rip has less than 6 seconds left and clipping it early will not result in weaker ticks, then clip it early. This takes advantage of the idea that a DoC proc is usually a dps up for Rip ticks, and protects against the times where other procs/buffs have resulted in a very high damage Rip.

We measured these in Simulationcraft, but there is a limitation in Simulationcraft in that it does not take into account AP when calculating tick damage. If we ever put support for AP into Simulationcraft we probably will be able to refine the script a little more.

The script also, of course, continues to try to refresh Rip and Rake during the last tick with some modifiers for TF, Berserk etc. These actions are largely unchanged from Cata.

[archury Profile]

how does thrash prioritize in our single target rotation now

[raffy Profile]

You should make it highlight Thrash on Clearcasting...

Yeah, but a limitation of InlineAura is that each action button can only show a buff or a debuff (not both, at least at the same time). So I keep it so I can track Thrash dot on Thrash, and Clearcasting w/TimeLeft on Shred.

We measured these in Simulationcraft, but there is a limitation in Simulationcraft in that it does not take into account AP when calculating tick damage. If we ever put support for AP into Simulationcraft we probably will be able to refine the script a little more.

What does this mean exactly?

[Leafkiller Profile]

We measured these in Simulationcraft, but there is a limitation in Simulationcraft in that it does not take into account AP when calculating tick damage. If we ever put support for AP into Simulationcraft we probably will be able to refine the script a little more.

What does this mean exactly?

Any proc that increases attack power is not currently taken into account when you use the "multiplier" checks in a Simulationcraft (simc) action list. For example "dot.rip.multiplier<tick_multiplier" is a conditional in the current feral action list and the proc from Bottle of Infinite Stars is agility, which translates to a lot of AP, but is not part of the tick_multiplier values. This is why you will see some subtle differences between my Ovale script and the action list - I have more accurate data to know when it is appropriate to clip in Ovale than I currently do in simc. I know that the logic in the action list for simc is a dps up, but I also know that if it took into account AP, it could be more accurate, with the expectation that the overall dps would be slightly higher since the simc action list has the potential to sometimes clip when it shouldn't and not clip when it should since it ignores some procs. While we could build in logic specifically for Bottle of Infinite Stars, that would lead us down the road of trying to account for every possible proc, and away from what we really want, which is the simple answer to the question "how much of a dps increase will I get on my DoTs if I clip right now?" We really need a feral specific version of tick_multiplier that takes into account AP in simc.

I was thinking about what could be done in Droodfocus that is consistent with what is currently done. Getting indicators for Rip and Rake that change colors based on dps increase ranges would be sufficient. For example, if the tick damage from clipping would go down, then use the color red. If the tick damage is between 100% and 112% mark the color yellow. If the tick damage would increase by more than 112% then show green. While the current implementation that shows what buffs were up when the Rip and Rake were previously cast is interesting, it is not answering the question we really want answered and trying to calculate these three ranges from the possible combinations of buffs can be difficult for a player, especially if there are other buffs that are not accounted for.

[irollswirldruid Profile]

noob question, what is BitW?

[Viray Profile]

BitW = Blood in the Water. Our old talent, which in MoP is baked in to feral spec. It allows you to referesh Rip with Ferocious Bite when the target is below 25% hp.

@Leaf: Droodfocus already has this indicator you're speaking of. Dunno if it's brackets are 12% etc though.

[Gurrshael Profile]

If there were a way that we could calculate how much of a damage increase these things were, we'd be completely set. I'll get in contact with Meranannon (author of DroodFocus) and see what we have to do about setting up a Lua script or additional bubbles for some of these procs.

It's not that hard to get the exact number of a running rip/rake's tick damage or its predicted damage based on current buffs in WoW. I can post here the code if you are interested.