GoA vs. WF Totem Debate

[Kailand]

I did some number crunching to try to help resolve the ongoing GoA vs WF debate that is currently going on in the Gruul's lair raid. This analysis is strictly based on auto-attack unbuffed DPS boost from each without any other temporary weapon enchants (poisons/sharpening stones, etc), and I am using a lower DPS than the people actually in the raid, and assuming every attack hits.

Our sample rogue will have a 170 DPS with his main hand weapon and a 130 DPS with his offhand weapon.

Our sample fury warrior will have 200 DPS with his main hand weapon and a 130 DPS with his offhand weapon.

Our sample enhancment shamman will have 170 DPS with his main hand weapon and a 130 DPS with his offhand weapon.

Our sample Feral druid will have 200 DPS in cat form.

Warriors and Enhancment Shammans do not gain ap from agi, but instead gain crit at a rate of 33 agi==1% crit (warrior), and 25 agi==1% crit (Shaman).

Rogues gain 1 AP/Agi and 40 agi == 1% crit, while cat druids gain 1 AP/agi and 25 AGI == 1% crit. (numbers from http://blogs.pixelprodigy.net/?page_id=112 and http://druid.wikispaces.com/Druid_Game_Mechanics).

Finally for all classes 14 AP = +1 DPS.

Now assumming that the GoA totem put down is the talent enhanced one, there will be a +89 AGI buff from this.

Using the formula:

DPS_Gain = (Total_Tooltip_DPS + GoA_DPS_gain)*(1+GoA_Crit_Gain) - Total_Tooltip_DPS

as the basis in calculating the DPS benefits from GoA (I realize I am ignoring the tool tip crit rate - but that is going to be a very small factor in the change of DPS for a more complicated analysis)

so our rogue gains = (170 + 130 + 89/14)*(1+89/40*0.01)-(170+130) = 13.2 DPS

our warrior gains = (200 + 130)*(1+89/33*0.01)-(200+130) = 8.9 DPS

our shaman gains = (170 + 130)*(1+89/25*0.01)-(170+130) = 10.7 DPS

and our cat druid gains = (200+89/14)*(1+89/25*0.01)-(200) = 13.7 DPS

Now windfury totem has a 20% chance of providing an extra attack with +445 AP, and is considered a temporary weapon enchant, which is only applied to the main hand weapon. Now, our Shaman and cat druid won't benefit from the wind fury totem - the Shaman should be using the windfury weapon enchant, and cat druid don't proc any thing from their weapons.

On average the WF totem applies an extra attack in for every 5 attacks, and that extra attack gets the +445 AP boost. So the math is (ignoring crit):

DPS_Gain = (MainHand_ToolTip_DPS * 6 +445/14)/5 - MainHand_ToolTip_DPS

so our rogue gains = (170*6 + 445/14)/5 - 170 = 40.4 DPS

and our warrior gains = (200*6 + 445/14)/5 - 200 = 46.4 DPS

This means that the DPS gain for a group of 5 physical DPS'rs will be better for GoA if there is only one rogue/fury warrior. if there is more than one rogue/fury warrior than WF is the better choice.

Now for the sake of argument, say that the DPS of everyone was doubled, then under GoA:

so our rogue gains = (170*2 + 130*2 + 89/14)*(1+89/40*0.01)-(170*2+130*2) = 19.8 DPS

our warrior gains = (200*2 + 130*2)*(1+89/33*0.01)-(200*2+130*2) = 17.8 DPS

our shaman gains = (170*2 + 130*2)*(1+89/25*0.01)-(170*2+130*2) = 21.36 DPS

and our cat druid gains = (200*2+89/14)*(1+89/25*0.01)-(200*2) = 20.8 DPS

and then under WF:

so our rogue gains = (170*2*6 + 445/14)/5 - 170*2 =74.4 DPS

and our warrior gains = (200*2*6 + 445/14)/5 - 200*2 = 86.4 DPS

Lets say the Weapon DPS of both weapons was equal, then for GoA:

so our rogue gains = (170 + 170 + 89/14)*(1+89/40*0.01)-(170+170) = 14.1 DPS

our warrior gains = (200 + 200)*(1+89/33*0.01)-(200+200) = 10.8 DPS

our shaman gains = (170 + 170)*(1+89/25*0.01)-(170+170) = 12.1 DPS

Which still isn't enough to make it better than WF totem in groups with more than 1 DPS Warrior/Rogue.

Now the question could be asked, what about poisons, and other temporary weapon enchants... I do not really know myself. Maybe somebody else can add that in.

Flametongue says it adds 19.4 to 59.7 Damage to each hit, with a weapon speed of 2, that is a minimum 10 DPS gain for the Warrior and the Rogue using Flame tongue, but even that will not offset the damage gain by WF totem.

I hope this helps in the discussion.

[Rhoach]

Concerning rogues:

As far as mutilate rogues go, they're quite dependent on crippling poisons for envenoms, and the poison overwrites the wf, so it would be useless in that respect.

Lotta rogues use daggers, which are very fast, and don't gain as much benefit from an extra attack as a big slow two-handed axe.

Only rogues I could see who could get a lot of benefit outta this would be a rogue using two slow weapons, such as a maces or 1-handed swords who didn't care about losing his poison a whole lot. *shrugs*

[Kailand]

Actually, weapon speed is not important with WF totem, the average DPS gain will be the same regardless of weapon speed due to the law of large numbers. As for poisons, what is the dps gain of using poisons? Also it seems most of the high end content rogues are combat rogues, and I've been told that their poison isn't all that good.

[Baracko]

Welp, if the math is correct, it appears that many of us stand corrected, most especially me! ;p

Thanks for the info, Kail!

- Bar, the wrong.

[Scryll]

This has come up before, so I thought I'd do something more involved than previously. I'm not much of a number-cruncher myself, but I have an excellent spreadsheet for modelling sustained rogue DPS, developed by one of the better number-crunchers on the rogue forums, Kalman and most recently maintained by another, PF. Here I'm using it to model mutilate, combat daggers, combat fists, and combat swords *this is going to be inaccurate, people are still trying to figure out the modelling for the sword-spec since the recent patch changed it significantly* raiding builds. I'll be presenting several different gear sets for each, building mostly on the tier sets for convenience purposes, and will assume only raid-wide buffs besides the shaman group buffs.

Combat daggers 15/41/5.

Dungeon set, with windfury: 929.25 sustained dps.

Dungeon set with GoA and poison: 947.14 sustained dps.

Tier 4 set with windfury: 961.93 sustained dps

Tier 4 set with GoA/poison: 971.78 sustained dps

Tier 5 set with windfury: 1105.44 sustained dps

Tier 5 set with GoA/poison: 1118.73 sustained dps

Combat Swords 17/44/0

Dungeon set with windfury: 907.77 sustained dps

Dungeon set with GoA/poison: 908.81 sustained dps

Tier 4 set with Windfury: 948.40 sustained dps

Tier 4 set with GoA/poison: 933.49 sustained dps

Tier 5 set with Windfury: 1123.96 sustained dps

Tier 5 set with GoA/poison: 1105.72 sustained dps

Combat Fists 17/44/0

Dungeon set with windfury: 917.30 sustained dps

Dungeon set with GoA/poison: 911.75 sustained dps

Tier 4 set with Windfury: 946.77 sustained dps

Tier 4 set with GoA/poison: 934.83 sustained dps

Tier 5 set with Windfury: 1137.42 sustained dps

Tier 5 set with GoA/poison: 1117.16 sustained dps

Mutilate

Dungeon set with windfury: 869.61

Dungeon set with GoA/poison: 901.99

Tier 4 set with Windfury: 938.21

Tier 4 set with GoA/poison: 966.71

Tier 5 set with Windfury: 1058.07

Tier 5 set with GoA/poison: 1078.71

Edited June 18, 2007 by Scryll

[Volonazra]

Hmm, yes interesting, numbers..formulas...critical analysis. oh no, no no no ARRGH **head kersplode**

Speaking as a shaman (sometimes), the "math" should be taken with a grain of salt. If raw dps is the only thing you want from a totem the math is plain and hard to refute (given its valid and all). WF would seems to be the totem of choice based on no other knowlege or understanding.

However, what the math doesnt tell you is that the actual (hands on) mechanics are much more complicated than that. When you consider all the spell buffs, auras, potions, foods, etcetc the math gets way too overwhelming. It comes down to knowing what is going on in your group and using the totem that best suits the team. I think shamans are widely misunderstood, poorly played, and discounted as a good party class (another thread entirely). When, in fact, its my opinion that they are the high on the list of most group friendly class.

When playing as a shaman, I dont consider just dps for my totem usage. Instead, I place totems that would greater benefit the group. For example: GoA/WF will certainly help dps, but if the tank is a druid already struggling keeping aggro, WF is not the right totem to use.

Some random notes from experience: The way overlooked Flametongue totem can be increased by talents and is also increased by +damage gear and "trinket pushing".

Weapon speed is WAY important for burst damage, and therefore, usefull in a pvp situtation. <--see?

[Baracko]

I am on the same page as you Vol. I have never really been a raw dps guy. Many would say that we might have gotten a little carried away when the expansion came out with WF crits, and I would agree with them. In the end, I'm a goal-seeker like everyone else.

I guess the thing that got my goat in the argument was the demand of WF. As I told others involved, they're my damn totems, and I think I'm a competent enough player to choose which ones to drop. I personally like V's take: "You think you can do it better? Go roll a shaman and drop your own totems!" Furthermore, as many have also said, the % difference that the totem will cause is inconsequential at this point when you think of how far that run is from killing Gruul.

After last week, we're getting closer, but we're not THAT close yet.

Either way, the math is done. Technically, it looks in favor of WF, but there are intangibles.

- Bar

Edited June 19, 2007 by Baracko

[Waldonnis]

I guess the thing that got my goat in the argument was the demand of WF. As I told others involved, their my damn totems, and I think Im a competent enough player to choose which ones to drop.

I think that is what I keep coming back to in my own mind, and is very reminiscent of my experiences as a paladin...people LOVE to tell buffing classes how to play because what you do affects them directly. Back then, if you were a rogue, you didn't get Might unless our tanks were fantastic and better geared than everyone else (and the rogues weren't stupid about aggro)...no, you got Salvation to keep you alive longer The people didn't like it at first, but the results spoke for themselves...rogues stayed up longer, dealt more damage overall, and could push harder because they didn't have to feint as often or scale back on their attack timing quite as much. Aggro mitigation is expencive compared to pre-applied buffs, both in terms of GCD and energy/mana/rage use, so in any discussion about this type of thing, those factors MUST be considered.

In the end, it boils down to "big picture" thinking vs. "me" thinking (in a non-offencive way). If I only care about maximising my personal damage, of course I would want to advocate that any external factors work in my favour....and who doesn't like to see big numbers in their combat logs? But, from a bigger picture standpoint (and we'll focus on rogues for a second here, but the logic applies to other classes as well), the proper totem or buff selection may end up being different when you take the math and factor in DPE (damage per energy used...yeah, I'm making up new acronyms) and healing required. In some cases, it may very well be simple and support traditional thinking (e.g. WF being the default), but I suspect that would only really apply to a minority of encounters post-BC.

Brutal honesty, if any arguments ensue about buffing selection in a raid, my long-standing rule is this: if the person vehemently telling me how to play/buff does not have every elixir/flask possible up and every one of the best enchants on the best gear available to them to that point, then they aren't doing their part to maximise their own damage BEFORE my buff is applied...and I evaluate it all from that perspective. Yeah, it's not the nicest way to look at things, but things like enchants and elixirs do far more than a totem would on its own. Buffs are and always have been a way to make encounters easier...they are not required for any of them (insert obvious lack of fear ward reference here).

Edited June 19, 2007 by Waldonnis

[Huato]

Why does everyone in the discussion of GOA vs WF always overlook the dodge/parry benefit of GoA? It's not simply a DPS add totem - it's much more than that. With improved totems from the enhancement tree, it adds a nice boost to a MT's ability to dodge and parry as well as get critical strikes, not to mention what it can do for a rogue.

[Baracko]

Didn't you know, Huato? DPS is all that matters!

[Waldonnis]

Didn't you know, Huato? DPS is all that matters!

Agreed! And every boss is a tank-n-spank...no tactics required

There, the matter is settled...we now return you to the regularly scheduled program

[Huato]

Agreed! And every boss is a tank-n-spank...no tactics required

There, the matter is settled...we now return you to the regularly scheduled program

And here I thought tanks liked to be spanked!

[Rhoach]

To further complicate matters...

You have to take into account the differing benefits that classes get from agility. Warriors get different crit rating per agi from rogues, for example.

Also, individual specs may affect this. For example, as a subtlety rogue, Rhoach gets +15% to his agility (this applies to gear bonuses and buffs as well) so he gets a bit more than the average character from GoA. Also, he gets the same bonus to his attack power, except it's 10%. Seeing as how his agility boosts his attack power, he gets a double bonus (agility getting boosted, boosting his attack power more, which in turn gets an additional 10% boost).

Yay complicated!

[Scryll]

Why does everyone in the discussion of GOA vs WF always overlook the dodge/parry benefit of GoA? It's not simply a DPS add totem - it's much more than that. With improved totems from the enhancement tree, it adds a nice boost to a MT's ability to dodge and parry as well as get critical strikes, not to mention what it can do for a rogue.

Agility adds parry rating? I didn't know that. It can't add all that much.

[Huato]

Pretty sure it helps parry, but I could be wrong.

But the additional dodge for a MT is very helpful - ask a healer how much more helpful this is!

And as Rhoach put it, the extra agility really helps a rogue for dps too.

[Vendes]

Pretty sure it helps parry, but I could be wrong.

But the additional dodge for a MT is very helpful - ask a healer how much more helpful this is!

Yes! Tanks these days need their magic defense number, but after that it is all about avoidance. The more you avoid the less you have to be healed and therefore the less likely you will go down.

[Kailand]

According to my reading, Avoidance in only more important for the 5 and 10 man stuff, after which, the healers need to do preventative healing, as opposed to reactive healing that most are used to (note, in BC RAIDS overhealing is ok, and prefered). This is because the bosses hit fast and hard (multiple 4k+ hits in a sec or 2), so big overlapping heals coordinated between the healers are prefered, with the tank stacking stam and armor so he has more of a safety margin. If healers try to reactively heal this type of damage, the tank will go down before any heals go off.

This is especially true of the Gruul fight, if the healers are only reactively healing the main tank, then the raid has no chance at success, as after a few growths he is hitting the main tank for 8K+. The best healer strategy is for healers to offset their largest mana efficient heals by about half a second from eachother so the tank is always getting heals. For the main tank, getting stam is a guaranteed way of having a safety margin - avoidance is too streaky to be relied on.

On another note, this threadwas started in the context of 25 man raids such as Gruul's Lair, so the arguments about GoA for the main tank, increase rogues dodge, etc. are a moot point. DPS is the primary concern here. If in a particular grouping WF totem gives more overall DPS than GoA does, then it should be used in a raid. in small groups (10 man kara, and 5 man instances) GoA should be used for the avoidance.

Edited June 29, 2007 by Kailand

[Baracko]

WF is fo' loosa's!

[Volonazra]

...Avoidance in only more important for the 5 and 10 man stuff, after which, the healers need to do preventative healing, as opposed to reactive healing that most are used to (note, in BC RAIDS overhealing is ok, and prefered). This is because the bosses hit fast and hard (multiple 4k+ hits in a sec or 2), so big overlapping heals coordinated between the healers are prefered, with the tank stacking stam and armor so he has more of a safety margin. If healers try to reactively heal this type of damage, the tank will go down before any heals go off.

Agreed, from experience and reading the number crunchers findings this is certainly the case.

...On another note, this threadwas started in the context of 25 man raids such as Gruul's Lair, so the arguments about GoA for the main tank, increase rogues dodge, etc. are a moot point. DPS is the primary concern here. If in a particular grouping WF totem gives more overall DPS than GoA does, then it should be used in a raid. in small groups (10 man kara, and 5 man instances) GoA should be used for the avoidance.

I think Kailand is right again and this is generally valid (with the knowledge that many factors may contribute to this not being the law.)

As side note, For Warriors @70: ~30agi = 1%dodge and ~33agi = 1% Crit. Agi does nothing for parry, nor block.

Therefor, general gain from GoA is 2-3%dodge/crit. This should not be a major concideration when shaman choose totems.

[Huato]

Interestingly enough, Gruul is a ranged dps fight. Avoiding an 8k+ hit is a big bonus, even with the preventative and over-healing that is going on.

When I was attending the Gruul raids (and killing him), it was more ranged than melee dps on Gruul, and GoA was down for the MT and OT to help avoid those hits. Being able to avoid one shot during a shatter or silence is paramount, especially once he is over 6 growths, even with a ton of HoT's on the MT.

[Vendes]

Agreed getting hit = bad news

[Kailand]

The problem is you cannot rely on avoidance as it is random (unless you have 100% avoidance). It helps, that is for sure, but it shouldn't be relied on.

[Yuzuki]

So how i see it is, it all depends on the spec of the rouges/how many/maybe a dps war, if you only have one rouge with you then you probly want GoA, sure math wise it may have a little more dps but the variable needed is skill/spec of the rogue as well as gear and yadda yadda....As well as Fast weapons do not benefit nearly as much as slow weps((Windfury being crap for daggers and weapons around 1.70/1.80 or so)) Wich is the need to look at the spec of the rouge. In the end i see GoA as a overall better choice unless it's like 1 shaman with 4 rogues in a raid. With WF theres ALOT of variables that change consistantly that is rediculously hard to calculate that makes it unneeded for 1 or maybe 2 rouges/a dps war.

Edited July 8, 2007 by Yuzuki

[Huato]

Then there's the proc part of WF totem to factor in too. Anyone that's ever played a Shaman with a big slow 2 hander knows how erratic wf can be.

At least with GoA you know what you are getting 100% of the time.

And as a Shaman that relies on self WF buffs, the WF totem is useless.