Are you using the correct rotation?

I just finished recording a new video guide look for it in a few days.

What to take away from it while you wait:

If you do not have improved mangle, you use a rotation of mangle->FF->x->y. Well after "y" mangle will still have .5 seconds left on its cooldown. Some mods show that as having a full second remaining, which in turn gets interpreted as an entire 1.5 second global so they use something other than mangle instead of waiting the 1/2 second. Thus using mangle every 6th global instead of 5.

The same goes for imp mangle rotations of mangle->x->y. The difference here is that not every rotation will include a FF due to the difference in mangle and FF cooldowns. So only on rotations where a FF is present between mangles will this .5 second discrepancy occur. Thus you end up using mangle every 5th global instead of every 4th. What is every worse about this than the above situation is that YOU HAVE JUST WASTED 3 TALENT POINTS if you are falling into this trap.

Community Spotlight: Sometimes Warriors know what they are talking about

As many of you know I have a level 80 alt warrior, and as such I read a lot of warrior blogs as well as feral blogs.

My favorite warrior blog is http://www.tankingtips.com/, written by a good friend and my blogging mentor Veneretio (who just happens to be a fellow tankspot author). One nice thing about it is that he also covers a lot of general tanking theory as well, some of which I have been able to apply to my druid.

One example is http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/02/24/the-trash-caps/.

For trash mobs (level 82s), the hit and expertise caps are:

177 Hit Rating (5.4%)
22 Expertise Skill (5.5%)

Thanks to Satrina (tankspot moderator) and Vene for bringing these numbers to light.

3.1 PTR Threat value tests and help with the layout

So, I finally finished a project I have been working on since beta, figuring out the threat values of each ability. I am sure other people beat me to it by now, but I have never seen it actually posted and I swore to myself I would finish it the next time the PTR was up. The only thing I was not able to get was cat data, largely because I did not have time before my trip. So here it is.

edit: Did not really work the way I hoped, so the link to my full write up at Tankspot is posted above. Wow, that was easier than it looked, thoughts on the new layout anyone? Also, if anyone knows how to change the color of links on the main page verses the actual single article pages, could you please let me know (compare: main vs single). See you guys on the 7th.

Bear multiplier_____ 207.35
Cat form multiplier_____ .71
Rage gains from Primal Fury and Natural Reaction_____ 1 rage = 5 threat (not modified by stance)
Rage gained from furor_____ 0 threat
Rage gained from enrage_____ 20730 threat for the full 20 rage = 100 threat normalized * stance for all 20 rage
Survival Instincts_____ 4147 threat = 20 threat normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Bash_____ 158 normalized * stance (tested with 0/1/2 out of 2 Brutal impact)
Feral Charge_____ 8294 then 16588 = normalized to 40 then 80 * stance (when feral charging something that is both interrupt and snare immune it gives 0 threat)
Improved Leader of the Pack heals_____ 0 threat
Berserk_____ 12441 = 60 threat normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Clearcasting proc_____ 2073 threat normalized to 10 * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Mangle_____ Damage done * stance
Maul_____ (422 + damage done) * stance
Infected Wounds_____ 0 threat (tested at 0/1/2/3 out of 3)
Barkskin_____ 9123 = 44 normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Nature's Grasp_____ 16173 = 78 normalized * stance (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Thorns_____ Damage done * stance
Demo Roar_____ 12772 threat normalized to 61.59 * stance (constant at 0/1/2/3/4/5 out of 5 Feral Aggression) (confirmed to split among all mobs it hits)
Faerie Fire Feral_____ (36 + 638 + damage done) * stance
Frenzied Regen healing_____ 1 point of healing = .5 threat * stance modifier (assumed to split among all mobs in combat)
Lacerate (Initial_____ (.5*damage + 515) * stance
Lacerate (Bleed_____ .5*damage done * stance
Swipe_____ (1.5 * damage) * stance (tested at 0/1/2/3 out of 3 Feral Instinct then retested again at 0/1/2/3 out of 3 Feral Instinct with Idol of Perspicacious Attacks - Item - World of Warcraft equipped just to be thorough and as expected nothing changed but the damage)
Savage Defense_____ 0 threat

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Faerie Fire: Better than Swipe?

Reposted here and here some additional thoughts, please leave comments there for discussion as I will be disabling comments here.

Now, this was not what I originally had planned for this week (I promise I will post the socket guide next week), but I was asked a question on tankspot that got me thinking. Using FF on live in your rotation is not viable due to the "more powerful spell active" bug that has been in the game since LK beta and is still not fixed. Even with 5 minute FF on PTR, this bug still is around, so visit this post on the wow forums and bump it please.

With the buff to FFF's ap conversion on the PTR, will replacing a swipe with FF in your single target rotation result in higher TPS?

Assumptions:
FFF's crit rate is based off spell crit
10% spell crit (I have 8.75 tooltip, plus raid buffs this is probably a low asumption)
40% melee crit (37% tooltip unbuffed)
FFF hits for 730 (without mark this is what mine was hitting for with 4865 AP, please let me know if that is an unreasonable assumption)

Known:
FFF crits at x1.5
Swipe crits at x2
FFF crits do not proc SD
Innate threat of FFF is 674

-math-

Threat in this example is 1 point of damage gives 100 points of threat (blizzard uses 2 invisible decimals for threat that do not show up in game but do on the mod I use)
Casting FF in caster form gives 3600 threat
Casting FFF in bear gives two separate threat values, the 1st one is 132289, which is the innate threat. It then applies damage and with a 731 FFF, the number jumps to 291327.
Now, (291327-132289)/207.35 (the stance modifier) = 767 - damage done = 36 which as we already discovered is the base threat of FF in caster form.
Finally, take the 132289 threat from before divided by the stance modifier gives 637.99855 or 638, added to 36, gives us 674

SS's of three different values of FFF damage if you want to check the numbers yourself:
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4584/fffthreat.jpg
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2699/fffthreat2.jpg
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2456/fffthreat3.jpg

Now, to find the average value of FFF threat we need to take 730+674 which gives us 1404 threat. A crit is (730*1.5)+674 which gives us 1769 threat.
This gives us (1404*.9)+(1769*.1)=1440.5

In order for swipe to be more threat than FFF we set x to be the damage of swipe. x*1.5 and 2x*1.5 are the values of swipe threat for a non crit and a crit respectively.
This gives us (1.5x*.6)+(3x*.4)=.9x+1.2x=2.1x

1440.5/2.1=685.95=686

(1.5*686*.6)+(3*686*.4)=617.4+823.2=1440.6

-math-

Now, one thing I was not aware of while doing this testing is that on live, the max rank of FF is actually 152 threat in caster (rank 1 on live does 36 threat in caster), as opposed to the only rank on PTR being 36. This worried me because, even thought 10% ap is much more than 116, it might not be as good as I thought it was when embarking on this process. Until I ran the numbers on live and discoved the base bear form threat of FF was only 480. When blizzard removed the ranks on PTR they added that extra 116 threat directly into bear form instead of keeping it on the base ability. This means that one live, the innate threat of FFF in bear is 480+152 for 632 at max rank. That is a net result of a 42 base threat increase in bear on PTR even with the reduction of the caster form threat.

Conclusion:
Live FFF vs PTR FFF: threat increase of 42+ 10% of your ap.
Swipe must do at least 686 non crit to be worth using over a completely unbuffed FFF. While testing swipe at the same time as FF it was hitting for 394 unbuffed with 3/3 Feral Instinct.
Raid buffs that give AP in bear (might/battle shout, HoW/SoE, UR/TSA/AM will add a minimum of 215 damage to FF), underestimating the crit of FF, and possibly overestimating the crit of swipe will all 3 only increase the number at which swipe must hit for to surpass FF.
Realistic but non mathamatically proven guess, swipe will need to be about 800 damage non crit to be more threat than FF when accounting for crit percentages.

Blizzard, you finally gave us an ability to use instead of mangle, swipe, swipe on single targets, PLEASE fix the bug preventing us from using it as it is going to be an integral part of our rotation next patch.