Rage Normalization Formula

[Concillian]

Due to a lot of back and forth about the rage normalization and how it would affect people and I think a lot of people misinterpreting what it did, Tom Chilton (Kalgan) has released the rage formula here:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?t...711892&sid=1#16

Here are the current rage generation formulae (note: these are slightly different than the ones which are on the current public test realms).

The notable changes include an update to offhand rage generation (previously it was not being normalized correctly), and an improvement to rage generation from crits (essentially, crits now generate double the rage the hit would have ordinarily caused). The later change should help ensure that certain specs (ie: sword specialization) don't become clearly superior to crit-enhancing specializations like Axe/Polearm.

For Dealing Damage:
Main Hand Normal Hits: Factor=2.5
Main Hand Crits: Factor=5.0
Off Hand Normal Hits: Factor=1.25
Off Hand Crits: Factor=2.5

Rage Conversion Value (note: this number is derived from other values within the game such as a mob's hit points and a warrior's expected damage value against that mob):

Rage Conversion at level 60: 230.6
Rage Conversion at level 70: 274.7

Expansion Rage Gained from dealing damage = ((Damage Dealt) / (Rage Conversion at Your Level) * 7.5 + (Weapon Speed * Factor))/2

Pre-Expansion Rage Gained from dealing damage = (Damage Dealt) / (Rage Conversion at Your Level) * 7.5


For Taking Damage (both pre and post expansion):
Rage Gained = (Damage Taken) / (Rage Conversion at Your Level) * 2.5

[Lissa]

Due to a lot of back and forth about the rage normalization and how it would affect people and I think a lot of people misinterpreting what it did, Tom Chilton (Kalgan) has released the rage formula here:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?t...711892&sid=1#16

So in effect, the idea is to try to bring slow two handed weapons up in speed for rage generation compared to one handed weapons, ie, making Arms builds and two handed Fury builds more in line with the potential rage generation that a dual wield Fury build generates, and also to make slower tanking one handers more viable as well for rage generation vs. quick one handed tank weapons.

[lemekim]

So in effect, the idea is to try to bring slow two handed weapons up in speed for rage generation compared to one handed weapons, ie, making Arms builds and two handed Fury builds more in line with the potential rage generation that a dual wield Fury build generates, and also to make slower tanking one handers more viable as well for rage generation vs. quick one handed tank weapons.

Actually, no.

1) The normalization formula favors dual-wielding and not two-handers, because you have damage normalized from 2 different sources (albeit the off-hand is normalized to only 1/2 the value of the main-hand). So in effect, even if your DPS with a two-hander is the same as with two one-handers, your actual rage generation will be higher. Whereas pre-normalization, equal DPS meant equal rage generation.

2) Weapon speed does not play any role in how much rage you generate per second, naturally, outside of talent. It does not play a role in the old formula, nor in the new.

Overall, 2-handers will see the worst of it, in large because they are being optimized to the same number that one-handers are.

[Malakar]

So in effect, the idea is to try to bring slow two handed weapons up in speed for rage generation compared to one handed weapons, ie, making Arms builds and two handed Fury builds more in line with the potential rage generation that a dual wield Fury build generates, and also to make slower tanking one handers more viable as well for rage generation vs. quick one handed tank weapons.

Hmm, from reading your post it sounds like you got the idea that slower weapons get a bonus from this formula.

To me the formula's inclusion of weapon speed seems to be a means to produce an "expected rage per hit", for any speed weapon, which is then added to your normal rage per hit and divided by 2.

So for a 3.8 speed weapon the expected rage per hit would be 9.5. If you were getting 20 rage per hit previously, you'd now get 14.75. If you were getting 5 per hit previously, you'd now get 7.25.


The interesting thing though is that the factors don't include modifications for 2H weapons innate higher damage or offhand spec, so perhaps 1H/shield will be improved a bit in a relative sense. And while offhand spec will still increase your rage generation, it'll accelerate your diminishing returns.


Edit: Ah Lemekim beat me to it:P

[TheDragoon]

Due to a lot of back and forth about the rage normalization and how it would affect people and I think a lot of people misinterpreting what it did, Tom Chilton (Kalgan) has released the rage formula here:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?t...711892&sid=1#16

This is really unfortunate to read. I plugged in the numbers for my warrior and it looks like I'll be looking at a ~24% rage nerf compared to what I have currently when DPSing. I also ran the numbers for if I had a big 2-handed weapon (and the appropriate weapon talent for MSing) and the nerf was a bit less at ~20%. That's still pretty unfortunate, particularly when you note that the 41-point Arms talent only gives +25% rage. That means that, compared to now, Mortal Strike Warriors will have to go all the way down to 41 points in order to EQUAL their current rage generation (1.25*80% = 100% of current rage generation)... plus they don't even get Tactical Mastery by doing that (they'll have to put points into the Protection tree to pick that up). Thus, the people who said that MS warriors are going to have to put all of their additional points from leveling from 60 to 70 into talents yet they still don't reach the same level of effectiveness as they do, currently, are proven right. :(

Nerf, nerf, nerf goes the warriors! ;)

[Concillian]

I don't think anyone thought this would be anythign but a nerf to well geared warriors. It will, however, help poorly geared warriors, in that they will generate more rage than they otherwise would.

This is pretty much the meaning of normalization, so I don't know if anyone should be surprised.

[TheDragoon]

I don't think anyone thought this would be anythign but a nerf to well geared warriors. It will, however, help poorly geared warriors, in that they will generate more rage than they otherwise would.

This is pretty much the meaning of normalization, so I don't know if anyone should be surprised.

The interesting thing is that this change is *much* more of a nerf than a buff, overall. To even hit the "even" mark for rage generation between the current system and this new system, you need to be wielding a ~40 dps weapon and have less than 1200 buffed attack power. And, actually, the rage generation on the off-hand doesn't really appear to *ever* come out equal to what it is, currently. This is not what I would deem a "normalization" but a "nerf" in almost all cases.

The reason I'm surprised is that Blizzard originally stated that high-end warriors would see very little difference between their current rage generation and the generation with the new formula. I (and I'm sure many others) took that to mean that the rage generation might get a small nerf (I was thinking ~5%) with my *current* gear, but that rage generationi would be effectively capped around that point for the future. Instead, I'm looking at a 25% nerf which is quite a bit worse than was initially advertised. :(

EDIT: I just noticed that some of the numbers I'm quoting are a bit off. My initial ~25% nerf numbers were assuming a 20% armor mitigation on mobs. At that point this change is a nerf for basically all end-game gear sets with you *never* generating as much rage in the future as you do now. At around 30% armor mitigation, the very lowest end of warrior gear appears to be able to break even on the system (so no change) and at 40% mitigation is where you need less than a 40 dps weapon with 1200 buffed attack power and 20% crit to break even.

Clearly the amount of damage you deal is dependant on the armor of what you are attacking so the effect of this change gets more stark when compared to low armor mobs (since you would deal more damage so the normalization hits a lot worse) and it doesn't seem as bad when you compare it to high armor mobs.

[Malakar]

Keep in mind current gear will be blown out of the water by expansion gear, and warriors are still cooldown limited. So it may not be so bad.

I'd still like to see the factors increased for 2H weapons, something like 3/6 for normal/crit sounds in the right area to me.

[Artega]

I think it's more to keep us from mauling squishy casters and Rogues quite so quickly:)

I do believe allowing us to generate Rage off of Priest and Warlock bubbles would make up for this, however :P

[Monkey]

From Page 3, Post #46 of the original thread, a gnome named Jimboe ran the new vs. old formulas through Excel to compare the scaling among a variety of factors. I found his fourth graph (comparing rage generation across MH weapon speeds with otherwise identical stats) to be the most informative:



You can see that the old formula changed slope dramatically around 300DMG, whereas the new formula scales evenly from 100 to 1100DMG. This change is reminiscent of the Critical Rating change; replacing old non-sustainable math with something they can sustain for long haul of WoW. You can also imagine why MS was the build of choice for a long time--once white damage per hit exceeded 300, the rage per additional damage was much higher.