Windfury Totem vs Grace of Air Totem

[Kevin]

OK so this post has changed I was trying to do an analysis and realized I kept screwing it up so now I'm asking a question.

So the conventional wisdom I hear is that warriors want windfury totem and rogues want grace of air totem when trying to max out damage. I've been in some conversations that make me wonder about this.

Windfury totem:
Enchants main hand weapon giving you a 20% chance per hit to get an extra attack that has an additional 315 AP.

Grace of Air totem:
77 agi can be improved by 15% to grant 88.55 agi.

Rogues:
29 agi = 1% crit
1 agi = 1 AP
1 agi = 2 armor
14.5 agi = 1% dodge

Warriors:
20 agi = 1% crit
1 agi = 2 armor
20 agi = 1% dodge

So a talented GoA is
Rogues:
3.05% crit
88.5 AP
6.10 % dodge
177 armor

Warriors
4.43% crit
4.43% dodge
177 armor


Rage Generation:
Rage for damage done: Damage / (charLevel * 0.5)
Rage for getting hit: Damage / (charLevel * 1.5)

When a lvl 60 hits:
100 damage = 3.3 rage
500 damage = 16.6 rage
1000 damage = 33.3 rage

When a lvl 60 gets hit:
100 damage = 1.1 rage
500 damage = 5.5 rage
1000 damage = 11.1 rage

Getting hit doesn't really matter because I'm wondering about damage on a tanked mob.

I'm posting because I start to fall down when doing WoW calculations I'm not good at factoring in special attacks and dealing with the way the hit tables work.

Now I'm not clear on this (which is sad since it so basic to the game):

Damage = (Avg Weapon Damage) + ( (AP/14) * wspd )
DPS = (Avg Weap Dmg)/wspd + (AP/14)

Instant attacks use normalized weapons speeds for all that right?
* Two-handed weapons - 3.3
* Daggers - 1.7
* All other one-handed weapons - 2.4


So yeah I was trying to work this out but kept failing. At first blush WF still seems like it will beat out GoA for a rogue but I'm failing at the math (I'll blame it on differential equaions being the last math class I had and that was now 10 years ago).

[Concillian]

I'm the one who brought this up initially in-game, and can't think of any significant factor that would push a rogue to benefit more from GoA than a seal fate build that gives additional combo points on a crit special attack. Even then a 20% chance at an extra main hand attack with +315AP seems tough to overcome with a small amount of crit and a slightly larger benefit from AP.

No need to calcualte warriors, Conc gets very close to a straight 20% DPS boost from WF in tanking gear or DPS gear, and there is no chance for GoA to catch up with that unless the mitigation is necessary.

I think to start we want to look at the most beneficial case for GoA, which would be a seal fate / backstab build. What is an average damage per CP and what kind of main hand sequence would you get for energy usage? Surely Quark knows these things off the top of his head =P.

[Quark]

This was discussed over on Basin forums awhile back. As a warning, anything I say must be taken with the caveat that I can't test jack. I'm alliance scum, so all I have to go off of is the Combat Dagger spreadsheet (interesting note: Kalman, one of the best math-theory Rogues around, managed to get within 1 DPS of the spreadsheet's listed rating on Ebonroc, one of the most ideal bosses for reaching ideal DPS).

Let's update my numbers to reflect my current gear (and some spreadsheet updates). I'll also go typical buffs (Wild, Battleshout that affect damage) this time, since that's a more realistic scenario. Offhand stays Instant Poison V the whole time.

Stats: 35.63% Crit, 1257 AP, 110 Average damage 1.8 Speed MH w/ +5 Dmg enchant. BF 7/8, so 5% bonus to Poison procs.

No Totem, No MH Poison: 478.16 DPS

Instant VI: 496.06 DPS

Deadly V: 506.25 DPS

Windfury: 520.61 DPS

Grace of Air: 504.10 DPS

GoA + Instant VI: 522.00 DPS

GoA + Deadly V: 532.19 DPS

Improved GoA (floored to 88) seems to give ~3.77 DPS increase

I did a little messing around with the Combat Swords spreadsheet (which isn't release version yet, i.e. the authors know it's still bugged) and for comparable gear got a best case scenario of 514.48 Windfury versus 509.08 GoA + Instant and 519.02 GoA + Deadly. Poisons don't benefit a sword rogue as much.

The other key here is that Windfury scales much better (20% of MH average, essentially) then GoA (poisons don't scale at all, so you're pretty much left with the crit bonus). So the numbers start in GoA's favor but lean towards WF as time goes on.

Seal Fate is a different beast altogether. The plus of Seal Fate is combo point generation, the minus of it is it doesn't scale nearly as well. I'm not sure how to do the math on it, honestly. My gut instinct tells me that the extra CP generation is a red herring - I did spec Combat Dagger because I thought any finisher beyond Slice and Dice was a waste endgame, remember? A more compelling argument would be that to get Seal Fate, most rogues put at least some points into Improved Instant Poison (soon to be Improved Poisons), and thus they miss out on more if Windfury prevents them from equipping a poison.

Unless Chalon's sheet is out of whack for Windfury (which I doubt, because at one point it was and horde Rogues complained until it was changed), poisons seem to be the key here.

Of course, if there's a warrior in your group (and there should be! Battleshout is huge!), the answer is easily Windfury. The big jump in WF for a warrior is much better than the small increase in GoA is for a poison-equipped Rogue.

[Concillian]

The other key here is that Windfury scales much better (20% of MH average, essentially) then GoA (poisons don't scale at all, so you're pretty much left with the crit bonus). So the numbers start in GoA's favor but lean towards WF as time goes on.

This does seem to be the case. I put in more normal gear we are seeing (high quality blues + some PvP gear like AV gear) with Mark, Battle shout, and trueshot.
~12 DPS higher for Imp. GoA and instant poison

I think RL instructions have been to not use Deadly, So I'm comparing with instant.

Sword with similar gear was less than a 2 DPS difference between improved GoA and WF with similar gear, favoring Improved GoA. Normal GoA caused WF to top out by less than 1 DPS.

Interesting none-the-less. I'm a little surprised by the margin that GoA beats WF on daggers, but I guess that's what this thread is for.

It seems like at our gearing levels:
3 Sword with any warrior = WF for sure.
3 dagger with DW warrior = GoA for sure
3 dagger with 2H warrior = push
3 mixed with 2H warrior = WF by a lesser margin
3 mixed with DW warrior = probably a push
2 rogues with 1 or 2 warriors = WF

[Treesh]

Interesting none-the-less. I'm a little surprised by the margin that GoA beats WF on daggers, but I guess that's what this thread is for.

It seems like at our gearing levels:
3 Sword with any warrior = WF for sure.
3 dagger with DW warrior = GoA for sure
3 dagger with 2H warrior = push
3 mixed with 2H warrior = WF by a lesser margin
3 mixed with DW warrior = probably a push
2 rogues with 1 or 2 warriors = WF

Thanks! This is really what I wanted to know. It felt that way, but I wasn't sure. I'm sure I've been driving my rogues and warriors nuts as I have GoA down on one pull and WF on another pull when the groups haven't changed as I was doing some testing.:D

[Quark]

Interesting none-the-less. I'm a little surprised by the margin that GoA beats WF on daggers, but I guess that's what this thread is for.

Don't forget that some of that on my part was because I have 3/8 BF constantly. 5% more procs on Instant Poison is actually a 25% increase in IP damage - it is additive, not multiplicative. 25% procrate over 20%, 25/20 = 1.25.

It's why Improved Instant Poison, while useless in some cases, is pretty much better than the alternatives when going for Seal Fate. It's a 50% increase in IP damage. Post-patch it'll also have the (mostly) PvP benefit of affecting all other poisons. On paper, it seems like a nerf to Deadly Poisons part (10% instead of 15%, leading to 40% procrate instead of 45%). In truth, my 35% (30+BF) is often more than enough to keep 5 Deadly on a target that I'm constantly attacking. 40% Deadly is plenty.

[ZugzwangZeitgeist]

OK so this post has changed I was trying to do an analysis and realized I kept screwing it up so now I'm asking a question.

So the conventional wisdom I hear is that warriors want windfury totem and rogues want grace of air totem when trying to max out damage. I've been in some conversations that make me wonder about this.

I question whether that is actually the "conventional wisdom". From talking to experienced raiding guilds, and from virtually all the math I've ever seen, rogues get Windfury. Period.

Even if Windfury ends up giving rogues slightly less damage than GoA to rogues, you should probably be using windfury so you can group up rogues and warriors, since rogues must always receive Battleshout. Rogues get grouped with a warrior who gives them battleshout, and everyone gets Windfury. I also can tell you flat out that at high levels of raiding Windfury is virtually always superior to GoA because it scales so dramatically while GoA barely scales at all.

Rogues must have Battleshout, all warriors should have Windfury if possible. The difference this makes is ridiculious at the highest levels of gameplay and if your raid leaders can't manage to at least try to fulfill this they really shouldn't be leading raids. Thats sort of a jab at my old guild which was run with an incredible level of incompetence. We were lucky if the rogues got any buffs - it was miserable. I was a warrior and I had to advocate for them, mainly by volunteering to get grouped with them, and when I brought this up to the other guild officers I got a stern lecture from one of our hunters about how in our guild the hunters top the damage charts so we should give them GoA. I'm not sure if he understood the ridiculiousness of denying rogues damage buffs under the criteria that they never seem to do as much damage as they should.;)

[Mavfin]

I question whether that is actually the "conventional wisdom". From talking to experienced raiding guilds, and from virtually all the math I've ever seen, rogues get Windfury. Period.

Even if Windfury ends up giving rogues slightly less damage than GoA to rogues, you should probably be using windfury so you can group up rogues and warriors, since rogues must always receive Battleshout. Rogues get grouped with a warrior who gives them battleshout, and everyone gets Windfury. I also can tell you flat out that at high levels of raiding Windfury is virtually always superior to GoA because it scales so dramatically while GoA barely scales at all.

Rogues must have Battleshout, all warriors should have Windfury if possible. The difference this makes is ridiculious at the highest levels of gameplay and if your raid leaders can't manage to at least try to fulfill this they really shouldn't be leading raids. Thats sort of a jab at my old guild which was run with an incredible level of incompetence. We were lucky if the rogues got any buffs - it was miserable. I was a warrior and I had to advocate for them, mainly by volunteering to get grouped with them, and when I brought this up to the other guild officers I got a stern lecture from one of our hunters about how in our guild the hunters top the damage charts so we should give them GoA. I'm not sure if he understood the ridiculiousness of denying rogues damage buffs under the criteria that they never seem to do as much damage as they should.;)

I give GoA or WF depending on the grouping I'm with as the shaman. If I have warriors, it's WF, if it's rogues, they get the one they want, I'll ask, and if it's hunters, they get GoA.

Simple.

Lurkers generally don't bother with 'conventional wisdom' and 'everyone does it this way', so I'll not comment on your comments about 'any competent raid leader' and all that. Yes, that one *does* sound incompetent, but that has little to do with WF vs GoA for rogues, which is the subject of the thread, and *one* warrior in a group for Battleshout does not make the case for WF over GoA. I have a feeling you're assuming a 2h-using warrior, rather than the dw-fury variety, who may be just as happy with the extra agi for more crits. As I stated, I use WF or GoA depending on the group I'm putting totems down for. I don't make pronouncements till I see the group and its makeup.

Of course, in Lurker raids, you have lots of different builds, so you can't count on any class being any particular build, unlike a lot of raid guilds, which say that X class will be Y build or it won't be raiding.

All things to think about.

[ZugzwangZeitgeist]

Lurkers generally don't bother with 'conventional wisdom' and 'everyone does it this way', so I'll not comment on your comments about 'any competent raid leader' and all that.

I assumed you valued competency and understanding of game mechanics over conventional wisdom. I wasn't the one that brought that up.

Yes, that one *does* sound incompetent, but that has little to do with WF vs GoA for rogues, which is the subject of the thread, and *one* warrior in a group for Battleshout does not make the case for WF over GoA.

So, in a party of three rogues, one warrior and a shaman you'd gimp the warrior in order to give a marginal, potentially non-existant advantage to the three rogues? Windfury will increase a warrior's damage output by a ridiculious percentage, on the order of 20-30%. If you are not giving your DPS warriors windfury, you are not giving them the right totem.

I have a feeling you're assuming a 2h-using warrior, rather than the dw-fury variety, who may be just as happy with the extra agi for more crits.

I'm not, and he or she wouldn't be. 3-4% additional crit isn't even remotely comparable to windfury, regardless of weapon type.

As I stated, I use WF or GoA depending on the group I'm putting totems down for. I don't make pronouncements till I see the group and its makeup.

Right, but the circumstances under which Windfury would be inferior to Grace of Air in a raid situation are obscure and eventually non-existant. It's not a matter of preference or group make-up, it's a matter of the nature and numbers of both totems.

Of course, in Lurker raids, you have lots of different builds, so you can't count on any class being any particular build, unlike a lot of raid guilds, which say that X class will be Y build or it won't be raiding.

:wacko:

[Kevin]

Let's update my numbers to reflect my current gear (and some spreadsheet updates). I'll also go typical buffs (Wild, Battleshout that affect damage) this time, since that's a more realistic scenario. Offhand stays Instant Poison V the whole time.

OK, how do you get it to use windfury?

I grabbed both spreadsheets from your link. I can't find a windfury check box anywhere, just strength of earth and grace of air and I'm starting to become a frustrated idiot. I'm just trying to do some theorycraft and don't want to reinvent the wheel if it's out there, but I'm not seeing how to get it to do calcs with windfury.... Or are you just manually doing that?

[Quark]

Took me a bit my first time too.

Windfury is in as a temporary weapon enchant, in the same list as poisons and stones.