You are here

Home

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft may be one of the better games of the decade. It is certainly the highest grossing game in existence right now and possibly one of the most engaging. It is also really time-consuming.

2.3 has cometh

Thu, 11/15/2007 - 05:55 — Xiwo Xerase

2.3 went live on Tuesday. The new daily quests are interesting... I'm sure that if I didn't have this cold, I could've levered it into getting a heroic run on Tuesday. Oh well.

The four new quests I've found are:

  1. The PvP quest for coin and 419 honor.
  2. The cooking quest
  3. The normal dungeon quest for an Ethereum Prison Key and coin.
  4. The heroic dungeon quest for two Badges of Justice and coin.

The PvP quest actually got me to go to a battleground on Tuesday! Luckily we won the first Arathi Basin game or I figure I'd've been pretty annoyed. But it was actually fun. PvP is fun when it's close. Sometimes.

Anyway, 2.3 means that there are new stuff to buy with badges. Having since lost my list of neat stuff they added, I need to redo the math. To help with that, I've updated the spreadsheets and stuck them at a single page here.

Phaedra

Spreadsheets for Phaedra

Current spreadsheets:
(based on version 2.7.3.1 of Vontre's spreadsheet)

World of Warcraft: 
Phaedra

On making models

Wed, 10/31/2007 - 17:35 — Xiwo Xerase

In the quest of determining how to mathematically model spell haste, I've come to realize a handful of things:

1. Spell haste only provides a DPS buff when considering a duration-based model. In my standard mana-based model (damage based on exhausting the mana pool), spell haste breaks even at best.

2. There's a handful of things where the mathematical modeling gets a little weird. For example, the casting time for a spell can never drop below 1.5s. I'm not sure how to handle bounds like that in a mathematical formula other than saying something like t = blah, blah, >= 1.5.

3. You know, using a spreadsheet is probably just a lot simpler. Vontre says he's updated his spreadsheet.

Mages
Mechanics

On making models

Wed, 10/31/2007 - 17:35 — Xiwo Xerase

In the quest of determining how to mathematically model spell haste, I've come to realize a handful of things:

1. Spell haste only provides a DPS buff when considering a duration-based model. In my standard mana-based model (damage based on exhausting the mana pool), spell haste breaks even at best.

2. There's a handful of things where the mathematical modeling gets a little weird. For example, the casting time for a spell can never drop below 1.5s. I'm not sure how to handle bounds like that in a mathematical formula other than saying something like t = blah, blah, >= 1.5.

3. You know, using a spreadsheet is probably just a lot simpler. Vontre says he's updated his spreadsheet.

Mages
Mechanics

Initial musings on spell haste

Thu, 10/25/2007 - 15:47 — Xiwo Xerase

Spell haste seems to be the new interesting stat for gear. Just about all of the new 2.3 heroic and ZA mage gear has spell haste on it (and so do some of the healing pieces). I'm just not sure if it's worth it.

I would like to work out the mechanics of spell haste so that I can come up with a damage comparison formula. However, this'll take some work since I will need to determine a formula for average MPS. Fun.

Mages

DPS simulator

Wed, 10/24/2007 - 15:25 — Xiwo Xerase

zurmagus' DPS simulator looks like an interesting project. I'm just not entirely sure how to make use of it in place of Vontre's spreadsheet.

Another issue I see with the current implementation is that zurmagus has written it in C++ so it's command-line and therefore not really usable. Maybe I'll try to convert it into a web-based project in my copious amounts of spare time.

Mages

On the topic of spreadsheets...

Sun, 10/21/2007 - 20:25 — Xiwo Xerase

Attached are copies of Vontre's mage DPS spreadsheet filled out with Phaedra's talents and gear.

mage_dps-72.xls contains her soloing and 5 man instancing gear.

mage_dps-raid.xls contains her raiding gear.

Phaedra

Time to redo my "spreadsheet"

Wed, 10/17/2007 - 15:10 — Xiwo Xerase

A long time ago, I created a pseudo-spreadsheet for determining gear choices for Phaedra. In actuality, it was a PHP script executing some really nasty queries against a MySQL database. I called it "pain." (I tried making a version of it for Tonberry called "anguish" but didn't get very far.)

The issue now is that "pain" is out of date. It's not aware of spell haste and it made some questionable assumptions about gems and socketing equipment.

Phaedra

Final Brewfest Winnings

Mon, 10/15/2007 - 01:42 — Xiwo Xerase

Such a silly, silly event.

In the end, I got 350 tickets. So I got Brewfest Dress, Brown Brewfest Hat, and Brewfest Pony Keg (for pre/post instance fun!). More stuff to clutter up bank space, I suppose.

Phaedra

More Meta Gem Madness

Fri, 10/12/2007 - 21:59 — Xiwo Xerase

In 2.3, Mystical Skyfire Diamond is getting a cooldown but an increased proc chance. The current consensus (without testing) is that the cooldown will probably be 45 seconds.

Right now, MSD has a proc rate of 5% with no cooldown. This averages out to approximately 1 proc per minute for Fireball. In order to continue to be 1 proc per minute with the new cooldown, the gem has to proc within 15 seconds - 5 Fireball casts. So the proc rate would need to be 20%.

Allegedly someone has determined that the new proc rate is 15% which would make it effectively half a percent less than it currently is.

If the proc is less than 20% and the cooldown is 45 seconds, MSD will likely come out at a loss to the new caster metagem (the one replacing RED). (This judgement is based on mucking with Vontre's mage spreadsheet and many not be particularly accurate.)

I'm just annoyed because I finally got Legwraps of the Aldor and commissioned a MSD to be cut.

Phaedra

Pages