AP Scaling and other DPS changes to the Warrior going up to PTS

[intrinsc]

Not really true. To get the AP proc off of DB your finisher has to consume 3 AP's

I will be able to tell you better tonight. I opened the char screen out of curiosity once and saw that number and my panties got wet, but didn't manage to hit print screen fast enough.

[batou079]

Soft crit cap with raid buffs and 2000ap with flaring power and all my procs is pretty good. I will grab a screenshot tonight during Ithuziel.

HOLY CHEESE WIZ!!

im lucky to hit 1600 when all buffs are synced up. eegads man.
(then again i am not nearly as well geared as many of you, no kraken, only 4 hex pieces, no golem inductor)

I never even THOUGHT about using DB. But if it really hits for 1200+ more, that is a NICE gain.
Even if it does not procc the extra AP, i think that would cut the dps difference to an effective 2/3rds total difference right? so still a gain... instead of a 1200+ difference it drops to 800+ differnce (aka 3APs to next finisher instead of 2AP)...

[sabtr]

So DB over BF when target is low enough?

[sirkillalot]

did u all make a full ap sigil?

[batou079]

did u all make a full ap sigil?

It fully depends on a player's gear. If they would drop too far below 1000 ish crit (was it like 1030 minimum?) then most recommend not dropping more.

I was able to drop 200ish crit for 200 AP gain, and still am close to softcap in raid. And all i did was change my Dex runes to STR, and changed 2x crit lessers to AP lessers. i could probly change 1 more lesser to full AP.

[wraithh]

I like where this is going, and it would be interesting to see where this goes compared to my calculator.

There's a few things though:

1. Crits do 1.5x damage, not 2x, and FoW/Slayer's add to that multiplier
2. Crits are based off the maximum possible normal hit, rather than the average, so you would have to find the average normal damage. Otherwise you'll have higher values for normal hits, lowering the value of crit.
3. It's not enough to pick 1 ability and base it off that, since different abilities scale differently with AP, especially with 1.8. Ideally you would want to base it off the weighted average of all the abilities used in a rotation, but this can become a lot of work.
4. Raid buffs could have an effect on the numbers, and it can be difficult to figure out their effect without having a full raid at your disposal.

In my dps calculator spreadsheet I have models for most warrior abilities which could make things somewhat easier. If you need any help, I'd be happy to.

I decided to run this for a full 51ch/9para/6rb rotation like you have in your calculator, shamelessly using the formulas you have to save me hours. It assumes all raid buffs just like yours has - I have not tried it with toggles on those yet. I also have not done it for other builds because I wanted to see if it was worth pursuing at all.

I can send anyone interested the file in Mathematica, but what it boils down to is: crit soft cap is better for dps, although not huge.

The function is "simple" in terms of AP and crit so you'd expect no inflection points, thus the ideal will either be "at crit soft cap" or "the bare minimum of crit such that you always have Frenzied Strike available and Storm Blade ticking", and it seems to prefer the crit route regardless of weapon damage.

However, the spread is relatively small going from AP-heavy to crit-heavy. We seem to be able to get from ~1050 crit softcap to ~800 if you go super AP heavy, and that huge spread is not a big dps change. Taking the 4000 value that Azunia used before as the "item points available" (this works out to 1475 AP / 1050 crit rating, which is about where we're at), the dps ranges from 3714 to 3685 when you swap between the pairs of (1475 AP, 1050 crit) to (1600 AP, 800 crit). I believe that's basically within the RNG range of crit chance so the net effect of going heavy AP vs crit cap is almost nothing.

This seems to hold across all gear levels as well if I try with allowing more total points or less.

The one thing swept under the rug here is Titan's Strength that gives us more for a point of Str than Trion places on it for cost. This would slightly boost the value of AP relative to crit, which may make the small differences even *less* important, but hopefully a small enough modification of what I have that it's not really worth the time to be precise.

I do think this shows that the one thing you do *not* want is to exceed the crit softcap. That's a big, big waste now. I'll probably be targeting ~1000 crit rating myself to give a bit of margin in gear upgrades and rune flex.

TL,DR: Crit soft cap is better for dps, but not by much if at all, at least for 51ch/9para/6rb.

[Azunia]

So DB over BF when target is low enough?

If you play a specc with destroyers bearing no - due to a bug you get no attackpoint so its not worth it.

Btw Intrinsic has that much AP because he looked at his stats while flaring power - 15% more attackpower. ;)

[intrinsc]

Btw Intrinsic has that much AP because he looked at his stats while flaring power - 15% more attackpower. ;)

Yeah, that's why I said raid buffed.

Actually, my exact quote was:

Soft crit cap with raid buffs and 2000ap with flaring power and all my procs is pretty good. I will grab a screenshot tonight during Ithuziel.

[Azunia]

Yeah, that's why I said raid buffed.

Actually, my exact quote was:

I know you did but the rest didn't

[batou079]

I do think this shows that the one thing you do *not* want is to exceed the crit softcap. That's a big, big waste now. I'll probably be targeting ~1000 crit rating myself to give a bit of margin in gear upgrades and rune flex.

TL,DR: Crit soft cap is better for dps, but not by much if at all, at least for 51ch/9para/6rb.

Aye, im down to 1040 and i am trying to weed out 30ish more crit at least in lieu of more AP.
sad part is ever single crit lesser i have remaining in my sigil exceed 40 crit, so id drop a bit more than i want.

lol. Not sure what i can do now, totally rune converted already... *shrug* mebe start picking up the STR heavy plate from HK... and just keep enough set on for 4pc bonus.

[Shakaale]

Not really true. To get the AP proc off of DB your finisher has to consume 3 AP's

Sorry, I badly worded my sentence.
What I meant was that we will only use 2 abilities, which would be the builder on one hand and DB on the other hand.
2 builders + Deathblow with destroyers's bearing proc was obviously the way to go.
So I wonder if 3 builders + Deathblow is worth the pain or if it will under-perform overall compared to the classic rotation...

[wraithh]

Aye, im down to 1040 and i am trying to weed out 30ish more crit at least in lieu of more AP.
sad part is ever single crit lesser i have remaining in my sigil exceed 40 crit, so id drop a bit more than i want.

lol. Not sure what i can do now, totally rune converted already... *shrug* mebe start picking up the STR heavy plate from HK... and just keep enough set on for 4pc bonus.

Well, ID stuff is a net crit loss from what I remember. So get a few ID pieces, and you'll drop that rating right where you want it to be.

[Rizaz]

Riz, may i ask if you are still shooting for the 1020ish crit cap unbuffed or if you went ap heavy and dropped crit?

I'm still aiming for the 1020 crit cap though I won't always be at it with the constant resist core and enchant switching.

[Rukog]

I'm pushing myself down to about 930 unbuffed crit in my 2H setup (obviously in exchange for more AP), as my DW setup has about 60 more crit in it, and I don't want to worry about switching over and exceeding the crit soft cap in my DW setup.

Also, similar to what someone above put, that gives me "headroom" in case I get some upgrades still in HK that would increase my crit rating (we're only 7/11, so there's lots of stuff I can still get before I start seeing the crit dropoff with ID gear). Since the DPS difference is so small, I'm making a quality/ease-of-life decision vs. squeaking out *5* more dps raid buffed.

My weapon options are pretty close to one another with Inferno vs. Savage Beastcarver+Dollin's Royal Blade, so I may find myself switching between 2H and DW specs depending on the mechanics of specific encounters.

[Mechar]

I just wanted to throw out a note of appreciation to Atrius and everyone at Trion that worked on the AP rebalancing. When you look at where we started and compare it to where warriors are now, its simply an amazing, fantastic job.

People can quibble with dps being too high or too low, that will never end, but mechanically the changes brought a ton of interest and variety back to spending talent points for a warrior with many viable builds. Thanks for all of the work, the warrior DPS souls have never been in a better, more balanced place than they are right now.