Wired: A Weave Falls Underfoot

[wire]

Hastened Rumbling Servant is an Underfoot AA with 3 ranks that reduces the reuse time of Rumbling Servant by 2 seconds per rank. At rank 3, that brings the recast time down from 18 seconds to 12 seconds.

Extended Rumbling Servant is another Underfoot AA with 1 rank that increases the duration of Rumbling Servant pets by 6 seconds per rank.

These changes have some interesting effects on the standard Magician DPS weave and our specialization choices.

Weave:

A typical DPS weave casts the highest WDPS spell available, as reuse timers allow. In SoD, this usually lead to one cast of Rumbling Servant and Fickle Blaze, with two casts of both Jolt of Many and Bolt of Molten Scoria.

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Jolt  RS     Time  Spell

0.00   0.00  1.70  Rumbling Servant
0.00   1.50  1.50  Global Recast
0.00   2.25  0.75  Jolt of Many
1.50   3.75  1.50  Global Recast
3.50   5.75  2.00  Bolt of Molten Scoria
5.00   7.25  1.50  Global Recast
6.80   9.05  1.80  Fickle Blaze
8.30  10.55  1.50  Global Recast
9.00  11.25  0.70  Delay
0.00  12.00  0.75  Jolt of Many
1.50  13.50  1.50  Global Recast
3.50  15.50  2.00  Bolt of Molten Scoria
5.00  17.00  1.50  Global Recast
6.00  18.00  1.00  Delay

With the change to Rumbling Servant's reuse time in Underfoot, it will now become available in a weave after the first cast of Fickle Blaze. This means that the highest WDPS weave should be shortened by excluding the second cast of both Jolt of Many and Bolt of Molten Scoria.

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Jolt  RS     Time  Spell

0.00   0.00  1.70  Rumbling Servant
0.00   1.50  1.50  Global Recast
0.00   2.25  0.75  Jolt of Many
1.50   3.75  1.50  Global Recast
3.50   5.75  2.00  Bolt of Molten Scoria
5.00   7.25  1.50  Global Recast
6.80   9.05  1.80  Fickle Blaze
8.30  10.55  1.50  Global Recast
9.75  12.00  1.45  Delay

Reaction time and server lag greatly reduce the delay shown at the end of the weave above. Field tests show both Rumbling Servant and Jolt of Many refreshing at the same time. This is important, because if you are aggressively using a multibound key for casting, it is possible that you cast Jolt instead of Rumbling Servant. We'll have to be a bit more careful with our key presses to maximize our WDPS.

Changes in DPS:

Changing what is cast in a weave results in a proportional change in the damage, by source, of that weave. Changes in proportional cast time may not be entirely representative of all DPS changes, since each spell added or removed has its own unique damage, but it should provide a reasonable starting point for comparison.

Removing two spells from the standard weave decreases the proportion of spell-based damage via cast time to 92% of its value in SoD. Reducing the reuse time of Rumbling Servant increase the proportion of RS-based damage via cast time to 144% of its value in SoD.

We can also factor in a 21% increase in Rumbling Servant duration from Extended Rumbling Servant (28 to 34 seconds), since it is significant.

There are a lot of other effects like AA upgrades, spell foci, pet foci and upgrades to auras that could also be included, but the following serves as a reasonable approximation from cast time.

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  Spell  RS    Pet

   0.50  0.30  0.20  SoD DPS Distribution
   0.92  1.44  1.00  Change in Weave
   1.00  1.21  1.00  Change in RS Duration
   0.46  0.52  0.20  New DPS Values
  -0.04  0.22  0.00  Change in DPS
   0.39  0.44  0.17  Underfoot DPS Distribution

In SoD, my average raid parses consist of approximately 50% damage from spells, 25-30% damage from Swarm Pets and 20-25% damage from my primary pet.

Changes in weave composition result in a 4% total decrease in DPS from direct damage spells and a 22% total increase in DPS from Rumbling Servant. Overall, total DPS should increase by around 18% and the distribution of DPS will shift away from direct damage and toward Rumbling Servant. As a result, Rumbling Servant will likely be our primary source of damage in a lot of situations in Underfoot.

Other upgrades will obviously increase the changes to total damage further.

Specialization:

Primary specializations have a cap of 260 while secondary specializations have a cap of 175. Specialization augs from LDoN raids increase both specializations by 15%.

Mana savings per specialization are calculated as the specialization value divided by 20, plus 1 for having the specialization.

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  Primary  Secondary  Tertiary

  260      175        125     Cap
   15       15         15     Modifier
  299      201        143     Modified Cap
   15.95    11.05       8.15  Savings

Specialization Savings:

In SoD, most raiding mages chose to specialize in Evocation instead of Conjuration. A shortened weave in Underfoot calls that choice into question.

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Evocation  Conjuration  Mana  Spell

   361      521         3272  Rumbling Servant
   129       89          809  Jolt of Many
   181      126         1141  Bolt of Molten Scoria
   138       95          866  Fickle Blaze

   129       89          809  Jolt of Many
   181      126         1141  Bolt of Molten Scoria

  1119     1046         8038  Total in SoD
   809      831         6088  Total in Underfoot

Using the highest WDPS weave in SoD, specializing in Evocation yielded a total savings of 1119 mana per weave, or 73 mana per weave more than specializing in Conjuration.

Using the highest WDPS weave in Underfoot, specializing in Conjuration yields a total savings of 831 mana per weave, which is 22 mana per weave more than specializing in Evocation.

Conjuration now provides more overall benefit to a raiding Magician while maxing in Underfoot.

Conclusions:

Underfoot's change in the reuse time of Rumbling Servant will shorten our DPS weave, shift our primary damage source from spells to swarm pets and potentially reset our specialization.

These changes should increase our DPS overall, but it will be a somewhat different game for raiding Magicians in Underfoot compared to SoD.

We will be able to use mana faster, netting us higher burst DPS. However, expending that much mana may force us to weave conservatively as fights progress. The change to Rumbling Servant's duration is a strict upgrade in DPS, while the change to recast will have no real effect on long encounters.

[Voragath]

Using the highest WDPS weave in SoD, specializing in Evocation yielded a total savings of 1119 mana per weave, or 73 mana per weave more than specializing in Conjuration.

Using the highest WDPS weave in Underfoot, specializing in Conjuration yields a total savings of 831 mana per weave, which is 22 mana per weave more than specializing in Evocation.

Ok, so is this base? What about gear checks and things like that?

Also, I didn't recall if you raided in UF or not, Wire. My question if you did do beta raids (pickup or your guild), was RS really a big factor? It seems to me that RS comes into play only on the burn mobs that are stationary (most cryst mobs, mindshear, tower 2, and Brekt among some). If we don't see alot of that in the UF raids, switching to conj. will just be a waste of time to save mana for only a handful of events.

[wire]

Ok, so is this base? What about gear checks and things like that?

Also, I didn't recall if you raided in UF or not, Wire. My question if you did do beta raids (pickup or your guild), was RS really a big factor? It seems to me that RS comes into play only on the burn mobs that are stationary (most cryst mobs, mindshear, tower 2, and Brekt among some). If we don't see alot of that in the UF raids, switching to conj. will just be a waste of time to save mana for only a handful of events.

Gear checks have nothing to do with specialization differences. You'd always gain the same amount from your specialization, since it works off the base value of the spell. The only thing that can change is what you've spec'd in, so I've given the numbers in both those scenarios. If you have a worn focus preservation of 23%, you'd gain your average savings from that on every spell, but you'd still gain your 15.95% from a primary specialization and 11.05% from your secondary specialization. The two effects are independent.

And yes, we tested a few raids, but not a lot. I clearly stated that the difference only exists if you're using the max DPS weave. In other situations, where you're not using RS as it pops (a non-max weave), you would probably be better off with Evocation, since most RS casts would be mana-free anyway.

[wire]

As for RS, if you have the mana you should be using it on any mob that will stay alive for its duration. At this point, it's basically a short-range 34-second DoT with no agro component. I chain it on just about everything in SoD and don't see that changing much in UF unless mana becomes a major issue.

In group content, you will need the DPS. You can't afford to lay back and nuke or heal waiting for GoM procs with the DPS output of these mobs. Therefore, you're more or less casting RS as it refreshes, which should make Conjuration more effective.

[Msha]

Well I'm Conj specced, and I always been happy with that, so I never switched Which I'm just happy about now.

[Glaven]

Haha, i've stubbornly stayed with conj. just waiting for the tides to turn again...this makes me happy

[Voragath]

Thanks, Wire, for your answers. Just needed a little clarification on what you were using for numbers. I'll definitely be sticking with evo but most of my guild's burns aren't at the time where I can keep up an RS non-stop but I've noticed that we are getting to that trend; good to know someone else was doing what I was thinking of and figured out it's usefulness.

[Baramos]

Pick up your LDoN augs (x2)

Bara

[grun]

Hi Ya all im new to these boards my question is this yall speak about a weave ? i think i know basically what u mean, but would love to see an example of a weave to see if im doing it right, also i dont use RS in a weave cause of the mana cost. I usually wait till i get a GOM to cast it, we are currently farming tower on drinal . any info would be greatly appreciated thanks

[Danille]

Using RS pets on raids is situational. It will be interesting to see how raid event mechanics work in Underfoot.
Specifically in events like Scrying, when we get hit with an AOE, our RS pet still goes off on a different target than the one intended.