Isn't it a question of which you lose less DPS by refreshing first, though?

So it would be a tick of SW:P divided by 3 versus the damage of a SW:D divided by 12.

This is a Kaz'rogal kill that has no +damage modifiers of any sort: http://wowwebstats.com/gowpwgfdd6j5c?s=40-239&a=26

SW:P = 825
SW:D = 2435

825/3 = 275 DPS
2435/12 = 203 DPS.

Given that a GCD is 1.5 seconds, you'd lose 105ish damage every time you choose to place SW:D ahead of SW:P, no?

Do you really think you lose 100 DPS by casting a 2k instant before a DoT instead of vice-versa? That sounds a bit unrealistic, don't you think?

I think you may be skewing the time window in favor of SW:P. It looks like you apply the delay and DPS loss to 1 tick of SW:P instead of the whole SW:P cycle, then apply the delay to the whole SW:D cycle which deweights the DPS loss.

The problem is the "S" in DPS. Without equivalent time scales it is difficult to get a fair comparison either way. That's why I made a roughshot attempt at applying the delay to the cooldown cycle. Even that probably isn't entirely fair as the windows per spell are different to begin with. Heck, I'm probably deweighting the value of the delay to SW:P by assuming 2pc T6.

If you apply the DPS loss to the entire cooldown cycle:
Delayed SW:P -- (825*9)/27 - (825*9)/28.5 = 14DPS
Delayed SW:D -- (2435)/12 - (2435)/13.5 = 22DPS

EDIT:
Lol, if my numbers are close, I'm bitching about an 8DPS difference... yeah...

You lose 105 DAMAGE, not DPS. Meaning if you have, say a 5 minute fight (300 seconds) and this situation comes up 6 times...you lose...600ish damage. That means you lost 2 DPS over the course of the fight. Seem more reasonable?

Even if it comes up every 27 seconds (based upon SW:P conflicting) this occurs 11 times. 1100/300 = 3.66 DPS loss. Oh noes



Bingo. It's a tiny difference regardless.

OK, that sounds a lot better. I really need to get back on coffee. The brain just doesn't work right without it.

Let's see... at some point you will have the situation occur 8 times... that gives 12s of delay, which works out to be 4 ticks or 1 SW:D (which is a more even comparison base). That's 3300 vs. 2200 or 1100 / 12 =~ 91 damage per choice. OK, yeah, that seems more in line with your results.

Hmmmm, I think my logic was sound but doesn't seem to work. Any insight on why it seems to fail?

I think I've figured it out. The problem is you're calculating the average DPS by adding 1.5 seconds to the cooldown, but this delay only exists when they conflict.

The issue behind this is that you then remove 1.5 seconds effectively by testing the other cycle. If I have a 28.5 cooldown on SW:P and I remove 1.5 seconds of it, that's only a 5% increase in spell DPS. If I have a 13.5 second cooldown on SW:D and I remove 1.5 seconds of it, I'm increasing the average DPS by 11%. So when you change the 1.5 second delay around, you're making it so it ALWAYS favors SW:D, even when the cooldowns do not conflict.

*shrug* Works for me. I thought I eliminated that issue by comparing only the DPS lost on a delayed death vs. a delayed pain, but I probably am messing up the windowing somehow.

I'm honestly not going to worry about it much anymore, as the 12s total comparison pretty much shows that SW:P > SW:D for DPS, which is all that's important, IMO.

Hmm, work out the DPS of both spells.

As far as I am aware SWP does just as much DPS compared to SWD and I always pop a SWP before I death if its fallen off.

Anything between 600 and 1000 for a tick of SWP depending on Debuffs which works out to 200-300DPS.

So, worth case at 200DPS you would lose 300 damage for a lost SWP tick due too a SWD 1.5 GCD.

Lets take a conservative 2500SWD in a raid enviroment on a 12 second CD we get 208 damage for the second, or 312 for 1.5 seconds of "lost" cooldown time in favour of SWP.

Much closer than you might think, SWD can crit which might skew it in its favour but I have used a low 600 SWP tick to compare too.

If I routinely obtained 2500 average SW:D hits (even factoring in crits) I'd be a much happier man.

Agreed. With Mind Blast it can shift, but that's because MB has a higher base damage and a shorter cooldown.

You all seem to be overcomplicating the matter a lot by looking at dps rather than just damage.

By casting MB over SWP you lose half a tick of SWP damage. Let's say an 800 SWP tick, thats 400 damage lost by casting MB first.

By casting SWP over MB, your MB gets delayed by 1.5 seconds. The damage cost for this isn't quite so easy to work out. However let's imagine this situation happens 5 times over the course of the fight. By prioritising SWP over MB, you have now delayed MB by 7.5 seconds which is an entire MB. If we assume MB does say 2800 damage on average (including crits) thats 2800 damage lost.

Over the same time period you have gained 5 half ticks of SWP = 2000 damage. So indeed it would be better to prioritise MB over SWP...


...but this isn't quite the whole story. In any fight where you need to move or get interrupted then the 1.5 seconds saving on the MB cooldown is quite likely to be wasted because you probably can't cast it on cooldown anyway. And if you didn't refresh SWP before you had to move/were interrupted then you will have lost a lot more than half a tick of dot damage (unless you were able to cast it on the run).

There isn't really a way to factor these in unfortunately, but my personal preference is to prioritise SWP over MB. It saves on mana too.

If I'm worrying about silencing effects, then SWP >>> MB.
SWP can still be doing dmg while I'm silenced.

If I'm worrying about having to move, then MB >>> SWP.
SWP can be cast on the move.

If you really want to max your DPS, then get Quartz to display MF "ticks" and cancel after the second tick if VT/SWP/MB/SWD are ready:

Full Mind Flay Casts:



Canceling MF After Second Tick Where Applicable:



Delta: 28.5dps / 0.4dpm

How can I get Quartz to display this?

All this seems to say is that, you should cancel a known-to-be-low-dps channeled spell midway, if higher dps spells are no longer on cooldown. Or even more simply, you can sacrifice DPM for DPS. It doesn't help with the problem of maximum dps.

I'm happy I started such an interesting opportunity loss discussion in spell rotations. I'm still having problems, however, with my own calculations. Basically every way (except one) that I look @ the problem (specifically, comparing MB and SWP), I should put up SWP first.

However, the one way that disagrees is the one that makes most sense. MB is a 5.5 sec CD, 1.5 cast time, so I treat it as a 7 second cycle. SWP is a 24 second DoT, instant-cast, so I treat it as a 24 second cycle. And every time I calculate the damage-lost per second by prioritizing one over the other... MB is clearly more damage lost.

So what's the final answer? Ignore even keeping VT up (assume I don't even care about mana-regen). I just want to absolutely maximize DPS. What's my priority order? Does that priority order work in all cases (let's say MB and SWD come off CD right as SWP drops, so I have to pick among 3)? Most importantly... why? If anyone figures it out could you please present a clear argument, in it's entirety, from start to finish. Assume I don't know what's going on, because I'm freaking lost @ this point.

Kinda forgot about this over Christmas break... I don't think we ever stated a solution, let me throw something out. Hopefully Balkoth won't kick me in the nuts too hard if I'm off. I like to compare using GCDs lost to one spell or the other, I believe he has a very nice DPS method worked out. Let's hope they match up.

Numbers incoming...

From a Rage fight:
MBA = 2808 (Crits accounted for, no 4pc T6)
SW:D= 2639
SW:P= 736
VT=663
MV=731

Assumptions:
1.) MB > SW:D always
2.) SW:P > VT always
3.) ALL > MF
4.) The difference in damage done is found by comparing the case where enough priority decisions (GCDs) have been made to equal 1 period of the shortest spell.

"Experiment"
SW:D vs. SW:P
12s = 4xP (8 decisions)
2924(SW:P) > 2639(SW:D)

MB vs. SW:P
7.5s (4/5 IMB, 6s CD + 1.5s cast) = 2.5x Pain (5 decisions)
2808 (MB) > 1840 (SW:P)
* note that even SW:P rounded up to 3 ticks doesn't beat MB

SW:D vs. VT
12s = 4x VT (8 decisions)
2652 (VT) > 2639 (SW:D)

Conclusion:
MB > SW:P > SW:D > VT > MF

Caveats:
1.) SW:D and VT are very close in damage lost by choosing one over the other. Depending on your crit rate and +dmg, you may want to choose VT over SW:D.

2.) I haven't found a good way to compare MF vs. SW:D. I'm assuming SW:D > MF, but if that isn't true then SW:D can be dropped from the rotation. Quite frankly I just haven't had time to work this out but I'll go with my base assumption for now.

EDIT:
3.) I'm ignoring "special" rotation cases like MSFD and Trinket+VT combos.