Why You Shouldn't Use Fracture

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Interesting math. I posted a "why fracture sucks for paladins" post in a crossclass thread with similar findings, mostly based around the relatively low potency compared to halone comboing, and the high TP cost making it a loss in situations where you bottom out your TP (which admittedly is rarer for paladins).

The only thing to consider with Warrior though is that you've modelled your rotation based on a constant use of Fracture within the rotation... but that's not really the optimal way to use it. I agree with your findings, but for DoTs in this game you have to take into account Cooldowns.

When a DOT is applied it takes a snapshot of your damage stats and maintains that stat throughout the duration of the DoT. Fracture is a 300 potency attack for 80 TP for warriors, yes, which over sustained use is rather negligible... but what you need to factor in is using Fracture ONLY when you have dps cooldowns up. Pop it when Berserk, Unchained and Internal Release are up (we're assuming Maim will always be up for these tests). In these situations you'll get a relatively higher contribution to DPS for using Fracture at this point, and it SHOULD equate to a DPS gain. Suddenly it becomes a 360 or 420 potency attack with possibly boosted crit, and whilst the other attacks are also boosted, the larger difference should make the 10-20 extra TP worth it.

This is just napkinning of course. Fracture shouldn't be used without cooldowns up according to your maths, which I agree with. Add in a period of Berserk and Internal Release on cooldown and it -should- be a DPS gain. I hope.

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You are thinking of WoW. DoTs do not snapshot in this game, they are also on a universal clock for "ticking" which means that if you are not refreshing this all the time, it will likely tick less than what is described in the tooltip.

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Originally Posted by Sentinel

You are thinking of WoW. DoTs do not snapshot in this game

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They actually do snapshot. Pop a buff, apply a dot, then cancel the buff. Your damage numbers will stay the same even after the buff drops.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

They actually do snapshot. Pop a buff, apply a dot, then cancel the buff. Your damage numbers will stay the same even after the buff drops.

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Here is a very good video explaining how DoTs and HoTs work in this game, I cannot confirm damage scaling snapshot but at the very least, skill speed will not up the damage and again, if you are not refreshing it constantly, you are 90% likely to have it tick 1 less than the described tooltip, so in the case of warrior, instead of 10 ticks, it will tick 9 times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQGGTKgL8-g

Add to the fact that skill speed scaling (however little it may be) is not included and from what I hear, it does not crit either, which wars do get as part of defiance, you can see the case made that it is not worth the time on the action bar.

You're uninformed on DoTs, sadly, Sentinel. DoTs DO crit (heck Bards get a talent that procs on DOT crits), they DO snapshot, and the 3 second server tick merely means that in some situations you can get an -extra- tick, but you'll always get the 10 ticks for a 30 second fracture - if you apply it too early such that it doesnt tick on the 30 second point, you'll get the extra tick at the start. The only time the dot timer will affect the amount of ticks a dot gives is if the DoT length isnt a multiple of 3. But most are.

You can show that dots Snapshot because if you pop it with a cooldown up, right at the end of the cooldown, the DoT will continue to tick with the same strength it was applied, and indeed you wont be able to refresh the DoT until it's run out because your non-buffed DOT is viewed as inferior and wont overwrite it.

Skillspeed is the only thing that doesnt affect DoTs, and skillspeed is viewed as a poor stat anyway.

Yeah, DoTs do snapshot, can crit, taking into account various buffs like Internal Release, Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, etc.

And small % increases are really where the game gets interesting for the min/maxers I guess. Small % differences between sidegrade gear choices and secondary stats: Melded Crafts vs DL, Algan Vs AF2, variances between rotations...The pushing of your performance wherever possible.

Sure, considered independently, they don't seem significant. But collectively, on an individual AND group level, they become significant.

Can't watch the video atm, but I can comment on how dots work. They're on the server-side 3 second timer, regardless of when they apply; they snapshot your stats as of when they start; they can crit; skill speed has no effect on tics; you can't overwrite a stronger dot with a weaker dot.

That covers all the basics, right?

Ok, I just tested it, and yer right, they do snapshot, I guess I misunderstood the video. Though, they do refresh (to the lower strength) if I try to refresh it again midway.

Only time I can think of using this is when I pop berserk and unchained along with bloodbath for the extra damage/health returned. Or else, the lack of hate generation is a downer.

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Originally Posted by Coramac

It is completely arbitrary as you've been using averages for everything up to this point and suddenly don't want to use averages.

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And it's effectively an average as well. It's the point where you stop being able to use attack. I could use 1000-(mean TP cost), but it doesn't really change anything: you get 129.5 GCDs for Non-Frac and 112.9 for Frac. You'll still have Fracture maintaining a 2.3% lead on damage for the first 113 GCDs that fades to nothingness at 130 (a .08% advantage) and proceeds to remain functionally nonexistent thanks to the dilution of the previous 130 GCDs (a .48% lead at 8 minutes).

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Stop changing and twisting your reasoning to support the exclusion of Fracture.

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I haven't changed my reasoning at all. My reasoning the entire time is that the TP cost on Fracture makes it an attack that you don't want to use because it doesn't add enough damage to your attack rotation to make it justifiable. I've refined the math, but the reasoning has remained the entire time.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

the 3 second server tick merely means that in some situations you can get an -extra- tick, but you'll always get the 10 ticks for a 30 second fracture - if you apply it too early such that it doesnt tick on the 30 second point, you'll get the extra tick at the start.

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That's really interesting. I had to go in and check it myself and it susses out: if you apply at just the right time, you'll get 11 ticks, which is really interesting. Rather than overestimating DoT damage by using duration/3 it's actually a slight underestimation.

Yep, it's -incredibly- hard to time but take 30 second fracture, it does the 20 potency ticks every 3 seconds at 3, 6, 9 etc... with the last at 30.. but that's assuming you apply it at 00:00 on the clock. If you apply it a millisecond before you'll get an extra tick at 0 seconds and it could well still be up for the 10th tick at 30 seconds. You'll always get at least 10 ticks.

Of course, the occasional chance for Fracture to be a 320 potency attack isnt really worth factoring in, but at least you know it'll always be a guaranteed 300.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

And it's effectively an average as well. It's the point where you stop being able to use attack. I could use 1000-(mean TP cost), but it doesn't really change anything: you get 129.5 GCDs for Non-Frac and 112.9 for Frac. You'll still have Fracture maintaining a 2.3% lead on damage for the first 113 GCDs that fades to nothingness at 130 (a .08% advantage) and proceeds to remain functionally nonexistent thanks to the dilution of the previous 130 GCDs (a .48% lead at 8 minutes).

I haven't changed my reasoning at all. My reasoning the entire time is that the TP cost on Fracture makes it an attack that you don't want to use because it doesn't add enough damage to your attack rotation to make it justifiable. I've refined the math, but the reasoning has remained the entire time.

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which encounters are you referencing here?

I mean.. on any of the primals I have the excess TP and enmity lead to throw in fractures

same goes for any of the turns in coil..

I agree 100% that you shouldn't use fracture if you're in any danger of running yourself out of TP as it's a dps loss at that point... but when exactly does that happen ?

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Originally Posted by Vmage

I mean.. on any of the primals I have the excess TP and enmity lead to throw in fractures

same goes for any of the turns in coil..

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Even on good Titan runs, I'll end up bottoming out TP when Titan is about 15-30%. On Caduceus, I'll run out during the split when my snake is at 20-30%. Ifrit give long enough empty time frames (Ifrit especially) that you're never going to run out of TP, but, if your DPS is mediocre on Garuda, the same can happen towards the end. Most of the end game fights, unless you have insane DPS, last long enough for you to run out of TP towards the end while the boss still has 1-2 minutes of life left. The fights are just that long.

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Originally Posted by Vmage

same goes for any of the turns in coil..

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You must have the worst uptimes imaginable on bosses then or your DPS are insanely geared and well played or your healers somehow don't need MP ballad so your BRD plays around with TP instead.

I always bottom out on TP on every turn boss just using a standard BB > BB > SE rotation, outside of using Over Power on Phase 1 and 4 of turn 4 (which isn't a drain due to having TP Ballad running at that time).

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Originally Posted by Kitru

And it's effectively an average as well. It's the point where you stop being able to use attack. I could use 1000-(mean TP cost), but it doesn't really change anything: you get 129.5 GCDs for Non-Frac and 112.9 for Frac. You'll still have Fracture maintaining a 2.3% lead on damage for the first 113 GCDs that fades to nothingness at 130 (a .08% advantage) and proceeds to remain functionally nonexistent thanks to the dilution of the previous 130 GCDs (a .48% lead at 8 minutes).

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I was wrong. It wasn't chosen arbitrarily. It was chosen incompetently. If we're using your net costs and pretending that there is 50 TP regen per GCD, then 50 is never the ending number. It is an impossibility. To net the cost, regen must occur after the ability is used. If an attack leaves you with 50 TP left, you will regen 50 TP before the next attack leaving the rotation in tact. You can't suddenly say I'm not going to use averages anymore after using them for everything. Actual vs. your averages leaves a real TP deficit 50% of the time (33% of the time you actually have more TP than you predict and 17% of the time reality and your averaging have the same TP). You can't average everything out to simplify things them sudden say "I'm going to stop using averaging because I feel like it." It doesn't work like that.

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I haven't changed my reasoning at all. My reasoning the entire time is that the TP cost on Fracture makes it an attack that you don't want to use because it doesn't add enough damage to your attack rotation to make it justifiable. I've refined the math, but the reasoning has remained the entire time.

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Originally Posted by Kitru's First Post

So I've been doing some math and thinking while I was on suspension (I think they tagged a whole slew of us from the various tank discussion threads all at once, lol) and came to a pretty interesting conclusion: on any fight that lasts a decent period of time, using Fracture ends up being a net loss in total DPS.

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So, all in all, you'd be dropping your DPS by nearly 2% to increase it by less than half of a percent. Fracture just really doesn't pull its own weight.

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Fracture isn't worth it because it drops DPS. Now, Fracture isn't worth it because of it isn't at some arbitrary level that you conjured up when you were proven incorrect. Those represent two fundamentally different lines of logic.