RSS feed2008-10-05 20:48:42
I've experienced some frustration in expressing what is wrong with this talent because although I took three semesters of calculus, I could not come up with a good formula to demonstrate the expected up time for the talent given the 30 second internal cooldown.
Without any cooldown, the expected uptime for 3/3 Eradication would be about 34.5% (assuming an infinitely long fight and 100% uptime on corruption). Basically, at any moment in time there have been 4 chances for the buff to proc, at 10% each, so your chance of having it up are equal to the chance of NOT having it fail 4 times in a row.
In order words 1 - .9^4 or .3439
Since this is the likelihood at each and every point in time, this is the expected uptime expressed as a % of all time.
With a 20% haste for a buff that's up 34% of the time,, this would put the average value of 3/3 Eradication at approximately 6.8% haste. Incidentally, the expected uptime with one point would be about 15%, and with two points about 25%.
However, introduction of a cooldown introduces a large wrinkle. Much of the uptime of Eradication assumes the ability the get multiple procs over a short period of time. For every drought period where eradication doesn't proc at all there should be flood periods where it procs while the buff is still active or when the buff has recently faded. A cooldown prevents this. Since my ability to express this behavior in sound mathematical terms is shaky, I link to this post, which explains it adequately: (warning, college level math):
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5963126369&sid=1&pageNo=1
Important conclusions from that post are:
Expected uptime for Eradication drops to
12% for 1/3 Eradication
16.5% for 2/3
20% for 3/3
Giving an effective haste value of about 4% for 3/3 Eradication.
Here's the conclusion part:
1) The value of the first point in this talent more than doubles the value of both additional points. Given the nature of a proc'd buff, the first point would always be the most valuebl regardless, but the cooldown causes this relationship to expand geometrically.
(In other words, instead of the first point being 50% more valuable than the next point, it's now 200% more valuble, and instead of being about 66% more valuable than the third point, it's now about 240% more valuable).
The result is that while it is almost a no brainer to put one point in eradication, it is almost as much a no brainer that you should never put two or three points into it.
2) The worst part is this: Affliction spec does not get full benefit from spell haste. While the actual DPS benefit is hard to pin down, depending on spec, rotation, gear, etc, a very loose approximation is that 1% spell haste gives affliction about a .75% increase in actual DPS, vs the almost exactly 1% benefit given to other classes which derive most of their DPS from direct damage.
So that 4% haste actually translates into about 3% added DPS, or for one point you're looking at about 1.8% increase in DPS. So even the first point in eradication yields less benefit than ANY point in shadow mastery, and three points in eradication is less than two points in shadow mastery.
Or maybe a better comparison would be an apples to apples comparison to an actual haste talent such as Netherwind presence for mages. Notice that each point in NP gives a flat 2% haste benefit, so even before taking into account the "DoT penalty" for haste, NP is nearly equal from the first point invested, gets grossly better with additional points invested, and wins in a landslide (literally twice the benefit) when you consider the expected affliction penalty for haste.
Now, let's look at the math for a zero cooldown eradication. As I already have shown, the benefit of 3/3 eradication without a cooldown is approximately equal to 6.8% spell haste over time. Much closer to Netherwind Presence, and, when we take into account the likely penalty for using DoTs, it's actually a little bit weaker. This is fine though, since Eradication does have a benefit that Netherwind Presence lacks : the ability to activate DPS trinkets and/or to structure spell rotation according to when Eradication procs.
In other words, even though eradication will yield a lower haste benefit over time, it will yield periods of much higher (20%) haste during which the warlock can choose to use trinkets and direct damage to take advantage of the haste. Since haste from Netherwind Presence is a constant amount, there is no particular benefit to the timing of spells or the use of cooldowns/trinkets.
Removing the cooldown would in fact cause Eradication to be balanced.
The downside of doing this of course is that warlocks could, assuming lucky RNG results, spend extended amounts of time with 20% haste. Therefore, another possible solution would be this:
Make Eradication the 31 point talent for Affliction. Make it last 20 seconds on a one minute cooldown (33% uptime, about 6.6% haste over time, about a 4,9% increase in DPS over time, before accounting for trinkets and adjusted rotations).
Since Dark Pact is currently not a very good talent (for many reasons outlined in many different posts) it can be moved to where eradication is and made a three point talent that gives MP/5 = to 5/10/15% of your pet's Int.
TL;DR version:
Eradication is a terrible DPS talent as currently constructed and very far below "budget." This can be corrected either by removing the internal cooldown or (a better solution) by making it an activated ability on a cooldown, replacing dark pact, and turning dark pact into a talent that would actually add value to affliction warlocks.
Without any cooldown, the expected uptime for 3/3 Eradication would be about 34.5% (assuming an infinitely long fight and 100% uptime on corruption). Basically, at any moment in time there have been 4 chances for the buff to proc, at 10% each, so your chance of having it up are equal to the chance of NOT having it fail 4 times in a row.
In order words 1 - .9^4 or .3439
Since this is the likelihood at each and every point in time, this is the expected uptime expressed as a % of all time.
With a 20% haste for a buff that's up 34% of the time,, this would put the average value of 3/3 Eradication at approximately 6.8% haste. Incidentally, the expected uptime with one point would be about 15%, and with two points about 25%.
However, introduction of a cooldown introduces a large wrinkle. Much of the uptime of Eradication assumes the ability the get multiple procs over a short period of time. For every drought period where eradication doesn't proc at all there should be flood periods where it procs while the buff is still active or when the buff has recently faded. A cooldown prevents this. Since my ability to express this behavior in sound mathematical terms is shaky, I link to this post, which explains it adequately: (warning, college level math):
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5963126369&sid=1&pageNo=1
Important conclusions from that post are:
Expected uptime for Eradication drops to
12% for 1/3 Eradication
16.5% for 2/3
20% for 3/3
Giving an effective haste value of about 4% for 3/3 Eradication.
Here's the conclusion part:
1) The value of the first point in this talent more than doubles the value of both additional points. Given the nature of a proc'd buff, the first point would always be the most valuebl regardless, but the cooldown causes this relationship to expand geometrically.
(In other words, instead of the first point being 50% more valuable than the next point, it's now 200% more valuble, and instead of being about 66% more valuable than the third point, it's now about 240% more valuable).
The result is that while it is almost a no brainer to put one point in eradication, it is almost as much a no brainer that you should never put two or three points into it.
2) The worst part is this: Affliction spec does not get full benefit from spell haste. While the actual DPS benefit is hard to pin down, depending on spec, rotation, gear, etc, a very loose approximation is that 1% spell haste gives affliction about a .75% increase in actual DPS, vs the almost exactly 1% benefit given to other classes which derive most of their DPS from direct damage.
So that 4% haste actually translates into about 3% added DPS, or for one point you're looking at about 1.8% increase in DPS. So even the first point in eradication yields less benefit than ANY point in shadow mastery, and three points in eradication is less than two points in shadow mastery.
Or maybe a better comparison would be an apples to apples comparison to an actual haste talent such as Netherwind presence for mages. Notice that each point in NP gives a flat 2% haste benefit, so even before taking into account the "DoT penalty" for haste, NP is nearly equal from the first point invested, gets grossly better with additional points invested, and wins in a landslide (literally twice the benefit) when you consider the expected affliction penalty for haste.
Now, let's look at the math for a zero cooldown eradication. As I already have shown, the benefit of 3/3 eradication without a cooldown is approximately equal to 6.8% spell haste over time. Much closer to Netherwind Presence, and, when we take into account the likely penalty for using DoTs, it's actually a little bit weaker. This is fine though, since Eradication does have a benefit that Netherwind Presence lacks : the ability to activate DPS trinkets and/or to structure spell rotation according to when Eradication procs.
In other words, even though eradication will yield a lower haste benefit over time, it will yield periods of much higher (20%) haste during which the warlock can choose to use trinkets and direct damage to take advantage of the haste. Since haste from Netherwind Presence is a constant amount, there is no particular benefit to the timing of spells or the use of cooldowns/trinkets.
Removing the cooldown would in fact cause Eradication to be balanced.
The downside of doing this of course is that warlocks could, assuming lucky RNG results, spend extended amounts of time with 20% haste. Therefore, another possible solution would be this:
Make Eradication the 31 point talent for Affliction. Make it last 20 seconds on a one minute cooldown (33% uptime, about 6.6% haste over time, about a 4,9% increase in DPS over time, before accounting for trinkets and adjusted rotations).
Since Dark Pact is currently not a very good talent (for many reasons outlined in many different posts) it can be moved to where eradication is and made a three point talent that gives MP/5 = to 5/10/15% of your pet's Int.
TL;DR version:
Eradication is a terrible DPS talent as currently constructed and very far below "budget." This can be corrected either by removing the internal cooldown or (a better solution) by making it an activated ability on a cooldown, replacing dark pact, and turning dark pact into a talent that would actually add value to affliction warlocks.
[ Post edited by Mystal ]
Mystal
