Post by dehotz
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Warning- This post seems to have gotten a bit longer than I originally thought it would, feel free to skip to the bottom for a summary.
Ok, I've been playing around with some numbers and nothing too terribly precise but let's take a look at the basic mechanics and throw in some number for Swipe vs. Thunderstomp vs. Bad Attitude. I'm not in the Beta so I haven't been able to test any of this yet and am just going off tooltips and my own chicken-scratch math, feel free to correct me if you think I've gotten anything here wrong.
Swipe is at it's greatest fighting 3 mobs, any less and it's less efficient and any more and you're not even hitting them.
Bad Attitude seems to work like a thorns spell or ret aura that's up for 45 seconds every 2 min leaving 75 seconds of downtime in between. This is less if you've specced into
Longevity, it'll reduce the time you won't be able to have B.A. up to 39 seconds.
Thunderstomp doesn't appear to have a max number of mobs it affects, it also seems to cause additional threat. It's also nature damage which may be better or worse depending on the situation. (Bypasses armor on most mobs, but can be resisted or won't affect Nature immune mobs.)
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Math Section-
Swipe
60-84dmg (avg damage 72) 5sec cd (3.5sec talented)
72x3 = 216 dmg per 3.5 sec for 25 focus
45/3.5 = 12.85 (12 attacks over 45 sec)
12x216 =
2592 dmg over 45 sec for total of 300 focus
Bad Attitude
89-125dmg (avg 107) 120sec cd (84sec talented)
107x3 = 321 dmg per 2 sec for 0 focus
45/2 = 22.5 (22 attacks from each mob over 45 sec)
22x321 =
7062 dmg over 45 sec for total of 0 focus
Thunderstomp
236-334dmg (avg 285) 10sec cd (7sec talented)
285x3 = 855 dmg per 7 sec for 25 focus
45/7 = 6.4 (6 attacks over 45 sec)
6x855 =
5130 dmg over 45 sec for total of 150 focus
Now in the above example scenarios for Bad Attitude I assumed that the mobs attacking had an attack speed of 2.0. Different attack speeds would certainly change this, faster causing more damage, and slower the opposite.
I also assumed in each scenario that our pet was fighting 3 mobs, the best case scenario for swipe, both Bad Attitude and Thunderstomp would continue to scale as our pet takes on more mobs while Swipe will not.
The third assumption was that the fight lasted 45 seconds, this is a best case scenario for Bad Attitude, any longer and you'd have time during which Bad Attitude would not be up.
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Math Part 2-
Swipe
60-84dmg (avg damage 72) 5sec cooldown (3.5sec talented)
72x3 = 216 dmg per 3.5 sec for 25 focus
84/3.5 = 24 (24 attacks over 84 sec)
24x216 =
5184 dmg over 84 sec for total of 600 focus
Bad Attitude
-Same damage as before
7062 dmg over 84 sec for total of 0 focus
Thunderstomp
236-334dmg (avg 285) 10sec (7sec talented)
285x3 = 855 dmg per 7 sec for 25 focus
84/7 = 12 (12 attacks over 84 sec)
12x855 =
10260 dmg over 84 sec for total of 300 focus
In the above scenarios here, we still assume 3 mobs (still best case for Swipe), and here we're assuming the fight lasts 84 seconds. This is the worst case scenario for B.A., any longer and B.A. would be back up again. This assuming we have Longevity, which reduces our B.A. cooldown to 84sec. Not having longevity really doesn't make a difference here as although the time between when we can have B.A. up is longer, so too is the time between our ability to cast Thunderstomp or Swipe, balancing it out to the same damage totals, just over a longer period of time.
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Conclusions and other thoughts-
From the math I've done Swipe seems to be inferior in many ways to Thunderstomp. The only way in which I see Swipe being better is that since you're casting it more often, twice as much basically, you'd have more chances to proc either
Ferocious Inspiration or
Invigoration.
For the purposes of holding aggro Thunderstomp may be superior to B.A. and Swipe in most situations due to it's increased threat mechanics, but I'm not sure how much more threat it generates so I'm unable to tell for certain.
For straight damage however Bad Attitude certainly looks comparable to Thunderstomp and even superior in some ways. Most fights are not going to last longer than much past 45 seconds and the time between having B.A. up can be used to loot/gather another group to aoe down.
Other things to consider are can B.A. crit? If so then great, if not then that throws out any chance of gaining Invigoration or Ferocious Inspiration from that, though you can still gain those effects from crits on Bite your croc will be casting.
Also since B.A. isn't costing focus you've got that much more available for other abilities, growl, bite, etc.
Finally another thing to consider would be since B.A. is a passive ability that requires the mobs to be attacking the pet to do damage, it does little to help gain back threat if the pet has lost it, of course that's what growl/taunt or even intervene are for.
Still in a pvp situation, (not that I'd recommend having a tenacity pet in a pvp situation, you don't always choose which pet you've got when getting ganked) your foe won't be taking any damage from B.A. unless he's trying to burn your pet down, which if he has half a brain he won't be.
All in all I think for pve aoe situations the Croc's B.A. certainly does hold a candle to Swipe and Thunderstomp, even outshining them in some ways.
Post by dehotz
Swipe and Bad Attitude are mitigated by armor since they deal physical damage. You didn't account for that in your calculations, making them essentially useless, and, if nothing else, horribly skewed.
Thunderstomp doesn't appear to have a max number of mobs it affects, it also seems to cause additional threat. It's also nature damage which may be better or worse depending on the situation.
(Bypasses armor on most mobs, but can be resisted or won't affect Nature immune mobs.)I did mention it, but it's hard to account for armor as it obviously varies depending on the mobs you're pulling. Likewise pulling a large selection of Nature immune mobs and attempting to grind them with Thunderstomp is probably going to be a problem. The comparison between B.A. and Swipe stills seems perfectly valid to me, am I missing something there?
Nice to see the BRK video on Crocs finally up, been waiting on that for quite some time. In regards to him pulling aggro off the Croc, there is no +threat modifier for B.A., neither is there for Swipe, Thunderstomp does appear to outperform them in regards to holding aggro. Still the damage dealt is something I'd like to take a closer look at, the fact that B.A. costs no focus thus letting you do more damage with your other abilities, I'll be sure to add more as soon as I find it out.