What a neat word ... and exactly what I am trying to do ... generate a theory for myself about how this game works. I appreciate Protonk's comments, especially about the static nature of D&D and Excel spreadsheets. It had not crossed my mind that I was trying to model a Bayesian system with a static tool.
I also now see why many of the tools I have run across are for calculating DPS. If you are not in battle, just standing around chatting or picking your nose, then these stats don't really matter much.
My Paladin reached lvl 85 last night. So now the fun begins. I chose the Retribution talent tree because I knew I was going to solo and being a damage dealer seemed the safest choice. I think I will concentrate my priestess ... my little lvl 2 baby ... on healing when she has to make the choice. Just to see how that works out.
Do you think my lvl 16 Demonology warlock could be played as a tank? That's the only role that I am a little confused about.
I played a healing priest (holy, then discipline) for a few years. Discipline is an active, fun spec for healing. You are rewarded for foresight but you have the capacity to handle incipient crises. In the current expansion Holy is supposed to be much more dynamic than in the past but I have no experience with it in a raid setting.
ReplyDeleteYour demonology warlock can cast a pet which will tank for you but I don't recommend this until you are able to summon a Felguard (level 40 if I recall correctly). He won't really be able to tank for other players or in a group (except in an emergency and then only for a short time) but he can help you solo.
As far as theorycrafting goes you will want to check out http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/ as an example of a very full featured tool. It is cross platform and up to date. It isn't the most user friendly program out there but you should be able to get the hang of it. The main project page also has a considerable amount of information on the philosophy and capabilities of the tool in particular and theorycrafting/simulation in general. When you use it the most important output will be the scaling factors. These are effectively the resultant DPS change from an increase in a stat by 1 point. They will not remain fixed as your character gets more items so you will have to rerun the simulation periodically but it should remain relatively stable for small changes (adding or removing one item).
One very technical note. As you change stats like mastery, crit and haste (hit is basically something you should prioritize at all times up to the cap then ignore), your ideal "sequence" of actions should also change.
I put sequence in scare quotes because you aren't actually executing a rotation. You should imagine your actions as a priority list. If action #1 is available use it, if not, use action #2 and so on. This list can actually get quite complicated because it includes abilities which debuff the enemy or buff your party so it may be "If buff 1 is applied, do action 2, else reapply buff 1" etc. Gets messy. But I digress.
This priority list will shift as your stats change because actions will become available more often or contingent events will occur with greater frequency. Imagine if you have an ability which applies some buff when you get a critical strike. Below a given level of crit, this buff will not be applied 100% of the time; you will not crit enough to refresh it. Above that threshold level, the buff will be applied 100% of the time and you now might have some other ability which becomes optimal under those circumstances.
The nice thing is simulationcraft will take this into account with regard to your gear but it can't actually fight the fight for you. :) You might have to do some reading to see where this applies for ret paladins. But for solo work of 5 person groups it won't matter that much. Understanding your abilities and maintaining situational awareness is more important than maximizing your DPS.