InsaneJournal

Current location:	Un'Goro Crater
Current mood:	geeky
Entry tags:	theorycraft

nom nom plot
I swear I'm slowly chewing over ficbits for my pups in the back of my mind, though they're taking a back seat to the Gunslinger notes I'm working on. Mostly I want to write up a couple of vignettes for Ansa--how and why she turned into a "cleaning" sort of OCD (brain ameobas, i tell ya), what induced her to pick up Nemesis, and why she's got Redemption now. (I am fighting, and failing, the urge to ditch Nemesis for a white-and-teal scorpid sometime soon. But I leveled him so far...)

I have yet to do the math for it, but I have the sneaking suspicion that, despite the supposed 3% advantage cats have over wind serpents, Redemption is handily beating out Nemesis's DPS. This is probably because a) Redemption's focus-dump burns up all the extra focus she's getting from GftT/Bestial Discipline, while Nemesis can't spam Claw fast enough to use it all, and b) Lightning Breath ignores armor and gets a boost from my RAP.

Once Rem's 54 (a quarter bubble away from now), I'm going to take them cruising through Un'Goro and do some serious study using my damage meter. Take them both out for a whirl, kill the same number of enemies of the same type (or try) over about the same length of time, then check the total damage done by each afterwards. I'll also need to take a look at how often I crit so I know how often GftT is proc'ing... And I'm not sure how to control for Frenzy, since I've got it 4/5 right now, so it doesn't always go off when my pet crits. I think it shouldn't matter too much in the long run, because that percentage will emerge in the averages as I fight more mobs. I also think, for the first set of trials, I'm leaving Bite on on Redemption, then doing a second run with her with Bite off. The edge may be there not because of LB being a better focus dump, but because she's got two direct damage skills to Nemesis's one. (Though the theorycraft I've seen on this indicates that it really doesn't matter how many direct damage skills a pet has stacked; they only need ONE focus dump to put out their optimum damage. I just have Bite trained because I hate having Cower trained... But if Rem's going to be my instancing pet, and Bite doesn't matter in the long run, I may want to train Cower. Decisions, decisions. We'll see how her damage does when she isn't using Bite.)

So to write this up in a more scientific form:

Hypothesis: Despite a cat's higher DPS compared to a wind serpent (a difference of +3%, with their bonuses taken into account), my wind serpent is doing more damage to mobs than my cat of the same level and training. (Both have cobra reflexes, both benefit from my talents in the same way, etc.)
Accessory Hypotheses: This difference in damage is due to at least one of the following:
a. Lightning Breath makes more efficient use than Claw of the extra focus generated by my talents.
b. Redemption has two direct damage skills (Lightning Breath, Bite) to Nemesis's one (Claw).
c. Damage from Lightning Breath is not affected by armor, being Nature damage; spell resistance on most mobs my level is relatively negligible, while armor is not.

Proposed Procedure: Each pet, a level 54 Wind Serpent and a Level 54 Cat, will be trained (re-trained, if necessary) to have equivalent skills with respect to damage dealing. Then, each one will be taken out to kill a minimum of ten mobs of the same or similar type in Un'Goro Crater. Bestial Wrath and Rapid Fire will not be used. At the end of each trial the number of crits (by the Hunter) will be noted for an examination of Go for the Throat's proc rate, and the overall damage output recored, before the damage meter is reset. Combat log transcripts may also be used in order to determine how Focus is being used during fights. A second run with the Wind Serpent with the Bite skill disabled may be required, in order to compare gross damage output with and without Bite to see if its use makes a significant difference in overall damage.