Softcaps discussion

[RuQu]

I should point out that I found a bug in my rotation code which erroneously allowed MP to be cast for 1 Ammo after AP twice sometimes, instead of once.

Correcting that, the peaks seem to have gone away, but the negative trend continues. The Google Doc link to the image posted before links to the living document, so the plot changed when I updated things. The new image at that link is % cast time reduction, not rating, and shows a spiky but clear negative trend in AP and MP usage.

I am also trying to create a C++ version to make some calculations easier on me. I had it feed in % reductions instead of calculating them since the exponential calculations were producing strange results. It is still in early Alpha, but I wanted to see what it would spit out since it was a lot faster than manually doing the spreadsheet version. The result was an essentially flat line in MP and AP usage until 25%, then it dropped and flat-lined again. I haven't had time to look into the cause of the drop, but since 25% is about when you could sneak the start of an extra AP into an SCC rotation my guess is it has to do with ammo usage and EC within SCC leading to lower post-SCC regen and therefore lower overall HPS. Since you would never actually do that, you would simply skip that cast to stay out of the lowest ammo zone, it does seem to be indicative of a point where the benefit from haste drops to zero. Either you exploit the haste and cast, in which case your HPS drops, or you stand around and don't cast, in which case the extra haste to get there is wasted. That said, 25% reduction requires full Alacrity talents and 620 Alacrity rating, which is excessive if not impossible at the moment anyway.