PT tanking rotation theorycrafting advice/opinions wanted

[THAT_EPIC_GUY]

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on pt tanking by any means hence my request for help I could simply have missed something totally obvious and any clarification is appreciated.

 

So I recently started gearing my pt tank and was playing around with rotations. The thing that puzzles me with PT tanking is that they suffer a huge dps loss in order to achieve maximum mitigation compared to other tanks. I haven't been able to find much of a concrete answer of what is preferable. So I did some parsing to try to get a more concrete comparison between a high dps tanking rotation and a maximum mitigation rotation. For the purposes of explanation I'll be referring to them as 'dps rotation' and 'mitigation rotation.' The major difference between them is that the dps rotation uses rapid shot for heat management and to apply the ion cell dot in order for minimal delay on railshot, whereas the mitigation rotation purely uses rapid shots, rocket punch, and railshot (both rotations of course using heat blast when available and shoulder cannon/explosive fuel). I'm sure my rotation was not 100% perfect and 5 parses isn't a spectacular sample size but this was just to get some rough stats to analyze and get some insight.

 

Parses were done on the 500k hp operations dummy with debuffs modifier active. Gear was a mix of 220 and 224. Relics used were exarch mk-26 shield amp and ultimate exarch reactive warding. I parsed until I had 5 parses for each rotation within 2% of each other's total crit damage (I used crit damage as the indicator of crit rng since it's more reliable than crit %, a high crit percentage on weaker moves can skew the crit % and make it a misleading representation of lucky parsing). The relevant stats for the 5 parses were averaged and are as follows. I also included a brief statement of the ability composition of both rotations and how they may be relevant to raid encounters.

 

Mitigation rotation;

1885 dps

54.8% uptime on heat blast

45.7% uptime on 2 piece set bonus (2% damage reduction)

173 total GCDs in the parse (I wouldn't worry heaps about this number, since lower dps means more GCDs to do the 500k damage)

83.2% of GCDs were 30m abilities

16.8% of the GCDs were 4m abilities

There were 35 off GCD ability activations which were 10m abilities

So we can see this rotation is also more ranged based. This rotation also has 100% uptime of the cylinder dot, meaning more reliable rail shot usage. (however, this is likely only noticable on the dummy, in a raid your the dots of your dps members will probably ensure you can always railshot.)

 

DPS rotation

2634 DPS

44.8% uptime of heat blast

37.5% uptime of 2 piece set bonus

123 total GCDs

43.1% of GCDs were 30m abilities

39.8% of GCDs were 10m abilities

17.1% of GCDs were 4m abilities

23 off GCD ability activations which were 10m abilities

So we can see this rotation gives much more dps at the expense of heat blast and set bonus uptime. It also has a stricter melee requirement.

 

Since these parses were done on a dummy, we do not get the heat recovery from shielding/defending. This is negligible for the mitigation rotation since there are zero heat issues. However, the dps rotation would be able to use more flame bursts and the dps gap would likely become greater.

 

So basically, there's some numbers. I'm curious to hear opinions on what's preferable. What's the sort of tradeoff between dps and mitigation are tanks willing to take and where does it shift the favor from one rotation to the other? Thanks for any responses

Edited April 24, 2016 by THAT_EPIC_GUY

[trashy_spartan]

In a raid environment, I don't bother with that. I just use rocket punch, railshot, firestorm, heatblast and shoulder cannon/explosive fuel on cd. Flame burst/flame sweep are my main fillers unless I'm full heat, over 10m and/or vent heat is on cd. I will also jet charge if I can to get my free flame bursts.

 

This rotation also has 100% uptime of the cylinder dot, meaning more reliable rail shot usage. (however, this is likely only noticable on the dummy, in a raid your the dots of your dps members will probably ensure you can always railshot.)

You're pretty much right. You don't need to watch for ion cell dot during a raid.

 

My philosophy is : Do the maximum dps you can do and use the right DCD before big spikes/unavoidable damage.

[THAT_EPIC_GUY]

In a raid environment, I don't bother with that. I just use rocket punch, railshot, firestorm, heatblast and shoulder cannon/explosive fuel on cd. Flame burst/flame sweep are my main fillers unless I'm full heat, over 10m and/or vent heat is on cd. I will also jet charge if I can to get my free flame bursts.

 

 

You're pretty much right. You don't need to watch for ion cell dot during a raid.

 

My philosophy is : Do the maximum dps you can do and use the right DCD before big spikes/unavoidable damage.

 

I understand that but I'm more so wondering why. I'm not disagreeing with anything just trying to get a real strong understanding. You have one rotation which gives significantly more uptime of heat blast and the set bonus and another rotation which reduces mitigation in favor of dps. Now as a tank, it seems logical to only rocket punch, railshot, rapid shots for any nim fight which is not a noticeable dps check eg. Council P3, why should you ever flame burst or even firestorm in this phase if it's a mitigation loss? To me this 'mitigation rotation' seems so glaringly obvious to use in a lot of scenarios yet I've never seen a tank do so. I've cleared all the current nim in 4.0 and done semi pugs and filled in for a lot of nim raids this tier too and not a single pt has done this and I'm more so curious as to why.

[trashy_spartan]

I would say there are several reasons for that :

- The most obvious one is threat generation otherwise you would have to spam taunts a lot.

- Likewise, better dps means things die faster.

- Mitigation is heavily RNG dependent so I don't think you or your healers will notice the difference.

- Heat blast has a 15s CD with a 1s CD reduction every 1.5s when using rocket punch, railshot, rapid shots (15% chance per shot) or having a shield/def proc. Hence the minimal duration of heat blast CD is 9s so 6 heat screen procs to achieve that (correct me if I am wrong). While tanking, you do most of the time 2 rocket punches and 1 railshot per heat blast CD. So, you have 3 remaining heat screen procs.

Now the tricky part, you have to factor in shield/def procs and rapid shots which are RNG dependent.

• If you don't have shield/def procs because you're off tanking or tanking bosses like Stormcaller NiM, heat blast won't be useful (2 pc set bonus aside).
  
• If you have shield/def procs, you probably would not gain a lot of mitigation by spamming rapid shots. But it's really hard to say without doing some proper maths.

 

Overall, I think not using firestorm and/or flame burst is non optimal because the gain of mitigation won't be noticeable but the loss of dps/tps will be highly noticeable.

Edited April 25, 2016 by trashy_spartan

[THAT_EPIC_GUY]

I would say there are several reasons for that :

- The most obvious one is threat generation otherwise you would have to spam taunts a lot.

- Likewise, better dps means things die faster.

- Mitigation is heavily RNG dependent so I don't think you or your healers will notice the difference.

- Heat blast has a 15s CD with a 1s CD reduction every 1.5s when using rocket punch, railshot, rapid shots (15% chance per shot) or having a shield/def proc. Hence the minimal duration of heat blast CD is 9s so 6 heat screen procs to achieve that (correct me if I am wrong). While tanking, you do most of the time 2 rocket punches and 1 railshot per heat blast CD. So, you have 3 remaining heat screen procs.

Now the tricky part, you have to factor in shield/def procs and rapid shots which are RNG dependent.

• If you don't have shield/def procs because you're off tanking or tanking bosses like Stormcaller NiM, heat blast won't be useful (2 pc set bonus aside).
  
• If you have shield/def procs, you probably would not gain a lot of mitigation by spamming rapid shots. But it's really hard to say without doing some proper maths.

 

Overall, I think not using firestorm and/or flame burst is non optimal because the gain of mitigation won't be noticeable but the loss of dps/tps will be highly noticeable.

 

But there are so many instances where healers are usually stressed and tank dps is an almost non factor. I said council nim p3 before, to elaborate the damage done to calphayus means nothing, how could a tank ever justify using flame burst on calphayus during that phase? More often you see groups die due to poor mechanic execution and hence being overwhelmed by unnecessary damage rather than hitting enrages. The mitigation rotation lessens the impact of unnecessary damage which is a more frequent cause of wipes. Of course the tradeoff isn't balanced. You get a very tiny mitigation boost and suffer a big dps loss (almost a third of your dps) but if we disregard tight dps check fights, how often have groups wiped due to lack of dps vs being overwhelmed by damage? Yes you can always say a group needs to improve their execution but at the end of the day, the team who can fix mistakes mid-pull is typically the faster progressing team rather than the team who needs to get to the point of perfect execution.

[trashy_spartan]

I forgot to mention that both flame burst/sweep and firestorm apply damage reduction debuffs on targets (5% less on damage dealt by the target). If the tank doesn't use them, he will have a higher dtps. Contrary to mitigation which is RNG dependent, these debuffs are direct dtps reduction. And we can also add oil slick which is a powerful precision debuff yet I've seen few PT tanks using it properly.

 

Now to go further on heat blast :

Mitigation rotation;

54.8% uptime on heat blast

45.7% uptime on 2 piece set bonus (2% damage reduction)

 

DPS rotation

44.8% uptime of heat blast

37.5% uptime of 2 piece set bonus

Those numbers are dummy parse numbers and do not reflect reality because you do not have your RP proc nor your shield/def proc which means your heat screen generation is lower than it is in a boss fight. Also RS has about 55% chance to proc heat screen (15% chance to proc ion cell dot per shot and 5 shots per RS).

Let's compare those numbers with the numbers I've got from NiM Writhing Horror. I took this boss because it's a dummy boss and you have little loss of your "tanking uptime".

 

51.18% uptime on heat blast

42.68% uptime on 2 pc set bonus

 

So my uptimes are pretty close to those of your mitigation rotation while I use the dps rotation. So we can assume that the gain of the mitigation rotation would be next to nothing. And I may add that if you need the mitigation rotation to stay alive, you have bigger problems than your rotation.

[THAT_EPIC_GUY]

Oil slick I consider a cd so don't talk about it within the general rotation. Yeah of course apply the debuffs and maintain them (I thought that was obvious and didn't state it). Also I'm well aware you get more procs during a raid, but that increase in procs is constant for both rotations. What I was displaying was the difference between them, a constant factor can be taken out in the comparison.

 

And yes if you need that level of mitigation there are problems. But like I said, even the best groups wipe, even the best groups have moments in their farm content where their tank survives on 1% hp, that extra piece of mitigation can make the difference. If your dps are good enough you can probably go clear all of nim in 220s (we were doing a lot of our first nim raids in 216/220) but that doesn't mean you run in 220s when you have 224s available lol.

 

What I'm saying is clearly defined by the following main points.

1. A majority of wipes are not due to enrages or dps deficiencies.

2. A majority of wipes are due to a failure to execute mechanics leading to being overwhelmed by unnecessary damage.

3. Good groups can recover from a certain threshold of these mistakes and survive through a certain amount of unnecessary damage before it becomes unbearable.

4. By increasing mitigation you increase this threshold you can survive and hence address the most common cause of wipes.

 

Now, like I said, I rarely PT tank. I main a dps but run NiM on every role I can. But it seems to make so much sense to do this yet no one I've ever seen does. Now I understand some tanks favor dps output to the point they run power mods, dps stims and dps relics. But there are a lot of tanks out there who gear for full survivability but they use a less survivable rotation. This seems contradictory to me and I'm more so wondering if this rotation is something most players don't consider at all or if they have a reason for it.

 

I apologise if I come across as argumentative. I really don't like this rotation at all, I want to be convinced it's not worth it lol When I play I'm not going to do it but I don't have a strong reason why other than it's boring.