WoW Worrior Tanking Guide: Devastate Performance Analysis
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Due to the misleading tooltip of devastate, there?s been some discussion as to the worth of this ability in tanking, how it compares to sunder & heroic strike, whether fast or slow weapons benefit more from it.
This guide will try to explore the workings of devastate, compare it to other tanking moves, explore where it?s useful and finally run some simulations to see what speed weapon benefits most.
This guide is valid as of patch 2.0.7. I will try to update if things change in future patches.
The tooltip on devastate rank 3 is:
?An instant weapon attack that causes 50% of weapon damage plus 35 and additional threat for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. In addition, this attack will renew the duration of the Sunder Armor effect.?
This suggests that the devastate formula is:
(wpn dmg + normalized ap) x 50% + 35 + # sunders x threat
Testing during the TBC beta by Lavina / The Venture Co ? EU (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html? topicId=78137860&postId=780908615&sid=1#0) showed this to be false. The testing showed the actual formuala to be:
(wpn dmg + normalized ap) x 50% + 25 x # of sunders + threat
This is a significant departure from what the tooltip indicates. The tooltip states a serious threat generator, the actual formula suggests a dps tool with added aggro.
As of 2.0.7, live testing shows Lavina?s formula to hold true still. This guide will use that formula.
Since the beta testing was done, devastate innate threat has been increased to 101.
How to maximise the effectiveness of Devastate?
An examination of the formula shows that devastate benefits greatly from the number of sunders on the mob. Let?s test devastate with 0 sunders and 5 sunders.
Assumptions:
Warrior is level 70, wielding a 71.7 dps GM/HW Slicer 2.6 speed one-hand sword.
Warrior has 1400 attack power.
Mob is also level 70 with 4000 base armor.
Armor reduction formual is: (Armor / (Armor - 22167.5 + 467.5 * Enemy_Level)) * 100
Mob armor mitigation with 0 sunders:
(4000 / (4000 ? 22167,5 + 467,5 * 70)) * 100 = 27.5 %
Mob armor mitigation with 5 sunders:
(1400 / (1400 ? 22167.5 + 467,5 * 70)) * 100 = 11.7 %
Weapon damage range = 149 ? 224, average damage = 186,5
The warrior?s white swing would be, on average, 186.5 + 1400 / 14 * 2.6 =
447 before armor mitigation,
323 after mitigation,
394 after 5 sunders.
Devastate results with zero sunders:
Damage = (186.5 + 1400 / 14 * 2.4) x 50% + (35 x 0) = 213,25 * (1 ? 27,5%) = 155
Threat = 155 + 101 = 256 threat
Devastate results with five sunders:
Damage = (186.5 + 1400 / 14 * 2.4) x 50% + (35 x 5) = 388,25 * (1 ? 11,7%) = 343
Threat = 343 + 101 = 444 threat
Even without the armor reduction effect of sunder, the presence of sunder ups damage of devastate considerably. Along with the sunder effect, the damage has more than doubled.
Is Devastate better than Sunder Armor?
Sunder Armor at max rank does 301 aggro per application, lowers target?s armor by 520, can be stacked 5 times for the armor reduction effect but continues to generate threat past those initial 5.
Assuming we have already put the 5 sunders on, should we keep on spamming sunder or using devastate? Without any points in improved sunder armor, both sunder and devastate cost 15 rage and are spammable on the global cooldown. As seen from the above example, devastate delivers much higher threat than sunder armor.
What if we put in points to improved sunder armor? Assuming we also have focused rage, our devastates become 12 rage, our sunders become 9 rage. So we can ask two questions:
(1) Which move delivers higher threat per rage?
(2) What is the weapon damage required for devastate to surpass sunder armor?
From our previous calculation, devastate threat with 5 sunders = 444.
Sunder Armor at max rank does 301
Devastate Threat per Rage = 444 / 12 = 37
Sunder Armor Threat per Rage = 301 / 9 = 33,4
Devastate gives better return for the rage spent. We do both higher threat AND do dps, whereas sunder has no damage component.
So is devastate better because we used a high dps weapon? Let?s see what dps weapon is required to outdo sunder.
(wpn dmg + normalized ap) x 50% + 35 x 5 + 101 = 301
301 ? 101 ? (35 x 5) = 25 / 50% = 50. With any weapon + AP combo doing more than 50 damage per hit, devastate will deliver higher threat than sunder armor. A level 70 warriors just AP contribution will be higher than 50. Therefore devastate is a better tool than sunder armor under any condition.
Is Heroic Strike Better Than Devastate?
Due to HS being a ?on next swing? ability and the somewhat unpredictable rage cost and differing spammability, making a direct comparison is harder. We can at the most model different scenarios and test.
Heroic Strike Rank 10 does: A strong attack that increases melee damage by 176 and causes a high amount of threat. Causes additional damage against Dazed targets?
Testing has shown the ?high amount of threat? to be 196.
Normalized AP applies only to instant attacks therefore HS uses regular AP mechanics.
HS (10) damage = wpn dmg + ap + 176
For our warrior this means = 186.5 + 1400/14*2.6 + 176 = 622.5
Before armor mitigation = 623
After migitation = 452
After 5 sunders = 550
Obviously the single hit damage of HS is significantly higher. However, devastate is on the global cooldown timer, 1.5 seconds, while HS is on the swing timer of our slow weapon, 2.6 seconds. Let?s compare dps. Since HS is additional fixed damage to white swings, we can only compare HS extra damage per second to devastate dps as devastate dps is also in addition to white swing damage.
Devastate dps = 343 / 1.5 = 229
Heroic Strike dps = 176 / 2.6 = 67,7
From a pure dps point of view, the additional dps effect is significantly lower compared to devastate.
Heroic Strike of course benefits from a faster weapon, so lets see if using the GM Quickblade, with the same dps but 1.8 speed makes any difference regarding dps.
GM Quickblade data:
Damage range = 103 ? 155, average damage = 129
Speed = 1.8
HS(10) damage = 129 + 1400/14*1.8 + 176 = 485
Before armor mitigation = 485
After mitigation = 352
After 5 sunders = 428
Devastate damage = (129 + 1400/14*2.4)x50% + 35x5 = 359.5
Before armor mitigation = 360
After 5 sunders = 318
Devastate dps = 318 / 1.5 = 212
HS dps = 176 / 1.8 = 97,7
Despite delivering big numbers on individual hits, the additional damage cannot catch up with devastate just because we use a faster weapon.
Since we want to see if HS can outdo devastate in a tanking situation, we also need to see the threat generation and the rage cost of it. Since devastate is on a global cooldown timer and HS is on a next swing, the only way we can compare the two is if we take a time frame and measure threat & rage performance.
We?ll take a 27 second fight to compare. This assumes the 27 seconds start after 5 sunders are applied.
During this time, we can do 15 Heroic Strikes OR 18 devastates and 15 normal white swings, since devastate is on a global cooldown and does not consume white swings.
Damage from 15 Heroic strikes = 15 x 428 = 6420
Threat from 15 Heroic Strikes = 15 x (428 + 196) = 9360
Rage cost of 15 Heroic Strikes = 9 x 15 = 135
Threat per second = 9360 / 27 = 347
Threat per rage = 69,3
Damage from 18 Devastates = 18 x 318 = 5724
Damage from 15 white swings = 15 x (129 + 1400/14*1.8) * (1- 11.7%) = 4093
Total damage = 5724 + 4093 = 9817
Rage cost of 18 devastates = 18 x 12 = 216
Rage gain from white swings = 15 x ((272,9 / 274,7)*7,5+2.5*1.8)/2 = 89
Net rage cost of 18 devastates = 216 ? 89 = 127
Total Threat = 18 x (318 + 101) + 4093 = 11635
Threat per second = 11635 / 27 = 431
Threat per rage = 91,6
So, even with a fast weapon that favors Heroic Strike on a per hit basis, Devastate significantly outperforms Heroic Strike in dps, total threat, threat per second, threat per rage categories.
Admittedly, the white swings that help put devastate in front of HS are subject to glancing blows but even with glancing blows factored in, Devastate outperforms HS to such an extent that it should always be the preferred threat generator
Edit: Edited the HS dps part to make clear that HS damage is really HS bonus damage per second, as per suggestions below.
