Scorpion Venom vs Frost Spear

[Chubaka]

Everywhere I look at the spell data of Scorpion Venom states that it is a 7 tick duration.  In actuality this is 8 ticks.  I have tested this over an over this weekend and it is indeed 8 ticks.  Therefore 110dd and 159/tick adds up to 1382 damage for 360 mana (no mana focus) instead of 1223 damage.

That makes the damage per mana 3.84 dpm.

In comparison, Frost Spear in-game description says a range of 450 to 675 for 250 mana.  Lets take the best case scenario and assume you hit for 675 and we will even add in 20% from an ID4 item for a max hit of 810 damage for 250 mana.

Damage per mana 3.24 and that is with Improved Damage.  (In actuality the range would be 2.16dpm to 3.24 dpm)  
And since nothing is very resistant to cold.............(Sarcasm btw :) )

If I could find a Burning Affliction 4 item.......

[Meowsa]

That works when said victim lasts longer than 7 ticks.

[Chubaka]

That works when said victim lasts longer than 7 ticks.

Well soloing for AA stuff lasts about 1 minute and 15 sec.  Both Scorpion Venom and Venom of the snake wear off with the mob at about 20% life.

[Ukator Iceblood]

I've always been a guy who wants to use dots but never seems to stick with them when I do. I think a major issue for me is in my normal group I'm also the slower. If I dot, even though I group with a heck of a warrior, I get agro much more than if I just dd.
I might change this if I get the two GoD spells (dd, dot) and use them both.

[Bengali]

Frost spear will always land for 675 unless it is partially resisted. The in-game description is wrong.  That assumes no focus of course.

[Argach]

Dots have a few probles: high and continuous aggro, good ratio only if they run the whole duration, high mana cost, delayed damage, mez breaking, the cost of the critical DoT AA. If you are soloing, yes they are better than nukes most of the time, but even then nukes can be better if yer using them as poor man's snare (ie. nuking down a running mob).

In groups, I preferred to add the amount of damage/aggro I wanted at the time I wanted to - I had almost always two of our 30 sec recast nukes up. If I wanted to slap the mob gently, I used the lower one, if I wanted to bonk it harder the higher one, and if I really wanted to or was overflowing with mana, I chained both as much as I could.

Both nukes and dots are valuable tools and part of the art of playing beastlord is to know when to use which one. -_-

[Tastian]

Yup I've run scorp venom at times and had talks about its efficency with it being 8 ticks with a few bst.  There are a lot of different factors to consider, but overall nukes work for me.  Also remember that frost spear is LESS mana efficent than ice shard and of the other nukes in the line.  Every other nuke starts off at 3 to 1 mana ratio.  Casting ice shard is still more dps than my melee, so if I'm actually being remotely efficent and not just mindlessly solo'n crap well chatting I'll throw shard instead of spear just for the slightly better mana ratio.  Plague can be a nice spell too if mobs last full duration and you have the mana for it.  I actually wish I could dot more than I do, but on a raid or in a group (unless I'm tanking) poison dots are just too much aggro.  I have heard a few bst claim that they have WA5 an ED main and use scorp and ture dots with a warrior tanking, but I just can't get close to that.  *shrugs* go figure another "it depends on your situation" thing.  8P

[Bryc]

Heh, I had a big discussion about this with a Ranger friend. My thoughts:

The mana efficiency of a nuke is commonly defined as the damage delivered divided by the mana used. This is accurate for a pure caster, who does zero damage between nukes. For a Hybrid, the benefit of nuking is damage over and above melee damage, and that should be the true damage/mana ratio, as in:

effectve damage per mana = (spell_damage - (cast_time * melee_dps))/mana

I do 50 dps with weapons. Assuming 2 second cast times, my efficiencies are:

Scorp Venom: (1382 - (2 * 50))/360 = 3.56 dam/mana (8 ticks + 110 DD)
Frost Spear: (675 - (2 * 50))/250 = 2.3 dam/mana
Ice Shard  : (450 - (2 * 50))/150 = 2.33 dam/mana
Frost Shard: (300 - (2 * 50))/100 = 2.00 dam/mana

When (if) I get 100 dps weapons, my efficiencies will be:

Scorp Venom: (1382 - (2 * 100))/360 = 3.28 dam/mana
Frost Spear: (675 - (2 * 100))/250 = 1.9 dam/mana
Ice Shard  : (450 - (2 * 100))/150 = 1.66 dam/mana
Frost Shard: (300 - (2 * 100))/100 = 1.0 dam/mana

With 150 dps weapons, my efficiencies would be:

Scorp Venom: (1382 - (2 * 150))/360 = 3.00 dam/mana
Frost Spear: (675 - (2 * 150))/250 = 1.5 dam/mana
Ice Shard  : (450 - (2 * 150))/150 = 1.0 dam/mana
Frost Shard: (300 - (2 * 150))/100 = 0.0 dam/mana

The trend continues as your melee dps increases. At some point, you would LOSE damage by casting a low level nuke. With really good weapons, the mana efficiency is based more on the total damage than the mana spent.

To bring it back to the original topic, Scorp Venom becomes relatively better than Frost Spear as your weapons improve.

With 50 dps melee:
Target efficiency = 2.3 dam/mana, or 828 damage. Add 100 to offset melee and you get 928 damage needed. This is equivalent to SV running for 5.1 tics (6 to win)

With 100 dps melee:
Target efficiency = 1.9 dam/mana, or 684 damage. Add 200 to offset melee and you get 884 damage needed. This is equivalent to SV running for 4.86 tics (5 to win)

With 150 dps melee (for S&G):
Target efficiency = 1.5 dam/mana, or 540 damage. Add 300 to offset melee and you get 840 damage needed. This is equivalent to SV running for 4.59 tics (5 to win).

Having said all that, with a sufficiently high delay 2HB (50-60+ delay), you could time your casts between swings, and ignore the loss of melee damage. That's not going to happen with 90% haste and two 25 delay HtH weapons.

[Aneya]

When I solo, I keep both Frost Spear and Scorpion Venom up.

I would like to get Turepta Blood and Trushar's Frost so I can really unload on a mob but haven't had much luck getting spell drops :/

[Coprolith]

effectve damage per mana = (spell_damage - (cast_time * melee_dps))/mana

As you mention yourself with a slow 2HB its relatively easy to time your casts in between swings so you loose 0 melee damage (i say relatively easy because the registration of hits in the UI is affected by lag). But even when you're dw'ing 2 fast 1H'ers at max haste your loss of melee damage isnt equal to cast_time*melee_dps, but only ~75% of that.


Anyways, its not just about dmg to mana ratios, use of SV vs FS vs IS is situational. If you're killing mobs in 30s then there's no point in DoTting. When you're dealing with Gating mobs then size matters ( :wink: ) and FS would be preferable to IS even if it had a 1:1 dmg to mana ratio.

/hugs

[Bryc]

But even when you're dw'ing 2 fast 1H'ers at max haste your loss of melee damage isnt equal to cast_time*melee_dps, but only ~75% of that.

Hmm...you got me here, Cop. Why only ~75%?

BTW, when I said SV becomes better than FS, I should have said more efficient. FS is my choice for short fights, gaters and runners. However, SV doesn't necessarily have to run 7 tics to be more efficient.

[Bengali]

Putting aside efficiency and moving to damage, another thing to consider with dots is that unlike our best nukes, they have no recast except for the standard 2.25 seconds for all spells.  If a mob has moderate cold resists (or is plain lucky) it can completely resist a couple of nukes and you have to wait 30 seconds before you can do any more damage that way.  I have yet to see any partial resist from a dot (besides the initial DD component if a mob has that spell mitigation buff that ikaavs have).

Again this has nothing to do with mana efficiency, which I know is the holy grail for some people.

Just another piece of the puzzle, is all.

[Tastian]

Yeah there's a lot to consider.  For me though if I'm in a situation where a spell get's resisted I basically have to go "shucks".  If I bounce a frost spear I have to wait for refresh and I might not have the mana for another anyways, or the mob already gated or ran or whatever.  However, I do always have atlesat two nukes up so *shrugs*.  With scorp venom if I'm solo'n I usually don't have the mana to retry resisted ones.  In some spots I literally have just enough mana to cast 1 scorp venom on each mob I fight and have it run its duration.  However, on a raid or something I can't fathom trying another scorp venom lol.  I'd say about 50-60% of the times I cast scorp venom I have this dear in headlights look on my face as I watch HoTT window hoping to not see my name show up hehe.

[Coprolith]

Hmm...you got me here, Cop. Why only ~75%?

Well when casting time > hasted delay the next combat round will fire immediately after you're done casting. As a result of this you don't loose (casting_time/hasted_delay) number of combat rounds, but less.

Let's say you're using 20 delay weapons and are at max haste, so hasted delay is 1.0 s. Assume the same 2s casting as you did before, and that the casting is done without paying any attention to swings, that is the start of casting will fall in between combat rounds completely at random.
Worst case scenario: casting starts just a fraction of a second before the next combat was due. The next combat round will then take place 3s after the last one and you'll have lost 2 entire combat rounds. This is the scenario your formula is assuming, the whole of the casting time is wasted.
Best case scenario: casting starts a fraction of a second after the last combat round. The next combat round takes place just 2s after the last one and you loose just one combat round.
On average, casting wil start halfway between combat rounds. You effectively loose 1.5 combat rounds instead of 2, hence the 75%.

Another example: you're using at 34 delay 2HB at max haste so hasted_delay is 1.7 s. Worst case scenario you loose 1+0.3/1.7 combat rounds, best case scenario you loose just 0.3/1.7 combat rounds. On average you'll loose 57.5% of your melee damage. If you'd pay attention to your swings and start casting immediately after a combat round (assuming super-reflexes and no lag) you're always in the best case scenario and melee damage loss is only 15% (realistically tho i dont think you'd get it below 30% or so)

Example #3, 20 delay weapons again, max haste, but now casting time is 4s. Best case, loose 3 rounds, worst case, loose 4 rounds. Effective average 3.5 rounds = 3.5/4 = 87.5% of your melee damage.

General formula for this fraction when casting occurs at random is
1 - 0.5/(casting_time/hasted_delay)

/hugs

[Chubaka]

Wow this turned into quite the discussion.

All I wanted to point out was that Scorp was 8 ticks not 7 making it pretty damn effeicent. hehehehe

number crunchers.....................