To begin with, the program SimulationCraft can be found here: http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/
Ever wanted to do your own theorycrafting? No?
Ok, well, have you ever wanted to get better results while dpsing? There we go, that got your attention. Well, that involves a bit of theorycraft. Wait, wait, don't go! It's easy. All you do is run a program. A little something called SimulationCraft...
What is SimulationCraft?
I'm sure all you dps raiders out there that know about your class have seen something called "stat weights". These are, essentially, how much a stat is worth point-for-point. This leads to deciding which piece of gear is better for you when comparing pieces, an obviously useful ability for those wanting to maximize their damage. Stat weights are an awesome tool, and very popular over at Elitist Jerks.
Well, when a theorycrafter tells you that stat x is worth, say 1.2 points and stat y is worth .8 points, they're not just pulling these numbers out of their Portable Holes, if you get my drift. These numbers are coming from somewhere. Specifically, from SimulationCraft.
So, what is SimulationCraft? Well, SimulationCraft, or SC for short (don't use SimCraft, the creators are pretty insistent on that) is a program that can simulate a boss fight. Again and again and again. And, if you tell it to, each time it runs a simulation it will change little variable here and there, like how much Strength or Haste you have, and will calculate how much each stat is worth for you.
Essentially, it works like this: You put in your character, and tell it to do a fight 100, 1000, or 10000 times. After a few seconds, it will report your theoretical maximum dps, what abilities did how much damage, resource levels, etc. The best way to describe it is as Recount on steroids. The reason it runs a fight so many times is to account for variance. There's always chance involved, like how many times something crits or what procs when. Running it so many times eliminates that risk.
In short, this is a tool to figure out what works for you in a raid setting, without having to actually step foot in a raid to figure it out.
Edited, Jan 12th 2011 9:45pm by IDrownFish
Edited, Jan 13th 2011 1:21am by IDrownFish
·Theme
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- General Discussion
- SimulationCraft for the Rest of Us
SimulationCraft for the Rest of UsFollow
Setting Up and Running SC
SimulationCraft is a very easy program to set up and run. It can be intimidating at first, but don't let that get to you.
Once you've downloaded the program, extract the folder to anywhere you want. I update mine frequently, so I prefer to keep mine on my desktop for easy access/deletion.
Once that's all taken care of, open the folder. The program you're looking for is called "simcqt". Don't click "simc", that's not what we want. Confusing, I know.
You should be greeted with a big logo and a mini-guide. But you don't want that, that's why you're here. I'm much more fun to talk to anyways.
Ahem. Anywho.
In order to simulate a fight, you first have to go to the "Import" tab at the top. SC has a built-in browser with its default page at WoW's battle.net site, making it easy to import your character from the armory. You can search for your character with that, copy and paste a link directly into the bar at the bottom, or import a character from the sub-tabs at the top. I'm going to assume that you're importing your character from the armory.
do a quick search and bring up your character. I'm sure you know the drill. Once you are staring at your character's magnificent mug on their armory page, click the "Import!" button at the bottom right. Your screen is going to fill up with code when it finishes importing. Don't panic.
If you look at these lines of text, you can see that this is essentially your character. All the stats are there, along with talents and the consumables the program assumes you are using. You can edit any and all of this to whatever you like just by changing the text now, if you want.
You will also see a list of priorities. It goes in order from most important to least important. Like, if you wanted to see if a different priority yields more dps, then just plug that in and fire. It usually has the optimal priority, but you are more than welcome to try other options.
Now, before you click that big, tempting "Simulate!" button where the "Import!" button used to be, let's make sure we have everything right. Click the "Options" tab at the top left. You will be presented with sub-tabs. Here's a list of them and what they contain:
Set the settings to what you wish. I like to use a 500 second long Patchwerk fight, with 10,000 iterations. I use a long fight with so many iterations to effectively remove variation in the data. I tend to slip on my daily sacrifices to the Random Number God, and I don't want that to be a factor. And I use a Patchwerk fight because that will tell me how to get the most when I need it: when we are standing still dealing as much damage as possible, like a burn phase.
Now that everything's set, you can hit that big, tempting "Simulate!" button on the bottom right and watch the bar fill as the computer works away.
When it is done, you will be taken to the results screen. I'll cover that more in another section.
Edited, Jan 12th 2011 8:08pm by IDrownFish
SimulationCraft is a very easy program to set up and run. It can be intimidating at first, but don't let that get to you.
Once you've downloaded the program, extract the folder to anywhere you want. I update mine frequently, so I prefer to keep mine on my desktop for easy access/deletion.
Once that's all taken care of, open the folder. The program you're looking for is called "simcqt". Don't click "simc", that's not what we want. Confusing, I know.
You should be greeted with a big logo and a mini-guide. But you don't want that, that's why you're here. I'm much more fun to talk to anyways.
Ahem. Anywho.
In order to simulate a fight, you first have to go to the "Import" tab at the top. SC has a built-in browser with its default page at WoW's battle.net site, making it easy to import your character from the armory. You can search for your character with that, copy and paste a link directly into the bar at the bottom, or import a character from the sub-tabs at the top. I'm going to assume that you're importing your character from the armory.
do a quick search and bring up your character. I'm sure you know the drill. Once you are staring at your character's magnificent mug on their armory page, click the "Import!" button at the bottom right. Your screen is going to fill up with code when it finishes importing. Don't panic.
If you look at these lines of text, you can see that this is essentially your character. All the stats are there, along with talents and the consumables the program assumes you are using. You can edit any and all of this to whatever you like just by changing the text now, if you want.
You will also see a list of priorities. It goes in order from most important to least important. Like, if you wanted to see if a different priority yields more dps, then just plug that in and fire. It usually has the optimal priority, but you are more than welcome to try other options.
Now, before you click that big, tempting "Simulate!" button where the "Import!" button used to be, let's make sure we have everything right. Click the "Options" tab at the top left. You will be presented with sub-tabs. Here's a list of them and what they contain:
- Global: Details about the fight. How long it will last, amount of lag, and number of times you want the simulation to be run (iterations), among others.
- Buffs/Debuffs: Check which boxes you will have in a typical raid fight. With the homogenization of buffs in 4.0, you will probably have most, if not all buffs and debuffs.
- Scaling/Plots: I'll go over this in the next section.
Set the settings to what you wish. I like to use a 500 second long Patchwerk fight, with 10,000 iterations. I use a long fight with so many iterations to effectively remove variation in the data. I tend to slip on my daily sacrifices to the Random Number God, and I don't want that to be a factor. And I use a Patchwerk fight because that will tell me how to get the most when I need it: when we are standing still dealing as much damage as possible, like a burn phase.
Now that everything's set, you can hit that big, tempting "Simulate!" button on the bottom right and watch the bar fill as the computer works away.
When it is done, you will be taken to the results screen. I'll cover that more in another section.
Edited, Jan 12th 2011 8:08pm by IDrownFish
Theorycrafting the Easy Way
The real beauty of SC shines through when you need to figure out with piece of gear is better for you.
But first, a bit about stat weights.
When you go to your local theorycrafting site and see that certain stats get certain values, they generally will generate these values with the Best in Slot list. This allows it to work for as much people as possible, but there is one fundamental flaw with this: stat weights aren't constant.
When you stack a stat to obscene levels, even if that stat is your best stat, then it will become slowly devalued, and other stats will increase in value. For example: a Fire mage might want to stack crit to the exclusion of all else. But eventually he reaches a point where he crits all the freaking time. So casting eventually becomes less about how often can you crit, and more about how fast you can pump those crits out. At this point, crit is worth less than it originally was, and haste is worth a lot more. Haste would allow him to shove out crits faster and faster, granting an overall dps increase.
All the stats interact with one another in pretty dang complex ways, and the point is that what a stat is worth for a completely geared, full best-in-slot raider may not be the same as what it is worth for a fresh 85.
So in order to find what's best for you, SC is an excellent tool. Just plug your character in and tell it to analyze some stats, and it'll spit out what's best for you and how to gear to your needs, not the needs of the Best in Slot raider.
In order to enable this awesome, awesome feature, import your character as usual. When you go to the "Options" tab, you remember those sub-tabs I talked about a while ago, and said I would come back to them later? Well, it's later. Click "Scaling" and check all the stats you want to analyze. Now, as a rogue, I'm not going to want to tell it to analyze Intellect, and a warlock isn't going to want to look at weapon speed. Each one you check adds a significant amount of time to the simulation, so make sure to only click the stats you're interested in.
The other sub-tab, "Plots" is a useful tool if you suspect there might be a plateau coming up for a stat. For example, look at Hit. For many classes, Hit is the most valuable stat, marked as a sharp upward line on a graph. For every point of it you gain, your dps goes up by more than any other stat. However, once you reach the cap, you can't go over. Any more hit is worthless to you. So that sharp upward line suddenly levels off. When it increases, your dps doesn't go up any more. The graph now has a "plateau" on it. I usually don't bother with these, but that's because I know my class doesn't have any plateaus at the moment. Feel free to have a look at them if you want. Be aware, however, that it does add significant wait time to the simulations.
Edited, Jan 12th 2011 8:24pm by IDrownFish
The real beauty of SC shines through when you need to figure out with piece of gear is better for you.
But first, a bit about stat weights.
When you go to your local theorycrafting site and see that certain stats get certain values, they generally will generate these values with the Best in Slot list. This allows it to work for as much people as possible, but there is one fundamental flaw with this: stat weights aren't constant.
When you stack a stat to obscene levels, even if that stat is your best stat, then it will become slowly devalued, and other stats will increase in value. For example: a Fire mage might want to stack crit to the exclusion of all else. But eventually he reaches a point where he crits all the freaking time. So casting eventually becomes less about how often can you crit, and more about how fast you can pump those crits out. At this point, crit is worth less than it originally was, and haste is worth a lot more. Haste would allow him to shove out crits faster and faster, granting an overall dps increase.
All the stats interact with one another in pretty dang complex ways, and the point is that what a stat is worth for a completely geared, full best-in-slot raider may not be the same as what it is worth for a fresh 85.
So in order to find what's best for you, SC is an excellent tool. Just plug your character in and tell it to analyze some stats, and it'll spit out what's best for you and how to gear to your needs, not the needs of the Best in Slot raider.
In order to enable this awesome, awesome feature, import your character as usual. When you go to the "Options" tab, you remember those sub-tabs I talked about a while ago, and said I would come back to them later? Well, it's later. Click "Scaling" and check all the stats you want to analyze. Now, as a rogue, I'm not going to want to tell it to analyze Intellect, and a warlock isn't going to want to look at weapon speed. Each one you check adds a significant amount of time to the simulation, so make sure to only click the stats you're interested in.
The other sub-tab, "Plots" is a useful tool if you suspect there might be a plateau coming up for a stat. For example, look at Hit. For many classes, Hit is the most valuable stat, marked as a sharp upward line on a graph. For every point of it you gain, your dps goes up by more than any other stat. However, once you reach the cap, you can't go over. Any more hit is worthless to you. So that sharp upward line suddenly levels off. When it increases, your dps doesn't go up any more. The graph now has a "plateau" on it. I usually don't bother with these, but that's because I know my class doesn't have any plateaus at the moment. Feel free to have a look at them if you want. Be aware, however, that it does add significant wait time to the simulations.
Edited, Jan 12th 2011 8:24pm by IDrownFish
Results and How to Read Them
When you finish your simulation, there will be a lot of numbers and tables. It's ok, breathe. I know it looks scary, but the program's really just a big sweetheart once you get to know it.
First up is the basic results. The dps listed at the top is not the dps you should be pulling in raids. It's your theoretical maximum possible dps. Humans simply can't achieve that. That number is calculated with a perfect environment, with perfect skill, and 0 lag. Your skill at your class is determined by how close you can come to that number. And if you don't come close, I don't want to hear it. As long as you do well in-game, you're doing fine.
Next up is the table with a bunch of numbers. These are your stat weights. See my previous section on these for details. If you did not select to analyze any stats, then the table will be filled with "0.0000". The program will even be extra-nice to you and generate a link to WoWHead's weighting database for looking for upgrades.
Moving on, we now come to the charts. Damage per Execute time basically tells you which abilities do the most damage in the least amount of time. The ones at the top are generally the abilities you want to cast first, and are higher in the priority. The ones at the bottom are likely filler. Refer to the experts on your class for details on actual priorities. That's not my job.
The resource timeline shows how much of your class's resource you had over the course of the fight. I especially like Arcane Mages' graph here. It looks like a weird kinda heartbeat. That goes flat at the end.
The rest is fairly self-evident.
Well, that's it, for the most part. I'm likely forgetting something extremely obvious. Feel free to scream at me, or post questions here if you have some.
Edited, Jan 12th 2011 8:38pm by IDrownFish
When you finish your simulation, there will be a lot of numbers and tables. It's ok, breathe. I know it looks scary, but the program's really just a big sweetheart once you get to know it.
First up is the basic results. The dps listed at the top is not the dps you should be pulling in raids. It's your theoretical maximum possible dps. Humans simply can't achieve that. That number is calculated with a perfect environment, with perfect skill, and 0 lag. Your skill at your class is determined by how close you can come to that number. And if you don't come close, I don't want to hear it. As long as you do well in-game, you're doing fine.
Next up is the table with a bunch of numbers. These are your stat weights. See my previous section on these for details. If you did not select to analyze any stats, then the table will be filled with "0.0000". The program will even be extra-nice to you and generate a link to WoWHead's weighting database for looking for upgrades.
Moving on, we now come to the charts. Damage per Execute time basically tells you which abilities do the most damage in the least amount of time. The ones at the top are generally the abilities you want to cast first, and are higher in the priority. The ones at the bottom are likely filler. Refer to the experts on your class for details on actual priorities. That's not my job.
The resource timeline shows how much of your class's resource you had over the course of the fight. I especially like Arcane Mages' graph here. It looks like a weird kinda heartbeat. That goes flat at the end.
The rest is fairly self-evident.
Well, that's it, for the most part. I'm likely forgetting something extremely obvious. Feel free to scream at me, or post questions here if you have some.
Edited, Jan 12th 2011 8:38pm by IDrownFish
Useful Links
http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/ - SimulationCraft's home site. Remember to update every now and then for accurate results. Mainly after every patch.
http://elitistjerks.com/forums.php - Elitist Jerks, the kings of DPS. Head here for detailed how-to's for your class.
http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/ - SimulationCraft's home site. Remember to update every now and then for accurate results. Mainly after every patch.
http://elitistjerks.com/forums.php - Elitist Jerks, the kings of DPS. Head here for detailed how-to's for your class.
Sounds neat. How does it compare to Rawr?
You're a smelly hippie.
nice guide
nice guide
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Scholar
43 posts
I've been meaning to run SimCraft for ages. This nice and easy guide has convinced me to do it tonight.
Thanks for the guide. It has also convinced me to give the program a try.
http://wow.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=21&mid=124443421410708451
Is a guide that I put together for Rawr. It was made in WotLK but the principles should still be the same.
Nice work on the SimCraft guide.
Is a guide that I put together for Rawr. It was made in WotLK but the principles should still be the same.
Nice work on the SimCraft guide.
jaysgsl wrote:
Sounds neat. How does it compare to Rawr?
For many specs it's better than Rawr, simply because it has more support for the moment.
I still love Rawr, and I would prefer it on my mage just because it's so easy to use, but at the moment it simply isn't ready for what I want to use it for yet. So I'm sticking with SC. In addition, Rawr kinda sucks for Shadow Priest, more because we have less of a "rotation" and more the caster version of kitty dps these days.
Horsemouth wrote:
You're a smelly hippie.
nice guide
nice guide
NO U.
Thanks.
You mentioned that we can use SC as a tool to determine what gear is BiS for us as an individual based on our current gear. How do I do that? I see some gear lists, but they just have my current gear listed.
Or is this more of a way of figuring out which stats you want to gear for given your current gear?
Or is this more of a way of figuring out which stats you want to gear for given your current gear?
Necro Warning: This post occurred more than thirty days after the prior, and may be a necropost.
Hewwo necwopoft.
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
Necro posting iz bad Pigtails...rate neutral for you (+1 for me)
Edited, May 23rd 2011 3:18pm by Ailitardif
Edited, May 23rd 2011 3:18pm by Ailitardif
It's a guide. :-p Necroposting in a guide isn't bad.
Wonder Gem PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
You mentioned that we can use SC as a tool to determine what gear is BiS for us as an individual based on our current gear. How do I do that? I see some gear lists, but they just have my current gear listed.
Or is this more of a way of figuring out which stats you want to gear for given your current gear?
Or is this more of a way of figuring out which stats you want to gear for given your current gear?
Reponded in the Priest forum, but reposting here.
Sorry if I made it misleading. There's no way to figure out the BiS gear - the program doesn't have a database of all items in it, nor can it grab it from wowhead. It simulates based on the stats you input. That's why you can see a list of an item's stats on the Import page. you can even edit them right there to your liking, giving you a theoretical +9001 int, for example.
This thread is teh sex for a BiS shadow. For other specs, you'll have to troll EJ/their respective forums.
It IS possible to figure out BiS using SC, but it's mostly just trial and error. People pick items they think look like upgrades, plug them into SC, and see if their dps rises. Using this, they eventually build a BiS set. But that's just too much work for me.
Wonder Gem PigtailsOfDoom wrote:
It's a guide. :-p Necroposting in a guide isn't bad.
Right! So shuddup.
Recent Visitors: 401
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (401)
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- General Discussion
- SimulationCraft for the Rest of Us
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC