Let’s say I have two attacks. One deals twice the damage of the other, but the second causes me to deal 12.5% more damage for what amounts to 4 (or barely over 4, not enough for a 5th) attacks’ time.
Now add to that the fact that the first costs 30 Focus while the second generates it.
Which is the superior use of the GCD if the buff is absent or just about to fall off [less than the buff’s duration mod(your_GCD_length)]?
Simplified answer: Unless you are already Focus-capped and would average a lower ppgcd (relative %AP per GCD’s time) than your overall average ppgcd over the buff’s time, the second.
And that’s at a mere 12.5%. You’d surpass that quickly even with Versatility, which is burdened also by a defensive element. For a proposed Mastery, it’d be difficult even to avoid that amount.
Something to consider is that we had this effect before and it didn’t incentivize spamming KC for the damage buff. Because the damage buff is RNG, you aren’t getting it every time you spam or fish for resets. I know you mentioned earlier how you feel it wastes Pheromone infusion, but I don’t necessarily agree. Even with the SotP mastery/conduit, Pheromone’s niche isn’t to chain KC for damage, but to dump all your Focus in MF windows before your red bomb is up, guaranteeing you a full bar of Focus for the next window. The only time KC has ever been “spam regardless of Focus” was mad bombardier, and that’s because the proc would generate an entire bomb and not a flat damage buff
Another thing to consider is usually there is more incentive for spending focus rather than sitting on capped Focus for no gain.
We haven’t had that effect before, though, for the simple fact that it has never been allowed to scale nearly so far, let alone quadratically (increasing both the chance and benefit of the buff).
Strength of the Pack only gave the damage bonus, of 3-10%. A Mastery, though, tends to start well beyond that… and then you’ve got the increased chance atop it.
I never said it KC chains were for damage, nor did I imply anything remotely like that. Normally, they are for shifting —adding timely density to— focus spending, but by making so much of KC’s value around a buff that the consecutive KCs can only waste, you devalue that.
Yes, but only when the math makes it optimal. If there is more e%AP to be had overcapping as to embonus the damage that comes after it than to delay the buff until some Focus can be spent, though, you will overcap Focus because it provides more dps to do so, at any window size.
And that’s a threshold quickly reached when dealing with a scalar that…
has a head-start (because it’s a Mastery, which always starts with some effect),
has to compete with Crit/Haste, and
quadratically affects the action priority of a given action (per buff duration).
“Tends to” being the quantifying word here. The secondary effect of Enhancement’s mastery (the increased proc chance) scales very slowly and is in no way centralizing
It fails to be rotationally centralizing because it doesn’t concentrate its impact on/through the same action. Instead, it’s largely versatility with some slight aversion (kept down by the mixing/interacting of Physical damage with/around WFW and SB procs) to especially high Physical damage builds (rather than aversion to, say, anything but Stormstrike/Windfury damage).
If it solely affected the damage of reset Stormstrikes and Windfury Weapon, akin to the impact your proposed mastery would have on Kill Command, it would be; you’d be forced to stack or avoid the stat entirely based on tier set (or, without it, based on build), and you may well end up using Stormstrike over spending Maelstrom just to avoid potentially wasting a Stormstrike reset from said Maelstrom, inverting the usual priority.
I really don’t think a Strength of the Pack mastery would be nearly as KC spammy as you feel it would be especially in a world where the game does receive active tuning, despite people pretending it doesn’t.
Which is all moot alas, as I feel we’re stuck with “Specific Versatility” for another 2 years at least
Hopefully other people have cool ideas to share soon