Balance Raiding in Cataclysm - Page 11

Erdluf · 07/20/10, 9:28 AM

I wouldn't worry too much about players using a long-eclipse as a steady DPS boost.

Lots of numbers. TLDR: Strategies that take advantage of long Eclipse duration gain a small amount of DPS (~0.5%) while losing mana generation from Euphoria.

Assuming (numbers rounded from Hamlet's earlier spreadsheet, DPS "normalized" so SF spam is 100 DPS)

SF 13 EPS, 100 DPS (non-eclipse)
Wr 12 EPS, 105 DPS (non-eclipse)
SS 11 EPS (always away from zero).

Eclipse increases SF/Wr damage by 20%.

All rotations cast SS,IS,MF on cooldown. Casting time is 11% SS, 21% DoTs and other cooldowns and 68% Wrath or SF. With these numbers, the DPS contributions of cooldowns does not depend on your rotation, so I'll ignore them. SS providing 11 EPS, and being cast 11% of the time, the energy bar is effectively always moving at 1.21 EPS away from zero.

Ignoring energy lost when Eclipse procs (or gained when you cross zero with the last cast of an eclipse).

Rotation 1: Change your main nuke only when Eclipse procs.
10.0s pre-solar
14.4s solar
10.7s pre-lunar
13.1s lunar
DPS contribution by SF/Wr is 77.7. Cycle length is 48.1s. You get a Euphoria mana proc about every 24s.

Rotation 2: Alternate Eclipses, but cast exactly enough SF so that Solar Eclipse lasts (hits zero energy at) 45s.
Pre-solar, Pre-lunar, and lunar times are unchanged.
Solar is now 45s, consisting of 22.1s of Wrath casting, 8.5s of SF casting, and 14.4s of cooldown casting.
DPS contribution by SF/Wr is 78.0. An increase of about 0.35%, or roughly a 0.2% increase to your rotation's DPS.
Cycle length is 78.7s. You get a Euphoria proc about every 39s.

Rotation 3: Assuming it is possible, maintain essentially 100% Solar Eclipse. This means approximately 32% of your time is spent casting cooldowns, 40% of your time is spent casting Wrath, and 28% of your time is spent casting SF (to keep the Energy bar near 100 Solar).
DPS contribution by SF/Wr is 78.5, about 0.9% higher than the value in rotation 1. Your overall DPS increase is probably about 0.6%.
There is no real cycle length. Assuming Euphoria requires alternating Eclipses, you don't get Euphoria procs.

Rotations two and three provide very small DPS gains, cost substantially more mana (assuming we even care about Euphoria), and require a bit more skill (constantly watching the energy bar, rather than only paying attention when it is almost full).

Even Rotation 3 keeps us casting both Nukes (40% Wrath, 28% SF, by cast time) which was the primary reason Eclipse was introduced.

Personally I'd be happy keeping the mechanic such that we can adjust our rotation to trade off mana and dps, or for a bit more control over how we set up for burst damage (increase energy), or burn energy to get that burst.

Lucrece · 07/20/10, 10:30 AM

I don't see SS's damage reduction or cooldown increase as a viable answer. The spell seems directly designed to give balance druids burst, particularly in PvP. Reducing the damage or increasing the cooldown after the Starfall nerf would seem to go against the intent of the spell.

With that said, I can see some solutions via talent synergy to address the energy problem. Say, give Starsurge a 100% chance to crit under some condition like lava burst (flame shock) or destro locks do (imp crit>100% crit chance). Lava burst gives the shaman synergy because it triggers clearcasting, translating into 10% extra damage for the next 2 nukes. With more energy from crits, a Starsurge that can be set to crit everytime and give extra energy because of it would outrank SF/W in enrgy regen, giving it it the incentive to be included in a rotation.

Starsurge from what I see in design is our spec's version of Lava Burst/Chaosbolt. It's been poised as a candidate for the lv10 spec based ability as our iconic big nuke. Sort of taking Starfire's place, to be honest. I wouldn't be sad if they simply equalized starfire and wrath in cast time and damage; it would iron out any need for safeguards against wanting one eclipse over the other.

What would throw a kink into that scenario is DoT's being included in Eclipse, since we'd be spamming MF during movement and so we'd want a lunar eclipse. But that can easily be addressed by Wild Mushroom, our other spell taht also deals nature damage and can be designed to dough about moonfire's damage per single mushroom, but accounting for the planting+detonation (bigger damage than a single moonfire nuke under wrath of cenarius, or including wild mushroom under the talent).

In which case we'd spam moonfire during lunar, use wild mushroom during solar. It'd be an interesting differentiation.

iamrelevart · 07/20/10, 10:56 AM

I think a lot depends on just how the new Eclipse mentioned on Twitter will behave once it is procced.

I read the description to imply that the bar movement after an Eclipse is procced is unidirectional (towards the middle) in which case you would not want to prolong the buff by casting the wrong nuke. If this is true, then we're basically stuck with a 50/50 uptime and we lose some scalability. I suggested using a time based minimum such that Eclipse either lasts 15 seconds or until the halfway point, whichever happens last. This re-institutes scaling and lessens the movement penalty. It does always guarantee that a player will never need to generate more than 100 Eclipse Power to proc the next Eclipse. For reference, in my ICC 25 regular gear at 82, I am able to reach the zero point of the balance bar in less than 15 seconds after proccing an Eclipse.

It was suggested in a conversation yesterday that crits refund Eclipse power while under the effects of an Eclipse. For example, under the power of a Solar Eclipse, a Wrath crit would move the bar 13 points towards a Lunar Eclipse but then 4 points back towards the Solar Eclipse. This would prolong the Eclipse cycle, allow us to scale past 50/50 uptime, while always guaranteeing that the bar would continue moving towards the midpoint. Granted, there is a cap (100% crit rate on the Eclipse) but that seems like a pretty high cap.

aceofsween · 07/20/10, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by iamrelevart

It was suggested in a conversation yesterday that crits refund Eclipse power while under the effects of an Eclipse. For example, under the power of a Solar Eclipse, a Wrath crit would move the bar 13 points towards a Lunar Eclipse but then 4 points back towards the Solar Eclipse. This would prolong the Eclipse cycle, allow us to scale past 50/50 uptime, while always guaranteeing that the bar would continue moving towards the midpoint. Granted, there is a cap (100% crit rate on the Eclipse) but that seems like a pretty high cap.

This is fundamentally the same thing that I about talked with DoTs generating Energy and it's for the same reasons, but it adds the one thing we're currently lacking which is DoT synergy. Euphoria would allow Eclipse uptime to scale with Crit under this behavior. The DoT synergy I put forth would allow Eclipse uptime to scale with Haste. Currently, Eclipse would scale with neither stat, staying at around a 50% uptime.

Erdluf · 07/20/10, 11:27 AM

Relevart,

If they implemented your second suggestion (which I like), it would almost always take longer than 15s to reach zero energy, meaning your first paragraph wouldn't matter very much.

You and Hamlet have both made the point that if you end an Eclipse somewhere beyond zero, you have a natural incentive to work towards the other Eclipse.

Even from the raw twitter description, you'd expect to typically end a little bit past zero (half of the energy from my last Wrath got me to zero, the other half got me a little past zero). However that will not usually be enough to make you want to rapidly bounce from one eclipse to another. You lose a similar amount of energy when the bar reaches 100.

They could, however, give an additional energy bonus for ending Eclipse. For instance, when Solar Eclipse ends, you could gain 15 Lunar Energy. That would (in almost all cases) give you an incentive to alternate Eclipse procs. It would also mean that Eclipse uptime scales favorably (although not by a lot) with both Haste and Crit (Relevart's suggestion would have a much larger impact on Crit scaling).

Talented "extra" energy (starsurge, crits, or Ace's dot-crits) is much better in the "twitter" context if lengthens (or is at least neutral) to the duration of an active Eclipse.

Obligatory · 07/20/10, 1:09 PM

I think the newly announced eclipse is solid, except for two areas: First, it sets up a more or less static rotation; one which is decidedly less interesting than our current one on live. It also dramatically flattens the skill curve for the spec; while there will still be a noticeable difference between a bad moonkin and an average one, there will be a significantly smaller difference between an average moonkin and a great one.

Second, it has a minimal interaction with our "iconic" ability starsurge. Additionally, starsurge itself seems a bit lacking compared to analogues like chaos bolt or lava burst; compared to an auto-crit under certain circumstances, or a guaranteed hit regardless of resistances or immunities, a 2 second knockdown seems a bit lackluster, especially given the longer cooldown.

I feel that starsurge should get a different, scaling bonus based on your current amount of lunar/solar energy. Reducing cast time, increasing crit damage, or adding a percentage of the damage as a short DoT would be easy ways to give it some more flavor. This could also help a bit with the first issue, depending on the potency of the bonuses, since there will be times where starsurge will come off cooldown before it is "optimal" to cast it, and that provides some room for smart decision making to influence DPS.

Additionally, having DoTs generate eclipse energy seems like a solid idea, however, instead of a constant stream, it should occasionally come in large chunks, in order to add a bit of unpredictability back into the rotation.

With regards to damage on the move, I have a feeling that moonfire alone will be able to deliver. Considering that fel flame is quite similar (instant, upfront damage that also refreshes a DoT), I would be shocked if moonfire isn't close to parity with it, although it will almost certainly rely on talents to prop it up.

aceofsween · 07/20/10, 1:11 PM

Additionally, having DoTs generate eclipse energy seems like a solid idea, however, instead of a constant stream, it should occasionally come in large chunks, in order to add a bit of unpredictability back into the rotation.

This would never work. Imagine constantly running around spamming a DoT over and over again to proc an Eclipse. Either the energy contribution would have to be negligible or it must be spread out over the course of the DoT.

Edit: After re-reading, I see now what you mean I think. Instead of DoTs generating a constant amount of energy, the energy would occasionally be larger. On the fence about that honestly. This whole notion of trying to avoid a static rotation is pretty ridiculous to me. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 Starfires or 8 Starfires to go from Lunar to Solar. It's still the same gameplay regardless.

Balancemoon · 07/20/10, 2:23 PM

I agree on the DoTs Hamlet. I'm at the point where I think the design approach for the balance druid needs to be a bit more radical. Eclipse allows us to alternate between wrath and starfire, but it looks like blizzard have started emphasizing a balance between Arcane and Nature and have mentioned they've been aware starfire and wrath are too similar and want to do something about it.

Why not extend eclipse to finally make casting arcane spells different from nature spells? While a lunar eclipse is up starfire, moonfire and starsurge interact differently than wrath, insect swarm and starsurge in solar eclipse. Things like starfire extending moonfire or boosting its DD damage, and starsurge perhaps causing SF crits to "ignite" --it could be anything, conversely, during solar eclipse, wrath could act differently while insect swarm is up, or starsurge could consume remaining IS dots to give instantly and refresh, wrath could knock IS on targets to additional targets..could be anything you like

Just let casting arcane spells feel different to caster spells, perhaps some dot interplay.

Originally Posted by aceofsween

This would never work. Imagine constantly running around spamming a DoT over and over again to proc an Eclipse. Either the energy contribution would have to be negligible or it must be spread out over the course of the DoT.

Actually on a total aside, I wouldn't mind if I improved my chances of generating eclipse whiles running, where i would spamming MF. Not that I like the idea of MF spamming though as my only movement burst.

Obligatory · 07/20/10, 4:54 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

This would never work. Imagine constantly running around spamming a DoT over and over again to proc an Eclipse. Either the energy contribution would have to be negligible or it must be spread out over the course of the DoT.

Edit: After re-reading, I see now what you mean I think. Instead of DoTs generating a constant amount of energy, the energy would occasionally be larger. On the fence about that honestly. This whole notion of trying to avoid a static rotation is pretty ridiculous to me. It doesn't matter if it takes 5 Starfires or 8 Starfires to go from Lunar to Solar. It's still the same gameplay regardless.

That was poorly worded on my part, although you did eventually get the gist of it

. My idea was for a talent like "The periodic damage from your moonfire and insect swarm has a 10% chance per tick to generate 20 lunar or solar energy, whichever is higher". The numbers could be almost any value, really, the idea is to occasionally give the player a chunk of eclipse energy that they can't fully anticipate. This way, there is a bit more reward for better play: eclipse procs have a semi-random element to them that rewards quick reaction times and forces you to pay attention to the bar, DoT ticks, etc., and there is a bigger gain from maintaining a high DoT uptime. Plus, it ties our DoTs into eclipse, at least tentatively.

The current eclipse design is clunky and I will be glad to see it go, however one thing that the live eclipse is good at is rewarding smart and clever play: watching NG to anticipate lunar procs, using instants to potentially squeeze an extra wrath into solar procs, deciding whether you can afford to wait to pop starfall if it comes off cooldown during eclipse, etc. I find those things to be quite enjoyable, and I would be sad if there was nothing to replace them in cataclysm.

I guess my main complaint with the twitter eclipse is that, while it reduces or eliminates pretty much all the problems of the current design, it also dramatically lowers the "skill cap" for the spec, to the point that there is little gain from perfect play over average play. Additionally, static rotations are, well, boring. Keep up DoTs, cast starsurge on cooldown, then spam whichever nuke is appropriate. There are no random procs to react to, only one short cooldown to manage (starsurge), and two DoTs to maintain. Compare this to something like the beta fire mage, or even to the live balance druid, and it seems to be a much less engaging rotation.

• Hamlet · 07/20/10, 5:24 PM

I don't see a need for that sort of randomness in Eclipse. It undoes one of the major benefits of the change. The biggest benefit of Twitter Eclipse would be to eliminate the disproportionate movement penalty as we've all discussed, but the second biggest benefit is allowing more control over when Eclipse procs. There's potential for a lot of good gameplay there--e.g. saving Eclipse to burst down a certain add, or to come after a movement phase--that relies on being to choose when it procs. That's why I really think that a great niche for Starsurge would be to help control Eclipse. As I said in my post, something that makes us watch for a proc is still needed, but I really wouldn't want to see that done by making Eclipse very random again.

I think people really overestimate how much intricacy is needed for a solid DPS rotation. In WLK, Balance was above average in terms of complexity for optimal play (caveat: due to how weak the DoT's were, sub-optimal play was nearly as good). It was no Feral or Enhancement DPS, but it already had more going on that a lot of classes like Mage. DPSing a single target shouldn't be some elaborate puzzle--it's largely the function of encounter design to provide the real challenge. A DPS rotation just needs to force you to regularly pay attention to it while you try to dodge fire.

Honestly, a bit of Hot Streak-like gameplay (where a certain random proc makes you cast a certain otherwise unused spell whenever it comes up) might be just what we need. Problem is we're out of spells. SF and W are the building blocks of Eclipse already, SS we really want to use to control energy, DoT's have to be kept up at all times, and there's no other spell left to serve the role of "cast whenever you hear the chime."

Finally, a lot of people have had this insight where, under the Twitter Eclipse, any effect which automatically moves the slider away from the center is always good. And I was certainly liking that behavior as way to give some meat to Starsurge. I'd be really careful about overusing it though, because it will lead to very high Eclipse uptimes. If DoT's and Euphoria and all the others things suggested get to have this "smart energy" effect, then Eclipse will last forever, and as soon as it ends, you zip right into the next one. I'm willing to give Starsurge a pass here because the result is to add a lot of control to the rotation, but I wouldn't want to keep adding in similar effects.

aceofsween · 07/20/10, 7:03 PM

I agree wholeheartedly with the notion that a rotation should be simple, yet retain enough depth so that it's not mindless. The only reason I suggested "smart energy" effects for DoTs is because I see no other way of tying them into the rotation. However, I don't think the DoT effect should be large enough to really make Eclipse last longer than 15 seconds. That being said though, I honestly doubt that a base 2 energy/sec setup would be enough to offset the effect of haste on our energy gains from nukes (and that's double what I suggested).

Of course, I won't know that definitively until we know what our combat ratings are. I haven't taken much time to do the math on this, but I believe I have the concept down. If Moonfire ticks every 3 seconds at 0% haste, it would take 50% haste to cause it to tick every 2 seconds. (Please feel free to correct me). Even if each tick of Moonfire generates 2 energy and haste reduces the time between ticks to 2 seconds, that's only 4 energy per second at 50% haste. Starfire, on the other hand, would generate 10 energy per second, ignoring the effects of Euphoria and Improved Eclipse.

If Euphoria is also made a smart energy effect, naturally this would further increase the duration of Eclipse. In essence the overall effect is that it will normalize our Eclipse durations regardless of our levels of haste and crit. On the other hand, it would definitely decrease Eclipse downtime (14 Energy/sec vs 10 Energy/sec in the above example as you move toward Solar, not counting Euphoria).

I agree that there is a point where too much of both would cause some vastly distorted uptimes, but what other effect could we have? As I have mentioned before and Arawethion reaffirmed above, there are no spells which we don't already use. We don't have a Pyroblast or Soul Fire type-spell. Adding a gimmick effect (like Wrath bounces) wouldn't actually change anything about what we do. Without a spell that would fill that role, we really are left with nothing. The only hope I see of such an effect being brought into our mechanics is by making Starsurge into that type of spell, but does anyone really want that?

Obligatory · 07/20/10, 8:30 PM

Since there's a new beta push tonight, I will refrain from any more speculation and armchair game design. I do wish to say though, that being able to control the eclipse proc, in the context of the 45 second duration, seems to be irrelevant. If you are on the verge of proccing an eclipse, and you want to save it for something within ~30 seconds or less, you can simply proc the eclipse, cast the "wrong" nuke until you need the eclipse, and then have the full eclipse left. If you want to save it for something more than ~30 seconds away, you can proc eclipse, cast through it and then to the other end of the bar, proc that eclipse, and then save it as above.

Essentially, there is never a reason not to proc eclipse, because in order to waste the proc, you have to actively try. I really don't want to sound ungrateful, because no more wasted eclipse is a huge boon for us, but again, there isn't a whole lot of headroom for better play. There's still plenty of room for messing up, but it seems anyone who is even semi-competent will be able to realize 90-95% of their maximum DPS without a whole lot of effort. Could be I'm just odd and/or masochistic to view that as a bad thing though.

Since we are looking at a hastily cobbled together mess for talents right now, my hope though is that there will be updated druid trees tonight and that most of this conversation will become irrelevant because there will be a more fleshed out rotation for us to discuss. *crosses fingers*

aceofsween · 07/20/10, 8:52 PM

Originally Posted by Obligatory

Since there's a new beta push tonight, I will refrain from any more speculation and armchair game design. I do wish to say though, that being able to control the eclipse proc, in the context of the 45 second duration, seems to be irrelevant. If you are on the verge of proccing an eclipse, and you want to save it for something within ~30 seconds or less, you can simply proc the eclipse, cast the "wrong" nuke until you need the eclipse, and then have the full eclipse left. If you want to save it for something more than ~30 seconds away, you can proc eclipse, cast through it and then to the other end of the bar, proc that eclipse, and then save it as above.

Essentially, there is never a reason not to proc eclipse, because in order to waste the proc, you have to actively try. I really don't want to sound ungrateful, because no more wasted eclipse is a huge boon for us, but again, there isn't a whole lot of headroom for better play. There's still plenty of room for messing up, but it seems anyone who is even semi-competent will be able to realize 90-95% of their maximum DPS without a whole lot of effort. Could be I'm just odd and/or masochistic to view that as a bad thing though.

Since we are looking at a hastily cobbled together mess for talents right now, my hope though is that there will be updated druid trees tonight and that most of this conversation will become irrelevant because there will be a more fleshed out rotation for us to discuss. *crosses fingers*

Actually with the current mechanic, you would never choose not to proc Eclipse. Proccing it and then casting the other nuke wouldn't be advisable either. That would just be a waste of Eclipse time for no benefit. Let's say you procced Lunar. If you start casting Wrath, it's as if you aren't even under the effects of Eclipse (wasted Eclipse uptime = Eclipse downtime in terms of DPS). Also, you don't losing anything for utilizing Lunar Eclipse either because it's not like the effect is going to expire. Why would you ever cast the other nuke during Eclipse?

Also, I have no problem with "skill" encompassing a 10% margin of your DPS. That'd be the difference between 10k DPS and 9k DPS. That's a wide enough margin for me and it'll be even bigger in Cataclysm. However, the margin for skill will never be just 10%. Maybe the difference between a good player and a great player, but between a bad player and a good player, it will definitely be larger. For reference, you can look at Arcane mages who have perhaps the easiest set up in the game right now and yet there is definitely lots of room between a good arcane mage and a bad one.

Obligatory · 07/20/10, 9:46 PM

Originally Posted by aceofsween

Actually with the current mechanic, you would never choose not to proc Eclipse. Proccing it and then casting the other nuke wouldn't be advisable either. That would just be a waste of Eclipse time for no benefit. Let's say you procced Lunar. If you start casting Wrath, it's as if you aren't even under the effects of Eclipse (wasted Eclipse uptime = Eclipse downtime in terms of DPS). Also, you don't losing anything for utilizing Lunar Eclipse either because it's not like the effect is going to expire. Why would you ever cast the other nuke during Eclipse?

My comment on this matter was directed at Arawethion, who pointed out that there are rare occasions where guaranteeing a full or mostly full duration eclipse at a specific time is more useful than maximizing your overall DPS output (An example I can think of is heroic saurfang adds if you are just barely geared enough for the encounter). I was simply pointing out that there is nothing to be gained by delaying the eclipse proc in these situations, because you can simply delay the usage of your eclipse with the exact same cost as delaying the proc.

We're in agreement; you always want to proc eclipse (and 99% of the time, you want to use that proc right away). My point was that because of this, having full control over when you can proc eclipse isn't terribly important, because the answer to "when do I want to proc eclipse?" is always going to be "as soon as possible," and thus there isn't much to be lost if energy gain is randomized to a (minor) degree.

With regards to the skill dynamic, again, I could simply be too far out of the mainstream (and thus ought to be ignored for the most part), but I feel like a 5-10% gap between an average player (as in the mean of the entire playerbase) and a spreadsheet or simulation is a bit small. A truly bad player can certainly cock up the rotation so much that they will lose 40-50% of their DPS just by forgetting to refresh DoTs, using their cooldowns sporadically, casting into the wrong eclipse, etc. But anybody who can watch Squawk and Awe and remember a 3 step priority list would be capable of executing a nearly flawless rotation, because there is absolutely nothing that is unpredictable or that rewards "thinking on your feet" about our rotation. I'm not asking to be a cat or an enhancement shaman, I just don't want to go too far towards the frost mage end of the spectrum. I think something slightly less complex than out current incarnation would be ideal, and I just don't see the announced mechanics delivering on that.

aceofsween · 07/20/10, 10:27 PM

I think the differences between the top end Arcane Mages or Elemental Shaman are examples enough to go against this line of thinking. It's nearly impossible to screw up the rotation for either of those classes and yet the difference between someone who is highly skilled and someone who isn't is very noticeable.

And again, a difference of 10% is 1000 DPS or 300,000 damage over a 5 minute fight (assuming an average of 10k DPS). This figure is only going to go up in cataclysm. Personally, I don't want my dps to swing 2000 or 3000 ever, even if the overall difference in damage is in the 5% to 10% range.