Balance Raiding in Cataclysm - Page 29

Yijiao · 09/24/10, 5:12 PM

How should we be approaching the use of starsurge at this point. Should we assume that we use it every time its up? Or only in an eclipse?

I am not sure how to approach the spell at this point. The energy generation is a bit confusing.

Looking at the log above, wow, thats a lot of Insect Swarm damage. Average crit at 7k when only half the insect swarms would have been in the solar eclipse?

Is/are moonfire/sunfire worth/going to be worth using in each eclipse at this point? Your uptime was much lower...I think because sunfire is a bit broken for the moment.

Arythorn · 09/24/10, 6:05 PM

Fixed the log as it was a bit bugged. Anywho, cumulative MFire/SFire uptime is 89.9% vs. IS uptime at 91.0% so not much lower. It seems very much worth keeping both up. IS is definitely stronger but MFire/Sunfire add up to a healthy chunk of damage (as well as increase your Shooting Stars proc rate. As to Starsurge I mostly try to cast it within an Eclipse at the moment -- sometimes I use it outside if a Shooting Stars proc won't last until the Eclipse proc or if I'm trying to rush to an Eclipse proc due to a trinket or something else about to expire. The energy effects of Starsurge are still inconsistent and buggy atm. I'm still holding out hope that it will be smart energy when all is said and done.

Yijiao · 09/24/10, 6:20 PM

Glyph wise, which should we be using?

Obviously, Insect Swarm is #1, but if starsurge is fixed, is the combo of wrath/starsurge going to be better than moonfire/starfire?

Starsurge on CD with smart energy would equate to 3 every 45 seconds without any of teh procs, which could force starfall into every lunar phase if you get a proc. That would make the glyph of starfall inherently more useful, because, at the moment, I feel like each cycle takes roughly 20 seconds. Getting from one eclipse to the other, that is.

If that were the case, and we used both DoTs at all times, would it be fair to assume you could squeeze starfall down to 40 seconds, and thus in every lunar phase?

Arythorn · 09/24/10, 6:45 PM

Arawthion and Wrathcalcs may have something meaningful to say on this but from my dummy testing:

IS, Wrath, MF glyphs are where I'm at with it at this point for single-target.

Starfire glyph causes more issues than it helps. Without it I can pretty much guarantee consistent refreshes of Mfire/Sfire once per Eclipse. With it (it extends SFire and Mfire) suddenly dots are dropping in non-Eclipse states, etc. It just makes it ugly for my liking. Also, with Phylactery and DFO adding more bonus damage than Eclipse atm, I'm at times clipping dots to fit there as well. Long and short, Long duration extended Mfire messes with the rotation imho and will it's benefit will get clipped. So Starfire vs straight 20% Mfire glyph, I'll take the Mfire glyph.

As to Mfire vs Starsurge glyph, at least at the moment, 20% buff to a spell that is making up ~13% of my damage (Mfire glyph) is stronger than the benefit Starsurge glyph would add to Starfall output which is only ~5% of my damage). Now we start getting into content like Heroics with adds and/or raid content, bets are off -- but for single target atm, seems like IS, Wrath, MF are the way to go for my money.

Yijiao · 09/25/10, 12:43 AM

Well, theoretically, if you use it currently, every other lunar phase, you would get double the effect out of the 5% which would equate to 2.5% additional damage. That 13% damage is with the 20%? You would assume that is roughly 2.2-2.3%. It is really close, and starfall does have the added utility, but there is also no guarantee that you would always be able to fit it into that window.

It will be interesting to see how the situation develops, and I am intrigued overall.

EDITTED: Actually, double 5% is an additional 5%, whodathunkit. <--retarded.

Arythorn · 09/25/10, 12:11 PM

Maybe as Mastery goes up and Eclipses buff matters more, I'd care more if Starfall lined up with it every time . . . right now, I'm not waiting to pop Starfall in Lunar. I'm popping it when it's up wherever I am in Eclipse phase. A few exceptions are when I'm less than ~5 seconds from Lunar or when I know a trinket is about to proc or the like. I am not delaying it more than 4 or 5 seconds though.

Starsurge should take a 1 min cool down to about 45 seconds if you are using Starsurge religiously on cooldown and then another -5 for every Shooting Stars proc in that same timeframe -- I could see Starsurge taking a 1 min cool (assuming Starfall major) down to 30 seconds on occasion (thus doubling Starfall damage) but I think that would be rare. Average may go from 1 min to say 40 seconds netting you around 50% more Starfall damage. Even at 50% more of 5% Starfall damage, that would put it close to Moonfire glyphs 20% of 13% Mfire/Sunfire damage and with Wrath 10% increase to 25% Wrath damage in impact to overall dps.

Factor in that you could get Starfall lining up with Lunar and it could put Starsurge over the top but, with varying haste levels, unreliable numbers of Shotting Stars procs, etc. -- I think no matter what you do, it'll be hard to keep Starfall in line with Lunar all the time even with the glyph. That said, all of the above is based on single target stand and turret . . . in dungeons or raids with adds, Starsurge may pull ahead (whether or not that add dps is meaningful would be another question entirely). Then again, throw in movement, and you are likely not getting as many Starsurges in per timeframe thus lowering the value a bit. Time will tell. Anywho, the three glyphs are all very close. Insect Swarm is the clear leader. Any rate, I'll see if I can get a Starsurge glyph on PTR and mess with it any rate.

azzagachoo · 09/25/10, 12:32 PM

I'm using the starsurge glyph and it doesn't line up starfall with lunar every single time, although from anecdotal evidence it does line up more so than not. If I had to put a vague number on it I'd say 8 or 9 out 10 times it does line up, but whether this is enough to warrant using the glyph over some of the other more consistent options is a bit up in the air.

Yijiao · 09/25/10, 1:13 PM

Originally Posted by azzagachoo

I'm using the starsurge glyph and it doesn't line up starfall with lunar every single time, although from anecdotal evidence it does line up more so than not. If I had to put a vague number on it I'd say 8 or 9 out 10 times it does line up, but whether this is enough to warrant using the glyph over some of the other more consistent options is a bit up in the air.

I also did some testing with that, it fell off the cycle every 4-5 times through, and in those events, I just held it until I was back to lunar. The problem with starsurge is the heavy influence from the RNG. It is nearly impossible to measure its potential effect, while the other three are pretty measurable.

Arythorn · 09/25/10, 3:01 PM

Did a bit of testing with Starsurge and got DPS up over 15k sustained for first time. It picked up Starfall from around 5% of damage to 7.1%. What I did find though was it made me more inclined to use my Starsurge religously on cooldown versus delaying it like I had been into an Eclipse. That might account for some of the increase as well.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Worth noting that these numbers are inflated by T10 2-piece Omen of Doom which has an uptime of over 50% atm due to OoC being as bugged as it is. 15% buff to Nature and Arcane with 50% uptime has a slight upward effect

Yijiao · 09/25/10, 7:00 PM

Originally Posted by Arythorn

Did a bit of testing with Starsurge and got DPS up over 15k sustained for first time. It picked up Starfall from around 5% of damage to 7.1%. What I did find though was it made me more inclined to use my Starsurge religously on cooldown versus delaying it like I had been into an Eclipse. That might account for some of the increase as well.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Worth noting that these numbers are inflated by T10 2-piece Omen of Doom which has an uptime of over 50% atm due to OoC being as bugged as it is. 15% buff to Nature and Arcane with 50% uptime has a slight upward effect

Yeah, the other thing that I think will benefit, as you probably know, is as we get higher, our haste isn't going to be at the %s it is currently at now, which means it will be much easier to keep starfall lined up with lunar if the average time between eclipses goes up to about 25 seconds from 20.

Also, since the energy on starsurge is a bit odd, it is hard to say how that will change the interaction at this point.

Hyperion · 09/26/10, 2:47 AM

Although I think that the Cataclysm rotation is a great improvement over WOTLK, I have an issue that I find kind of annoying, but I suppose we'll have to live with... that being that it is impossible to spell queue a dot to proc Nature's Torment right after a nuke that you KNOW will proc Eclipse. Due to the delay, I've been forced to throw out one none-hasted nuke before I can throw out a dot to get Nature's Torment rolling. I find this a little irritating, especially if my dots run out right before that nuke is being cast, which adds to dot downtime. How have other people been dealing with this / have you run into this problem yet?

The problem with starsurge is the heavy influence from the RNG.

I agree; although I tried the Glyph out for myself and got pretty good results, I just think Shooting Stars isn't consistent enough to merit giving GoSS a priority over the other more consistent glyphs. Of course, situational, it could be very handy indeed.

Arythorn · 09/26/10, 10:10 AM

If I refresh a dot exceptionally close to the Eclipse proc, even though it appears the Eclipse proc happens before the dot goes up, sometimes the dot won't proc Nature's Torment (Nature's Grace now in this upcoming build). I don't know what to causes that specifically but the biggest thing I've sorted out in terms of dot uptime and Nature's Grace is this: unless they are otherwise about to expire, dot casts do not need to be the first thing I do after an Eclipse proc. As long as I refresh them somewhere within that Eclipse, I will get my Nature's Grace time then.

Since NG time does not get wiped when you proc the next Eclipse, I can follow a similar pattern on that Eclipse. NG can only proc once per Eclipse for a set amount of time AND we can only get so many casts into an Eclipse no matter what our haste is so timing of the proc is academic really. Occasionally we are going to run into situations with strange dot expiration or refresh times where we have to make decisions on clipping it early or letting it drop for a second or two . . . but removing the unnecessary compulsion to refresh dots immediately after each Eclipse proc to get an NG haste proc helps alot of those issues.

klüger · 09/26/10, 3:52 PM

A small aside:
Only me who doesn't like treants and hopes blizzard can implement it in some other way , or just axe it and bake the dps into something else? (like they've hinted at)

Ground target is clunky, them being melee is clunky, it is a zero fun ability (I'm talking pve)

If they aren't willing to just cut it and give us a passive dmg increase to compensate, what would you like to see instead?

If it _has_ to be a passive pet like that, I'd much rather have val'kyr-trees that either is an active that spawns them at your feet, or is a % proc from a dps spell we cast. Its still not a fun ability, but at least you don't have to gag on the ground target, its range being shorter then your nukes etc. Sure, you get other problems with this solution, but I think I'd prefer them.

Arythorn · 09/26/10, 5:47 PM

I posted a vid for 13033 with Sunfire working and haste affecting our dots. Barring any major changes, this is pretty close to the final rotation mechanics that I would expect in 4.0 so I'm not likely to build any further rotation videos beyond this one unless something substantial occurs.

That said, it is worth noting again that the Omen of Clarity bug is causing T10 2-piece bonus Omen of Doom (15% buff to Nature and Arcane damage) to be up over 50+% of the time and that is skewing damage numbers upward. It is also affecting mana conservation. But, even with those two issues fixed, the rotation should remain the same -- damage will just drop from what you are seeing here.

YouTube - Boomkin Cataclysm Rotation PTR 13033

World of Logs from this rotation can be found at:

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

I'm sustaining 15k+ dps on a single-target dummy rotation over 20 minutes but, again, I expect that to come down a good 7-10% when they fix the OoC bug. Maybe in the range of 13.5k - 14k sustained which is still a reasonable jump from live.

Kluian · 09/26/10, 6:16 PM

How is starsurge working on PTR? On beta (prior to today's patch) it always moves your bar toward the Lunar eclipse.