Cataclysm Balance Theorycraft and Spreadsheet Thread - Page 3

• Hamlet · 07/30/10, 11:39 PM

That's 5.12 Wrath casts, assuming one Starsurge in the phase that also gives energy. Right now there are two setting for Starsurge, "Inside Eclipse" and "Outside Eclipse" (i.e. do you use Starsurge to lengthen Eclipse or to reach Eclipses faster?).

All of the listed durations for each Eclipse phase are the time spent casting that nuke only--not including any time spent casting Starsurge or DoT's during the phase.

If you remember from that video I uploaded, the Eclipse cycle moves slower than you think due to all the time spent casting other spells. Now that you basically have an incentive to cast MF/IS/SS all on cooldown, only about 75% of total cast time is spent on the main nukes. The sheet's showing a 44s cycle now, and that's using Starsurge to accelerate it.

Erdluf · 07/30/10, 11:44 PM

Hamlet,

I thought I saw somewhere a statement that all DPS specs would have 200% (or 199.5%) crit damage. Spreadsheet is using 150% (+ meta). Does that match the current beta?

aceofsween · 07/31/10, 12:02 AM

Okay, I see now.

Also, from what I remember of the Beta video he posted, Crits are only giving 150% damage because they haven't given us proper bonuses yet for the balance Specialization.

Also, the new Masteries were just posted. Eclipse gives +12% to Wrath and Starfire. I'm still not sure how that is going to work out since our mastery is essentially split (Eclipse being given to us at lvl 10, but we can't effect it through mastery till level 75+ or whatever it's going to end up as). Upon re-reading it though, it seems as though our mastery is intended to provide a bonus to the base effect of Eclipse (as it says "increases the bonus damage from Eclipse by 12%"). That still doesn't tell us what the base damage is. I assume it's still 0?

Here's a quote on Mastery conversions:

For example, a level 82 player will get 1 Mastery point for each 93 Mastery Rating he has. This mastery point will increase the mastery bonus differently depending on the class, +1 Mastery Point doesn't necessarily means a +1% increase to the bonus. (e.g. A Beast Mastery hunter with +2 Mastery gets +4% increased pet damage)

• Hamlet · 07/31/10, 12:51 AM

Oh, looks like we do have built-in Vengeance now, as well as 3% Dreamstate.

aceofsween · 07/31/10, 12:59 AM

Dreamstate is an interesting change, didn't really see that coming.

Is Starlight Wrath still maxing out at .3 seconds? Could you also give us a quick rundown on the passive Balance Specialization bonuses we have thusfar?

• Hamlet · 07/31/10, 1:54 AM

SW is currently giving 0.3 seconds off for 3 points.

Balance spec bonuses are currently:
--Starsurge
--Nature's Focus (70% pushback reduction for all of our balance spells)
--Vengeance (100% crit bonus increase for SF/Sfall/MF/W). Have to check sometime if it still interacts funny with Chaotic meta (guessing yes).
--Dreamstate (3%*Int MP5).

A few other things from looking at my character sheet:
--Crit/haste have unchanged conversions at L80.
--Crit% from Int is also unchanged. But the constant term is changed slightly.
--Can't figure out how hit rating is working. I have 268 rating on my gear, and 477 total Spirit on the character sheet. But in the spell hit tab I see 584 hit rating. Maybe they reduced the BoP bonus to 2/3 Spirit and didn't update the tooltip.
--Actually, there's something weird going on with Spirit generally. I have more than I should, and I when I put on or take off a Spirit piece, I lose/gain more than I should. It's like something is amplifying it, but I'm not sure what.
--But aside from that, hit rating is translating to hit% at the usual ratio.
--I have an amount of out-of-combat and in-combat mana regen that corresponds to current level 80 Spirit coefficients and 50% Intensity. In Resto spec, where the spec bonus gets 50% Intensity, I have 100% Intensity.

Thinking about it more, some of the oddities are probably due to leftover talents as the beta trees change. i.e. I stlll show the effects of some talents that I had when I copied over, even though they're deleted. For example, my Mark of the Wild on the beta gives 7% instead of 5%. So my built-in 50% Intensity is probably just due to the fact that I copied my character over in Resto spec and had 3/3 Intensity. Similarly, the hidden Spirit buff is probably Living Spirit (but that still doesn't explain why BoP seems to give less than 100%).

Here's a new sheet with Eclipse and Vengeance changed.

Erdluf · 08/03/10, 4:43 PM

It looks like the 7/31 spreadsheet is missing Astral Leather Specialization which would need to be undone in the "True Int" calculation, and then added back in the "Total Int" calculation.

For Hurricane, I got the impression that channeled spells were going to get the same Haste treatment as DoTs (more ticks). Has that coefficient been tested? It is the number from live, but other classes are reporting substantial nerfs to their AoE spells.

Also, I've seen a couple of posts (Warlocks, and I believe Rogues), reporting that the number of ticks for DoTs should use ROUND(Base_Duration/Current_Tick_Rate), rather than FLOOR. I don't believe I've seen any Druid tests on this.

• Hamlet · 08/03/10, 4:49 PM

Will add in Astral Leather and a checkbox on the front page. Don't know about Hurricane, think it hasn't been tested. It does constant damage though (I think), so should be easy.

Didn't test the DoT ticks, but that would be an easy change.

Probably won't put up a new sheet now since this is all minor. I might not have time for much testing of anything for a few days now, but will probably stlll be reading and will still have ample time before the end of beta.

iamrelevart · 08/04/10, 1:52 PM

My DoTs are not scaling with haste at the moment so I cannot test this.

Hurricane's damage coefficient has definitely been lowered but I'm not sure to what as I haven't tested that either. I just know its hitting for less with more SP on Beta than it currently does on live.

Erdluf · 08/07/10, 10:40 AM

Roywyn reported that Blizzard's coef in cata is 1/2 of what it is in live. The two spells are very similar. On live, Hurricanes per/tick coef is 90% of Blizzard's (Hurricane provides a debuf while Blizzard is just damage).

At that damage level, Hurricane (with WG) always does less damage than IS tab-spam (any number of targets, with AoE cap at 10), assuming the targets will live long enough for IS to finish ticking. Hurricane is more convenient, and still provides a nice debuf.

If AoE damage stays that low (and things like IS stay that high), I wouldn't expect Wild Mushrooms to see much use except when

- They can be placed before they are needed or
- You use them for the Fungal Growth debuff or
- You just need a small AoE (for something like killing a snake trap).

Lucrece · 08/07/10, 2:47 PM

What tooltip values are you getting for your wild mushroom detonations? Assuming tooltip values display at the trainer even if you aren't 85 yet.

Also, are your DoT's critting for 200% damage, or just 150%?

• Hamlet · 09/02/10, 2:45 PM

Ok, I should be coming off my long WoW hiatus soon, and one of the things I did today was trying to go through and incorporate all the changes I've seen into the sheet. I skimmed through this thread and MMO and tried to get everything. The only major thing I think I've ignored for now is adjusting base damage of spells. That's never been a high priority since it can very easily be plugged in, even after live, and the focus is more on getting the talent mechanics correct in the sheet for now. If anyone does collect good data on spell damage ranges at level 85 (now that 85 is open on the beta), I'll put them in.

At the moment, HotW gives Int and Furor gives mana, right? I still can't log into the beta for a couple days.

aceofsween · 09/02/10, 3:11 PM

Yeah, that's right. HotW gives 2/4/6% mana, Furor gives 5/10/15% mana.

Erdluf · 09/02/10, 4:00 PM

I'm not in beta, so my sources are second or third hand.

Dreamstate disappeared from the Wowhead baked-in list.

Wowhead shows a baked-in Moonfury with 25% Nature and Arcane spell damage. I'd assume that includes Spellstorm damage, but since we can't get Starsurge without Moonfury, you could code it either way.

I'd argue that Innervate should be counted as MP5, and not as more starting mana.

Base thorns damage (Basic calcs page) is way up (8x or more? Need to find it.) but scaling is below 1%.

Eclipse impacts all Arcane and Nature damage, so a rotation that has 100% IS uptime, and 25% Solar uptime should probably see its IS damage increased by 1+25%*EclipseMastery.

Note: I'm not sure if DoTs gain the Eclipse bonus when cast, or when they tick. I've heard reports both ways, and have not seen raw test numbers.

I think there are potentially four interesting major Eclipse strategies in a generic fight:

1) Rapidly bounce between Lunar and Solar (current spreadsheet)
2) Stay in the current Eclipse long enough to cast SS three times, then rapidly go to the other Eclipse.
3) Stay above 50 energy. When Solar expires, proc it again.
4) Stay below -50 energy. When Lunar expires, proc it again.

A couple of weeks ago Starfox reported those last two rotations are feasible.

For strategies 2 and 3, SF is used to extend Solar Eclipse.

For strategies 2 and 4, there are sub-strategies:

a) Use Wrath to extend Lunar Eclipse.
b) Use MF (with Lunar Shower*3) to extend Lunar Eclipse.

I don't think (b) is favorable with the current spreadsheet numbers until the Eclipse bonus is over 60%, but we should at least have some measure of its worth (or lack thereof).

Edit: Both Wowhead and MMO are showing E&M debuff at 13%, although I did see the earlier blue post that put it at 8% (and Ebon Plaguebringer is showing as 8% at both sites).

copialinex · 09/02/10, 4:40 PM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

Note: I'm not sure if DoTs gain the Eclipse bonus when cast, or when they tick. I've heard reports both ways, and have not seen raw test numbers.

I found a video with the combat log open when casting. (Beta 12803)
The video shows that MF gains Eclipse bonus when cast, so we can assume the same with IS.
Also, notice that the last SF of Eclipse is benefited from Eclipse. (I think it's because the spell_damage event comes before the spellcast_finished event, this shouldn't happen to WR)