It's generally accepted that you should get Helm/Shoulders/Pants/Gloves boomkin tier, and Chest resto off-piece. Having the base haste on the chest makes it the better option, and still outplays the mastery gain.

You should make sure a few settings on WrathCalcs are changed before you think about your DPS.

- since you aren't using the Glyph of Starsurge, make sure Starfall is set to "on cooldown" rather than "during Lunar". Also, right above that box is a blue box called "Cast Delay" - set that to your latency (default value is 0.05).
- ensure all the buffs/debuffs your raid applies is mimicked by the settings on WrathCalcs, a lot of people tend to just turn everything to "true" instead of changing the values.

Other than that, I can't really think why WrathCalcs would be reporting a higher-than-average number. Ultraxion is a squirly because of the Hour of Twilight, and having to shift out of the realm is a good 1-2k DPS loss over the entire fight, depending on how early you press the button. And yeah, Owlkin Frenzy doesn't work at all on Ultraxion, so WrathCalcs will be buffing the DPS a little over from that.

I'm switching to boomkin for a few heroic modes, and was wondering if anyone had an opinion about this (especially in regards to the effects of the 2t13 bonus):

Often, I refresh both IS and sunfire at the end of a solar eclipse, but I've been tempted to only refresh MF at the end of a lunar eclipse. My reasoning for this is that I can get within 2-3 SF of a solar when IS ends....

Now that those 2-3 SF will lose the 3% 2t13 bonus, this seems like it may be a bigger deal. Also, if NG is off cd, it seems like it might be worthwhile to get the extra MF ticks (by casting IS before it) even disregarding the 2t13 bonus.

I guess I'm urious what the generally accepted strategy is for dot refreshes in regards to entering/leaving an eclipse state.
Do you always refresh both dots at the beginning and end of an eclipse?
What if you just entered lunar, but your solar IS is still ticking?
Do you do something different regarding lunar vs solar?

Obviously exact number of ticks you get vs casts/procs per eclipse will vary, as will movement requirements, but any general guidance would be much appreciated.

I've been running WrathCalc sims nonstop for two days. Every configuration that I use wants me to reforge into Crit, not Mastery. Generally, reforge into haste without question, make sure hit cap is reached and breached, but then... In the stat priority in the OP it claims that Crit is our weakest stat, however, after finishing the haste/hit/spirit reforges, WC always shows a DPS boost from reforging into crit over mastery. I've seen one other post where someone noticed this as well (on simulationcraft, i think) but found no answer, and so maybe it bears discussing.

I'm not getting similar results, what gear setup are you using? In my current gear/spec, reforging my neck to Crit rather than Mastery results in a ~20 DPS loss, in the BiS setup it's closer to ~30 DPS loss. Maybe save your profile, click Export and paste the result in spoiler tags?

Thanks Slippykins I've never noticed the delay option...it was set to 0 and considering my latency ranges between 80ms and 120ms I've set it to 0,1 and the dps went down to what i'm actually pulling in a real environment.

(Setting owlkin frenzy to 0-1-2-3 talent points doesn't change the dps, i wonder if it is taken into account)

I'm still unsure about 2% damage 60% of the time (elicpse) or 170 haste because when haste does not reach a breakpoint it shortens the dot duration and without 4t12 this would cause me to refresh dots before leaving solar eclipse, wasting 2 gcd and losing NG uptime (and my mastery bonus would be lower with 5 t13 rather than 4 t12).
Considering the t13 bonus is a flat increase of our main nukes maybe increasing the bonus by 2% more every eclipse is worth more than 1/1000 faster tick rate on dots

Without any adjustments to the BiS setup from the OP WrathCalc download, I get the same result that you do. However, with my own setup, 2T12 activated, all Raid Buffs turned off, GoIS instead of GoSS, etc. (see below) I'm getting the strange result that crit > mastery. I've gone to a dummy and tested the setup, and truly the result is negligible. But still curious. Thanks for your help.

I was turning off raid buffs because I was attempting to minimize external influences. Like I said, it was a simulation experiment. It's obviously not optimal (or realistic) for a Raiding situation, but I did find it curious, that with buffs turned off, crit is slightly better than mastery for me. As for dummy mode, even if I turn it off (FALSE) I get the same results with slightly more realistic dps. As I begin to fill BiS, and with Raid Buffs up, Mastery edges out Crit. Mostly, It was a curiosity, and I was hoping that there might be some explanation beyond "get better gear and get buffed" which was my own conclusion. I'm glad you found the same results that I did, as that means that I'm not entirely crazy! Thanks for looking at it. My personal conclusion, all told, is that Mastery ≈ Crit. and priority depends upon your Raid Comp. and gear.

(I reserve the right to change my mind at any time on any thing when presented with better evidence.)

EDIT: With an a few different raid comp's in mind, I've checked the Crit v. Mastery simulation again. With a melee-heavy composition (so, yes, Tecton, you are correct) Crit edges-Mastery, but with a caster heavy composition (preferred for DS, generally) Mastery edges out Crit. I intend to reforge into Mastery and see if I can squeeze a few hundred more DPS out of my gear.

I guess if you're raiding with an all melee 10 man raid giving you zero buffs at all, Crit edges Mastery out very, very slightly on paper. In any realistic gearing/buff situation, that's not the case. That doesn't mean Crit isn't inferior to Mastery in how you should evaluate your gear.

You can easily test this for yourself and see you will have lower DPS with the mastery. Since you have DI your argument is Mastery>Haste once you reach the 2639 GCD bp, since the next bp is unreachable at something around 3650. So you would simply need to reforge Haste-->Mastery and get as close to the 2639 bp as possible. Just make sure you are always swapping Haste for Mastery. If at 3025 haste, dropping 170 haste for 170 mastery is an increase in DPS, than dropping 340 haste for 340 mastery would surely be twice as effective if what you are asserting is true.

No, but 2856 haste should be enough to have cast times short enough to not refresh dots from an eclipse to the other (with Dark Intent). Considering that sooner or later I'll get the Heroic Insignia I thought that since the next haste breakpoint at 3600+ is unreachable the value of haste would drop when trinket proc + haste on gear makes the cast time of wrath reach the gcd.

Actually I have a very high uptime on Nature's grace and my Wraths are 1.4 sec.
When the trinket proc (normal version) the cast time reach 1.1sec.
Considering the fact that heroic insignia gives even more haste the cast time will probably reach the GCD.
If this happens every 140 seconds and the rest of the time my casts are pretty fast and takes me to the next eclipse 1-2 spells before dots drops off, then maybe mastery could be better considering that wrathcalc compute a Patchwerk fight and not a real fight.

If:
- Haste shortens the duration of my dots until I reach a breakpoint;
- The 2 tier pieces requires the presence of IS on the target;
- I have to move during the boss and cannot keep casting to move the eclipse bar
Then I prefer to have less haste (but enough to reach an eclipse in a reasonable time) to increase the duration of IS on the target and not have to refresh it (because if IS is not there, then the 2 pieces bonus is void) and balance the slower tick rate with bigger damages because of more mastery.

TLDR: in my opinion Mastery should change the weight of the tier bonus more than haste in a fight that involve movement and become better than haste when Haste > X value that let you reach the eclipse withing 1 sec before the dot ends. (only if you have DI)

(with 410 ilvl gear I will surely use the chest piece as offset because the stats increase is very big)

Perhaps you just enjoy math but you are talking about microscopic changes in DPS that are highly dependent on fight situations. You are way WAY over thinking tier itemization.

Good day people.

On the Warmaster Blackhorn fight I stay in solar eclipse for the first phase of the fight cause of multidotting. Due to the way mastery works for us, its worth is halved cause we change out of eclipse. But since I have a much higher uptime on eclipse during this fight(from 70-80% roughly), doesnt that change the worth of mastery as it now applies to more of the spellcasts?

I am gathering mastery gear to test this out. Any opinions?

Technically, yes, Mastery would give you a higher damage output in P1 of the Blackhorn fight. However, I maintain a normal gemming/reforge profile for this fight so that I can contribute more strongly in P2. Getting Goriona to fly off sooner and killing Blackhorn himself more quickly is probably more useful than some more multidot damage in P1 (since P2 can be fairly rough on tanks/healers new to the fight). While you are working on P1, you might consider swapping in some Mastery trinkets until it starts getting smoother and replacing them once you guys are comfortably hitting P2.

It all depends on what you are reforging out of but most of the time haste will outway mastery in almost all situations including on Warmaster Blackhorn. I would suggest adding a link to your armory and give us an idea of what you were planning on swapping.

Aside from my response to this I have a question for the new patch, does anyone know what the use of starsurge is atm? Are we using it on CD out of eclipse. Obviously hardcasting it outside of eclipse state seems to me would be a dumb idea however during a shooting star proc outside of eclipse on a fight like H-Ultrax would it be worth using the GCD and putting starsurge on CD for the 10 seconds

Here is a link to my armory so you have an idea of what my concerns are:
Aidmaro @ Korgath - Game - World of Warcraft


IMHO I still feel that during eclipse states is the only time starsurge should be used even with the new 4-piece bonus ...
Any thoughts? Additionally has wrathcalcs been updated in accordance to our new much needed buff ?

As far as I know, Starsurge should be used on cooldown - the only exception to this rule is when you are 1-2 casts away from your next eclipse, and then you'd delay casting it until you got into said eclipse. The only reason we didn't cast Starsurge outside of eclipse back in the T12 4pc days was because it had a much lower energy per execute time compared with wrath and starfire outside of eclipse.

And with the 4pc buffing Starsurge damage, it will have a higher DpET compared with starfire and wrath inside and outside of eclipse (since it's buffed by lunar and solar).

Thanks slippykins good info, so even if we need to hardcast it outside of eclipse your saying to still cast SS>wrath?

Copypasted from the Feral-DPS-Thread, I hope this is allowed as it is a questions to both specs:

As I expect my raid to kill Blackhorn HC during the next ID, we will be going for Spine 10man HC soon. I might or might not have a regular raid spot for that one, but if I do, i'm likely going to be in as DPS.
The situation is as follows: mainspec ist Resto (iLvl 393), usuall offspec is Moonkin (iLvl 390), possible offspec is Feral (iLvl 390ish). 4pc T12 as Moonkin, 2pc T12/2pc T13 as Feral, the better weapon with my Moonkin (410 Dagger, but 378 offhand from FL, still using the heroic fire kitty staff from FL as Feral). If necessary I can post more detailed information on my gear.
So, here's my questions: Which spec would you use for Spine? And as I have been sat for Ultraxion for our kill because we only needed 2 Healers and most of the others DDs surpass me in gear by some 10 iLvls, which spec from your experience performs better on Ultrax? I feel the phasing in and out really hurts my DPS as Moonkin, but have not yet had the chance to try it as Feral.
Thank you in advance.

I'd definitely go with Feral for Ultraxion, simply because they are better than Boomkins at single target, hands down. You pit a skilled Feral against a skilled Boomkin at the same gear level, and the Feral will always win single target fights.

For Spine, it really depends on your group comp. If you already have enough burst to get the Tendon down without you (we don't have the best burst out of everyone), then go with Boomkin. If you don't, it'd probably be better to be Feral just so you can burst the Tendon down efficiently. With the Tendon health nerf last week, bursting might not be much of an issue anymore.

I hope you do know, you can't shred Ultraxion unless they changed it just recently, why would you go with a feral over boomkin?

Because unless you have Dragonwrath or your raid is relying on your buffs/debuffs, Feral will still output better DPS at similar gear levels.

How bout on Madness and getting spell weaving to proc? I haven't tried it yet but it would seem hurricane would actually be better then mushrooms as AOE for this fight only because of the nature of spell weaving? 3 mushrooms is pretty much all you get for any of the blood/tent AOE phases so only 3 chances to proc if I am reading it correctly? Anyone able to throw some input in here?

For heroic madness, the only point in the fight to consider using hurricane is for phase 2 since the congealing bloods die too fast to really make any dots worth it after wild mushrooms, and glyphed hurricane brings a nice slow so they don't heal Deathwing.

Mushrooms should still be used before hurricane though. Mushroom where congealing bloods spawn, and then place hurricane. Very similar to heroic cho'gall bloods.