Efejel

Lag can make a really substantial difference, especially as it interrupts rotations.

But, bear in mind this sheet is designed around predicting THEORETICAL performance. A myriad of variables are not, and for the most part cannot be, taken into account. While hopefully it can show you general trends for fight durations vs. cast cycles, provide some insight on the theoretical differences between two pieces of gear, and/or may facilitate your selection of specific buffs based on predicted outcomes, the author makes no guarantees (expressed or implied) as to the real-world application of these principals and/or the fitness of the Druid player, the tank, and/or all relevant connections. The author is also not responsible if hamsters take over France.

"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something." - Kurt Vonnegut

 

Kerri

Get quartz like everyone is saying. That program alone improved my dps by around 120~ on Dr Boom tests!

Also For the VR fight.. Wouldn't IS, MF, SFx3 be better since you do move around a lot? I pulled off 798 dps on that fight. But I also had a shadow priest which probably helped out a lot. Get a shadow priest

 

Nerfy

Personally on VR I just spam Starfire and throw MF and IS when I have to move

 

Kerri

But again, look at the spreadsheet and compare straight up starfire cycle to the one I mentioned. Even try it out on dr boom. Ive spent a lot of time nuking him playing around with things .

 

Caliane

I just wanted to add a thank you Efejel.

I was trying to do some comparisons to elem shaman, mages and looking through their spreadsheets.

The balance druid spreadsheet you made is by far the easiest to use, most complete, and accurate one.
Fantastic job on this.

 

Nerfy

So I'm just wondering...If I'm using /stopcasting should I set me latency to 0? or .1? right now I have always left it at the default .4 but just wondering what to do now that I'm using the /stopcasting.

 

◊ Lorewanderer

I'd put it at no lower than .1 unless you're really just that good. Human reaction times and lag still play a big role even (particularly) with /stopcasting.

I'll also add a thanks to Efejel--the refinement on your spreadsheet is unmatched. We may nitpick a bit, but it is an immense asset to the community and greatly appreciated.

The benefit of a spreadsheet that is accurate and elegantly designed is something that isn't lost on many of us.

 

Kerri

Yeah I agree. I tried out some other spreadsheets and nothing even compares to the moonkin one you have created. I love playing around with different gear setups with it .

 

Maax

Has anyone done any math on [Wushoolay's Charm of Nature]? I am finding it very good for burst damage, but I don't know if it is worth using. Will the upcoming changes to spell haste make it more worthwhile to use?

In general I have been trying to figure out which trinkets are best to use (check my armory). I have [Darkmoon Card: Crusade], [Icon of the Silver Crescent], [Alchemist's Stone], [Xi'ri's Gift], [Scryer's Bloodgem], [Starkiller's Bauble]

So far I have been using:
Trash: [Wushoolay's Charm of Nature] + [Icon of the Silver Crescent]
Boss Fight: [Scryer's Bloodgem] + [Starkiller's Bauble]
Boss Fight when I get Totem of Wrath: [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] + [Alchemist's Stone]

Sometimes ill swap the stone in for boss the bauble even without the shaman there, if it is a long fight and i think ill be mana starved.

Also, for a blue socket (need to meet the meta requirements), which is better, [Glowing Nightseye] or [Dazzling Talasite]?

Another thing I am debating is meta gems, I can't desicde between insightful (12 int and mana proc), relentless (3% crit damage, though i have heard it works out to 9% for moonkin), mystical (faster starfire spam), and unstable (14 damage + stun resist).

Devs: Our nerfs will block out the sun!
Druids: Then we will tank in the shade.

 

Benita

400 spellhaste is about 19% right now. If the haste changes are actually true it will become 27%, so yes it makes it more worthwhile.

A 3min cooldown trinket with only this effect however seems very situational. Any of the other trinkets would grant you a bigger longterm damage increase.

It also increases your mana problems and spellhaste has the problem of not giving any bonus to Moonfire or Insect swarm, which you both either use for a damage increase or low mana fights.

Icon and Scryer for trash as the Darkmoon card got its problems on trash where you got alot of 10 sec damage breaks. Same for any bossfight where it might drop off. Getting it up to 10 stacks again requires 2 full dps cycles, if this happens from time to time you are better off with a damage use or proc trinket.

The bauble is, if you use all of the spellhit, just about as good as the Icon (depends on your spelldamage a bit) and can be banked aswell imho.

Mana increasing trinkets and gems are also very situational. Alchemist's stone is worth 40mp5 or 8% dps of spamming starfire but only if you chainuse pots and end up with less than 1 starfire worth of mana which both is not true in real fights.
Id estimate the Icon at about a 5% damage increase (depending on your gearlevel again) which should be close to the alchemist stone even on mana starved encounters.

I would use the Icon at all times, its a really powerful and versatile trinket and then switch the scryer and darkmoon card according to the fight (its difference is however negligible until you are spellhit capped by other means, if you want to save yourself the trouble bank the card, you wont end up with alot less dps).

About the gems you can do the same calculations, its just a bit more complex. Talasite is 2.4 mp5, 1 spelldamage and some crit. Overall a 0.6% damage increase on mana starved fights. 4 spelldamage is about the same with the difference of being way better if you dont run out of mana. Plus stamina is good in alot of encounters.

The Mystical metagem doesnt work well with moonkin socket boni, they are usually yellow or blue and both can hardly be used with that metagem. Its ok if you stick to red gems only but thats a pain money and overall stats wise. 3-4% damage increase if you pick this one, but on the downside you cant get alot of socket boni or use alot of noble topaz/pyrestones anymore.
Unstable needs 3 yellow gems in your gear. Not 0-2 or 4-x. Not very friendly to gear switches or gem utility. Also only slightly better than the Swift Starfire Diamond and most likely worse due to the reduced gem choices.
Insightful is again only shining on mana starved fights and translates to 19 mp5, 3 damage and some crit (5% damage increase if you got mana problems).
Relentless depends on your critrate and casting cycles 1-3% damage increase i would guess?
Swift Starfire Diamond (runspeed and 12 spelldamage) is about a 1% damage increase (depending on how much you have to run around into casting range).

Keep in mind for metagem choices that until you reach 151 spellhit by gear, the veiled noble topaz is the best pure damage increase gem for moonkins.

For all gear choices mana income increasing gems/gear is good as long as you are 100% sure you will run out of mana. Spelldamage/crit/hit choices are always good, most likely 80% as good as the mana increasing stuff even on mana starved fights.

I hope my estimated numbers are not totally off and i could give some stat-weighing pointers. If someone wants to napkin-math through my estimates, hes welcome to do so.

 

Efejel

On paper, [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond] seems pretty good, has a relatively non-challenging gem requirement--especially if you're using orange/purple gems to pick up some +5 dmg socket bonuses--and scales better/more directly than any other gem.

"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something." - Kurt Vonnegut

 

Maax

Playing around with different gems it would seem for a blue slot [Dazzling Talasite] > [Glowing Nightseye]. Interestingly I found that [Sparkling Star of Elune] was close behind the [Dazzling Talasite] and better than [Glowing Nightseye] if you have the improved divine spirit buff.

Devs: Our nerfs will block out the sun!
Druids: Then we will tank in the shade.

 

Kerri

But that's only if you are having mana issues correct? Give me a shadow priest and Ill keep my +spell damage gems

 

Maax

Yes that was with the shadow priest turned off, I don't usually get one .

Devs: Our nerfs will block out the sun!
Druids: Then we will tank in the shade.

 

Kerri

Demand one! You should be getting one over mages.. they have gems and stuff!

 

Benita

Yeah i agree on that. Moonkin without a spriest sounds bad and if theres 3 other crit dependant casters in that group, the moonkin aura is well used.

 

Gibbons

Long-time/First-time!

I've never taken the time to register here before but wanted to take the time to thank everyone who has provided input on this thread and especially to Efejel for continuing to support the spreadsheet.

I'm curious about some of the results I'm getting under the spell rotations and I'm not sure what's causing it. For the purposes of figuring this out I removed all consumable buffs.

Firstly, when I remove CoS it is still showing higher DPS for Starfire rotations than for Wrath rotations. I was always under the assumption that a Wrath rotation would be higher DPS without CoS, despite the horrible mana efficiency. The spreadsheet is showing Starfire rotations as better even with the wrath idol equipped. Is this due to NG being more effective for SF?

Secondly, when I add CoS back in and try to create a "realistic" raid scenario for me, it consistently shows Starfire Only as my ideal rotation. I don't understand how adding IS into the rotation could lower my DPS...but on the spreadsheet that's what it does unless I remove CoS or the SF idol. Any ideas?

Thanks again to everyone keeping the best class/spec in the game alive =D

 

vokzhen

I would guess your problem is that it's listing you going OOM before the fight is over, thereby giving the rotations that don't go OOM (often Starfire) the highest overall DPS. Adjust the fight length and you should see changes to the max DPS cycle.

EDIT: I'd also like to thank Efejel for the spreadsheet. Easily the best one I've seen so far I really like the gear selection versus just typing in my stats as I must with the spriest sheet I use. Makes it a lot easier to see what minor shifts in gear will do, like a crit belt/hit gloves versus hit belt/crit gloves.

 

Gibbons

Thanks for the tip!

As for Wrath rotations, after removing CoS I forgot to lower the fight duration to within mana constraints for the wrath rotations. After I tried that wrath rotations came out on top.

However, when it comes to a IS-SFx4 rotation the sheet is still showing "SF Only" as superior, even though it shows IS-SFx4 as more mana efficient. Increasing the fight duration in 1-minute increments, IS-SFx4 will only beat "SF Only" on long (16min+) fights where IS+SFx4 outlasts SF Only.

I still don't get why, according to the spreadsheet, adding IS to my rotation will reduce my DPS under most circumstances. Maybe I'm just thinking about it the wrong way, but I don't see how IS can decrease the DPS of your SF rotation as an instant cast.

Aside from that, when looking at Wrath rotations I suppose this sheet just showed me one of the most significant things thus far -- without CoS I can only keep up comparable DPS for about 4 minutes.

 

Neshalin

Insect Swarm may be instant cast, but it still invokes the global cooldown. That's 1.5 seconds you can't spend on Starfire. Starfire deals a lot more damage than Insect Swarm. That's why your dps goes down.

 

Efejel

Again, it's good to hear the thanks & to see the intelligent discussion that's going on here. You folks keep making it worth my while to stick around.

I'm going to guess the rotations aren't coming out too different, Gibbons. As was mentioned, however, IS gains nothing from crit and as a binary spell may be a bit more dependent on hit. Further, bear in mind that while IS is instant, this means the spreadsheet counts it as a 1.5 sec cast (and actually averages it out to slightly longer than this, to account for resists) while the average cast time is used for Starfire, including factors such as static spell haste (not procs/trinks/heroism/etc.) and NG procs. If your IS isn't doing a bit more than half the damage of your average Starfire, including crits & full/partial resists, you'll see a loss of DPS both on the spreadsheet and in any fight where you never ever have to interrupt casting. In practice, that 2% -hit debuff is pretty dandy (especially if my understanding of how it stacks with other mitigation is correct) and any interruption in casting by movement or silences or some other factor is going to help DOTs (IS/MF/trees) contribute a more significant portion to your personal/your raids total damage.

EDIT: I think/type slowly this late at night. Stupid EDT.

"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something." - Kurt Vonnegut

 

icecoffee

I love this Spreadsheet its just missing one thing... DPS calculations for the [Robe of the Elder Scribes] proc but other than that perfection. :P

 

Benita

You can add that as an estimate manually. Meaning if it procs roughly once per minute due to some hidden coolodown, it would be about 22 damage.

 

Heavenfall

Hello, I am working on a somewhat similar calculator but for resto druids, and after having completed work on how to weigh the stats that affect healing, I am now moving on to include some kind of "show me the best itam biatch" kind of thingy.

I am curious, therefore, how you accomplished the transformation of data from different information systems. Did you manually enter every item of interest, or is there a simpler method?

 

Efejel

I have entered all of this info manually. (Much of the item info was stolen from my existing spreadsheets and/or parsed from my existing plaintext lists -- which were generated manually from item databases).

I believe, however, there is a thread here about generating an extensive/exhaustive Item Database automatically using a web parser and Armory.

"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something." - Kurt Vonnegut