Hello everyone, just a simple question about overall raid dps here.
I am a mage, my guild currently has hyjal/bt on farm with no problems at all. The "mage group" usually consists of 3 mages, 1 shadow priest and 1 resto shaman in our raids. I have been thinking for quite some time now on whether 2 mages, 1 moonkin, 1 shadow priest and 1 resto shaman would make that group more efficient in terms of dps.
None of the encounters in these raids provide huge advantages when you bring more than 2 mages to a raid anyhow and this is what got me thinking. Now from that setup I have suggested there are 3 other dps classes, the shadow priest and the other 2 mages. So let's move on to the maths, where I will only take the dps factors into assumption and leave out the raid benefits of a combat res/insect swarm debuff/imp ff and things.
(This is just a rough simplification where I assume the aura is a 5% dps increase to each caster dps; in which sometimes the mages are arc/frost where they have +225% crit damage from frostbolts)
(Group with 3 mages, 1 shadow priest as dps)
Mage 1 does 100 damage in total
Mage 2 does 100 damage in total
Mage 3 does 100 damage in total
Shadow priest does 100 damage in total
400 total damage
(Group with 2 mages, 1 moonkin, 1 shadow priest (moonkin aura active now))
Mage 1 does 105 damage in total
Mage 2 does 105 damage in total
Shadow priest does 105 damage in total
Moonkin does X damage in total
Therefore can it be assumed that if X can be 85 or greater, where as long as the moonkin does 85% or more dps of the average mage who does not benefit from the moonkin aura, it is more efficient to put a moonkin instead of a third mage in that group? In addition to this, in all honesty assuming gear and skill levels are equal, should it be expected that a moonkin will do at least 85% dps to that of a mage?
Again, I am only wondering the dps factor right now and leaving out the other goodies moonkins bring to a raid out of this assumption.
The majority of a shadow priest's damage is not from direct damage spells, so the moonkin's aura is mostly wasted. You should be looking only at the mages.
(Group with 3 mages)
Mage 1 does 100 damage in total
Mage 2 does 100 damage in total
Mage 3 does 100 damage in total
300 total damage
(Group with 2 mages, 1 moonkin)
Mage 1 does 105 damage in total
Mage 2 does 105 damage in total
Moonkin does X damage in total
Is a moonkin able to do 90% of a mage's DPS? This depends heavily on raid composition. Assuming both classes get the curses they want up, and in a group with a spriest and a shaman, I'd say definitely.
The first moonkin->mage replacement is easier thanks to the extra goodies, but a second would be harder to justify, and you'd need to look at the individual performances of the players(since you'll rarely have people of equal skill and equipment).
The moonkin should really go to teh destro locks anyway. The shadow priest should be rotated in the group, but with 2.3 mana changes, you really dont need him. And if you were lookign towards moonkin, might as well make it both moonkin and elemantal shaman instead of restore.
Sorry, that was more rambling then I meant it to be. Yes, a moonkin switched for a mage, if hes of a similar gear level and simliar skill will net more dps for the group. Also 3% hit for melee and tanks. They are probably all mostly max hit, but this lets them regem a bit for more dmg. What I was trying to mention with my first post was that you could probably maximise that group more, to get a much better effectiveness. Our moonkin group is elemental shaman, destrolockx2 and a fire mage. Its a larger raid dps increase, especialy with a lot more imp shadowbolt procs.
Please, if you are just guessing, or assuming, don't post. You throw others off, and more then likely you are wrong.
I'll try to clear up the misconceptions.
1)Treants. They are nice, but the point is probably better spent in the restore tree, especially if you are threat capped. I was threatcapped all through t5 content, so treants really werent worth it over -threat talents. This thread sparked me to go try trees again, maybe i'll take a look at their dmg since my +damage has grown a lot since I last had them. However, if you are reading this thread, you probably should start without them. (also, they fuck up your casting rotation.)
The treants are threat-free damage. If you're dropping them because you're threat capped you should absolutely reconsider.
They're fragile, but with some care they will dish out a good deal of damage and can fill some intriguing roles as well--Lurker add tanks, catching the (not-so-occasional) Toy from Telonicus, to name a few.
If you find yourself threat capped often, get after your paladins, because they are slacking on your BoSalvation. I have no problems whatsoever with threat if I have Salv. Without it I have no problems pulling Thaladred off his Gaze target.
Originally Posted by Lambach
I also have a question for people who've played with the actual spreadsheet a bit more. Have you found any point that trading in 4pc t5 is viable? I've been passing on all my t6(cept gloves of course), and I just cant find a point, even if i picked up 4pc t6 where I would be able to get out of my t5. I worry that I'm facing a t2 restore issue, where I cant drop t5.....ever....
The discussion a few pages back was saying that full t6 is very close, so if you're at that level of progression to be able to get it, in not too long Sunwell gear should be both attainable and reasonably likely to exceed t5 if by nothing more than the raw stat upgrades from replacing four pieces.
Lorewanderer ya beat me to it! I was going to tell peeps to stop QQ on teh trees...they are three more targets for bosses to waste their special attacks on! I know for a fact that my trees have saved heroic runs and certainly helped in Kara/Gruuls by giving 3 more random targets for attacks to hit instead of players. Every time you hear, for example, Maiden saying 'that was for the best' and none of your kara group is down, you know you just helped out. And iirc they dish out about 6k threat-free dmg if they live the whole 30 seconds. I wouldn't trade them in for much, certainly not IFF because by this time the trees help more than IFF does, however I have not tested this exclusively so only those of you who have tested that are allowed to beat me up!
The treants are threat-free damage. If you're dropping them because you're threat capped you should absolutely reconsider.
They're fragile, but with some care they will dish out a good deal of damage and can fill some intriguing roles as well--Lurker add tanks, catching the (not-so-occasional) Toy from Telonicus, to name a few.
If you find yourself threat capped often, get after your paladins, because they are slacking on your BoSalvation. I have no problems whatsoever with threat if I have Salv. Without it I have no problems pulling Thaladred off his Gaze target.
The discussion a few pages back was saying that full t6 is very close, so if you're at that level of progression to be able to get it, in not too long Sunwell gear should be both attainable and reasonably likely to exceed t5 if by nothing more than the raw stat upgrades from replacing four pieces.
Treants are threat-free damage at the expense of points in Subtletly. The only way you can get around this is if you aren't specced for Imp FF, in which case your raid leaders are pretty silly for letting you get by without it. People that say they don't have threat issues and can spec for treants make me think that either they aren't specced PvE appropriately or aren't geared appropriately or are just not doing good DPS.
Also, you can't pull off of the target Thaladred has gazed, unless they Ice block, Feign death, bubble or get bubbled.
Lorewanderer ya beat me to it! I was going to tell peeps to stop QQ on teh trees...they are three more targets for bosses to waste their special attacks on! I know for a fact that my trees have saved heroic runs and certainly helped in Kara/Gruuls by giving 3 more random targets for attacks to hit instead of players. Every time you hear, for example, Maiden saying 'that was for the best' and none of your kara group is down, you know you just helped out. And iirc they dish out about 6k threat-free dmg if they live the whole 30 seconds. I wouldn't trade them in for much, certainly not IFF because by this time the trees help more than IFF does, however I have not tested this exclusively so only those of you who have tested that are allowed to beat me up!
I understand peoples love of the treants but realistically once you get into tier 6 content they are pretty useless. Every single boss in MH bar one has aoe effects that make your treants quite useless. BT is simliar. And if the boss doesn't have aoe effects it has some other effect or factor in the fight that makes them mediocre. Quite frankly 1 extra point in subelty would get me more damage than the 6k from treants and the 1.5 global cooldown for 6k or less damage isn't as amazing as it was in kara.
Quite frankly 1 extra point in subelty would get me more damage than the 6k from treants and the 1.5 global cooldown for 6k or less damage isn't as amazing as it was in kara.
You're likely underestimating treant scaling. I parsed WWS of someone in T5 content (iirc) and they were getting up to 9000 dmg per FoN cast.
9000 dmg per 180 sec = 50 DPS
And, I don't know of another spell in the game that will do 9000 damage for just a global cooldown.
Are they situational? Yes. But most of a Balance Druid's existence is.
"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
I cant back Dothorio's post enough, if you dont have Imp FF, then you shouldnt be in the raid. That is what makes us an addition to the raid, not stupid 5% crit.
The problem with treants is losing a point in them and they are useable on less then half of the t6 fights. Now when I say use, i mean to their full effectiveness. -threat talent however(which is what you are dropping to have trees) is useful on every encounter). It is especially useful on a lot of t6 which are threat sensitive encounters. I.E. Without it I prolly couldnt dps much on gurtog. Im not sure how without it you'd get away from being threatcapped on teron.
Before t6, you NEED -threat talent to not pull off your tanks. Their block value and gear isnt high enough to support our massive threat.
You could probably drop the threat talent after t6 for trees.....but theres a handful of encounters you could even use them to full effectiveness on. So remember when qouting numbers on tree dmg, that only on the following will you get those numbers.
Kazrogal
Akama
Parts of ROS
PRobably mother
Thats IT!
Everything else has some kind of massive AOE that will lower treant effectiveness. Also remember that in the t6 level, my starfires are critting for mid 7 thousands. So putting those out there just once is losing a starfire, and they probably barely do more dmg the whole time they are out then that one starfire. Yes the threat is nice, but so situational vs. a -threat talent.
To the person talking about pulling on thaladred. Please learn the encounter. Yes, you are highest on threat, but that is expected, we are the class without threat talents.
4pc t5. You obviously don't have it. The thing about the bonus that makes it so good is is SCALES with your gear. So as your gear gets better, the bonus gets better. Just like our 3pc t2. We all wore our t2 til they had to actually nerf the bonus right before expac. So far I'm really seeing a similar trend with t5.
Before t6, you NEED -threat talent to not pull off your tanks. Their block value and gear isnt high enough to support our massive threat.
No. You don't. I had it. I was afraid of speccing out of it. And then I did. And you know what? I was fine. I'm not holding myself back, I'm not playing it safe. I'm putting out as much DPS as I can sustain for a given fight. And I don't. Pull. Aggro. Now, granted, our guild's MT is fucking amazing, so I'm in a sort of special position, but you're damn right I'll drop every single point of subtlety for more DPS. I don't recommend doing it if either you or your MT is a moron, but given the level of intelligence of people here, I think it's safe to recommend people playing with it to find their own sweet spot.
Also, how does losing one GCD mean losing a Starfire when the cast time is 3s (assume you have no haste, since it's all but worthless for us)? And you crit for 7k, not hit, so really you're losing half of a 4k average SF, or 2k, and half of a tick each of any dots you have, for 6k+ (probably much more with T6 gear) treants. Yeah, seems like a safe trade to me. Hell, as long as they last more than 10 seconds, they're making up the DPS lost.
This coming from a non-oomkin, but I have a question regarding raid synergy.
I've always challenged our guild regarding which classes should be surrounded by an oomkin. We typically bring 1 per raid & he is always surrounded with x3 fire mages x1 shadow priest or sometimes x2 fire mages x1 arcane mage x1 shadow priest.
I'm thinking x2 destro locks would be way more beneficial to raid dps with the ISB upkeep. However, the group is assembled based on the mage/oomkin's request for a shadow priest in order to keep up sustained dps.
As I understand it oomkin/mage do have mana issues, but is it to the point where this group composition is so essential & destro locks are just SoL ?
Anyway, I was curious to know what other oomkins think ?
I applogize if I am digging up a dead horse and beating it some more. I have searched this forum and didn't see a post that answered my question. Please forgive my macro noobness.
Here are my macros:
/cast starfire
/equip Ivory Idol of the Moongoddess
/cast wrath
/equip Idol of the Avenger
/cast Moonfire
/equip Idol of the Unseen Moon
My problem is when I go from an instant cast like moonfire to a timed cast macro like my starfire macro. If I use the starfire macro before the GCD from the Moonfire is up, the starfire won't cast but the starfire idol will equip and reset the GCD. Thus delaying my next cast by 1.5 seconds.
I see a lot of macros with a [noequip:blahblah] function in them. Does this function prevent my problem? If not is there another way to prevent the idol from equiping of tje starfire does not cast?
Or, am I just a noob that has to get my timing right?
#1 You arent putting out enough dps. You're tank can be as amazing as you think he is, but every other class has -threat talents for a reason. They also mostly have full threat wipes for when they get close. There is no way we can put out our max dps without - threat talents. I don't care who your tank is, but without -threat talents my TPS is through the roof.
#2 The starfire thing is a bit more complicated then you make it out to be, although you're cute with your assumptions. Its one less starfire cuase it fucks up our rotations. Thats one less GCD inside your moonfire, specially with any type of lag(which yes, even the best connections have). So you need to recast moonfire with less starfires attached to it, also you'll need to recast IFF with less starfires in it, but thats such a long cast it doesnt matter.
#3 If you think haste is bad for us, you OBVIOUSLY havnt actually used the spreadsheet. And your comment there almost invalidates even responding to you. Haste is AMAZING.
#4 As I've said above, there really isnt much for us in t6. Get the gloves, then there's your offset rings and trinkets, butmost of that you can get nearly identical gear for us from ZA.
I really just have to assume you dont know what your talking about, and you're kinda talking out your ass without looking at the numbers. Becuase you're off base on so much.
This coming from a non-oomkin, but I have a question regarding raid synergy.
I've always challenged our guild regarding which classes should be surrounded by an oomkin. We typically bring 1 per raid & he is always surrounded with x3 fire mages x1 shadow priest or sometimes x2 fire mages x1 arcane mage x1 shadow priest.
I'm thinking x2 destro locks would be way more beneficial to raid dps with the ISB upkeep. However, the group is assembled based on the mage/oomkin's request for a shadow priest in order to keep up sustained dps.
As I understand it oomkin/mage do have mana issues, but is it to the point where this group composition is so essential & destro locks are just SoL ?
Anyway, I was curious to know what other oomkins think ?
Thanks
My post answering this very specifically is on the last page.
How many shadow damage dealers do you normally raid with? The more you have the more valuable ISB becomes.
Who does the most dps out of your dps casters?
What are you going to do with the group that gets left out?
How many shadow damage dealers do you normally raid with? The more you have the more valuable ISB becomes.
Who does the most dps out of your dps casters?
What are you going to do with the group that gets left out?
We typically have x3 locks x2 shadow priests.
Locks (even w/o oomkin)
x1 shadow priest is always designated to a healer group so I suppose the other x2 mages get put in a group that offers no synergy just as the other x2 destro locks are being put in ... unfortunately it always seems that we have 1 mixed bag of classes in 1 group that are not particularly beneficial to each other.
#1 You arent putting out enough dps. You're tank can be as amazing as you think he is, but every other class has -threat talents for a reason. They also mostly have full threat wipes for when they get close. There is no way we can put out our max dps without - threat talents. I don't care who your tank is, but without -threat talents my TPS is through the roof.
You're right. I don't put out as much DPS as my GM (mage), or the Destro Lock in my guild in full purples. Armory me. I'm not full-T4 yet. I'm a little-less-than-half-blue. And every piece of gear I upgrade is a major noticeable increase to my DPS. I look forward to the day I can pull threat from our MT. But your statement that Moonkin should ALWAYS take Sub instead of Treants is wrong. If I took Sub, I would do less threat, yes, but I would also do less damage. In my particular case, dropping sub treants would be stupid. If I'm not threat-capped, why should I reduce my threat? All I'm advocating here is that people find out which talents increase their DPS according to their particular situation.
#2 The starfire thing is a bit more complicated then you make it out to be, although you're cute with your assumptions. Its one less starfire cuase it fucks up our rotations. Thats one less GCD inside your moonfire, specially with any type of lag(which yes, even the best connections have). So you need to recast moonfire with less starfires attached to it, also you'll need to recast IFF with less starfires in it, but thats such a long cast it doesnt matter.
Irony rears its head here. Check the bold, then tell me exactly how this doesn't apply to treants. If you're messing up your rotation for IFF, and no good moonkin goes without it, why are you not doing the same for Treants? Yes, treants mess up your rotation. SO cast them at the beginning/end of it, before you refresh your DoT(s). They're already down, you don't lose any GCDs during them by casting Treants. So yes. You lose half a tick on each every 3 minutes, as you miss half a tick of uptime. You lose half a Starfire. You gain back, assuming they last 10 seconds, at least 2k damage, up to 6k with full duration and basic Kara gear.
#3 If you think haste is bad for us, you OBVIOUSLY havnt actually used the spreadsheet. And your comment there almost invalidates even responding to you. Haste is AMAZING.
You're right, I haven't spreadsheeted haste much because, at my level, it's a non-issue. I can't get it. But the general feeling I've heard on this thread is that, unless you get enough to enjoy a change in rotation, it leads to useless downtime.
As for the T6 gear, *shrug*. When my guild gets to that level, I'll worry about it. I've stated before in the thread that I'm not comfy theorycrafting at that level, because I'm not familiar with the general stats from it.
Last edited by Adoriele : 01/09/08 at 7:07 PM.
Reason: Its, not it's
Things differ from guild to guild so what is right for my guild may not be for yours, but from my personal experience here's what I'd do.
Shadow priests are fantastic for healers but the real reason you give them to healers is so that you can do things with less and bring more dps. If you have 7 or more healers and are giving them a shadow priest tell them to consumable like the rest of the raid and give the shadow priest to a second caster group.
If thats not a possibility, I'd say put your top crit/haste destro lock in the shadow priest/moonkin group and fill out the remaining slots with your next two highest dps members. Be sure to factor in that X mage's dps might be lower than Y mage's dps because X mage never got the chance to be in the spriest/moonkin group.
As for the fifth group of leftovers... maybe find a way to make all five groups good. A BM hunter and a resto shaman with casters isn't a bad fit, FI and totems are always welcome. Just make adjustments as you see fit.
Treants are threat-free damage at the expense of points in Subtletly. The only way you can get around this is if you aren't specced for Imp FF, in which case your raid leaders are pretty silly for letting you get by without it. People that say they don't have threat issues and can spec for treants make me think that either they aren't specced PvE appropriately or aren't geared appropriately or are just not doing good DPS.
Are people seriously not getting salv, or is our entire tanking lineup just especially gifted? I have 0 points in Subtlety, and have no problem with aggro on single-target fights without mechanics like VR's. I'm able to quite easily put out 1k DPS in actual fight situations. While I'm higher up the threat list than many of the other DPS, I'm certainly not having to stop to avoid pulling.
Originally Posted by Dothorio
Also, you can't pull off of the target Thaladred has gazed, unless they Ice block, Feign death, bubble or get bubbled.
Sorry, you're wrong. I'm not certain of the mechanic, but I'm guessing gaze applies a static threat value to his current target. I won't pull off anyone who is actively DPSing him, but it is trivial for me to pull his gaze off, say, a tank or healer. I actively try to pull him off targets whose mobility is restricted for whatever reason. Much better to have him chasing me in the other direction than heading somewhere he can do more damage.
Originally Posted by Lambach
I cant back Dothorio's post enough, if you dont have Imp FF, then you shouldnt be in the raid. That is what makes us an addition to the raid, not stupid 5% crit.
The problem with treants is losing a point in them and they are useable on less then half of the t6 fights. Now when I say use, i mean to their full effectiveness. -threat talent however(which is what you are dropping to have trees) is useful on every encounter). It is especially useful on a lot of t6 which are threat sensitive encounters. I.E. Without it I prolly couldnt dps much on gurtog. Im not sure how without it you'd get away from being threatcapped on teron.
Before t6, you NEED -threat talent to not pull off your tanks. Their block value and gear isnt high enough to support our massive threat.
<snip>
To the person talking about pulling on thaladred. Please learn the encounter. Yes, you are highest on threat, but that is expected, we are the class without threat talents.
Imp Faerie Fire is great. I don't think there's really much debate about that. Even the rogue in my guild who gave me shit about it pre-Expertise has clued in that he likes it now.
Treants may not be usable in every fight, but I still value them over another point in Subtlety. When my guild is mostly past Kael, I'll respec back to a few points in the talent, but I'm certainly keeping the trees. There are plenty of talents that see less use on raids that we still get. Yes, it is a tradeoff, but a superior one at least for me. If you don't like them, that's fine. just don't tell people that they're useless when they aren't.
For Kael: I'm quite familiar with the encounter, and my pulling is intentional. I also tank the bow. High armor + barkskin + nice ranged threat makes it a perfect fit for a Moonkin. Those situational treants do a spectacular job of eating Toy charges too, as I mentioned before.
Also, you can't pull off of the target Thaladred has gazed, unless they Ice block, Feign death, bubble or get bubbled.
Yes you can. I've seen it happen quite regularly actually, if Lorewanderer doesn't have Salv (he tanks the Bow for us, so usually doesn't get Salv until later on in the fight). Gaze is a static amount of threat, which can be overtaken. It's large enough that most people will never have to worry about it, but an un-Salved Moonkin going full out can and will be able to pull aggro.
Obviously your gear is top notch. With your gear what is your typical spell rotation for optimal dps. I know all fights are different, so just say your run of the mill typical rotation for max dps.
I guess the point im trying to make is you said wrath isnt the best dps at T6 lvl. So I can only assume you mean starfire is. Please confirm this yes or no.
This thread is sooo frustrating. I really wish a mod would come wipe this clean. Most of you are making me understand why moonkin have such a bad rep.
Guy asking me questions, don't sign your posts.
Then use the spreadsheet, it gives you your casting cycle based on your gear. Casting cycle depends on mana, but all that changes is if you are using moonfire or IS.
Starfire is both better dps, and more mana efficient.
Generalized statements like "you should always have IFF" make me furious.
People also need to start putting what perspective they are writing their comments from. Are they tier 4 moonkin? Are they in tier 5 content? Are they starting tier 6? Are they at the end of tier 6?
It is probably important that if you are a pre-tier 4 moonkin that you say that in your post if you are trying to answer a question. I hate to bring epeen into this but a moonkin that hasn't gotten into SSC/TK let alone completed them shouldn't make statements like "You don't need -threat talents" and "no good moonkin goes without IFF". I'm not saying don't take part in the conversation but unless you preface your statements with your gear/raid level you are starting/repeating catechisms that are erroneous for the majority of raiding moonkin. This is how "rules" like wrath always being more dps than Starfire get started.
I personally do not use IFF. While I won't debate that it is an incredible talent, in my raid I am there to do damage. I offered to spec it but we tend to raid with a huge bias towards caster/ranged dps. Most raids we have 3 nontanks that would benefit from the talent (2 rogues and a dps warrior).
Moonkins do NOT need IFF to be in the raid. If you are being brought along specifically for IFF or as an IFF caster with mediocre dps then you are a wasted raid slot. I am constantly near the top or at the top of the damage meter on every boss and part of that is that I don't need to waste critical talents and an important spot on the trees or have to keep IFF up.
PLEASE REMEMBER:
This forum is for intelligent discussion of WoW. This thread has turned into the central point for discussion from a PvE perspective on moonkins. DO NOT repeat, preach or give "rules" unless prefacing them with your experience and being able to back up what you say with fact/math.
Here is to hoping that this thread does not turn into the official WoW forums.
Opinions are good. Rules/statements that are "written in stone" are bad.
01/09/08, 10:42 AM
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