Cast time isn't the only consideration. Some spells are limited by cooldown, not by cast time. Suppose Starfall does four times the damage of SF. HT-SFall would likely be a DPS increase even though SFall has a fast cast time (also assumes DoC applies to the entire spell, which it might not with SFall mechanics).

HT-Hurricane looks promising (but a terrible combo from a mana standpoint). WM-detonate has potential (assuming it applies to all three shrooms), but probably not for single target. Tranquility will be crazy-strong.

The 70% will probably just be applied to one dot application from Tranquillity.

As a way to napkin-math spells that might be worth preceding with HT for a DoC buf, assuming zero benefit from the heal itself:
1) Our main nukes deliver ~60% spell coefficient per base-cast-time second.
2) HT has a 2.5s cast (assuming you can cast it in Moonkin form), so it needs to deliver 150% spell coef as damage.
3) 70% of the next cast is the extra benefit (assuming the 70% is multiplicative, and not additive with something else), so the next spell needs to normally deliver 150%/.7 = ~215% coefficient.
4) Our normal nukes are the worst DPS spells in our rotation, and they have other benefits (getting us closer to our next NG and Starfall) so that 215% needs to be bumped a bit, and we are probably looking for something in the 230-260% range as a break-even point.

Single target spells that do that much damage:
- MF if refreshes don't remove the bonus from the remaining ticks. Even more so during CA.
- Starfall if every star gets the bonus
- FoN if the treants get the bonus for their full duration
- The last Nuke in an eclipse, if the bonus applies to the nuke, and to the remaining, refreshed MF ticks.
- Extremely short and powerful damage bonuses: "Your next damaging spell has a 100% crit chance" would probably be strong enough for SF or SS, but not for Wrath.

Moonkin who don't want to cast one or more HT every minute, will be hoping that every 'if' in that list is false.

Now all of this was for "if I take DoC and don't care about the heal, when should I cast HT anyway?" You still have to decide if DoC is the talent to take, and/or your healing has some meaningful benefit for the encounter.

The bonus to your next healing spell remains at 30%. At the moment ONLY your healing spells increase the damage of your next spell by 70%, not vice versa. Healing Spell -- > Damaging Spell = 70% buff on dmg. Damaging Spell --> Healing Spell = 30% buff on Heal.


Honestly DoC feels like a pvp talent. The math has to be such that it is still a DPS loss to cast a HT before a damaging spell, otherwise since the spell has no CD (30 sec duration but still no CD) in PvE Moonkin rotation would be HT > Dmg > HT > Dmg > HT > Dmg etc etc. Which suffice to say would be beyond bizarre.

In arena especially, or if you are queuing BG's by yourself casting Healing Touch will be a common occurrence, especially since we can now do so in Moonkin form. It will definitely be a nice boost to have 70% dmg bonus to your next spell every time after doing so.

I don't think this talent (DoC) will ever have a place in PvE, and I think Blizzard is ok with that, given there are still 2 other choices in this tier. HotW and Nature's Vigil are too similar from my point of view, with both of them now providing both dmg and healing bonuses for their duration, but these will be the two talents that will be used in raiding should nothing else change.

It would still be stupid if it worked like that. Casting an unnecessary heal for the sake of increasing your dps just doesn't make any sense. It's in the game so if you find yourself healing a lot (aka PvP) then this is nice bonus you would receive for doing so. Casting a Healing Touch before every dot in a normal rotation would just make the rotation so obnoxious.

"Everyone in your party is at 100%, but it's time to cast a dot so you have to cast a 2.5 second heal on something, doing 0 effective healing, so that you can do more damage." That makes sense to you?

Well, you don't have to think of it as a heal then, just imagine you are "charging your lazer" for 2.5sec before you cast a powerfull spell. HT just become part of the dps rotation (which could be made more complex anyway), and if you don't care about healing you will just do a macro to cast it on yourself no matter what.

Of course there is not much chance it is intended to be used that way.

Yeah that's basically my point. There is 0% chance Blizzard wants Healing Touch to be a normal part of our dps rotation, and will make sure it isn't. So the debate between which talent to choose (for Moonkin) for PvE will be between HotW and NV. I still think DoC will be the best PvP choice, although NV might be better for BGs.

Note that MF is marginal on my list. I said you might want a coef of 260%. MF has a coef of ~25% (DD and each tick), so you need to get DD + 10 ticks. That alone should be fairly common, but you may not exceed it by much. However, the base damage on MF is pretty low, compared to the base damage on a nuke.

Wr: 2562 + 121% SP: Going from 0-2k SP doubles Wrath's damage.
MF DoT tick: 285 + 25% SP: Going from 0-120 SP doubles the damage from an MF tick.

At 10k SP, a significant portion (20%) of Wrath's damage is its base damage. For MF, that is only about 1%. So if MF is 20% weaker than than the you see just from the coefficients, the break-even might be somewhere around DD+12 ticks at end-of-expansion gear levels, and even higher at starting (t14) gear levels.

It is certainly close enough that it is worth simulating, and it may be a no-brainer in conjunction with things like CA or Bloodlust. Absent those buffs, I'd say that the numbers are close enough that we have to simulate, to be sure.

At low levels of haste from gear (10%) we're looking at around 16 ticks, no?
the length of solar eclipse, plus 12 seconds; say, roughly 22-24 seconds. I can't remember exactly how ticks are rounded, but if they're rounded up, we get 16 ticks in 24 seconds at 10% haste. If there's any delay in casting between the start of an eclipse and your last nuke, it's even higher.

Solar Eclipse casts, not counting SS procs:
1xNG GCD
1xNG Starsurge
6xNG Wrath
is 10.5 seconds at 10%haste, 40ms Latency; plus the travel time of the last wrath. Plus the 12 seconds is 23ish seconds at 1.54 second/tick. Any slow down in that part of the rotation will only increase the # of ticks and DoC bonus (assuming it actually applies).

Moonfire is a touch longer than sunfire (since there's an extra GCD, though there's basically no travel time on the Starfire, so it may even out depending on how long Wrath's travel time is).
2xNG GCD
1xNG Starsurge
4xNG SF
is 12.18 seconds + the 12 seconds refreshed DoT = at least 24 seconds.

Also, I'm not sure on what roughly the levels of spell power we're looking at, but going from the data mined craft able blues and entry level purples we're looking at around 17-20k sp at the start of T14 if weapon spell damage is anywhere are around the 25-20% of armory sheet spell power I currently have.

And the currently announced T14 bonus obviously only makes it stronger. It's all somewhat moot however since it doesn't look like it'll ever compete with HotW's 6% INT or NV.

Few changes--DoC no longer able to buff Tranquility, and toning down the numbers on Vigil:
Mists of Pandaria - Build 15689 - Spell Changes, Items, Maps, and More - Wowhead News

Not sure how I feel about this. If it lets them sensibly put Nature's Grace back to being more controllable, I'm all for it.