Are you saying that if you just randomly at some point use incarnation + CA it doesn't double dip, but if you use CA at the tail end of lunar it does? Because that's consistent with what we were seeing. If you want to know more about what we saw check out the wow forum thread I linked.

But basically, it seems like if you do certain things right at 0 eclipse energy, you can prolong that eclipse. So it's not that it was double dipping, per se, but that CA was keeping lunar's mastery bonus while also gaining its own bonus. What's really weird is if you end lunar, and right at 0 energy, hit astral communion until solar, and then start spamming starfire, your starfires will be eclipse buffed. While in solar eclipse. The bonus will go away as soon as you cast another spell, though.

So, the only time you should see the "double dip" is when you do it right at the tail end of an eclipse. Otherwise it will act normally.

Astral Storm definitely needs to always morph into Hurricane when using CA. As it stands currently it just uses whatever spell is currently on your bars, so if you happened to just leave Solar right as a bunch of adds spawn you want to aoe, you can hit CA and still use Hurricane.

The tough decision will be if a bunch of adds are coming that will live for a decent amount of time right as you are leaving Lunar, is it better to Starfire spam to get to Solar as fast as possible so you can use Hurricane? Or would it be better to use CA so you can 1 button double dot them, still have an eclipsed buff WM if you so choose, but have Astral Storm instead of Hurricane.

Would definitely be nice in these situations to have Hurricane available to use instead of Astral Storm, but not sure if that's possible to do this late in the game.

CA double dipping was indeed hotfixed : Patch 5.0.5 Hotfixes - World of Warcraft

Assuming this has always been present, let us hope they buffed other forms of damage, so that we are not looking at a nerf.

I have two questions which some of the math experts might be able to help me out with.

1) I can't get out of the habit of

Starfall >
Wrath >
Sunfire >
Incarnation/NV >
Moonfire

Does anyone know for the sake of min/maxing whether or not it's worth Incarnationing before Sunfire so that you gain one extra buffed gcd of Starfall, or if Sunfiring first will be better? I see everyone doing the former, but I'm not sure. Most of the time my Incarnation falls off super close to solar, after CA, so the extra gcd may not matter. (Or it may impact one wrath with higher haste levels)

2) Is there any possibility we should push to Solar and then Celestial Alignment, that way we can come out of CA/Incarnation heading to Lunar? I saw someone mention wrathing as your last gcd of CA, but unless I'm retarded that's not actually changing you from heading solar out of Lunar CA.

Those two are driving me crazy every beta pull, so any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

I think it comes down to whether 1 GCD of uneclipsed Sunfire uptime (half a tick) is better than 25% of the damage of a star (unless you get 2 stars/second because of multiple targets). With the numbers on live (read that as "checking the damage of both spells on the dummy"), it seems that both options are quite close. If you get 2 stars per second, Incarnation first wins. Of course, if you can get extra Incarnation casts in the first Solar, it's better to cast Sunfire first.

With Nature's Vigil also in the mix, it's more complex since you have to compare the extra dmg on the first dot with the extra damage on both Starfall and whatever you can cast while NV is up (usually a partial Starfire, estimate that as an Starfire divided by its cast time and multiplied by the GCD time). I think casting Incarnation/NV first becomes better in that situation (since DoTs have higher DPET than nukes, it's better to buff a DoT than an expected partial nuke).

Depends on the number of adds. If it's low, you'll want to dot every add and then Hurricane (in some situations - say, 3 targets - you'll be able to cast a second round of dots before CA expires). It it's high, casting Hurricane straightaway is better. I don't think the amount of HP matters unless the lifespan of the adds is short. If they live long enough, the point where it's better to use Hurricane is given by the equation:

(Hurricane DPS per target)·(GCD time)·(Number of adds) = Total expected damage of a Sunfire+Moonfire cast

A side question: do shrooms have higher DPET than Hurricane after the nerfs, or it's only worth casting them before the adds spawn?

To what extent is the Simcraft supposed to demonstrate what is attainable in game? Because right now looking at the feral rotation (priority list), I feel fairly confident saying that nobody could be expected to pull that off. There's over 40 items in the list, and there's easily over 100 logic checks.

Right now it seems like the feral simcraft is more a lesson in what's theoretically possible rather than something that can be used as a benchmark for feral players to achieve in game.

On WrathCalcs, on the Rotation page, multiply CA damage by an extra (1+EclipseMastery), and the DPS goes up by about 6k.

With MoP around the corner, is anyone going to write the lead posts that Carebare mentioned back in March? I'm particularly interested in the balance spec. The thread started by Hamlet was a godsend in Cataclysm.

No promises for now. I want to at least post something, but probably not a full guide. Maybe something just akin to the "advanced tips" section from the old guide. i.e. for people who can figure out on their own what gems/talents to use, at least have a post with little fancy info like Starsurge timing.

The full guide I'll look at once I'm done with interesting stuff like spreadsheets. I kind of want to have something where I can post useful information for players who understand basics, without sentencing myself to constantly update some really tedious section like professions every time there's a change in the game. I might find some happy medium.

Copialinex, do you read this? I was thinking--how about a widget in BPT that shows which energy levels are good/bad for casting Starsurge. This would mostly be for when the arrow is Solar--it doesn't matter to much when it's Lunar (although maybe could think about holding an SS for Lunar).


Bascially, you really don't want to cast SS at the following energy levels (note this shows the energy when the SS cast would start, not when you're queueing it):

In Solar Eclipse:
80, 65, 50, 35, 20, 5*. These all shorten Eclipse by one cast and lengthen post-Eclipse by one.
*only with SotF. Without SotF, you really do want to cast it here.

In post-Solar:
You always definitely want to cast at 0, 5, 30, 35, 60, or 65. At other values it's uncertain, but I could see waiting until Lunar.