Mists of Pandaria: All Specs - Page 8

thedopefishlives · 03/23/12, 12:12 PM

I actually made a mistake. I didn't realize that it only refreshed during Eclipse. I will have to fix that in the simulator, but regardless, the rotation duration should be shorter due to effectively removing Insect Swarm and the Starsurge energy change (it's bigger than you think). So I'm guessing that this cast order should still hold.

lissanna · 03/23/12, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

Questions:
--Does SotF give you 20 energy or set you to 20 energy? i.e. what happens to the few extra energy when you cross 0?
--Check Euphoria behavior. Still limited to 35 Energy, or anytime?
--What direction is the Eclipse arrow facing when CA ends?
--Question from above--nail down DoT refresh mechanics.
--Correct that Lunar Shower no longer gives Energy?
--Confirm that the final Eclipsed nuke refreshes and leaves you with an Eclipsed DoT.
e: -- Does CA trigger Nature's Grace and/or reset Starfall?

1) SOTF gives you 20 energy, as far as I've been able to tell. In most cases, I don't have a few extra energy when I cross 0, since Wrath gives 15 energy and Starfire/starsurge give 20.

2) Not sure how Euphoria is working.

3) When Celestial Alignment triggers, it pushes you to 0 energy and your "arrow" is facing in whatever direction you were currently facing. So, if you were heading from Solar to Lunar, then when CA ends, you are at 0 energy heading to Lunar. If you were heading from Lunar to Solar, then when CA ends, you are at 0 energy heading to Solar.

4) When you are in Solar Eclipse, casting your nukes refreshes the DOT timer on Sunfire. When Eclipse ends, Sunfire is no longer being refreshed. It will continue to tick until the timer ends, even when moonfire is up. Your sunfire is on your bar until you hit Lunar Eclipse.

When you are in Lunar Eclipse, now your nukes are refreshing the DOT timer on moonfire. When Lunar Eclipse ends, your nukes are no longer refreshing moonfire, and moonfire will continue to tick for the duration of the DOT timer even if sunfire is up. When you reach Solar, then your moonfire spell turns into Sunfire.

5) Moonfire/Sunfire never give Eclipse energy points.

6) While Eclipse was visually up, the DOTs kept being refreshed, and then stopped refreshing when Eclipse was off. Mechanically, this should leave you with an Eclipse'd DOT, but needs more testing to make sure it's not bugged.

7) Celestial Alignment is definitely triggering the starfall cooldown reset. Celestial alignment is applying both moonfire & sunfire every time you cast the DOT button (so, multi-DOT strategies when CA is up will be really nice). I believe that it is triggering Nature's Grace (or, SHOULD trigger nature's grace), based on how the mechanic seems to be working.

Bonus: I personally like Soul of the Forest better than Incarnation based on the fact that Celestial Alignment is better used anywhere that Incarnation would have been useful. With soul of the forest and Euphoria, I really seemed to only be casting outside of eclipse for a couple nukes in my single-target rotation before I was back into my next Eclipse. Eclipse felt like it was up pretty much all the time. Incarnation would be far more useful if it just gave us a flat DPS increase (increases your DPS by X% while in the form) instead of messing with our Eclipse rotation. A real DPS cooldown would be more useful than Incarnation, which just messes with Eclipse in ways that I'd prefer that Eclipse not be messed with based on how the stand-still rotation feels in beta right now. Soul of the Forest does something to improve the overall feel of moonkin's new rotation in ways that treants & incarnation don't.

thedopefishlives · 03/23/12, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by lissanna

4) When you are in Solar Eclipse, casting your nukes refreshes the DOT timer on Sunfire. When Eclipse ends, Sunfire is no longer being refreshed. Your sunfire is on your bar until you hit Lunar Eclipse.

When you are in Lunar Eclipse, now your nukes are refreshing the DOT timer on moonfire. When Lunar Eclipse ends, your nukes are no longer refreshing moonfire. When you reach Solar, then your moonfire spell turns into Sunfire.

Ah, so there's no way to cast Moonfire coming out of Solar, because it stays Sunfire until you enter Lunar. This means that you are effectively forced to cast your dot of choice as soon as you enter its appropriate Eclipse.

Edit: So Wrath is up to 15 energy? Is it a flat 15 energy, meaning that it doesn't do that wonky 13/13/14 like it used to?

♦ Tecton · 03/23/12, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by thedopefishlives

Actually, I believe Erdluf's proposed cast order where you cast Moonfire at the end of Solar, rather than at the beginning of Lunar, may be correct. That all depends on if the refresh mechanic updates the damage multiplier. Could someone check this real quick?

You actually can't do that, I hadn't noticed until I specifically checked. You now cast Sunfire all the way until Lunar procs and vice versa.

I'll check damage multipliers as soon as my friend gets his warlock online, getting a random person to do it is proving difficult. If anyone can suggest another way of checking it, I'm all ears.

Originally Posted by Hamlet

So reviewing:

--The rotation is the same as Cata fundamentally, as far as Eclipse. Probably roughly the same length since W/SF cast times are the same (2.0, 2.7) and energy gains are the same (well, 20 for Starsurge).
--The two DoT's are now Moonfire and Sunfire. You cast eclipsed Moonfire at the beginning of Lunar. It gets auto-refreshed, so the timer really starts running after your last Lunar Starfire. 18s will carry you through pre-Solar and most of Solar. So fair to assume for now that we cast one Eclipsed DoT at the beginning each Eclipse and don't refresh otherwise?
--I'm assuming here that Moonfire and Sunfire can overlap even outside of Celestial Alignment. So uptime for each DoT is (Eclipse duration + 18)/(Cycle length).
--You said that Eclipse triggers instantly now. Does that mean you can queue up a DoT right at the Eclipse turn and have it buffed or is that still too fast?
--One Starfall cast every Lunar as well.

If this is all right, mechanics are basically the same as Cata and should be easy to do. The only new DPS spells are Celestial Alignment and Incarnation (and Soul of the Forest, which is easy).

Originally Posted by Hamlet

Questions:
--Does SotF give you 20 energy or set you to 20 energy? i.e. what happens to the few extra energy when you cross 0?
--Check Euphoria behavior. Still limited to 35 Energy, or anytime?
--What direction is the Eclipse arrow facing when CA ends?
--Question from above--nail down DoT refresh mechanics.
--Correct that Lunar Shower no longer gives Energy?
--Confirm that the final Eclipsed nuke refreshes and leaves you with an Eclipsed DoT.
e: -- Does CA trigger Nature's Grace and/or reset Starfall?

I should've pointed out earlier that Wrath gives 15 energy now.
Moonfire & Sunfire can overlap, yes.
You can queue up a DoT right at the turn and it's buffed, yes, although heading into Lunar you want to be hitting Starfall immediately I'd imagine.
SotF just adds 20 energy to whatever you have when you transition (i.e. will take you to 30 if you transition with 10).
CA procs NG when you hit it, and resets the Starfall CD too. When it finishes, the arrow points in the direction you were already moving. SotF procs again, too, when it expires. If you use it before you've hit either Eclipse, you can go either direction.
No energy from Lunar Shower, correct.
Final nuke does refresh your DOT, and does retain the Eclipse/Mastery bonus.

I'll check Euphoria later.

[edit] Beaten on a few points, it seems! [/edit]

Cdin · 03/23/12, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

Ah of course. So 18 free seconds of uneclipsed Moonfire at the beginning, followed by what I described above (assuming it works). That's a good one to check.

----

Napkin math on talents:
--Incarnation. This one's tricky. The mental estimate is that while it's up, Eclipse uptime goes from 50% to 80% (since it makes Eclipse 4 times longer than noneclipse). That would lead to 0.8*30 + 50% of the rest = 99s uptime out of 180. It's a bit trickier though due to granularity and that you can cast it at different times.

Let's say your normal length for an Eclipse segment is 12s (probably reasonable at starting haste). Then if you pop Inc at the beginning of Eclipse, you get a 24s Eclipse followed by a 6s noneclipse and then are back to normal. The uptime increase is messy though since the total time spent changed. Best estimate to say that in 180s you get those 24 + 50% of the 150s Inc downtime. 99s out of 180.
Say your Eclipse segment is only 10s. Now when you pop it at the beginning, you get a 20s Eclipse, 5s of downtime, and 2.5s of free uptime at the beginning of the next Eclipse. So 22.5/27.5 + 50% of the rest--98.75s out of 180.
If you use it at the beginning of noneclipse--5s of noneclipse, 20s eclipse, and then a 5s noneclipse again, and then a normal 10s Eclipse to get back to where you were. 30s/40s Eclipse uptime, plus half the rest, is 100s out of 180.

So inferring from this, using Inc to skip as much noneclipse as possible is best. Will try to show that more rigorously at some point (and see if DoT timing affects anything majorly, probably not though). But that 80% of 30s from the beginning is a good estimate for now.

Your over-estimating Incarnation a little bit because your not taking into account how it will impact the uptimes of DoTs, Starfall, and Nature's Grace. Incarnation by itself lowers all of these things so Soul of the Forest is likely to be better over the long term. That said, Incarnation is more useful as a burst cooldown if we are in a Spine of Deathwing type situation again.

lissanna · 03/23/12, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by thedopefishlives

Ah, so there's no way to cast Moonfire coming out of Solar, because it stays Sunfire until you enter Lunar. This means that you are effectively forced to cast your dot of choice as soon as you enter its appropriate Eclipse.

Edit: So Wrath is up to 15 energy? Is it a flat 15 energy, meaning that it doesn't do that wonky 13/13/14 like it used to?

Yes. Sunfire is the button from the time that you proc Solar Eclipse until the time that Lunar Eclipse starts. Moonfire is the button from the time that you proc Lunar Eclipse until the time that Solar Eclipse starts.

You can't cast moonfire coming out of solar Eclipse because you don't get moonfire back until Lunar. In a training dummy fight, I only cast moonfire at the start of lunar and sunfire at the start of solar because the DOTs had faded by that point and the start of an Eclipse is the first opportunity you get to cast the new DOT.

The wrath button says it gives 15 energy on the spell tooltip, and seems to be doing that as best as I could tell in my limited playtime.

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 12:53 PM

Oh, W is 15 energy now? That's important.

Ok, I keep forgetting MF/SuF are still one spell, not two separate ones. But if SuF stays on your bar during pre-Lunar (that's odd, incidentally), then dopefish's point above doesn't work. When you case MF/SuF, does the opposite one go away or will they overlap for a bit?

Also heard from someone that Eclipsed Starsurge is refreshing DoT's, which makes a free refresh of both Eclipsed DoT's at the end of CA a lot mroe covnenient.

----

lots of efb. Responding to last few posts:

W at 15 makes sense since it's now 3/4 of SF cast time, not 2/3.

Okay so they do overlap. So still looking at >100% DoT uptime, all Eclipses and NG'd.

♦ Tecton · 03/23/12, 12:54 PM

Yeah, I can confirm 15 energy from Wrath every time from my combat log.

[edit] Also, yeah, just noticed Eclipsed Starsurge is also refreshing DoTs too. And reconfirming that both DoTs can exist on a target at the same time and always do during a normal rotation (Sunfire & Moonfire). [/edit]

lissanna · 03/23/12, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Cdin

Your over-estimating Incarnation a little bit because your not taking into account how it will impact the uptimes of DoTs, Starfall, and Nature's Grace. Incarnation by itself lowers all of these things so Soul of the Forest is likely to be better over the long term. That said, Incarnation is more useful as a burst cooldown if we are in a Spine of Deathwing type situation again.

And in those burst cooldown phases, Celestial Alignment is a much better choice for cooldowns, where it procs both Eclipse states for 15 seconds. The overall set of changes to moonkin in MoP makes it such that you want to get into a new Eclipse as fast as possible. You don't want to linger in one Eclipse state and "solar cleave" so to speak. You want to get to the next Eclipse so you can refresh your new DOT, get your NG proc, and reset your starfall faster.

(Yes, starsurge will refresh your Eclipse'd DOTs, which is particularly nice in Celestial Alignment where it refreshes both DOTs.)

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 1:00 PM

Originally Posted by Cdin

Your over-estimating Incarnation a little bit because your not taking into account how it will impact the uptimes of DoTs, Starfall, and Nature's Grace. Incarnation by itself lowers all of these things so Soul of the Forest is likely to be better over the long term. That said, Incarnation is more useful as a burst cooldown if we are in a Spine of Deathwing type situation again.

Yeah, I mentioned that in passing above. The DoT effect is probably going to very small, but it could be significant that SotF increases NG uptime while Incarnation decreases. That's more of a spreadsheet-level question though. The napkin calculation that they're similar is still pretty encouraging.

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 1:05 PM

Originally Posted by Tecton

I'll check damage multipliers as soon as my friend gets his warlock online, getting a random person to do it is proving difficult. If anyone can suggest another way of checking it, I'm all ears.

Well, we'd been thinking to just check it with Eclipse, but since you can't do that anymore, this isn't too important anyway. Will have to know the mechanic at some point though for various questions involving trinkets and whatnot.

Wait, what %damage buff were you going to get from a Warlock?

So what happens when it refreshes? The duration jumps back to read 17 (or 18 depending on haste) every time?

♦ Tecton · 03/23/12, 1:11 PM

Curse of Elements, I wanted to see if it was taking a snapshot of the damage the mob should be taking at the application, or rechecking for that kind of stuff on each refresh. We don't have Earth & Moon any more, so couldn't check for myself. Thought it would be worth a look, at least, for boss mechanics/trinkets/etc as you say.

Duration just goes back to the max when the spell hits, yeah. That's actually a small advantage on bosses like Rag who have huge models and Wrath/Starsurge take a while to get to.

lissanna · 03/23/12, 1:16 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

Yeah, I mentioned that in passing above. The DoT effect is probably going to very small, but it could be significant that SotF increases NG uptime while Incarnation decreases. That's more of a spreadsheet-level question though. The napkin calculation that they're similar is still pretty encouraging.

SotF is still increasing your second DOT's overall uptime over the course of the fight, whereas Incarnation doesn't. It may not look as significant on paper as it feels in play, but that still needs to be considered. You are getting maybe another tick or so of your DOT towards the end of every cycle. That adds up over the course of a fight. I just don't see it helpful to extend the duration of an Eclipse when you can always just let the Eclipse end and pop celestial alignment if you can't wait the couple of casts it is going to take to get you into the next Eclipse.

They made proc'ing Lunar Eclipse a lot more worthwhile than it used to be, with it refreshing starfall's cooldown and giving us access to Astral Storm for the AOE rotation a little better, so you don't have a reason to Solar-Cleave anymore, and Incarnation is really better for our current Solar-Cleave DPS style than the new MoP style where I think we're going to want to push to the next Eclipse as soon as possible.

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 1:16 PM

CoE wouldn't work anyway--those sorts of debuffs always track in real time. Without Eclipse you'd need something like obscure like Tricks.

Haste is the more important thing to check though, and that can be done with NG. Just cast a normal NG'd DoT and see how many ticks you have. Then next time, trigger an Eclipse, cast an NG'd DoT, refresh a few times but want for NG to wear off, then refresh once more and count the ticks. The tick counting has to be done carefully with all the refreshing going on, but should be pretty simple.

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 1:19 PM

Originally Posted by lissanna

They made proc'ing Lunar Eclipse a lot more worthwhile than it used to be, with it refreshing starfall's cooldown and giving us access to Astral Storm for the AOE rotation a little better, so you don't have a reason to Solar-Cleave anymore, and Incarnation is really better for our current Solar-Cleave DPS style than the new MoP style where I think we're going to want to push to the next Eclipse as soon as possible.

Well, Solar AoE spam might become Lunar AoE spam instead for short stretches of an encounter. Moonfire is just as good as Sunfire for this purpose with IS gone, and you can Hurricane and also triple Starfall with CA. it ultimately depends on the final spell coefficients on everything though--WM may still just wind up being better than everything.