Mists of Pandaria: All Specs - Page 9

Cdin · 03/23/12, 1:36 PM

Originally Posted by lissanna

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.)

How is Celestial Alignment a much better choice with so many limitations?

Celestial Alignment is only good if you are just leaving eclipse or if you are out of eclipse and absolutely need to get into one right now. The fact that it procs both eclipse states only means that you get an extra dot. All things concidered CA is fairly limited in what it provides and when it should be used. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's not without its issues.

Incarnation on the other hand can be used any time to provide a benefit. Plus, if you need the burst more then once every three minutes (like in spine) having the second CD there is also usefull.

Forgive me if I've missed something, I have not followed all of your tweets and posts and my Beta invitation is stuck in the mail, but given the info I have CA is useful but limited.

Edit regarding Erdluf's comment:
My comments are under the same assumption that Hamlet mentioned. If the 20% is in addition to the normal eclipse bonues then that would improve CA significantly, but I don't think it is.

Erdluf · 03/23/12, 3:17 PM

CA also provides a 20% damage boost. If that is multiplicative it is pretty significant. Eclipsed Starfall + WM + double-dot spam (both with Lunar Shower) + 20% damage boost.

It should now be possible to cast Starfall just before and just after Lunar Eclipse procs. I assume the behavior is to just clip it, but someone should check to see if you get double Starfall.

Also, please check to verify that MF during CA provides only a single stack of Lunar Shower.

And thanks for Lissana and Tecton for providing the info. Moonkin seem to be hijacking this thread. Is it time to go to three MoP threads?

Edit: Reading the tooltip again, it looks like MF during CA may provide both MF and SuF dots, but not necessarily doubled direct damage. Something else to check?

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 3:19 PM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

CA also provides a 20% damage boost. If that is multiplicative it is pretty significant. Eclipsed Starfall + WM + double-dot spam (both with Lunar Shower) + 20% damage boost.

I was assuming it referred to the Eclipse bonus, not an additional bonus on top of that.

lissanna · 03/23/12, 5:54 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

I was assuming it referred to the Eclipse bonus, not an additional bonus on top of that.

The 20% is just the value of Eclipse listed in the tooltip example, so CA improved spells do the same damage as Eclipse'd spells (that's something Sunfyre made me check already). You also can't make use of CA and incarnation at the same time because you can't gain/spend Eclipse energy during CA. Incarnation also doesn't effect any AOE spells you cast (whereas CA is allowing you to benefit from the starsurge CD reset, increased shroom damage, and double DOT application).

I'd really like incarnation to be a REAL damage dealing cooldown that increases your damage and has nothing to do with Eclipse energy gains at all, where it buffs your AOE and single-target damage and doesn't mess with our rotation for a short period of time in a really clunky way.

Then again, Incarnation actually just isn't working right in Beta now at all. It's giving me 30 Eclipse energy for wrath when I'm in Eclipse OR out of Eclipse. So, it's just doubling Eclipse energy all the time, instead of halving it when I'm out of Eclipse, making it particularly hard to compare to Soul of the Forest in actual testing right now.

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 6:27 PM

Originally Posted by lissanna

Then again, Incarnation actually just isn't working right in Beta now at all. It's giving me 30 Eclipse energy for wrath when I'm in Eclipse OR out of Eclipse. So, it's just doubling Eclipse energy all the time, instead of halving it when I'm out of Eclipse, making it particularly hard to compare to Soul of the Forest in actual testing right now.

My current impression is that this is intended, contrary to the last previewed info pre-launch. When I have more time I will look more into it, but at first glance that seems like would significantly weaken it.

Zojun · 03/23/12, 6:48 PM

Originally Posted by lissanna

Then again, Incarnation actually just isn't working right in Beta now at all. It's giving me 30 Eclipse energy for wrath when I'm in Eclipse OR out of Eclipse. So, it's just doubling Eclipse energy all the time, instead of halving it when I'm out of Eclipse, making it particularly hard to compare to Soul of the Forest in actual testing right now.

This seems to have purposefully changed though - the MoP site talent calc's last update mentioned the doubling of energy outside eclipse and the halving inside, but on the beta there's no distinction between eclipse states or even a mention of halving energy. Wouldn't surprise me to see a "reversion" back to the talent calc's version soon.

thedopefishlives · 03/23/12, 7:32 PM

Originally Posted by Zojun

This seems to have purposefully changed though - the MoP site talent calc's last update mentioned the doubling of energy outside eclipse and the halving inside, but on the beta there's no distinction between eclipse states or even a mention of halving energy. Wouldn't surprise me to see a "reversion" back to the talent calc's version soon.

I doubt it. The original version was weak mainly because of the reduction in Nature's Grace uptime - and it was a pretty significant drop, let me tell you. The new version is undoubtedly stronger than the original, but the difference isn't huge. The talent overall is still weaker than Soul of the Forest for a stand-and-nuke fight, though I don't doubt that there is value for AOE fights where you can cycle Eclipses rapidly for mushrooms/Starfall.

Stommped · 03/23/12, 7:46 PM

It sounds like from what I'm reading that if you are in Solar (with CA down) at the beginning of some aoe phase (let's say 5-6 mobs) that lingering in Solar to WM and SuF spam all mobs is not going to be in our best interest? If we linger in an Eclipse state to dot or aoe, does it cause funky things with our dot uptimes on the boss? With the increased emphasis on moving between Eclipse I'm wondering how we will judge when its ok to camp in an Eclipse and when to just continue moving back and forth to increase NG uptime and reset Starfall.

Also in regards to Starfall, is it confirmed that if you have Starfall active as you proc Lunar Eclipse it still resets the CD? AKA giving you back to back Starfalls (Back to Back to Back if you pop CA at the end of Lunar)?

Thanks for your great testing.

♦ Tecton · 03/23/12, 8:01 PM

Yes, if you have Starfall active while going into Lunar the cooldown is still reset. You can only have one Starfall buff active, though, using it again just refreshes the duration of the previous one. And obviously, once that's done, you can pop CA and hit it again.

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 8:11 PM

Originally Posted by thedopefishlives

I doubt it. The original version was weak mainly because of the reduction in Nature's Grace uptime - and it was a pretty significant drop, let me tell you. The new version is undoubtedly stronger than the original, but the difference isn't huge. The talent overall is still weaker than Soul of the Forest for a stand-and-nuke fight, though I don't doubt that there is value for AOE fights where you can cycle Eclipses rapidly for mushrooms/Starfall.

Ok, you're probably right. Old one I don't think was much of a Nature's Grace drop, but new one is a big bump to it and also to DoT uptime. More importantly I'd forgotten how weak Eclipse uptime benefits tend to be.

The old version gave the Eclipse increase I talked about above--about 5%. So at some middling level of Mastery, that ballparks to like 2% DPS, very close to neutral on NG/DoT uptime.

New version gives no Eclipse increase, and gives 100% NG uptime while it's up. NG normally is up for around 2/3 for nukes and 100% for DoT's. So you're getting 15% haste for 1/3 of Incarnation uptime which is 1/6, so less than 1% DPS to nukes. Each DoT will have (close to) 100% uptime where they usually have around 2/3. So maybe close to 50% DoT uptime gained for 1/6 of rotation--big DPS increase from DoT's, especially if you can time it for extra DoT refreshes trailing off the end.

That would also make it a lot better than SotF too though, so we're still not really in agreement on everything. SotF is still only about as strong as old Incarnation, and like I said above, marginal gains in Eclipse uptime just don't do much.

Sunfyre · 03/23/12, 8:17 PM

I'm curious how the changes to Eclipse, et. al. will change our rotation. We probably won't want to start in an Eclipse anymore, since Nature's Grace will have faded before a pull.

Do we start one cast before an Eclipse? Do we start at 0, pop Starfall, head to Lunar, pop Starfall again, then CA as soon as you leave Lunar and pop Starfall one more time before burning through to Solar Eclipse?

Triple starfall seems pretty sexy for opening burst.

• Hamlet · 03/23/12, 8:33 PM

Celestial Alignment right away, probably (start a Starfall first and then hit it). When you start you're at 0 energy with no NG and no DoT's up, probably no better time to CA and get that all going immediately.

e: what does CA do if you're at 0/neutral? (nm, yeah, was confused a moment)

e2: Oh, you're saying if we still get to prime Eclipse. Then yeah, start one cast out from Eclipse (just as good as the CA thing).

♦ Tecton · 03/23/12, 8:38 PM

Ok, Euphoria. I've now had it proc at 50 and 55 when going towards Lunar, and at 40 when going towards Solar. I'll do some more testing to see if it will proc any further out than that when going towards Lunar.

[edit] Popping CA while neutral lets you go in either direction after it, same behaviour as far as I can see otherwise. [/edit]

thedopefishlives · 03/23/12, 8:54 PM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

That would also make it a lot better than SotF too though, so we're still not really in agreement on everything. SotF is still only about as strong as old Incarnation, and like I said above, marginal gains in Eclipse uptime just don't do much.

Well, I'm only just now coming up with new numbers based on the new rotation. I'll edit this post once I've figured out how much things have changed.

Edit: With a baseline of 33421 using the new improved rotation, Incarnation (doubling all the time) gives 34134, or 2.13% increase. Soul of the Forest gives 34915, or 4.47% increase. So it's clearly better than the old version, but I'm not sure where I'm going wrong that it isn't measuring up to SotF.

Edit2: I was able to get Incarnation up to 2.45% when I switched from casting Starsurge only in Eclipse to casting Starsurge on cooldown. Still not sure where the missing 2% is, though.

Erdluf · 03/23/12, 10:00 PM

My current impression is that this is intended, contrary to the last previewed info pre-launch. When I have more time I will look more into it, but at first glance that seems like would significantly weaken it.

If you always get double energy from Incarnation, you are looking at about 27s of nukes (pre haste) for a full Eclipse cycle, That is nice for NG, DoT and Starfall uptime over that period (but Starfall probably finishes after Lunar does, which is bad), but doesn't help nukes a whole lot.

With no Euphoria proc, Solar to Lunar:
SotF: 7 nukes in Eclipse = 105 energy, +20 + 5 nukes to reach Lunar. 7/12 = 58% of nukes get Eclipse.
Incarnation: 4 nukes in Eclipse = 120 energy, + 3 nukes to reach Lunar. 4/7 = 57% of nukes get Eclipse.

Lunar to Solar
SotF: 5 or 6 nukes in Eclipse = 100 to 115 energy + 20 + 4 or 5 to reach Solar, about 5.5/10 = 55% of nukes get Eclipse.
Incarnation: 3 nukes in Eclipse = 100 to 120 energy + 2 or 3 to reach to reach Solar, about 3/5.5 = 55% of nukes get Eclipse.

However, SotF is 100% uptime. Incarnation is 17% uptime. As others have said, Incarnation would still only be better in very specialized burst situations.