Saraya, could you try and find out what the spellpower scaling coefficients are for Starfall and Typhoon?

World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Classes -> Druid -> Wrath of the Lich King Beta Talent Calculator
This was updated last night and is showing improved moonkin aura as a 10 second duration now "once every few seconds". So I'm sure they are still tweaking with it, hopefully for the better.

The talent calculator is still wrong on several talents: moonkin form, lunar guidance, brambles, etc.
I can't comprehend how Blizzard can't even get their own talent calculators up when fan sites can do it properly.
Just wait until the official calculators are finally updated for the beta patches before making assumptions.

Edit:
I also wanted to get people's opinion on restokin builds in WoTLK for pvp. With 10 more talent points, spell power change, loads of mana conserving talents and a fast heal (nourish) I can see restokin become very viable. With such a build you can have close to the pvp damage of a full balance druid combined with the healing power and survivability of a full resto druid.

An example of such a build: http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...35210010000000
That one needs some work though.

I’ve tried to bring this up in another forum, but people there seem to think balance won’t be viable unless they can win against every class with a full balance build.

Strangly the american talents do have the updated moonkin form, but not the lunar guidance or brambles. So I agree that they aren't doing a good job of updating the trees, but still found it interesting they changed that value to 10 seconds.

Thanks man!

They need some people who can actually type English. There shouldn't be typo's like "chacne" and "whiel" on an official site, yet they are both used in the same tooltip on the American site (moonkin form). This just proves a billion-dollar company can't afford a spellcheck.

How does eclipse work?

You crit with a wrath and eclipse proc's giving you 10% starfire crit for 30 seconds.
You crit with starfire and eclipse proc's giving you 10% wrath damage for 30 seconds.
You crit with a wrath but on cooldown with wrath procs.

-or-

You crit with a wrath and eclipse proc's giving you 10% starfire crit for 30 seconds.
You crit with starfire but on cooldown with eclipse procs.

Does one proc put both proc's on cooldown?

Lucitron and Princeinexile, I know as Shaman you are keen to try to prove to balance druids that as it is the two specs of elemental shaman and balance druids is fair and even.

Whiles I agree with you that undoubtedly balance druid will be needed for raids, that's not the grievance felt here. Right now in live, balance druids are viable and needed for raids, but again are the least effective dps casters out there and the most expendable. So the situation is that many don't feel on par after the announced nerfed, especially when it was coupled with a few much needed buffs to elemental shaman.

And point out many factors as you may, I've looked at both sides of the coin, and I agree, the nerf to improved moonkin aura is un-needed and does put balance druids somewhat sub-par, it's too harsh, and wasn't necessary in light of the improvements that were given elsewhere. So it's not a call to nerf anyone, just to undo the nerf to improved Moonkin aura. I'm fine with Shaman having more buffs to offer, that's what shaman have been good at, druid's have more been focused on roles. They’re pretty much even overall without the nerf, with the nerf though, they aren't, and the discontent you witness is balance druids feeling once again second rate.

You have to understand that they have been second rate from the beginning, as shaman you may not understand some of the noisier ones QQing in the manner they have been because, Shaman ruled all once upon a time at release, then dipped in PvE when raiding game developed. It wasn't until TBC that Shaman became kings of the PvE circuit, but then pvp was terrible. Hopefully WotLK makes shaman kings of both, what balance druids want is to be on par, and hard as that is to quantify, this was the general feeling with the buff pre-nerf, and is not the case now post nerf.

To fix, they only need undo the nerf, and I can bet you the crying will stop, because a lot of sensible druids out there will point out to the useless criers advantages of the new wotlk abilities that they are just not getting yet. Including me.

So enough said about the topic, we all (druids that is) agree the improved moonkin aura nerf is too harsh. I won't say any more about it because it's been said, please don't post more proofs and theories, let the discussion about it end here and let's just say I disagree with both you Shaman. No need to try and convince me of all the good in the wotlk balance druid, I'm aware and I do not want to drag on in tit-for-tat arguements that can neither be proven nor disproved. I've stated my point, so have you, let's not de-rail this any with bickering.

By the way, no one answered my query on Wrath posted earlier.

Actually, we never reliably knew what the cooldown of Improved Moonkin aura was in alpha, do we? For all we know, it might have been 30s all along. If someone who played in alpha could clarify this?

Vodrin, I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that you couldn't have both Eclipse effects up at the same time, and that they shared a cooldown - but again, this was alpha information/speculation, so it would be good if it could be confirmed/debunked by Saraya.

Well my numbers don't match with yours. I find starfire to be the higher dpm and lower dps spell, even with a 13% CoE.
However this is without nature's grace and improved moonkin aura proc's taken into consideration.

If eclipse does put both proc's on cooldown then its maximum uptime is 25%. 2.5% crit or damage for 3 talent points that deep isn't very appealing.

I'd rather it BE a flat 3% crit or damage than the way it's set up now. It seems they're trying to use it to buff our dps and require more spells to be used; however we already have IFF (now required), Moonfire and potentially Insect Swarm (On tank damage heavy fights) to manage. The best way they could even out wrath and starfire would be to have Earth and Moon be 9/10% for nature damage, and keep the 6% for arcane damage. That with the increased number of stormstrike charges available, would be more than enough to make wrath weaving viable in a raid setting. The only issue I would see, is that we can use stormstrike charges a LOT faster than an elemental shaman can (Particularly with NG working with wrath), and it may be a net loss for their personal dps.

I'd rather see a buff to insect swarm/moonfire scaling, maybe even a dot component to IFF (That'd also be an interesting idol/set bonus ability), as opposed to trying to make a wrath/starfire weave necessary.

Not about game mechanics in itself, but why do we want wrath to be our main nuke so hard?? I don´t know, I just like having an unique graphics for my nuke (starfire) instead a shared look (wrath).

I think Moonkin form's mana on crit should be a percentage chance based on which spell you cast, such that it benefits starfire and wrath equally. Say if you do starfire you get a 100% chance to get 3% max mana back, and with wrath it's something like 66%.

Soultarius, I think the goal is not to have a main nuke, but be able to alternate between the two depending on need.

I don't think anyone here is trying to make it our main nuke. I, for one, prefer Starfire when it comes to pure aesthetics.

Most of the discussion is examining the talents to find the best performance, and examine if the performance gains are worth the talent points/complication. It's also the best way to give feedback: if it is not worth it, or the benefit is minimal it needs to be expressed so hopefully it can beadjusted (Particularly during the beta period when suggestions of minor tweaks can still affect things).

In addition, having solid numbers/detailed explanations of what's positive/negative makes for a better argument than random comparisons to other classes. Showing that an attempt was made to utilize a talent to its maximum potential and it still fell short also makes a stronger impression.


You do bring up a good point, that I was also hinting at: do any PVE/raiding balance druids really feel we need wrath in the rotation? The only real benefit would be a more complex/decision intensive dps cycle. The question becomes: is our current dot timer/nuke rotation not sufficient for that?

Arcane immune bosses aren't even a consideration: eclipse has absolutely no use in those cases, and our dps doesn't suffer the same way an opposite specced mage does on those few encounters. We already can alternate nukes without suffering a huge dps loss. (There are even potential gains on lower health adds where a starfire could be clipped)


@Lord Beef: Earlier in the thread it was reported that mana regen is proccing on every crit. Unless you're suggesting that as a way to weaken wrath's dpm, in which case my apologies.

So I'm the only one that gets giddy at the thought of chaining 0.75s wraths? :P

On that thought, Nature's Grace is before haste correct?
cast = (base-0.5)/(1+haste)

Anything over 33% haste would bring wrath below its GCD on nature's grace proc's. So starfire would be always better during a bloodlust. Wrath of Air and Improved Moonkin Procs would also cause wrath to be very close to cap making haste on gear worth less for wrath. That would in itself cause alternating nukes during Moonkin Procs as, baring set bonus for starfire, wrath does seem to come out as higher dps with not too much difference in dpm. Lord Beef's idea for less chance on wrath could help the difference in dpm be greater and give more reason to use starfire. The idea of using wrath to dump mana for higher dps is appealing to me and creates more difference in the two nukes.

On the stormstrike point, due to windfury changes and deadly brew, it may be much more likely for a rogue to have instant poison on a weapon. That would be a much larger issue than wrath taking stormstrikes due to their relatively small damage.

We have no evidence at this point to suggest that anything will allow us to break 1s GCD, even with the change, which would mean Wrath would get negative benefit from haste WRT crit, i.e. More crit means haste is worth less instead of more. Saraya, would it be possible for you to check if sub 1s GCD is possible using only haste gear and NG? Lust has enough special circumstances already to make it unreliable for testing, though it might be interesting to see both cases anyway.

Patch Notes:
Nature’s Grace (Balance): Now also reduces the global cooldown of your Wrath spell by 50% while in effect.

If this patch note is correct, this actually gives a minimum 0.5s gcd on wrath during nature's grasp making the maximum amount of haste 50%. This is if it stacks with haste, otherwise 0.75s.

With 10% haste:
gcd = (1.5 * 0.5)/(1 + 0.1) = 0.68s
cast = (1.5 - 0.5)/(1 + 0.1) = 0.91s

With 50% haste:
gcd = (1.5 * 0.5)/( 1 + 0.5) = 0.5s
cast = (1.5 - 0.5) / (1 + 0.5) = 0.67s

Bloodlust doesn't affect the gcd in any special way and should be suitable for testing.

edit: added the word 'special'

Spell haste does reduce the GCD. It does it at the same rate it works on 1.5 second cast spells, which is why haste does increase your wrath DPS (Prior to that change spell haste was worthless for dots and 1.5 second cast spells).


The implication is this: if NG allows the GCD to go under 1.0 seconds (Which it should, otherwise wouldn't it also say .5 second reduction in GCD, rather than halving it?), there should never be a point where any amount of spell haste could catch up with the wrath GCD.

In your example at 33% haste you'd have a .56 global cooldown and .75 second wraths. The global cooldown of 33% haste is enough to allow for chain casting of 75% haste wraths (.57 second cast time).

EDIT: Which you confirmed in your post above this, after I edited this in.

If we assume that the wording on the patch note is intended to reflect the wording on all haste effects, then the calculation is

1.5/(1+.5(NG)) = 1s.

Assumptions, however, are less interesting than facts. I'mma wait until Saraya gets back with more info before I start making conclusions. I just don't see the point in taking a spell which is GCD locked before a proc, and then removing that lock. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Edit for clarification:

Cast time of wrath would be (1.5 - .5(NG))/(1 + haste%). GCD change without NG patch note is 1.5/(1 + haste%), hence the current problem of NG and wrath. the patch note, with the way I read it, would bring the GCD under a proc to 1.5/((1 + .5)(1 + haste%)), which is equal to 1/(1 + haste%). Since haste is originally not supposed to bring GCD under 1s, this would devalue haste for Wrath at high crit rates.

Well they've done it with Lifebloom/Rejuvenation, and likely Discipline priest PW:S. Judgement in Live has no GCD (Though that was changed for WotLK). So there seems to be a willingness to break the 1.0 second GCD barrier in specific cases. I agree that waiting to see if Nature's Grace works like that is still important, but if it doesn't the wording is certainly quite terrible.

Bloodlust affects the GCD of spell like every other spell haste buff/rating.
It doesn't affect the GCD of physical abilities though.

As for how haste works for spells:
1) Take the base cast time
2) Apply all fixed time modifiers (-0.5s talents, -0.5s buffs like the HolyPala/Moonkin talents, -0.x from set bonuses, PvP gloves, etc., all "-x seconds" things)
3) Then apply the haste multipliers (haste rating, heroism, power infusion, icy veins, etc.)


Several sources stated before that there is a server-side hard cap on the GCD of 1.0s. The reason quoted was along the line of preventing hacked clients from spamming instants (AE).


Can anyone do a test on the PTR that NG reduces the GCD below 1s?
Working Theories of Theorycrafting as of 2.1

Type or copy-paste or make a macro that does:
Everytime you cast a spell, this thing will display all cooldowns of your abilities on your action bars.
That means you'll see a lot of numbers for your GCD, and some numbers of spells with an actualy cooldown.
Do a relog/reload to get rid of the numbers again.

With that, you can see what your GCD changed to on a NG proc. It's the only way I know of to actually measure the GCD.
The blog entry comment showed spell cast times geting below 1 second (which happens all the time these days), but I couldn't find anything that indicated that the GCD drops below 1 second.

If anyone in beta could do the above test to find out the GCD under Nature's Grace (maybe with and without haste rating), it would clear up a lot confusion.


[Edit]: The spells that are off GCD have a cooldown that limits them. There also are some spells with a 0.5s GCD and 0.5s cast time (Warstomp, Hammer of Wrath, Shadowfury and more), but they also are limited by their own cooldown.
I only heard of the "1s GCD hard cap" from a friend's friend, so I consider that more a possibility than fact or anything else.

It still would be great to test how the GCD under Nature's Grace behaves. Especially since haste and cast time things tend to get confused by the developers too ...

Then why has judgement never had a GCD till now? Certainly that it has a CD makes it less susceptible to abuse, but claiming there's a server-side hard cap on time between activating abilities doesn't make sense. Trinkets, and abilities such as Icy Veins, and Potions do not inflict a GCD either, allowing you to macro them all at once in addition to a spell. If it was a server issue, all of these things should inflict a GCD as well.

I DO buy the idea that there was policy in place not to allow it to go below 1.0 seconds to avoid spamming, but there are certainly better ways to avoid that: Make sure there's no way to reduce it to 0 seconds on instant cast, no CD spells.


EDIT: Yea I read the post over again and it doesn't mention the GCD. It'd be just as easy to test this with the resto talent as NG (Or both, they could work differently).