Erdluf

dedmon,

People might want a conditional based on time-remaining (of Eclipse, or perhaps some DoT). For instance, I might delay a DoT refresh during the last several seconds of Eclipse.

Another item: I believe you implemented a reaction time on checking for procs, so that

action=.../wrath,eclipse=benefit/...

will not fire unless eclipse has been active for at least 0.5s. I'm just wondering if you coded a reaction time for ending "trigger-spam."

action=wrath,eclipse=trigger/starfire

A real player will typically cast one wrath too-many, because he has already queued the next wrath by the time he recognizes he is past the "eclipse=trigger" phase. Is this implemented in simcraft?

 

dedmonwakeen

Excellent point. I just checked the code and I only see reaction time conditionals for the "benefit" portion.

I'll fix that.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

Miim

Just a general question on this.. If I load up a SF or Wrath during the end of eclipse.. Like just before it ends, will my it gain the benefit from eclipse? It is fired during eclipse but hits the target after eclipse has ended? Basically is the damage calculated when you start firing? When it fires? or when it hits?

Adorielle
Mind explaining what CF means in your sim model :/
/hides

 

Miim

Thanks for the info, I will really try this one out. Guess I was blinded by everyone calling wrath during eclipse superior? Or?

I also think this style will give much much better mana regen and longevity than wrath during eclipse. Not to mention that I "like" SF better than Wrath as a spell

Questions:

You only SF during eclipse right?
You never abort anything during eclipse? Like to refresh MF?

 

◊ Lorewanderer

If for nothing more than to satisfy morbid curiosity, would Adoriele or dedmonwakeen be willing to toss the 4t5 bonus into the options on the various spreadsheets? I found that when I put it into a recent version of wrathcalc that a basic MF/SF rotation was beating out the others handily (using 4t5/4t6). I expect that the raw stats lost versus gear at 80 would handily make up for the bonus, but I'm sufficiently curious to not completely discount it.

I'll also be working on the Balance Druid TTT article and an associated thread this weekend, so if people have comments on things they'd like to see included, feel free to PM me.

 

heptadragon

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd think that would represent points in Celestial Focus (and I would assume it'd be maxed to get the full haste benefit).

 

Miim

Thanks, I believe you are correct.
This should be the excact spec that came out on top in the sim: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
And like it said.. NO_CF 0 in Celestial Focus.

 

Erdluf

It is my impression that the Eclipse buff starts when the spell leaves my hand (just like NG). Most damage buffs are effective if they are active when the spell leaves your hand, and I'd expect Eclipse to be no different.

You could test this with a target dummy and wrath-eclipse. Sooner or later you'd either have damage too small to have gained from Eclipse, or too large to have not used Eclipse.

I notice the SimulationCraft behavior is that a spell checks for Eclipse at the time the cast is complete. I would expect that is also the in-game behavior.

 

dukes

Eclipse procs when the spell hits, not when the spell damage is calculated. I've noticed it quite a lot with Wrath. Either that or the Eclipse proc has an inherent 1-2 second delay on proccing.

Ninjaedit:
Just to prove this (and to show that Eclipse actually has a small delay anyway), here's an excerpt from a WWS from this week.
As you can see, Natures Grace procs off the crit as it's released, while Eclipse doesn't proc until the damage is done.

 

dedmonwakeen

SimulationCraft does not model spell travel-time. It is on the "list", but has relatively low priority. There are so many other gaping holes (such as missing classes) that it may be a while before this is addressed.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

ryttingm

My simulator also shows this rotation to be superior at my gearing level (Which is pretty lousy). The only difference is that Insect Swarm is still more damage per cast time than starfire or wrath so it is still beneficial to keep Insect swarm in the rotation.

 

• Adoriele

I could add it to WrathCalcs pretty easily, I think, though it'd be a rough addition (though that's true of everything so far).

Yes, CF means Celestial Focus, sorry for not making that clear in the post. It was the only talent I could think of that you could possibly skip for other things on the way to 51. You might be able to get the same treatment from iMkF, but since it has the tacked-on extra SP from SPI, it'd be less useful to throw away.

Erd, it's actually the other way around. Almost every proc from spells with travel time occurs when the spell lands, not when it completes. Nature's Grace was changed a while back because that meant that a proc off Wrath affected your second cast after Wrath, instead of the intended first.

 

Erdluf

Thanks, I didn't realize NG was the exception, rather than the rule.

Actually, "sooner or later" takes no time at all. Base-damage range for Wrath is only 55, untalented, which means it is less than 70 even with talents and E&M debuf. Eclipse is 20%, which makes a difference of over 200 on a non-crit at reasonable gear levels.

Turn on your combat log, spam SF at a target dummy to get an eclipse proc, and then spam Wrath. It should only take one or two eclipses to get both:

• A wrath that completed casting before eclipse ended, but landed after eclipse ended.
• A wrath that started casting before eclipse ended, but completed casting after eclipse ended.

Edit: Is there any way to get cast begin/end times from WWS, or do you need a raw combat log?

 

• Adoriele

It's even worse, you're not guaranteed to get an end event for most spells. Plus, the combat log is affected by latency. Hence why I had to move to the macro to prove that the GCD wouldn't go below 1.0s, because that's not affected by lag (since it's a client-side API).

 

bethor

One thing that the sim doesn't take into account for is Owlkin Frenzy. This is difficult to count into sims because you don't know how often you'll be getting hit in most fights or how often it really procs. I was thinking about going with a 48/0/13 spec because the 3% haste from celestial focus only made a .07s difference on my starfires, but Owlkin frenzy is something I don't want to give up. In my most recent raids, I had 1 point into it and it procced 15 times in BT and 25 times in sunwell (8 and 10 times on bosses respectively).

Also, what is the rotation in the 49/0/12 and 48/0/13 specs?

 

amped

Yes, I only SF during eclipse. I also refresh MF whenever it's depleted (without interrupting a spellcast).

 

lstsargent

Ok from the charts a page or so back, is it being said thet the 49/0/12 48/0/13 NO-CF is the optimal spec for dps, without mana problems (which I haven't checked yet but have my doubts). With a rotation of IS MF Wx(eclipes proc) SFxN?

If that is the optimal spec and you wanted to pick up Gale Winds because of it's increase on AOE what would you adjust to pick it up?

 

Erdluf

You take the points from IIS to put in Gale Winds. Depending on how much you are worried about mana, you move points from IMF to Moonglow, and also use the 48/0/13 baseline (which includes OoC).

The rotation casts Wrath only to proc Eclipse.

 

Chimono

Specced appropriately for raiding (I don't use IMP FF not worth the GCD IMO) a moonkin can have a blast raiding and kick the damage meters through the teeth of rogues if played properly.

Now I think just from brain farting around that I've come up with THE BEST rotation for a moonkin in 3.0.

Here's what I got.

Spec Eclipse/Nature's Grace
Glyph Starfire/Moonfire
(The Rest is up to you)

Cast Moonfire
Drop treants depending on what the boss does in terms of close quarters damage.
Cast Starfire till crit, if no crits refresh moonfire keep casting starfire (Simple)
Upon Starfire proccing 20% more wrath damage let the starfire cast to not waste downtime.
Use trinkets
Cast Starfall (This gives the Nature's grace buff upon landing criticals from Starfall which in turn...)
Spam wrath till eclipse ends (This will benefit greatly from starfall proccing Nature's grace, over enough time Nature's grace from starfall will practically make it a free of cast time move)
If there is 2 seconds left on eclipse and there is over 3 on moonfire and you have no used starfire to increase it by 3 seconds do so instead of casting Wrath. The extra 3-9 seconds of moonfire dot is better than an increased wrath.
If moonfire has come off the target and eclipse is over go back to the moonfire-starfire rotation till you can proc eclipse again and this time just wrath spam.

I've done around 2k dps in Hyjal and BT with this sitting on 1222 sp power hit capped and 24% crit with an spriest, imp scorch mage, and shaman totems to increase sp power and haste. I have no set bonuses so it's nothing magical that I'm missing. I'd love to know if anyone else has done this or has had success with other builds, it would be greatly appreciated.

As a last note, this rotation is HIGHLY MANA INEFFICIENT! I would recommend always having a resto shaman in your group, innervating yourself, and chugging that pot if you're going to do this. Good luck have fun with it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that proccing a wrath increasing eclipse and applying starfall is better than starfire because you can cast more wraths in the time of the eclipse and starfall than starfires which means an increase in amount of spells cast because of using nature's grace more often.

WHEW I NEED A BREATHER!

 

bethor

This sounds WRONG to me. Mainly because Natures grace will cause you to clip your wraths due to the normal GCD, assuming you have ANY haste at all. Also being mana inefficient is pretty difficult to do with a shammy and a spriest in your, i'm sure most other boomkins here are pulling out more DPS than you are on the same fights.

 

Chimono

I'm doing 1900-2100 dps depending on raid group.

And once again proccing starfall with wrath is better because you take advantage of more nature's graces than you do with starfire during starfall.

 

Faerdael

There seems to be some thinking going around that somehow wrath and nature's grace are not friends. This is in fact not true, since wrath cast time is cut down by a greater percentage than starfire on a nature's grace proc. Granted, there is a breakpoint, where starfire gains more benefit from Nature's Grace than wrath, but it is certainly not an "any haste at all" scenario. In fact, it looks something like this (rounding issues not factored), with the breakpoint being 16.67% haste:

Nature's Grace Benefits:

0% haste:
Sf: 3.0s cast; 2.5s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase
Wr: 1.5s cast; 1s NG cast = 33.33% haste increase

6% haste:
Sf: 2.8302s cast; 2.3584s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase
Wr: 1.4151s cast; 1s NG cast = 29.33% haste increase

11% haste:
Sf: 2.7027s cast; 2.2523s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase
Wr: 1.3514s cast; 1s NG cast = 26.00% haste increase

16.67% haste:
Sf: 2.5714s cast; 2.1428s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase
Wr: 1.2857s cast; 1s NG cast = 22.22% haste increase

25% haste:
Sf: 2.4s cast; 2.0s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase
Wr: 1.2s cast; 1s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase

 

Chimono

Faerdael, is there anyway you could do some more calculations for me. I'm strictly running of my mathematical brain power which I left somewhere back in high school, which in my opinion was certainly rather developped.

I was wondering if you could calculate something for me.

Two scenarios

Casting wrath with the +20% increased damage after casting starfall with a 38% crit rate for wrath.

So 13.5 seconds of +20% wrath damage eclipse with 10 seconds of starfall at 34% crit and wrath at 38%

And then for scenario number 2.

Casting Starfall with +30% + crit to starfire eclipse bonus

So 13.5 seconds of +30% crit to starfire from eclipse meaning 10 seconds of starfall at 34% crit and starfire at 60% crit.

I have no idea how that equation would look. I attempted to make some sense out of it but I couldn't, it was just too many "What if's" and starfall double proccing or even triple proocing nature's grace during starfire casts.

If you can't then it's not a huge deal, was just wondering.

(I'm already a bit biased as to the fact that you can get a 100% chance with starfire to proc eclipse on nature's grace where as wrath is only 60%)

 

Septus

Meh, this is confusing, I keep seeing conflicting plans of using Starfire to get a wrath-boost Eclipse proc, as well as the reverse. It doesn't seem like we have a consensus, or, one way is working better than the other at different gear levels that I'm missing.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Considering we get 6% from talents, and 5% from wrath of air totem for 11% before gear, that makes it so you just need 6.6% from gear. When you factor in latency it seems like starfire would generally get more benefit in most gearings.