Moonkin WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 67

bethor · 11/10/08, 7:57 PM

Originally Posted by 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:
Starfire: 3.0s cast; 2.5s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase
Wrath: 1.5s cast; 1s NG cast = 33.33% haste increase

6% haste:
Starfire: 2.82cast; 2.32s NG cast = 17.77% haste increase
Wrath: 1.41cast; 1s NG cast = 29.08% haste increase

16.66% haste
Starfire: 2.5002s cast; 2.0002s NG cast = 19.9984% haste increase
Wrath: 1.2501s cast; 1s NG cast = 20.0064% haste increase

16.67% haste
Starfire: 2.499s cast; 1.999s NG cast = 20.008% haste increase
Wrath: 1.2495s cast; 1s NG cast = 19.9679872% haste increase

I can't see any sort of benefit to wanted crits with Wrath, with just 3% haste, Having your cast time on wrath go below 1s means your clipping it via the GCD which means you spend time not casting, which to me is not worth it. I'm going to stick to the rotation someone mentioned earlier which was to use IS, MF, wrath to proc eclipse and then SF til the cooldown is up and then repeat. With that rotation I pull off between 2300 and 2800 on practice dummies, self buffed(no flasks no food).

Eilt · 11/10/08, 7:58 PM

Been playing around with the trinket, treants, MF, wrath to proc eclipse then SF till iCD is up. When it works it is the highest DPS I have seen, the problem is on some attacks on the dummies the RNG owns me and here I don't get as high as DPS as I would using the SF rotation and only wrathing during eclipse proc. I would refresh MF as soon as it fell off w/o interupting a cast, but I even refreshed it in an eclips perios.

This seems to be the major problem with this set up, the wrath 60% chance is just NOT reliable to depend on, although it is VERY nice numbers when it works.

A second small issue I was having was that the iCD would end right as a SF would land, and of course the SF would crit which means I now had a wrath spam eclipse, so I would reccomend maybe just start casting wrath with ~2 secodns left just to be safe, with a decent travel time it will prolly be up anyways.

I was using the no CF 49/0/12 with ooc and 3/3 eclipse.

Stats in moonkin form w/ motw:
1368 SP
142 Hit
27.20% (296 rating) also have 4pc t6 for extra 5% to SF
171 haste rating (no CF though)

Zifrelm · 11/10/08, 8:49 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

The 5% from the Wrath of Air Totem does NOT stack with the 3% from your Moonkin Aura, just as the 5% crit from Elemental Oath doesn't stack with the aura either. Boomkins and ele shammies overlap too much. :-(

◊ Lord BEEF · 11/10/08, 9:00 PM

Are you certain? They appeared in different categories both in the big blue post, as well as MMO-Champion RaidComp

I know Moonkin aura and Elemental Oath don't stack, but I thought wrath of air was its own thing.

• Adoriele · 11/10/08, 9:10 PM

Originally Posted by Lord BEEF

Are you certain? They appeared in different categories both in the big blue post, as well as MMO-Champion RaidComp

I know Moonkin aura and Elemental Oath don't stack, but I thought wrath of air was its own thing.

You're correct. iMKA and Wrath of Air stack just fine. iMKA and Ret Aura do not.

Zifrelm · 11/11/08, 12:18 AM

Hm, well I tested it by standing in the totem's aura while in caster form, then switched to boomkin form, and my cast times in the spell tooltips didn't reduce any. *shrug*

Miim · 11/11/08, 3:46 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

Yeah, from what I have read and tested on the "hereby named RNG Dummies" I am no closer to deciding what to choose.
Currently leaning towards a wrath only to proc eclipse SF during eclipse and whenever ICD is up on eclipse.

From what I can read MF should be refreshed even trough eclipse.
Reason im leaning towards this is just cause its seems more mana efficient, DPS seems .. similar

Niliyu · 11/11/08, 6:36 AM

I've been following this thread closely, and if I'm not mistaken, it is still not clear if the %crit on iFF works on feral FF. I don't have the time to test it myself, but I hope someone could find some and do it, since we will apparently not get a dev answer on this.

My idea is to reduce the innate %crit as much as possible. Do the tests in resto gear or naked, don't spec any crit talents except iFF, where possible, don't test in moonkin form. Some people have suggested to test this on a high resilience target, but I think just reducing the crit on yourself is actually easier and more reliable.

The idea is to make the 3% more crit - if present - a very high increase compared to the situation without iFF. This would probably be tha case with an innate crit under 10%, I suppose. Could that work?

Starfox · 11/11/08, 7:47 AM

Originally Posted by Zifrelm

The 5% from the Wrath of Air Totem does NOT stack with the 3% from your Moonkin Aura, just as the 5% crit from Elemental Oath doesn't stack with the aura either. Boomkins and ele shammies overlap too much. :-(

It does stack.
iMKA is in the same category as Swift Retribution from retpalas: HASTE ALL
WoAT is one of the unique buffs: HASTE SPELL
Ele + Boomkin just cover most of the Caster(de)buffs
=> MMO-Champion RaidComp
Not much overlapping there, just in the 5% crit, where an permanent aura is always a bit better, like CoE is a little bit better then E&M.

Druidark · 11/11/08, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by Starfox

like CoE is a little bit better then E&M.

How?
If the lock will spec affliction he gets 13% max just like E&M, if he doesn't only 10%;
CoE lowers resistances, but up to now im sure this is of zero value in pve, except for a boss with unique design;
E&M applies the debuff while doing one of your main damaging spells. While a lock has to waiste a gbc each time he applies it. And most boomkins cast an early wrath to get the debuff up Asap on the pull/trash;

I wouldn't say one of both is better then the other for bossfights, but on trash E&M is clearly better for dps uptime.

Shuror · 11/11/08, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by 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:
Starfire: 3.0s cast; 2.5s NG cast = 16.67% haste increase
Wrath: 1.5s cast; 1s NG cast = 33.33% haste increase

6% haste:
Starfire: 2.82cast; 2.32s NG cast = 17.77% haste increase
Wrath: 1.41cast; 1s NG cast = 29.08% haste increase

16.66% haste
Starfire: 2.5002s cast; 2.0002s NG cast = 19.9984% haste increase
Wrath: 1.2501s cast; 1s NG cast = 20.0064% haste increase

16.67% haste
Starfire: 2.499s cast; 1.999s NG cast = 20.008% haste increase
Wrath: 1.2495s cast; 1s NG cast = 19.9679872% haste increase

Haste is actually applied after NG; your Starfire values are wrong. For example, with 16.66% haste the Starfire cast time would be 2.14s, not 2.00s.

SF_NGhaste=(3/(1+haste))/((3-.5)/(1+haste))=3(1+haste)/(2.5(1+haste))=3/2.5

W_NGhaste=(1.5/(1+haste))/((1.5-.5)/(1+0))=1.5/(1+haste) [NG W does not benefit from haste at all, so haste is calculated as 0)

Breakpoint at SF_NGhaste=W_NGhaste is:

3/2.5=1.5/(1+haste)
1+haste=1.5*2.5/3
haste=1.5*2.5/3-1=.25=25%

Faerdael · 11/11/08, 12:16 PM

Thank you for pointing that out Shuror, I went ahead and revised my original post accordingly. This means that in a raid environment (ie. have wrath of air), we are looking at 459 haste rating as the break even point on nature's grace at level 80, if assuming no lag. Factoring in lag, you can refer to someone smarter than me.

This is not an effort to somehow prove wrath a superior spell, as it is much more specific than that. Granted, there is something quite dirty feeling about clobbering a GCD like NG wrath does now, but its still benefitting more from the proc than starfire until a certain level of haste.

Erdluf · 11/11/08, 12:17 PM

Shuror is right, if you assume no lag.

Assume that there are two lag values

lag1 = lag associated with spells that have a cast time >= GCD
lag2 = lag associated with spell that have a cast time < GCD

We expect lag2 > lag1, because server-side queueing doesn't work in this case.

SF_NGhaste=(3/(1+haste)+lag1)/((3-.5)/(1+haste)+lag1)
W_NGhaste=(1.5/(1+haste)+lag1)/(1 + lag2)

Using these lag values

lag1 = 0.05s
lag2 = 0.15s

The breakeven point (SF_NGhaste == W_NGhaste) occurs at about 13.2% haste (2.2% from gear, 6% from talents, and 5% from WoA).

thedopefishlives · 11/11/08, 3:08 PM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

Shuror is right, if you assume no lag.

Assume that there are two lag values

lag1 = lag associated with spells that have a cast time >= GCD
lag2 = lag associated with spell that have a cast time < GCD

We expect lag2 > lag1, because server-side queueing doesn't work in this case.

SF_NGhaste=(3/(1+haste)+lag1)/((3-.5)/(1+haste)+lag1)
W_NGhaste=(1.5/(1+haste)+lag1)/(1 + lag2)

Using these lag values

lag1 = 0.05s
lag2 = 0.15s

The breakeven point (SF_NGhaste == W_NGhaste) occurs at about 13.2% haste (2.2% from gear, 6% from talents, and 5% from WoA).

Do we have a good seat-of-the-pants estimate for how much lag2 will be greater than lag1? I'd like to code this into Rawr (it wouldn't be terribly hard, I don't think), to improve the accuracy a bit.

Grawlen · 11/11/08, 3:22 PM

I'm not quite following the discussion about NG wrath and NG starfire...with the global cooldown, don't you still have to wait until the gcd is up to cast again, effectively leaving the cast time at whatever it was(with haste) before NG procs?

• Adoriele · 11/11/08, 3:32 PM

Originally Posted by Grawlen

I'm not quite following the discussion about NG wrath and NG starfire...with the global cooldown, don't you still have to wait until the gcd is up to cast again, effectively leaving the cast time at whatever it was(with haste) before NG procs?

There's no real documentation on it anymore, but Nature's Grace reduces the GCD incurred by Wrath now. It only drops it to 1s, so it's still clobbered with any haste at all, but it's not as bad as it was pre-3.0.

Chimono · 11/11/08, 4:47 PM

The math thing somewhat blows my mind when I try to comprehend what you guys are saying.

I've heard a few new builds like the wrath proccing eclipse starfire bonus builds etc.

Is there any hard evidence as to which eclipse proc is more damage, wrath or starfire bonus?

I still really enjoy my rotation because it's not that bad and is much more "fun" than a simple rotation but I wonder if I could be doing much more.

Edit: I guess I should throw in there that my rotation is:

MF
Starfire till crit and refresh moonfire if I don't crit before then
Starfall
Wrath spam
MF
Starfire till Eclipse proc with moonfire refresh
Wrath spam

That's the general idea behind my rotation. I don't stop cast my starfires to change to wrath, the macros were screwing with my head.

Stats are 1222 sp power, hit cap, 24% crit in form and a total of 7.84% haste with talents and on target dummies I can pull off 1800-1900 dps, and sometimes 2k-2.1k in raid situations.

Hipnotyk · 11/11/08, 11:59 PM

I tried Eclipse on my Moonkin and just couldn't stand the inconsistencies. I'm currently spec'd 56/0/5, maxing Imp IS for the 3% Starfire crit bonus and Imp FF for the raid-wide 3% hit and 3% crit to myself. With 4p T6 and all the talents, I get an additional 15% to my Starfire crit chance.

The rotation is quite simple... Moonfire, FF, then Starfire like a madman. Renew MF/FF as they fall off and just keep spamming. It works exceptionally well for me and I don't have to spend stupid amounts of time trying to force a proc.

With all the crit from talents, gear and raid buffs, and just enough haste to make my NG-affected Starfires go a bit under 2 seconds, I've been shooting the lights out on bosses when I'm critting as much as my character sheet + talents put me at.

thedopefishlives · 11/12/08, 1:51 AM

Fun facts I've discovered from playing with the new version of Rawr.Moonkin:

1) Wrath scales INCREDIBLY well. I've tried all sorts of things, and so far, it seems to scale on par with Starfire.
2) Using the Starfire glyph appears to be a DPS _downgrade_ at 80 when using a Wrath-based rotation. That is to say, MF/SFx3/WxN actually causes a drop in DPS, even with the Starfire glyph. It also dramatically increases the DPS of Starfire-based rotations, such that if you have the glyph on, MF/SFxN vs MF/SFx3/WxN is essentially a dead heat. IS/MF/WxN still appears to be superior, though.

Moonkin Kai · 11/12/08, 6:26 AM

I reached 2.9k max and around 2.5-2.6k dps on a training dummy yesterday using a MF, WrathxN (until eclipse procs), SF until eclipse wears off rotation and it increased my dps compared to a MF, SFx3, WxN

dukes · 11/12/08, 6:41 AM

Originally Posted by thedopefishlives

Fun facts I've discovered from playing with the new version of Rawr.Moonkin:

1) Wrath scales INCREDIBLY well. I've tried all sorts of things, and so far, it seems to scale on par with Starfire.
2) Using the Starfire glyph appears to be a DPS _downgrade_ at 80 when using a Wrath-based rotation. That is to say, MF/SFx3/WxN actually causes a drop in DPS, even with the Starfire glyph. It also dramatically increases the DPS of Starfire-based rotations, such that if you have the glyph on, MF/SFxN vs MF/SFx3/WxN is essentially a dead heat. IS/MF/WxN still appears to be superior, though.

As much as I'd like to play around with Rawr at the moment, I'm at work, so some questions will have to suffice.

When evaluating Wrath, what values of haste/lag are you using? From all indications of gear so far that I've seen, we're going to have quite a substantial amount of haste even in entry level raiding, especially with raid buffs. If the current trend with Wrath + NG clipping the GCD substantially continues at 80, it'll probably come down to personal lag conditions as to whether Wrath is worth using as the "primary" spell.

What talent setup are you using? I'm looking at going 66/0/5 as there are just too many good talents in the balance tree. With this in mind, regen could start to be an issue, so the DPM of rotations is likely to be called into question. Some values on how much more DPM each rotation uses would be useful.

When evaluating IS, are you using the glyph? From what I can tell in testing at 70, it's actually a DPS loss for me to spend the time casting IS while raid buffed, but this is without 2t7 and the glyph, which would increase the damage of IS substantially. I'm almost certain that it isn't worth the loss of the -hit debuff to glyph it while raiding though.

Miim · 11/12/08, 6:44 AM

Originally Posted by Hipnotyk

I tried Eclipse on my Moonkin and just couldn't stand the inconsistencies. I'm currently spec'd 56/0/5, maxing Imp IS for the 3% Starfire crit bonus and Imp FF for the raid-wide 3% hit and 3% crit to myself. With 4p T6 and all the talents, I get an additional 15% to my Starfire crit chance.

The rotation is quite simple... Moonfire, FF, then Starfire like a madman. Renew MF/FF as they fall off and just keep spamming. It works exceptionally well for me and I don't have to spend stupid amounts of time trying to force a proc.

With all the crit from talents, gear and raid buffs, and just enough haste to make my NG-affected Starfires go a bit under 2 seconds, I've been shooting the lights out on bosses when I'm critting as much as my character sheet + talents put me at.

I am serisoulsy thinking of going down this path too, from what I can see, the minor damage you can gain from eclipse is so inconsistent that RNG can make you go over/under.

TC people claim that haste is imba for wrath until your crit is > 51% but still haste will always be better for SF than wrath.
Mana wise.. this is more DPM, so if that also means I can get more "utility" by speccing out of eclipse, im tempted.. Anyone else have tried this and preferably eclipse too, and seen how big the DPS difference is?

Hipnotyk · 11/12/08, 9:10 AM

I'm almost certain that it isn't worth the loss of the -hit debuff to glyph it while raiding though.

If for whatever reason there's a boss that screams "I hit hard and you should lower my chance to hit if you value your tanks," the best option would be a Marksman Hunter using Scorpid Sting over Serpent. Chim Shot renews the sting and would only need to be cast once for the whole fight. With every properly designed raid having a MM Hunter for the raid-wide Trueshot Aura, you can pick up the IS Glyph without thinking twice.

Looking forward to an onslaught of theorycraft at 80. Getcha popcorn ready!

Miim · 11/12/08, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Adoriele

Alright, I ran a ton of sims to get an idea of how the talent specs play out, and here's some results:

The 61/0/0 specs were all the same, Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. The differences between them are the Eclipse rotations. The names are of the form 61-0-0-<Pre-eclipse>-<Eclipse>-<Post-Eclipse>, where each of those is the spell you use during that phase, i.e. 61-0-0-W-SF-SF only uses Wrath to proc Eclipse, SF at all other times. The special case of NO_IS is exactly what it seems like: The druid didn't cast IS at all. If we can get a wrath=trigger option or something similar to allow for rotations that only cast IS if Wrath would be the next nuke used, I'll test that out in the future.

The 48/0/12 +1-CF specs are mostly of the form Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, but with the point in Eclipse moved around to FoN and Splendor to show the relative differences, with one spec showing the difference between using iIS and iIF. The 48/0/12+1-NO_CF specs are of the form Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, with the extra point flipping between Eclipse and OoC. There's also a spec showing the difference between iIS and Brambles this time.

Have you run any extensive tests based on level 80 builds?
I'm especially interested to compare the different eclipse rotations vs a simple SF+MF rotation with no eclipse and if the latter one is as viable as I hope, specially with much haste.

I did try to play around a bit on the sim myself, but I struggled getting it all, so I basically don't trust any of the data produced.

Appreciate any help I can get on this.

Nilaus · 11/12/08, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Hipnotyk

If for whatever reason there's a boss that screams "I hit hard and you should lower my chance to hit if you value your tanks," the best option would be a Marksman Hunter using Scorpid Sting over Serpent. Chim Shot renews the sting and would only need to be cast once for the whole fight. With every properly designed raid having a MM Hunter for the raid-wide Trueshot Aura, you can pick up the IS Glyph without thinking twice.

Looking forward to an onslaught of theorycraft at 80. Getcha popcorn ready!

I don't think this is a valid option. Considering that a hunter needs to give up Serpent Sting (lots of damage) for Scorpid Sting (no damage), then I think a Balance druid makes a smaller sacrifice to get that hit debuff up.