◊ Boethius

Welcome to the Druid Simple Questions thread. This thread is for all your simple questions which you expect to have simple answers and thus do not require their own thread.

Note that all forum rules still apply: we said simple questions, not stupid questions (which have no place on these forums). You're still expected to make a reasonable effort to find the answer yourself by searching and reading the threads and making use of spreadsheets and any other tools that may be available. If, however, you're fairly confident that your question is not easily answered with available information, but don't think it will generate sufficient discussion to require it's own thread, this is the place to ask.

 

Balog

What is the AoE cap for balance druids? Is it the same for Starfall and Hurricane? Nothing in the Theorycraft think tank article or from the WotLK balance threads.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

It was changed in the beta, and Blizzard said it's not something you should expect to run into in normal play.

I haven't run Hyjal recently to see if it shows up there. It didn't seem to appear during the spider wing of Naxx in beta.

 

Roywyn

For mages the cap it's universally 25k damage per second cast time.
So, Flamestrike (3s cast) has a 75k cap, Blizzard has a 25k per wave, instant spells count as 1.5s as always and have a 37.5k cap.

I doubt it's different for other classes since this seems pretty universal. The numbers are for level 80.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Amidaliania

Whats the best feral leveling talent build?
The goal would be to get the best balance between kitty soloing dps and still being able to tank an occational instance without having to respec.
My current spec is this (and i know its not good!):
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

EDIT:
Could this maybe be viable?
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

 

charriu

They both aren't to bad, but if you're going to get Omen of Clarity, you really want to grab Naturalist on the way.

For tanking, I chose to just take Thick Hide and Protector of the Pack. For the first instances it really is enough, even overkill if you are at least halfway geared...

Primal Precision is, with the lower caps on hit/exp against same level mobs, not really useful, at least in my opinion. That changes once you get into raids, but that's not the topic.

I'm 72 now, and currently this is my spec. I'm going to max King of the Jungle and then imp. Mangle.

 

Abranor

I agree on the hit/exp point, but the 80% energy refund on missed finishers is worth it to me. Just my 2c.

 

Pharmacon

Once you are capped with exp and hit for the mob you are attacking that becomes a moot point because you won't be missing/dodged/parried.

 

mesullivan

I don't have hard numbers for 70, but when I got called into Hyjal for Kaz/Az, I was doing 6-7k on trash waves (frost mage), as was our Boomkin. That also jibes with numbers I was getting when I had a tank for scourge invasion clearing. We aren't even in t6, so maybe somebody in sunwell gear would hit the cap, but I definitely did not.

 

lissanna

I have leveling builds up on my US druid leveling guide:

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> NEW 3.0.3: Feral & Balance leveling guide

I've been updating on a fairly regular basis, based on player feedback and more experience playing with the talents. I have specs up for both balance and feral, and I played around with both specs during Alpha/Beta testing. I'm estimating that the guide will undergo significant changes during the week of Thanksgiving (when I get a break from my graduate school classes), but the basics are there.

There really isn't just one spec that you can have for leveling. There is a lot of flexibility. There are, however, talents that I like a lot better than others. The real thing that becomes a personal decision is when to pick up all the resto points that you need in either a feral or balance build.

 

Humbaba

I tried various feral builds on beta, but I ultimately decided to go with this. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft At 71 I put a point into berserk and then started filling out Natural Shapeshifter towards Master Shapeshifter. My general plan is to Mangle, Rake, Mangle, Mangle and Ferocious Bite as soon as I hit 4 cps. Rend and Tear - Spell - World of Warcraft is stunningly good for leveling with Rake and Ferocious Bite.

 

Moof

I've found it better to rake first, as the initial damage of rake is strangely not affected by mangle, the bleed doesn't start for another 3 seconds and it means getting the DOT portion out earlier so you can maybe get 2 ticks before FBing.

 

Boevis

I would go with this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I don't find Shred useful at all for leveling, and rage for lacerate is hardly an issue, so FA becomes the next best option as far as catform goes. At 71 take Berserk, then fill out RnT and then Shapeshifter

 

Triston

With the changes in WotLK, is there ever a point where Mangle will out-pace Shred?

I have DrDamage installed and I noticed the following:

With 5/5 in R/T, both pounce and mangle debuffs on my target, and the [Everbloom Idol] I'm getting around 48.X DPE on Shred.
My Mangle was getting 44.X DPE.

I'm still testing this but it seems like with Mangle's lower energy cost, combined with [Idol of Terror], it's not worth putting Shred in my rotation.

 

5h0r7y

As balance should i be spamming wrath or starfire after applying dots, or both based on eclipse?

 

Ashaera

You can find plenty of info in the wrath balance theorycraft thread - Try searching the last 10pages or so.

 

Robogep

You can find informations ( including rotations ) at the top of the Think Tank Balance thread.

 

boomchicken

One thing I am confused on is for improved IIS Moonfire/Stafire part do you have to have IS up in order to get the benefit?

 

Hjalte

As I read the talent description, the benefit for Wrath requires IS, while the benefit for Starfire requires Moonfire.

 

Spookeh

Ratings Buster

Is there a simple ratings buster type mod that'll let me know when to swap out my TBC epics for northrend rewards and drops?

I'm lazy:
i know rawr has been updated, and its great, but the lists of gear in each slot now are utterly tiresome to alt tab and look through when i just want a yes/no answer on a quest reward. tbh, it takes long enough scrolling down the list and finding the item i have got equipped, let alone the drop i'm looking to compare it to...

 

Hjalte

I'm not sure what you are looking for Spookeh.

I am using Itemvalue (Updated version: http://static.wowace.com/uploads/18/...clone-r106.zip) paired with the Scale Factors from Simulationcraft to find out if a new item is better than my current one.

If you're just looking for a Ratingsbuster that is more simple, try Ratings from wowace. You'd probably want something like Itemvalue though, or any of its many alternatives. (Pawn etc.)

 

Nysus

Does anyone know of any quest rewards that really shouldn't be missed? I've made the mistake before of choosing the wrong reward or DEing something worthwhile and don't want to make that mistake it again. This could apply to good rewards for any spec.

 

keepyacoolbro

I use DruidStats. You can download it from Curse.com. Displays the "bottom line" of what a piece of gear will do. And if you didn't know, click Shift when hovering over an item in your inventory and it will bring up what you're currently equipped with allowing a better analysis.

 

Dorlath

On eclipse rotations, I've read most of the mega thread but don't recall the following being discussed. Why not wait until the cooldown is up, and then switch back and forth between your wrath and starfire until it procs to avoid wasting a cast that won't get the benefit? I'll test it myself when I get home from work, but would the first cast after the proc not get the benefit?

If it works, it would be superior in all cases to just casting the higher dps of the two than switching to the other when it procs.

It has some benefits over trying to proc the version that will let you use your higher dps spell whenever the cooldown is up as well. You would still proc the better version more than half the time assuming your made sure your first cast after the cooldown was up would be wrath if you wanted to proc for starfire and vise versa. And without the wasted casting time, your would get more benefit from it when you procced the right version.

Even when you do get the wrong proc, you haven't wasted cast time so it's not as much of a loss of dps as it would be. And since you're alternating casts, you have fewer casts of the weaker spell, pre proc that are lowering your dps.

EDIT:

Changed for a major math error as well as not factoring in that due to the nature of eclipse, the cast after the proc, will always receive the benefit of Nature's Grace. If wrath and starfire were dead even in dps, you would see about a 2.5% increase in dps during the eclipse if a starfire procced it and you than spammed wrath, using the alternating method, over spamming one cast till it procs, then switching. You would only see a 1.5% increase going the other way.

The exact number very heavily based on crit and spell haste. I put the break even point at least a 5% difference with 3/3 eclipse, it'll be a bit lower if you only have 1/3 due to it reducing the chance you'll proc the version you want, but certainly not less than 3%.

 

• Adoriele

It's been mentioned, but not very thoroughly tested. I popped functionality for it into my sheet, but I don't think I fully implemented it yet. If I remember right, with a full loadout of DoTs, it ended up being a decrease over a Starfire-based rotation (using Wrath during Eclipse), and an increase of the other case, but this was well before the final version of Eclipse came up, so the results are dubious at best. It's something we're looking into, though.