Moonkin Raiding - Page 128

Altiris · 08/12/09, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by shibbytastic

In a time limited fight we want to maximize our effective eclipse uptime, the amount of time when we are casting eclipse buffed nukes. We want to do this while casting our dots in the most effective way to maximise our dps.

If you refresh your dots during an eclipse proc you reduce your effective eclipse time by 1 GCD for each dot.

If you refresh your dot before the eclipse proc you are reducing your potential eclipse uptime by a global cooldown. Since you do not have a 100% chance to proc eclipse with the nukes, and since each cast has the same chance to proc eclipse you are decreasing effective eclipse uptime by less than if you were to refresh your dots during the eclipse, therefore it should be more advantageous to refresh dots between eclipses.

That's like saying that 6 wrath casts have the same chance to proc Eclipse as 4, which isn't the case. On average you will spend a finite amount of GCDs trying to proc Eclipse. Extending that with DoT refresh GCDs is still an effective GCD per refresh subtracted from total effective Eclipse uptime.

Talsh · 08/12/09, 3:42 PM

Originally Posted by Psilo

I never said to "do what feels right". I am advocating for people to experiment and run their own tests in addition to whatever a magical forum thread or DPS simulation program suggests. I don't understand how I came across otherwise.

The problem with this is that people run their own tests and come here claiming results despite the tests not being at all rigorous. You ran 5 tests of two models and compared results. There is still tons of RNG variance within 5 tests, whereas a simulation will do 5,000 tests and essentially remove (almost) all randomness and just provide average values.

Depending on the situation, yeah, it helps for people to put up numbers... but when it comes to my rotation with an RNG proc, I'm not going to trust any math anybody puts up. Yes, I'll use it as a frame of reference, but nothing beats actually testing things for myself. True to form, in last night's raid I did about 15% more DPS than ever before

Saying that you did 15% more DPS than ever before is sort of meaningless without the actual DPS. If you were sitting at 2k dps and are now doing 2.3k dps, sure, you're doing more DPS, but you're still doing 2.3k dps, and it's possible that the increase was due to your inability to effectively use the first strategy compared to the simplicity of your new one.

I really don't mean to insult you (or imply that you only do 2k dps), I just picked numbers to illustrate the overall point. I'm all about testing things to confirm or deny simulation results, but just as theory is useless without experimentation, the opposite holds true as well.

• Hamlet · 08/12/09, 4:43 PM

I'm not going to get into this trite and hackneyed "how to theorycraft" discussion; just try to remember to keep the thread on Moonkin substance.

As as far when to cast instants; I tried a pretty straightforward computation of that here:
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t59457-m...7/#post1332330

It's mostly a moot point, as 100% DoT uptime seems to be the strongest rotation, and therefore you're not really making any decisions about when to refresh.

The harder question is whether it's worth holding off a DoT cast for a few seconds if Eclipse is about to end. The difference in DPS would be very minor anyway though. Let me find the post where I tried to answer this.

e: see this post:
Moonkin Raiding

Woodlum · 08/12/09, 6:04 PM

Relevant to DoTs, DoT uptime, and Glyphing: I wanted to bat around some of my own heuristic beliefs that Glyph of Starfire is no longer a strong option for Moonkin on the grounds that the new rotation and new Idol discourages leaning towards SF as your main nuke and casting MF more often (between Eclipse procs even) is worthwhile and further self-rewarding for the Eclipse we are aiming to achieve with a 200 crit rating bonus granted.

The above said, I would think Glyph of Starfall becomes choice as a replacement. I have seen Glyph of Insect Swarm tossed aside in discussion as something just not worth it anymore after folks drop 4T8 in favor of 2 and 2, BUT we really have no reason to NOT use this DoT anymore as it was worth having glyphed before 4T8 was around. IIS seems even more attractive with the way things work now. Perhaps the double Starfall Glyphs are viable over Starfire and IS though?

End state, we want to cast MF more often for the idol procs and Glyph of Starfire is more of a manasaver over an actual DPS increase, if you can get comfortable with it (think this has been discussed before in early T8). We have a new pause introduced which makes ideal time to update DoTs. I think the only variation in timing is whether or not you want to refresh sometime before you are capable of the E proc and again toward the end of it, or perhaps just "whenever". Just whenever with an emphasis on the MF refresh at any given time is needed (like it used to be) should be a clear winner, and I'm leaning toward this school of thought. IS refreshes w/o 4T8 would be questionable though.

• Hamlet · 08/12/09, 7:00 PM

The Idol procs off MF ticks, not casts. Casting it more often is no advantage; it simply means we want more than ever to keep MF up constantly. Glyph of Starfire means we spend fewer GCD's casting MF, and it's just as strong now as it ever was.

I don't know why people are always so obsessed with Starfall for DPS purposes. Against a single target, it does barely more than a Moonfire cast.

Alafeya · 08/12/09, 8:16 PM

I hear ya Arawethion, but it's still an advantage since you can cast a starfall WHILE having all other DOTs up, so it is truly additional dps at the cost of a single GCD.

Sayalol · 08/12/09, 8:41 PM

Originally Posted by Alafeya

I hear ya Arawethion, but it's still an advantage since you can cast a starfall WHILE having all other DOTs up, so it is truly additional dps at the cost of a single GCD.

But, is having Starfall on a 1 minute CD a bigger DPS increase than that of having to use lesss GCD on a MF to proc the idol?

Europe · 08/13/09, 12:23 AM

This might be anecdotal or just me falling victim to the RNG, but is anybody else having a helluva time procing Eclipse now? The last few nights have been brutal for me. I'm seeing about 5700-5800 dps when I was 6200-6500 just after 3.2 released. The only change made has been swapping to the new idol, which I'd have to think would be a dps increase.

The killer has been transitioning from lunar to solar. I almost wonder if Blizz hotfixed something to do with the /cancelaura macro.

Layeth · 08/13/09, 12:45 AM

I am also having a hell of a time getting wrath to proc eclipse. Even with the new Idol up and going I can go 10-15+ casts with little to no luck. Would love to see them boost that part up to 25/50/75% chance, up from 20/40/60%

Frenzi · 08/13/09, 4:57 AM

Back on the DoT discussion, I have noticed my ramp up time at the beginning of fights is very slow as currently I am casting IFF, IS, MF before I get to start nuking and I always start with Lunar Eclipse. I was wondering whether it may be more beneficial to only start with IS while I am trying to proc Lunar, I have IIS and more often than I like I end up having to re-apply MF by the time I get to proc Lunar. I also sometime proc Solar first if I crit from a 4T8 proc. If I am not casting Starfire in this case am I not better to just start with IS? (Obviously it will be a moot point once I get the new Idol)

Also regarding Glyphs it shouldn't be forgotten that Starfall also procs NG which also increases DPS. With the new changes I apply after I proc a solar eclipse to get the maximum benefit.

Korhaug · 08/13/09, 5:21 AM

I use Owlkin Frenzy in my firefighter spec, and it does proc from all incidental damage (doomfire, napalm, rapid fire, fire nova, lightening etc). It has very high uptime in Phases 2 and 4, and I can get nice usage out of it if I'm fire kiting in P1 (too dangerous on P4, not worth it in my book). Since it also returns mana now I drop all other mana talents except OOC on fights I use it. It's not worth taking in general-usage specs, but it's a nice talent if you're getting hit a lot.

• Hamlet · 08/13/09, 5:50 AM

Originally Posted by Frenzi

Back on the DoT discussion, I have noticed my ramp up time at the beginning of fights is very slow as currently I am casting IFF, IS, MF before I get to start nuking and I always start with Lunar Eclipse. I was wondering whether it may be more beneficial to only start with IS while I am trying to proc Lunar, I have IIS and more often than I like I end up having to re-apply MF by the time I get to proc Lunar. I also sometime proc Solar first if I crit from a 4T8 proc. If I am not casting Starfire in this case am I not better to just start with IS? (Obviously it will be a moot point once I get the new Idol)

Also regarding Glyphs it shouldn't be forgotten that Starfall also procs NG which also increases DPS. With the new changes I apply after I proc a solar eclipse to get the maximum benefit.

I do cast MF last when casting a few instants to maximize the chance of proccing Lunar in time to extend it. But again, once things like the new Idol and 2T9 are involved, avoid significant MF downtime.

Why would Solar be the best time for added NG uptime? Wrath NG uptime is quite high anyway. Really, the NG benefit Starfall is small since NG uptime is so high across the board, so it shouldn't be a significant factor in deciding when to cast it.

Dráconus · 08/13/09, 6:02 AM

Just using some quick numbers based on a 30% self-buffed crit rate in moonkin form I got rough numbers of the proc being 120-160 dps, and 130-180 dps of the 245 and 258 25 man trinkets. The large 'range' comes from guesswork on latency effecting instant/wrath casts and NG haste effects. Large variation could arise though on how the charges "accumulate" around ones crits making these rough figures obsolete. I took this under the assumption: cast spell (crit, gets a charge), cast a spell (cant get a charge regardless), and if the 2nd spell afterwards crits, one could get a charge. That 2nd spell would always be 2s+ later then the time of the crit.

Seems to me the only trinket definitively better is the Flare of the heavens, with Scale of the fates possibly better.

The 10 man 232 and 245 trinkets stacking haste effect looks awful.

Jezz · 08/13/09, 6:14 AM

Originally Posted by Europe

This might be anecdotal or just me falling victim to the RNG, but is anybody else having a helluva time procing Eclipse now? The last few nights have been brutal for me. I'm seeing about 5700-5800 dps when I was 6200-6500 just after 3.2 released. The only change made has been swapping to the new idol, which I'd have to think would be a dps increase.

The killer has been transitioning from lunar to solar. I almost wonder if Blizz hotfixed something to do with the /cancelaura macro.

It happens, there have been plenty of nights where my luck is just consistently bad - not proccing eclipse till half way through the 2nd phase of Mimiron was one of my worst horrible luck streaks.

Doing the daily HC a few hours ago everything was functioning as normal for me.

Frenzi · 08/13/09, 8:12 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Why would Solar be the best time for added NG uptime? Wrath NG uptime is quite high anyway. Really, the NG benefit Starfall is small since NG uptime is so high across the board, so it shouldn't be a significant factor in deciding when to cast it.

Well you should have less NG uptime during a Solar Eclipse. However thinking about it it would probably be best to use it just after Lunar Eclipse has finished to keep your Starfires haste buffed to proc Solar and carry on from there.

I am not advocating glyphing Starfall by the way, just when it is best to use it. I have an AoE spec with Starfall Glyphed and a single target spec with IS glyphed which gives me the best of both worlds in the right situation.