Cube

For this test, I would recommend speccing out of NG, just to limit the number of variables in play. Actually, I would do this completely unspecced, to make sure that the character sheet is exactly what you have.

 

• Adoriele

Well, actually, you'd likely want to spec using all of the haste talents except NG. And you'd probably want a shaman dropping WoA for you. Getting 50% haste is pretty difficult if you don't get help like that. You'd also want tests using all of the above plus Lust, and then making sure you have over 3.6% haste from gear, so you can test the clipping aspect under a steady state (at least for the duration of Lust).

 

Erdluf

For a GCD-length spell that doesn't invoke Nature's Grace, use Cyclone, Hibernate or Roots.

For a just-below GCD-length spell, Cyclone with PvP gloves might work (it depends on how they implemented the reduced cast time). I no longer have my BC gloves, and haven't gotten LK gloves yet.

In beta, Roywyn posted a script that will tell you the GCD for each spell:

/run hooksecurefunc("CooldownFrame_SetTimer", function(_, start, duration, enable) if start > 0 and enable > 0 then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(duration) end end)

If you type that, it is supposed to tell you your cooldowns after each cast.

 

Videl

That script needs some kind of spam limitation in it.

Presumably what the game will tell you is the time spent casting the spell (or CD invoked by it) is not what's interesting here. Using that script just returns a spam of the official GCD enacted by the spell, which is pretty well understood (although it would solve the wrath or everything question). I used it in game with nourish then with wrath and it sure appears that NG only affects the GCD on wrath (or atleast doesn't affect nourish). That's on live.

Something more like what you describe initially is what I think would be best. Personally, I can't get non-NG wrath under 1s without heroism up. Maybe I'll be able to give this a try, maybe not.

 

crmccar

So as we move into T8, we're going to lose 5% crit on Wrath and Starfire and the Eclipse bonus will become more important than ever because of 2pT8. Does anyone think this will nudge us into gearing for a minimum amount of crit? There are several disadvantages to getting a bad NRG string while trying to proc an eclipse: you'll lose total eclipse uptime, your dot rotation gets messed up, and you spend more time spamming the the lower dps spell (assuming starfire eclipse is still better than wrath eclipse).

I think we might start feeling the lack of that 4pT7, though it sounds hard to model for theorycrafting to me. But maybe Adoriele's spreadsheet already takes all the things I listed into account?

 

Erdluf

My point for posting the script was just to determine if the PvP glove bonus works using haste, which would leave Cyclone at the GCD, or leaves the GCD alone while reducing the cast-time. If its the latter, it provides a convenient way to get timing tests on a cast that is just below the GCD.

I don't believe either t8 bonus should be difficult to model. It will increase the importance of correctly modelling instant casts, since we'll go from about one every 9s to perhaps one every 5 or 6s (depending on the IS->SF proc rate).

 

Nyrathalnian

I think that balance druids were always meant to gear for a certain amount of crit rating. I was reading some of the blue posts on other forums and it seems that balance druids are meant to be based off of RNG now. Which makes for a very interesting mechanic for the class. It does feel a little sad to lose the 5% crit rating on Wrath and Starfire, but it looks like we will be gaining more in the long run.

 

Cube

I'm really not going to worry about this until semi-finalized gear stats are out, mainly because it's hard to tell exactly how much crit we're going to be working with when 3.1 hits now, considering the talent changes(imp scorch, imp SB in particular).

For all we know, full T8 might 5% more crit on it alone.

 

Starfox

4/5 T7.10 => 4/5 T7.25 (gloves excluded as they gain the least stats)
So you could expect around the same gain from T7.25 => T8.25 i think
The 2/5 T8 bonus is already implemented in SimulationCraft, I'll do a quick test how much it lacks behind 4/5 T7

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Do not run, we are your friends.

 

• Adoriele

It's in WC as well (I'll release the next version once we know more about the 4p bonus), and T7-4 is worth ~165 DPS, T8-2 about 67. Granted, this is using my gear from a couple resets ago, without changing anything but the active set bonus, but there you go.

 

Starfox

Yea, somethoing around 1.8% dps loss from 4/5t7 to 2/5t8, i hope we soon get numbers on the 4/5t8 chance/cooldown

Hello.
Light the fuse.
For all my homies.
Do not run, we are your friends.

 

Iakobos

My comment is based on my Eclipse Proc. The past month I have been getting an increased window of proc rate. Before this month I would have a bad proc rate due to the fact of wraths chance to Proc Eclipse. But, the past month I have gone full boss fights with one Eclipse the whole fight, than other fights beautiful procing (one or two Wraths to proc Eclipse).


I'll go as variable as under 3k DPS on Patch to over 5k, that to me is a very large window. This came out of know where, my Crit% did not change (if anything became higher). Is this just very bad luck on Eclipse proc's the last month? For me to have a 2k DPS window, due to it not procing is understandable if not eclipsing. But, why is this happening? Until this last month this didn't happen, now happens regularly. Here is my Armory link if this could aid in assistants with this issue. Thank you, Malaribarm

The World of Warcraft Armory

 

Cebuu

You could start by grabbing 34 more hit rating for the cap. Its a huge burden to skip a potential eclipse proc due to a wrath miss, or even worse an eclipsed starfire. You seem to have a lot invested into mana regeneration talents(2/3 Intensity, 1/3 Dreamstate). I can't see you justifying those talents in any current content, not with innervate and a mana pot cd at least.

 

Moonwhisper

Sorry, I couldnt answer earlier. I got banned.
I am not sure if I got your point, Adoriele. What do you mean by "proactive"?

Isn't it always a conscious decision to follow an alternating rotation path like
W-SF(eclipse)-SF(ICD) / SF-W(eclispe)-W(ICD) / W-SF(eclipse)-SF(ICD)... or not?

The decision point at the end of the ICD is still there: Either I continue with W or with SF.

Basically, I just tried to express there is no need to make Wrath equal in dps to SF.
A small change in eclipse buff which favors changing rotation is sufficient.

 

Erdluf

Spell Queuing, GCD testing (on 3.09)


TLDR: It looks to me as if spell queue-ing will take cast attempts up to about 0.3s early. This will work in the GCD, but will not work during the first 1.0s of the GCD.


I did some timing tests on a dummy in Stormwind, to start to get some quantitative values for 1s Wrath. Times are rounded to tenths of seconds.

First SF. My tooltip read 2.74 seconds. Nature's Grace cast time is about 2.3s. The columns show different times, such as 2.7 for 2.7s, the expected cast time.

The rows are:

Cast: Time from one start-cast to the next.

Dam: Time from when start-cast to damage reported. I include this row just because it should be independent of any skill on my part. Any variance is due to Blizz, my computer, or my network.

Fail: Time stamps (relative to the previous start-cast) at which I got "Another action is in progress" message.

The last three rows are the same, except with Nature's Grace.

The internal cells show counts. For instance, there were eight sF casts which began 2.8s after the previous SF cast.

My intended casting style is to triple-tap my SF button (middle finger), beginning a bit before my cast bar reaches the red on Ice HUD.

Observations:

22/31 non-crit casts started pretty much on time (at most 0.1s late). Obviously it is possible to chain-cast SF. All of the NG casts started on time.

Damage tends to be reported, on average, 0.1s or 0.2s after spells are completed. There may actually be a vertical travel-time on SF. Also, the damage times were very inconsistent.

The "Another action is in progress" message can occur anywhere from about 1s after the previous cast begins to about 0.3s before the previous cast finishes.


For IS I did about the same thing. However I spent part of the time spamming the button rather than doing the triple-tap. The "fail" messages I got for IS (and for Wrath) were "Not yet ready." Tooltip time for Wrath was 1.37s, which should also be my GCD.

35/49 casts started on time (or at most 0.1s late). Not-Ready messages occured from 0.0s to 1.0s. Apparently key-presses after 1.0s were successfully queued.


For Wrath, I went back to the triple-tap tactic. I got "Not ready" messages during Nature's Grace. No "Fail" messages otherwise.

Non-crit Wrath seemed to do well. 18/24 were "on time."
NG Wrath results are ugly. Out of eight casts, only 2 were "on time." I also managed to get two "late" Not-Ready messages (at 1.0s and 1.1s). The WrathCalcs 1.4s cast time for NG Wrath is just about right for me on these results.

Note: My Wrath cast uses my pinky finger (I use an n52, Wrath is at the position that would be 'A' on a QWERTY keyboard, with pointer finger at 'F'). I suppose it is possible that "keyboard ergonomics" make me do worse on Wrath. The fact that non-NG Wrath did ok, leads me to believe that is not really an issue. My main raid spell bindings (by position): 'A'=Wr, 'S'=SF, 'D'=MF, 'F'=IS.


Other Theorycraft topics:
=============
Nuke Base Damage

I did a respec and checked. At 80, untalented Wrath does (tooltip) 557-627, 4 more than when it was learned at 79. Untalented SF does 1038-1222, 10 more than when it was learned at 78. Note: I say untalented. I was 5/0/13 when I remembered to look. I did not have Moonfury at this point.

=============
Omen of Clarity

In the tests above there were 3 OoC from SF, 3 from IS, and 1 from Wrath. I continue to see numbers that are a better fit for 6% (likely 3.5/60 = 5.83%) rather than 3.5 PPM.

 

• Adoriele

Hmm. So I'd venture a guess that, client-side, a hard GCD of 1s is enforced. You can't queue anything under 1s. You also can't queue until .3s before your cast (or the GCD) is complete. I'd actually reckon that that value depends on your latency, such that Blizzard gives you a scalar multiple of your latency to queue within. Do you know what your ping was for that trial, Erd? I'll assume the scalar is 1 for now, but it'd be nice to know whether it's higher to allow for more variance.

Tentatively, though, I'll probably end up splitting ping and reaction in WC. Anything with a cast time of less than 1s+Latency gets hit with latency+reaction, anything over gets hit with just reaction. I'll also change the base values for SF and W, did you notice if anything else gets bumped (or do we learn it all at 80)?

 

Dreavgona

As for a proposed fix to the wrath issues, Couldnt they simply fix the wrath spell to double cast time, mana and damage, making it almost identical to starfire, fix the proc rate of wrath for eclipse to 100% and just change the glyph of wrath to simply cut it all in half. I would think it would fix our pve issues with wrath, at the cost of a little flavor and give a slight buff to both pve and pvp. We dont really need the pve buff, but pvp could sure use it. Worse comes to worse, they could just slightly nerf us somewhere else to get us back to the wanted dps, with a cut to a talent somewhere. It would effectively remove the cursed strings of 15 wraths with no procs and even allow us more of a choice in our rotation without actually removing any of the awarness needed for it.

Then again, not sure I would actually like that change... But hey, its an idea, maybe someone else can improve on it.

 

Mideci

There's a huge advantage to having Wrath be a short cast. If you are forced to move often, you have a spell you can finish and then move. I would not like a change where Wrath was as slow to cast as Starfire. On fights like Sarth 3D, it could be a pretty big dps loss given all the void zones and walls you need to avoid.

 

rightclick

Maybe it was asked before, but i only read 15 of the 27 pages in this thread and didn't find it:
What is the exact benefit of Celestial Focus? I mean, does anyone have some figures on paper to see if it's worth the 3 talent points?

 

• Arawethion

Mmm, been a few weeks since I looked in detail, but I think I recall posting that 1% multiplicative haste is better than 1% crit always. That makes CF better than IFF and IIS for personal DPS. Check WrathCalcs.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

Smarthezz

First of all: I love the conversation going on in this topic. I've read most of it (though skipped some bits on the first few pages). The comments are helpful and it helped me to tweak my rotation, i.e. better DoT-usage and such.

Anyway, quite recently I've been gaining a lot of haste items. As I cannot get cloth items unless most of our clothies have 'em (this will be sorted in Ulduar, i.e. if there is no leather counterpart for a cloth item I'll be able to get it... we changed those rules quite recently, so bare with me ), I've been trying to get my hands on good leather stuff. When I look at my gear, I'm quite pleased. I don't have the feeling I can still change a lot.

But since my last few upgrades, I swapped out a few items to gain more spellpower and haste, but lost crit in the process. I'm down to ~16.5% unbuffed and out-of-form or so (armory has maintenance atm) and my Eclipsed Starfires aren't critting 100% (or close to) anymore. It just feels icky when they don't crit and it feels like I've been favoring haste too much.

The question is: is this true? Is there a baseline crit that would be good to have (especially when we're about to lose the 5% from T7 while gearing up in Ulduar)? My last upgrade, by the way, was Illustration of the Dragon Soul (from the Sundial of the Exiled). I know that theoretically the Spellpower would be better.

Oh, and I don't have a parse or whatever to compare... I figured it's more of a general question anyway, not specifically only applicable to my situation. Thanks in advance for any input

 

ninor

A very good explanation of crit and haste and their relative values is found in Adoriele's blog here on EJ.

A Tale of Two Ratings - Elitist Jerks

Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace?

 

zeyram

T8,5 is:

Stam: +44
Int: +53
Spirit: +122 (о_О)
SPD: +72
Hit rating: +99 (+3,8%)
Crit rating: -101 (-2,2%)
Haste rating: -41 (-1,3%)

Socets:
Red -3, Blue +1, Yellow +2

In total, with imp.scorch nerf, -4t7 and less crit on t8, we loose about 12,2% crits (~550 crit ratings).
This we need to go compensate with other equip slots, but also we need to compensate haste we lost.

*scared*

 

dukes

The set bonuses for T8 are very strong however. Also remember that when looking at BiS as individual pieces, the tier sets aren't that great as they're only ilvl 226 compared to items which will be 239 dropping from hard modes.

Also of note is the huge push towards Insect Swarm. There's now an idol for it, and a set bonus, plus the coefficient changes. Something tells me they want us to be trying to keep our IS uptime as high as possible.

 

Starfox

I did some calculations
Druid Changes Patch 3.1
With 0% crit on SF, if you cast more than 3 SF per IS: Shooting Star > Crying Wind
At 11.83% crit, it even is enough if you cast more than 2 SF per IS
At 66.28% crit, and more than 1 SF per IS is enough
IS was calculated with Glyph and 2T7, SF with WoC and Moonfury, all other talents increase both spell the same way (MSS, E&M)
:/

Hello.
Light the fuse.
For all my homies.
Do not run, we are your friends.