I too, am planning to stick with Lunar. The difference between the two is really within the precision of current theorycraft*.

For now and the foreseeable future, spellpower is significantly stronger than all other stats. And actually, don't always assume haste is better than crit. If you look at my current setup, WrathCalcs has crit slightly edging out haste for marginal DPS value.


*Although this reminds me, it might be worth an examination into whether Solar looks like it has a chance of scaling strongly once more crit gear is available. On the other hand, higher tier gear will only many it harder to stay under the haste cap for Solar. So people building around Solar and high-crit gear might be working into a bit of a dead end.

One thing that makes me wonder. We have those 2 approaches at the moment, meaning:
- stacking haste for lunar based rotation
- stacking crit for solar based rotation
(I am aware it's a bit of generalization but it isn't the point here)
While the solar one seems a bit less dps (yet supposingly still comparable) it's unfortunatly the only reliable approach. The problem with lunar approach and haste stacking is horribly low crit which leads to very hard time proccing the eclipse ... and we all know how much dps is lost if we spam wrath for a long long time without a proc.

This leads me to thinking that with current gear and current mechanic of a balance druid we somehow should find something in between those 2 approaches. That is why I am wondering what would be a decent level of crit that we should keep for lunar rotation to work well. I don't have any maths to support it but it seems that anything below 40% raid buffed is bad for lunar rotation. The thing is however that without T7 bonus this is somehow challanging and at the same time keeping T7 lower our capabilities of haste and spellpower increasing not to mention the 2xT8 bonus.

In the end, I don't know if I understood GC's last posts correctly but I do find them some light in the darkness. I mean eclipse mechanic doesn't really work well with current available gear so if they don't want to change the gear maybe they will take a closer look at the mechanic.

Oh I dont think in any way should we completely ingore crit. But I think looking at my intended BiS list, many of the items come with crit (ex: robes of the umbral brute, shoulderpads of dormant energies, handwraps of the vigilant, T8.5 Legs) so while we concentrate on SP and Haste for our lunar rotation, the crit should come along on its own just fine.

This. While theorycraft may suggest that you should point yourself in one direction or the other, the way it usually plays out is that you're going to end up with a more balanced set, either by design of the BiS items (which do not all forsake either crit or haste), or by which drops you actually end up getting. Passing on a 226 item when you're wearing 213 simply because it has crit instead of haste is a bad idea, as our stats are close enough together that it's still going to be an upgrade, though it may cause you to change your rotation a little.

tier 8, right now sense the 4 piece set bonus is bugged, it isnt really worth bothering with right? some one posted it was only a 30-40 dps increase?

my question is if you are going for the 2 piece t8 set bonus what are the two BEST pieces to take?

What is some of your opinions on the best two pieces to use currently?

Compare the tier peice with what you would use otherwise to see what you like. Ill probably use legs and gloves.

[Conqueror's Nightsong Cover] vs [Collar of the Wyrmhunter]

[Conqueror's Nightsong Vestments] vs [Robes of the Umbral Brute]

[Conqueror's Nightsong Mantle] vs [Shoulderpads of Dormant Energies]

[Conqueror's Nightsong Gloves] vs [Handwraps of the Vigilant]

[Conqueror's Nightsong Trousers] vs [Leggings of the Enslaved Idol]

I think a lot of has to do with what non-set items you'll be using. When you look at the just of it, they're basically equal except one has crit and the other has hit. You gain a socket, you gain stats. But what stats do you need to make up, hit or crit? Sure the gloves of vigilant have 20 more crit than tier has hit, but hit is also worth a LOT more if you're not capped.

I haven't really made up my mind on which I will use for BiS items, but you can't really plan that out at the moment, it's really best to just get your 2pc and worry about the rest later. On our token mages and Rogues have an amazing four peice and I have not been trying to deny that to them. Not sure about DK's.

With the upcoming spirit change, my BiS list has changed to this:

Head - [Collar of the Wyrmhunter]
Shoulders - [Conqueror's Nightsong Mantle]
Chest - [Conqueror's Nightsong Vestments]
Wrists - Grasps of Reason
Hands - [Handwraps of the Vigilant]
Waist - [Cord of the White Dawn]
Legs - [Leggings of the Enslaved Idol]
Feet - Treads of the False Oracle
Ring 1 - Conductive Seal
Ring 2 - [Shimmering Seal]
Trinket 1 - [Illustration of the Dragon Soul]
Trinket 2 - [Flare of the Heavens]
MH Weapon - [Staff of Endless Winter]
Offhand - n/a
Ranged/Relic/etc. - [Idol of the Shooting Star]
Neck - [Pendant of Fiery Havoc]
Back - [Drape of Mortal Downfall]

250 hit rating set, and either tuskar's + a 16 hit gem, or Icewalker to get capped.

I would enjoy some more precise dps modeling to get new endgame stat values, but for now I am using values from the T7.5 level of gear progression on Simcraft and modifying them for a best guess now. I inflated the value of crit and spirit to accomodate changes in the game to make my estimates. Loot Rank for WotLK.

[Purified Twilight Opal] in blue sockets, [Reckless Monarch Topaz] in yellows, [Runed Scarlet Ruby] in reds. For the legs, gloves, and weapon I plan to break the socket bonuses and just use SP gems.

I don't know how often the Flare will proc, but if it is anything like the trinket off of Heroic Sapph I would lean more towards the Eye from Razorscale, the 'constant' 125 SP should easily outweigh the DoT proc over the course of most fights. Couple other things I would change around that might turn out more efficient numbers, but I would have to play around with it.

edit: i stand corrected

The trinket link on Wowhead is wrong, it should be ~108 crit rating and a proc similar to Dying Curse (~800 sp for 10 seconds).

Also go read the Forum Rules before you make any more mistakes.

The proper flare of the heavens stats are 120 crit rating and a 850 sp/10 sec proc (with an assumed 45 sec ICD).

Source: The World of Warcraft Armory

Why are you going for Eye of the Broodmother when it is bound to have lower spell power overall than Flare of the Heavens (Assuming there is actually a 45sec internal cooldown, with a high proc chance)

850 / 4,5 = 188,8 SP vs. Broodmother's 125.
I mean, it also has lower crit rating.

i am following this thread for few weeks now, its extremely useful

i just have one observation, people are saing: im gona go with - and make a list of best possible items in game

sure its nice to have those lists as smth to aim for, but unless people belong to top world guilds getting those items will be extremely hard ( at least atm )

so, would anyone be interested in making a list without Any hard modes items?

Here is a list of items, rated with start priorities.

The stat prios are taken from Gray Matter in one of his posts.

'Hit = 1.48, SP = 1, Haste = 0.84, Crit = 0.80, Int = 0.35, Spirit = 0.15.'

The link is here.

Please just to note, that you shouldnt follow the exact rating of the items on the list, since Hit loses anything that goes for it as soon as you hit the cap, this would go for the gemming too, ofcourse.

Graylo hasn't updated his lists to the new spirit value (which is now 0.3), and they completely ignore the 2T8 and 4T8 bonuses. While we still disagree on the value of 4T8 (I value it much lower than Gray) we know that it is definitely non-negligible. They're still good lists, but if you're not versed enough to correct for these two things in your head you should use them very carefully.

I already got Extract of Necromantic Power, it just seems its not procc that much to be worth have equipped, but maybe it is.

He is not only ignoring that but both dots aswell. This overvalues haste and crit. Only the hit:sp:int conversion could be accurate.

Good god people, stop shitting up this thread. Half of the last page is total garbage. This is not the place for simple loot lists.

I've been choosing stamina/spellpower gems for blue slots and the similar spellthread for legs. The hard modes in Ulduar demand a lot of your health. I'm just over 25,000 with all raid buffs including commanding shout so I can survive quite a bit.

Roughly how much dps stats are you losing Beef?

I recently grabbed a couple valorous token PvP items, gemmed with stam and enchanted the same and it just didn't seem worthwhile, i'll edit this with the exact numbers once I get home. I do want to be at the 25k mark for things like Freya and Mimiron.

I agree with humbaba on all the listings of BiS/trinket discussions, there's another topic for that debate i'm pretty sure.

If I were to swap out the spellpower/stam gems (just four of them really) and replace them with ones that purely maximize damage (making sure to get two blues), I would give up 48 stamina for 18 spellpower and 16 spirit, which will equate to another 5 spell damage, working under the 30% spellpower spirit conversion.

The leg enchant works out to be 6 spellpower versus 30 stamina before kings.

I must say I don't find health a problem currently, Freya doesn't seem to be a particularly painful AoE fight other than the lashers which are only a problem if your mages forget to stop AoEing (and they do struggle with that concept I find) and the green plants she puts down in p2 but those you can move away from easily. I haven't done mimiron though so I can't say much about him. Currently i have around 22k health fully raid buffed, though I do find that healing myself instead of waiting for healers to do it helps because i'm convinced they're all out to get me.

Also on the note of people and their BiS gear lists, it's all good and well putting items like the flare of the heavens in your set but its a hard mode item from the 2nd last boss in the instance, seems a tad bit early to have your eyes set on such a prize. Isn't it far more logical to first make a BiS list using only normal mode loot?