This is the real issue with the optimizer. It doesn't have any way to account for utility talents such as Reach, Typhoon, and GW. Yes, the spec gives the highest DPS, but you'd be an aggro hog (not sure if that's a huge issue) with no range, and poor AoE. I'd like to see the optimizer allow mandatory talent settings, then optimize the remaining points. Care would need to be taken to ensure possible builds (so you can't mark both Starfall and NS as mandatory, etc.), but it would allow you to set up more realistic builds.

That, or allow the optimizer to only select between certain pre-generated specs, rather than optimizing by points.

Yes, but it's not available to the optimizer. Thus I can't compare a spec without BoP but with a metric fuckton of hit on my gear to a normal spec, nor can I optimize that without potentially losing Typhoon or Reach in the process.

With my current gear Rawr is saying MF/SF in a 1 MF rotation with MF/SFall/SFire glyphs is higher than the traditional IS/MF/SF by about 80 dps.

Full Ulduar upgrades are about 900 dps over what I should get right now.

EDIT:
IS/MF/SF wins currently by about 140 dps. I wasn't properly handling bloodlust in rawr. Ulduar gear represents about a 900 dps upgrade still.

I guess determining which two set pieces to pick depends on whether you have any items lying around that can balance your hit at 264. What is really annoying is that there none of them stand out as being significant gear upgrades.

As for the usefulness of 2pT8 bonus, isn't it a rather small DPS increase on Lunar Eclipse? When fully raidbuffed and with Scorch applied your Starfire crit chance during Eclipse is extremely high already, isn't it?

This bonus seems much stronger for Solar Eclipse. Could it possibly make it the stronger of the two (out of Bloodlust only, of course)?

Um, you know that the Lust option on Rawr doesn't add a Lust to the fight, it assumes the entire fight is under Lust conditions, right? I.E. checking Lust gives you a flat 30% haste.

Not to mention that during lust you can just switch to lunar eclipse for that period of time while relying on solar eclipse for the unlusted period.

On a different note, while I've heard that the 4t8 is horribly weak given 5% proc rate and the possible 3 min cooldown, has anyone calculated the value of 4t8 if say it had the 5% proc rate but no ICD?

I am trying to decide between 3 maces: [Haunting Call], [Stormtip], and [Wraith Strike]

The stuff I have read says Wraith Strike is 2nd best in slot for me, but most of it is pre-ulduar.

I have 226 unbuffed hit without a mace. My druid is here: The World of Warcraft Armory

Rawr lists the total DPS gain of the 3 as the following:

Haunting Call: 664.98
Stormtip: 658.41
Wrath Strike: 633.44

I guess Rawr likes Haunting Call till I get closer to hit cap?

What crit cap are you talking about? What would it be other than 100%?

I'm somewhat intrigued by the possibilities of going for solar eclipses (when out of heroism/bloodlust). Currently my crit to haste ratio is somewhat overly skewed towards crit, 746 to 366. With Nature's Grace, my wraths are are almost exactly 1.0 second casts, so there's not really any clipping issue.

With any multiplier over a base amount of DPS, such as haste and crit, there are ever-diminishing returns on each additional percentage point of multiplication. With already high crit numbers, an extra 45% crit isn't nearly a 45% increase, but the 45% wrath bonus is multiplicative with everything else (as far as I know).

The question is, assuming you are NOT clipping the global cooldown, might wrath ever be the better spell to base your rotation around? It has always seemed to have a higher raw DPCT than starfire... My main concerns are the larger effects of latency and reaction time.

At least for Hodir (Easy Mode) and the first 1-2 Shadow Crashs in the General Vezax fight, threat is an issue

Also at least in the Vezax fight it makes a huge difference to have the range to be in a Shadow Crash. It can be also of importance in fights like Freya when you move under the mushrooms, Hodir to be in the buff spots and so on.


In general threat can also be an issue, as we tend to use Herolust quite early after a pull, and if you just procced your first Lunar Eclipse when Herolust kicks in, you can build up quite some threat really fast.

As Intensity is quite a bit better than dreamstate, dropping both points from Dreamstate and getting just one in Intensity should yield good results in terms of mana regen, and free one talent point.

Innervate on a mage? Maybe i got it wrong, but isn't the mage BiS list ignoring spirit gear as much as possible?

I also got Intensity tonight and started swapping around gear to see if I could make it worthwhile. I managed to swap out and gain over 1% crit, some 22 spell power, another 10-15 hit which was worthless to me, but my haste remained the same. Your question doesn't make sense as it's entirely dependent upon which items you are switching out to work in the extra hit from the staff. In my case, I think it was definitely worth it. According to Rawr, the switchout for me gave me 80dps.

I had a few questions about SFall though. I thought it might be best to utilize it during the ICD.

I’m still debating where to put SFall. Here’s my two options:
(1) MF, IS, SFall, SFx4, IS, MF
(2) MF, IS, SFx4, IS, MF, SFall

As SF crits more than W, I’m leaning towards option (2). Contrary to what some of you guys have stated, I feel that SFall WILL assist in proc’n eclipse faster (not in less casts, just faster cuz NG might be proc’d more often).