Just a thought on Solar to Lunar eclipse transition, using the macro:

/cancelaura Eclipse
/cast Moonfire
/use Idol of the Shooting Star

My thinking is that this can be used following the final wrath under Solar eclipse during the travel time of the spell. My understanding is that this wrath will still receive the damage bonus from eclipse and will also be able to proc Lunar eclipse. The MF cast and idol swap also gives us a chance to see if Lunar does proc, and we can there go on to either casting SF or applying IS followed by wrath spam.

Edit: Thinking about it, this seems only useful if the travel time of wrath is smaller then the cast time of wrath, seeing as the buff will expire itself before the final cast hits if cast time < travel time.

On the same theme though, is there any situation where removing a specific eclipse so as to maximise the uptime of the other eclipse is beneficial? My current gear has me at 550 haste, so if I were to use this with the planned eclipse changes Solar would not be as useful to me as Lunar so maybe using such as:
[W W W...] (Lunar proc) [SF for 15+X] (Solar proc) [W for 15-X] (remove Solar eclipse) [W W W...] with DoTs put in where it is best. (X being the time taken to proc a solar eclipse)

I think what Arawethion is trying to say to us, is whether the extra GCD lost in changing idols ,is worth it while we are standing still on a boss fight.

The obvious is that we will be using both types of eclipses with 3.2 patch and even using our instant dots,a GCD is consumed on each one. So does the swap before the proc of the eclipses will result in more dps?

Maybe we can take that off our heads, just by using the IS idol and keep dots up all the time.

Okay, I'll not pretend that "idol twisting" cannot produce a DPS increase. I also won't question that refreshing dots in the middle of Eclipse can contribute to damage. But lets be realistic. Most of us are currently on Hard Modes in Ulduar 25 where roots keep spawning, mushrooms dictate if you can cast or not, and you have ice falling on your head most of the time.
Wouldn't in so hostile environments the goal be to simplify your rotation as much as you can?

Assuming we proc solar eclipse shortly after lunar ends, wouldn't this essentially ensure clipped wraths? I realize that usually we did it at the end of lunar eclipse because we're casting SF and don't already have the high crit rate that we do during lunar eclipse, but casting starfall when we're pretty sure we're going to be spamming wrath afterwards just seems wasteful. That said, I can't really see casting it at the end of solar eclipse to be that much better. No matter what, it seems like starfall won't be as effective as it was before.

Well, it's not like the major point of Starfall is to ensure high NG uptime. You use it for the damage, NG uptime was just a bonus.

Hmm, I guess I overestimated Starfall's importance in that regard. I suppose the better way to think of it was "we can really use starfall anywhere we want, so we might as well use it here where we get the most perks from NG uptime."

No. As has been elaborated multiple times, the only buff that takes effect when the spell begins casting is Haste. All other personal effects are calculated when the spell is cast. Effects on the target are calculated when the spell lands.

I had a couple thoughts on 3.2 rotations, idol swapping, etc.
1 - I feel like starfall would be best used right before a solar eclipse, because with 2t8 you have such a high crit chance during lunar eclipse that the crit chance will result in a better NG uptime than the lower crit, more casts every 3s solar eclispe. That sentence is kinda convoluted but basically the NG uptime aspect of starfall would probably help more during solar than lunar.
2 - In order to sorta simplify the idol swapping, my current plan is to make 2 new macros and bind them to shift and control D (my current insect swarm key) - 1 will swap to starfire idol, 1 will swap to wrath idol, and both will cast insect swarm of course. I'll probably refresh IS and swap to the new idol right as the other eclipse ends, giving up any damage on the casts that it takes to proc eclipse. The other option would be to refresh IS and swap idols only once you proc a new eclipse, but that gives up eclipse damage. The former will be easier to keep track of, but the latter will probably be better damage. I'd leave moonfire unmacrod and just refresh it whenever it drops.

Yeah, Starfall refreshing is mostly academic. You just want to get in as many as you can per fight.

Idol swapping requires a fixed-DoT macro. The way do it would seem to be:

Lunar (SF)
IS + swap to W Glyph
Pre-Solar (SF)
Solar (W)
IS, no swap
MF, swap to SF Glyph
Pre-Lunar (W)

Like I said above, pretty low DoT uptimes, but might work well. Another possibility is to change the second half to:

Solar (W)
MF, swap to IS Glyph
IS, swap to SF Glyph
Pre-Lunar (W)

But this is mostly for fun and not really going to be a significant DPS increase.

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The point above about the added complexity is worth addressing. I don't agree that the complexity of boss fights means we should somehow simplify our cycle to save attention. That wouldn't fly on this forum regardless.

But, Ulduar fights in general don't allow us to maintain the ideal rotation in most situations. Our Eclipse/DoT cycle runs on quite a long time scale, so there's in practice more improvisation than anything else. But working out the Patchwerk DPS is always the starting point. For one, anytime you get some seconds to stand still and shoot something, you're trying to use whatever portion of the cycle you can. But perhaps more importantly, by working out the best cycle in ideal conditions, you learn your spells and interactions and their values better for figuring out what to do in other situations.

It seems very likely you'll always want to recast MF after each Eclipse, Starfire glyph or no Starfire glyph. The mean time to proc an Eclipse is about 5 seconds, two dot refreshes and an Idol swap adds 2.5 seconds and the Eclipse lasts for 15 seconds; call it around 22 seconds average between MF refreshes. MF with the Starfire glyph lasts for 24 seconds if fully extended. You'd clip no more than 1 tick per cast on average by refreshing MF twice per cycle, which is quite strong.

Hmm, yeah, will check that.

e: yeah, I think you're right.

This also catapults Glyph of Starfire to the top. Also, 2T8 is monstrously valuable (worth over 350 DPS by itself)--it will take quite a serious 4T9 bonus to give it up.

Idol twisting is not looking promising. Probably for the best, as it would have been quite a pain to have to do that to maximize our DPS.

One can only hope that the idol they add for us in 3.2 is one that combines the wrath and starfire idols.

Unless idol twisting yields a much higher DPET for eclipsed W or SF than either MF or IS, I can't imagine a situation where you'd end up with abysmal dot uptimes. I like the concept of having 3 separate IS (one plain, one macroed for W-idol, one macroed for SF-idol), though playing around with it this afternoon has been a bit of a headache. Maybe I'm just fat-fingering spells before the unhasted GCD kicks in, but I'm sorely tempted to just stick with one idol, take the buff to Solar Eclipse, and say "screw it".

The loss in idol twisting has little to do with dot uptime and more to do with lost dps time. Napkin math:

Loss: Idol damage on ~3 non-Eclipsed Starfires, ~1000 damage. ~0.9 seconds of DPS, ~5000 damage.
Gain: Idol damage on ~12 Eclipsed Wraths, ~2500 damage.

Not swapping is 3500 damage more/cycle or approximately 70 DPS.

I'd have to be overestimating the time loss effect quite badly to shift the balance so that it is in favor of idol swaps, really. Hamlet probably has much more accurate numbers in the works.

That's pretty accurate. Here's my attempt at modeling it. (Here's generally updated spreadsheets which might be all for now since the weekend is over. Major missing thing is 4T8 in both the 3.1 and 3.2 versions).

This isn't what I said at all. Boss-specific strategy and optimal behavior in imperfect situations are both important (though I'd say that working out the Patchwerk DPS is the first goal). I was responding to your idea that we should "simplify" rotations because there's often a lot going on. The game places a pretty hard cap on how rapidly you have to execute anything--1 spell per second at most. There's an expectation at the top level that players can process things fast enough to decide on that one spell while paying attention to the environment. That being the case, analysis of human error is mostly irrelevant (and would be far beyond the scope of these discussions anyway). We want to figure out what the optimal spell selection is.

Some fight-specific strategies are very conducive to customized theorycrafting (e.g. Vezax). Some are not (Mimiron, Freya). For the wide variety of situations where you're running around a lot or switching targets, the most useful thing is for players to have some basic knowledge of how much damage each of their spells does and a few other things that help choose. Trying to model some kind of general-purpose rule probably will not go very far.

According to the PTR patch notes (and the MMO-champ talent calculator), Balance of Power now provides 6% spell hit with 2 points. Quite an interesting change, although reduces the pool of 'viable' gear further due to the prevalence of hit in Ulduar. Still quite nice.

MMO Champion has also posted our t9 set bonuses.

As well as a new Balance relic (rotation neutral)

MMO champion as the T9 bonuses and they seem abysmal to me compared to T8 2pc certainly, and 4pc probably.


# Druid T9 Balance 2P Bonus (Moonfire) (Class: Druid) -- Your Moonfire ability now has a chance for its periodic damage to be critical strikes.
# Druid T9 Balance 4P Bonus (Starfire) (Class: Druid) -- Increases the critical strike chance of your Starfire spell by 5%.


Also the new 3.2 idol - I'm no theorycrafter, but that doesn't seem that great to me unless the chance is pretty good.

Druid T9 Balance Relic (Moonfire) (Class: Druid) -- Each time your Moonfire spell deals periodic damage, you have a chance to gain 200 critical strike rating for 12 sec.

The relic could be pretty good if it has a near 100% uptime, since its effect would help you both when casting wrath and starfire.

T9 4pc is garbage as it stands of course, when you have to give up the T8 2pc bonus for it. I don't see us giving up the T8 2pc any time soon unless they alter it.

The T9 4-piece bonus is worse than the T7 4-piece.

GG.