Frenzi

I doubt there is a 2 minute cooldown on the proc, I checked wowhead and they have no cooldown for the proc at all so it is likely MMO has listed it incorrectly. Item - Coliseum 25 Normal Caster Trinket - Spell - World of Warcraft

 

Psilo

With a more traditional raiding spec and the MF/SF glyph combo, I went to a test dummy and ran 10 sets of rotations w/ an innervate until I ran OOM. The first 5 sets were refreshing DoTs at strategic times (Eclipse ending or having just proc'd). The second 5 sets simply excluded all DoTs. Every single test without putting up DoTs beat the tests with DoTs.

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.

re: DoTs damage vs. no DoTs: Yeah, your numbers may comparatively be getting a bit of a boost by glyphing Insect Swarm, but any damage coming from the boss is going to average 3% more damage to the tank and possibly the entire raid. Glyph of Starfall will serve you better.

As a caveat, I realize that running 3/3 Owlkin Frenzy is not going to give me a big DPS boost, but I wanted to see for myself. Now, I have the WWS reports and can look at the numbers from my own run. I won't be keeping it, but it was fun for a Naxx run.

Regardless, all of the questions of to DoT or not will be obsolete once the 2pc T9 bonus is out... so the bigger question I have is if the pre-Coliseum raiding Moonkin should just drop Moonfire from rotation until they get the set bonus? Will the new idol without the T9 bonus be worth keeping MF up?

 

Psilo

Blizzard developers always are wanting us to have to make challenging decisions. I think that how a player decided to handle their mana regen is one of those things, and there won't be a clear cut answer.

Personally, up until 3.2 (right now I have a strange build until I get the 2pc T9) I had nothing for mana regen, not even Omen of Clarity. I came to expect that on some fights I would end up using a [Powerful Rejuvenation Potion] or a [Potion of Nightmares], the former being used much more often. I would always choose a time when popping the potion saved our healers from a cast, and in some situations kept me alive. I would tend to think of it as a health stone that gave me back mana. The lack of mana regen talents helps balance out sacrificing a [Potion of Speed] for one of the pots that return mana, plus not dieing helps tremendously. For us Moonkin, we bring a lot of utility and buffs to the raid, so staying in the fight is a big deal in and of itself.

Patchwerk is a bit of a special case because the healers are so loaded down right at the beginning of the fight, but I find that a lot of zerg fights it ends up being the DPS casters that need mana toward the end and not the healers. I have no qualms about Innervating myself if the healers are doing fine, especially with the 3.2 change to Innervate.

At the core of all of it, I really think it comes down to figuring out what works best for you and your raid. A quick solution would be to drop [Glyph of Insect Swarm] and pick up [Glyph of Innervate] instead. Check with your raid leader, but I'm guessing they would prefer if the tank, and to an extent the entire raid, was hit 3% less often at the sacrifice of a small amount of your overall DPS.

 

Altiris

Advocating "do what feels right, not what math says" isn't going to get far here. What is the point of theorycrafting if you aren't ever going to use it?

 

Huskar

You bring up a good point that the DoTs are doing relatively less damage than nukes in 3.2, but the notion of "strategic times" for refreshing them is a lot less clear than before. I'm struggling with this in my head...

HEAR ME MUSE:
In 3.1, it was easy to know that it was worth it to cast dots when eclipse is on cooldown by simple comparison of a normal starfire's DPET to MF/IS. Similarly, when eclipse was up, you could compare the damage dealt by the dot ticks during the eclipse to the difference between an eclipsed starfire and a non-eclipsed starfire to know whether its worthwhile to cast dots.

Now in 3.2...
There is no eclipse cooldown, so DPET for non-eclipsed W/SF must include the dps gained by the chance to proc a new eclipse. (I think everyone agrees that a starfire that can proc eclipse is worth more dps than one that can't.) I haven't wrapped my brain around how much dps a 3.2 non-eclipsed nuke is worth, but I'm hoping hamlet has been thinking about it.

During eclipse, I see things getting pretty crazy too. Choosing to cast a dot during an eclipse means of course that you didn't cast an eclipsed nuke, and that instead you refreshed the dot after the eclipse ended... so you'd have to compare an eclipsed nuke to a non-eclipsed nuke with chance to proc a new eclipse + the dot ticks during the eclipse.

Maybe i'm making this too complicated, but it seems like this topic hasn't been addressed enough. Any ideas?

Yeah, I hope so

 

Horao

Well in theory if your running 75% crit for starfire under eclipse, then wouldn't that suggest that during lunar eclipse 75% of the time your starfire is better DPET than a dot. Which in turn would suggest that moonfire / IS is not worth refreshing during lunar eclipse?

 

• Arawethion

Moonfire (if extended) is better DPET than Eclipsed Starfire. Before the idol or 2T9, I can see it being quite marginal to cast during the Solar part of your cycle. But once you have the Idol, I don't see how there would be any question.

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.

 

ehakam

I agree with that sentiment, but sometimes the math is just too complex or there are too many variables that the answer isn't clear-cut. With regards to the above discussion, one of the hardest decisions to make are whether or not to refresh dots where there are semi-predictable movements. Examples include Ignis flame jets, IC rune of power/death, Mimiron p2/p4, etc.

For example: your MF/IS just fell off. Ignis is going to cast flame jets in the next few seconds, do you recast MF/IS now or just wait until you get launched into the air? You can simulate the example exhaustively, with scenarios like your eclipse status, cooldown on your other instants, etc. but sometimes it's better to just have a general rule of thumb.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

If the DPET between a nuke and refreshing a dot is very similar, it's pretty easy to see situations such as movement where you obviously will get a higher overall DPS if you cast dots in the times where you can't nuke. I think figuring out that threshhold is the tricky part and is much more difficult to model.

 

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.

 

Psilo

Agreed, 100%.

 

Psilo

My bent is that, right now, MF just isn't worth it most of the time, almost all of the time. However, with the new [Idol of Lunar Fury] and 2pc T9 bonus (MF ticks can crit), MF can be brought back into the rotation.

Let's keep in mind that in order to make MF worth casting in any situation, it requires two major glyph slots and 3xSF casts which is not as convenient as it was before. For a Moonkin working their way up in 10 mans or 25 Naxx before the induction of tons of +Spirit on Ulduar gear, I would go with replacing one of those glyphs with [Glyph of Innervate] until you get into a lot of T8, at least... and I'd say probably up until that 2pc T9 bonus.

IS should stay in a rotation as much as possible (something I need to work on, admittedly) because of the debuff it gives the boss (3% decreased chance to hit w/ melee and ranged attack). However, I've seen a lot of Moonkin on these forums with it glyphed, increasing their overall DPS by no more than 2%. We're designed as a utility class and especially so with a DPS role, so I have no qualms about a minor reduction in DPS to help the raid overall.

As for the rotation that includes MF with the new idol and/or 2pc T9 bonus, I'd venture to suggest that most of the time refreshing your dots right at the end of an Eclipse is your best bet. With a decent casting bar addon such as Quartz w/ the Eclipse addition, I can visually get a sense of timing as to when I'll get in my last Eclipse cast and immediately afterward I'll refresh my DoTs. At the least, MF should get 2/3 of it's 3 second extensions this way. Granted, this is a best case scenario.

The only caveat I can think of is when you're on a bad RNG string of Wraths trying to get a Lunar proc and your DoTs are close to falling off. As you aren't casting SF, MF will fall off first and with the bonuses it is getting I would recast it immediately. Because IS, via Improved Insect Swarm, doesn't give a buff to SF, I would let it fall off if Lunar proc'd with more than 5 seconds left on IS.

Then again, there are fights like Hodir in which I DoT on movement but otherwise am going to find a campfire and nuke as fast as I can. Sometimes you have to figure out for yourself what works best.

 

Ashen

So this thought occurred to me, but since I'm not quite as experienced with the math behind determining stat weights, I wanted to bring the theory up here and see if somone else could model it.

I was thinking conceptually about 3.2 Moonkin rotations, and realized that Haste should be devalued in comparison to Crit. With the new rotation, IDEALLY half of your DPS uptime should be spent casting Eclipsed Wraths, the other half with Starfire. Due to the Haste soft cap, anything beyond 400 hurts half of your rotation. Crit on the other hand not only makes the Wrath end of the rotation stronger, it makes back to back proccing far more viable.

In an ideal world, the entire DPS cycle would be spent in an Eclipse, and I'm willing to assume that that is the highest DPS potential of the spec right now. So regarding that, if I'm not missing any major loopholes, how would that affect the value of Crit vs. Haste now?

 

Jezz

This has already been considered and the values of both have been listed in Moonkin Beginner Guide, updated for 3.2. Haste after the soft cap is less valuable than crit, yes.

 

Ashen

I saw that it was less valuable, which after the soft cap I had always assumed was the case. But does crit not gain any additional value considering 3.2 changes? (.9 vs. 1.1 seems so much closer than I was expecting)

 

shibbytastic

I've been attempting to figure out when it is worth my time to refresh dots during eclipse given the new rotation.

Assumptions:
Nature's Grace is up during Eclipse.
It is always worth refreshing dots if eclipse is not up.
Dots are better DPET than Nukes

Methods:
I calculated the expected damage for a single wrath and a single starfire (Damage+ Damage*%Crit*(CritModifier-1)).
I then calculated the expected damage for a single cast of both spells during a normal eclipse and during a 2t8 eclipse.
I calculated my global cooldown given the amount of haste i am running with.
I took the value of eclipse buffed wraths and starfires and subtracted out value of unbuffed wraths and starfires. I called this number damage gained from eclipse (Dwe, Dse)
I normalized this damage against my DOT global cooldown to get the amount of buffed damage lost during dot casts.
( De*DOTct/Nukect)
I took the value of dot tics for both IS and moonfire from a recent world of logs parse.
Finally I calculated how many dot tics it would take to make up for the lost eclipse bonus damage during dot casts.

Conclusions:
at my gear level
with the 2t8 bonus: refresh IS (glyphed) if it falls off with more than 3 seconds remaining
refresh Moonfire if it falls off with more than 5 seconds remaining

without the 2t8 bonus: refresh IS (glyphed) if it falls off with more than 2 seconds remaining
refresh Moonfire if it falls off with more than 3 seconds remaining

Known Errors:
I did not use improved insect swarm in my analysis.
I did not run my numbers using 4t8 or any t9.

 

Szynszyla

That should be only correct if you would reaply dots during eclipse. Problem comes when you refresh dots outside of eclipse cousing the next eclipse to be likely postponed by the time you renew dots.

 

shibbytastic

I was wondering where you were coming from with this until I looked at the other moonkin thread. I'm looking forward to trying out that macro tonight.

I just reviewed my assumptions from my previous post and have decided that until you have 2t9 refreshing moonfire during a solar eclipse is a dps loss due to unrefreshed moonfire having a lower dpet than eclipsed wrath.

 

Szynszyla

Maybe i wasn't clear on my post above.

What happens with your eclipse calculations when this happen.

After Solar wrath ends, you want to keep spaming wrath to go into lunar. If you refresh 2 dots while waiting for lunar that means 2 possible wasted wrath casts that might grant you eclipse.

Same thing can happen with Lunar into Solar but the risk of it is much lower but if it happens, it lowers overall % of eclipse uptime time aswell. Any of these 2 don't matter that much, couse from what RAWR tells me, both eclipses with 2pT8 have the same DPS.

I hope all this DoT headacke will end soon when someone comes with some sort of simulations.

 

Huskar

I agree with Szynszyla.

I would love to see some post-3.2 math on these assumptions. The thing is, with every dot you cast outside of eclipse, you lengthen the expected time to proc the next eclipse, reducing overall eclipse uptime by the same amount. Effectively, this would be modeled as some sort of DPET increase for non-eclipse nukes.


EDIT: I think i've found a way that i'm comfortable thinking about refreshing dots (at least outside of eclipse), Hopefully this will help those of us still wondering about it.

I'm going to assume no IIS for now.

A "Solar Eclipse cycle" (without dot refreshes) can be thought of as one big spell with a cast time of 15 + [expected proc time] and with some calculated expected damage value (just a sum of the expected damage during the procing period and the expected damage during the eclipse period.) The same can be said for "Lunar Eclipse cycle" (without dot refreshes), MF, and IS. In this model, there are only these 4 spells.

This model is legit because casting a dot before you start 'casting' an 'Eclipse cycle' has no affect on the damage done by that 'Eclipse cycle.' Nor does it affect the 'cast time' - it just adds a global cooldown to your overall rotation.

This helps me because now the 3.2 question of whether or not to cast a single dot when eclipse is not up is the same as an easy-to-answer question in this simplified model: "Should that dot be cast at all?"
And the answer is: Yes, if the expected DPET of the dot is higher than the expected DPET of the 'Eclipse cycle' that could be cast instead. So, now I have to calculate the expected DPET for the 'Eclipse Cycles', and that is gear-dependent and annoying.

God, this would be so much easier if dots would just have higher dpet than eclipsed nukes...

 

Ashen

Except that with IIS... those DoTS DO have an effect on the rotation, albeit an arguably minor one. Granted your argument is without, but where else do those points go for more DPS?

 

• Arawethion

If you're mathy enough, just try taking a look at the innards of Wrathcalcs. I already try to address everything mentioned so far on this page. There are obviously approximations and the like, but it should help clarify things.

Moonkin Beginner Guide, updated for 3.2

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.

 

• Arawethion

Today is the first day it's possible to have enough Emblems of Triumph to buy the new Idol. Could people post confirmations of how it works on live?

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.

 

spiritryu

Tested it out on a dummy. Proc'd pretty much every other Moonfire tick and should be able to maintain 100% uptime with it. Anything else you'd like me to test before I return it to get my feral idol?

 

• Arawethion

Nah, just wanted to make sure it still had the high proc rate and no ICD. Thanks!

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.