Moonfire is always the highest damage spell you can cast, even during an eclipse, as long as you cast 3 starfires to extend the duration.

Quick napkin-math:

Moonfire: Taking ~1200 ticks (my average tick without trinkets), you get 9600 guarenteed tick damage + initial damage, as long as you extend the duration using 3 starfires with the glyph. 1.5 second cast time unmodified by haste, around 1.2 raid buffed. Effective damage of ~8k/sec of cast time.

Starfire: Currently crits for about 10-11k without trinket procs for me (around 15k with both up), even with eclipse active I don't have 100% crit rate (around 90%). Cast times of 2.5 second without NG, 2.0 with under raid buffs. Effective damage of ~5k/sec of cast time (or ~7.5k with trinket procs).

Insect swarm: For comparison, IS ticks for about 950 without trinket procs (including glyph and 2t7 bonus), which is ~6.5k damage for a 1.2 second cast time raid buffed, or ~5.5k/sec of cast time.

This is without counting the added 3% crit benefit of Moonfire if you have IIS. Due to haste interaction with the global cooldown (i.e effectively a ~1.1 second hard cap), IS is not worth casting under bloodlust (even with glyph, with 2t7), while Moonfire still is as long as you get 3 starfire casts off during the duration of it.

But the questions is not to skip a full duration moonfire, the question is should you skip two ticks to get an extra eclipse'd starfire in and put up a new moonfire after eclipse ends, most people think yes

Like the previous poster said, if it comes down to applying MF or getting out that last SF during an eclipse, go with the eclipse. If you can get out the MF and still have time for an eclipsed SF do that. Things like Heroism/haste pots will change the exact time of this, but for the most part it seems to be the common agreement.

I just recently switched to Eclipse spec from a MF-SF only spec. I am having trouble matching my non eclipse spec right now.

My rotation is:

IS-MF-W tell Eclipse then SF during eclipse and until ICD is over applying MF if needed and then i repeat.

The problem i am having that in order to keep W going i have to basically spam it and when eclipse procs i i still end up wasting 2+ sec with lag queued W.

Also my dps seems less predictable and more up in the air. As a MF-SF rotation with out eclipse i would do around the same dps but with out wasting as much mana or so much work.


Is it just practice on eclipse or is the dps gain really not so larger over non eclipse that its worth the hassle?

It's not a perfect world, it is quite common to lose a couple of seconds on eclipse depending on reaction time + latency. Simply finish your cast, then switch to the proper spell, while renewing MF if needed. DPS is indeed less "reliable" because a wrath crit does not absolutely guarantee an eclipse proc. It's a gamble with RNG that can be reduced in time as better gear becomes available. The DPS gain is significant if you are properly geared, lucky enough and the encounter does not introduce mechanics that force you to waste time on eclipse procs. Wrath eclipse is probably more "reliable" but not necessarily optimal in terms of maximizing your damage output.

When comparing eclipse spec with SF spam spec I came to a conclusion that eclipse has more max dps potential but is definitly less stable. As said above it's all about the RNG and gear improvement.

But I am actually wondering if at some level of haste it wouldn't be good to come back to spamming SF again.

I am struggling with the math for potion usage at the moment.

We have two options for maximised DPS: [Potion of Wild Magic] or [Potion of Speed].

Obviously it should be used during a bloodlusted Eclipse:Starfire, but which potion is the better choice?
The crit bonus of [Potion of Wild Magic] seems rather useless because of the high crit chance of an eclipsed Starfire (similar to [Destruction Potion] combined with Combustion in my old days as a firemage), but the haste bonus of [Potion of Speed] cannot squeeze out another starfire during the eclipse duration according to my calculations; maybe my haste rating and latency are suboptimal for that.

Has anyone tested these potions on Patchwerk already?

I generally will use a speed potion when my trinket procs. I've never really cared for spreadsheets or numbers because they almost never reflect in game results.

I played a warrior all throughout TBC and nearly all spreadsheets +"common knowledge" ended up turning up incorrect only near the end the expansion.

I am pretty sure it boils down to itemization costs...

45 crit rating is about 1% crit so the crit from wild magic is ~1.3% + 180 SP for 15 seconds
32 haste is about 1% so you gain > 15% haste for 15 seconds with speed pots

I would think with haste costing so much less (and speed pots giving so much of it) that it will be the better choice.

Am I missing something or are Destro pots better because they say flat 2% plus spell power when Wild Magic is closer to 1% crit.....

Is the destro pot tooltip poorly worded so that it doesn't give 2% at lvl 80?

One point in time where I would love more crit or more casts squeezed in is when you are spamming wrath to try and get the eclipse crit buff to starfire, but moonfire is ticking down and you haven't used your x3 starfires yet. If you cast starfire to extend the moonfire you have a very good chance of getting the yucky version of eclipse, and if you let moonfire fall off before extending it you have to refresh it sooner wasting dps time.

So I could see using a speed pot or crit pot when you really want to get eclipse from wrath asap, but then again haste obviously helps starfire a lot more so maybe it would be a waste.

Edit: wow though 1% crit for 15 seconds and not being able to use another pot for the rest of the fight seems really weak

Hm, that's certainly an interesting question about Destro pots. Even if they were 2%, the haste potion would still be much better though, so I would recommend using that. If you do use a haste potion, my hunch has been that you would ignore Eclipse procs and just MF/SF until it drops, similar to the rotation you would use during Heroism. This is even more true in late Naxx gear as I'm running 18% haste and the haste pot would make Wrath casting a notable dps drop.

My experience has been that twisting Wrath and Starfall isn't really worth it. It only procs when the spell actually lands on the target, which means with travel time you'll already be casting the wrong spell by the time the proc goes off, so no net gain. Has anyone seen something different?

No, I haven't noticed that. You have to take into account that Wrath has a travel time and if you're a significant distance from the boss you're attacking, there will be a delay between when the cast finished and when the spell hits/crits the mob.

Is there a general consensus as to whether it's worth it to attempt proccing Eclipse with Wrath during Bloodlust? To clarify, Moonfire is active, Bloodlust is active, and your Eclipse is not on cooldown. Is it worth it to cast Wrath and clip the GCD for an extra 30% crit on Starfire during Bloodlust? I've been experimenting and as of right now my basic philosophy is if there is enough time left on Bloodlust to get a full duration Eclipse proc, it is worth it to cast Wrath -- otherwise, it's better to continue casting Starfire.

Does anyone have any solid math or experiences to this end?

Edit: Fixed the crit chance.

If it helps you any, I always proc eclipse using wrath during bloodlust. And it's 30% crit.

i have tried doing wrath to proc sf eclipse during a bloodlust and found it to be to random. Sometimes you just wont proc eclipse quick enough and you waste allot of time you could have been using sf.

This has been my experience. That combined with the amounts of lag in Naxx on Medivh has made me not bother with twisting.

During the beta thread's life, someone did the math that showed it was best to ignore Eclipse during Heroism/Bloodlust and only do MF/SF. This has been my experience as well.

At roughly ilvl 213 and higher gear levels, Wrath's base cast time in MK form is less than 1.3 seconds. Heroism/Bloodlust lowers that number to less than 1 second.

My cast time (according to Quartz) is ~0.9 seconds base, ~0.6 seconds with NG while under bloodlust. This is with 470 haste, 3/3 CF and normal raid buffs.

WoA Totem, CF, ImpMK,
1.5/(1.05*1.03*1.03) = 1.346566
+BL
1.5/(1.05*1.03*1.03*1.3) = 1.03582
3.58% haste (118 haste rating) from gear and your wrath starts to bang against the gcd.
It will be hard to stay under 118 haste rating with rading gear

Sorry I should have said a significant amount. Fact is you should have ~50% chance to crit with wrath, that means a few seconds to proc 30% crit for 15. If you don't want to do it you don't have to, I'll enjoy doing ~5700 on PW because I choose reality over inaccurate spreadsheets/math.

I could go into a debate on how crit is better then haste(patchwerk may be one of the few exceptions to this, but patchwerk isn't everything to most people), but I'll spare you math nerds who will stand by unrealistic averages over uncertain lengths of time fighting to the death over your calculations.

As much as I prefer not feeding trolls, I would actually quite like to get into a debate on this. The value of haste has been bugging me - I don't really go all out to stack it (I prefer split crit/haste items), but I'd like to put a value on each in real situations. I've always preferred the "real" approach over the theorycrafting one, as sometimes theorycraft just doesn't add up due to having to simplify particular mechanics.

Crit provides:
- Double Damage on Starfire/Wrath crits (and starfall/hurricane/typhoon in AoE situations) on a RNG powered system
- Mana return
- 0.5 seconds reduction of cast time
- Better/faster eclipse proc rate

Haste provides:
- A guarenteed faster casting time on all spells until the GCD cap is reached (effectively unattainable for all spells other than Wrath with NG, unless under bloodlust).

You need ~46 crit rating per 1% crit, while you need ~33 haste rating per 1% crit, which makes haste 1.4 times more valuable in pure percentage terms than crit. The question is, do the actual in game benefits make crit 1.4 times more valuable than haste?

One of the issues with haste is that there is a break-point for each fight and eclipse rotation as to where a specific amount becomes more valuable. For example with eclipse there is a point where x amount of haste will allow you to cast one more spell within the eclipse. Obviously this is hard to model due to the expected number of crits providing NG, which means there's actually a lot of break points dependant on how many crits you get. One of the fights where I find this has most of an effect is Heigan, as once you get to enough haste you can easily weave wrath casts in between movement.

It is also true that most fights are not long enough for the randomness of crits to balance out. Haste meanwhile provides a very real exact benefit to all spells all the time.

Unfortunately I don't think I can actually put a value on which is better, but from experience I prefer haste over crit in those instances where I have to choose. I still put spellpower as my highest priority though.

I've focused mainly on crit itemization and even with my low amount of haste I can get off one wrath between every movement during the dance.

But yeah your question is a good one and has been my main one with regards to itemization. We generally have a choice between haste and crit on items at the current tier of itemization so pinning down what we should be going after is key to maximizing our DPS. I assume as we increase in tiers the gear will become better and begin feature both crit and haste, but until then we have choices to make.