I'm really interested in that Balance 2t10 piece. I wonder if it will effect the damage of dots as well, which would make it viable to pop that then refresh dots.

But would it be more worth it to replace 2t8 or 2t9 now? I know 2t8 has pretty much the most essential set bonus for boomkins, but I can't help but feel like the overall stats of t10 will just make it not worth it to have 2t8.

I think t8 will be best to drop. Chances are t10 will be itemised with a lot of crit and haste. Given that t8 leaves us crit capped under lunar I think dropping it is a good idea and either running 2p t9 & 2p t10 or 4p t10 (I'm assuming 4p bonus is a placeholder because it's utterly useless given you can chain eclipses already)

Given that you'd no longer be crit capped under lunar you'd get better item value from crit, which I think is a necessity given we're already haste capped post 400 leaving us few options in terms of full value itemisation.

As for [Pattern: Merlin's Robe]. Don't see much point in crafting these, wear t9 chest/helm and t8 shoulders and legs with offset gloves IMO.

Lets assume that it does reduce the cooldown of eclipse by x seconds. We know that its not possible to proc eclipse while eclipse is already up, so if the cooldown was reduced by 5 seconds, we would need addons similar to Wise Eclipse to cancel solar eclipse when we are able to proc Lunar Eclipse. It would seem strange if Blizzard made a bonus that require you to click off a buff, or have an addon do it, so i think its highly unlikely that this will happen.

So the only way that a reduction in Eclipse's cooldown would benefit us, would be if it simply removes the cooldown - that means that once we have less than two seconds on eclipse, we would start spamming wrath, in order to get lunar eclipse up again. This seems odd aswell, because that means we would go back to spamming starfire 90% of the time - it goes against our recent eclipse "fix", and its mindnumbingly boring - i think Blizzard wants to avoid that.

I think Blizzard is probably just messing around, trying to see what works and what doesn't. I currently cant see a way an eclipse cooldown could work out to be a benefit, really, but more will come on that later, surely.

I think its reasonable to assume that the final tier bonus would be to something central to our damage and spec: Eclipse. What other buffs could we think of for eclipse that actually is a direct damage increase? (ei, make your own set bonus)

- 100% chance on wrath crit to proc lunar eclipse: Would be nice, but at ICC level, our crit is very high anyways - already we usually dont go that long before we get lunar up. A small increase, removal of RNG, and this would in fact just be a small increase in DPS. Might be too small, compared to what other classes are looking at, although we would benefit from this change about twice a minute, which IS on par with other 4p set bonuses.

You are forgetting a couple of things:

1) Our rotation is already mindnumbingly boring, pretty RNG (and with very little room for skill too ).
2) 100% chance on wrath crit to proc lunar would just push wrath-eclipses off the table again. Then we're back to haste-stacking and only using wraths to proc lunar.
3) To compete with the t8 bonus, why not just boost it? 4setbonus is now 5% more then the 2pc t8 is. Sure its not exiting or especially fun, nor does it change very much, but it could work.

People are hitting the crit cap in Lunar as it is. This would only exacerbate the problem.

I could see them reworking Eclipse just to make 4t10 attractive (and perhaps to make WiseEclipse less useful).
Imagine Eclipse cooldown increased to 40s, but the bonuses increased from 30% crit/dam to 35% crit/dam.

That would be roughly balanced (except it would push more 2t8 people over the crit cap), and would make 4t10 more attractive.

Another way to make 4t10 attractive would be to change it to 6s extra Eclipse duration. A cycle of 42s Eclipse + 5s non-eclipse is much nicer than 30s Eclipse + 5s non-eclipse.

The 2t10 is probably slightly weaker than 4t9 (25% uptime of 10% damage is a 2.5% bonus).

If we're suggesting bonuses to Eclipse, how about something involving DoT refreshment?

'Whilst under the effect of Eclipse, your Wrath and Starfire casts extend the duration of your Insect Swarm and Moonfire periodic damage effects respectively by 3 seconds."

Cap the extension at XX seconds just like the existing Starfire Glyph for a bit of balance if required.

This could potentially 'free up' the Starfire glyph slot for something else (Starfall, or perhaps even something new that may or may not come with 3.3)

I think your being a little generous.

First, in my experinse OOC doesn't proc often enough so that the buff would be up 25% of the time. I'll admit I didn't look at a lot of logs, but the couple I did look at showed it procced less than twice a minute. For 25% to be correct it would have to proc 2.5 times per minute, and assume none of the procs over lapped.

Second, your assuming that the buff is Multiplicative. If its additive that would further decrease the value.

OoC is 6% on cast (at least I think so; that's the number that's always been in WrathCalcs). Meaning it should proc around 2.5 times/min in a normal rotation. The buff is most likely multiplicative; spell school buffs (as opposed to single-spell buffs) usually are.

OOC procs a good bit, there's a reason why it's our best mana talent. As for the tier if OOC gives us dmg, I might be using a ton of reagants cuz I'll be buffing a ton. I'm just gonna ignore that the 4 set even exists at this point.

For the record, that's not always how it's been modeled. For a while I used a PPM mechanic, and I think I also used a high-chance ICD model at one point, though I can't remember. The PPM mechanic seemed to give decent results for a while, and I think it was in effect because that's how Feral OOC used to (still does?) work, or something. Then they changed it, and 6% is the method that fits best now. There was a bit of looking through logs that happened before I made the switch, so I'm reasonably sure it's correct, unless they changed it again, which I doubt.

Isn't it quite unusual to tie a set bonus to a talent that you may or may not have? It seems to go a long way to suggest OOC a mandatory talent, which is something I though blizzard didn't really want.

Blue has confirmed that 4p T10 bonus is -6 seconds off the cooldown to Eclipse. I dont see how we can use this for anything at all. What are we missing?

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Tier-10 Set Bonuses Feedback

I've been going over this in my head all day, and here's what I've come up with. Currently, because of the way eclipse works, we need at least one non-eclipsed spell hit to trigger the next eclipse. With a reduction to the cooldown, we will be able to have simultaneous eclipses and thus no "eclipse downtime" IF they change eclipse to allow simultaneous procs. This is tricky because unless it is designed intelligently we could be screwed by the overlapsed eclipse starting too early (this is especially true for the first eclipse in an encounter).

However, if they sort out all the junk that this entails, it could be a pretty nice bonus. Its gonna be interesting to see it tested on a test server.

Let me fix this: If boomkin, then eclipse. Problem solved.

With the cooldown reduction on eclipse... if you happen to be on lunar cooldown and you haven't proced solar yet, you'll more quickly be able to revert back to wrath-spamming and pick up lunar again, which is the stronger of the two and which should get you back up to your optimal dps faster if you were getting hit by the RNG bat trying to get solar. Of course, the opposite works, should solar ever be the stronger option...

You say that like it's a BAD thing. I don't know about the rest of you but I don't have an extra 15% worth of crit gear lying around to re-cap me if I dropped 2pc T8.

That's the problem. 2pcT8 is just TOO GOOD. It was a good bonus when it first came out but add in WiseEclipse for a 100% chance to go directly from Lunar -> Solar and avoid the RNG hell that is Balance Druid and it becomes irreplaceable.

Here's my take on Anub'rhekan

First two phases you have two sets of adds that come. You want to kill the first set of adds as quickly as possible and well before the second set come so you have plenty of time to single target Anub. The second set are likely still going to be there when Anub burrows.

It's been my experience than moonkin single target dps is competitive, but the aoe is starting to fall behind unless you also have nature's grace up. So what I do (which may or may not be optimal) is I'll use starfall and two hurricanes on the first set of adds at which point they're either dead or close to dead and will die from incidental/other aoe. The second set of adds I'll ignore until he burrows and then help finish them off during the kite phase, usually with just a single hurricane.

I repeat this process until the two kite phases are over. While my position on the damage meters will be lower, it becomes a lot easier to get Anub to the % health threshholds in the time you need them, and helps to keep your mana high. I currently run with 2/3 intensity and 1/3 moonglow, though I could probably easily drop a point of intensity and still be fine. I also give out all of my innervates, usually to a mana hungry mage and our holy paladins.

During the sub 30% phase I do a lot more aoe due to the increased danger that the adds present, but my mana hasn't come close to being an issue yet.

How?

Both bonuses effect only wrath and starfire

4T9 is a flat 4% damage increase all the time, no matter what.
4T10 is 5% damage increase, but only if you crit.


I know we haven't seen the actual stats on the tier pieces yet, but I remember at the start of Wotlk Blizzard said gear was not itemized perfectly in order to make room for better upgrades at the end of the expansion (Icecrown). With that in mind I better not see one point of spirit on any of the 5 pieces. crit/haste, crit/hit, haste/hit all the way!

I've seen a lot of posts in this thread that make reference to AOE'ing the burrowers on Anub. Is that really effective?

I've always found my single target DPS to be far greater than AOE against 3 targets or less, often 4 targets or less. I always single-target one burrower then the other... Then again, I don't take Gale Winds. Is GW recommended for 25-hard Anub?

In heroic 25, you're hitting 5 targets at once (unless some strategies don't do this). At least for our strategy, gale winds is a no brainer.

From my post on WoW forums:

Well, if I had the option I'd take a good 2 piece bonus over a good 4 piece bonus and am happy that Blizzard are frontloading the benefits so to speak. If the two were reversed we'd have a lot more to complain about I think.