Moonkin Beginner Guide (obsolete; use the TTT article now (in my sig)) - Page 26

Sidonis · 09/29/09, 8:27 PM

Just have a quick question for anyone who can answer this.

I'm in the 213/219 gear bracket having just come back from a break, and when working out on the dummy in Org self-buffed, tend to see long strings of trying to get the Lunar rotation started and my Wrath's just don't want to crit.
(Hit capped, Soft-Haste capped, 26.78% crit self-buffed in form).

Now granted -fully- raid buffed, my Int will be slightly higher from AI and Kings (enough to push that .78 over and call it 27%), 3% crit from ToW, 5% Imp Scorch, I'll have enough (35%) to run starting the Lunar rotation. I have no qualms there and am not worried about proccing Lunar in 25-mans.

My question is, in 10-mans, when I don't have the 8% crit provided from other classes, would it be better to start with going for a Solar rotation instead, and if the Lunar doesn't proc before Solar comes off cooldown go back to forcing a Solar? My reason for asking this, is that crit-wise, I still have the 6% extra crit on Starfire from talents (IIS, IFF) available to me regardless of what raid buffs I have, versus only the 3% crit from IFF being the only thing that bumps the crit of Wrath up.

Obviously I don't have 2pc T9, meaning IMF isn't -mandatory- yet, and my 25-man dps wouldn't suffer terribly if I moved those 2 points over to finish out Moonglow instead to cover the worse DPM of focusing primarily on Solar procs.

Lord BEEF · 09/30/09, 12:43 AM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

I assumed that Hurricane crits would proc NG for you.

It does not, ever.

Rondaru · 09/30/09, 9:41 AM

Originally Posted by Sidonis

Just have a quick question for anyone who can answer this.

I'm in the 213/219 gear bracket having just come back from a break, and when working out on the dummy in Org self-buffed, tend to see long strings of trying to get the Lunar rotation started and my Wrath's just don't want to crit.
(Hit capped, Soft-Haste capped, 26.78% crit self-buffed in form).

Lunar and Solar Rotations are things of the past now that both eclipses have independent cooldowns. You now alternate between both during your rotation, just keep on casting the spell of your last recent eclipse until the other one procs (which can happen immediately after the other ends).

The only discussion left now is with which eclipse to begin. But it's really a minor issue for dps. Some may even just cast single Wrath and Starfire in turns, so that a random eclipse will start and you get a good chance of not wasting the first few seconds with re-casting the wrong spell.

Sidonis · 09/30/09, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Rondaru

Lunar and Solar Rotations are things of the past now that both eclipses have independent cooldowns. You now alternate between both during your rotation, just keep on casting the spell of your last recent eclipse until the other one procs (which can happen immediately after the other ends).

The only discussion left now is with which eclipse to begin. But it's really a minor issue for dps. Some may even just cast single Wrath and Starfire in turns, so that a random eclipse will start and you get a good chance of not wasting the first few seconds with re-casting the wrong spell.

I understand that we use both now, MF-IF-W to proc-SF-refresh MF/IS after proc ends-SF to proc-W. Rinse and repeat, pop Treants right before Heroism if you can, Starfall on a OoC proc.

What I'm saying is that it's still easier to proc the Solar Eclipse than it is the Lunar one when you're lacking full raid buffs, such as in a 10-man, at lower gear levels. And if it would be more feasible to start with SF instead of W, and if your Solar comes off cooldown before you can proc Lunar, to go back to SF to proc Solar again.

• Hamlet · 09/30/09, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Sidonis

What I'm saying is that it's still easier to proc the Solar Eclipse than it is the Lunar one when you're lacking full raid buffs, such as in a 10-man, at lower gear levels.

Why?

Lunar has 60% of the proc rate of Solar. Wrath casts about 60% faster. They proc Eclipse almost exactly equally quickly. Moreover, Wrath can sometimes benefit from NG while trying to proc, and you can also "wind up" Wrath before Eclipse is off ICD, due to travel time. Wrath is also amenable to refreshing DoTs or starting to cast SF during NG procs and potentially saving time.

Finally, since WiseEclipse came about, you always want to go for Lunar first, since you can jump from Lunar into Solar afterwards.

bicycler4life · 09/30/09, 3:33 PM

I have been reading the forums and this is my first venture in. My question has to do with my moonkin form. I am going to respec and and put my talents back in the balance tree. Do I need to worry about crit and haste for right now since Blizzard is going to revamp the stats to only have the main 5 important? Or is it still too far away and hopefully my gear will be upgraded when that patch comes?

Grodin · 10/01/09, 1:05 PM

Originally Posted by bicycler4life

I have been reading the forums and this is my first venture in. My question has to do with my moonkin form. I am going to respec and and put my talents back in the balance tree. Do I need to worry about crit and haste for right now since Blizzard is going to revamp the stats to only have the main 5 important? Or is it still too far away and hopefully my gear will be upgraded when that patch comes?

First of all these changes aren't happening for at least a year. Secondly, they plan on retooling gear so that it fits the changes when they are instituted. Gear up to whatever level you can.

Sidonis · 10/01/09, 2:32 PM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Why?

Lunar has 60% of the proc rate of Solar. Wrath casts about 60% faster. They proc Eclipse almost exactly equally quickly. Moreover, Wrath can sometimes benefit from NG while trying to proc, and you can also "wind up" Wrath before Eclipse is off ICD, due to travel time. Wrath is also amenable to refreshing DoTs or starting to cast SF during NG procs and potentially saving time.

Finally, since WiseEclipse came about, you always want to go for Lunar first, since you can jump from Lunar into Solar afterwards.

The "Why" was the difference in which one has a better chance in critting. At lower gear levels, in order to meet hit and soft haste, you give up easily 5% crit or more. Due to talents, Starfire will -always- have a 3% higher chance to crit than Wrath if MF is on the target. For example, at the time of my original post, my self-buffed crit in Moonkin form was almost the same as what yours is unbuffed out of form on the Armory.

The bolded part should make it obvious why I was asking. We all know from lessons on probability when applied to programming and code functionality, that just because you have more casts, doesn't mean you will have more procs, just more chances to proc. As you have basically stated yourself, Starfire has a higher chance of proccing Solar, than Wrath proccing Lunar. As the talent tree has stated, Starfire will always have a higher chance of being a crit than Wrath, as long as Moonfire is on the target, because a good Moonkin will be following the recommendations from people here, and have Improved Insect Swarm. Not once was I ever implying -not- trying to proc Lunar with Wrath, just favoring Solar procs by going back to Starfire when the cooldown on Solar has expired, and starting with Starfire instead of Wrath. Maybe I just didn't make it clear enough that I still wanted to try and proc Lunar with Wrath, and if so that's my fault.

All I really wanted was an answer about a specific set of circumstances, low gear and in a smaller group setting where you lack full raid buffs, but thanks anyways. I won't be in the really low gear bracket much longer as it is, so my days of sitting there spamming Wrath but not proccing Lunar until the 20th cast or instead proccing Solar from casting a SF on a NG that was procced by Wrath but didn't proc Lunar will be over soon and the whole thing will become moot. I apologize for wasting anyone's time that read my posts.

• Hamlet · 10/01/09, 6:38 PM

I understood exactly what you were asking--what to try to proc when you have the chance to proc both (either at the beginning of the fight, or when you've come off the ICD without a proc). I gave you all the reasons to favor Lunar (WiseEclipse is the big one at the moment). 3% crit isn't going to make any significant difference.

As I've said about a hundred times to people asking basically this same question--casting Wrath a bunch of times without a Lunar proc sucks. Deal with it.

misada · 10/03/09, 10:01 AM

A rather unusual question I was asked but couldn't find a solid answer to was the exact value of IS in your total dps. I know it varies from person to person based on up times, gear, and a lot of other factors, but upon inspecting the person asking I noticed he'd not specced into IS but rather into Imp MF instead. Keeping in mind he's in mostly t7 level gear I didn't think much of it, and told him that he's bad and to go respec right away. He did, but here is why I bring this up, overall he seemed to GAIN a slight bit of dps not having IS, which left me rather... perplexed.

Has anyone put any heavy research into anything like this? I know from a lazy point of view it'd be nice since MF is a lot easier to keep up then MF + IS, but I can't explain why he had better dps despite everything I've seen saying it should be worse. Not taking I:IS I could understand, but not taking it all together yet still doing equal or better dps without it just doesn't add up.

Rondaru · 10/03/09, 10:51 AM

IS outscales Wrath and Starfire with any amount of Crit% in DPET, but on the other hand, IS also can't proc or prolong NG (unlike the initial damage of MF). This could cause a considerable gap in your NG uptime, especially during non-eclipsed Starfire spam.

I've not done the math myself, but apparently Rawr's model favors dropping IS at a certain level of crit.

It may make sense, however, to apply IS only near the end of Lunar Eclipse (so it's stuck with a degree of certainty between two crits and boosting the coming Solar Eclipse) or during Starfall.

• Hamlet · 10/03/09, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by misada

A rather unusual question I was asked but couldn't find a solid answer to was the exact value of IS in your total dps. I know it varies from person to person based on up times, gear, and a lot of other factors, but upon inspecting the person asking I noticed he'd not specced into IS but rather into Imp MF instead. Keeping in mind he's in mostly t7 level gear I didn't think much of it, and told him that he's bad and to go respec right away. He did, but here is why I bring this up, overall he seemed to GAIN a slight bit of dps not having IS, which left me rather... perplexed.

Has anyone put any heavy research into anything like this? I know from a lazy point of view it'd be nice since MF is a lot easier to keep up then MF + IS, but I can't explain why he had better dps despite everything I've seen saying it should be worse. Not taking I:IS I could understand, but not taking it all together yet still doing equal or better dps without it just doesn't add up.

Glyphed IS is still a DPS improvement. It's not amazing--maybe 200 DPS over not casting it, but that's more than anything else you would do with those talent points/Glyph slot. It's not going to fade down to 0 value anytime in the foreseeable future. If someone were using unglyphed IS and was just getting used to working it into a rotation and wasn't playing cleanly, it might be a small loss.

nesf · 10/04/09, 7:00 PM

Originally Posted by misada

A rather unusual question I was asked but couldn't find a solid answer to was the exact value of IS in your total dps. I know it varies from person to person based on up times, gear, and a lot of other factors, but upon inspecting the person asking I noticed he'd not specced into IS but rather into Imp MF instead. Keeping in mind he's in mostly t7 level gear I didn't think much of it, and told him that he's bad and to go respec right away. He did, but here is why I bring this up, overall he seemed to GAIN a slight bit of dps not having IS, which left me rather... perplexed.

Has anyone put any heavy research into anything like this? I know from a lazy point of view it'd be nice since MF is a lot easier to keep up then MF + IS, but I can't explain why he had better dps despite everything I've seen saying it should be worse. Not taking I:IS I could understand, but not taking it all together yet still doing equal or better dps without it just doesn't add up.

Not having IS at all makes for a much simpler rotation. They could just be seeing a fall in DPS purely because they aren't used to the much trickier task of keeping up two DoTs with different durations, one of which can be extended depending on which part of your cycle that you're in. It also comes down to whether they were doing poor dps in the first place, if you're having trouble keeping a simple MF+Eclipse rotation up then adding IS in there is going to make your dps even more abysmal. I'd only pay attention to a dps gain if the player was putting up very good numbers without IS.

Faesong · 10/05/09, 4:42 AM

Hello , ive been a huge advocate of keeping up on the theory here that you all wonderfully examine . I use squawk and wise eclipse to help monitor my procs and love them .

Ive been beating myself up over my performance and I always like to give it my all . As the utility role that i play for our runs , i get interupted in my rotations often . When i look at my world of logs i do have peaks at nice dps levels but i tail off quickly . Like the Anub her 10 fights , i drop the ice then go back to nuke , but that break keeps my dps by end of fight down to 3 - 3.5 k levels . Im seeing the eclipse procs ( lunar 15k and solar 10k ) fly and am astonished that my dps is so lame by fights end . On the test dummys i noticed that one small break in rotation or extended lack of procs would hugely affect end of fight dps . Ive tried my hardest to try and stay rooted and tight to the rotation but for various fight characteristics ( dodge ball , eternals and the like ) have me interupting my casting and my dots / eclipses fall off . I know its just the nature of the fights but im fustrated with the lack of sustained dps .

When i go mobile for seconds to get out of trouble my dps still ticks at dot level , where upon other classes dps stops as soon as they disengage showing them having much higher dps. If i dot everything with FF am i ticking away on all targets at ~0 dps ? lol . Moonkin seem to have a need to have total uptime on casting , any break at all kills our dps / damage output .

Should i be stacking sp at my level still ? I have 23.3 crit , 401 haste , 2580 sp , a bit over the hit cap ~291 ( but i have been wearing the t8.5 pants to gain 2 t 8.5 + 2 t 9.3 instead of those 232 t9 pants , as rawr modeled that set up as higher dps then with the two extra 232s to make the 4t9 bonus ) . I just seem to be missing something yet to give me that boost to higher levels of contribution . Should my output be better in my gear ? Am i moving to much ? Crit over SP still ? Or just ride it out and wait for the drops ?

Grenadieris · 10/05/09, 10:40 AM

Crit has never been better than SP.
SP is the king.
Considering the dots and uptimes/dps, you might want to look at warlocks and shadow priests, who use even more dots.