Going Forward: Cataclysm Discussion - Page 10

• Hamlet · 04/13/10, 5:41 PM

Ok, I put up a blog post with a much more in-depth mathematical look at the new Eclipse: http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/arawet...se_system.html

You can do a surprising amount without knowing the form of the Eclipse function itself. The meat of the math part is only for a small minority of readers (part of why it's on the blog section instead of on the threads), but I try to give the important results in an introduction/conclusion for those who will gloss over the block of equations in the middle.

moowalk · 04/14/10, 12:43 AM

Do we have any information on whether the +crit from lunar eclipse and +damage from solar eclipse mechanic will remain?

The concept of a slider indicates that we'll be moving from a fixed increase to a variable amount. This makes things interesting if it's feasible to become crit capped on starfire in cataclysm. As your crit gets higher you won't want to push the slider so far towards lunar. It could make for some interesting rotations.

gcbirzan · 04/14/10, 1:17 AM

Originally Posted by moowalk

Do we have any information on whether the +crit from lunar eclipse and +damage from solar eclipse mechanic will remain?

The concept of a slider indicates that we'll be moving from a fixed increase to a variable amount. This makes things interesting if it's feasible to become crit capped on starfire in cataclysm. As your crit gets higher you won't want to push the slider so far towards lunar. It could make for some interesting rotations.

While they haven't yet disclosed the exact mechanics of Eclipse (just said it will buff your nature/arcane damage), they have repeatedly stated that they will changed combat ratings in such a way that it won't be possible to get so close to the crit cap, so I don't think that will be an issue.

Blakhoof · 04/14/10, 10:13 AM

RE: Eclipse

Just throwing it out there. Am I the only one thinking that Torrent may function much like an arcane mages hasted missile barrage, where stacking up to one side of the slider powers it up and the torrent possibly clears it, they did state that it will do either damage depending on what will do more damage. The CD also sounds like it will be timed about right to use it when the bar needs to be reset. Possibly make Torrent reset the bar totally. Then the only thing they would have to cover is some sort of mechanic to force us into alternating wrath stacks with starfire stacks

Videl · 04/14/10, 8:03 PM

My guess is that you use it right before you switch schools. If I understood the ability right it will push the meter further up regardless of which side you are on, but do damage of the school that is more buffed. So essentially it will do one type of damage, but affect the meter as though it did the other type.

thefool808 · 04/15/10, 9:05 AM

Originally Posted by Videl

My guess is that you use it right before you switch schools. If I understood the ability right it will push the meter further up regardless of which side you are on, but do damage of the school that is more buffed. So essentially it will do one type of damage, but affect the meter as though it did the other type.

I believe it is the other way around.

Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below).

So, it just says it moves it more, which I take to mean moves it at a higher rate than other spells (but in the expected direction of it's school of damage that the spell chooses).

Videl · 04/15/10, 5:23 PM

That would make it pretty annoying to use effectively. Since it chooses the type of damage it does based on what is more buffed that would mean that it always moves the meter towards the center (essentially consuming eclipse power which you had to build up casting unbuffed spells), which is undesirable. If it moves the meter more than a regular spell would that means it consumes even more eclipse power than a typical nuke to get buffed the same amount. That means when you compared at the DPET of the spell to an alternative you would have to not only compare the damage of the spells, but also take into consideration that using torrent causes your subsequent regular spells to be less buffed (do less damage) than they would have otherwise.

That leaves a few possibilities for its use. One is that it innately has such a good DPET that you use it on cooldown anyway, eclipse meter be damned. While this is possible, I just hope it isn't the case, as that would be pretty uninteresting and generally make the eclipse meter much less functional, since every 10 seconds you'd cast a spell that moved you significantly towards the center no matter what you were doing. If it has slightly above average DPET you'd still try to use it, but you'd want to minimize the effect of the eclipse meter move. That would mean using it when you were already as close as possible to the center of the meter. If it only has base DPET that is roughly the same as the regular spells you just don't use it at all. In all cases the feature that it moves the eclipse meter more is a bad thing.

This far out and with the limited information we have I'm choosing to be optimistic about these abilities. If the only way I can see that doesn't encourage hovering the eclipse meter around a single optimal point is for there to be a momentum or memory to the movement of the meter, then until I see otherwise I'm going to assume it works that way. Same thing for torrent. If I can see that interpreting it the way you describe actually gives it a negative interaction with eclipse after just a casual glance I have to assume that the people designing the stuff would see that as well and not let that stand.

• Adoriele · 04/15/10, 6:02 PM

Originally Posted by Videl

If it moves the meter more than a regular spell would that means it consumes even more eclipse power than a typical nuke to get buffed the same amount. That means when you compared at the DPET of the spell to an alternative you would have to not only compare the damage of the spells, but also take into consideration that using torrent causes your subsequent regular spells to be less buffed (do less damage) than they would have otherwise.

Err, this is not necessarily the case. You touch on why later in your post, but you don't reach the right conclusion. Say that we're working with the most basic version of the Eclipse meter, linear increase in buff magnitude as you approach the endpoints. Assuming they have the same cast time (which I'm pretty sure they don't, as I think the preview mentioned it being an instant), as long as (Damage per Torrent) / (Movement per torrent) is greater than (Damage per Nuke) / (Movement per Nuke), then Torrent is the best choice for using your stored Eclipse buff. Let's say, compared to Starfire, it's 200% damage, 200% movement, and that the maximum Arcane buff is 10%. We'll also assume that Starfire would move you across 20% of the Arcane side of the Eclipse bar (10% of the total bar). Torrent does 220% of Starfire's base damage, and reduces your Arcane buff to 6%. Casting two Starfires instead would do 218% of base Starfire damage (110% + 108%) for the same reduction in Eclipse buff. Torrent is the better choice, and I don't see why this is a downside.

The argument considering execution time is similar, using DPET instead of Damage. I'd expect that Blizzard would make the DPET/Movement of Torrent even better than parity with SF/Wrath as well. I do wonder, though, where it will fit into the rotation. I would expect that in Cataclysm we'll see Force of Nature and Starfall match (not share) cooldowns, as they fit the Balance duality; perhaps a 2-minute cooldown on both. IS and MF are similar enough already, and I would expect the amount of time it takes to switch from one side of the Eclipse bar to the other to roughly match the duration of both (which will, again, likely be matched), such that it's in our best interests to refresh our DoTs when we hit the endpoints. Torrent is then an interesting problem. Too short of a cooldown, and you have to decide whether refreshing a DoT or casting Torrent is a better idea (or perhaps it becomes the endpoint cast for PvP, with DoTs being the endpoint cast in PvE). Too long of a cooldown and it becomes uninteresting. Maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of a 1-minute cooldown if they don't want it conflicting with our DoTs too much.

Videl · 04/16/10, 1:50 AM

Really, I should almost always be saying DPET instead of damage since DPET is really what's useful. You're absolutely right that fragmenting your consumption of eclipse power reduces the total amount of it you get damage from it. That effect is not very strong though, equal to the maximum % boost for a fully charged eclipse multiplied by the % of the bar that a regular nuke uses. It's 2% of a base nuke in your example, if a maxxed out eclipse did +100% it would be 20% of a nuke. At any rate, that effect is small compared to the DPET of torrent vs a regular nuke and if the DPET of the two spells is even in the same ballpark it's offset by the cost of moving the meter farther.

I seem to remember it being instant as well, and therein lies the problem. For it to do 200% damage for 200% of the movement of starfire, that would mean it has four times the base DPET of starfire (double the damage in half the cast time). With starfire doing about 5k damage per GCD (ignoring crit and eclipse, which would affect both about equally), that means nature's torrent would be an instant that hits for 10k, crits for around 21k in current gear at level 80 in ICC gear before any effects of eclipse, just to put it in perspective (holy balls pvp!). The eclipse meter would have no effect on how you used such a spell, as the goal would be to use it asap on cooldown. It's not inherently a problem, you'd still use the spell, but it is kind of uninteresting and the fact that it moves the eclipse meter twice as far is just an unfortunate side effect of the spell (insofar as only moving the meter the same distance as starfire would be better, and since it always does the buffed type of damage it can never be used to charge up the meter, only deplete it). Basically, for DPET/movement to be similar to basic nukes the spell has to have a crazy OP DPET. The value of the spell would come almost entirely from the inherently high DPET and in spite of the poor interaction with eclipse.

My analysis of its usefulness depending on how the DPET compares to a regular nuke is basically right i think. A couple things do occur to me as I think about it more though:
It could have similar/slightly better DPET than a regular nuke and be used exclusively for very short term burst. You still wouldn't use it in a deathwhisper type situation since it would cost you overall dps, but in a saurfang type situation where it was worth doing less overall damage to do more damage in the next few seconds to finish off that blood beast it could be handy. This wouldn't quite be like the shadow priest spell where you'd use it anytime the mob was going to live less than 10 seconds (though I'm not honestly 100% on how that is supposed to work either), you would only use it if it is worth it to do a little more damage at the end of the current mob at the expense of doing somewhat less on the next one.
If you used it right before you were about to cross the threshold from one side of eclipse to the other the extra bar movement would be a bonus. You would have to be in the situation where the next spell you cast would tip you over to the other side. In that case torrent would still tip you over, but by an even greater margin so the extra movement would help charge up the other side of eclipse rather than consume more of the current side. It would never get any meaningful boost from eclipse bonuses if used in this way though and if crits move the bar differently than hits you'd end up missing your window any time the spell two hits before torrent hit then the spell right before it crit. Of course, that assumes a model for eclipse that encourages crossing over the middle point.

dukes · 04/16/10, 6:11 AM

Originally Posted by Videl

(holy balls pvp!)

The value of the spell would come almost entirely from the inherently high DPET and in spite of the poor interaction with eclipse.

It could be that the damage of Torrent is significantly lower than any of our normal nukes, but the effect it has on the eclipse meter is significantly higher, meaning it's worth using as part of a rotation but won't affect PvP in terms of straight up burst as much. They could even do something interesting like making Torrent use the eclipse meter for the damage buff, but take the OPPOSITE aspect of it (so a 50% arcane buff becomes a 50% nature buff for Torrent). This kind of interaction would actually make it the opposite of what you may expect, in a low DPET spell but with major interaction for the Eclipse meter.

As it is speculation is reasonably useless as there are far too many unknowns with regards to both the Torrent spell and how the Eclipse meter works. If we knew at least some details about either one beyond "this is a spell, it could be instant cast" and "this eclipse meter replaces the current eclipse and has some similarities with it" then we might be able to usefully speculate further.

aceofsween · 04/16/10, 12:28 PM

Because of the way Torrent is supposed to work (dealing Arcane or Nature damage) I don't see how it could possibly have a low DPET. As has been stated many times, when you cast Torrent, it will cause the Eclipse slider to move in the opposite direction you were originally charging. That means you can't really use it to boost your Eclipse slider and max it out (although I am fuzzy on how it would work if you cast it when the slider is in the center).

If the DPET of Torrent was lower than the DPET of Starfire or Wrath, you wouldn't cast it at all. You would just use one of your nukes. Otherwise you'd just be wasting your Eclipse.

• Adoriele · 04/16/10, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Videl

For it to do 200% damage for 200% of the movement of starfire, that would mean it has four times the base DPET of starfire (double the damage in half the cast time).

Really, I just meant that you should take any instance of "Damage" in my original proof, and replace it with "DPET"; also, replace "Movement" with "Movement PET". Which puts it at around double the damage of Wrath (which should ostensibly have the same execution time), and twice the movement - or about even damage with Starfire and the same movement, just instant.

Ogbar · 04/16/10, 1:29 PM

It is theoretical in a situation where you are constantly moving the meter across the 0 point (which seems likely to me) using Torrent just before the 0 point would be very beneficial. Pretending for a second that wrath moves the gauge 1A and starfire 1N, if torrent moved the gauge 3X(X=A>N?N:A) then if the gauge is at 1N and moving in an Award direction using Torrent would result in the gauge being 2A. In that scenario it would be fine for Torrent to have less DPET than starfire or wrath.

A better visual of what I was saying.

A - - - 0 X - - N

Casting wrath would yield:

A - - - X - - - N

Casting Torrent would yield:

A - X - 0 - - - N

Videl · 04/16/10, 3:54 PM

As I've been saying, the spell doesn't have to have less DPET than a regular nuke to be useless or limited to special cases. It could be the same or even somewhat better than a regular nuke and still not be usable most of the time. As Adoriele said, it's clearly usable if the DPET/Movement per effective time is similar to a regular nuke, but for the movement aspect of the spell to be a significant characteristic of the spell it probably needs to have twice the movement per effective time of a regular spell which leaves it at twice the DPET of a regular spell, which is great, but powerful enough that you almost definitely use it on cooldown which is uninteresting and also means that you hit the ends of the eclipse meter less often as a result of using it, which I think is kind of uninteresting and possibly causes extra problems if the eclipse meter doesn't move at a flat rate, which I think is likely.

I think what you describe dukes would work in practice the same way as my original interpretation of the mechanic, and I think that interpretation is in line with the limited information we have about the spell.

All we know is that it does nature or arcane damage based on what is more buffed and "moves the eclipse meter farther." Obviously, to get any kind of meaning out of that we have to read between the lines and add a bit onto the end of that statement. If it means "moves the meter farther than a regular spell" that's one interpretation, but as I think I've demonstrated that complicates the usage of the spell a great deal. Another way to interpret it, the one I am in favor of is "moves the eclipse meter farther from the center." If that's the correct interpretation then the spell is useful if its DPET is similar to a regular nuke, or even a little less than a regular nuke. It can be used anytime without a serious penalty, but there would be an optimal time to use it, as the last nuke before you switch schools, since it would take advantage of your charged up eclipse meter without depleting it. Furthermore, that interpretation complements the eclipse meter rather than working against it.

@Ogbar
That's basically what I was trying to describe in that last part of my last post. It's a pretty valid potential use, but if there's some randomness to the eclipse meter movement brought on by crits (which I think is likely) you'd miss a decent number of opportunities to use it that way, since the window would be fairly narrow and easy to overshoot.

P.S. Obviously this is all in good fun and these questions will all be answered for us before it matters that we know the answer =).

Blakhoof · 04/16/10, 4:52 PM

Ok, so even if it moves the bar opposite to the school torrent casts as, could it not be useful when passing the middle of the eclipse bar, IE, you have buffed arcane, just coming off a burst of arcane damage, and are coming back past the middle of the eclipse bar.

If you cast Torrent, would it not still do a (possibly) instant cast arcane damage that pushes eclipse well past the middle point into the nature side of the eclipse bar. Only question would be how much it pushes the bar back at different points on the eclipse bar. May be useful for recovering from one extreme of the bar on your way back to the other end of the bar