It's really funny. I started this blog to talk about myself, and know I always seem to forget to write these toon update posts. Other then the little Undying post I did, I haven't written one of these in almost a month and it is time to change that.
The Guild:
We have had the usual ups and downs, but things have been going well for the guild. We have downed Sarth 3D twice now. Once before patch 3.0.8 and once after. It is by no means an easy fight, but I think it is a little funny how my opinion has changed on it. It used to seem impossible, but now I realize that it is very manageable with good people and a little bit of practice. Anyway, we now have the Twilight Vanquisher title but I still wear the Undying title.
I have to say the [Reins of the Twilight Drake] is very pretty. I would love to have one but I can't bring myself to roll on it yet. I would never use it because Swift Flight Form is just so awesome in so many ways. I will get it eventually because we have at least a year to farming it.
Now that we have cleared all content we are focusing on achievements. We've done most of the easy ones, so our two main goals are [The Immortal] and [Heroic: You Don't Have An Eternity].
[The Immortal] shouldn't be too hard. As long as we remain focused and have a little bit of luck there shouldn't be a problem. Really, we've killed most if not all of the bosses without someone dying. We just haven't done it in one lock out period. The big issues seem to be Razuvious - we have issues with the pull and a healer usually bites it, Thaddius - DCs are death, Sapphiron - I don't know why but someone always seems to die. Really we have the skill to do it and have done it on 10man. We just need to put it all together and do it.
[Heroic: You Don't Have An Eternity] is another story. Personally, I think it is the harder of the two main achievements we have left. We tried it one night before 3.0.8 dropped and I thought we made some real progress. I think we could have easily gotten it with another night of practice. However, Patch 3.0.8 has made it much tougher. The spark placement now needs to be perfect and that requires some combination of Luck and skill. Unfortunately our luck has been horrible and the DKs have to work their butts off to get the sparks placed correctly. I think we will get it but I don't think it will be quick.
From a 10man perspective things have been going well also. Our main focus there is downing Sarth 3D. The 10man version is definitely harder then the 25man version. Its just really hard to stack the right combinations of buffs and debuffs to make it possible. We also have [You Don't Have An Eternity] to do but I think it will be easier. We killed him in just over 8 minutes missing two DPS. Putting those two DPS in should make it easy. Realistically as a guild we are about done with 10mans until 3.1 comes out. We don't need the gear, and most of the achievements are done.
Graylo:
From a toon stand point Graylo is going about as well as I could hope for from a gear stand point. Over half my gear is best in slot, and those pieces that aren't are very close. From a play stand point I do have some areas to work on. I'm still working on my rotation during busy fights like Sarth 3D, but I am getting better.
I have to say I think moonkins are the hardest caster class to play right now. I used to think it was Shadow Priest because of all the dots and cooldowns, and I can see how Affliction Locks have it tough having to manage 5 dots and Haunt. However, they have the advantage that all of their spells are predictable. They all have set durations and cooldowns and we know exactly when the are going to finish.
The though part about moonkins now is the unpredictability. Not knowing when eclipse is going to proc makes it tough to manage. On top of that to get the most out of Moonfire you have to cast Starfire 3 times with MF up. This causes me to let MF drop early and sometimes proc the wrong eclipse. All the while we have to watch for environmental hazards. I somewhat miss the days where all I had to manage was Moonfire and Starfire.
Back on track, there isn't much to do with him at the moment other then raid. My Sons of Hodir rep is now exalted. I still have work to do on some of the other reps but there isn't anything that I really need. The only thing I really need to do is work on the Icecrown quests to complete the phasing, but I have a hard time getting motivated for that right now.
Grayfel:
He has been the man focus of my free wow time. He is how up to level 75 and going strong. Now that raiding is slowing down a little bit I have more time to play him. I hope to get him to 80 quickly so that I can start to raid him. Not much to say, but he is going well.
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It's nice to see that someone shares my opinion of the difficulty that comes with trying to maximize balance druid dps. With only offensive spells, it's easy for other classes to poo-poo the challenges that we face. I'm not sure that we have the most difficult cycle overall but it's certainly more difficult than managing timers. Happily, it's more fun too
I'd really like for you to try my spell rotation on Patchwork since he is pretty much a "stand still and spank him down" boss.
Use your current rotation. Then try mine and compare the differences.
Mine is, Trees, Starfall(not fire), ISS, Wrath until ISS is up. Rinse and repeat until dead.
My last fight on him I pulled 4850 dps.
I do not use SF or MF during boss fights - ever!
Hoots
@hoots
what as your Wrath crit rate for the fight?
Agreed (again) -- it's one thing to stand in front of a training dummy and get that optimal rotation, and completely another when you're running around trying to stand outside of the fire (or goo or voids or whatever). My trouble is keeping my DoT's up.
I have a question on the starfire glyph. I read that some people start off w/ MF, then SFx3, then wrath to proc eclipse and continuing SF (w/ the eclipse buff). As I read the tooltip, it's not exactly necessary to 'front load' the increased duration to MF with SF. Is this right? Talented, MF lasts for 15 secs. If I cast SF @ 15 secs left, I'll add 3 additional seconds, up to a maximum of 9 seconds. If I cast SF @ 3 seconds left, I can still add those 9 'bonus' seconds, no? I suppose there's less room for error the longer you wait to extend MF.
I open with iFF (when applicable), iIS, MF, Wrath to proc eclipse then SF. When I'm lucky, I can get eclipse to proc and my first SF off with plenty of time to increase MF. Would it be better to front-load the addt'l 9 seconds on MF?
Hope this question makes sense and that I'm not going out of my way to confuse myself/others!
@Cdin
I'm right at 30% raid buffed.
Last night I did Patchwork on 10 man and then 25 man.
10 man I tried the recomended SF rotation and pulled just over 2400 dps.
25 man I did it my way and pulled just over 3000 dps.
I must have hit a string of crits when I topped 4800.
What I've noticed is; MF will bring down your dps average because the initial damage hit is lower than Wrath and SF. And if you have the MF glyph decreasing burst damage but increasing dot, your average dps drops even lower.
IIS doesn't affect dps average because it is a full dot with no burst. So, hitting with IS, Trees, Starfall, then wrath while those dots are ticking, boost average dps significantly.
It's just what I've noticed but I have not applied any scientific calculations to it. Just wondering if I'm imagining things.
Hoots
You have a very nice blog, mate. I miss my WoW days a lot...
I also created a blog on World of Warcraft tips and secrets based on my experience:
http://www.bestwowblog.blogspot.com
and a t-shirt and souvenirs shop with cool WoW designs:
http://www.cafepress.com/bestwowshop
@Hoots
I have a couple of things I want to say so I'm going to try and organize this a little bit.
1. You said on my Meta Gem post that your get 3 wraths for every one Starfire. Sorry but this is impossible. I looked at your armory and the most I could you could possibly get is 2.13 wrath's in one starfire and that is counting on back to back crits. Rememer NG and haste also affect Starfire.
2. Using an SF rotation last night I pulled just over 4800 DPS on Patchwerk. My Wrath Crit was a little high, but My Starfire crit was about average
3. You can't compare 10man DPS with 25man DPS. The buffs aren't the same. Plus this doesn't account for any RNG issues like lucky crits.
4. The only way MF will lower your DPS is if you clip the dot. Moonfire is the hightest Damage per cast time spell druids have, and the Glyph only makes it better.
5. I have no clue what your trying to say about IS.
I don't mean this to sound harsh but I beleive that your seeing what you want to see. Many people have done the math and tested the spells. The evidence points to Starfire having an advantage over Wrath.
That said, the gap between Starfire and Wrath is not as big as it was in BC. Wrath has improved significantly, and I do use it a little more often in movement heavy fights like Sarth 3D and Malygos. However you can get a little more out of SF most of the time.
I agree 100% about Eclipse being a pain. If it did not drop my dps so much I would spec out of it.
I think what drives me the most nuts about it. Even with big gear upgrades my dps can be less than it was the week before. In the same night I have done 5K dps on a moving fight then do 3.6K on Patchwork.
Doing Sarth 3D really gets to me when I can not say to myself "If I do everything right I will bring 4K dps on this fight." I never know what it will be.
Even using Squak and Awe I find myself casting Wrath way to long waiting for eclipse.
I want to start off by saying that I'm a big fan you blog. It is a joy to read and has been a tremendous help as I'm still learning the mechanics of being a full time Boomkin.
Anyway I'm curious has to what weapon you'd advise to use. I'm going after the Wraith Strike, but 'till I can get it to drop I'm currently sporting Ice Spire Scepter and Spire of Sunset. I'm leaning toward the Ice Spire, but cause its easier to stay hit capped because I can use Ward of the Violet Citadel with it, but in terms of pure DPS I'm just not sure which weapon I'll get the most out off.
Thanks,
Mikefurion
@Jason
What I'm starting to cast wrath really early to prevent wrath eclipses and if SF drops off oh well.
Literally, if I have 5 seconds left on the Eclipse cooldown I start casting wrath. I think this is helping me quite a bit.
@Mikefurion
I consider Wraith Strike to be the second best moonkin weapon currently in the game. Torch of Holy Fire is easily first, and Hammer of the Astrial Plane is a VERY close third. In fact, I almost consider the Hammer and Wraith Stike to be interchangeable.
As a general rule I prefer MH/OH combonations over Two handed weapons. So I would go with the Ice Spire Scepter assuming you have a decent off hand. MH/OH combos just provide more DPS stats then Staves.
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