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The PTR was updated with build 9684 last night and it included a couple of the T8 set bonuses. Luckily for us the Druid Balance Set is one of them.
Item - Druid T8 Balance 2P Bonus -- Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 6%.My first impression is that they are underwhelming.
Item - Druid T8 Balance 4P Bonus -- Each time your Insect Swarm deals damage, you have a chance to make your next Starfire cast within until cancelled instant.
Obviously we can't really evaluate the 4 piece set bonus until we know the proc rate and if it has any type of internal cooldown. Though I will say that it needs to proc quite often to be valuable.
The 2 piece set bonus can be theorycrafted and now that I have done a little math I find it very underwhelming.
Assumptions:
1. First I am applying the bonus in an additive fashion (0.30 + 0.06 = 0.36) to give it the most potential.
2. I'm assuming a well geared, fully buffed moonkin with 2900 spell power, 100% hit chance, 45% crit chance in T7, and 16.5% haste from gear (29.8% total with full buffs).
3. I am also assuming the changes to Natures Grace and Eclipse go live.
4. I'm only going to detail Starfire, but I will give you the results for my Wrath analysis also.
The Math:
I talked a little in my last post about how to calculate the up time of Natures Grace. Since this is so important to calculating average cast times I will say it again. Since you can start 2 Starfire casts in the 3 second buff we want to see what the probability is that we will reapply the Natures Grace buff in those two casts. The formula for that is:
SF NG Up Time = 1 - (1 - Crit Chance)2So to calculate Starfire's average cast time we can say:
SF NG Up Time = 1 - (1 - 0.45-0.03)2 = 72.96%
- the extra 0.03 is from Imp IS
Avg SF Cast Time = (3/(1+Haste)) * (1-Up Time) + (3/((1+Haste)*1.2)) * (Up Time)
Avg SF Cast Time = (3/(1+0.298)) * (1-0.7296) + (3/((1+0.298)*1.2)) * (0.7296)
Avg SF Cast Time = (2.3117) * (0.2704) + (1.9264) * (0.7296) = 2.0306 seconds
So to calculate Starfire's average damage we go back to the formula:
Avg Non-Crit SF = (((1285 + (2900 * 1.20))) * 1.1) * 1.0712 = 5614.69
Avg SF Crit = ((((1285 + (2900 * 1.20))) * 1.1) * 1.0712 ) * 2.09) = 11734.71
Therefore:
Avg SF DPS = ((5614.69* (1 - 0.45-0.03)) + (11734.71* (0.45 + 0.03)) / 2.0306 = 4211.71 DPSWith Eclipse the Starfire looks like this:
Eclipse SF NG Up Time = 1 - (1 - 0.75-0.03)2 = 95.16%Now that we have set the base lets look to see what happens if we flip the 4T7 and 2T8 set bonuses, by reducing the crit chance by 5% but increasing the Eclipse bonus by 6%.
Avg Eclipse SF Cast Time = (2.3117) * (0.0484) + (1.9264) * (0.9516) = 1.9450 seconds
Avg Eclipse SF DPS = ((5614.69* (1 - 0.75-0.03)) + (11734.71* (0.75 + 0.03)) / 1.9450 = 5341.03 DPS
A normal Starfire cast with 2T8 set bonus will look like this:
2T8 SF NG Up Time = 1 - (1 - 0.40-0.03)2 = 67.51%An Eclipsed Starfire cast will look like:
Avg 2T8 SF Cast Time = (2.3117) * (0.3246) + (1.9264) * (0.6751) = 2.0509 seconds
Avg 2T8 SF DPS = ((5614.69* (1 - 0.40-0.03)) + (11734.71* (0.40 + 0.03)) / 2.0509 = 4020.84 DPS
2T8 Eclipse SF NG Up Time = 1 - (1 - 0.76-0.03)2 = 95.59%Summary:
Avg 2T8 Eclipse SF Cast Time = (2.3117) * (0.0441) + (1.9264) * (0.9559) = 1.9434 seconds
Avg 2T8 Eclipse SF DPS = ((5614.69* (1 - 0.76-0.03)) + (11734.71* (0.76 + 0.03)) / 1.9434 = 5376.92 DPS
Wow, that is a lot of math
What this boils down to is that dropping the 4T7 set bonus of 5% crit results in a 4.5319% DPS nerf to our normal Starfire casts ((4020.84 - 4211.71)/4211.71 = -4.5319%) .
Picking up the 2T8 set bonus of an additional 6% to Eclipse results in a 0.6720% buff on are Eclipse Starfire casts ((5376.92 - 5341.03 )/5341.03 = 0.6720%).
I've run these numbers for Wrath as well and they are comparable if not a little worse. Basically, since Eclipse lasts 15 seconds and there is about 35 seconds between Eclipse procs, we are getting a 0.672% buff to about 40% of our casts but a 4.5319% nerf to the other 60%. This is a net loss.
If this set bonus goes forward as is then we will see a repeat of the transition from T5 to T6 where most moonkin stuck with the T5 set bonus until they had 4 pieces of T6. In fact, depending on how good the the 4T8 bonus is you may see moonkin skip T8 all together.
I've tried several different values to see what what value is needed to make this set bonus at least comparable to the T7 bonuses. In my opinion, the set bonus would need to be increased to at least 15%, meaning Eclipse increases your Starfire crit chance by 45% instead of 30%. A this level the Starfire Eclipses would do about 6.6% more dps then they would do with the 4T7 bonus. For Wrath the buff would be about 5.7%. In the meantime, our non-eclipse casts would still be receiving the 4.5319% nerf. So, 15% is where I think it starts to balance out.
Other Changes New and Old:
Celestial Focus now reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Starfire, Hibernate and Hurricane by 23/46/70% and increases your total spell haste by 1/2/3%. - (Switches Hurricane for Cyclone)
This makes sense since Cyclone is already affected by Natures Focus in the restoration tree, and Hurricane could use some pushback resistance.
[Idol of the Shooting Star] Will be purchase about with 25 Emblems of Valor.I missed this, but a reader Epidemais sent me an email saying it is true. I haven't verified it on the PTR but I expect that it is true. Ghostcrawler has said many times that they don't like having Idols drop from bosses because there are generally few people in the raid that can use them. It doesn't have an impact on me personally since I was fairly lucky and one dropped in the first few weeks of raiding Naxx. However, I know there are other moonkin out there that have had extremely bad luck and they must be doing a /dance right now.
13 comments:
Wow such underwhelming results. Yes it does feel like T5 - T6 again. GG Blizz for not using Graylo as your math dude.
Thanks for the intial math. Keep up the good work and spreading the word of the moonkin.
I feel blizzard needs to either make all idol/relic type objects buyable or make them all drops. I don't like how some specs can buy their best one while others sit and wait for a drop.
Those set bonus' do seem rather lame. Sigh. Thanks for the math Graylo. Oh, and that Idol thing...I did an angry dance. I did over 3 months of that crappy Dungeon for that Idol.
Faeker of Kargath
Wow, compared to the resto druid set bonuses, the boomkin one's *do* seem pretty lame.
We get a buff to our swiftmend ability (2 piece bonus) and an insta-tick rejuv (4 piece bonus), both of which are awesome.
It's not just about the T8 stats balancing out to what we have now... it should be about improvement. A higher tier SHOULD be offering a more valuable set bonus, if only marginally.
I'm hoping these proposed numbers in the T8 bonuses are starting values and when blizzard realizes their poor math skills, will rethink the notion.
Also, you didn't touch on the 4-piece bonus. It's obviously a nice buff to casting times, but I can only see it really benefiting a rotation during the eclipse buff or the 3-4 starfire casts following one. I can't see myself interrupting my wrath spam to proc eclipse just cause my IS has proc'd the buff. I'd risk getting the wrong eclipse...
The description for the (4) bonus is also grammatically incorrect. It currently reads "within until cancelled." It seems like it should read "within X SECONDS OR UNTIL cancelled." This means they've left it out until they determine a correct length of time.
The idol of the shooting star (moonkin), Idol of awakening (resto), and idol of worship (feral) are all up on the PTR badge vendor for 25 emblems of valor.
I can confirm that our Idol(along with other relics) can be bought from the vendor in Dal. I even have screen shots :)
http://virtual-progression.com/forum/index.php?topic=1061.0
I've let my guilds' mages know their tier tokens will be cheaper when 3.1 arrives :)
It really bothers me blizz seems so ignorant of their own design flaw in our set bonuses.. We're basically balanced around our t7 set bonus now, how are we supposed to compete in any way from Ulduar on?
durid <3
Wow. Really hoping Bliz reconsiders this. From a business perspective (aka keep-the-players-hooked), I'd imagine they'd have to reconsider after reviewing your math, which is astute as always. Can't believe they didn't see this themselves. Even without going into the math in depth, its pretty clear these bonuses kind of blow. Nothing like offering your players a downgrade to make them not-so-enthusiastic about trying
Tsunamee - Firetree/US
It's pretty obvious how overwhelmingly bad the 6% during eclipse is. With the nature's grace change, we only need to have as much crit during an eclipse proc to crit once every 2 starfires. Since we get so much crit from eclipse already, it becomes worth less (not worthless) to keep adding crit. It would make more sense to add a percent damage to starfire maybe, and maybe a crit% to wrath. The reason why the 4piece tier 7 is so nice is that, well, not only during eclipse and out of eclipse, is that (At least we will when patch comes) the crit is needed more outside of eclipse. As for the insect swarm, I'd assume this would only be worth it if it had a near 100% chance and it had a internal cooldown of the duration of the spell. Getting one-two instant cast starfires in during eclipse.
"2P Ulduar set bonus -- we increased the Eclipse boost to 15%, which should actually grant a dps increase.
We know many druids still don't like the inherent RNG that Eclipse offers. However, we like mechanics that encourage players to dynamically (meaning if they pay attention) swap which spell they are using. Balance has often had a real tunnel-vision problem of just using the same spell over and over. Even mages do that less these days with all the other procs and cooldowns they can blow at certain times. Eclipse did have some problems, particularly with the Wrath part of the talent not actually doing enough, but we believe those are in a better shape now."
GC just commented on the DPS forums. I thought it funny that he basically used your info straight up.
-Gnome
I was QQing about this very thing today on test realm forums -- did the match comparing T7.5 with T8... and currently they've itemized T8 so badly that there's at best a 1.5% increase in dps for the tier jump... (ok there's more hit for the tier jump but we're already swimming in hit)...... .... the set bonuses would have to be really good to make all those pieces worthwhile..... otherwise I'll stick with 213 gear for a long time or get all 226 gear to replace all of it.. we'll see how it works out.
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