Patch 3.2: Tier Sets, Idols and Set Bonuses

Since the patch is now on the PTR more information is starting to come out regarding gear and such. You can find all of the items at World of Raids, and probably MMO-Champion. Here is my reaction.

Idols:
I feel a little psychic. In yesterday's post I said I wouldn't be surprised if there was a new idol and it turns out there is.

[Idol of Lunar Fury] - Each time your Moonfire spell deals periodic damage you have a chance to gain 200 Critical Strike Rating for 12 seconds.

My first impression is a positive one. It will be nice to have an idol that affects 90% of our rotation. Of course it all depends on the proc rate.

I've plugged the idol into my model with a couple different proc rates. For reference, here is how the current idols increased the hypothetical DPS: SF Idol = 1.07%, Wrath Idol = 0.46%, & IS Idol = 1.38%.

With a 10% proc rate the new MF idol increased the Model DPS by 1.18%. When I increased the proc rate to 20%, the idol increased my Model DPS by 1.99%.

Now lets remember a couple of things about my model. First, it does not factor in movement and movement will decreased the effective uptime of the idol. Second, my model assumes DoTs are refreshed when they expire, even during Eclipse. Therefore in reality that 1.99% number is a bit high. Therefore, it is my estimation at this point that the proc rate on the Idol of Lunar Fury has to be at least 20% to be usable, but my guess is that it should probably be 25% for it to be a buff over our current idols. I will have to do more math on it in the future to confirm.

Tier Gear:
I've had a couple of worries about the T9 itemization. Would we be stuck having 4 items with Spirit? Would we be flooded with Spell Hit even more? Would the T9 set favor Haste or Crit? After a quick look at the new tier sets one thing is very clear. The T9 stat itemization is far superior to that of T8.

Only 3 of the 5 pieces have Spirit on them, only 2 of the pieces have hit on them, and Crit rating is favored over Haste rating. On top of that our gem sockets and socket bonuses are better then then T8. I haven't had a chance to look at the sets of the other casters but realistically this is about the best we could hope for.

Set Bonuses:
I'm sure my first reaction was the same as most of yours when I saw the 4T9 set bonus. "That sucks." It's obviously worse then 4T7, and there is no way it can compete with 2T8 with the change to Eclipse. If this goes live no moonkin is going to wear 4 pieces of T9 gear.

My second reaction was "This has to be a place holder." Its not uncommon for Blizzard to put old information in tooltips in early versions of the patches. You may remember that early versions of the Idol of the Crying Wind had the same tooltip as as our current SF idol. Since the 4T8 set bonus is so obviously underpowered and an exact copy of the 4T6 set bonus, the 4T9 set bonus has to be a place holder.

The 2T9 set bonus is something that some moonkin have been asking for for a while. I've adapted my model for the set bonus and it says it increases our DPS by 4.07%. For the purposes of comparison, my model says that the 4T8 set bonus is a 2.48% DPS increase. Obviously, 2T9 is an upgrade over 4T8 and is worth the upgrade.

On top of that, this set bonus raises an interesting question. Does this make Improved Moonfire a viable talent again? Currently Improved Moonfire has very little benifit for a raiding Moonkin. The Glyph of Moonfire makes it a marginal talent because your Crit damage is so small and the 10% increase to damage is over powered by the 75% increase you get from the Glyph.

But what if the DoTs can crit? Suddenly that 10% chance to crit seems a lot more interesting. You may have already guessed this but I've plugged this possibility into my model.

Without the 2T9 set bonus, two points invested Improved Moonfire increased my model DPS by about 0.50%. You can see why so many moonkin skip this talent since it provides such a small damage increase for a 2 point investment. If you include 2T9 into the equation the DPS increase goes up to 1.76%. As a general rule of thumb, some people assume that each talent point should be worth about a 1% DPS increase. (I'm not saying this a blizzard rule. Its just one I've seen several places mentioned by other people). So if we hold to that rule then the talent still falls a little behind, but Improved Moonfire will be a more significant talent when combined with 2T9. My guess is that you will see this talent become more popular in the next teir of content.

Side Note:
Several people have said that Balance of Power increases your chance to hit with spells by 6% on the PTR talent trees (up from 4%).

Well, PTR testers are saying that this is a typo, and I'm not surprised. I had a hard time believing it, because I see no other reason for this change other then a general boost to Moonkin DPS. On top of that there was no mention of it in the pre-release patch notes. While it would have been nice, there is no real need for a change of this type.