Thursday, December 3, 2009

Patch Notes: Eclipse Buffed

Eclipse now increases damage done by Wrath by 40% (up from 30%) and the critical chance of Starfire by 40% (up from 30%)

First Impression:

When I first saw this change I was disappointed. Like many moonkin I don't want to see so much of our DPS to Eclipse. Given the excellent comments made by Murmurs on the forums, and the appearance that Ghostcrawler was receptive to those arguments, I thought they would go another route.

That said, I though the buff was adequate. Given the analysis I had done on 2T8 in the past I knew it was a significant buff right a way, but probably not over powered. I figured this would help us maintain the status quo.

Second Impression:

After I thought about it, I decided this change made a lot of sense from Blizzards point of view. First and foremost, it requires very little testing. All they are really doing is making the piece of 2T8 we lost permanent. We've basically been testing this change for the last 5 months since 3.2 came out. Since, this is supposed to be the last content patch before the expansion, you know Blizzard doesn't want to make any big or risky changes. This is probably the safest choice they could have made.

From my perspective, I still don't like that so much of our DPS is tied to Eclipse. However, it is comforting to have a fairly good idea of how this will impact Moonkin DPS.

My Analysis:

In my last post I said that the nerf to 2T8 and WiseEclipse would result in a 4.1% - 4.6% DPS loss if nothing else changed. I also said that if you could immediately upgrade to 4T9 the DPS loss would be in the 2.6% - 3.1% range.

I updated my simulator for the updated Eclipse and ran it with both 2T8 and 4T9. Once again I used my own stats as a starting point. If you are unable to upgrade to 4T9 right away then these three changes are still a net nerf of about 1.0%. I'm not really surprised by that. WiseEclipse was a pretty big DPS boost, and having just 2% additional crit chance is not going to make up for that.

However, if you're a progression raider that has been farming ToC and working on ToGC Trophies are probably widely available right now. If you are able to upgrade to 4T9 the day the patch drops then the combined changes will result in a net buff of about 1.24% according to my simulator.

11 comments:

Daedalus said...

What exactly is wrong with big or risky changes this patch? It's not like Cataclysm is going to drop a month after we're into ICC; this isn't vanilla Naxx.

By Blizzard's own statements, it's going to be "several weeks" (my interpretation, six) before we're even out of the Lower Spire. There'll then be similar delays between the opening of each subsequent wing. Assuming my interpretation of "several" is correct, that means we're looking at four and a half months until we even see Arthas on normal. Then there's the time they'll want us to have for heroic mode.

Really, we're looking at six months minimum between the release of 3.3 and 4.0. Personally, I think ten months is more likely. That's plenty of time to fix any glaring imbalances introduced by such changes. And even if they don't think it's worth fixing, 4.0 will wipe the slate clean as we start over anyway.

All this, of course, is assuming in the first place that being OP or UP at the end of an expansion arc is somehow worse than being so in the beginning or middle. I don't believe that it is. So, really, why the hesitation?

Graylo said...

@Daedalus

I think your underestimating how difficult changes of this type are. Yes, we are probably at least 6months away from the expansion, but 6months isn't that long in terms of development time.

Any significant changes would require testing. That would push the patch back a couple of weeks. Even then, it's hard to get a full picture of how they would impact the game until they were implemented on to live realms.

Sure, they could do it quicker, but would likely just cause additional problems.

Second, once this patch gets going we have to assume that most of the development for the game will shift to the expansion. Do you really want them to take time away from that work so that they can play around with a couple of mechanics what will likely change in the expansion anyway?

Mîk said...

I'm surprised this buff only results in a 1.24% net increase in DPS if you have 4 piece t9. I'm no math wizard and don't run my own numbers but I felt the DPS boost would be more than that since this buff almost contains the 2 piece t8 bonus. I guess that 15 second delay between eclipses drops our DPS more than I initially thought.

Tulveli said...

When you say that 4T9 is an upgrade of about 1.24%, I'm assuming this is the ilvl 245 version? What would ilvl 232 T9 gear give?

Em said...

Re: Tulveli's comment

This is what I am wondering now, too. My guild, up until just recently, has only been raiding 10-man content. Chances at trophies--let alone the emblems to accompany them--have been few and far between.

After reading about the 2pc T8 nerf, I stopped saving emblems for my tanking offspec and started saving up for the T9 gloves and leggings; I now have just enough for both, but all 4 pieces of my T9 will be iLvl 232.

Rhi said...

Great! I just LOVE having to drop 2 awesome non-tier pieces to get craptastic legs and shoulders for a 1.24% DPS increase that is still way too tied to RNG factors!

Screw you, Blizzard. Preferably with a cactus.

Qieth said...

@Rhi Its not as bad as it seems. If Blizzard had not made the changes they have done (the nerfs and the buffs), you would be running around with 2pt8 until you got the second level of tier 10. Would you rather do that?

In fact, when 3.3 hits, and the changes i will make to my gear (4pt9.245 and switching out a ring to lower my new haste), i stand to gain 80 spellpower, 17 haste, and lose about 0,75% crit. The critloss sucks, but is made up by the extra spellpower.

Even more, remember how we were sort of disappointed about the tier 10 bonuses? Well, they get a direct buff with this aswell. Imagine if you had tier 10 and still had your 2pt8 bonus - well, you almost do. More crit and more damage means bigger languish dots, and a higher benefit from the +15% damage from 2pt10.

Romoe said...

And since we will be using SF more than before we will get some extra use of our post 400 haste?

Anonymous said...

@Mîk
I expected a still overall nerf, so I'm now happy. The fact that solar eclipse will now be random (for those of us who used wise eclipse), we can expect to have to cast 3 or 4 starfires after the end of lunar eclipse. That's like adding 8 seconds or so to eclipse's cooldown. Of course, that's not the most elegant way to describe it, but you catch my drift. The problems with we moonkins is that we REQUIRE this ONE starfire to crit, or our dps starts declining? Didn't crit? Minus 100 dps, hope this next one does! Didn't crit? Minus 100 dps, darn!

I've gotten so unlucky with crits that i've actually had to start wrathing again after 10 or 11 starfire casts, because starfire NEVER crit. (as unlucky as that is.) Moonkin dps is just so very random, we're like tanks with 95% avoidance and a 25k health pool, but who are unable to reach the defence minimum. 95% of the time, we don't get hit and do fine. However, if we do get hit, there's that small chance that we get crit and the whole group dies...Leaving your fate up to the rng is hardly heartening.

Bovismaximus said...

They could have just as easily buffed some other talent to provide similar results. What about a buff to Moonfury or the personal portion of Earth and Moon?

If Eclipse wasn't an over budgeted talent before... it certainly is now, one may argue the MOST over budgeted in-game. I'm not certain on the exact numbers, but without it we'd probably loose 30-40% of our DPS... for a 3-point talent, honestly.

Aeiedil said...

Personally I got bored of 2t8+2t9 a long time ago and so made the switch, but am still regularly at/near the top of the dps meters in 10 and 25m. I also dropped WE a few weeks ago to get back in the swing of how it used to be/is going to be, and honestly my dps hasn't suffered.

Due to these 2 factors I am really looking forwards to 3.3 as it will be nothing but benefit, and can't wait to start gearing up in IC :)