Cata Build 12984: A Happier Graylo

It's been a good week for me regarding WoW. First, I got invited to the beta, which I am very excited about. I now have an opportunity to answer my own questions rather then wait on someone else to test them for me. Second, we finally got a beta patch with some real meat on it for moonkin. In fact, it comes with 4 new talents, 3 completely reworked talents, and other tuning adjustments. Not every change is an obvious home run, but this is finally the attention we've been waiting for.

Euphoria:

Euphoria - While not in an Eclipse state, you have a 12/24% chance to double the Solar or Lunar energy generated by your Wrath or Starfire when they deal damage. When you reach a Solar or Lunar eclipse, you instantly are restored 6/12% of your total mana.

If you read my post a couple of weeks ago, then you probably remember I did not have good things to say about Euphoria. The old talent did nothing to improve DPS. Also, the Eclipse Power it provided was very low compared to the power provided by spells that it had little impact on the number of spells cast. This change fixes both of those problems.

First, the fact that it doesn't proc when you have Eclipse is a pretty big bonus. It in sures that Euphoria is always a positive bonus. Other wise the Euphoria procs that happen while Eclipse is down are just cancelled out by the ones that proc during Eclipse.

Second, the amount of Eclipse Power generated has a real impact. If it procs on any spell cast before your last one it reduces the number of casts you need to make to proc Eclipse. That is not something you could say about the old version.

When I plugged this new Euphoria into my simulator it increased the uptime of Eclipse from 55.90% to 60.07%. That's pretty huge since Eclipse is the primary driver of our DPS. The only reservation I have about it is that it no longer procs off of Crits. It's not really a bad thing that it has a flat 24% chance to proc, but I like the extra crit scaling it would provide for us. I'm a little worried that talents like Ignite and Lava Flows will allow other classes to scale better then us at the higher levels of gear. Then again, Blizzard can always make adjustments later.

Eclipse:

These changes were not documented by MMO Champion (I'm sure they would be hard to find by data mining), but they are important none the less.

• Eclipse no longer decays out of combat.
• The Eclipse buff now lasts until you reach 0 energy, and no longer has a 45 second time limit. You can go afk and you will still have eclipse when you come back.
• Starfire and Wrath will move the Eclipse bar in only one direction after you proc Eclipse, but will go both directions after you go out of combat. For example, Wrath will not generate Lunar energy after you proc lunar Eclipse. Starsurge is bugged. Sometimes it gives "smart" energy. Other times it does not.

The first two are fairly big quality of life changes. I've really only been on the beta for a day, but it was obvious that the decay rate on Eclipse was a big pain in the butt. At level 80 my targets were dying before I could proc Eclipse, and when I did proc it I lost all of the power to OOC decay.

The only problem I see is that it will be tempting for some people to try and store up power before a boss fight. It should work well on farm content, but will be impractical for progression content when it would really matter.

The third one kills the strategies of procing the same Eclipse back to back. Ghostcrawler hinted at it a couple of months ago. Plus, we have several talents and a set bonus that make it advantagous to proc Eclipse quickly. So it's not a surprise, but this officially kills the hold Eclipse strategies.

New Talents:

Dreamstate (Tier 5) *New* - When you cast your Innervate on yourself, you regain an additional 10/30% of your total mana over its duration.

This an old name but a completely new talent. It's not a bad talent but I'm having a hard time figuring out where it fits. In raiding, it could be great if we end up having mana issues, but I'm not convinced that will be the case. In soloing/leveling, it's much easier just to sit down and drink. In PvP, it could be great because you are much more likely to innervate yourself in a PvP situation. However, I'm told that Innervate is also dispellable which makes innervating yourself a possibly useless activity.

At this point I would leave it out of my talent build, but I think it is a nice talent.

Sunfire (Tier 5) *New* - While in Solar Eclipse, your Moonfire spell will morph into Sunfire.

It sounds cool, but I was a little confused when I first read the discription of this talent. I wasn't quite sure how it would work. Could you have both Moonfire and Sunfire on the boss? If Moonfire was on the boss and I procced Solar Eclipse would the Moonfire on the boss already convert to Sunfire?

I did a little testing. Moonfire and Sunfire are the same exact spell that does the same damage as far as I can tell. It is impossible to have both Moonfire and Sunfire on the boss, because they over write each other. If you cast Moonfire right before Solar procs then it stays Moonfire after Solar procs. If you cast Sunfire right before you lose Solar it stays Sunfire and buffed by Solar Eclipse after you lose the Solar Eclipse. If you have the Glyph of Starfire equipped then Starfire will extend Sunfire but it's impractical given the nature of Eclipse. In short, Moonfire and Sunfire are the same exact DoT except that Sunfire is a nature version that is cast during Solar Eclipse and is buffed by Solar Eclilpse.

It sounds pretty cool. I wonder if it will be possible to keep Moonfire/Sunfire buffed by Eclipse close to 100% of the time.

Shooting Stars (Tier 3) *New* - You have a 2/4% chance when you deal damage with your Moonfire or Insect Swarm to instantly reset the cooldown of your Starsurge and reduce its cast time by 100%. Lasts 8 sec.

I like the idea of this talent. It feels like a moonkin version of Hot Streak. Starsurge is a great DPS spell because it has a much higher spell power coefficient then it's cast time would indicate, so the more often you can cast it the better. It also makes Starsurge instant cast. So you can use it on the move.

The main question I have here is will it proc enough? A 4% chance sounds very low, but then a gain we have two dots that will be ticking fairly quickly. I estimate that it should proc once every 30 - 40 seconds. That doesn't sound to bad, but I will have to put it in simulator to see how it affects DPS.

Overgrowth (Tier 2) *New* - Your Entangling Roots and Nature's Grasp have a 50/100% chance to also root all enemies within 8 yards of the target

As a raider, this is just a situational talent. I would love to have it for Dreamwalker in ICC. It might be ok for the Val'kyr phases on Lich King in a pinch as well, but I don't see it be a standard part of my build. Could be a great anti-melee talent for moonkin in PvP.

Revamped Talents:

I already went over Euphoria above, but some other talents got an overhaul as well.

Nature's Torment - You gain 5/10/15% spell haste after you cast Moonfire or Insect Swarm, lasting 15 sec. This effect has 1 minute cooldown. When you gain Lunar or Solar Eclipse, the cooldown of Nature's Torment is instantly reset.

Nature's Grace was redone and renamed Nature's Torment. This is a very interesting talent, and I'm not sure how I feel about it just yet. Overall, it feels like a good thing, but it raises a lot of questions. We are not going to proc Eclipse every 15 seconds so it will have more down time then the current Nature's Grace does, so what is the best way to optimize it. Would it be worth it to clip a DoT right after you proc Eclipse? How will Moonfire and Insect Swarm interact with a temporary haste buff? How frequently will it be wasted on movement mechanics in boss fights?

The only thing I know for sure is that it improves how we scale with Haste Rating. The quicker we cast, the more frequently we will proc Eclipse, and the greater uptime Nature's Torment will have. This might make up for the fact that Euphoria doesn't proc on Crits anymore.

Genesis - no longer increases the damage done by your periodic spells and increases the duration of your Moonfire and Insect Swarm by 6 sec instead.

I'm not sure what impact this change will have on moonkin DPS. Trading 6% damage for 6 additional seconds is pretty hard to compare on the fly, but my first impression is good. If I had to guess, I would think the extra cooldowns saved with the new Genesis more then make up for 6% damage lost. Also on the plus side, longer DoTs are easier to manage and anything that makes a rotation easier is generally a good thing in my book. At 12 seconds both Moonfire and Insect Swarm felt very short.

Other Changes:

•Starsurge now generates 15 Solar or Lunar Energy, up from 10
•Lunar Guidance is gone.

With all the new talents I'm glad to see that they got rid of one, and Lunar Guidance was a good choice in my opinion. It be came pretty weak when it boosted Starsurge by only 6 power. The only thing I am surprised about is that Starsurge only gives 15 power now instead of 16. One point isn't a huge deal, but it caught me a little off guard.

•Wild Mushroom now becomes visible after 6 sec, up from 4 sec. Base damage increased by 400% (from 269-304 to 1300-1573 damage)
•Wild Mushroom: Detonate no longer costs mana, now has a 10 sec cooldown, and affects target within 10 yards, down from 15 yards.

I've only gotten to play with Wild Mushroom on a premade toon, but they did feel very weak. The premade's gear is horrible, but the mushrooms were only hitting for 350 damage or so. I'm glad to see they've gotten buffed.

•Earth and Moon now increases spell damage taken by 8%, down from 13%.

I think this was just a tool tip error. Ebon Plague and Bane of Elements were already at 8%, so it is not surprising that Earth and Moon is brought in line with them. The only thing I wish is that Earth and Moon could be spread as an AoE just as Ebon Plague and Bane of Elements can.