Cataclysm Stat Changes and Moonkin

Eyonix made a very big and very good post on the official forums today titled: Cataclysm Stat & System Changes. In the post he provides a lot more detail on the stat changes we will see in Cataclysm. A lot of the information is a rehash of what we heard at Blizzcon and on the forums over the past few months, but there is also quite a bit of new information that we need to ponder. The post is too long for me to quote it all here. I encourage everyone to go and read it on the official forums. I will however go over what I think are the highlights.

Moonkin and Spirit:

If you are a Balance druid or Elemental shaman:

• You will still share gear with Restoration druids and shaman.
• Your gear will have Spirit on it. It won’t have Hit on it.
• You will have a talent that converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so that you want about as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit.
• Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you.
• Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.

First off, no body should be really happy or upset over this announcement. It is currently impossible to say if this is good, bad, or indifferent for moonkin. There aren't enough details to really know how this will affect how we gear and how we DPS and how we gear.

From a macro perspective I think it is the right choice. I would love to not have to deal with Spirit, but I agree that Blizzard can't justify building an entire set of gear drops that on average only one raid member will want. The best solution is to find a way for Moonkin and Resto's to want the same gear. Blizzard hasn't been successful with that in WotLK, but this Spirit = Hit idea is quite interesting and just might work. That said, the devil is in the details, and it will be interesting to see how Blizzard implements this. It has a lot of potential but I also see some pitfalls that I think Blizzard should avoid.

1. Will Spirit truly be an optional stat? How will they itemize for Spirit on non-tier set leather caster gear? - Currently, spirit is pretty much a standard stat on non tier set caster leather. In all of ICC there is only one leather caster item without spirit that drops off of a boss. If that trend remains then I worry we will have an over abundance of Hit chance just like we do now.
   
   Ghostcrawler, did post later on in the tread and say that some cloth would likely have neither Spirit or Hit that both healers and DPS might want. He also said some the Elemental Tier set will like not have any spirit as well. Assuming these comments hold for Druids as well should alleviate some of my concern. Reforging should make this less of an issue as well.
   


2. Will there be spirit on the Moonkin tier sets? - I don't have a problem with the answer being yes, as long as it isn't on every piece and there are quality non tier pieces without spirit.
   


3. Will 1 spirit = 1 hit rating for moonkin? If not, what will make up for our lost itemization? How will they account for the base amount of Spirit every player has? - The answers to these questions could have a significant impact on how moonkin scale in Cataclysm. I hope they go with the 1 to 1 conversion, and consider the base spirit we start with to be some thing like balance of power. Some sort of conversion equation would make scaling interesting, because I don't think they could come up with a formula that would be relevant for both Tier 11 and Tier 14. Plus, we would be losing itemization points if both stats keep their current valuation.

Combat Ratings:

Combat ratings - All ratings will be much harder to "cap out" at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

I actually really like this announcement. You may remember a post I made a few months ago where I asked if Chill of the Throne went far enough. In that post, I proposed that it should also reduce our chance to Hit, Crit, and the speeds of our casts. This would allow all classes to scale with gear better and prevent some classes from having cap issues.

In the end I got a lot of angry comments and most people were fairly dismissive of the idea, but I stand by it. It seems a little odd to me that the easiest bosses in an expansion are just as easy to hit or crit as the hardest. On top of that, we have to make a lot of effort to hit cap early in an expansion, but in the end of the expansion we can blow past the cap with no effort at all. I like the idea of needing more Hit Rating/Spirit for the higher levels of raiding. In the end I think it should make moonkin gearing a little more interesting then the set of defaults we have now.

Reforging:

Reforging - While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.

Most of this has been said before, but I think it may be the saving grace of Cataclysm gearing. Think about the gear choices you could make if you convert half the hit on the Tier legs to Crit or Haste. It would open up a whole lot more options on how to gear your moonkin. All of the other items with hit rating would then be an option, instead of ignored due to wasted itemization.

The one thing I did found most interesting about this section was an omission. If I remember correctly, at Blizzcon they said you would only be able to convert the stat to a stat a stat that was not already on the item. Therefore you couldn't change Haste to Crit on the most popular caster gear. I will be pleased if they have really dropped that condition.

Gemming

Gems - We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We'll have more details on this in the future.

No surprise. This had to happen or red and blue gems would become mostly useless to caster DPS. My guess is that Int will become a red gem. This way all of the "power" stats like Agility and Strenght will fall under one gem. Moving hit rating to blue makes sense to combine it with spirit, and I bet that crit rating and haste rating will stay yellow.

Side Note: The updated gear list is on its way. I was given the list weeks ago, but I've recently been slammed at work and news comming out of blizzard. Therefore it is taking me a little longer then expected. Sorry for the delay

Starfall Buffed

Update: I screwed the pooch when I first posted this article. I used the numbers provided by Ghostcrawler and didn't compare them to what was happening in game. If I had done that I would have now that my prebuff numbers were way off the mark. Given that we have some new information since then, I am basically rewriting the post, instead of doing a new post.

The PTR Patch Notes were updated with a couple of moonkin changes. If you haven't seen them, they are:

* Nature's Grasp: Now has 3 charges, up from 1. Balance
* Starfall: The damage done by this spell has been significantly increased.
* Typhoon: Mana cost reduced to 25%, down from 32%.

Obviously the Nature's Grasp and Typhoon changes are focused at PvP which is not my thing. The Starfall change did perk my interest however. I know Starfall is not a big part of Moonkin DPS, I wondered how they defined "significant increase." Then I saw this from MMO Champion:

Starfall damage has been increased. Now causes 563 to 653 Arcane damage (Up from 433 to 503) and 101 Arcane damage (Up from 78) to all other enemies within 5 yards.

That is about a 30% increase to the base damage of the spell. I consider that significant, but as we all know base damage is only half the equation. Did the spell coefficient have a similar increase? Luckily Lunarrayne protested the change on the official forums and Ghostcrawler took the opportunity to explain the the change. Here is what he had to say:

The Starfall change is difficult to patch note because of the nature of the spell, but I'll share the numbers so that the theorycrafters among you can plug them in. It's a significant boost to the
spell's damage.

Initially, we had designed the spell to be more AE focused, but that hasn't been super useful for a class that also has Hurricane. Rather than adding another nuke we thought it made more sense to make the 51 pointer something that really delivers on damage. Yes it can be countered. PvP is designed with the intent that things can be countered.

Main shot
Base points 432 -> 562
Coefficient 0.21 -> 0.37

Splash damage
Base points 77 -> 100
Coefficient 0.12 -> 0.13
(src)

This is where I messed up and made my first post. Hamlet and Erdluf correctly recognized that that the spell coefficients provided by Ghostcrawler above didn't agree with what the conventional wisdom was for the spell. Specifically, live testing showed the spell coefficient for the Stars to be 4.5% - 4.8% and the coefficient for the splash to be about 1.2%. As you can see this is significantly less then GC posted. Obviously we didn't understand how to apply the numbers GC provided, or there is some other issue. Luckily, GC decided to clear up some of the confusion when he said:

Hey Hamlet, sorry for any confusion. We probably should have just waited until you guys could test it on the PTR.

I think I figured out how you all are calculating the coefficient, so maybe this will make more sense. Again, I'm not 100% sure we're speaking the same language here. If I have time, maybe I will just log in with a moonkin and compare the before and after and post numbers.

Main star
Old coefficient: 4.8%
New coefficient: 37%

Splash damage
Old coefficient: 1.2%
New coefficient: 13%

As I said, these numbers are very generous. If Balance druids melt the world we may have to back off of them. (src)

I have to say I am a little sceptical of these numbers for a few reasons. First, the change from the first post to the second post, only the old coefficient changed. I have a hard time believing that the new rate wouldn't change if the old rate did. Second, we've already had quite a bit of confusion about what these numbers mean. It wouldn't surprise me if we were missinturpreting GC's comments again. Second, that is a HUGE change. It turns a decent spell into a powerhouse.

The Math:

Again, I'm assuming a fully raid buffed moonkin with 4300 Spell damage, and 55% chance to crit. Haste does not matter for this analyses. First I'll look at a single target.

Old SF Star Damage = ((468 + (4300 * 0.048)) + ((468 + (4300 * 0.048))*1.09*0.55))*1.2831 = 1384 Damage per star
New SF Star Damage = ((608 + (4300 * 0.37)) + ((608 + (4300 * 0.37))*1.09*0.55))*1.2831 = 4513 Damage per star

Percentage Increase = (4513-1384) / 1384 = 226.08%

I've looked at a couple of my logs and the star portion of Starfall tends to be about 2% - 2.5% of my Boss fight DPS (excluding Trash). Increase that by 226%% and this buff is around a 4.5% - 5.5% DPS increase, which is excellent.

The Splash damage of Starfall tends not to be a big portion of Moonkin DPS but lets take a quick look at that also.

Old SF Splash Damage = ((78 + (4300 * 0.012)) + ((78 + (4300 * 0.012))*1.09*0.55))*1.2831 = 266 Damage per splash
New SF Splash Damage = ((101 + (4300 * 0.13)) + ((101 + (4300 * 0.13))*1.09*0.55))*1.2831 = 1355 Damage per splash

Percentage Increase = (1355-266) / 266 = 409.25%

Obviously the splash damage is not as significant as the star damage, but a 409% increase is pretty big. I till definately help on fights like Arthas where you need to get a couple of closely grouped mobs down quickly.

Glyph of Starfall:

The first question I had was what does this mean for the Glyph of Starfall vs Glyph of Insect Swarm debate? Lets do a little more math. First, how does the Glyph of Insect Swarm affect the damage of IS.

Unglyphed IS DPS = ((1290+(4300+1.2)) * 1.2831) / 12 = 690 DPS
Glyphed IS DPS = ((1290+(4300+1.2)) * 1.2831*1.3) / 12 = 897 DPS

So, Glyph of Insect Swarm increased the DPS of the DoT by 207 DPS.

Now lets look at the Glyph of Starfall. Remember, I already calculated that with the new Starfall each star will do 4513 damage, and I am doing the math for a single target.

Unglyphed SF DPS = (4513 * 10) / 90 = 501 DPS
Glyphed SF DPS = (4513 * 10) / 60 = 752 DPS

So, after the Starfall buff, the Glyph of Starfall will increase the DPS of Starfall by 251. Compared to the gain form Glyph of IS, it seems to me that Glyph of Starfall will become the standard glyph for most fights.

Glyph of Focus: There are also several comments about what this may mean for the Glyph of Focus. Unfortunately I don't have time to detail the math, but I did run it on a spreadsheet. Assuming you had the Glyph of Starfall as well, the Glyph of Focus win increase the DPS of my hypothetical moonkin about 150 DPS. That is much better then before, but if I remember correctly both Glyph of Starfire and Glyph of Moonfire were above that. I will try and provide the math another time when I have more time.

Tl:DR

After posting some obviously incorrect information, Ghostcrawler cleared up some of the confusion and posted some new spell coefficients for the buffed Starfall. I am still a little sceptical of the numbers provided, but if they are correct this is a HUGE boost for Starfall, and a very nice increase for moonkin DPS as a whole. Assuming it goes live, I'm sure Glyph of Starfall will be come one of the standard glyphs for moonkin.

All that said, I have a hard time believing this will go live as is. The problem isn't with necessarily PvE, but in PvP this would allow moonkin to put out a ton of DPS in a very short period of time. That being said it is fairly easy to counter if you have the spells to do so. So, who knows.

Recruitment:

Once again my guild is recruiting. If you are looking for a guild that has very good progression but on a more limited schedule, the LoE might be the place for you. We are looking for a variety of classes, but specifically a Hybrid DPSer with a Healing off spec. That includes Moonkin. If you would like more information you can find the recruitment post here. You are also welcome to ask me questions if you have any.

Blue Posts Galore

There have been a few Blue Posts focused on monkin over the past week. None of them are huge but I would like to highlight them in case they have been missed.

Owlkin Frenzy:

I don't think Owlkin Frenzy would be a good area to buff Balance burst damage in PvP. It's very dependent on actually being the one focused. That almost by definition is not "on demand."

I also don't think it's a great place to buff them for PvE. There are fights without a lot of predictable raid damage, and void zone diving shouldn't be critical in keeping your dps up. (src)

I agree with Ghostcrawler on this on 100%. I can't speak to it from a PvP perspective, but from a PvE perspective this is not a good option to buff moonkin. On a majority of fights it just does not proc enough to make it useful, and an increased proc rate is unlikely to change that. In the end it would encourage moonkin to take more damage and in general I am not a fan of that.

Even adding something entirely new to the talent isn't a good idea in my opinion. Since Owlkin Frenzy is not a standard PvE talent for moonkin, adding additional functionality to the talent would just cause bloat since we only have 2 spare talent points at the moment.

Glyph of Slow Wrath:

I understand the intent and it's clever in a way, but we would be hesitant to introduce a glyph that would actually be a bad glyph for players who weren't capable of benefiting from a bunch of haste. There are some glyphs with a kiss / curse vibe, but usually not this severe, and with a
curse that really isn't a curse when you consider that it lets you benefit more from haste in the long run.

It might make more sense if you tucked it away where only endgame focused players could reach it (like an idol that dropped off an ICC boss), but even then it would almost need a warning label explaining what it was trying to do. (src)

The original poster was making a familiar suggestion that Blizzard add a glyph to increase the cast time and damage of Wrath so that it was better able to scale with Haste. I know I have advocated for this solution in the past, but I am not as confident in it as I once was.The problem I with this glyph if that it creates couple of balancing problems.

1. What type of Glyph would it be? If it's a major glyph then we have to drop on of our current glyphs and it has to improve our DPS so much that we dont' notice's its loss. This may sound simple, but remember we each have different levels of Haste. Who knows how much the extended cast time will help our DPS due to more useful haste? In the end, a Major glyph may not be a buff at all. A minor glyph could work in my opinion, but I bet it crosses a line for Blizzard that they don't really want crossed. While you could make the glyph DPS neutral, the fact of the matter is millions of players wouldn't see it that way and would ask, "why do moonkin's get a minor glyph that buff's damage?"

2. I've spent the last 3 tiers of content avoiding haste when I gear up. A glyph like this would totally change our Stat Equation and would likely change how we want to gear our toons. At the very least it would mean we want to change how we gem. I'm not sure it is a good idea to so drastically change the conventional wisdom of a class mid expansion and definitely not mid content tier.

All of that said, I found part of GC's comments to be disingenuous. I understand a Glyph of Slow Wrath would be more confusing then your average glyph, but Blizzard has never had a problem implementing Glyphs that would be bad for some players and good for others. Take a look at the Glyph of Moonfire and Glyph of Starfire. These glyphs really only benefit end game raiders, but they don't have a level 80 requirement. I would understand if they said it was to hard to understand much like Armor Pen was to hard to understand, but to say that some people might use it incorrectly is not a good excuse in my opinion.

PvP Burst Increase:

The patch notes are not done. While, frankly, Tranquility is not something we're going to mess with, we do want to add more burst to Balance for PvP purposes. If some of that spills over into PvE for more damage overall, I don't think many druids would complain. (src)

I don't know how to feel about this one. We all know that Moonkin PvP has some issues, and I'm happy that what ever improvements they make may bleed over in to PvE as well. However, I don't want to get my hopes up. Ghostcrawler has said in the past that he thinks Moonkin burst is good for PvP but we lack that last little bit to finish a player off. What this tells me is that they are unlikely to change Starfire or Wrath to improve Moonkin Burst. More likely they will change Moonfire or possibly Typhoon. If that is the case, then it may have a very minor impact on PvE moonkin. We will have to wait and see what comes up.

Blizzard's View of Eclipse:

As I've said before, the goal isn't merely to get you to use Starfire and Wrath. The goal is to have a rotation that is more than just 12121212 or even 111222111222. RNG is something we actually want. The best players should be the ones who can pay attention and react to situations, not
the ones who can mash their keys the fastest (or download the most recent macros).

The biggest problems with Eclipse are:

1) It's too much of a damage increase. Here we see the problem with overbudgeted talents. The RNG wouldn't be an issue if the magnitude of those random rolls wasn't so huge.

2) It suffers too much from movement. Losing an Eclipse proc when you have to run is a problem, particularly given point 1. Now we have no problem with classes taking a dps hit when they have to move and we don't even mind of some specs pay a heavier penalty than others. But it's a problem when the delta between dps when moving and dps when not moving is so great. (src)

This isn't really anything new, but I think it is always better to hear the explanation form the horse's mouth rather then my filter. The two issues he listed are well known. I covered them in my post at WoW.com, and Murmurs and others have covered it multiple times on the forums. The big question is how are they going to fix it?

In my opinion we are unlikely to see any major changes to Eclipse until the Cataclysm is released, but GC's comment did give a small hint in what we are likely to see or not see depending on how you look at it. Ghostcrawler said "The goal is to have a rotation that is more than just 12121212 or even 111222111222. RNG is something we actually want."

In my opinion this means that Eclipse will aways be based on Crit to some extent. You may build up charges as you crit or something like that, but we are not going to get an ability were we can call for a DPS boost on demand with a cooldown. To be completely honest this is just a guess. I can't wait for the Alpha or Beta to see what they have planned.

Languish Explained

I want to take a quick look at Languish and the 4T10 set bonus. I've seen several forum posts and received several e-mails that indicate to me that this mechanic is not as well understood as I thought. In this post I hope to make the mechanic a little clearer for those that might be confused on how it works.

The Mechanic:

Tool Tip: Your critical strikes from Starfire and Wrath cause the target languish for an additional 7% of your spell's damage over 4 sec.

The impact of this set bonus is actually very simple to explain. It increases the damage of your critical strikes by 7%. It is that straight forward, but how it works is a little confusing. The first issue is that the additional damage is applied over time, but it does not behave as a normal DoT. Languish is best thought of as a bank with a 0.0% interest rate. What you get out is exactly the same as what you put in. Therefore, damage modifying buffs and debuffs like Genesis have no impact on the damage of Languish if they are applied while it is ticking.

Second, the damage done by Languish is determined when you crit, and is based entirely on the damage of the crit. Therefore, Languish does benefit from things like Earth and Moon and temporary buffs like potions, but the damage is not modified while Languish ticks. So, Languish does not benefit from Earth and Moon (or any other buff) twice.

Third, the timer on Languish is set every time one of your spells critically hits, but the DAMAGE IS NOT LOST. To use the bank analogy again, every time you crit you make a deposit into the bank, and the bank agrees to pay you back in 2 payments for the full balance in the account. Each time you crit you reset the agreement but the balance in the account keeps getting higher. So, if you crit several times in a row you will not see Languish tick during that time, but when it does tick they will be huge.

If your familiar with how a fire mage works then you've seen this mechanic before with the talent Ignite. WoWWiki also has a very good explanation on how Ignite works here if you're interested.

The Examples:

This mechanic is probably best explained with examples, but I want to make this as simple as possible, so lets make a couple of assumptions. Lets assume that we have only 1 spell and it can be cast every second. A normal hit will do 5000 and a crit will do 10000.

Example A: The Basic Structure

Time (sec)	Nuke Damage	Languish Damage	Languish Bank
1	5000	0	0
2	10000	0	700
3	5000	0	700
4	5000	350	350
5	5000	0	350
6	5000	350	0

If you only crit once, how the process works is pretty simple. The Languish damage is divided into two ticks that happen 2 and 4 seconds after the critical strike took place.

Example B: The Double Crit

Time (sec)	Nuke Damage	Languish Damage	Languish Bank
1	10000	0	700
2	10000	0	1400
3	5000	0	1400
4	5000	700	700
5	5000	0	700
6	5000	700	0

The most common misconceptions I see happen when we talk about what happens when you crit multiple times in quick succession. In the example above, the first cast is a crit and adds 700 damage to the Languish Bank. Before Languish has a chance to tick a second spell cast crits, resets the Languish timer, and adds another 700 damage to the Languish Bank. So you now have 2 Languish ticks for 700 damage each starting 2 seconds after the last crit.

Example C: The Middle Crit

Time (sec)	Nuke Damage	Languish Damage	Languish Bank
1	10000	0	700
2	5000	0	700
3	5000	350	350
4	10000	0	1050
5	5000	0	1050
6	5000	525	525
7	5000	0	525
8	5000	525	0

The example above illustrates what happens if you have another spell critically hit in between the two Languish ticks. The first crit adds 700 damage to the Languish Bank, and the first tick hits 2 seconds later for half the damage in the Languish Bank. Then the caster has another critical strike. As I've said before, this resets the Languish timer. The Languish Bank still had 350 damage in it, and the new crit adds another 700. Now Languish will deal 1050 damage over 4 seconds starting from the second crit.

TL:DR

At it's core the 4T10 set bonus Languish is very simple. It increases the damage of your critical strikes by 7%, but since it is applied over 4 seconds this has some players worried that they are losing damage by crit multiple times in a row. Others are wondering if they can buff it by extending the DoT to receive a buff or if it benefits from talents like Genesis. These are not significant concerns.

First, the Languish damage can not be buffed in any way that I know of. The damage is calculated at the time of the crit and is not modified again.

Second, you do not lose damage by Criting multiple times while there is damage still in the Languish Bank. Each crit just adds more damage to the bank, and resets the timer. You will lose some damage due to Mob death, I don't think this is a big concern. In these situations the target is dead. The lack of damage did not prevent you from succeeding in the encounter and extra damage would just pad the DPS meters slightly.

A look at Owlkin Frenzy

If you browse the WoW forums at all it is very likely that you've seen a post like this:

OMG!!! Owlkin Frenzy is awesome in ICC because of all the raid damage. You guys are noobs if you don't pick it up.

I was always very sceptical of these claims. We've known for a long time that not all damage procs Owlking Frenzy, but how the mechanics actually works has been a little unclear to me. ICC does in fact have a lot of raid damage. So, I've been wondering if Owlkin Frenzy is a good talent for ICC raiding moonkin. In this post I will try to answer that question by providing a little more info on how Owlkin Frenzy works and take a look at the value of Owlkin Frenzy in a raid situation.

How Owlkin Frenzy works:

First lets take a look at the tool tip.

Attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10%, cause you to be immune to pushback while casting Balance spells and restore 2% base mana every 2 sec. Lasts 10 sec.

Unfortunately the Tool tip is a little missleading and not all attacks can trigger Owlkin Frenzy. Murmurs did a good job of explaining the conventional wisdom on how it works recently, but I will try and paraphrase his post.

The first thing to understand is there is a difference between an Attack and Damage. A DoT may damage you 5 times but counts as only 1 attack. Since the buff procs off of the attack, DoTs have only one chance to proc buff.

Second, the buff only works on direct attacks against you. Traditional AoE spells generally won't trigger the buff, but this is where it gets confusing. Not all spells that hit multiple targets are considered AoE by the game and, thus some spells a player would concider AoE can proc Owlkin Frenzy. There isn't really a good rhyme or reason as to why some spells are AoE and others are not. Murmurs provides some general rules, but there are also exceptions to the rules he lists.

The Data:

If we wanted to we could argue all day about what should theoretically proc Owlkin Frenzy and what shouldn't, but that wouldn't be a big help. To truely analyze the benefit of Owlkin Frenzy we need to take a look at the combat logs and see what is actually happening in raid.

For the past couple of weeks I have been running with 2/3 Owlkin Frenzy (I took the points from Gail Winds). Provided below is one weeks worth of data from my ICC 25man raids. I realize that statistically this is not a large enough sample, but I am comfortable with the numbers after looking at the parces of some other moonkin (Thank you Ziaki, Rheynn, & Foofy).

Boss	Attempts	Procs	Time (min)	OF Up Time	Value per Point
Lord Marrowgar	1	1	3.22	5.176%	0.2588%
Lady Death	1	2	4.35	7.6628%	0.3831%
Saurfang	1	0	3.78	0%	0%
Festergut	1	0	4.45	0%	0%
Rotface	1	0	4.9	0%	0%
Putricide	2	2	18.14	1.8376%	0.0919%
Blood Princes	1	0	3.24	0%	0%
BQL	4	34	19.2	29.5139%	1.4757%
Valithria	8	8	54.27	2.4569%	0.1228%
Sindragosa	13	18	81.13	3.6978%	0.1849%
Total	33	65	196.68	5.5081%	0.2754%

As you can see from the data Owlkin Frenzy is not procing very often for 9 out of the 10 fights listed. For these fights Owlkin Frenzy resulted in a 0.1% to 0.2% DPS increase per point invested on average. BQL was the exception, with very significant up time. In the BQL fight alone, Owlkin Frenzy was worth a 1.48% DPS increase per point invested

TL:DR

Despite my parce being a very small sample, I think the results are fairly conclusive and consistent with the conventional wisdom regarding Owlkin Frenzy. In most raid encounters, Owlkin Frenzy will provide a very limited DPS increase per point invested of around 0.1% to 0.2%. To put this in perspective this is very similar to the DPS increase provided by Genesis per point.

That said, Owlkin Frenzy is currently a very good talent for BQL, due to what many are speculating is a bug. Since BQL is a tight DPS race for many guilds, investing the two extra talent points in Owlkin Frenzy can be a good idea to give you a boost on this fight alone.

Why Eclipse is Broken: Wow.com Guest Post

While I was not chosen to be the permanent Druid columnist for WoW.com I was asked to be one of the first bloggers to right a guest post for them. When I was asked for some ideas, I knew right away what I wanted to post about: Why Eclipse is Broken.

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately about what everyone thinks is wrong with Eclipse. A vast majority of those posts basically boil down to "I don't like Eclipse because it doesn't proc when I want it to. (aka - it is to random). Well I disagree. The post I wrote for WoW.com goes over why I disagree and takes a look at what I consider to be the real issues with Eclipse. Also, check out the comments. There are a lot of good ones from Murmurs, Lissanna and other folks.

Anyway, I want to say thanks to Dan O'Halloran the Managing Editor at WoW.com for giving me this opportunity. It was quite an honor.

Moonkin Healing for Valithria

EDIT: I originally thought this was a great idea for a post. Now I am not so sure. Hamlet made some good points in the comments that make me think this might be pointless. Healing while on the move could be helpful, but the shifting in and out of Moonkin form could kill your mana. I'm leaving the guide up, but realize it is speculative and may not be helpful in the encounter.

With the new wing of ICC opening today, we have a couple new fights to try out, and one of them is completely different then anything we've ever seen before. On the surface the Valithria Dreamwalker fight seems like a typical add rush fight, but instead of DPSing the "boss", you have to heal her to full. As a result, moonkin may be asked to fill a role that they are not familure with: healer. In this post I would like to take a look at the healing spells we have available and where moonkin can get the most bang for their buck.

Disclaimer: Apparently my first disclaimer was not clear enough. THIS IS NOT A RESTO GUIDE. This is a guide for Moonkin Healing Valithria. Not the raid. Valithria. I am writing this guide from the perspective of a moonkin who is unfamiliar with his healing spells and wants to maximize his HpS on the Valithria encounter. As such, I focus on through put instead of utility or mana efficiency. I am also assuming that the player is using their normal Moonkin gear. If you have a healing set that will probably change the math a little bit, but you shouldn't need this guide if you're familiar with druid healing. That said, if any of you do see big holes in my analysis please post them in the comments. Since I do not play resto, I may have missed something.

Moonkin Healing as Moonkin:

This is the role I think most of us will be playing. The primary role is to DPS the adds down, but if we have down time we should heal the boss as much as possible. It is probably also a good idea to HoT up the boss while we are on the move. With that in mind I am using my normal Moonkin spec for this section of the analysis. I am also assuming I have 4000 spell power, 47% Crit chance, and 19.5% Haste from gear.

Healing Touch: This is the big healing spell available to druids. It is generally not used by Restos because the cast is to long, but it has a ton of through put in the right situation.

Avg HT Cast Time = (3/(1.195*1.03*1.03*1.05))*(1-0.7191)+(3/(1.195*1.03*1.03*1.05*1.2))*(0.7191)
Avg HT Cast Time = (2.2537)*(0.2809)+(1.8781)*(0.7191) = 1.9836 seconds

Avg HT HpS: ((4089+(4000*1.6114))*(1+(0.5*0.51)))/1.9836 = 6665 HpS

Nourish: This is the second direct heal available to druids. It has a shorter cast time and synergies well with HoTs. It will generally be Haste Capped.

Avg Nourish Cast Time = (1.5/(1.195*1.03*1.03*1.05))*(1-0.8511)+(1.5/(1.195*1.03*1.03*1.05*1.2))*(0.8511)
Avg Nourish Cast Time = (1.1268)*(0.1489)+(1)*(0.8511) = 1.0189 seconds

Avg Nourish HpS: ((2035+(4000*0.671))*(1+(0.5*0.51)))/1.0189 = 5812 HpS
Avg Nourish HpS w/ HoT: ((2035+(4000*0.671))*1.2*(1+(0.5*0.51)))/1.0189 = 6975 HpS

Regrowth: This is a hybrid spell, part nuke and part HoT.

Avg RG Cast Time = (2/(1.195*1.03*1.03*1.05))*(1-0.8511)+(2/(1.195*1.03*1.03*1.05*1.2))*(0.8511)
Avg RG Cast Time = (1.5024)*(0.1489)+(1.2520)*(0.8511) = 1.2893 seconds

Avg DH RG Healing: (2364+(4000*.539))*(1+(0.5*0.47)) = 5582 Health
Avg HoT RG Healing: (2345+(4000*1.316))*(9/7) = 9783 Health

Avg RG HpET (5582 + 9783)/1.2893 = 11917 HpET

Lifebloom: Another hybrid spell, but starts with the HoT and ends with the Nuke. The execution time for LB will be the same as that of Nourish, so I will just pull that value in my calcs.

Avg DH LB Healing: (776+(4000*.516))*(1+(0.5*0.47)) = 3507 Health
Avg HoT LB Healing: (371+(4000*0.666))*(9/7) = 3902 Health

Avg RG HpET: (3507 + 3902)/1.0189 = 7272 HpET

Rejuvenation: This is a basic HoT. Very efficient and has a lot of through put if allowed to tick all the way through. Again the execution time is the same as Nourish.

Avg Rejuv HpET: (1690+(4000*1.88))*(9/7)/1.0189 = 11622 HpET

Conclusion: It is not surprising that HoTs win the day. The basic strategy I would use is to HoT up the boss as much as possible while moving. I think having some targeting macros would be helpful here. If you do have a few seconds to heal the boss, cast Regrowth, maintain the other HoTs, and use Nourish as filler if you have time.

Moonkin Healing as Tree:

I don't know if this will be necessary or not, but I also looked at this question from the perspective of a moonkin picking up a healing spec specifically to heal Valithria. Here is the spec I used. I skipped a lot of the talents that are generally considered standard resto talents. This spec is built purely for through put, and again I skipped a lot of the utility. Specifically I skipped Wild Growth because accounts from the PTR indicate it won't hit Valithria.

The math will use the same stats I used above, but I did modify the crit chance base upon talents I picked up.

Healing Touch: There are a lot of talents that improve Healing Touch, Most of which are not typical of a resto build. If you are using a standard resto build expect your values to be less.

Avg HT Cast Time = (2.5/(1.195*1.1*1.03*1.03*1.05))*(1-0.75)+(3/(1.195*1.1*1.03*1.03*1.05*1.2))*(0.75)
Avg HT Cast Time = (1.7073)*(0.25)+(1.4228)*(0.75) = 1.4939 seconds

Avg HT HpS: ((4089+(4000*2.011))*(1.1*1.04)*(1+(0.5*0.54)))/1.4939 = 11800 HpS

Nourish: Does not improve as much as Healing Touch but the addition of the Glyph does help.

Avg Nourish Cast Time = (1.5/(1.195*1.1*1.03*1.03*1.05))*(1-0.875)+(1.5/(1.195*1.03*1.03*1.05*1.2))*(0.875)
Avg Nourish Cast Time = (1.0244)*(0.125)+(1)*(0.875) = 1.0031 seconds

Avg Nourish HpS: ((2035+(4000*0.871))*(1.1*1.04)*(1+(0.5*0.79)))/1.0031 = 8780 HpS
Avg Nourish HpS w/ HoT: ((2035+(4000*0.871))*(1.32*1.1*1.04)*(1+(0.5*0.79)))/1.0031 = 12155 HpS

Regrowth: Regrowth gets a lot of help from a Resto spec and a Glyph of Regrowth. The strange thing here is that you will want clip the HoT in the end to get 20% buff.

Avg RG Cast Time = (2/(1.195*1.1*1.03*1.03*1.05))*(1-0.875)+(2/(1.195*1.1*1.03*1.03*1.05*1.2))*(0.875)
Avg RG Cast Time = (1.3659)*(0.125)+(1.1382)*(0.875) = 1.1666 seconds

Avg DH RG Healing: (2364+(4000*.647))*(1.2*1.1*1.04)*(1+(0.5*0.75)) = 9347 Health
Avg HoT RG Healing: (2345+(4000*1.579))*(1.25*1.1*1.04)*(9/7) = 15923 Health

Avg RG HpET (9347 + 15923)/1.1666 = 21661 HpET

Lifebloom: Like Nourish doesn't get a lot of help from a resto spec. EDIT: Hamlet and Andreas brought up a good Lifebloom strat in the comments. If you stack LB to three by refressing LB at the end of the HoT you get 3 free HoTs.

Avg DH LB Healing: (776+(4000*0.619))*(1.1*1.04)*(1+(0.5*0.5)) = 4650 Health
Avg HoT LB 8 tick Healing: (371+(4000*0.799))*(1.05*1.1*1.04)*(8/7) = 4897 Health
Avg HoT LB Healing: (371+(4000*0.799))*(1.05*1.1*1.04)*(9/7) = 5509 Health

Avg RG HpET: ((3*4650)+(3*4897)+(3*5509))/(3*1.0031) = 15009 HpET

Rejuvenation: It gets a lot of help from a resto spec, and the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation. Again the execution time is the same as Nourish.

Avg Rejuv HpET: (1690+(4000*2.257))*(1.2*1.1*1.04)*(6/5)/1.0031 = 17602 HpET

Swiftmend: A nice instant heal with a higher HpET then Nourish.

Avg SM HpET: (1690+(4000*2.257))*(1.2*1.1*1.04)*(4/5)/1.0031 = 11735 HpET

Conclusions: If you are a focused healer on Valithria is very similar to what is normal for a DPSer. Keep the HoTs up and nuke when you have the chance. Make sure you slow roll Lifebloom and clip the end of Regrowth. Other then that keep Rejuv up and use Nourish as filler. On the move Swiftmend can give you a quick burst of healing.

TL-DR:

If you are a moonkin looking to put some heals on Valithria while you DPS down the adds, it is best to put up Rejuv and Lifebloom as you move. If you have a few moments in between add waves, then you want to add Regrowth and Nourish to your rotation. If you pick up a healing spec to heal the boss, then your rotation is Regrowth, Rejuv, Slow Rolling Lifebloom and Nourish, but you want to make sure to clip Regrowth slightly to take advantage of the Glyph of Regrowth.