How to Find Moonkin Stat Valuations

Update: This post is out dated but the instructions at the bottom telling how to find your own stat valuations are still mostly correct. If you got here due to a link on my gear guide that is the section you want. If you got here by another method I suggest you look at my raiding guide for more accurate information.

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The first draft of my ICC gear list is almost ready.With it will come the usual questions. How much do you value haste? How did you calculate the valuations? Why are your valuations different now then they were on your last list?

While some of the answers can get complicated, but most of the confusion regarding my changing valuations can be explained with two simple answers. 1. I make mistakes. 2. Things change.

In the past, when I estimated my stats for my simulator I did a real rough estimation. I wouldn't say the stats I used were wrong, but they were probably squewed in a way that changed the results some. This caused me to favor some stats a little more then I should have.

Though my mistakes do have an impact, the changing nature of WoW has a much bigger impact. At the very least stats change. As we gear up we get more Spell Power, Haste, and Crit. Each of these stats depend on the others and changing one will change the marginal value of the others. While all of the rating stats will genererally increase in Marginal Value as you gear up, they will not increase in value at the same rate. So, how we valued a stat during T7 content is very different then how we value the same stat in T10 content.

Over the last six months, we have had several things change. For obvious reasons this will change the way our stats interact. Therefore, I feel the need to restate the stat equation. I've looked at this using several tools, and for the most part they all agree.

Below Haste Soft Cap (400 haste rating):

Hit Rating > Spell Power > Haste Rating > Crit Rating
In unusual situations Haste may be greater then Spell Power, but that is probably due to irregular gearing choices.

Over Haste Soft Cap, but below Lunar Crit Cap:

Hit Rating > Spell Power > Crit Rating > Haste Rating
This is a change from what I've said before, but there is enough space between Crit and Haste that I'm confident Crit is better point for point.

Over Lunar Crit Cap:

Hit Rating > Spell Power > Crit Rating = Haste Rating
According to the simulators and spreadsheets Crit is still slightly better, but they are two close to really matter.

These general rules don't mean that Haste is worthless after the soft cap, or that Crit is worthless after the Lunar Crit cap. They are still very good stats, and better then both Int and Spirit. This is really a guide as to how you should gem and enchant your gear. It may also help when choosing between two very similar items.

Finding Stat values using WrathCalcs.

Some of you may be thinking why should I believe you now. Every time you say something you end up changing it a couple of months later.

To be completely honest I agree, but for slightly different reasons. Stat valuations are highly variable based upon the assumptions used to create them. I can't possible make the valuations for everyone so I use myself as an example. Luckily it is fairly easy for all of us to find out our own valuations.

The first place you can find it is using WrathCalcs. You can find the spread sheet here at the bottom of the Moonkin Think tank thread.

It is very easy to use. After you down load the spreadsheet, look up your toon on the armory. Then plug your armory stats into Column C of the spread sheet. After that make sure you have all of the appropriate talents, buffs, and debuffs selected in columns C, G, and K.

After the sheet is fully filled out the marginal values of your stats will be available in DPS for in column D. To convert them to my format you just have to divide each of the values by the Spell Power valuation.

Finding Stat values using SimulationCraft.

You can download SimulationCraft from here.

Click the Options tab at the top, and then click the Scaling tab below that. Then select the stats you would like SimulationCraft to evaluate. Just select the standard DPS stats with the addition of Int and Spirit. Selecting the other stats will just make the analysis take longer. You may also want to make sure all of the buffs and debuffs are selected in there respective tabs but they should already be selected by default.

To import your toon click the import tab. You can import from several websites but I suggest using the armory. The import tab works just like a Web Browser. Find your toon and then hit the import button in the bottom right hand corner.

Clicking the import button should automatically move you to the Simulate Tab. At this point just hit the Simulate button in the bottom right hand corner unless you want to make some changes to the toon you imported. The results of your analysis should pop out in about a minute and will be available about halfway down the page.

Moonkin Basics: Stats

This is my second post in my Moonkin Basics series. In this series I hope to address a lot of the basic questions asked by people that are new to raiding as a balance druid. For additional reading, please refer to the Moonkin Think Tank and the Moonkin Sticky.

If you're anything like me you don't pay a whole lot of attention to stats as you level. Sure, we make some basic choices like favoring Spell Power over the other stats, but you don't really worry about the Hit cap or if Haste is better then Crit. When you're leveling getting into the details on stats doesn't really matter because your gear improves so quickly and your talent tree isn't fully developed.

Once you get to level 80 all that changes. You can no longer improve yourself by getting a new level and a new spell. The only way you can improve your toon is by improving his gear. On top of that, if you want to get into raiding, you have to pay attention to things like the Hit cap or you will have a hard time even getting into a raid. Therefore, it is very important for you to understand how each of the stats affect your toon, and generally how you should equip each stat.
In this post I will go over some of the general concepts when evaluating stats, and then I will go into more detail on each stat to hopefully answer some of the more specific questions.

Stat Interaction and Valuation

If you're a long time reader of my blog then you know that I've provided specific numerical valuations of each of the stats in the past. To be honest, I don't like providing those values because a lot of people take those values to literally and don't understand the assumptions that were made to develop them.

When I provide specific numerical valuations of stats it's like a point in time snapshot of a Moonkin. My valuations are true for that snapshot, but it doesn't take into account player variation and evolution. For example, when I built my last gear list I used myself as the basis for the stat valuation. Since then my gear has improved, and I guarantee that those valuations would be at least a different now then when the were a couple of months a go. This leads me to my first point.

The first thing that every DPSer should understand is that stats don't operate in a vacuum and there is a lot of interaction between the stats. If you get more of one stat, it will improve the marginal value of the other stats. For example, lets say you increase your spell power by 100 points. Lets look at how this will increase your DPS.

1. The most obvious way it helps your DPS is by increasing the damage that a single spell cast is capable of doing. However, this decreases the marginal value of Spell Power.
   
   
2. Since your normal spell hits for more, then your Critical Strikes will hit for more as well. Therefore addtional Crit rating will have more of an impact due to the addtional spell power. This increases the marginal value of Crit Rating.
   
   
3. Cast time is also a big component of calculating DPS. If you increase the damage a spell does, decreasing the cast time will have a bigger impact. This increases the marginal value of Haste Rating.
   
   
4. Increasing the damage of a spell per cast also increases the damage lost if a spell misses. This increases the marginal value of Hit Rating.

I could write out this example for any of the four primary DPS stats, but I think you get the basic picture. Increasing the quantity of one stat increases the Marginal value of the other 3 stats.

So, I think you can see how using specific numerical stat valueations can be problematic. Someone gearing up for Naxx will have different valuations then someone who has cleared Heroic ToGC.

The Stat Equation

That said it is important to understand how the Stats generally relate to each other. Here are two quick equations you can use to evaluate the stats on gear.

If you are below the Haste rating soft cap (400 Haste rating for most):

Hit Rating > Spell Power > Haste Rating > Crit Rating > Intellegence > Spirit

If you are above Haste rating soft cap:

Hit Rating > Spell Power > Haste Rating = Crit Rating > Intellegence > Spirit

Hit Rating:

• Point for point, Hit rating will improve your DPS more then any other stat if you are below the hit cap.
  
  
• In a raid situation all bosses are considered to be 3 levels above the player. This means our spells have a base 17% chance to miss the boss. We can Improve our chance to hit some with talents and raid buffs, but most of your chance to hit will come from Hit Rating.



• You would need 26.23 points of Hit Rating to increase your chance to hit by 1%.



• Balance of Power and Improved Faerie Fire are core talents and should not be excluded from any Moonkin Raid build. Therefore, determining your Hit Cap depends on if you have a Draenei in your Party or not. Without a Draenei the Moonkin Hit Cap is 263 Hit Rating. With a Daenei the Moonkin Hit Cap is 237 Hit Rating.



• Being a point or two above or below the Hit cap is generally not a big deal. However, every additional point of Hit rating you have above the Hit cap has zero impact on your DPS and is wasted itemization.

Spell Power

• Spell Power increases the damage that all of your spells do. It is the core stat of any Caster DPS build of any class.



• Generally, Spell Power is the best stat to stack when choosing Gems, Enchants and Consumables. The only exceptions are if you're trying to reach the hit cap or receive a socket bonus.

Haste Rating:

• Haste Rating reduces the cast time of your spells and reduces the Global Cooldown preventing you from casting another spell.



• To improve your Haste by 1%, you would need 32.79 points of Haste Rating.



• Different Haste sources stack Multiplicatively.



• Haste CANNOT lower the Global Cooldown below 1 second.



• Since Moonkin have quite a few available haste sources from talents and raid buffs, it is actually quite easy to reduce the Global Cooldown and Wrath's cast time to 1 second. This results in Haste having a "Soft Cap" for Moonkin.



• A Soft Cap is a point at which a stat loses significant value, but still has some value beyond that point. For Moonkin with full raid buffs and standard talents the Haste Soft Cap is 401 Haste rating. If your raid is lacking a Wrath of Air totem, the Soft Cap increases to 585 Haste rating.

Crit Rating

• A Critical Strike is a spell cast that does more then normal damage based upon random chance. Crit Rating increases your chance to inflict a Critical Strike.



• To improve your Crit Chance by 1%, you would need 45.90 points of Crit Rating.



• Moonkin have several talents and buffs that proc off of Critical Strikes. This does increase the value of Crit Rating a little, but it is important to know that it isn't really significant. The value for Crit rating is almost entirely provided by the extra damage of a Critical Strike.



• Due to the Mana on Crit mechanic, Crit Rating is actually a key mana regen stat for Moonkin.



• Finally, Crit rating does have a Hard Cap of 100% crit chance. While it is impossible to reach this cap with gear alone, many moonkin have been able to reach this cap temporarily using a combination of Raid buffs, Lunar Eclipse, and the 2T8 set bonus. This does impact the value of the 2T8 set bonus some, but is not something moonkin should really worry about.

Other Stats:

Stamina - It is an essential stat for raiding, but not something that should be actively stacked. The Tuskarr's Vitality enchant is the only time I would ever gem or enchant for it. There are very few items in the game without it. Therefore, you will get plenty of stam just by picking up normal upgrades.

Intellegence - It does provide some DPS in the form of extra Spell Power and Crit Chance. It also has a big impact on our Mana regen since Mana on Crit and Replenishment are based upon based upon our mana pool. However like Stamina, Int should not be stacked in any way. You will get plenty by picking up normal gear up grades.

Spirit - Improved Moonkin Form converts 30% of our spirit to Spell Power and is the best mana regen stat if you take Intensity. That is really nice given the amount of Spirit we are forced to pick up on our gear, but as a DPS stat Spirit is the weakest we have. Spirit should not be stacked on it's own, but it is common to see people Gem for it and Enchant for it because those gems and enchants are the best available for the socket or armor peice.

Mp5 - Horrible stat, and I am glad they are getting rid of it in Cataclysm. It only provides mana and Mana is currently not a concern for most moonkin. If you are having issues with mana I suggest you try picking up some more of the mana regen talents. If your still having mana issues you need to look at how you play and the group you play with. Mana should not be an issue for any raid geared player.

Spell Penetration - This is not a raid stat. Hell, I'm not sure if they even like it in PvP. Do not stack it under any circumstances. It will not help you and people will laugh at you.

General Update: 6/5/2009

Sorry, guys for the recent brake in blogging. My real life has been quite hectic lately. On top of that I've been raiding a little more lately, therefore the time available for blogging has gone down. I hope my life will smooth out a little bit and I can get back to a more regular schedule soon.

With that, there are several things happening around the land of Graylo and Moonkin that I would like to talk about.

New Druid Forms:
The big druid news in recent weeks is the new Bear and Cat forms that will be released with 3.2. Unfortunately none of the other forms including Moonkin are being updated at this time, but seem to be in the queue for a later patch.

The druid forms have never been a big issue for me. I agree that its boring to look at the same form from level 10 to level 80 and look like every other druid you see, but what I looked like didn't really matter to me. That said, I like the new forms for the most part. The black Tauren Cat looks like a baboon to me. I would love it if they found a way to scale with gear, but I understand that that could be difficult. Now if they could just come up with some cool Moonkin forms, I might get a little more excited.

Moonkin Stats - Graylo vs Murmurs:
If you follow the Moonkin Repository you may have noticed that Murmurs and I have had a bit of a debate regarding the value Haste Rating and Crit Rating.

A month or so ago (its been a slow debate) Murmurs posted some shocking numbers regarding the value of Crit relative to Haste where Crit was actually worth more then Haste for a Lunar rotation. This goes so far against the conventional wisdom and the numbers that I had calculated that I was immediately sceptical of his results.

If your interested I suggest that you read through the thread. I had several issues with his math, but I had two primary concerns. First, I think his starting value of Crit Chance was way to low, and Murmurs conceded that point. The second concern I had was his numbers did not factor Eclipse or Set Bonuses into the value. He made some good points regarding here, but I still think its wrong to completely exclude them.

Obviously, I am supportive of my numbers. I did discover a couple of small issues with my model while arguing this debate so My lunar stats have changed a little bit, but not materially. However, you might find my last post in the thread very interesting.

Conceding the point about Set Bonuses I reran my model 4 times with various set bonuses to see how it affected the results. Here are the results:

Stat	No Tier	4T7	2T8	4T8
Hit Rating	1.52	1.526	1.536	1.518
Spell Power	1	1	1	1
Haste Rating	0.819	0.808	0.791	0.709
Crit Rating	0.653	0.627	0.633	0.639

As you can see, the value of Crit Rating relative to Spell Power was fairly similar for all 4 runs. It was highest with no Tier bonuses, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are all within the margin of error.

What I found odd was how much the value of Haste Dropped with the introduction of 4T8. I new that 4T8 would devalue Haste but I didn't expect it to be by so much. However, its important not to overreact to this result. These results assume a T7.25 gear level with a ton of haste rating. Every BIS list I've seen produced for a Lunar rotation sees a significant drop in the amount of Haste being stacked. At my highest, I had about 628 Haste rating. I am already down below 500, and most of the BiS lists I've seen would put most people at about 425 -450. At the same time our Spell Power is going to go way up and our Crit Chance is going to go up. Since we are losing haste Rating, but gaining significant amounts of Spell Power and Crit Rating, the relative value of haste will be very similar to what I've reported in the past.

New Moonkin Blogger: Relevart’s Druid Reliquary
I want to give a little support to a new Moonkin Blogger. Relevart's blog is still very new, but he has already gotten several good theorycrafting posts out and seems to be on the right track.

Most new moonkin bloggers I see fall in one of a couple of categories. They either post too generally without detail, don't provide reasonable explanations or support their conclusions, or stop writing after a couple of posts. Relevart on the other hand seems to be off to a good start.

If you like my blog, you may like his also. If you don't like my blog, why the heck are you still reading. :)

Graylo and the Alts Update:
Its been a long time since I did a toon update, so I thought I would give you a little update on how things are going for me in Ulduar and such. Our 25man group has cleared through Yogg on normal mode with medium mode kills on FL and IC. We were the fifth guild on my server to kill Yogg. That is a little behind what I had hoped, but is still impressive given that we raid only 9 hours a week and all of the guilds ahead raid at least 16 hours a week. This week we started on the Keeper Hard Modes. Our first target is Hodir, and it has been a little tougher then I expected. Our best attempts are getting him to 15% before the three minutes ticks off, which isn't bad after one night of attempts. I think if we can get a little better at stacking the buffs he should be down shortly.

From a 10man perspective, I was left high and dry for a little while. My late night group broke up because some of the members decided to raid at different times and there wasn't enough interest to fill the empty slots. So, I had a couple of weeks without any 10man action, but then the late night group was reformed.

Our 10man groups have been going very well. We killed Yogg very quickly and have been working on hard modes for a couple of weeks. Personally the only Hard Modes I have left are Mimiron, General, Yogg, FL+3, and FL+4. This is part of the reason I was surprised at how hard Hodir Hard mode is. The 10man versions have been much easier in most cases. That said, it is understandable why we are having less of an issue. We out gear the content because we are 25man raiders.

The biggest test we've had so far is Mimiron Hard mode. The fire's add a lot of complexity to an already complex fight. The main issues we seem to be having is range. We seem to be able to control the fires, but it isn't unusual for some one to die because they got separated from the raid. We need to work out our positioning a little more and pump out more DPS so that we limit the number of Plasma Blasts we get.

Hopefully we can get him soon, because would then be able to start working on Algalon.

Finally, there hasn't been much activity for the alts. Grayfel and Graypal have primarily been Profession Mules since 3.1 dropped. I have worked on my Mage some and he is up to about 45 now I think. I also transferred my shaman over. I know its a little stupid to transfer a level 16 toon, but I didn't want to start over. He is now up to level 22 or so.

Moonkin Stats and My New Model

Update: Found an error in my model. Crit is worth a little more then I previously stated. It has been updated.

Ahhhh. Remember the good old days in BC when the moonkin Rotation consisted of Moonfire and casting Starfire 4 or 5 times. That was when theorycrafting was easy. If you figure out how each stat affects each spell you can come up with a good estimate of how much each stat is worth realtively quickly.

That is all ancient history with the introduction of Eclipse, new set bonuses and Glyphs. If you look around the various forums you will see a lot of people saying how much each stat is worth and all the different versions are not as close as they used to be. As a result, I have built a new model to try and determine the value of each of DPS stats for a Lunar Rotation. Well, the results are in.

I'm going to do this post a little bit backwards then I normally do. I'm going to talk about each of the stats and give my results first. Then I'm going to talk about how I got the results in the end.

The Stats:
First off all, these results are for a perfect Lunar rotation with no lag, and no movement on a single target. I have also excluded both Force of Nature and Starfall from the analysis, and the results are based purely on DPS. Also, these stats are based upon a pre-3.1 BiS gear set with 4T7 set bonuses. I expect these numbers to change as our gear improves since our SP will go way up and our Crit and Haste will stay realtively the same. I will redo this analysis after we know more about what a BIS 3.1 Moonkin looks like.

The results aren't all that shocking. The values I came up with still fall into the standard Hit > Spell Power > Haste > Crit explanation.

Hit Rating: Relative Value = 1.54 - Hit Rating has the highest per point value of all the DPS stats assuming you are below the hit cap. This valuation just shows you how important it is to be hit capped. In my opinion, all raiding Moonkin should have the talents of Balance of Power and Improved Faerie Fire. This means we need to pickup an additional 10% hit chance from gear and other buffs to be hit capped.

So, what is the hit cap? 263 for Tauren and Night Elves with out a Draenei in their party. 236 for Night Elves with a Draenei in their party.

Spell Power: Relative Value = 1.00 - Spell Power is the standard by which all other stats are measured. After you are hit capped, Spell Power is the best DPS Stat on a point for point basis. This is why, it is always recommended to use Spell Power gems and food when possible.

Haste Rating: Relative Value = 0.80 - This is where the debate usually begins. Haste Rating is a great DPS stat the makes your spells cast faster and lowers the global cooldown. The down side to Haste Rating is that it also makes you consume mana faster and if you have mana issues the Haste will make them worse. Also, spells with short cast times like Wrath and the DoTs can reach the minimum global cooldown fairly easily with reasonable amounts of Haste Rating. You can find my post on the Haste Cap here.

Crit Rating: Relative Value = 0.62 - Crit Rating is the least valuable of the "pure" DPS stats, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good stat. Crit Rating also has the side benefit of helping you to generate mana using the Mana on Crit mechanic.

There are two important things to remember about crit. The first is that even though you don't want to necessarily stack Crit Rating, you don't want to completely avoid it either. The second is that you get a lot of Crit Chance from other Sources like talents and raid buffs. This is the main reason why Crit Rating is ranked so low.

Spirit: Relative Value = 0.34 - In patch 3.1.2, Improved Moonkin Form is being buffed so that your Spell Power will be increased by 30% (up from 15%) of your Spirit. Also, Spirit will help you regen mana if you have the talent Intensity.

As a general rule Spirit is a stat to be avoided, because Haste Rating and Crit Rating are so much better in terms of DPS. However, Spirit is becoming more and more unavoidable. Most caster items now have Spirit, and majority of the ones that don't have Hit Rating. It is fine to have spirit on your gear, but never intentionally stack it.

Intellect: Relative Value = 0.35 - Intellect is not a good stat in terms of DPS but it is almost completely unavoidable. Virtually all caster items have some amount of Intellect on them. Intellect has a lot of side benefits though in Mana Regen since it impacts all of our major mana regen talents. You will pick up enough Intellect just by making commonsense gear choices, therefore you should never intentionally stack Int.

(Edit: I updated the Spirit and Int numbers to take into account Stat Multipliers like Blessing of Kings. Thanks to Antonetz for pointing this out.)

Other Stats: Relative Value = 0.00 - All other stats have very little direct impact on your DPS. Stamina is the only other stat that you need in any significant quantity, but you should pick up plenty making normal gearing choices. Mp5 can also be helpful if you have mana issues. However, most moonkin don't have big mana issues that can't be solved with talents. Avoid Mp5 if possible. Spell Penetration and Resilience are useless in a PvE environment and should be avoided.

TL:DR
Hit = 1.54, SP = 1.00, Haste = 0.80, Crit = 0.62, Spirit = 0.34, Int = 0.35

The Model:
If you want to look at the model and check my work you can find it here. However, I want you to keep a few things in mind. 1. It is a very large file. Download at your own risk. 2. It does have a couple of macros on it but you don't have to enable them for the spreadsheet to work. 3. This is NOT a tool to help you model your DPS. If you want something like that go check out WrathCalcs. 4. In conjunction with #3, it is not userfriendly. It even confuses me and I built the damn thing.

How it Works: I built the model to choose which spell to cast based on the current situation. It uses the random number generator to determine crits, misses, and procs. The model assumes the linked Talent/Glyph build. The model assumes the following Cast priority:

1. If FF is not up, cast FF.
2. If IS is not up, cast IS.
3. If MF is not up, cast MF.
4. If Eclipse is not on cooldown, cast Wrath.
5. If Eclipse is on cooldown, cast SF.

This means that FF and the DoTs will be refreshed during Eclipse. I won't go into detail about it now, but I now think this will give you better DPS then weighting for Eclipse to run out.

The model uses a 60,000 cast sequence. This is equivalent to about 26 hours of continuous casting. This may seem like overkill but I wanted to smooth out as much of the randomness as I could.

Using base stats of 2900 spell power, 41% crit chance, 16.5% haste from gear, and 100% hit chance, I ran the model 1,000 times to find the average total damage, average total cast time, and average DPS for a control group. I then adjusted each of the stats by significant amounts and reran the model another 1,000 times for each adjustment to see how the DPS changed.

The adjustments were made in significant amounts and then averaged to a per point value. For example, to find the value of Spell Power, I increased the spell power used by 50 to 2950. This resulted in an average increase of 61.81 DPS or 1.24 DPS per point average. To evaluate Crit and Haste I increased both by 1%. To evaluate Hit Rating I decreased hit chance by 1%.

The stats where then weighted relative to each other, with Spell Power being the standard. These new values will be applied to my gear ranking and I hope to have it updated soon.

Whats Next: I am kind of excited about what I can do with this model. I plan to create additional models to evaluate a solar rotation. I would also like to add lag into the model to see the impact. I would also like to build a model that takes movement into account if possible. Finally I will be using the model to evaluate new set bonuses, glyphs and talents.