| Alisia | #297213 Monday April 28, 2008 at 09:27 | |
Ready for Winter |
Well, ok this is more refining. I always preferred being balance (I like healing, but its harder to get groups as a caster). Gear-wise I've got a fairly good idea of what I need, so this isn't as much help with that. Caster rotations is what I feel I need help with. With my gear the way it is, I've been able to run heroics pretty successfully, but I just want to know what is a good rotation to have. So far I've been doing a sort of logic-argument rotation. I start out with insect swarm and moonfire. Insect swarm gets refreshed as needed. If my moonfire procs nature's grace then I use starfire until moonfire is going off target. If moonfire procs the idol, then I start wrath spamming until the buff wears off. The first because at my current spell damage starfire is more damage, but once I gain the 150 from the idol my 2-wrath average goes over the average of starfire. The problem is the wrath spam chews up my mana like no tomorrow. But this sort of system does good damage at least in the heroics I've gone to with it. It might just be a gear issue. But I figure there has to be a better rotation I can use that isn't as mana-intensive. --
Ghostcrawler: "Rogue talents are hard because the class is ultimately very mathy." Ghostcrawler is secretly Barbie? |
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| Boshrankus | #297289 Monday April 28, 2008 at 15:13 | |
Member |
To start I would suggest this spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t11582-druid_moonkin_dps_spreadsheet/ You will have to do a bit of searching to find a link to the most recent version (maybe like 2-3 pages back from the most recent post). There are apparently problems with the haste calculation on this spreadsheet but that should not affect your choices atm. That same thread has a lot of other useful info also. You can also check out http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2215646573&sid=1 For boss fights, I would recommend getting hit capped (~150 with talents) as your priority. As for my feeling on rotations it will depend on the situation and the stats associated with your gear. I assume this is a 25 raid and you are fortunate enough to have a SPriest. For trash I found that MF (letting it run its full course) with Wrath spam was most effective. I also used IS on trash a lot but for max DPS adding another Wrath is better, mana allowing. Most often trash mobs would die too quickly for SF to do its thing, but again this can change depending on the overall DPS of your raid. As your +dmg increases SF will become much better as SF gains a larger % of your bonus damage than Wrath (can't remember the specifics off-hand). Combined with a little haste and/or the T5 4piece bonus Wrath will be used less and less. For protracted boss fights IS, MF, SFX3 is the generally agreed best rotation for damage and mana effeciency. If your mana is still draining too quickly then cut out a MF every 2nd or 3rd rotation or add an extra SF. In the end, if you find your innervate is not being utilized that often don't be afraid to use it on yourself :) I would also suggest playing around with the macros that allow each of the main damage idols to be equipped with its spell (i can post them later). They take a little getting used to but I think its worth it. I wouldn't mind hearing others opinions of the idol swapping myself. That's my 2 cents. Cheers and good luck! |
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| Alisia | #297297 Monday April 28, 2008 at 16:03 | |
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Ready for Winter |
quote: Originally posted by Boshrankus: To start I would suggest this spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t11582-druid_moonkin_dps_spreadsheet/ ... I would also suggest playing around with the macros that allow each of the main damage idols to be equipped with its spell (i can post them later). They take a little getting used to but I think its worth it. I wouldn't mind hearing others opinions of the idol swapping myself. That's my 2 cents. Cheers and good luck! Just so you don't worry I found what you said about rotations and damage coefficients really useful, but I wanted to touch on these two. I got the most recent version of this spreadsheet today. But it doesn't have a few of the magister's terrace drops itemized correctly or there at all. So its being a little bit of a pain to work with my gear in at all. On the idol though. I only have the badge idol for my damage ones. Though I have found some macros that purport to eliminate the GCD from idol switching. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33510#comments --
Ghostcrawler: "Rogue talents are hard because the class is ultimately very mathy." Ghostcrawler is secretly Barbie? |
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| Boshrankus | #297318 Monday April 28, 2008 at 17:08 | |
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Member |
Yeah that spreadsheet always seems to have a few bugs with the items or socket bonuses not adding up. In general though I have found it "relatively" accurate compared to results of Dr. Boom experiments when choosing gear. I know all the new badge gear is there. I don't have any items from MgT so not sure about that although the latest version was updated only a few day after the patch so a full loot list may not have been available. At the bottom of the gear section though you can manually add items if needed. I would definitely get the SF idol (+55 dmg. 100% of the time is pretty nice). It drops in Shattered Halls off Nethekurse. |
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| Kaug | #303012 Monday May 26, 2008 at 21:19 | |
The wrong way to do situps |
A month late but, here is my 2 cents. On boss fights 1. In general with full buffs, the best rotation is MF + SFx3-4 depending on crits and haste. The spreadsheet will help you tweek that depending on if you have a SPriest or totems or blessings + how long each fight is. 2. IS is great DPM but not that great DPS once you get over 1k + spell dam. I still use it as an opener since it is low front end aggro but i rarely refresh it after that, unless the tank needs it (P1 of ROS comes to mind) 3. With COS up and the advantage of NG procs, SF is basically the same DPS as Wrath with better DPM. I only use Wrath on Boss fights fights where I expect to need to move (rain o fire, Death and Decay etc) or There are interrupts (AOE stuns, silences) or something similar like me needing to decurse vs Archie. 4. NG is only a buff if you are doing a SF based rotation. Some suggest casting wrath till proc and then swapping, but when you do that you are loosing several fractions of a sec each time. The change to client side spell casting, aka spell queuing, means you should always be casting the next spell before the last (non-instant) spell goes off (using quartz helps with timing). That means that the crit and the NG proc appear after you casting has started so changing spells will cost that casting time + your reaction time (.3-.4 sec minimum). Grab the Moonkin spreadsheet and try adding that much or more latency and see how that affects your dps. Trash pulls are trash pulls and vary a lot. Some mobs won't last long enough for a dot or SF, while other are mini-bosses in length. --
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