The Sun is Eclipsed by the Moon
[Update]: Be sure to check out my new and improved Eclipse theorycrafting post here.
This is going to be my attempt to do a real theorycrafting of the new talent Eclipse, which I’m guessing, and only guessing, will make it into a recognizable form come release (it improves on spell synergy, something which Blizzard generally seems to like). Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. First, the talent:
Eclipse: When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 60% of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 60% chance of increasing your critical strike chance with Starfire by 10%. Effect lasts 30 seconds and has a 2 min cooldown.
A wordy talent indeed. Unfortunately, I know of no definitive source regarding whether the cooldown is for both effects or just one. That is to say, whether your Wrath can proc its Eclipse version when the Starfire version is still on cooldown. What I am going to attempt to do is to see if the proc from Starfire will make Wrath a viable spell to use during the buff. In order to do this, I am going to assume that the two effects are not on a shared cooldown (i.e. the increased SF crit chance will proc even while your Wrath damage is buffed).
First, some basics. This talent necessarily depends on your gear. Because Starfire has (and we are assuming Wrath of Cenarius) a 120% damage coefficient, that means that it scales much better with gear than Wrath does, which only has a 67.1% coefficient. It also depends on your critical strike chance in Moonkin Form. Both Wrath and Starfire have a critical strike chance 4% higher than that listed in your spell tab tooltip, because of talents. During the Eclipse buff, this would increase it to 14% above your listed spell critical strike chance for Starfire. A problem arrises in assuming that the cooldowns are not shared. Because you would theoretically switch to the other spell when the buff procs, you would quickly crit enough to trigger the other buff, thus cutting into the two times.
So, you use Starfire as your main nuke in PvE because it is mana efficient, right? Let’s start with what are the leaked, top ranks of Wrath and Starfire.
Wrath: Causes 489-551 Nature damage to the target. 380 mana.
Starfire: Causes 661-779 Arcane damage to the target. 555 mana.
Now, let’s assume 1000 spell damage and 26% crit to start (thus 30% for both Wrath and Starfire). At 1000 spell damage, and assuming all relevant talents which increase damage and reduce mana cost (Moonfury, Moonglow and Nature’s Fury debuff) we end up with:
W: 1381.6 damage and 346 mana. This is 921.1 DPS and 3.993 DPM (damage per mana)
SF: 2227.2 damage and 505 mana. This is 742.4 DPS and 4.410 DPM
In terms of DPS and DPM, I am going to ignore Nature’s Grace, because I don’t feel like punishing myself that much tonight.
Factoring in for crits, we get that Wrath has (921.1 x 1.30) = 1197.4 DPS and 5.113 DPM
SF: (742.4 x 1.30) = 965.1 DPS and 5.733 DPM, if my math is right.
As I said earlier, I am mostly going to see if it will be worth it (or how worth it) to switch to Wrath from Starfire assuming a stationary target, like a boss. If Wrath’s buff is up we get:
1500.7 damage/ 1000.4 DPS / 4.338 DPM. Factor in crits and we get 1300.5 DPS and 5.639 DPM. This is a buff of over 100 DPS and .500 DPM. In other words, if my calculations are correct (and that makes me sound like such a nerd, I know) the Wrath buff will push the DPM of Wrath to almost what Starfire has, with 300+ more DPS. I would argue that unless you are the most mana-starved, it is well worth it. Before the buff, it is only ~200 more DPS and a full .5 DPM+ less than Starfire. But with the buff, it is only .094 DPM less, which is a significant boost. The actual usefulness will depend on the given encounter. Wrath is better if you need mobility, for instance. But this gives a rough, theorycrafting idea of what to expect.
Now, let’s say you switch to Wrath and then get a proc on Starfire’s buff and switch back. Let’s look at the buff for Starfire. It increases your crit chance by 10%, which pushes SF’s chance to 40%. We multiply the DPS and DPM both by 1.4 to find:
1039.4 DPS and 6.174 DPM, an increase of ~80 DPS and .441 DPM.
So, if I did everything up there correctly, I would argue FOR switching spells based on which buff is active, situation allowing. Arenas won’t often suffer you a full SF cast, and sometimes you just need all the DPM you can get. Another strategy would be to cast Wrath until the SF buff is active and then cast Starfire until the internal cooldown is finished and recast Wrath to get the buff. Especially if you have the Wrath buff active while attempting to get the SF buff, this might actually be one of the most mana-efficient methods.
Whew, I hope that I didn’t lose people in my convoluted thought process, or make some huge erroneous assumption. That was kind of fun, kind of horrible. Time for me to sleep now!
/wave
P.S. Let me know if I screwed up! kthx
You made several incorrect assumptions in your theory and I have additional information which can help you.
1st – Starfire does not scale better than Wrath with spell damage. Over a 3 second period, Starfire gains 120% spell damage, while Wrath gains 134.2%. Wrath has, and so far always will, outperform Starfire in terms of raw DPS. Currently, what allows Starfire to outscale Wrath is Curse of Elements, Nature’s Grace, and the Tier 5/6 set bonuses.
2nd – Currently you can only gain one proc within the cooldown period, not both. This may change in other builds and may even already be outdated.
3rd – Nature’s Grace previously did not benefit Wrath due to it not being classified as a Haste effect, but rather a raw reduction in cast time. This is being changed in WotLK and therefore would be equal across both spells.
4th – It has never been a real issue over whether or not Wrath had a higher DPS than Starfire, it always has, the issue is whether a Balance Druid will be able to sustain using a Wrath based rotation. The 10% extra crit on Starfire from Eclipse is all but worthless, it is a horrible boost for a talent to low in the tree, but the 10% on to Wrath is amazing. Picking up Eclipse becomes further complicated due to currently needing to drop points from other talents to pick up all of the other damage/utility abilities within the Balance tree. In order to get Eclipse, a Druid is more than likely going to have to sacrifice some mana regeneration, which would make using a Wrath based rotation even more difficult to sustain.
5th – Your math is raw and does not actually simulate what a Druid would see within a common raid setting. Wrath should have the Nature’s Fury debuff (6% increase) and Starfire should have Curse of Elements and Nature’s Fury debuff (10 or 13% + 6%)
Yes, I certainly did forget how Wrath wasn’t fully benefitting from NG when I actually posted this.
One thing I am confused about though, is why exactly the extra crit on Starfire is such a terrible buff? It pushes the DPS and DPM higher and, although I do not care to do this math, gives a higher chance to get more Starfires in during a rotation due to NG. I understand that we aren’t actually all that crit dependent, but that doesn’t seem to connect to how it is a terrible buff.
And yes, the DPS of Wrath far surpasses that of Starfire and always will. I suppose I forgot to take into account the cast times in terms of scaling. That’s why what I wanted to see is if the buff to Wrath’s damage boosted its DPM high enough to make it usable even in a raid situation to boost DPS. Obviously it still has lower DPM, but the DPS increase might make it worth it.
And Starfire would benefit more than Wrath in a common raid setting, but I wanted to take only those buffs generated by the Moonkin itself into account. Although Wrath is generally off limits only in raiding situations, I also wanted to know simply how it benefitted both spells no matter what.
However you look at it, Starfire will always be the best spell normally to use in raid situations, but from what I know, if Wrath is buffed from Eclipse, it makes it very good.
And it’s an awkward thing how they are dealing with the cooldowns, isn’t it? I mean, if they weren’t shared, then when you start casting the first buffed spell, the buff for the other spell comes up and you can’t take full advantage of the other. And with shared cooldowns you have to recast every 2 minutes (or 1 minute? this 1 minute of dead time I have heard about?) to get the buff again on the spell you actually want to cast.
My math is very raw indeed, but thank you for the feedback, I obviously did overlook things.
In terms of mana regen and talent bloat, this is a huge, HUGE problem. Moonkin Form won’t likely be enough regeneration even outside of raids (you must understand I do not get to raid often, hopefully I will be able to run 10-mans in Wrath). I am personally hoping that taking OoC will be enough regeneration outside of raids. I’ll hopefully put a post up regarding Mp5 equivalences today. Please check my math there too!
Thanks for the feedback, as always.
/wave