One more comment. Hopefully the starsurge graphic in the beta now is a place holder. If it is not, I would strongly encourage Blizzard to create another graphic for it. (this has been noted on the beta forums, but there hasn't been an official response)
The current graphic is a noxious large glowing green ball. It's look like sickly swamp gas meandering towards its target, and would be far more appropriate for a warlock (or a truly demented mage) than a druid. Yes, Wrath is green, but wrath is a deep, natural green. Starsurge is currently a sickly, corrupted green. Further, starsurge suggests that it would have some blue or white in it, something along the lines of the colors in starfire, starfall, or moonfire. Maybe two intertwined beams (ah...double helix!), one the color of wrath and one the color of starfire. It is not, after all, supposed to be a pure nature or pure arcane spell.
Showing posts with label Boomkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boomkin. Show all posts
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
New Shifting Perspectives Post on Balance Druids
There is a new Shifting Perspectives post up on WoW.com, by the newly-hired Balance specialist.
I'm going to be honest. This post was overly detailed, rambled at times, and was somewhat poorly organized. It is his first post, and it did give a good overview of the current problems of Boomkin (which, he argues, aren't that bad because we're having scaling problems only at the highest limits of gear in Wrath). But I had to read it a few times, which was frustrating. I'd recommend that he put a lot of the detailed number explanations in a forum post and simply link to it, just showing his conclusions in the actual column. It would make it easier to follow, while preserving all of the detail for those who want it.
The biggest things he argued were that (1) scaling isn't the issue we make it out to be since we're just barely over the effective Starfire crit cap (he did not talk about the Wrath haste cap), and (2) movement and lost Eclipse procs are frustrating at the time, but equal out over the length of the fight and thus aren't nearly as much of a problem as the boomkin community makes them out to be.
Lissanna, in comments, pushed back a bit on the second point, noting that her dps fluctuates to the tune of several thousand depending on whether she is at melee or out at range in the Festergut encounter. Given that Festergut doesn't actually require that much movement, I think it's a fairly telling example.
The biggest takeaway for my play style is the ABC rule that the column references. "Always Be Casting." I need to remember to use movement phases to refresh DoTs, hit Starfall and Treants, and knock out a Typhoon when, for example, I'm running through Rotface to avoid his spew. Even if it's not the most mana efficient, you might as well refresh DoTs just before the end of a movement phase so you don't need to waste the GCD during the standing-still phase and can concentrate on Wraths and Starfires.
I'm going to be honest. This post was overly detailed, rambled at times, and was somewhat poorly organized. It is his first post, and it did give a good overview of the current problems of Boomkin (which, he argues, aren't that bad because we're having scaling problems only at the highest limits of gear in Wrath). But I had to read it a few times, which was frustrating. I'd recommend that he put a lot of the detailed number explanations in a forum post and simply link to it, just showing his conclusions in the actual column. It would make it easier to follow, while preserving all of the detail for those who want it.
The biggest things he argued were that (1) scaling isn't the issue we make it out to be since we're just barely over the effective Starfire crit cap (he did not talk about the Wrath haste cap), and (2) movement and lost Eclipse procs are frustrating at the time, but equal out over the length of the fight and thus aren't nearly as much of a problem as the boomkin community makes them out to be.
Lissanna, in comments, pushed back a bit on the second point, noting that her dps fluctuates to the tune of several thousand depending on whether she is at melee or out at range in the Festergut encounter. Given that Festergut doesn't actually require that much movement, I think it's a fairly telling example.
The biggest takeaway for my play style is the ABC rule that the column references. "Always Be Casting." I need to remember to use movement phases to refresh DoTs, hit Starfall and Treants, and knock out a Typhoon when, for example, I'm running through Rotface to avoid his spew. Even if it's not the most mana efficient, you might as well refresh DoTs just before the end of a movement phase so you don't need to waste the GCD during the standing-still phase and can concentrate on Wraths and Starfires.
Graylo's Guest Post on WoW.com
Graylo, of moonkin theory crafting blog fame, made a guest post on WoW.com about the problematic position of Eclipse in our rotation.
In short, he argues that Eclipse is too big a part of our rotation to be as random as it is. That one buff accounts for between 10 and 20% of our total damage output, but we can't control when it occurs and we can't make any use of it when we're moving. Further, we are rapidly approaching a crit cap for Starfire during an active eclipse (i.e. the point at which Starfire crits 100% of the time). We're already at the haste cap for Wrath, which isn't helping matters either.
While it feels cool to know that something is as good as it can be (casting as fast as possible and critting every time), that means that we know longer scale with gear. We can't crit more often, or cast more frequently, so the only stat still helping us is spell power.
It's not quite that bad...yet. And it never will be, for me, since I will be in mostly ICC 10 normal gear. But it is possible to hit the crit cap with ICC 25 normal gear, per Graylo's calculations.
So, in short, there are two problems. First, the Wrath item levels have simply gotten too high, and boomkin have trouble scaling beyond item level 260 or so, meaning we will fall behind other players in full ICC 25 gear. The developers have acknowledged this as a global problem, indicating that the extra half-tiers of gear they put into Ulduar and ToC were not initially anticipated and caused ICC gear to be significantly more powerful than originally planned.
Second, Eclipse needs to either be more predictable or not be entirely lost to movement, or some of each. They could also scale it down and give us another spell or two to make our rotation more interesting. The latter would be more in line with other classes, but I actually like the random aspect of Eclipse (and I adore the moons appearing over my head). I personally would like to see the Eclipse proc give you a stack of charges that can be used any time in the next thirty seconds. If used as quickly as possible (i.e. spamming Wrath or Starfire) they would last no longer than the current Eclipse duration. While you have any remaining, the other Eclipse cannot proc.
That would give us twice as long to use them and thus greatly reduce the chances of losing all or most of an Eclipse uptime to a movement phase. Of course, in fights like the Professor, we're still screwed, but I can't think of any way to fix that without dramatically changing our talents (or making Eclipse do something totally different and reduce casting time).
In short, he argues that Eclipse is too big a part of our rotation to be as random as it is. That one buff accounts for between 10 and 20% of our total damage output, but we can't control when it occurs and we can't make any use of it when we're moving. Further, we are rapidly approaching a crit cap for Starfire during an active eclipse (i.e. the point at which Starfire crits 100% of the time). We're already at the haste cap for Wrath, which isn't helping matters either.
While it feels cool to know that something is as good as it can be (casting as fast as possible and critting every time), that means that we know longer scale with gear. We can't crit more often, or cast more frequently, so the only stat still helping us is spell power.
It's not quite that bad...yet. And it never will be, for me, since I will be in mostly ICC 10 normal gear. But it is possible to hit the crit cap with ICC 25 normal gear, per Graylo's calculations.
So, in short, there are two problems. First, the Wrath item levels have simply gotten too high, and boomkin have trouble scaling beyond item level 260 or so, meaning we will fall behind other players in full ICC 25 gear. The developers have acknowledged this as a global problem, indicating that the extra half-tiers of gear they put into Ulduar and ToC were not initially anticipated and caused ICC gear to be significantly more powerful than originally planned.
Second, Eclipse needs to either be more predictable or not be entirely lost to movement, or some of each. They could also scale it down and give us another spell or two to make our rotation more interesting. The latter would be more in line with other classes, but I actually like the random aspect of Eclipse (and I adore the moons appearing over my head). I personally would like to see the Eclipse proc give you a stack of charges that can be used any time in the next thirty seconds. If used as quickly as possible (i.e. spamming Wrath or Starfire) they would last no longer than the current Eclipse duration. While you have any remaining, the other Eclipse cannot proc.
That would give us twice as long to use them and thus greatly reduce the chances of losing all or most of an Eclipse uptime to a movement phase. Of course, in fights like the Professor, we're still screwed, but I can't think of any way to fix that without dramatically changing our talents (or making Eclipse do something totally different and reduce casting time).
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