Spindle, spindle smoothly spinning,
twisting, turning, taking, twirling.
Weaving, weeping, wanting, yearning,
sewing, stitching, growing, burning.
A fabric is woven of lies and confusion.
The tapestry's subject shies back in seclusion.
Its intricate pattern is but an illusion
The stitches around it conspires in collusion.
It grasps for the light as it crawls out from under
A wandering life in a world torn a sunder.
The sun in the sky and the moon seem to plunder
With chaos and fire and lightning and thunder.
The time beaten cloth of the world all around
lay beaten and broken and strewn on the ground.
The tearing of life makes a hideous sound
and the spindle stops spinning around and around.
Crying, convulsing, cowering, cursing,
hating, heartless, homeless, hurting.
Failing, falling, finally turning,
beaten, bruised, banished, burning.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Starfall, and how it works.
This may be just me, but the druid 51 point talent, Starfall, has been rather confusing to me in the past. I think they even updted the tooltip to more closely reflect what it actually does, but I can still see it as confusing. I'm going to try to clear it up so you all can add it to your spell repetoir effectively should you so choose. Here is the actual spell text.
"You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each dealing 433 to 503 Arcane damage. Also causes 78 Arcane damage to all other enemies within 5 yards of the enemy target. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 sec. Shapeshifting into an animal form or mounting cancels the effect. Any effect which causes you to lose control of your character will supress the starfall effect."
- Wowhead
What it does it hits up to 20 targets within 30 yards with about 475 damage (modifided by spell power of course) with basicall a shrapnel grenade. By that I mean, the damage lands on its head, then shoots splash damage to any target within 5 yards of any target that gets hit. The initial hits expend one of the twenty (1/20) charges, but the splash is associated with the charge, and does not expend any charges.
If we were to assume you had greater than or equal to 20 targets around you, each target would be hit once, and your starfall buff would be terminated. The beauty of the spell is that if you have fewer targets, the effect lasts longer, to do close to the same amount of damage. Lets assume now we have 10 targets within 30 yards of us. Each of the 10 targets will be struck with a star, splash damage to nearby targets, and expend 10 total charges. Since however there are still charges 10 charges left, it will go through the sequence again, dispelling 1 charge on each target yet again, and causing splash damage. At this point, after two seconds, all 20 charges will be expended and the effect will be terminated.
You can run this idea for any amount of targets up to 20. If you have 14 targets, 14 get hit, then the game will randomly pick 6 more targets to expend the last 6 charges.
The last point is that the more targets you have clusterfucked together the more bonus the splash componant will do to each target around it. The effect becomes smaller and smaller the fewer targets, approaching no bonus when you have only 1 target. However, the spell is still useful and it will hit the single target for 20 charges of about 475 damage unbuffed. So for a single target you have almost 10,000 damage to just a single target, assuming you have 0 spell power. With 1900 spell power, i find each star does close to 1200 damage, so even with single target damage, thats still almost 12000, and it goes passively while you continue normal spell rotation.
I would strongly recommend using the ability when you have at least two adds up since you will then have it expend all the charges over the 10 seconds and also add splash damage, and the more mobs the better. But there are fights where you will only have 1 mob (usually the boss) and if its a long fight you might as well blow it early, let it cooldown, and use it again later in the fight.
One more thing I should mention (if you havn't already figured this out) is the 30 yard range around you is pretty big. Don't blow it on phase 1 of Kel'Thuzad or something or you will aggro fucking everything. Thats bad.
For my spec, I chose this over Force of Nature. Force of Nature actually does more damage over their duration, but due to the nature of boss fights, those pansy little trees usually dont survive long, and has a 3 min cooldown too. Starfall rarely gets cancelled so i find it more appealing. Thats my personal preference anyway. Hope that clears up how this spell works!
"You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each dealing 433 to 503 Arcane damage. Also causes 78 Arcane damage to all other enemies within 5 yards of the enemy target. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 sec. Shapeshifting into an animal form or mounting cancels the effect. Any effect which causes you to lose control of your character will supress the starfall effect."
- Wowhead
What it does it hits up to 20 targets within 30 yards with about 475 damage (modifided by spell power of course) with basicall a shrapnel grenade. By that I mean, the damage lands on its head, then shoots splash damage to any target within 5 yards of any target that gets hit. The initial hits expend one of the twenty (1/20) charges, but the splash is associated with the charge, and does not expend any charges.
If we were to assume you had greater than or equal to 20 targets around you, each target would be hit once, and your starfall buff would be terminated. The beauty of the spell is that if you have fewer targets, the effect lasts longer, to do close to the same amount of damage. Lets assume now we have 10 targets within 30 yards of us. Each of the 10 targets will be struck with a star, splash damage to nearby targets, and expend 10 total charges. Since however there are still charges 10 charges left, it will go through the sequence again, dispelling 1 charge on each target yet again, and causing splash damage. At this point, after two seconds, all 20 charges will be expended and the effect will be terminated.
You can run this idea for any amount of targets up to 20. If you have 14 targets, 14 get hit, then the game will randomly pick 6 more targets to expend the last 6 charges.
The last point is that the more targets you have clusterfucked together the more bonus the splash componant will do to each target around it. The effect becomes smaller and smaller the fewer targets, approaching no bonus when you have only 1 target. However, the spell is still useful and it will hit the single target for 20 charges of about 475 damage unbuffed. So for a single target you have almost 10,000 damage to just a single target, assuming you have 0 spell power. With 1900 spell power, i find each star does close to 1200 damage, so even with single target damage, thats still almost 12000, and it goes passively while you continue normal spell rotation.
I would strongly recommend using the ability when you have at least two adds up since you will then have it expend all the charges over the 10 seconds and also add splash damage, and the more mobs the better. But there are fights where you will only have 1 mob (usually the boss) and if its a long fight you might as well blow it early, let it cooldown, and use it again later in the fight.
One more thing I should mention (if you havn't already figured this out) is the 30 yard range around you is pretty big. Don't blow it on phase 1 of Kel'Thuzad or something or you will aggro fucking everything. Thats bad.
For my spec, I chose this over Force of Nature. Force of Nature actually does more damage over their duration, but due to the nature of boss fights, those pansy little trees usually dont survive long, and has a 3 min cooldown too. Starfall rarely gets cancelled so i find it more appealing. Thats my personal preference anyway. Hope that clears up how this spell works!
Shay Shays Ultimate Boomkin How-To
I've spent a lot of time browsing random internet articles, talking to friends and fellow WoW players, and of course thumbing through Elitist Jerks articles on Boomkins, and I've come to the realization that despite their few dps abilities, they can be confusing as fuck to max out your damage. There are basically two things I want to talk about. The first, and the more complext (and important, imo) issue is spell rotation. Secondly, I'll talk a little about itemization.
Spell Rotation
This is where things get ugly in playing a boomkin; figuring out what spells are actually best for dps. First of all, there are many different ways to spec your boomkin, each with slight variations on how you max your dps; Whether you get Force of Nature, Typhoon, Starfall, etc. Here is my build.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorgonnash&n=Ibliss
Eclipse is the big one that potentailly skyrockets your dps, but also confuses the shit out of things. Lets assume for the moment you have ample mana regeneration (probably replenishment and wisdom, and all the talents I put into my build). You will literally, NEVER run out of mana unless you are just spamming Hurricane on everything. Given ample mana regen, here is your spell rotation
Moonfire X1
Insect Swarm X1
Wrath Ad nausem (till dots are about to fall off)
...repeat
If you get in one of those unlucky raids where they have no paladins, no replenishment, no shamen... you get the idea, your mana regen will suffer quite a bit more, especially on long fights.
At this point you want to switch up your rotation. If your mana pool and crit are horrible, and you are really scrounging for mana, Id recommend a simple
IS x1
Starfire Ad Nauseum
...repeat
Most times your mana wont be that horrible, and I'd replace moonfire for insect swarm. With glyph of starfire, this will bounce and extra 12 seconds out of your moonfire. And if you are lucky, you can use up a clearcasting strike on a moonfire to get out of using about 700 mana.
Now we get to Eclipse. Eclipse muddys the water a lot with moonkin rotations. From all I've read, its generally a good idea to Wrath spam till Eclipse procs, then spam starfire till eclipse fades. During Starfire Eclipse, I wouldn't waste time rebuffing dots, and especially not IS. Once Eclipse runs out, resume wrath spamming. If you end up with a Wrath Eclipse, its not the end of the world by any means. Just get to spamming wrath.
I should mention that with glyph of starfire and moonfire, often MF/IS/SF rotations put out pretty similar damage and is slightly more mana efficient. The one problem with this rotation is on fights where there is damage you take while casting, in which case you can lose casting time much more since you dont have talent reduction to spell interruption. I havn't tested a lot with a starfire rotation in raiding, especially since I have an idol to buff Wrath damage, but either way, your dps shouldn't be much different. So pick your play style and stick with it.
Gear
Here is the basic stat priority:
Hit(to cap)
Spell Power
Haste
Crit
Intellect
Spirit
From a pure theorycrafting point of view, stacking these stats based on certain weights (which I don't have available) will up your damage the most. However, as indicated in the section above, there are multiple play styles, and based on what you want out of your dps rotation, sometimes you may value certain stats more for your play style. Specifically there are two hang-up's I have with this priority.
1) Haste vs Crit
Looking at various theorycrafting sources haste and crit are close to identical in what they do for your overall dps. However, I tend to gravitate towards crit over haste for a few reasons. First, druids are built to benefit from crit. Natures Grace and Eclipse all up your overall damage whenever you crit. You also have talents to up critical strike damage. With my current gear, I usually get starfire crits of about 13,000 or more in raids. Obviously I can't constantly string starfire crits (except with eclipse... see why i like it?) but that alone is close to 4000 dps. Secondly, and admittedly this is less of a motivation, but certain classes can benefit from your critting. Arcane mages (which my fiancee is) can put Focus Magic on me to buff both of our crit chances when I crit. Prot warriors can put vigilance on me to get extra threat from my aggromancing abilities. While those second two are minor, since the scales are fairly balanced between Haste and Crit anyway, thats enough to push me into valuing crit more.
2) Spell Power Uber Alles
The theory behind stacking pure spell power, especially with gems, is to blow the crap out of everything super duper ultra mega fast. I believe the metaphor of a glass cannon becomes particularly relevant for this sort of itemization. Here's the issue I have with it: As of right now, there are no fights in the game where putting out 4000 dps as opposed to 3700 dps is a big deal (just adjust for the scale of your gear). Assuming you have a halfway decent group for everything, Naxxramas poses no real challenges, even on 25. The challenging fights rest more on the healers. And while you don't want to put out horrible damage, the difference between stacking pure SP gems for a few hundred extra dps vs actually getting the socket bonuses, getting a bit of crit/haste/spirit/whatever doesn't really make a difference. The two hardest (by item level) encounters in the game right now are EoE25 and OS25-3 Drake. Malygos is a pretty simple fight actually, and is more about mechanics than spamming damage. Granted there is a timer but again im assuming your group isn't retarded and you arnt fumbling to get the timer. If you are, you may want to consider stacking pure spell power to help get your raid over that DPS hump. OS25 is probably the closest thing to needing to crank out max dps as there is in the game today, but again, as a piece of a good raiding team, getting some of those secondary stats shouldn't lower your dps enough to make you useless. Perhaps when Uldar comes out there will be some challenging fights in the game, but for now, lets face it; lvl 80 raiding is not that challenging. If you value the glass cannon approach, stacking spell power will up your damage. If you like having a more balanced character, diversify your gems a bit, and have some fun.
I hope this cleared up some common questions about Boomkins. Please leave any comments you may have, and I'll try to address them. Peace yallz!
Spell Rotation
This is where things get ugly in playing a boomkin; figuring out what spells are actually best for dps. First of all, there are many different ways to spec your boomkin, each with slight variations on how you max your dps; Whether you get Force of Nature, Typhoon, Starfall, etc. Here is my build.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorgonnash&n=Ibliss
Eclipse is the big one that potentailly skyrockets your dps, but also confuses the shit out of things. Lets assume for the moment you have ample mana regeneration (probably replenishment and wisdom, and all the talents I put into my build). You will literally, NEVER run out of mana unless you are just spamming Hurricane on everything. Given ample mana regen, here is your spell rotation
Moonfire X1
Insect Swarm X1
Wrath Ad nausem (till dots are about to fall off)
...repeat
If you get in one of those unlucky raids where they have no paladins, no replenishment, no shamen... you get the idea, your mana regen will suffer quite a bit more, especially on long fights.
At this point you want to switch up your rotation. If your mana pool and crit are horrible, and you are really scrounging for mana, Id recommend a simple
IS x1
Starfire Ad Nauseum
...repeat
Most times your mana wont be that horrible, and I'd replace moonfire for insect swarm. With glyph of starfire, this will bounce and extra 12 seconds out of your moonfire. And if you are lucky, you can use up a clearcasting strike on a moonfire to get out of using about 700 mana.
Now we get to Eclipse. Eclipse muddys the water a lot with moonkin rotations. From all I've read, its generally a good idea to Wrath spam till Eclipse procs, then spam starfire till eclipse fades. During Starfire Eclipse, I wouldn't waste time rebuffing dots, and especially not IS. Once Eclipse runs out, resume wrath spamming. If you end up with a Wrath Eclipse, its not the end of the world by any means. Just get to spamming wrath.
I should mention that with glyph of starfire and moonfire, often MF/IS/SF rotations put out pretty similar damage and is slightly more mana efficient. The one problem with this rotation is on fights where there is damage you take while casting, in which case you can lose casting time much more since you dont have talent reduction to spell interruption. I havn't tested a lot with a starfire rotation in raiding, especially since I have an idol to buff Wrath damage, but either way, your dps shouldn't be much different. So pick your play style and stick with it.
Gear
Here is the basic stat priority:
Hit(to cap)
Spell Power
Haste
Crit
Intellect
Spirit
From a pure theorycrafting point of view, stacking these stats based on certain weights (which I don't have available) will up your damage the most. However, as indicated in the section above, there are multiple play styles, and based on what you want out of your dps rotation, sometimes you may value certain stats more for your play style. Specifically there are two hang-up's I have with this priority.
1) Haste vs Crit
Looking at various theorycrafting sources haste and crit are close to identical in what they do for your overall dps. However, I tend to gravitate towards crit over haste for a few reasons. First, druids are built to benefit from crit. Natures Grace and Eclipse all up your overall damage whenever you crit. You also have talents to up critical strike damage. With my current gear, I usually get starfire crits of about 13,000 or more in raids. Obviously I can't constantly string starfire crits (except with eclipse... see why i like it?) but that alone is close to 4000 dps. Secondly, and admittedly this is less of a motivation, but certain classes can benefit from your critting. Arcane mages (which my fiancee is) can put Focus Magic on me to buff both of our crit chances when I crit. Prot warriors can put vigilance on me to get extra threat from my aggromancing abilities. While those second two are minor, since the scales are fairly balanced between Haste and Crit anyway, thats enough to push me into valuing crit more.
2) Spell Power Uber Alles
The theory behind stacking pure spell power, especially with gems, is to blow the crap out of everything super duper ultra mega fast. I believe the metaphor of a glass cannon becomes particularly relevant for this sort of itemization. Here's the issue I have with it: As of right now, there are no fights in the game where putting out 4000 dps as opposed to 3700 dps is a big deal (just adjust for the scale of your gear). Assuming you have a halfway decent group for everything, Naxxramas poses no real challenges, even on 25. The challenging fights rest more on the healers. And while you don't want to put out horrible damage, the difference between stacking pure SP gems for a few hundred extra dps vs actually getting the socket bonuses, getting a bit of crit/haste/spirit/whatever doesn't really make a difference. The two hardest (by item level) encounters in the game right now are EoE25 and OS25-3 Drake. Malygos is a pretty simple fight actually, and is more about mechanics than spamming damage. Granted there is a timer but again im assuming your group isn't retarded and you arnt fumbling to get the timer. If you are, you may want to consider stacking pure spell power to help get your raid over that DPS hump. OS25 is probably the closest thing to needing to crank out max dps as there is in the game today, but again, as a piece of a good raiding team, getting some of those secondary stats shouldn't lower your dps enough to make you useless. Perhaps when Uldar comes out there will be some challenging fights in the game, but for now, lets face it; lvl 80 raiding is not that challenging. If you value the glass cannon approach, stacking spell power will up your damage. If you like having a more balanced character, diversify your gems a bit, and have some fun.
I hope this cleared up some common questions about Boomkins. Please leave any comments you may have, and I'll try to address them. Peace yallz!
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