Mana Mana (again)

More mana regen nerfs. They just keep piling up. Spiritual Attunement is the latest victim. And while that isn't a Druid thing, it is nonetheless yet another reflection of the mana destruction we are seeing in WoW.

On the PTR, my Resto mana regen is quite frankly a joke. I am not one to be an alarmist, and yes people are killing the bosses on the PTR with the massive mana regen nerfs in place. But this whole thing seems to really be getting out of hand. And not just a little bit.

I will say it again, not that Blizzard will hear it or get ir if they did hear it, but here goes:

WE ARE NOT OVERPOWERED.

THE CURRENT CONTENT IS UNDERPOWERED.

Please please stop it Blizzard! Healing has been more fun the last few months than ever in this game. At least it has in the opinion of this author who has healed from Molten Core days up until now. With raiders being more bored in WoW than ever before, and more and more people just bailing on the game seemingly every day, putting mana users (and *especially*) healers in mana crunching situations like old days, making it much less fun, is a very bad move.

Now I understand the need for balancing. I really do. many things Blizzard did in the past panned out a lot better than it looked like they would. But this time, their actions indicate (to me at least) that they are not in touch with reality here. Er... actually its a video game... the uh, reality of the virtual reality... ah crap you know what I mean!

I haven't had the guts to wear a Boomkin spec on the PTR yet. I am too afraid of what I will see when open the character pane and check mana regen.

When is Starcrat 2 coming out?

Druid Predictions for 2009

First let me say that the batteries in my crystal ball went out just yesterday. The timing is uncanny. So I am going to have make all this stuff up.

So without further excuses that I can point back to a year from now when everything I say here turns out to be wrong, in order of the impact they will have, least to most, here are my 5 Druid Predictions for 2009!

Resto will be way overpowered, for a minute.

Ghostcrawler has talked about a healing revamp for all classes, a major overhaul, several times. Although the most dramatic early ideas will get tossed out, some major fundamental changes are going to come down toward the end of the year.

Somehow, someway, Druid healers are going to end up in an overpowered state briefly, like Bears were very early in BC. The nerf, er fix, will come quickly, bringing us back in line with other healing classes. But for a brief moment, Resto Druids everywhere will bask in the glory of God Mode healing.

Bears will become stamina driven tanks.

As we move through Ulduar, post armor nerf, Bears will more and more seek out straight up hitpoints in the absence of the high levels of mitigation they used to enjoy. By the time we get to Arthas (which may not be in 2009), there will be a screenshot floating around the web of a Bear with over 100,000 hitpoints. Said Bears will take atrocious amounts of damage, but will be highly sought after in raids nonetheless. Healers will be using their biggest heal bombs, and sweating bullets.

Cat DPS will flatten out. Badly.

Post Naxx/Sartharion/Malygos, cat DPS will once again scale poorly. Sound familiar? In BC, cats did great DPS through about mid tier 5 content. By mid tier 6, their DPS was so low compared to other comparably geared DPS classes, they became a waste of a raid spot.

I remember topping 6k AP in Hyjal, and struggling to put out 1200 DPS. This was while lesser geared rogues were hitting 2k DPS. Six. Thousand. Attack Power. That was when I hung up the catsuit and went Boomkin.

This will be repeated in Wrath of the Lich King. Scaling, scaling, scaling. Not.

Eclipse will be changed.

Talk to five different high DPS Boomkins, and you will get five diffferent opinions on how good Eclipse is or is not, everywhere from "gotta have it" to "what a waste".

What I would love to see happen, and almost certainly will NOT happen, is this: If you are casting Starfire when Eclipse procs, it gives you the... make sure you are sitting down... the Starfire buff! Same for Wrath! OH SNAP! That makes too much sense. Far better to try to artifically force Boomkins to alternate between Starfire and Wrath in some wacky chase-down-the-proc-ah-crap-I-missed-one-cast-and-GCD-gonna-emo-and-kill-myself-now kind of thing right?

Although they will not use this all too sensible solution, Eclipse will see a significant change of some sort. In the end, after much heated debate and incredibly deep theorycrafting, it will still be no better or worse than it is now.

Power.

While this will be announced but not impelemented in 2009, everything is going to really hit the fan as a result.

Remember how we had +heal and +spell damage gear? As you know, that was changed to spell power.

This will taken one more step. Blizzard will announce that Attack Power and Spell Power will consolidated in to one single stat: Power.

That Pally Plate that gets sharded every week will be great for a DPS Warrior. Hunters will be rolling against Resto Druids for gear! WTB Main Hand Warglaive for my heal or nuke set?

To Crit or Not To Crit?

Another Boomkin-centric post this evening. Boom!

Crit Theory

There is much discussion around various places frequented by Laser Turkeys about the value of crit. I know I sure like to see those big crits flying. There aren't many things when nuking away that are as satisfying as a nice long string of Starfire crits. But how good is crit for a Boomkin really? I mean, exactly how good?

One very cool website is of course MaxDPS.com. Although some people might take the numbers there a little too literally, when used with a bit of common sense and knowledge about how your class works, its really a great tool they have there. According to it, with my current gear, each 10 points of various stats would translate in to more DPS like this:

(+) 10 Spell Power:	7.40
(+) 10 Crit Rating:	7.02
(+) 10 Hit Rating:	0.00
(+) 10 Haste Rating:	10.96
(+) 10 Intellect:	4.88

So, I should be looking for haste first, Spell Power second, with crit a close third.

Another good resource is of course the forums at ElitistJerks.com. There is some very good info there, and some seriously deep math discussion. I mean the kind of stuff that makes your brain melt, pour out your ears and all over your keyboard. Deep stuff. There are usually a few spots there where you can find information about how crit rating stacks up against spell power, haste, Intellect, etc.

Crit Fact?

But last night, I think I found the ultimate authority on the real effect of crit for a Boomkin. WWS reports! More specifically, Loatheb numbers.

On the Loatheb fight, you will have a buff that gives you an extra 50% crit. You will have it most, or all of the fight. You can go over 100% crit on Stafire with Eclipse for short periods.

With that massive of an increase to crit, we can see how it really does stack up for us. I have to say, the results were pretty surprising. I did about 500 or 600 more DPS on Loatheb than other, more normal boss encounters. That's all. Not thousands, but hundreds. The other Boomkin in the raid, same thing. Mages on the other hand, seem to be scaling very nicely with that extra crit.

On Loatheb, thats about triple the normal chance to crit that I have. For a DPS gain measurable in the hundreds. So that got me thinking. What would my DPS gain be if I tripled Spell power? I am pretty sure that would be up in the 5 digit DPS range. How about tripling Haste? Imagine casting Starfire in just over a second. That would be pretty high 4 digit, maybe 5 digit DPS. Triple the crit, and its hundreds of DPS higher, not thousands.

So...

Some folks have long said to never gem or enchant for crit. I personally have always gone spell power and haste. After reading Loatheb WWS reports, sure I am glad about that!

Now this does not take in to account the mana return from critting alot. On Loatheb, my mana bar practically stays glued to max. But with better gear, and a mana pool hitting 20k or 21k in raids now, and the added benefit of Replenishment that comes with that higher mana pool, I rarely have mana issues anymore.

So despite wanting it to not be so, I have to say, Not To Crit. Gimme spell power and haste all way!

Mana Mana

Got Mana? When we started heroic 5 mans a few weeks ago, I sure didn't. Had to stop and drink after every... single... pull. It was rare that Innervate was off cooldown for more than a minute or two, unless we were almost at a boss where it would be needed even more. Mana pots? Went through more than I want to remember. 80 Vendor Waters would last *maybe* 2 heroics. This was without a source of Replenishment though.

After a bunch of heroics 5s, the difference was signficant. Now what I really lusted after was more spell power, whether healing or nuking. And I got some. Not tons, but some. The major change in BC gear to new gear though was the basic stats, Stamina, Int and Spirit. And wow, the new gear has a TON of all those.

Once we started raiding 25s, we made a point to have 2 or 3 Replenishments in the raid. That made a massive difference. I still had to drink after a lot of pulls, but it was so much better. As new gear kept coming in, the mana issue got better and better. The thing about Replenishment is that the bigger your mana pool, the more mana you get from it. It gives you a percentage of your mana, so that makes sense.

Last night my Boomkin had over 20k mana for the first time. With 3 Replenishments in the raid, I dare say mana was almost not even a consideration. Burn baby burn! Longer boss fights I still had to drink a pot or use an innervate on occasion, but rarely.

So, got mana issues? Once your gear gets better, you probably won't anymore! Woot!

Haste makes... headaches?

Haste, how I love thee, let me count the ways. Fast.

How much haste is good for a Boomkin? Is spell power better? How about crit? Or Int? Well, many people are fond of plugging in their stats at MaxDPS.com to get an idea of what is going to give them the most bang for the item budget buck. Its a pretty cool website, I use it often.

However, don't let it run your life. Because it says that one piece of gear is going to give you a 1.55233332555 DPS increase over another doesn't mean it is so. If one piece of gear shows as having a 45 DPS increase over another, yeah, its probably better. But always check the stats, and figure it out yourself. God gave you a brain, use it!

The most interesting part of MaxDPS.com, at least to me, is the little thing on the right that shows you how much DPS 10 points of each stat will give you. At least in theory. Its pretty cool to give you a general idea, but again, use your brain.

So, on to the whole haste thing. If someone can clear this up a bit with some solid math or extensive testing, please do! No, posting that "I red 1 tiem on teh WoW forums that hastes r rediculously gud" doesnt count.

A fellow Druid and I have been hashing out how to maximize our laser turkeys a lot lately, and the results have been excellent. Both of our DPS has gone up a big chunk quickly. We got talking about haste, and the more I got in to, the stranger it got. Here is a PM I sent:

Haste: (WowWiki says that 32.79 haste rating = 1% at level 80.)

Lets consider a spell with a 3 second cast. If I get enough haste to cut that down 10%, I am shaving off .3 seconds for a 2.7 second cast time. 10% more haste got me exactly 10% faster than what I had.

Now lets say I already have a massive chunk of haste, say enough to make that same spell a 1 second cast. I add an additional 10% here and I shave off another .3 seconds for a .7 second cast time. 10% more haste got me 30% faster casts than I just had!

Looking at it this way, haste would be more valuable the more of it you already have, at least until you reach the GCD.

This would be a logarithmically scaling valuation for stacking haste.

Looking at it from another perspective, mana issues aside, casting 10% faster *should* net exactly a 10% damage increase. This would be a linear valuation for stacking haste.

I was going to write about other stats, then compare to haste, to arrive at some relative value for each at various levels of spell power, crit, etc. However, the napkin math I just laid out about haste seems enough of a brain twister for now!

I checked the EJ forums briefly and didn't find anything about this. It would almost seem that haste would have to have built in diminishing returns to *not* be logarithmic in it's scaling. IE, if you have 0 haste, 32.79 haste gets you 1%, but if you have 500 haste, maybe 60 haste is needed to add another 1%. However, I have not seen anything written by anyone that indicates this is the case. This would probably be easy enough to check though. Take off haste gear, see what the Stafire cast time is in the tooltip. Add a little haste, check it again. Add a ton of haste, check it again. Then compare the results. Maybe I will try this later!

My brain is going to explode.

Boomkin Bugs?

General Stuff
So, here we are a few weeks in to Wrath of the Lich King! It has been for Druids so far.

Let's see. We had a Bear with over 45k hitpoints tanking Hatefuls last night. A Boomkin was hitting 3600 DPS on the same fight. Resto is better than ever too. Man, its a good time to play a Druid.

Currently, our guild has 4 bosses left in Naxx. Seems like most of the guilds on the server that finished BT are at about the same point, or a little ahead.

Thats the state of other stuff. How about the state of Druids? I have spent most of the time since the expansion came out doing the Boomkin thing. And its good. Very, very good.

Why is it so good? Many reasons. There is good gear that supports the spec. The talents that make up the spec are very nicely done, best they have ever been. All those things and more make it a glorious time to be a Boomkin! And of course the two big bugs help too.

Huh? What two big bugs? What are you talking about? Boomkin seems to work fine. I have to agree, it does seem tobe working quite well. Especially with the two bugs working in our favor!


The Hit Bug
When was the last time you saw a spell miss? Really think about it for a second? Been a while hasn't it? How is your hit rating right now? Well, mine is sitting around 150, which is way way below hit cap. During a typical 3 hour raid in Naxx 25, I will usually see like 1 spell miss. No seriously, 1.
The Boomkin hit cap is a hard number. Depending on who you talk to, it is usually quoted as being around 350, with talents. Any less, and against raid bosses, you should be missing. At 150, you should a LOT. I don't. And neither do other Boomkins I have talked to.
What possible explanations are there for this? Maybe the Dranei racial is helping, but probably not since I play a Tauren. Talents help, but not enough to add up to 18% hit. Other players in the raid have stuff that helps too right? Again, not even close to 18%.
And the plot thickens! I soloed Ony the other day, who is a skull level boss. That means she is 3 level higher than you as far as hit goes. I missed a lot of spells, about what one would expect. So why there and not in Northrend? Your guess is as good as mine.
So Boomkin hit rating is wacked. Right now, you need very little in raids. I can dig it!


Starfire Crit Crit Crit Bug
I probably don't pay as much attention to damage meters as most do. I do keep an eye on them usually, see where people are at, where I am at, and that kind of stuff. Since I lead our raids, I need to, at least to an extent. But I don't five in to my own stats like I probably should.
During a heroic 5 man with a guildie who is much smarter with stats than I am, he asked me what my crit rating was at. I told him around 20%. Turns out that for the last 20 or 30 minutes, I had been around 70% crit on Starfire. Now I am not *completely* oblivious, it did seem like there were a lot of bouncing big numbers flying around my screen. But I hadn't really thought about it that much, since I was not doing the whole eclipse proc-watching thing.
I started checking my post-fight stats a bit more, and sure enough, my Starfire crit rating is 2-3 times what it should be. I checked Recount on our other Boomkin in raids a few times, same thing.
I am very upset about this massive oversight on Blizzard's part. Not.


Working As Intended
Probably not. Sure am going to miss these two bugs when they are gone, but for now, YEEEEEE HAAAAA!

UPDATE:

Our glory days of free hit seem to be over. Misses have, sadly, returned to a casting rotation near you. The number most thrown around now seems to be 250-ish, assuming a Shadow Priest in the raid, without the Dranei racial.