[Balance] Slip's Boomkin Theorycrafting (7.2.5+)

[Slippykins]

How does KJ trinket compare to the others, right now i run OI/KJ but also have Eko and Cynd.

Eko will most likely be better than KJ for ST, but KJ should be better for things like m+. I didn't include it in the sims along with cini because unfortunately they are poop for ST.

[Deleted]

I already sim higher with IFE+OI than I do with ED+IFE so I guess ED is on the shelf for good.

[Rohgraht]

After looking through Tomb of Sargeras it seems to me there will mainly be encounters with several mobs included, with 2-3 exeptions. For me that brings me even further away from ED. Can the aoe Starfall>Starsurge playstyle we choose on some fight now in Nighthold also work on alot of bosses in tomb? Or is the nerf to starfall/buff to ss big enough that we will be using ST alot more anyway?

[Slippykins]

After looking through Tomb of Sargeras it seems to me there will mainly be encounters with several mobs included, with 2-3 exeptions. For me that brings me even further away from ED. Can the aoe Starfall>Starsurge playstyle we choose on some fight now in Nighthold also work on alot of bosses in tomb? Or is the nerf to starfall/buff to ss big enough that we will be using ST alot more anyway?

Nah, for a lot of fights SotA (the SotF ring) will be king. It looks like we'll be running a ST/hybrid build for tomb.

[Polarthief]

It looks like we'll be running a ST/hybrid build for tomb.

So SL, SOTF (Inc with SOTA), ShS, SD? If so, glad to know I still won't have to change my talents

[thedeisel]

How confident are we that we have a decent APL for Emerald Dreamweaver?

I was playing around a bit and noticed that my DPS goes up even if I dip below the haste threshold for 2x SW even if my overall stats barely increase (I'm not using Erratic Metronome either; trinkets are Whispers and an Arcanocrystal).

Test 1: DPS: 968966
Stats:
Int: 48817
Haste: 31.78% (11916)
Mastery: 67.39% (8779)
Crit: 16.37% (4546)
Vers: 5.18% (2460)

Test 2: DPS: 970853
Stats:
Int: 48817
Haste: 30.71% (11516)
Mastery: 69.64% (9179)
Crit: 16.37% (4546)
Vers: 5.18% (2460)

Test 3: DPS: 970473 [Swaps in a 900 ilvl crit/mastery belt for an 870 haste/mastery belt]
Int: 49233
Haste: 28.79% (10796)
Mastery: 71.39% (9491)
Crit: 17.72% (5086)
Vers: 5.18% (2460)

Is .8% more INT and .4% more total secondary stats really worth the haste window? If so...was it really worth it to chase that haste window anyway?

More realistically, to me, it seems like our sims aren't handling ED rotation well. If that's right then that would confirm the in game experience in which ED out performs other legendary combos on single target much more than sims indicate.

Only bringing this up now because it makes me wonder about the sims around 7.2.5 with the ED changes.

The napkin math on the basic increase from getting the SWx2 haste breakpoint seems like it definitely should be a gain. With a SWx2 rotation before factoring in Incarnation or anything else, you waste 1 LS empowerment but increase your SS damage:AP expenditure by 31% in the basic surge weaving burn. With a basic LSx1 rotation, you waste 2x SW empowerments but only increase your SS damage: AP expenditure by 18%. In other words, you're casting 31% more starsurges with the 2xSW rotation but only 18% more with the 1xLS rotation. That difference in starsurge damage should make the 2xSW rotation almost twice the overall gain in dps from ED as you get from the 1xLS rotation. That should swamp the small .8% int, .4% total secondary stat gain that I get from forgoing the 2xSW haste breakpoint. But it doesn't. It nets out as even.

[PowerGamez]

Well there will be new haste breakpoints for 7.2.5 with the ED window changing to 5 seconds. Most likely a lot of the time starting from 0 empowerment charges you'll build to 90+ AP then do SS > Emp LS > Emp SW. With 4pc and 2 stacks of ED this would work out to losing about 2 AP every cycle (the 3 spells) so you can spam it a lot.

With 25% haste you can fit SS > Emp LS > Emp SW > SW into every 5 seconds window which is actually AP positive with 4pc and 2 stacks of ED.

ED should perform quite a bit better with the change. But then again so will the new legendary ring with OI.

[thedeisel]

Well there will be new haste breakpoints for 7.2.5 with the ED window changing to 5 seconds.

For sure. My point is that it seems like the current APL isn't very accurately reflecting what players are capable of doing with ED currently—getting the 2xSW breakpoint basically doesn't increase dps overall in the sim but does so greatly in game—and so likely isn't a good measure of the impact of ED on single target damage regardless of how long the ED window is.

In other words, I think the sims are underestimating ED's value (now and in 7.2.5).

[Slippykins]

How confident are we that we have a decent APL for Emerald Dreamweaver?

I was playing around a bit and noticed that my DPS goes up even if I dip below the haste threshold for 2x SW even if my overall stats barely increase (I'm not using Erratic Metronome either; trinkets are Whispers and an Arcanocrystal).

Test 1: DPS: 968966
Stats:
Int: 48817
Haste: 31.78% (11916)
Mastery: 67.39% (8779)
Crit: 16.37% (4546)
Vers: 5.18% (2460)

Test 2: DPS: 970853
Stats:
Int: 48817
Haste: 30.71% (11516)
Mastery: 69.64% (9179)
Crit: 16.37% (4546)
Vers: 5.18% (2460)

Test 3: DPS: 970473 [Swaps in a 900 ilvl crit/mastery belt for an 870 haste/mastery belt]
Int: 49233
Haste: 28.79% (10796)
Mastery: 71.39% (9491)
Crit: 17.72% (5086)
Vers: 5.18% (2460)

Is .8% more INT and .4% more total secondary stats really worth the haste window? If so...was it really worth it to chase that haste window anyway?

More realistically, to me, it seems like our sims aren't handling ED rotation well. If that's right then that would confirm the in game experience in which ED out performs other legendary combos on single target much more than sims indicate.

Only bringing this up now because it makes me wonder about the sims around 7.2.5 with the ED changes.

The napkin math on the basic increase from getting the SWx2 haste breakpoint seems like it definitely should be a gain. With a SWx2 rotation before factoring in Incarnation or anything else, you waste 1 LS empowerment but increase your SS damage:AP expenditure by 31% in the basic surge weaving burn. With a basic LSx1 rotation, you waste 2x SW empowerments but only increase your SS damage: AP expenditure by 18%. In other words, you're casting 31% more starsurges with the 2xSW rotation but only 18% more with the 1xLS rotation. That difference in starsurge damage should make the 2xSW rotation almost twice the overall gain in dps from ED as you get from the 1xLS rotation. That should swamp the small .8% int, .4% total secondary stat gain that I get from forgoing the 2xSW haste breakpoint. But it doesn't. It nets out as even.

This was something we noticed quite a while ago. Attaining the 30% haste bp wasn't a noticeable DPS increase when you have a lot of other haste modifiers in effect, like IFE Inc uptime, whispers, metronome, etc.. I don't think it's anything wrong with the APL, moreso to do with the relative lower gain from being able to 2xSW under normal conditions where those circumstances don't happen particularly often anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

So SL, SOTF (Inc with SOTA), ShS, SD? If so, glad to know I still won't have to change my talents

Looks about right, might swap ShS for BotA in some circumstances. Don't get me wrong, we will most likely run the ST build on a few fights still.

[thedeisel]

This was something we noticed quite a while ago. Attaining the 30% haste bp wasn't a noticeable DPS increase when you have a lot of other haste modifiers in effect, like IFE Inc uptime, whispers, metronome, etc.. I don't think it's anything wrong with the APL, moreso to do with the relative lower gain from being able to 2xSW under normal conditions where those circumstances don't happen particularly often anymore.

That seems pretty plausible but I'm not really sure it's right. I just did two sims with no haste procs from trinkets. Only IFE and INC.

Here

Case 1:
Int: 49233
Crit: 17.72%
Haste: 33.13%
Vers: 5.18%
Mastery 69.14%
Trinkest are a Haste 910 Helya trinket and an 865 Arcanocrystal

Case 2: Swaps in a Mastery 910 Helya trinket for the the haste version
Int: 49233
Crit: 17.72%
Haste: 29.86%
Vers: 5.18%
Mastery: 76.03%

Case 1: 948,938
Case 2: 943,796
That's within 0.5% dps increase. A more or less immeasurable difference. Again, no haste procs involved.

If we take IFE out and just replace it with a haste/vers ring, making the haste breakpoint is only worth 1.4%.

So, you're right that making the haste breakpoint loses some value because of IFE. But even the 1.4% effect seems to fail to capture the gain from getting that breakpoint in game. Again, just looking at the napkin math, the 2x SW breakpoint doubles the effect of ED on starsurge damage in base Surgeweaving burn (burning without the 2x SW bp is increases SS efficiency by 18%, with it by 35%). On top of that it also just allows more casts of the higher dps, higher AP/s SW over LS.

The APL definitely moves in the right direction. When you hit the 2x SW BP, SW damage goes up and LS damage goes down relative to one another. But Starsurge damage doesn't go up with the 2x SW BP even though it theoretically should because you're casting more SS per AP generated.

Looking at the average SS cost in each suggests why. Without IFE or any haste proc trinkets, the 2xSW the average SS cost is 28.4 AP. Without it, the average SS cost is 29.3. In other words, 2xSW is making almost no difference whatsoever in terms of how long the sim is maintaining the buff. No wonder, then, that it makes basically no difference in output.

That just doesn't fit with my experience with ED and the reports of very high end players who really—especially earlier on in the expac—extolled the virtues of the 2xSW breakpoint. If the sims are right, the breakpoint just never really mattered. But that makes me think that players are doing something else besides what the sim is doing. It doesn't make me think the players were wrong for all these months.

The one other variable that's changed is the introduction of Circadian Invocation. I wonder if the way that that makes mastery even more valuable than before (it gets that double dip multiplier on mastery increases to starsurge, our other damage only gets a single dip buff, so SS damage and so mastery gets a larger share of the single target damage pie since 7.2) means that trading slightly more SS for slightly weaker hitting SS is closer to an even tradeoff now compared to what it used to be.

[Slippykins]

That seems pretty plausible but I'm not really sure it's right. I just did two sims with no haste procs from trinkets. Only IFE and INC.

Here

Case 1:
Int: 49233
Crit: 17.72%
Haste: 33.13%
Vers: 5.18%
Mastery 69.14%
Trinkest are a Haste 910 Helya trinket and an 865 Arcanocrystal

Case 2: Swaps in a Mastery 910 Helya trinket for the the haste version
Int: 49233
Crit: 17.72%
Haste: 29.86%
Vers: 5.18%
Mastery: 76.03%

Case 1: 948,938
Case 2: 943,796
That's within 0.5% dps increase. A more or less immeasurable difference. Again, no haste procs involved.

If we take IFE out and just replace it with a haste/vers ring, making the haste breakpoint is only worth 1.4%.

So, you're right that making the haste breakpoint loses some value because of IFE. But even the 1.4% effect seems to fail to capture the gain from getting that breakpoint in game. Again, just looking at the napkin math, the 2x SW breakpoint doubles the effect of ED on starsurge damage in base Surgeweaving burn (burning without the 2x SW bp is increases SS efficiency by 18%, with it by 35%). On top of that it also just allows more casts of the higher dps, higher AP/s SW over LS.

The APL definitely moves in the right direction. When you hit the 2x SW BP, SW damage goes up and LS damage goes down relative to one another. But Starsurge damage doesn't go up with the 2x SW BP even though it theoretically should because you're casting more SS per AP generated.

Looking at the average SS cost in each suggests why. Without IFE or any haste proc trinkets, the 2xSW the average SS cost is 28.4 AP. Without it, the average SS cost is 29.3. In other words, 2xSW is making almost no difference whatsoever in terms of how long the sim is maintaining the buff. No wonder, then, that it makes basically no difference in output.

That just doesn't fit with my experience with ED and the reports of very high end players who really—especially earlier on in the expac—extolled the virtues of the 2xSW breakpoint. If the sims are right, the breakpoint just never really mattered. But that makes me think that players are doing something else besides what the sim is doing. It doesn't make me think the players were wrong for all these months.

The one other variable that's changed is the introduction of Circadian Invocation. I wonder if the way that that makes mastery even more valuable than before (it gets that double dip multiplier on mastery increases to starsurge, our other damage only gets a single dip buff, so SS damage and so mastery gets a larger share of the single target damage pie since 7.2) means that trading slightly more SS for slightly weaker hitting SS is closer to an even tradeoff now compared to what it used to be.

Yeah, the issue was that it pops up as significant for some characters and insignificant for others. For instance, if you sim Thock-Frostmourne-US, the breakpoint turns up as a significant DPS boost, whereas if you sim me it doesn't. It's a bit odd, and the flip-flop seemed to occur innocuously -- there was no change done to simcraft or the APL, yet the results were changing. This is the same APL that showed the breakpoint as very significant up until NH. Bit of a mystery.

If you wanna do some rigorous theorycrafting, I'd have a look at comparing a few different gearsets and plotting the relative DPS% increase from the breakpoint while tinkering with some variables. Talents/second legendary/trinkets/stat distribution/fight length will all affect it.

[Deleted]

I'm betting on ancient aliens.

[thedeisel]

At this point it isn't worth digging into unless there was some reason to suspect the APL. I guess that's probably not it, though, from what you're saying.

Going forward with 7.2.5, it really doesn't matter because the optimal rotation will just be to cast 1xSW, 1xLS and use the remaining time to refresh dots, use OI procs, move, or squeeze in moon spells as possible. It takes so long to burn from a full 130 AP anyway with a 1xSW, 1xLS rotation that I guess you get enough moon based AP generation to make the "burn" never end and you never have to cast anything besides empowered spells, moon spells, and dot refreshes.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

This sort of min-maxing theory-crafting is actually why I find it hard to stay interested in MMOs. They devolve from these fun exercises in adventure and exploration into... this.

I just like to play games. Not crunch numbers.

Though it does make me wonder why I'm getting ready to main a Balance Druid for my guild if I don't want to be caught up dick stroking over numbers! I forgot how much I've come to detest that little "game-within-a-game", it's genuinely off-putting to the extreme. At least with healing or tanking if it works, it works and there isn't much discussion beyond that.

[PowerGamez]

Going forward with 7.2.5, it really doesn't matter because the optimal rotation will just be to cast 1xSW, 1xLS and use the remaining time to refresh dots, use OI procs, move, or squeeze in moon spells as possible. It takes so long to burn from a full 130 AP anyway with a 1xSW, 1xLS rotation that I guess you get enough moon based AP generation to make the "burn" never end and you never have to cast anything besides empowered spells, moon spells, and dot refreshes.

I'm really looking forward to it for ST fights. You can even get an extra un-empowered SW off during the 5 sec window to make the cycle AP positive. Will be nice to hover around 100-130 AP and then when adds come up that need to die fast you can nuke them with 3-4 x SS.

[Deleted]

@thedeisel are you sure you didn't leave on mark of the claw or something like that? I'm still seeing a 2% dps increase from the haste breakpoint (same as back when 7.1 came out). If you really want to know what's wrong you should include the reports so we can take a look.

- - - Updated - - -

If you don't trust the APL with the new ED, you could try running a sim where you overwrite the Starsurge cost and set it to 30 and see how it compares to the new ED. It should be very similar.

[thedeisel]

@thedeisel are you sure you didn't leave on mark of the claw or something like that? I'm still seeing a 2% dps increase from the haste breakpoint (same as back when 7.1 came out). If you really want to know what's wrong you should include the reports so we can take a look.

- - - Updated - - -

If you don't trust the APL with the new ED, you could try running a sim where you overwrite the Starsurge cost and set it to 30 and see how it compares to the new ED. It should be very similar.

I used the 600mastery enchant for all of the tests.

Reading the APL it certainly looks like it should cast things perfectly right. And like I said, making the breakpoint you do see the shift in damage from LS to SW as you'd expect. You just don't see noticeably more Starsurge damage. It's almost like the whole damage increase is due to the baseline greater DPS and AP/s of Wrath compared to LS. It just seems like it should be a bigger increase though given the emphasis the breakpoint had been given early on. It certainly feels like a bigger difference in game in terms of how long the buff can be maintained.

[Slippykins]

I used the 600mastery enchant for all of the tests.

Reading the APL it certainly looks like it should cast things perfectly right. And like I said, making the breakpoint you do see the shift in damage from LS to SW as you'd expect. You just don't see noticeably more Starsurge damage. It's almost like the whole damage increase is due to the baseline greater DPS and AP/s of Wrath compared to LS. It just seems like it should be a bigger increase though given the emphasis the breakpoint had been given early on. It certainly feels like a bigger difference in game in terms of how long the buff can be maintained.

I think it was heavily emphasised because back in EN it was a huge damage increase. But things have happened since then, and people continue to reiterate the same thing like it's still massive.

[Slippykins]

Hey guys, it's the night before 7.2.5 so I figured I would write up a comprehensive post on legendaries, tier bonuses and relics to get us all ready for Tomb. Part of this post may be a recap from my previous analyses on legendaries in 7.2.5, but this includes both new legendaries (SotA and mooncape), as well as everything being implemented in SimC now for conciseness. Additionally, I'm presenting a revised look at 2pc and 4pc T20, and relics for single- and multi-target. Overall, this should be an easy way for boomkins to pick up most of what they need for Tomb, with the exception of trinkets (handled by Gebuz and Jundarer here) and boss-by-boss choices.

All Tomb gear is set to i930, all NH gear set to i910, trinkets are Tarnished Sentinel Medallion (owl trinket) and Whispers in the Dark.

T19 = {back, shoulders}
T20 = {hat, chest, pants, gloves}

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tl;dr:

7.2.5 ST Legendary Ranking: ED > OI ~ IFE >>> Elune ~ Mooncape ~ Sephuz ~ Eko ~ Cinidaria > LatC > SotA > Prydaz > KJBW

7.2.5 MT Legendary Ranking: LatC >>> OI ~ IFE ~ SotA > KJBW > Mooncape > Eko > Cinidaria > Sephuz > ED > Prydaz

7.2.5 Relic Ranking: SotS > FS ~ TG > SB > DSotM > LotES > Emp ~ SS

T20 2pc worth about 3-4%, T20 4pc worth about 7-8%.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


1. Single-target Legendary Analysis

Single legendary ranking:


As expected, the usual ordering of ED > IFE ~ OI in a vacuum. Taking just these three legendaries, next is a combination ranking of the legendaries, including the use of T19 2pc + T20 4pc for IFE/OI, and T19 2pc + T20 2pc for ED/OI and ED/IFE (note that there's a typo, it should be ED/OI_2pc/2pc).

Combination ranking:


These results are very similar to what I posted earlier with the PTR data. ED is definitely the best ST legendary we have -- however, since it cannot be used with some "6pc" tier set, the IFE/OI options shoot up the combination list. The rest of the legendaries don't do particularly well for ST, including the new mooncape and SotA.

Slip's advice: T19 2pc + T20 4pc with IFE/OI as your legendaries for ST. It's highly versatile, and can really benefit from OI procs being held for AoE cleave portions of a fight (if there are any). Additionally, you avoid all the penalties associated with ED, including movement and target-switching. OI also has the benefit of being good for top ranks, giving opportunity to generate a huge amount of procs above its average, which is really important for maximising your DPS.

7.2.5 ST Legendary Ranking: ED > OI ~ IFE >>> Elune ~ Mooncape ~ Sephuz ~ Eko ~ Cinidaria > LatC > SotA > Prydaz > KJBW

Multi-target Legendary Analysis

Single legendary ranking:


No surprise again: LatC is just miles ahead of everything else. Since the sims are a 5-target sustained cleave for 5 minutes, KJBW does really well because it hits all the targets every time it's available. From there, OI and IFE are strong as well, followed by the rest. Thus, the combination analysis will look at LatC, IFE, OI and SotA (the top 4 ignoring KJBW).

Combination legendary ranking:


Summary: equip LatC for AoE. LatC/IFE and LatC/SotA look about the same -- this is because in this instance, IFE will give you higher CA uptime through a shorter cooldown, but SotA will give you higher "CA" uptime through being able to take Incarnation. Thus, you can pick IFE or SotA based on the requirements of the fight: if there's specific points for burst AoE, take SotA for Incarnation, otherwise if it's more sustained maybe pick up IFE.

OI is doing very well and has clear synergies with LatC. LatC/OI is looking to be a very strong combination again for Tomb, with the added benefit of having the highest priority target damage during cleave.

Slip's advice: if there's a significant portion of AoE on the fight, definitely equip LatC. You then have a couple of other options depending on the fight: IFE for sustained cleave, or SotA/OI for burst cleave. I would suggest playing around with it, but it looks like any of the combinations could be used.

7.2.5 MT Legendary Ranking: LatC >>> OI ~ IFE ~ SotA > KJBW > Mooncape > Eko > Cinidaria > Sephuz > ED > Prydaz

3. T20 Tier Bonuses

Unfortunately, the initial sims I used to simulate the T20 2pc and 4pc bonuses was faulty (somewhat), so I've redone them.

Single-target (2pc + 4pc = T20 2pc + T20 4pc bonuses, NOT T19 2pc)


AoE (2pc + 4pc = T20 2pc + T20 4pc bonuses, NOT T19 2pc)


Obviously, 2pc is not worth anything for pure AoE, and will have some marginal benefit on a hybrid fight. 3% ST DPS for 2pc is about what I had earlier, and this is with no SS crit relics at all. From some unreported sims, each SS crit relic improves the 2pc DPS by about 0.6%, so it's likely we will get around 3.6-4.2% DPS from 2pc in Tomb.

4pc was not simming correctly when I first ran these sims, and I had it clocked at 2%. Now with the hotfix buff today and the sims working properly, the 4pc is a whopping 7.2% DPS ST and 8% MT. Great 4pc now, absolutely worth grabbing!

Slip's advice: Grab T20 4pc as fast as possible, and keep farming T19 for 2pc to use for ST.

4. Relics

One thing I never got around to doing before was the relic priority list for Tomb. The below priority uses IFE/OI for ST and LatC/IFE for MT.

Single-target priority:


As I looked at earlier, SS crit relics are worth more now due to T20 2pc, at around 4 weapon ilvls. There's nothing that comes close to SS crit relics for ST DPS. FS (Falling Star) is worth about 0.4% on ST only when you take OI, which is not too bad really.

Multi-target priority:


The interesting thing here is that Falling Star (FS) has really done well now that Starfall is a static 8s and we've started stacking mastery. The moonfire relic is also very strong from the use of LatC, with both of these relics above 4 weapon ilvls in value.

Slip's advice: Grab the life SS crit relic and the FS arcane relic in Tomb. Moonfire relics are marginally better for ST, but FS relics are marginally better for AoE. Unfortunately, there are no Moonfire relics in Tomb.

7.2.5 Relic Ranking: SotS > FS ~ TG > SB > DSotM > LotES > Emp ~ SS

5. BiS Lists and Closing Comments

In light of this, and because my guild is asking for it, I put together a "BiS" list for Tomb. It's more a general gearing guide and what I'm hoping to aim for gear-wise.



Relics are the SS crit life relic and FS arcane relics, T19 2pc + T20 4pc are included, and the ring slot is the only slot I feel will be continually taken up by a legendary (whether it's IFE or SotA).

Overall, I think boomkins will enjoy a pretty good spot in Tomb, with our AoE being really strong and SotA/OI providing burst cleave potential without sacrificing ST DPS.

[Druidking]

Regarding the 7.2.5 guide post, what talents are being used in the single target/multi-target sims? What talents would be best for st and mt running ed/oi vs oi/ife? Is ed/ife just worse than ed/oi if I want to wear ed now?