Starfire more powerful than Wrath in most of solar eclipse?

[Weissrolf]

Most guides seem to suggest that you should start Starfire before crossing over form solar to lunar. This seems to make sense. The same guides suggest to start Wrath before crossing over to from lunar to solar. This doesn't seem to be right?!

My Starfire does more damage than Wrath for like 50% of the solar eclipse, even more so when it's empowered. So switching to Wrath anywhere before half into solar Eclipse seems like a loss of DPS?! Any education on this is welcome!

[lappee]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...Bno/edit#gid=0

[Hortzert]

You also need to take into account the cast time of starfire compared to wrath. At a certain point of your eclipse a 30k starfire that takes 3 seconds to cast will be equal to a 20k wrath that takes 2 seconds to cast. As a general rule when your spellcast finishes you want it to be in its appropriate eclipse state. Assuming euphoria, at 30~ or so lunar energy going towards solar you might choose to cast a wrath instead, and at 50~ or so solar energy going towards lunar you might choose to cast a starfire.

Also with any empowerment you'll want to be maximizing it by casting them in the appropriate eclipse buff near the peak utilizing the most of your mastery.

[huth]

Yeah, you're missing that Starfire has a 50% longer cast time compared to Wrath. It has to hit for more for the two to be roughly equal. The actual DPS difference before Eclipse is only ~6,7%.

[Weissrolf]

Yes, but there is a range in which Wrath would still end in Lunar (or very low in Solar) while Starfire ends in Solar. And often enough you cannot time that lunar/solar crossover perfectly anyway, so if in doubt I tend to fire another last Starfire now. Better than hesitating for half a second just to get into save Wrath territory.

Then there is the thing that one Starfire takes less time than two Wrath, which may be just the time you need to finish one cast and move instead of having to stand still for a second cast.

[jasdasm]

i still have hope they change starfire... 5minute casttimes are not fun

[huth]

i still have hope they change starfire... 5minute casttimes are not fun

They haven't done it for 10 years. I have my doubts they're going to start now.

[Keiyra]

i still have hope they change starfire... 5minute casttimes are not fun

Tier 2pc bonus shortens the cast...and there's always more haste

[Arny]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...Bno/edit#gid=0

Ty for that, good information in there.

[Venteus]

Side note, if we proc Owlkin Frenzies should we always use starfire as the instant cast if lunar empowerment is avail? Or always wrath while in solar?

[lappee]

Side note, if we proc Owlkin Frenzies should we always use starfire as the instant cast if lunar empowerment is avail? Or always wrath while in solar?

Theres no "always do this" answer as it depends on empowerment times, talent choices, starsurge stacks etc. However the dps difference between Starfire and Wrath is so minimal that you wont really notice it (there just isnt enough empowered moonkin procs for it to matter)

[Deleted]

Side note, if we proc Owlkin Frenzies should we always use starfire as the instant cast if lunar empowerment is avail? Or always wrath while in solar?

My calculations were with my RBG build in mind, thus no SotF:
Disregarding Empowerements the break-even point for damage per cast should be 70 Solar (UI), which translates to 85% of the damage buff being Nature and 15% of the damage buff being Arcane.

Reason: Wrath is 62.5% of Starfire's SP/cast - so the damage multiplier of Starfire has to be 62.5% of Wrath's damage multiplier. Using a 100-0 scale for lunar damage bonus [which is 100 @ 100 Lunar in the UI, 50 @ 0 in the UI and 0 @ 100 Solar in the UI] I started to solve the following equation:

(1+Lunarbonus/100) / (1+Solarbonus/100) = 0.625
with Solarbonus being 100-Lunarbonus, thus
(1+Lunarbonus/100) / (1+(100-Lunarbonus)/100) = 0.625
*maths magic*
15 = Lunarbonus
This is the % of eclipse bonus that lunar gets. Translated into the awkward-as-fuck eclipse bar, that should be 70 Solar.

/edit: Misread your question. If you have Lunar Empowerement only you should probably never owlkinfrenzy Wrath. You'd have to be 70+ into Solar AND have solar empowerement as well for Wrath to be better. CBA doing the exact calculations, but above calculation should give you an idea of just how much better Starfire is per cast. With SotF being a flat multiplier, and the same multiplier for both casts, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd end up at 70Solar again, for SotF Solar Empowerement + SotF Lunar Empowerement + Owlkin Frenzy.

Btw: is it just me or is it incredibly hard to present your moonkin theorycrafting ideas in a short and concise form? With percentages of a percentage damage bonus, that moves along a scale which isn't labeled even remotely correctly?!

[Raugnaut]

They haven't done it for 10 years. I have my doubts they're going to start now.

They have changed it. If I am remembering correctly, Starfire was originally a 3.5 second cast, with talents to 2.5 (or was it 3?). It was also 2.5 during MoP, and was increased to 3 with WoD (May be off a bit, but it was shorter during MoP). Blizzard wants Starfire to be the "punished for movement" for boomkins.

[huth]

They have changed it. If I am remembering correctly, Starfire was originally a 3.5 second cast, with talents to 2.5 (or was it 3?). It was also 2.5 during MoP, and was increased to 3 with WoD (May be off a bit, but it was shorter during MoP). Blizzard wants Starfire to be the "punished for movement" for boomkins.

3.5 reduced to 3. It was 2.7 in MoP, then put back to 3. It was always effectively around 3 seconds and way longer than Wrath, for what it's worth.

[Weissrolf]

Translated into the awkward-as-fuck eclipse bar, that should be 70 Solar.

Which interestingly is the point toward peak at which I found that without Euphoria I should start spamming empowered Wrath to get somewhat maximum empowered bonus (same point with Starfire in Lunar). And with Euphoria this is the point at which towards balance I should stop casting Wrath. At least with the haste values that I tested this with. As a result my own Eclipse bar suggests these points via highlighting.

So for myself it's quite convenient that to know that 70 is the break-even point of empowered SF, as it fits my usual rotation quite nicely. Other considerations apply, of course, like number of Starfall stacks left and movement necessities (Wrath still is faster).

[Hildrande]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...Bno/edit#gid=0

I used this spreadsheet, put in my Haste and Mastery values, made some nice Tellmewhen timers showing exactly where the switchpoint is.