Help my opener (balance)

[Gbits]

I'm in that frustrating phase where everything you try to do to up your DPS just drops it, so I'm turning to you, hive mind, for help. Thanks in advance.

I'm in a guild with a great boomkin. I'm always several spots below him on DPS. He's a few ilvl above me, but not enough to explain the difference in our DPS.

Me: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...itzes/advanced
Him: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...beyes/advanced

One potential issue I've identified is our opener. Take this Operator Thogar (H) kill, his from last week, mine from this week:

Me: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...=8&view=events
Him: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...34&view=events

Let's ignore the epic fail on my part at using my 3-minute cooldowns a second time in this fight (*cough*) and focus on the opener. He's hitting close to 100k. I'm closer to 70k. I fail at reading why.

Other comparison fights:

Flamebender (H), where the opener might explain the difference in our total damage done:

Me: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...rce=45&fight=4
Him: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ce=77&fight=20

Oregorger (H) - my DOT uptime also seems low here:

Me: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...rce=45&fight=2
Him: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ce=77&fight=12

Kromog (H) - yes, boomkin are haxx, but 150k+? WTB.

Me: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...rce=45&fight=5
Him: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ce=77&fight=23

[bunnyhat]

Work on dot uptimes over all. Both dots should be up at least 95% of the time with it not being impossible for 99%. Even on Kromog where the boss never moves you had moonfire up only 92%.

Learn when to use and not use starfall. On Kromog Starfall is amazing. Try to get in a hand around the middle and just keep it going the entire hand phase while dotting on the hands. He used it 9 times while you only used it 3.

I was going to compare your flamemender logs but you both died 4 minutes into it.


To give a better overview I am using your gruul logs compared to mine.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=79

I killed him in just over 4 minutes and your took 4 minutes and 21 seconds. You did 27k while mine was 39k.

You can see some differences right off the bat.
I had 57 starfire casts and you had 38. Mine average 78k while yours averaged 65k.
So I casted 19 more overall while each one averaged 13k more damage.
Both of my dots stayed up 99.6% while yours was 95.6 and 97. Not horrible, but still.
I had 44 wrath casts averaging 29.8k and you had 42 averaging 30.7k Meaning I had 2 more but you had a higher average.


So this tells me that you used starsurge procs more often on wraths, but at the same time you also had a lot of dead time where you were not casting anything at all.



Starfire is our best attack. It will also do the most damage per second than any other attack you have because it benefits the most from your stats and buffs. Because of this you want to cast as many starfires as you can each fight. You also want to make use of the starsurge procs to do so.
So on any given fight you want to keep dots up 99% of the time, cast as many empowered starfires as you can, and never cap starsurges.


On my kill I only used starsurge in solar phase a grand total of two times and that was only because I was risking a 3 cap if I didn't use a starsurge proc.




My Rotation:
Prepot about 2 seconds in and cast incarnation if using it that fight (I don't on gruul).
0 seconds I cast CA and moonfire.
1.5 seconds SS
2xSF
SS
Repeat until less than 3 seconds left where I refresh dots.
When leaving lunar phase I always try to get another starsurge in to put up empowered starfires for next cycle.
Casts 3 wraths or so and than sunfire when it's about 3/4th of the way back from peak.
At about half solar peak I start casting starfire again. I can get both starfires in and another starsurge, two more starfires, and a last starsurge before leaving each lunar cycle. Repeat this as often as you can. This means I can get 4 empowered starfires off each lunar cycle. Sometimes this is reduced to three because I need to refresh moonfire.

Only use starsurge in wrath if you risk capping. Say you have two going in, you want to go ahead and use one so you don't proc a third and get capped before lunar phase again.

[4dahorde]

My Rotation:
Prepot about 2 seconds in and cast incarnation if using it that fight (I don't on gruul).
0 seconds I cast CA and moonfire.
1.5 seconds SS
2xSF
SS
Repeat until less than 3 seconds left where I refresh dots.
When leaving lunar phase I always try to get another starsurge in to put up empowered starfires for next cycle.
Casts 3 wraths or so and than sunfire when it's about 3/4th of the way back from peak.
At about half solar peak I start casting starfire again. I can get both starfires in and another starsurge, two more starfires, and a last starsurge before leaving each lunar cycle. Repeat this as often as you can. This means I can get 4 empowered starfires off each lunar cycle. Sometimes this is reduced to three because I need to refresh moonfire.

Only use starsurge in wrath if you risk capping. Say you have two going in, you want to go ahead and use one so you don't proc a third and get capped before lunar phase again.

I have mained a disc priest for almost 3 expansions. The guild I am in did not need another healer so I switched to my druid. I think I have 14 total days played on her. I have seriously struggled with getting my dps up to a competive level. I hit a peaked and it has not improved from there..at all, despite being just over 680 ilevel. I saw this, and while I did understand the rotation of a balance druid to a point. I took this information to a dummy, and I must say, at least for me, this has to be the single best advice I have seen in terms of what I had to be doing wrong. This alone made almost a 10k difference in what I had before. I was casting SS at ~75% of EACH phase. Thinking I was actually gaining something from it. I see where SF is in fact our best damage spell. I was entirely wasting about half of my SS casts on Solar side.

Thank you for replying to the OP...you have also helped me.

[Borawa]

Before i talk opener, i want to point out that this other boomkin has 10% mastery on you which equates to each of his opener's starfires doing 10% more damage than yours.

-2.5 incarn
-1.5 prepot/starsurge
0 CA/moonfire macro (should also have an independent CA on your bars or even ca/starfire macro)
Starfirex2 (or a starsurge proc before the second)
starsurge
starfirex2

Do not cap in your opener.

There are a few situations in finishing your last global of CA. Situation 1 is that you have no starsurges procs remaining and no time to cast a starfire so you apply dots. Situation 2 you have enough time to cast an empowered starfire. Situation 3 you have one starsurge proc an the global runs into the end of your CA. In most cases you can use the absolute last .1~.3 seconds to get off a reapplied dots but you want to learn to be flexible in those last globals.

In the event you do not reapply dots (not the end of the world sometimes its better not to) you want to reapply sunfire as soon as it falls off for multiple reasons. The big ones being that applying the dots at total peak is taking away from the one or two max mastery filler spells and that waiting until the last global before the peak buff wears off will take too long. If you have any more questions ask here.

[Shrewmkin]

Trolls > Taurens btw, the berserker active racial is pretty strong.

Also if you have on hit proc trinkets, setup your CA to cast Solar Beam to activate the trinkets.

[itchy]

Kromog (H) - yes, boomkin are haxx, but 150k+? WTB.

Don't use your IN/CA on pull/cooldown, wait for hands phase. Just before the hands are about to grab you(in lunar phase), hit starfall, then pot/INC/CA and dot up as many hands as you can while maintaining starfall. Try and dot up your healers and people farthest away from the center.

Should peak 150-225k doing this.

[Sierra85]

you could try asking your friend to fraps/record a boss fight, then upload it to youtube & then see what he does. Sometimes this can be even more useful cause you can see exactly what he does when.

P.S. Velaniah (from Emerge) says hello.

[Aejir]

He has 4pc, you don't.

[Shrewmkin]

He has 4pc, you don't.

4pc doesn't equate to how much dps he is lacking. Look at his Hanz and Franz fight, he is 10k dps behind the other druid. It's not just his opener that's the issue, it's his movement/casting cycle and a whole lot of other things.

[Deleted]

Well, first of all it is important to cast Starsurge before you pull the boss. Because BRF Trinkets actually reset on pull. So you end up getting double trinket proccs. The other balance druid you linked doesn't do it either, but its a nice dps push anyway :s

At kromog 4pc carries pretty hard due to ca always being ready for runes.

But to be frank your main problem is that youre just not good at this game... At Orgegorger for example you dont cast any spell from 1:30 to 2:30. You should be dotting up the boxes and either hardcast on the boss or the boxes. And use Starfall ofc if you can hit at least 2 targets. Haven't looked at the other logs, but it is probably the same thing there.
Just get better at the game and understand game mechanics and especially boss mechanics. If you have 95% Dotuptime on a boss like Gruul, its quite obvious that youre fcking up more things at bossfights were you have to pay attention to more things.

[Gbits]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and posts! Super helpful. /waves to Velaniah

[SiMo]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and posts! Super helpful. /waves to Velaniah

Before you head off, i came here to give you my macros, 3/10M 687ilvl Balance Druid.
My Opener burst is around 100-180k Depending on how much i crit for


DBM Timer starts at 3 Seconds, Incarnation Macro, Pre-pot, Opener Macro.

The Opener Macro times it so your Starsurge and Moonfire hit the target at the same time. also Making your Trinkets Proc so you have full cd's for your starfire/starsurge routine.

DBM Timer
10...9...8...7...6...5....4...3
Incarnation/NV macro

/cast Incarnation: Chosen of Elune
/cast Nature's Vigil

Draenic Intellect Potion
Burst Cast Sequence

/castsequence reset=target Celestial Alignment, Starsurge, Moonfire
Starfall **Maidens/Furnace****

Starfire x2
Starsurge
Starfire x2
Starsurge
Starfire
Moonfire
Starfire
Starsurge