Boomkin opener

[Deleted]

Hi, so I was wondering what's the optimal opener for balance?

I've heard people say that it's pot, cast wrath at 3 secs, Inc/CA, Dots, SS, Beserk, SF?
But i've also seen people saying to do other openers, isn't precasting wrath more beneficial because of how trinkets work?

Thanks for any advice you can give!

[Deleted]

afaik, you inc at 3 sec, prepot + starsurge asap, pop celestial alignment, DoTs and then just rotation. Don't see why you would ever want to precast wrath.

[theburned]

I can see this being superior for 6.2, though I don't really see it adding up to be better than 4.5 inc 3 wrath 1.5 SS 0 dots, then berserk + normal rotation.
you get off 1 extra spell during opener for 1 extra spell for inc, possibly inc up for a better spell than the first wrath though.
currently though you lose too much trinket uptime by casting inc after you proc trinkets.

- - - Updated - - -

afaik, you inc at 3 sec, prepot + starsurge asap, pop celestial alignment, DoTs and then just rotation. Don't see why you would ever want to precast wrath.

to not cast a worthless starsurge which does no damage.

[Deleted]

thanks for the replies, but to clarify - what is the normal rotation under CE? Spam Sf and rerefresh dots at the end?

[Shyzhi]

My opener for all fights has been (changed abit as of haste levels)

4 - Inc and prepot
3 - cast starfire
0/1 - CE + Dots
0 - Starsurge
+1 starfire

Just before CE ends i redo my dots and carry the rotation on as normal, if i dont do my starfire pre cast i notice my burst DPS at the start is a truck loads lower, im use to this style of pulling i do waste about 4secs on incar but as it lasts so long i see no issue with this.

[Drozo]

My opener for all fights has been (changed abit as of haste levels)

4 - Inc and prepot
3 - cast starfire
0/1 - CE + Dots
0 - Starsurge
+1 starfire

Just before CE ends i redo my dots and carry the rotation on as normal, if i dont do my starfire pre cast i notice my burst DPS at the start is a truck loads lower, im use to this style of pulling i do waste about 4secs on incar but as it lasts so long i see no issue with this.

Thats not optimal and wont force 2nd trinket procs since u precast starfire which has no traveltime and starsurge at 0 where the group is already in combat, either wrath, starsurge or both.

[theburned]

thanks for the replies, but to clarify - what is the normal rotation under CE? Spam Sf and rerefresh dots at the end?

tbh I am not entierly sure wheter or not refreshing at the end is worth it, personally it feels very wrong not to do it, but logs from top 10 ranking druids tend to only cast it once during opener. sunfire has a 24 sec duration and with a 20 sec cycle (13.5 + 10 sec), you should be able to get up sunfire just before it runs out, not at full eclipse though, even if you only cast it once.
for CA otherwise its keep lunar empowerment up, and spam starfire, thus it should be SS, 2x SF, SS, 2x SF ... etc.

as for anyone even trying to mention starfire, it is stupid.... just flat out stupid, preproccing things is just too strong. Also 3 seconds really? if you cast starfire at -3 seconds you will pull at -0.8 seconds causing half the raid to lose dps for obvious reasons.
prepotting the same time as inc is stupid also, prepot should come right before the precast, no exceptions.

[Deleted]

In 6.1 only viable opener is -3 sec pre pull inc - 1,5 pre pull starsurge - CA/dots - normal rotation.
Nothing else even comes close.

Doing this you get a double trinket proc (Trinkets procs on starsurge out of combat and then you get a guaranteed proc once the boss is engaged).

You're wasting 1,5sec of your trinkets (1 cast of fully buffed starfire) on a pre casted crappy wrath, not worth.

[Azmyth]

Thats not optimal and wont force 2nd trinket procs since u precast starfire which has no traveltime and starsurge at 0 where the group is already in combat, either wrath, starsurge or both.

I'm interested about this "force 2nd trinket procs" that you mention, could you please expand further?

Doing this you get a double trinket proc (Trinkets procs on starsurge out of combat and then you get a guaranteed proc once the boss is engaged).

I assume for this to work, the trinkets proc would be on SS cast?

[Juvencus]

I'm interested about this "force 2nd trinket procs" that you mention, could you please expand further?

Firing a spell with travel time pre-pull will put you in "personal" combat, thus procing RPPMs. Once raid-wide combat is initiated from normally pulling the boss, the trinkets will proc again as soon as the first buffs drop.

[theburned]

In 6.1 only viable opener is -3 sec pre pull inc - 1,5 pre pull starsurge - CA/dots - normal rotation.
Nothing else even comes close.

Doing this you get a double trinket proc (Trinkets procs on starsurge out of combat and then you get a guaranteed proc once the boss is engaged).

You're wasting 1,5sec of your trinkets (1 cast of fully buffed starfire) on a pre casted crappy wrath, not worth.

Wrath easily beats out the opener you are suggesting, you are trading 1.5 sec inc + pot during wrath for a roughly 0 energy wrath, and inc during a wrath close to peak..

oh I totally "forgot" to mention that SS which gains all the proccs rather than being totally unbuffed, your wrath proccs trinket when the cast is finished rather than when starting the cast which is the case for SS, so your example loses out on 1.5 seconds of trinkets, ring proc and weapon proc.

the only questionable thing is wheter or not to cast CA before SS or after.

[lappee]

the only questionable thing is wheter or not to cast CA before SS or after.

Given that SS is our hardest hitting ability theres really no scenario where delaying CA would give better results.

What is questionable is whether you should or shouldnt use Berserking before SS.

[theburned]

Given that SS is our hardest hitting ability theres really no scenario where delaying CA would give better results.

What is questionable is whether you should or shouldnt use Berserking before SS.

For me it was questionable as I have done no math on it, using the same reasoning as you I have just assumed that it is better. And can't really claim that it is better.

Well personally I have never really gotten to the point where I would find myself race changing to troll, thus I have not looked into the option.
as for berserking before SS is currently not questionable at all, with the haste trinket that is, you are already at gcd or very close to gcd cap, so having it up for anything else than starfire during BL seems worthless, for the next tier though I would say that berserking before SS should be the standard.

[Deleted]

So, inc-pot/wrath - ca- ss, yeah that actually makes sense, longer uptimes on buffs due to them not being wasted on SS gcd and also buffed SS compared to opener I suggested. Damn that's embarrassing, it's kind of obvious but never thought about it, guess you learn something new every day .

[Lyaira]

You're wasting 1,5sec of your trinkets (1 cast of fully buffed starfire) on a pre casted crappy wrath, not worth.

Your trinkets proc on cast travel, not on cast start.

If you do Inc -> Wrath+Pot -> SS -> CA+Moonfire then Wrath and Starsurge will fire at the exact same moment. Starsurge even travels about 40% faster which means the Starsurge would hit before the Wrath! You're not wasting a split second of your trinket procs compared to just precasting Starsurge. The only thing you "lose" is ~1.5 seconds of Incarnation and your prepot, but in return you get an extra Wrath for free, which is very noticeable on short fights.

[Exerionx]

Your trinkets proc on cast travel, not on cast start.

If you do Inc -> Wrath+Pot -> SS -> CA+Moonfire then Wrath and Starsurge will fire at the exact same moment. Starsurge even travels about 40% faster which means the Starsurge would hit before the Wrath! You're not wasting a split second of your trinket procs compared to just precasting Starsurge. The only thing you "lose" is ~1.5 seconds of Incarnation and your prepot, but in return you get an extra Wrath for free, which is very noticeable on short fights.

So what would our optimal opener be, if we had a haste on-use trinket? I still have a mythic 'shards of nothing' trinket.

1) 3 seconds -- Incarnation
2) ~ 1.5 seconds -- pre-pot then wrath
3) Pull -- SS
4) CA + Moonfire then trinket
5) Proceed normal rotation etc

What could be improved about this one? (Or rather, what would be the correct one?)

[theburned]

So what would our optimal opener be, if we had a haste on-use trinket? I still have a mythic 'shards of nothing' trinket.

1) 3 seconds -- Incarnation
2) ~ 1.5 seconds -- pre-pot then wrath
3) Pull -- SS
4) CA + Moonfire then trinket
5) Proceed normal rotation etc

What could be improved about this one? (Or rather, what would be the correct one?)

hmm what are we assuming as a 2nd trinket, but with rppm trinkets working as they currently do, it would still be:

-4.5 inc
-3 prepot, precast wrath
-1.5 CA on use haste trinket/berserk + SS
0 sec MF
1.5 sec berserk starfire x 2

for the -1.5 haste cd usage you would only use enough haste to get very close to gcd, any haste on top of this is essentially wasted, thus you would cast the one that does not bring you below gcd, but yet not very far away.


@Lyaira he already stated that his opener is incorrect in the post above yours, commenting any further on it is kinda useless.

Personally I am more interested in what would be the best opener for 6.2

assuming legendary ring, DSI, not sure wheter or not to assume Intuition's gift (will further refer to this as IG.), because it is a high probability for a change, nevertheless 2nd trinket is not important as IG will be popped together with CA, and can easily be macroed into it, any other trinket choices have little to no effect on our opener.
Legendary ring is thus the biggest change here, we are now only proccing one trinket + weapon enchant.

So we can keep going like we already are, but that seems somewhat sub optimal, unless we are allowed to use our legendary ring during our opener rather than simultaneously with BL. Ideally we would want to keep going like we are and get to pop ring with CA and IG, for lining up all 3 of them. Though this does not seem like a huge possibility (we are sharing ring with other casters though, so compromising somewhat with wlocks and mages and we could possibly come up with something that works for everyone.)

So preferably we would want to proc our trinket as close to -0 sec pop ring + trinket + CA at 0 sec MF.

so we got 3 other options:

-3 sec precast wrath
-1.5 sec inc
0 sec ring,trinket,CA Moonfire
1.5 sec SS
3 sec 2x SF

-3.5 sec inc
-2 sec precast wrath
0 sec ring,trinket,CA Moonfire
1.5 sec SS
3 sec 2x SF

-3 sec inc
-1.5 sec precast SS
0 sec ring,trinket,CA Moonfire
1.5 sec 2x SF

with IG the last one seems to be quite solid, you should be getting a heavy amount of SS charges.
the 2nd one suffers by playing by a margin and missing out on active time, also not being able to spell queue leaves you subject to latency, with the only + being higher trinket uptime, also losing out on some pot uptime.
1st one leaves you with same trinket downtime as the last option, less precast damage, losing out on pot uptime.

The chance though is that our current opener is still going to be better, debating wheter or not we pop CA,trinket before SS or before MF together with ring, and also depends a little bit on the damage from the ring effect and how it works.

Personally I only see one option, say screw other casters and just pop ring together with CA,trinket at -1.5 sec.

would be nice to get some input on this.

[Exerionx]

hmm what are we assuming as a 2nd trinket, but with rppm trinkets working as they currently do, it would still be:

-4.5 inc
-3 prepot, precast wrath
-1.5 CA on use haste trinket/berserk + SS
0 sec MF
1.5 sec berserk starfire x 2

for the -1.5 haste cd usage you would only use enough haste to get very close to gcd, any haste on top of this is essentially wasted, thus you would cast the one that does not bring you below gcd, but yet not very far away.

Sorry I should've stated 2nd trinket. It's a mythic WF Darmac's Unstable Talisman.

I don't see why I would be casting pot + wrath at 3 seconds, when the cast is only 1.57. Wouldn't this mean wrath hitting the boss earlier than 1 second and causing an early pull by 1.5 seconds?? I haven't slept much so I'm probably just being dumb.

[Lyaira]

What I do, and probably will be doing for 6.2:

-5.0 Incarnation
-3.5 Wrath+Pot (in a macro)
-1.5 Starsurge
00 CA+Moonfire (in a macro)
2x Starfire

These timers are affected by haste and the t17 2pc bonus, so with my gear I start precasting all this around -4 instead.
On PTR I'm adding the on-use crit trinket in the CA+Moonfire macro to get slightly more Starsurge procs in the opener. If I had an on-use haste trinket I would consider doing the same, cause starving on Starsurges during CA is the most devastating of all things to a bursty opener. With good RNG, delaying the trinkets until the 1st Starfire cast would probably yield the highest possible DPS, but I'd rather reduce the risk of a shitty opener for delivering consistent results.

[theburned]

Sorry I should've stated 2nd trinket. It's a mythic WF Darmac's Unstable Talisman.

I don't see why I would be casting pot + wrath at 3 seconds, when the cast is only 1.57. Wouldn't this mean wrath hitting the boss earlier than 1 second and causing an early pull by 1.5 seconds?? I haven't slept much so I'm probably just being dumb.

If you are talking about darmacs then this is easily the best opener. Not going to repeat myself too many times so just read the rest of the thread.

also opener cast time is reduced by haste so a bit individual, but make it so that you end your wrath cast 1 gcd from pull.
if it isn't obvious wrath got a ~1.5 sec traveltime and you are more likely to pull with starsurge or moonfire.