[Balance] 5.3 Force of Nature

[Juvencus]

I just tested them to be sure:

Unless they fixed it last week, they do scale with Solar eclipse, I tested them against Lei-Shen it was fun.

However, there are a few things I would like to talk about them.

They scale with nature eclipse as they deal nature damage.

No they don't. Same damage in any point of the eclipse bar.

They scale with the haste you have when you summon them

They do but it's dynamic-delayed, so they need 2-3 sec to register newly gained or dropped haste effects if they didn't happen before they were summoned.

They scale with the spell power you have when you summon them

Dynamically again.

They dont seems, or maybe its a bug, to scale with the crit% you have when you summon them.

I tested them on a dummy, I have the trinket from Megera and the crit one from Lei-Shen, When my lei shen trinket proc I used all 3 charges, and for the first 7-8 seconds, they always dealt a critical strike. After that, the 100% chance to crit faded. Im not sure if its a bug or something, but just because of this I feel like Incarnation is better. ;(

Dynamically again so when your UVLS buff dropped their crit dropped too.

It just seems to hard to use in pve, you would need to keep one charge on CD all the time to not waste them and only use during trinket procs.

I enjoy in pvp against certain comps.

I do love them in PvP and Brawler's arena though :P

[Deleted]

I am fine with youre overall agreement that FoN provides more dps :-) i dont want to get you angry about me. This is just my opinion and i only wanted to share it with the people here. ^^

[Stommped]

For the most part that diagram makes sense, but obviously damage amplification alone isn't enough, it depends on the strength of the damage amp and whether or not the Treants also receive the benefit (which they do on Horridon, tested on LFR last night so I was wrong about that). But for Jinrohk, even considering the 40% increased damage amp, Treants should still be better especially when you factor in the chance that you will have to run out of a puddle when you have Incarnation up.

[huth]

Whether they are affected by an amp is pretty easy to determine. If it's on the mob, they do. If it's on you, they don't.

Unless they fixed it last week, they do scale with Solar eclipse, I tested them against Lei-Shen it was fun.

However, there are a few things I would like to talk about them.

They scale with nature eclipse as they deal nature damage.

Have you checked their actual numbers or the spell tooltip? It's known that the latter scales with Eclipse, however, the trees themselves do not.

Also, they definitely scale dynamically, they don't snapshot. I've repeatedly watched them change cast speed mid-summon.

[Stommped]

Whether they are affected by an amp is pretty easy to determine. If it's on the mob, they do. If it's on you, they don't.


Have you checked their actual numbers or the spell tooltip? It's known that the latter scales with Eclipse, however, the trees themselves do not.

Also, they definitely scale dynamically, they don't snapshot. I've repeatedly watched them change cast speed mid-summon.

There is some kind of delay though for whatever reason. i.e. Meta pops mid Treant cast, the next cast will still be the same speed and then the cast after that will get the increased haste. It should be that first cast immediately after the meta pops. No clue what could cause this.

[huth]

There is some kind of delay though for whatever reason. i.e. Meta pops mid Treant cast, the next cast will still be the same speed and then the cast after that will get the increased haste. It should be that first cast immediately after the meta pops. No clue what could cause this.

Probably some delay in the mechanics themselves to reduce server load.

[Slippykins]

Which means it can effectively be ignored. As can all permanent debuffs that increase damage taken.

You're completely right, I wasn't arguing for or against at all, just that permanent damage modifiers retained % DPS differences. Which leads me to...

While I agree with a good deal of your post, I feel the need to draw attention to parts of your diagram (if it is yours). I know a couple of others pointed things out, but I'm on a phone and can't see all replies.

• Damage amplifiers do not necessitate the use of NV/Incarnation. If it were a permanent damage mod, the two highest talents should be used: FoN/HotW. I did a comparison of HotW/NV a while back showing it would only be a very specific fight where NV > HotW, including a large damage modifier (>100%) and it only being active 33% of the time (in line with NV usage). I still haven't found a fight or a way to manipulate a fight to get those results, so we can disregard NV entirely from a min/max DPS perspective. Utility is a completely different discussion.
• Even for a fight with AoE/cleave, Incarnation is only better if the talent is used in conjunction with the adds and they are alive for the duration of Inc. It's really not as clear-cut as a diagram can display.

If the diagram is to show a basic use of talents to apply for basic raiding then it's mostly applicable - except the misconception that NV or Incarnation benefit more from damage modifiers. My post above and the other ones I've made help to clear that confusion.

[manamonster]

I've found Force of Nature to be quite the DPS increase for Heroic Lei Shen (10 man). The biggest thing is timing them properly with trinket / meta / weapon procs and being sure you don't use them when there are multiple targets (ball of lightning, lightning diffusion).

[Aboubacar]

There is always a lot of RNG that goes into dps these days and a lot has to do with gear as well. However it is really that simple as the chart I laid out, whether you chose to believe it or not. Since this discussion has fell into a purely scumbag damage conversation (tunneling the boss on horridon and other nonsense), go look at WoL ranking for balance druids on the fights you disagree with me on talent choices. Anyway kind of sad the conversation has dissolved into not targeting adds on Horridon and other nonsense.

Treants are still a wash for this tier. Only fight they stand out on is p3 lei shen and part of durumu. You probably won't get r1 Durumu w/o incarnation anyway due to wall "padding". Would anticipate some of the bugs and delays with them to be fixed by 5.4 to make the talent more attractive.

Also you mentioned if there was a permanent damage mod FoN and Hotw are meant to be highest damage gain. No fights with permanent damage mods. I've already explained like 10 times to people with NV/INC is higher damage and provides a massive healing bonus to boot for Horridon. Jinrohk is clearly INC/NV as well, but w/e. If you feel like playing with sub-optimal talents it's everyone's choice to play how they want.

[Stommped]

You have to understand though, what if the fight was a purely single target fight, with high movement that had a damage amp phase (not permanent) of 1% that lined up perfectly with Incarnation? Do you think 1% damage amp is going to make Incarnation better than FoN on a single target fight? Not a chance, so you have to factor in how much the damage amp is.

What if there is only relevant aoe/cleave damage 1 time during the fight (i.e. Heroic IQ), the answer to your question would be yes but would Incarnation still be correct when the other 80% of the fight is purely single target with no damage amp?

[huth]

With FoN being 133% ahead on the other 80% of the fight, Inc would need to be 533% ahead on those 20% just to pull even.

There is always a lot of RNG that goes into dps these days and a lot has to do with gear as well. However it is really that simple as the chart I laid out, whether you chose to believe it or not.

Prove it. Anybody can run around making unsubstantiated claims.

[Slippykins]

There is always a lot of RNG that goes into dps these days and a lot has to do with gear as well. However it is really that simple as the chart I laid out, whether you chose to believe it or not. Since this discussion has fell into a purely scumbag damage conversation (tunneling the boss on horridon and other nonsense), go look at WoL ranking for balance druids on the fights you disagree with me on talent choices. Anyway kind of sad the conversation has dissolved into not targeting adds on Horridon and other nonsense.

Treants are still a wash for this tier. Only fight they stand out on is p3 lei shen and part of durumu. You probably won't get r1 Durumu w/o incarnation anyway due to wall "padding". Would anticipate some of the bugs and delays with them to be fixed by 5.4 to make the talent more attractive.

Also you mentioned if there was a permanent damage mod FoN and Hotw are meant to be highest damage gain. No fights with permanent damage mods. I've already explained like 10 times to people with NV/INC is higher damage and provides a massive healing bonus to boot for Horridon. Jinrohk is clearly INC/NV as well, but w/e. If you feel like playing with sub-optimal talents it's everyone's choice to play how they want.

I can understand dissonance within the community on FoN and Incarnation as the FoN change was only last patch, but I'm not quite following your argument for NV over HotW. In order for NV to equal HotW in terms of additional DPS, three things must be present:

• A damage mod must be present for ~33% of the fight. This uptime must be overlapped with NV every time. If the mod is active for more than 33%, then it starts to favour HotW more and more. Once it reaches 100% uptime, NV can no longer pass HotW and will always be a DPS loss. If the mod is active for less than 33%, then it also starts favouring HotW more. Once uptime reaches 0% (ie. no damage mod), NV can no longer surpass HotW
• Additionally, for the 33% uptime scenario, the damage mod must be equal to or greater than 100%. As uptime increases, the damage mod must increase even faster to meet the talent breakpoint. Similar reasoning stands for decreasing uptime.
• Finally, the uptime of ~33% must be roughly cyclic. Ji-Kun is a prime example where it has about the right uptime and damage mod required for NV to be competitive, but isn't exactly cyclic. You won't always have Primal Nutriment up while NV is up, and there's a good chance you'll have back-to-back Nutriment buffs if you're quick. This gives HotW quite an unreachable headstart.

Also, quoting what the top ranking boomkins use is not always showing cause and effect. You can't state a corollation between "doing the best DPS" and "this particular talent" because of the RNG you referenced earlier. It also has a lot to do with the amount of group-wide cooldowns available, luck with SS procs and observed crit% in general, as well as gaming strategies and lucky trinket streaks/procs. In fact, since talent choices are relatively close in DPS gain, it would be almost impossible to attribute any large gain solely to a talent choice. A single additional trinket proc could account for that difference, and the insane lucky RNG top rankers receive obscures any real data you can obtain from their logs.

tl;dr: top rank logs are not an argument and nor do they provide any intelligent data for analysis.

[Zurine]

So, I've looked through a couple threads on different forums about treants and I'm still a little uncertain as to when and how they should be used.

My understanding is that I start a cast away from solar, Starfire and Starfall on the pull, hit Celestial Alignment, Moonfire, and then all three trees (because at that point I'll have Nature's Grace and most likely a meta proc and one or two trinket procs). After that, should I wait until all three trees are up again with another Nature's Grace/meta/trinket proc, or should I be casting them as they come off CD? I've been waiting for all trees to be available and procs (not ALL procs, but NG and meta at least), but the difference in overall damage done versus Incarnation hasn't seemed to be particularly notable.

I'm not in the most fantastic gear, and I've been hesitant to reforge to hit the 10296 haste breakpoint (my haste is currently at 7,090 and crit is at 12,948) - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the breakpoint I should be aiming for, as well. I've also yet to get my 4-piece T15, if that's relevant. So, if I hit this breakpoint, will trees become exceptionally better, or have I been doing it wrong? Or both?

[Stommped]

There's 3 important procs: your Meta and both your trinkets. After the initial pull I use one when I have 2/3 procs up. Almost always I'll get the 2 out of 3 procs at least some point before the CD reaches 2 charges again, but in the cases where it doesn't, you need to be ready to use one with only 1 of your procs up because you obviously do not want to get to 3 stacks and waste uptime.

The only other thing you would ever have to worry about is if you are not lusting the pull. You will want to have 3 charges available at the point you lust but you will also not want to waste uptime by holding 3 charges for awhile. You're ability to do this depends greatly on your comfort with the fight and communication from your lusters. BTW I haven't really noticed any problems with Lust/Meta/NG all up, but I could just not be paying attention close enough.

[Fountaiin]

I'm with Super and Lorg; even though Treants sim better on 1 and 2 targets I haven't been able to justify using them yet when Incarnation moonkin is so strong on everything. Even something like Jin'Rok, I can't imagine doing 400k with FoN.

[Chisato]

There's 3 important procs: your Meta and both your trinkets. After the initial pull I use one when I have 2/3 procs up. Almost always I'll get the 2 out of 3 procs at least some point before the CD reaches 2 charges again, but in the cases where it doesn't, you need to be ready to use one with only 1 of your procs up because you obviously do not want to get to 3 stacks and waste uptime.

The only other thing you would ever have to worry about is if you are not lusting the pull. You will want to have 3 charges available at the point you lust but you will also not want to waste uptime by holding 3 charges for awhile. You're ability to do this depends greatly on your comfort with the fight and communication from your lusters. BTW I haven't really noticed any problems with Lust/Meta/NG all up, but I could just not be paying attention close enough.

So when you have NG and 2/3 procs up you still only use one charge of treants? What if one of the procs falls off before another triggers so you're still at 2/3? Would you still use more treant charges at that point?

After reading a bit on these forums and EJ I decided to use treants on Durumu this week. I guess I was probably using them wrong if I popped all 3 after my opener but overall the damage was not impressive to me. I'd appreciate some more advice on the specifics of when to use the treants, how many charges to use at a time, how many I should keep on standby, that sort of thing.

[Stommped]

So when you have NG and 2/3 procs up you still only use one charge of treants? What if one of the procs falls off before another triggers so you're still at 2/3? Would you still use more treant charges at that point?

If you have 2/3 procs up, and you have a Treant available, use it. Obviously watch the duration of trinket procs, don't use one if they are literally about to fade in ~2 seconds.

After reading a bit on these forums and EJ I decided to use treants on Durumu this week. I guess I was probably using them wrong if I popped all 3 after my opener but overall the damage was not impressive to me. I'd appreciate some more advice on the specifics of when to use the treants, how many charges to use at a time, how many I should keep on standby, that sort of thing.

3 charges on the pull is correct. You will likely have all 3 of your procs up assuming you are using RPPM trinkets which will be unlikely to happen again in the fight, so you want to use all 3.

---------- Post added 2013-06-06 at 02:13 PM ----------

Even something like Jin'Rok, I can't imagine doing 400k with FoN.

You should be able to, if not we are calculating something wrong with Incarnation or FoN.

[Chisato]

Thanks! I'll give FoN a try again on Durumu next week. Maybe I just need more practice with it.

[Deleted]

Tested the treants on Horridon yesterday - used them on Horridon and kepts dotting up targets afterward and they stayed on him, it seems like they stick to thier target as long as you dont start hardcasting at some other target in my experience. Which you most likley wont due to all SS procs from adds.

[Stommped]

If you take them to the training dummies it's fairly obvious that they switch to a new dummy just by casting Moonfire/Sunfire on a different target.