[Balance] Starting fight opener

[Aphie]

Hey everyone!

My question is, in the PTR for anyone that has tested it, Is our opener for boss fights still the same, just without NV? And are we using HotW for a massive tranq heal or any other way to increase our damage other than the passive?

[Reyzzz]

Hotw with wild charge/feral weapon/agi pot anyone?

[Deleted]

Slow energy regen will be a limiting factor here, so I don't think it will be viable to switch to cat during HotW. Also, ranged > melee most of the time so you don't want to deliberately get into melee range to do the same dps you would do as moonkin. Just use it for the massive Tranq and some hots during heavy raid damage.

[Stommped]

First, you will start to want to try to get into the habit of standing in melee range whenever possible. This will limit the travel time on Starsurge and allow you to cast as many as possible with the Unerring Vision of Lei Shen up.

Secondly, you will want to use HotW cat DPS whenever there is a high movement phase of the fight. The obvious exception is if there a crucial point where your HotW buffed tranq is necessary to keep the raid alive. You should be able to get two of these HotW Cat dps phases per fight, and you only want to use it if you MUST move. Ji Kun has a phase similar to Lei Shei's Get Away; this is a perfect time for HotW Cat form and you can do it twice during the encounter. Don't spend the entire 45 seconds DPSing in Cat, as you as you don't have to move go back to DPSing normally. This is why you have to be selective about when you use it. You'll want to have a weapon swap macro ready as well.

[Deleted]

Secondly, you will want to use HotW cat DPS whenever there is a high movement phase of the fight. The obvious exception is if there a crucial point where your HotW buffed tranq is necessary to keep the raid alive. You should be able to get two of these HotW Cat dps phases per fight, and you only want to use it if you MUST move. Ji Kun has a phase similar to Lei Shei's Get Away; this is a perfect time for HotW Cat form and you can do it twice during the encounter. Don't spend the entire 45 seconds DPSing in Cat, as you as you don't have to move go back to DPSing normally. This is why you have to be selective about when you use it. You'll want to have a weapon swap macro ready as well.

What would our Cat rotation be?

[asharia]

What would our Cat rotation be?

you only have 3 buttons as a boomkin. rake, mangle, FB.

probably shift out to put up SuF/MF, though i'm not sure

[mikoslav]

First, you will start to want to try to get into the habit of standing in melee range whenever possible. This will limit the travel time on Starsurge and allow you to cast as many as possible with the Unerring Vision of Lei Shen up.

Secondly, you will want to use HotW cat DPS whenever there is a high movement phase of the fight. The obvious exception is if there a crucial point where your HotW buffed tranq is necessary to keep the raid alive. You should be able to get two of these HotW Cat dps phases per fight, and you only want to use it if you MUST move. Ji Kun has a phase similar to Lei Shei's Get Away; this is a perfect time for HotW Cat form and you can do it twice during the encounter. Don't spend the entire 45 seconds DPSing in Cat, as you as you don't have to move go back to DPSing normally. This is why you have to be selective about when you use it. You'll want to have a weapon swap macro ready as well.

actually I think you can use HotW for dpsing in cat for 30 secs, when high movement,
then you have 15 secs more to use (HotWed) tranquility if needed.
this way you ll use your hotw in the most efficient way.

options vary, if there is a great dmg taken phase and then after that you have to move a lot, you start with HotWed tranq and then go cat.

[Secrecy]

actually I think you can use HotW for dpsing in cat for 30 secs, when high movement,
then you have 15 secs more to use (HotWed) tranquility if needed.
this way you ll use your hotw in the most efficient way.

options vary, if there is a great dmg taken phase and then after that you have to move a lot, you start with HotWed tranq and then go cat.

Well it's pretty unlikely that the boss abilities line up exactly like that so there is 30 seconds of movement followed by 15 seconds in which you want to use tranquility.

Speaking of the HotW cat DPS, do we have any numbers on this? If we equip an agi weapon what sort of DPS are we going to be doing compared to our usual rotation?

[Deleted]

you only have 3 buttons as a boomkin. rake, mangle, FB.

I haven't played cat since Lv30 or so, which was back in Classic, so I have absolutely no clue how to most efficiently use those three buttons. ;P

[Stommped]

actually I think you can use HotW for dpsing in cat for 30 secs, when high movement,
then you have 15 secs more to use (HotWed) tranquility if needed.
this way you ll use your hotw in the most efficient way.

options vary, if there is a great dmg taken phase and then after that you have to move a lot, you start with HotWed tranq and then go cat.

30 seconds is very long, you won't spend this long in Cat. And there's no reason to Tranq just because you popped HotW; if the raid doesn't need the extra healing at that time your dps is more beneficial.

[artem123]

I haven't played cat since Lv30 or so, which was back in Classic, so I have absolutely no clue how to most efficiently use those three buttons. ;P

My guess is keep rake up, mangle till 5 then bite.
pretty simple xD

[Mystikal]

you only have 3 buttons as a boomkin. rake, mangle, FB.

probably shift out to put up SuF/MF, though i'm not sure

I use HotW quite a lot and did some testing a long while ago, which I posted in the EJ Balance Druid thread.

Long story short, optimal HotW rotation is shift into Cat with Feral weapon equipped, Rake, Mangle until out of Energy, shift into Moonkin with caster weapon(s) equipped, MF, SuF, shift into Cat, Mangle, FB at 4/5 CPs (depends on whether you want to game critical hits or not), repeat. Make sure your last action before HotW ends is to reapply Rake.

Unfortunately, after the nerf even pulling off a flawless HotW Cat rotation doesn't yield much extra dps - my biggest difference between a HotW non-activated rotation and a HotW activated rotation is <1000 dps. As Stommped mentioned, it's better to use it where the opportunity cost is low and the gains high, such as when moving. Even in the current tier, there are certain gimmicks in fights which reward clever use of HotW-Cat e.g. Attenuation on Zor'lok, Titan Gas phases on Will. Multidotting with Rake on Protectors is pretty decent as well.

[halfawake]

Meh I find NV to be putting up similar numbers and you get the heal out on the raid twice as often. The damage might be nerfed but the heal is not (unless you count 10% less damage being converted into heals). I still like NV better personally and from what I've seen the numbers are very similar. Never been a fan of HotW cat/moonkin shenanigans either. I guess if the numbers are that close it may be useful on a forced movement fight but I'm gonna have to do my own testing to come up with a conclusion on that. I really don't want to have to try to get an agi weapon and min/max stance dancing with energy and dots... Frankly I'd rather they nerf any bonus that people get from using agi weapons as mooncats and sp weapons as feral/guardian and just equalize them. Then again I just don't like HotW for any spec other than resto and even then the six minute cooldown is a turnoff.