Question about Balance druids maintaining faerie fire

[sarasun]

Hello! I was reviewing my new raid's buffs/debuffs and realized our only option for the armor debuff was our balance/resto druid's FF.

How much DPS does a balance druid lose to maintain that? Is it much of a hassle for a resto druid to do so?

Our group has one hunter and one enhance as physical damage, plus the two tanks (DK-Monk) so I assumed it would be worth it for him to maintain it, just wanted to make sure.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Just realized the title only mentions balance, but i'd like to know from a resto's point as well.

[Deleted]

I'm not a balance/druid expert, but when you move as a balance druid you want to cast moonfire/sunfire/instant starsurge, so if you replace that one with a faeri fire every 30 sec it should not be a too big dps loss, probably a gain for the raid. Maybe someone with more knowledge should answear this.

[Alzu]

For a resto druid it's hardly an issue at all. As you can rely on your other healers, just let them soloheal for that one global and that's it. The only problem that during the most intense healing moments, you might not be able to apply that but it's ok.

For balance it's a bigger deal as without anyone else doing it, you lose a global every 30 seconds. Like Vattenmelon said, it's best to use while moving but usually you can stand still for quite some time or split your movement in small parts where you can cast other instant spells so it might not always work either.

For fights like Council, I usually don't bother at all. We do have a warrior but he applies only one stack every 20 sec but I let him do all the work, too many globals spent on that fight.

[boomkinhero]

FF is terrible to maintain as a boomkin. If you have to go through with this, I am sorry.

[craigp100]

FF is terrible to maintain as a boomkin. If you have to go through with this, I am sorry.

1 global every 30 seconds is hardly 'terrible'

It's not a big issue whatsoever for a moonkin or resto druid to maintain the debuff and I have done so for a number of raids due to our raid composition - the dps gained over having the armor debuff far outweighed the loss of 1 global every so often.

[boomkinhero]

1 global every 27-29 seconds if you want to be smart with it. The only time it's no big deal is when you're moving already and have nothing else to cast, which doesn't happen often and is subject to change per strategy. Boomkin dps right now is heavily supported by CD's and procs. Using that 1 gcd every ~28s, if it falls during NG or god forbid something better, it'll take it's toll. Depending on your haste and the amt of targets, you're looking at a refresh every 1.5-2 eclipse, which I would not be looking forward to i.e. my idea of terrible.

[Mathrys]

Ask the hunter to do it, they have pets that apply this debuff.

Raptor : single target application
Tallstrider : aoe application 10yards radius.

No reason to use FF if you have a hunter in the group

[Skyepic]

Ask the hunter to do it, they have pets that apply this debuff.

Raptor : single target application
Tallstrider : aoe application 10yards radius.

No reason to use FF if you have a hunter in the group

Whose to say the hunter isn't already supplying another buff? like Spell dmg? there's no rogue, so unless they have a warlock, hunter pet would be the only other option, and with 3-4 casters the magic dmg increase would outweight the sunder seeing as how the hunter and Enh sham would still benefit from that as well, where as the caster would not benefit at all from sunders.

[Mikael123]

I raid as both restoration and moonkin.
When I'm resto I apply it easily with my faerie fire to focus target macro. It's really easy and hardly a nuisance. There are always periods of a bossfight where I have time to cast it.
I won't bother applying it when I play moonkin. I'm too lazy. It's an extra debuff to watch, and I would lose dps if I was to apply it. On top of that I'm already strained by all the keybinds I have as moonkin so I don't even have FF bound to a key I memorize.

[sarasun]

Our comp needs our hunter using the physical vulnerability pet, which leaves the armor debuff missing aside from the balance/resto druid.

Thanks for the answers! Basically, being lazy is the only real reason you wouldn't apply it? I'd be pretty sure the increased damage on two DPS (hunter-enhance) and two tanks will by far outweigh the dps lost by a healer OS using a few GCDs.

[Deleted]

I feral OS resto MS and 2 healing 10's can result in not having a free gcd within 30s of the last. As balance it will interfere a little with flow but as you say, 3 others benefit, ofc they should keep it up.

It makes sense for any class with a sunder to make a wa for the debuff (rather than FF) as it ensures it's up and you don't duplicate work.

As resto it's free with no CD, which rocks, but you sometimes can't help let it drop off due to being gcd locked but 98% of the time is a shit load better than 0% As resto you refresh when you have a free gcd and shrooms are already down. Elegon was awesome fun, ff/slow the melee orbs and trying to heal it without ooming was the highlight of the tier

[NightZero88]

FF lasts 5 minutes.. One global every 5 minutes isn't a big deal. I know it will be 30 seconds in PvP but in PvE it is 5 minutes.

[Deleted]

If is 5min then it is not that much of an issue, if its 30sec then its horrendous. I just looked it up in the talent calculator, and it says 30sec..

Moonkins are already very micro management when it comes to proc watching when to apply dots/ use treants. And ideally you want to use it while moving, but I try to move when I need to reapply dots/place treants/heal or br someone so not to lose too much dps. To add a FF every 30sec will be very hard to also keep track of.

Resto wouldnt be too much of an issue. They can reapply it every time cause 1 global isnt gonna wipe the raid. Only time they might not be able to is during rampage like situations.

[boomkinhero]

FF lasts 5 minutes.. One global every 5 minutes isn't a big deal. I know it will be 30 seconds in PvP but in PvE it is 5 minutes.

Not anymore. Honestly I thought it was too until I actually went and tested it. It does give inst 3 stacks still, which is nice.

[voxTree]

FF lasts 5 minutes.. One global every 5 minutes isn't a big deal. I know it will be 30 seconds in PvP but in PvE it is 5 minutes.

Wrong. Faerie Fire is indeed 5 minutes... however, the Weakened Armor debuff lasts 30 seconds.

[Meejum]

Druid of any spec should maintain it, if needed, no question. Slightly easier for resto than boomie, but its not hard in any spec, and anyone claiming otherwise is attempting to justify laziness.

[Alzu]

It's not hard but it might not be just worth it. I'm at least not going to switch my focus on our Council kills to what our melee is hitting when, especially now as we steamroll through it and they might hit whatever they please.

[Deleted]

How big is the 12% armor debuff for melee dps anyways? I've never actually heard anything about it besides: "keep it up".

[sarasun]

How big is the 12% armor debuff for melee dps anyways? I've never actually heard anything about it besides: "keep it up".

Kind of depends. For me, as enhancement shaman, it's not as big as it is for a warrior for example as pretty much all his damage is physical.

[Dominian]

It can be a significant dps loss over the course of a fight. The thing is hunters can provide it passivly with pets or warriors with a glyph. For a rogue it is a GCD where they are still auto attacking, would be better if it was a resto in your raid.

The FF provides no eclipse energy so not only does it waste your nature's grace and slows you down 2x but also takes away from a GCD, which for a caster can be alot more important when they can hit/crit from 300k-500k compared to a melee whose damage is mixed between white and special attack damage.

If you have no other options at ALL, yes it is a "raid" dps increase no matter what.