Jan 10
10
Our current predicament
We have been swimming in new loot for the past month or so, and we are crawling closer and closer to (or further and further away from) our soft crit cap. Up until Icecrown Citadel, I have been working feverishly on keeping my haste near 400, but with just a few upgrades from ICC, it is quite impossible. I am currently less than 1% away from being soft crit capped, and I am almost certain to reach it with the next major upgrade.
But it’s not all bad. I know I have scorned haste quite a lot in the past, but I have had a bit of change of heart after hearing a few arguments and checking through logs. But how do we go about handling haste and crit in ICC?
Why haste ISN’T bad:
Previously, I would have said that I would much rather stack crit over it’s soft haste cap than haste. Crit gives us faster eclipse procs, more wrath crits and helps our Languish from 4pt10. But haste is actually not too shabby either, because:
- Refreshing dots will drop your NG, putting your wrath cast time back to ~1,2.
- Simply running for 2+ seconds will mostly drop NG.
- Non-crit streaks on wrath (they are there, we all have them) will drop NG.
- Faster eclipse procs after lunar eclipse.
- The obvious, faster starfires = more damage.
That’s not to say that crit isn’t good. I will also be trying to get as much crit as I can, but my aim with my Better In Slot list is to pump up both my haste and crit to ridiculous amounts, and limit the amount of spirit I have.
But how do I compare stats then?!
Same as always. Up until 400 haste rating, haste is still what you would prefer. Then, up until you see a point where your crit is at 42% raid buffed and with your idol running, crit will probably be what you want to go for. At this point, crit and haste are worth more or less the same.
To put it in another language:
Pre haste cap: Hit > SP > Haste > Crit
Pre crit cap: Hit > SP > Crit > Haste
Post caps: Hit > SP > Crit = Haste
You might find yourself swimming in hit rating as you switch your gear – I certainly am. Hit over hit cap doesn’t really do anything for you, so you may consider taking a point from Balance of Power and put it into whatever else you want. I maxed out Owlkin Frenzy for a bit of a laugh. You can do this when you have 315 hit rating or more (as horde). Just remember to spec back once you reduce your hit. In my Better In Slot list, I am just 5 hit rating over the cap.
So, how are we doing?
I thought that with our stats only benefiting half of our spells, we would see moonkins creep further down the damage meters. In truth, I haven’t really seen this yet, other than on fights with a lot of movement – but I can’t blame the stats on that. A few months ago, 7k-ish DPS was pretty good on TOTGC25 fights in my guild, and I was at a comfortable place on the meters. I’m surprised to see how much my own DPS has increased, just over the last few weeks.
We went to TOTGC25 after our holiday break, and I was suddenly doing 8-9k DPS in the beginning of Northrend Beasts. My Jaraxxus DPS peaked at 8,9k DPS in the first minute, and ended on a good 8,1k DPS. And I am still wanting plenty of upgrades in ICC.
I think we’re still doing pretty damn well!
), but that should include some tips, observations and such for moonkins. I failed horribly on Rotface and Festergut specifically, but i am spending a lot of brain power trying to figure out how we can lessen the blow. My DPS on Prof Prut was very low initially, but i managed to improve it by changing my playstyle slightly – more agressively, but with a bit of effort i think it could work.
