Since ICC came out, there has been a buzz around the staff from Lady Deathwhisper: Nibelung. There has been no shortage of posts on MMO-champion, The Moonkin Repository or Elitist Jerks talking about this item, and there is a lot of “what if”’s and “could it”’s going around.
A few people wrote me and asked about it, and a couple noted that I had even picked it up myself. I haven’t been overly lucky with getting the Frozen Bonespike to drop yet, and the only viable offhand in ICC hasn’t been released yet. So when I had the chance to snatch up the staff, I decided to give it a whirl.
Damage
The whole buzz about Nibelung comes from its lack of stats and the strange yet alluring proc on the weapon. But to even compare it against anything, we need to figure out what it’s up against.
The only other viable choice from ICC in terms of weapons are the Frozen Bonespike and the Shadow Silk Spindle. Now, if we add up all the bonuses from enchants, stats, gems and the like, we can boil it down to this: Either Nibelung with the proc, or 42 spell power, 119 crit rating, 60 hate rating, 59 spirit and 29 intellect. Assuming crit and haste are soft capped, they are each worth 1 DPS per point. Spell power is at a nice 1.4 DPS per point, and spirit and intellect are worth 0.5 and 0.6 DPS per point, respectively. Add them all up, and you have a total DPS value of 283,7 DPS.
This means that the proc from the staff has to be worth around 284 DPS in order for it to come out clean. And I’ve got to tell you, with this staff, it’s really hard to figure out if it is. If I take a rather crude look at the kills during this week, add them all up and find an average, I find that the Valkyrs did an average of 280,25 DPS. But ofcourse, I am looking at all boss kills for a certain night, and there is a lot more too it than that. But from this perspective, it will be very beneficial in some fights, and a bit subpar on others, making it come out even with the MH/OH combination.
Survivability
Sheer chance might dictate that you won’t have a single proc throughout a whole fight. Chance might also grant you three Valkyrs at the same time. Bad luck will kill off the Valkyr before it does any damage, or luck will allow you to have it up for the full duration. On some fights, most noticably Faction Champions where I have a habit of using Starfall, I had several up for a wonderfull DPS boost. On Anub’Arak, AOE’ing down 5 targets when the adds we’re up, I counted 5 Valkyrs at one point – and all of them turned to Anub’Arak once the adds were dead, and were flinging smites left and right. But at the same time, I had a Valkyr proc a second before I got a Legion Flame on Jaraxxus, and as I ran away, my little white friend stood still in the green flames and burned to death.
It really comes down to survival. Some fights are brutal on the Valkyrs if you are unlucky, and some wont touch them at all. You could consider switching to a MH/OH combo on these fights, but you may be able to have them live on dangerous fights anyways. If I were to sum up the fights from memory, my review would look something like this:
- Algalon: No damage at all. It stood right in the Comic Smash (sorry, can’t help it), and didn’t take a single point of damage.
- Northrend Beasts: Will immediately die when Icehow does a Cassive Mrash – I didn’t notice my Valkyr standing in a puddle of poison or taking damage from nearby Bile.
- Jaraxxus: Will take damage from Legion Flame and seems to die from Infernals AOE as well. If memory serves, it even helped chain a Fel Lightning.
- Faction Champions: Unless you are standing next to the Warlock NPC when it procs, and the warlock does a hellfire, the Valkyr will have no problem surviving.
- Twin Valkyrs: Suprisingly, all the damage from orbs, AOE damage from abilities and the like didn’t seem to hurt the Valkyrs one bit.
- Anub’Arak: Taking no damage at all, and has an absolutely great uptime on heroic.
- Lord Marrowgar and Lady Deathwhisper: Only saw them on 10 man, but they did seem to die from Coldflame, Marrowgars whirlwind and Deathwhispers Death and Decay. Valkyrs wont move out of that, and they will die rather quickly. The chance of getting a Death and Decay when you have a Valkyr up, however, is rather low.
- Gunship Battle: Nothing major, but here’s a fun fact: Standing at the edge of the enemy ship, nuking down the mage casting Below Zero, I procced a Valkyr off the edge of the ship. No biggie, it just flew around in open air, nuking the NPC, and as I zoomed back to my own ship, it casually flew back with me.
- Deathbringer Saurfang: Nothing, nada, zip.
- Festergut: Thankfully, it doesn’t take any damage from the constant AOE in the room. I didn’t have any up for an exhale, but I would assume that it is safe from that as well.
- Rotface: No damage taken at all.
- Professor Putricide: It does take damage from the Ooze Puddles, so if you are unlucky to have one spawn near it, it will die. Thankfully, there is a rather slim chance of that happening.
In truth, the problem areas are quite few, and they are some that I can live with. I have the option of switching to another set of weapons if I wish, but for most of the time, I while I think the survivability could be upped a little bit, I don’t see it as a massive problem.
RNG and benefits
What is most noticable about Nibelung is that the benefit you have from it really depends on your luck rating. I went through a whole Deconstructor kill with no proc – although it was a speed kill – and I had several fights where it procced quite a few times. An even more important aspect I think we have to look at, is the fact that the proc more or less replaces the damage you lose by not having any direct stats on it, keeping you further away from your soft caps. Its unavoidable to go over your soft crit and haste cap, but a little bit wont hurt. Raidbuffed, I am now sitting at 42,02% chance to crit and 441 haste rating – and that’s with Nibelung. Now, I will go way over these caps as my gear progresses, but I like the idea of putting some of the DPS out on procs, away from stats and caps and so on.
From various testing, I have seen it proc from the following spells: Starfire, wrath, moonfire (direct cast), hurricane and starfall drops. Someone on some board swore that it procced off a DOT tick, but I have yet to see it myself – and I spent quite a long time casting DOTs on training dummies. From what I gather, it will proc from any direct damage, so Hurricane on several targets, as well as Starfall will proc it quite nicely. I don’t raid with Typhoon, but I would suspect that it will proc it as well.
Beside that, it’s a very fun staff to use. I don’t have a tiny dagger hidden in my feathers anymore. I have a big, beautiful staff strapped on my feathery back, glinting for all to see. And I hear my guildies note in awe how I have several Valkyries trailing behind me after an AOE trash pack has been killed. I enjoy seeing the little shedevils fly around me, and while it’s just a graphical quirk, it does add some flavour to the game.
Ideas
Nibelung isn’t perfect, but after its recent buff, it’s getting close. I would like the proc to be more consistant, and its rate of survival a bit better. Perhaps Blizzard should simply ensure that it can not die from any AOE damage on the boss. Another idea, to combat the very random proc chance, could be to simply make it a constant pet, scale it to whatever damage it would have to do to be balanced, and let it spawn a few seconds into each fight. That would make it stable, and even more fun to use!
Conclusion
Nibelung has its ups and downs. On some fights, you will have an equal benefit from it, and on others, the Valkyrs are prone to die if you are not very careful. The staff is rather easy to get, however, dropping off Deathwhisper, and my comparason assumed that you had both the Frozen Bonespike and the Shadow Silk Spindle – and it might be tough to get a hold of both items anytime soon. Even if you do compare them, and Nibelung comes out short on some fights, it will be a great addition to others If you can get a hand of it, it is a nice upgrade over anything but 258+ weapons, and in truth, I think the difference between that, and the ICC MH/OH combo is very small, if there even is one.
Overall, it is a great staff. It bumps your damage as it should, and it’s fun to use. Give it a try!
Tags: crit, damage, haste, Icecrown Citadel, ideas, Nibelung, starfall, weapons
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Heroic: The Crimson Hall (10 player)
Heroic: Storming the Citadel (10 player)
The Frozen Throne (10 player)
Fall of the Lich King (10 player)
Interesting little point: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37039-moonkin_raiding/p115/#post1524885
It seems that Nibelung has a chance to proc off our talent procs. Starfire glyph seems to “apply” seconds to moonfire, which means starfire that extends moonfire counts as two. Simply adding or refreshing E&M seems to count for one aswell, which means *EVERY* starfire and wrath counts for two.
Iiiinteresting..
I have been doing a lot of testing on dummies lately just trying to fix my DPS and have seen a proc happen when I summoned my trees. I guess they are considered a harmful spell.
I was just going to comment on the additional testing done at Elitist Jerks on the extra proc mechanics but it looks like you saw them too
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Other things to keep in mind are the Pillars of Flame from the Reign of the Dead trinket and our two Languish applications from T10 4set all count. Extensive testing by some very patient moonkins also shows Nature’s Grace is possibly counting as well, but that’s not mathematically confirmed yet.
I’ve had the staff since week 1 and it’s been a consistent 5-7% of my overall damage before and after its buff. This is because I got other upgrades so it does more damage but the same amount proportionally to my other damage still.
As a raid leader, there are other benefits as well. With just one person using the staff, there’s a couple more targets in the raid to soak up raid-wide damage. They can be targeted by Deathwhisper with Frostbolts or ghosts for example. Having these extra damage soaks is a nice addition to their primary purpose.
I noticed when doing Gundrak heroic today, that the final boss’ Rhino Charge went for my Valkyr instead of one of the party members. Its not like we are about to wipe in heroics, but its a neat little gimmick. So in fact, when my Valkyr takes a Fel Lightning chain from Lord Jaraxxus, its actually soaking up a part of the chain, i suppose.
Still sucks to have it die
Just a note on Twins, The Valkyrs will open orbs, Ive seen orbs float past em and explode on them, not so dangerous to the valk’s, but could cause problems if they happen to be hovering in the wrong place for other players.
The other players shouldn’t be there in the first place, then
I wonder whether it will proc from the Languish affect on the 4 piece t10. Presumably, however, that is considered a dot and so itf dots do not trigger it then I doubt it.
Do you think this makes it worth picking up the Glyph of Starfall so that we can use Starfall every minute, if it procs off Starfall?
Hmm good question. Glyph of IS *IS* (no pun intended) very powerful, and so is IS in itself. It is certainly something i would want to look into (possibly through EJ)
The Languish is a DoT, but the APPLICATION of that debuff onto the target counts as a harmful spell. So each time your wrath or starfire crit, a new application of the DoT is placed, to refresh the timer on the Languish. Each application or refresh is a free extra chance to proc an angel. The actual ticks of damage are not.
Also, if you take a look at current EJ conversations, Insect Swarm is quickly approaching a range of not being worth casting unless you’re moving. You’d still want it up for it’s IIS 3% on Wrath but they’re saying it might not be worth casting in a rotation. If/when this happens, then it’s an even clearer case to take Starfall glyph.
Personally I already use the Starfall glyph so I can apply the 3% miss to raid bosses for my group.
Villainus, do you have a source for that IS thing?
Well, I’ve got a question about the proc-chance. Recently there was a bluepost regarding procs. Since the Valkyrs are obviously a proc, this might affect it. (regarding the 3% application chance on Starfire with glyph instead of 1%, spell(1) + Earth&Moon(1) + Extended Moonfire Dot(1) = ~3)
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/22418707360-ppm-behavior-nerf.html
Does it?
The blue post was regarding PPM stuff (proc per minute). There is no internal cooldown on Nibelung, so i doub this was included. In any way, i haven’t really noticed a difference
So can anyone confirm if the staff procs of starfall? (Just picked it up
)
Definately procs from starfall
Qieth-
Check out the last few pages of EJ’s Moonkin Raiding thread.
They updated Wrath Calcs for ICC levels of stats and that resulted in the newer valuation of IS that I was referring to. It’s just theory so far.
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37039-moonkin_raiding/p117/
One issue with the Val’kyr that you may or may not have come across, is that they will gleefully pull that extra trash pack you’re trying to avoid or break that CC target you didn’t want broken. We have two raiders that have this staff and are required to use something else when we’re trying to skip trash etc.
I have never had that occur to me. I never run ahead when in raids, and I haven’t seen it on trash in heroics if they were still up. The valkyrs attack whatever spawns them, and after that they go on whatever you attack.
If you have treants up at the same time as your valkyrs, you can control them with the pet bar, if I recall correctly. I’m just going on a wild chase here, but what if their pets are on agressive? Could that have an affect?
Still, I haven’t noticed it myself. In any case, if the valkyrs are up when you are running past trash, you will just have to keep your distance. I can’t remember a raid where you skid past trash, really..