Balance priority questions

[Gmoff01 0]

I've pored over the new balance druid guide for 6.0 and it's immensely helpful, thank you Icy-Veins!  I do have a couple questions though, hopefully you folks can help me out :-)

 

The guide lists a few things as being extremely high priority, but some of them arent clear on which is highER.  I'm supposed to make sure that starsurge charges are always rolling, so always cast it if/when I get three charges.  I'm also supposed to always burn all of the solar/lunar empowerment charges before recasting starsurge.  Which of these takes priority?

 

Additionally, while I'm supposed to always burn all of the solar/lunar empowerment charges, I'm also supposed to only cast wrath or starfire based on which side of the balance bar I'm in.  What happens if I still have a lunar empowerment charge when the bar swings into solar?

 

Thank you!

Edited October 17, 2014 by gmof01

[Felidei 0]

I've been doing a bit on my own to try to find answers with some of these ambiguities myself, and with regards to yours, here's what i found so far.

 

Starsurge will take priority over both wrath and starfire with their respective empowerments (this is the case even if you're specced into SotF). This is because starsurge has a higher dps value than both of those spells including when they have the benefit of the empowerments. So the priority here would be to avoid losing starsurge procs at the expense of an empowered nuke.

 

For your second question, I've found that it takes around 8 seconds to go from 0 to 100 eclipse energy (doesn't matter which side), and that once you hit 100 energy, the bar will stay there for about 3.5 to 4 seconds before it starts to dip back down. It takes the same amount of time (around 8 seconds) for the bar to return to zero and start the next eclipse.

This means the total time for one eclipse is about 20 seconds, and since the empowerment buffs last 30 seconds, depending on how late you casted the starsurge you may still be able to utilize one or two charges of the empowerment without having to overwrite them.

 

I'm not sure, but it may still be beneficial to cast the empowered spell even if not in it's current eclipse, but if this were the case I wouldn't imagine that it would only be true if you were very shallow into the opposite eclipse, considering damage from the uneclipsed nuke will decrease the farther into the eclipse you go. So If you could finish the cast before you got past around 30 energy into the next eclipse, it might still be ideal. This is even moreso the case if the cast is a starfire (better dps value than wrath) and if you are specced into SotF. Though i haven't run any numbers on this, and would appreciate anyone else's input if they have.

 

Hope i helped a bit :)

 

 

 

 

[Kazistrasz 216]

CA when in Lunar and have two Starsurge charges

 

Starsurge if capped or about to cap

 

Starsurge if Empowerment is down and a trinket is proc'd.

 

Starsurge if Empowerment is down and have 2 charges (don't go below 1)

 

Refresh Sunfire IMMEDIATELY upon entering Solar if there's less than 7 seconds left.

 

Refresh Moonfire with Lunar Peak if there are less than 30 seconds remaining

 

Refresh Sunfire with Lunar Peak

 

Refresh DoTs during CA with the very last partial GCD unless either will fall off early.

 

Starfire/Wrath