This is a response to 10mans vs 25mans: Is Equity Needed? over on Graylo's blog. If I'm gisting incorrectly here, I do apologize, but this was how I perceived the post.

The Removal of Obligation

Graylo addressed the purpose of changing the 10/25 to a single raid lockout and ended by stating that he didn't understand why the removal of obligation meant that the two formats needed to be relatively equal. As a raider who would prefer the 10 man format simply because it requires less organization and does not require me to depend on 24 other people, a few of which are guaranteed to bail or otherwise let me down and cause attendance problems, I feel that this is obvious.

Repeatedly, Graylo talks about choosing between the format and the gear. He claims that it makes no sense for a player to state that they like a 10 man format but raid 25 man instances for the better gear. And, he claims, their actions prove they do not like the 10 man format as much as they like the 25 man gear. This is true. However, I think a larger issue is being missed here. The player doesn't prefer one format or another more than they prefer making their character the best that they can. Currently that is a "no choice" desire. If one desires to maximize one's character, one is forced to run the 25 man version of the raid. Without equalization of 10s and 25s, one will be forced to choose 25 mans again. But this choice has absolutely nothing to do with the format of the dungeon. It has to do only with the loot available. All other things being equal, the player would not choose to participate in the 25 man. They would choose the 10 man. In some respects, their choice of format is being removed by their desire for gear.

I see no problem in scaling the 10 man encounters up to the level of 25 man encounters. Keep in mind that with the current implementation of the raid system, a 10 man dungeon is balanced around the idea that the players in it only have access to the previous 10 man gear. These items had a lower ilevel and consequently meant that the characters for which the dungeon was balanced were less powerful. Changing the lockouts and the gear dropped would allow Blizzard to rebalance the 10 mans so that they would prove challenging to people in the previous tier's best gear. This could include factors like steeper penalties for standing in fires since there is more room. Larger AoE explosions requiring more selective positioning. Having the same or slightly more adds per DPS on a fight to promote triage. Not scaling back health pools by the exact ratio of expected DPS. There are many ways to "balance" a fight that doesn't involve taking the 25 man encounter and scaling it directly to the damage and healing that a 10 man version could do.

The Slippery Slope

The slippery slope is a common argument for gaining support. Unfortunately, most slippery slope arguments are logical fallacies, more commonly known as the Fallacy of the Altered Standpoint. Asserting that if we let X happen, then Y and Z will follow in order to gain support for stopping X only works if Y and Z really will follow. I know a few people that pine for the 40 man raid days. They miss the epic feel. But the biggest resistance for changing to a 25 man raid format came in the form of guild size. How should a guild of 40 downsize to 25? I don't think you can say that the demand for the 40 or 5 man raid style really will follow from equalizing 10 and 25 man loot. In fact, as long as the Dungeon Finder stays in place and the dungeons act as an entrance point for gear, I doubt you'll ever see people asking for equalized difficulty on the 5 man front. If that were to happen, then quests would have to provide gear that was good enough to enter the raids straight out.

Equalizing 10 and 25 mans will not only simplify loot tables for Blizzard (a clear goal) but it will offer players a choice between the feel of the instance and the possible speed with which they get gear. The key to this is having the 10 mans drop the same quality gear. I don't mind taking a little longer to gear up because I prefer the format of the 10 man. I do mind not being able to reach the same level with my character without doing a 25 man. Is it possible that the 25 format will die once people have begun to gear up and then they drop to the 10 man format for achievements? Sure. But this is a slippery slope argument just like the one above. There is absolutely no certainty and why would a 25 man raiding guild drop 5 of its contributing raiders to downsize into 10s and get achievements? I think once the guild decides to run a 25 man format, they will stick with it until they either can't field the 25 man raid anymore or simply disband. They won't change midway because they've got the gear.

Tell Players to Choose

I have to disagree vehemently here. I should not have to choose between raiding casually in the 10 man format because it is easier to manage or raiding competitively in the 25 man format because it takes more effort on some peoples parts to organize. Especially if I am not the person organizing. Forcing players to choose between rewards and enjoyment is silly. Games simply aren't built around the second place. Especially if the choice is binding (as it will be when the lockout is shared). What made that choice OK so far is that it did not preclude a person from seeking their enjoyment in the game through either means. Not only would it permanently place the 10 man raiders half a tier behind, but it would insure that transitioning from a 10 man to a 25 man guild would be difficult and the transition from 25 to 10 would yield almost no benefit for the person looking to downsize. It would encourage those raiders who liked the 10 man format to join a 25 man raiding guild, gear up, and then scoot on back to their 10 man format where the fun lies.

Recognition

I feel it is important to mention recognition here. There is a great deal of recognition involved in raiding. That recognition needs to be available for the 10 man raider as well. Creating a "class system" where a 10 man raider can be king of the paupers, while the 25 man raider is king of the kings will never get players to view 10 man achievements on par with 25 man achievements. Offering a special "poor man's" award for completing the 10 man content in 10 man gear is akin to offering ribbons to those people not placing first. It would be hard for people to look at this as anything other than the winner of the loser's bracket. That's not a particularly prestigious title and the 25 man raiders will continue to look down on the 10 man raiders as far as "difficulty" goes.

Patch Notes:

Force of Nature: Health on the treants has been increased.

Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Eclipse now increases damage done by Wrath by 40% (up from 30%) and the critical chance of Starfire by 40% (up from 30%)

Eclipse: This effect will not activate again within 15 seconds of either type of Eclipse effect firing, in addition to the existing 30-second cool-down for each type of Eclipse.

Druid T8 Balance 2P Bonus – Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 7%. (Down from 15%)

Druid T10 Balance 4P Bonus – Your critical strikes from Starfire and Wrath cause the target languish for an additional 7% of your spell’s damage over 4 sec. (Up from 5%)

So there's a nice buff to our treant survivability. The first Eclipse change breaks WiseEclipse so the community as a whole tends to view this as a nerf. The second Eclipse change is supposed to compensate for this "loss". Lastly the 4T10 bonus got buffed, which I feel is appropriate and brings it more in line with other set bonuses in strength.

The Eclipse changes have put the community in a bit of an uproar and so I decided that I would copy over Murmurs's work since he finished it before me (why reinvent the wheel?)

There has been a lot of whining lately over the changes that Balance Druids have seen. In this thread, I am going to present the math related to all of those concerns. I am doing this in a separate thread in order to keep the main post less cluttered and shorter. If you have questions concerning the validity of the math, please post them here and I will do my best to address them. If you have questions or comments about the general conclusion of the topic, then please post them in the other thread. I will do my best to monitor both.

2T9/T8 compared to 4T9.

It was requested that I do these comparisons based on actual gearing numbers and not based upon theoretical values that these gearing sets might have. I agree that this is an important factor, and so I went and built item sets for each one. Each set will use no item with a higher ilevel than 245 though some of which might be from ToGC 10. I did my best to find as optimal a gear set up for each one as a possibly could, but I won't say that they are exactly perfect. For instance, I know that both are slightly over the hit cap. I did try and switch one of the Hit items and gem for Hit instead, but I found that the overall loss of stats seen by doing this simply wasn't worth it. In general, the set would gain far less Haste than it would lose in Crit to do this while Spell Power would remain approximately unchanged. The professions I used were Enchanting and Inscription. They are arguably not the best, but all professions are approximately the same in value, and these are easy to configure. For gemming, I ignored socket bonuses if I felt they weren't an on-par gain, I only used 2 Purple gems for the Meta and choose the best socket bonus for doing so. I also chose to gem yellow sockets for SP/Crit, you could argue for SP/Haste, but that's a different topic really, and since both are pretty much the same in terms of yellow gems, it doesn't really matter.

Again, please note, I am not saying that these are BiS lists for these gear sets, you can argue different gearing set ups for lots of things, but these are really good ones.

Also note, WoWhead automatically calculates the gains from talents such as Improved Moonkin Form, so the only difference in stats from those talents is due to raid buffs which alter stats. I will also be using ToW values even those Demonic Pact is actually better, this is because it is a set value and not a theoretical one that could be different. Oh, and since Intellect does increase Crit values, I added in 1% Crit to adjust the values for raid buffs which increase Intellect, the actual value is just slightly over that, since the 0.XX% additional Crit won't effect scaling too much, I don't care to figure out the exact value.

Glyphs will be the standard Starfire, Moonfire, Insect Swarm.


2T9/T8 Gearing


Stats once raid buffed:
Intellect: 1386
Spirit: 648
Spell Power: 3428
Crit: 44.68 (47.68 for Starfire, 54.68 for Moonfire)
Haste: 14.52% (Raid buffs effecting Haste are embedded into the calculations.
Celestial Focus removed from base value displayed as it is not additive(Stupid WoWhead))

Insect Swarm:
(215 + (3428 * 0.2)) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1.13) * (1.03) * (1.3) = 1459.69301 per tick

(1.5 / 1.11400) / (1 + (14.52 / 100)) = 1.1757

Moonfire: Direct Damage ignored due to insignificance
(200 + (3428 * .13)) * (1.85) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1.13) * (1.03) * (1 + ((.5468 * 1.09) * 1)) = 2376.75569 per tick

(1.5 / 1.11400) / (1 + (14.52 / 100)) = 1.1757

Wrath (nonEclipse):
(592 + (3428 * .671)) * 1.1 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.4468 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 6075.15181

((1.5 / 1.114) / ((1 + (14.52 / 100))) = 1.1757

(1 -(1-.4468)^3)) = 0.830704071

(1 * 0.8307) + (1.1757 * 0.1693) = 1.0297

Wrath (Eclipse):
(592 + (3428 * .671)) * 1.55 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.4468 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 8560.44119

Starfire (nonEclipse):
(1130 + (3428 * 1.2)) * 1.1 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.4768 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 = 10928.7317

((3 / 1.114) / ((1 + (14.52 / 100))) / (1 + (.2 * (1 -(1-.4768)^2)) = 2.0533

Starfire(Eclipse):
(1130 + (3428 * 1.2)) * 1.1 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.9268 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 = 14456.073

((3 / 1.114) / ((1 + (14.52 / 100))) / (1 + (.2 * (1 -(1-.9268)^2)) = 1.9613

Each Wrath cast has a 26.808% chance to proc Eclipse. On average, it should take 5 Wrath casts to proc Eclipse. An additional Wrath cast is added for reaction time. Lunar Eclipse lasts for 13.9703 and allows for 7 Starfire casts. Insect Swarm will not be refreshed during Lunar Eclipse, Moonfire will unless there is minimal time remaining. On average, it should take 3 Starfire casts to proc Eclipse. An additional Stafire cast is added for reaction time. Solar Eclipse lasts for 13.0404 seconds and allows for 12 Wrath casts. Insect Swarm and Moonfire will be refreshed during Solar Eclipse.

IS - 14 (IS)
MF - 12.8243 (IS) 15 (MF)
Wrathx6 - 6.6461 (IS) 8.8218 (MF)
Starfire(E)x7 - Both DoTs drop (IS half way, MF during last SF cast.)
IS - 14
MF - 12.8243 (IS) 15( MF)
Starfirex3 - 6.6644 (IS) 17.8401(MF)
Wrath(E)x6 - 11.6619 (MF) 6.8622 (E)
IS - 10.4862 (MF) 5.6865(E)
Wrath(E)x5 - 8.8515 (IS) 5.3377 (MF)
Wrathx6
Starfire(E) x2

Normally I would have ended the rotation after the last Wrathx6 to proc Eclipse since this should represent when the damage gained from Eclipse has balanced back to the standard average, but adding in the last two Starfires would allow for IS to fall off while Moonfire fell off just after the last Wrath cast. In total, the rotation has 2 Insect Swarms, 2 Moonfires, 12 Wraths, 11 Wraths(E), 3 Starfires, and 9 Starfires(E) and takes 52.1975 seconds to complete.

(1459.69301 * 14) + (2376.75569 * 16) + (6075.15181 * 12) + (8560.44119 * 11) + (10928.7317 * 3) + (14456.073 * 9) = 388421.32

388421.32 / 52.1975 = 7441.37784 DPS

4T9 Gearing>


Stats once raid buffed:
Intellect: 1430
Spirit: 645
Spell Power: 3505
Crit: 45.66 (48.66 for Starfire, 55.66 for Moonfire)
Haste: 14.39% (Raid buffs effecting Haste are embedded into the calculations.
Celestial Focus removed from base value displayed as it is not additive(Stupid WoWhead))

Insect Swarm
(215 + (3505 * 0.2)) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1.13) * (1.03) * (1.3) = 1484.65333 per tick

(1.5 / 1.11400) / (1 + (14.39 / 100)) = 1.1771

Moonfire
(200 + (3505 * .13)) * (1.85) * (1.03) * (1.04) * (1.13) * (1.03) * (1 + ((.5566 * 1.09) * 1)) = 2429.75899

(1.5 / 1.11400) / (1 + (14.39 / 100)) = 1.1771

Wrath (nonEclipse):
(592 + (3505 * .671)) * 1.14 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.4566 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 6454.5774

((1.5 / 1.114) / ((1 + (14.39 / 100))) = 1.1771

(1 -(1-.4566)^3)) = 0.839542913

(1 * 0.8395) + (1.1771 * 0.1605) = 1.0284

Wrath (Eclipse):
(592 + (3505 * .671)) * 1.44 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.4566 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 8153.1504

Starfire (nonEclipse):
(1130 + (3505 * 1.2)) * 1.14 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.4866 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 = 11606.7374

((3 / 1.114) / ((1 + (14.39 / 100))) / (1 + (.2 * (1 -(1-.4866)^2)) = 2.0519

Starfire (Eclipse):
(1130 + (3505 * 1.2)) * 1.14 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.7866 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 = 14086.7544

((3 / 1.114) / ((1 + (14.39 / 100))) / (1 + (.2 * (1 -(1-.7866)^2)) = 1.9768

Each Wrath cast has a 27.40% chance to proc Eclipse. On average, it should take 5 Wrath's to proc Eclipse. An additional Wrath cast is added for reaction time. Lunar Eclipse lasts for 13.9716 and allows for 7 Starfire casts. Insect Swarm will not be refreshed during Lunar Eclipse, Moonfire will unless there is minimal time remaining. On average, it should take 3 Starfire casts to proc Eclipse. An additional Stafire cast is added for reaction time. Solar Eclipse lasts for 13.0404 seconds and allows for 12 Wrath casts. Insect Swarm and Moonfire will be refreshed during Solar Eclipse.

IS - 14 (IS)
MF - 12.8243 (IS) 15 (MF)
Wrathx6 - 6.6461 (IS) 8.8218 (MF)
Starfire(E)x7 - Both DoTs drop (IS half way, MF during last SF cast.)
IS - 14
MF - 12.8243 (IS) 15( MF)
Starfirex3 - 6.6644 (IS) 17.8401(MF)
Wrath(E)x6 - 11.6619 (MF) 6.8622 (E)
IS - 10.4862 (MF) 5.6865(E)
Wrath(E)x5 - 8.8515 (IS) 5.3377 (MF)
Wrathx6
Starfire(E) x2


Although there are slight cast time differences between the two sets, none of them were significant enough to alter the rotation. In total the rotation has 2 Insect Swarms, 2 Moonfires, 12 Wraths, 11 Wraths(E), 3 Starfires, and 9 Starfires(E) and takes 52.3085 seconds to complete.

(14 * 1484.65333) + (16 * 2429.75899) + (12 * 6454.5774) + (11 * 8153.1504) + (3 * 11606.7374) + (9 * 14086.7544) = 388401.875

388401.875 / 52.3085 = 7425.21531

2T9/T8 7441.37784 DPS

4T9 7425.21531


The Change to Eclipse

Eclipse has recently been buffed to 40% increases instead of 30%. Since we will now be using 4T9 without question due to the 2T8 nerf, here is how this change would impact the DPS of the above T9 rotation

Wrath (Eclipse):
(592 + (3505 * .671)) * 1.54 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.4566 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 8719.3414

Starfire (Eclipse):
(1130 + (3505 * 1.2)) * 1.14 * 1.03 * 1.04 * (1 + ((.8866 * 1.09) * 1)) * 1.13 * 1.03 = 14913.4267

((3 / 1.114) / ((1 + (14.39 / 100))) / (1 + (.2 * (1 -(1-.8866)^2)) = 1.9660

The slight reduction in Starfire's cast time would reduce the total time of the rotation by 0.0756 seconds, not really significant, but it shouldn't have been expected to be, but still a slight change. This brings the total time down to 52.2329

(14 * 1484.65333) + (16 * 2429.75899) + (12 * 6454.5774) + (11 * 8719.3414) + (3 * 11606.7374) + (9 * 14913.4267) = 402070.027

402070.027 / 52.2329 = 7697.63936

7697.63936 - 7425.21531 = 272.42405

(272.42405 / 7425.21531) * 100 = 3.6689% gain

Now note, Graylo found that the loss of Wise Eclipse was a 2.6% to 3.1% DPS loss, so we see this buff offering ~ 1% DPS increase. Sounds nice to me. So soothe those ruffled feathers, strap on the 4T10 and get back to blasting!

As a side note, I think people should begin to accept the fact that Blizzard likes the Eclipse mechanic because it makes Balance play unique. This increase to the power of the Eclipse talent only makes it a more crucial part of the Moonkin build. As GC stated, they are not looking to encourage an Eclipse-less Balance spec. Also, don't look for any major overhauls between now and Cataclysm. Yes, I know this all seems major, but its really just a crutch to keep us viable for the current time.

I was enormously surprised to see that Blizzard changed the way our bread and butter DPS talent functioned. It was a very simplistic solution to a few of our problems that also gave Blizzard what they wanted. Blizzard had implied that they wanted Druids to use both spells but that they were unhappy with requiring an addon like Squawk and Awe to manage the internal cooldown. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, allow me to break it down:

The Starfire and Wrath buffs from this talent are now on separate 30 second. cooldowns. In addition, it is not possible to have both buffs active simultaneously.

Them some powerful words! So with that in mind, let us look at the new Eclipse and why we'll no longer talk about Solar vs. Lunar or even say that Squawk and Awe is necessary for a good rotation.

The New Eclipse

With separate cooldown timers, it will now be possible to spend 15 seconds in a Lunar Eclipse, then continue casting Starfire until you proc a Solar Eclipse and suffer no internal cooldown whatsoever. The new spell mechanic will allow us to drastically increase our time under a given Eclipse, forcing us to switch spells only when the new Eclipse procs. We will no longer have to track an internal cooldown because even if we procced the second Eclipse the instant the first finished, the cooldown on our first Eclipse will have just finished by the time we were ready to proc it once again.

I had mentioned that I thought the Idol was the best thing out of all of this stuff, yet here appears to be one of the greatest changes to the Balance Druid in quite some time. Now you should be asking yourself "What is Rel smoking?" The answer is. . . well I'm pleading the fifth there. But lets take a look at what this change does for gearing.

Previously, someone who ran a Lunar rotation was much less effected by the 400 haste soft cap. The could blissfully stack on haste and not suffer much loss from Wrath clipping. Say goodbye to those days. Now, Wrath will compose a much larger chunk of all Lunar druids arsenal. Therefore, this mechanic change simply reduces the value of haste on all gear once a player reaches 400 haste. Graylo ran his model on the new Eclipse and found that crit rating was better than haste rating after 400 haste.

I really dislike being forced into certain gear because a spell is clipping the GCD. I feel that this indicates poor planning on the designer's part and often results in a reduction in good gearing choices since we are already limited by a hard hit cap. I'm still praying for a new Glyph that modifies the Wrath cast time to allow for more gearing options. Regardless we will most likely determine a BiS anyway and that will guide a good majority of players so perhaps I am being a little overly pessimistic. I guess we shall see.

The second thing I don't like about this change is that it simplifies the druid rotation a great deal. Personally, I like the idea of a priority list instead of a rotation. I feel that this change takes us one step away from a true priority and one step closer to a rotation. I spam one nuke until a little orb appears over my head or MSBT says ECLIPSE!! and then I switch. The only true decision making I have to do is with regards to DoT's and long cooldown abilities. Do I use Starfall with my Lunar or Solar Eclipse. Do I throw down my Treants now? Innervate yet? (Oh PS, all you Lunar folks are gonna find yourselves using more mana than before. Wrath does that to you!).

I guess all in all I am just a little worried that this great change was made to look so great because it was really just a bandaid. In some ways I see this conflicting with Blizzard's stated desire to get away from the rotation and emphasize a priority decision based play-style. I worry that this little piece of cheese dangling in front of me will be snatched away at the last second and I'll be left with only a rumble in my stomach and a heart full of disapointment.

Next up. . . set bonuses. If you thought this was ranty . . . just you wait *eyes glint in the darkness*

So if the early bird gets the worm then I guess the researching moonkin gets the DPS worm! Maybe?

Ok, all bad analogies aside, it's time to digest this information and see if we can come up with any useful tips or thoughts. Do not take these numbers as a comparison of Solar rotations vs. Lunar rotations. Your choice of rotation should be based upon your preferred playstyle and your gear selections.

Flaws:

I ignored a few things that could have a drastic impact on a solar rotation. When a cast time begins to reach 1 sec, the spell queuing system begins to break down. This introduces some lag in cast times and you can't actually cast the spells as quickly as you theoretically can. All of this amounts to getting less wrath casts than you should be getting. Since no spell can queue until the 1 second GCD is over, when your wrath reaches a 1 second cast, your next cast suffers your latency as a casting time penalty on top of the 1 sec hard GCD.

Musings:

The Solar rotation seemed to be based upon your wrath damage. I filled with Wrath and with Starfire and Wrath dealt more damage in the cooldown phase so it looks like we should fill the solar rotation with wrath given perfect spell queuing.

As far as casting DoTs inside of a Solar Eclipse, we came to the conclusion that you should only do it if there are 10 seconds remaining on the buff. Now, I didn't take into consideration that the DoT continues to tick after the Eclipse phase ends, but I think it's misleading to talk about DPCT because technically all you are doing is offsetting your DoT casts. This means that by casting IS under the Eclipse buff, you are pushing back your next IS cast by 14 seconds. Given this shifting, I came to the conclusion that we just wanted to see a raw DPS increase under the Eclipse buff.

The Lunar rotation seemed to carry an excessively high amount of damage caused by Starfire. I can only assume this is because the RNG monster didn't get me because I played an averages game. I think the lunar rotation suffers disproportionately when you get a bad eclipse proc rate. Along the same lines of "shaky results" was the discovery of the fact that sometimes you can cast a Moonfire and suffer zero DPS loss from Starfire. I laid out some guidelines for when you should refresh and when you shouldn't, but it was pointed out to me that these guidelines were pretty useless.

The DoT reapplication is a case by case basis where we would be unable to determine if we had the proper haste percentage until after the eclipse cycle was over. Therefore, we never really know if we will hit a dry spell and have zero NG procs throughout the eclipse cycle. I, personally, am always refreshing Moonfire within my Eclipse cycle so long as I do it within the first 6 seconds. I'm sure that I've been bitten by the RNG monster by doing so, but I also feel fairly confident that it has provided me with a DPS increase.

Long story short, I feel that what I have found here supports what I do in game. I am currently waiting for a second piece of T8.5 (yay for being low on the totem pole) before switching out a great deal of gear, but I am turning out solid DPS using a Solar cycle and refreshing my DoTs within Eclipse if I have 10 seconds or greater left.

I think in the near future I will be doing a post on the good, the bad, and the ugly of a Solar Rotation versus the RNG nature of the Lunar Rotation. I know Graylo holds a Lunar rotation as superior to a Solar rotation and I have seen many great Lunar parses to back up that theory. I have also seen some great Solar parses and once my gear improves to their level, I anticipate comparing my parses to theirs.

On an unrelated note, I apologize for this post taking so long to come out with so little true content. I had my birthday this weekend and was subsequently incapable of coherent thought. You should have seen Friday's version of this post. Quite comical!

Today is a sad day as Karthis, of my original home server, Garona, will be hanging up his claws. It seems the game has lost it's pull for him. I will miss perusing his blog for some great feral information.

Good luck, Karthis, and as always, may Nature guide your Path!
/salute

In other news, Graylo has pumped out a very nice excel spreadsheet for modeling purposes. I'm gonna link his post, and not the spreadsheet so that you can understand what it is and what its purpose is.

Moonkin Stats and Graylo's New Model

There will be a series of blogs coming shortly that deal with the theoretical damage of both eclipse cycles, some interesting thoughts (hopefully) on DoT uptime, and other such rotation based musings. See you soon!

DOUBLE EDIT: I updated the spreadsheet, took out all of the separate gear lists, cleaned up the interface a little bit, double-checked some of my pointers and feel a lot better about it as a whole.

Download it here!

If you're interested in helping make the spreadsheet better, leave me a message with gear you think I'm missing. I'm no good at crawlers or automation so I'm doing most of this by hand and I'm sure I've missed bits and pieces.