Unbearably HoT

I was at this totally sweet rager a few months ago. There was Texas-style barbeque and Jell-o shots, pontoons and a bonfire stoked with jet fuel. We’d just lit a desk on fire and rode it Reverse Cowboy style down the hill into the canal when Mortality suggested that hey, maybe it’d be a great idea to reroll Horde on Mal’ganis. At least, I’m pretty sure I must have been drunk to A) play a cow B) play a Boomkin and C) start over with nothing. And although you could argue that I’ve only been playing the bomb owl part time, I first stepped into the Trial of the Champion raid encounters as ranged DPS. Interestingly, ranged DPS is the easiest role I’ve ever played in this game—don’t let those crazy-ass caster types tell you otherwise. Sure, you need to move around sometimes and that whole shrinking blue bar is problematic, but you mostly kick back, crack open a beer, and nuke.

Now don’t worry—this blog isn’t going the way of the chicken. I do, however, have a semi-helpful tip for all you Balance-things out there. As you probably already know, the Moonkin casting rotation has changed significantly; namely, it’s a lot easier. Instead of stacking Haste to 400 and following a lunar cycle, your goal is to actually proc both a solar and a lunar eclipse. Graylo calls this “twisting.” At a very basic level:

1. FF, MF, IS
2. Wrath until Lunar Eclipse
3. Starfire until Solar Eclipse
4. Make sure DoTs are up and shit.

Obviously the goal here is to make sure that you’re fluidly switching spells while keeping DoTs refreshed. Wrath makes this interesting. If you’ve got ~400 Haste, your Wrath spells are already casting at ~1.3 seconds. That’s pretty fast. With a Nature’s Grace proc (Wrath at ~1.0 seconds), you’re a veritable chain-casting machine. Chances are good that by the time you’ve gotten a Lunar Eclipse, you’ve already ripped off three to four Wraths. Grats, excitable Owl. You’ve just wasted four seconds of your Eclipse!

Here’s how to be a little more wary. Wrath, as you know, has a travel time. This means that when you cast Wrath, it doesn’t instantly hit the target. The ball of crackling Nature energy leaves your feathered grasp, zooms along, and then hits the target by the time you’ve already got another one or two queued up. Nature’s Grace (spell critical have a 100% chance to increase casting speed by 20% for 3 seconds) can proc when the spell leaves your hands. Nature’s Grace tells you that you’ve gotten a critical strike, meaning that you then have a 60% chance to proc a Lunar Eclipse. The Lunar Eclipse will not proc until the spell hits the target.

So if you’re using a mod such as Power Auras or even SCT, you’ll get a notification when you’ve procced Nature’s Grace with Wrath. That’s your cue to stop spamming your Wrath button like a squirrel on crack. By paying attention to your Nature’s Grace proc as the spell leaves your fingers, you can slow down and prepare to queue up a Starfire if you get the telltale Eclipse on the spell hit.

Is it a guaranteed win? No, but when you’re actively anticipating the switch, you’re able to maintain a more fluid rotation, which in turn means more DPS.