Monday 27 October 2014

Starfalling

After every patch the last four years, it was the same question, what is Starfall doing today?



Starfall is the Moonkin AoE spells that drops those nice stars from the sky, doing nice damage, and always associated with trash-wipes. I remember that in one of my first raids with Innovation, I pulled the boss because I accidentally hit Starfall.

Now Starfall is not a targetted spell..it just blankets a 40-yard circle-area, with the moonkin at his center with stars, but, it was not supposed to hit out-of-combat targets...  it was supposed to... So, since that incident I have been very carefull with this spell, but the last half year it seemed working perfectly.

It worked so good, that it even didn't hit CC-ed targets anymore. It still hit everything that was in combat though.. a real Healer-saver for that matter on trash, especially if an extra pack of mobs was 'butt'-pulled.



In solo-ing it was a little worse, because it does not make a difference with whom a target was in combat, hitting Starfall on the Timeless Isle was a sort of gamble, lucky there was a glyph so it would only hit targets you dotted. This was important, because Starfall was a big part of the rotation, even on single-target-fights.

I actually had Starfall glyphed for Garrosh, because the adds all aggro-ed me, for a while, until I was placed in the melee-group for Typhoon.

Now, with 6.0, Starfall seemed to be less important for our wonky rotation, you have to choose between Starfall or Starsurge, the latter increasing damage on starfire/wrath. Considering single-target fights, Starsurge is way better then some falling stars, but as I found out last week in Mythic Siege, most fights have adds somewhere, and on 3 or more, Starfall does better damage then Starsurge.

Thok-barbeque with Innovation

On Thok last night, I found another use, a filler for when you running out of range towards something. You may loose some stars, but some will hit after you are in range again.

I am liking this spell-choice between Surge and Fall more and more...but.. using it on Trash is most of the time a big No-No. Not because of the damage, but because of something irritating. Starting with 6.0, Starfall lost the 'only targets in combat'-component. And most Trash packs are closer together than 40 yards, which may result in some accidentally pulling.

Siegecrafter Blackfuse ready to kill an Innovation trash-pack


It's not even feasible on Frogs. The Timeless isle frogs, as most of you know, are now heavily farmed for charms. So, I thought nice, I stand there hit Starfall and every frog gets damaged by me, which is right..but I was most of the time not the one who tagged the frog.

Apparantly the stars in Starfall need to come from another galaxy, that long does it take to reach earth. I also heard horrostories from dungeons, where everything is even closer together. There Starfall seems to be 'press-here-to-wipe'.

I can actually not see the reason behind the removal of the 'only-in-combat' part, maybe there is some strange PvP-reason, maybe they found it to difficult to actually implement, I have no idea. But everytime I want to hit Starfall, I know have to be very carefull.

Thursday 23 October 2014

Transition

This time of the WoW-years are always strange. So much new information, all add-ons need updating, spells disappera, or re-appear. And sometimes you have to relearn your class completely. I have seen this before, and it's always the same.

There seems to be a very high number of people coming back to the game with this latest lol-patch. Doing a lot of things, they couldn't do last months, mostly because of not being there. And for me, and players like me, it's all...meh...

Does it say something that on Patchday, I was bored so fast, that I actually played my Frosty DK through her last 2 levels, making her my 11th max-level char on Argent Dawn? Actually, most time on patch-day was spent cleaning up bags... and waiting for the add-on Althoholic to update. I really can't play without that add-on anymore it seems... and it's not even for raiding.


The day before massive plastic surgery

The barbershop

Another thing that had to be done, was going to the barber on several characters. My Paladin was completely off, so he needed a new head-cut... I am also not liking the gnome when they just stand around, but because I don't like any of the other faces, nothing changed for them. My Trio of Draenai didn't need a change, and the only change to my Dwarves, was a new beard for Stonehear, Lorinthe changed hairstyles, and Mardah, well..  Mardah.  There was something wrong with her new face...

The not well done plastic surgery


Statsquishy

To be honest, I hardly notice it. It takes a little time to get used to smaller health-pools, but everything dies so fast.. I actually killed Attuman so fast he was not able to mount his horse..and dropped no loot. Innovation did a norma...rrr...heroic raid last week, and everything died so fast..  which is normal in lolpatches. But stat-squish combined with new power... well..  we skipped a lot of phases during this clear. Although we still had a wipe-call at garrosh, because our melee where testing if the bomb does less damage...  which it probably does, but still enough to splat the melee.

Wicked Mardah


Balancing Eclipse

The new Moonkin-rotation-thingy is strange. I trained to get the patchwork-style in my head, but on trash and bosses I can hardly do that. Either becasue trash is dead before I can cast two spells, or because of movement. Because of the fluidic eclipsebar I can not start moving with an idea what to cast when I stop. If I have to move a little.. well.. that measn I just skip a spell probably, but longer movement, means one of my eyes is continously on the eclipse-bar..where am I, what to cast...  And 15k instead of 300k DPS is amazing...

Food for thought; our dps went down with a factor 20, our health with a factor 5..

Tonight, we will start Mythical..with a max of 20 people....