Heart of the Wild weapon switch question

[Keeyra Profile]

I couldn't find a definite answer, so here we go:
What are the optimal weapons-weapon combos (would need like the best 3 in order) for usage while in Heart of the Wild (for both Wrath spam and healing seperately if possible).

I suppose for both, the order would be (but that is only a wild assumption)
1) Jin'ya, Orb of the Waterspeaker - Seems decent in all regards
2) Regail's Crackling Dagger + Tornado-Summoning Censer - (Unlikely most of us will ever have HC elite weapons as HotW switch weapons)

What about gemming? What to put in a blue or prismatic socket? Full agi in both??? Or should I get the socket bonus haste by using some gimped green gem?
Enchants? I suppose Dancing Steel would be the best if you could line up the proc with HotW, but that seems too much of a hassle. So Jade Spirit or Windsong (considering a mastery proc is a total waste)?

Treads of Deadly Secretions > Boots of the Still Breath for DoC and NV, but should be the other way around for HotW, right? Also, the other BiS itemization is unchanged?

All help apreciated.

[Tinderhoof Profile]

The best weapon will be the one that gives the more SP. The secondary stats are a nice to have (Mastery is worthless though), but SP is what is going to buff your healing/wrath. Agility is going to give you the most SP so I really wouldn't worry trying to get a socket bonus. Same goes for the enchant. Dancing Steel can be proc'd by spell casts so you don't need to worry about lining it up. It happens or it doesn't. I know this because my pre pull HT will proc it all time >.<

Haste is a nice extra, but because Ferals don't have much haste to begin with, 60 more from a socket bonus isn't going to make much of difference. Windsong is a hit or miss enchant for HotW. As above Haste isn't bad, more Crit is always nice, but the Mastery proc is worthless. If you get lucky and Crit procs great. If Mastery procs it's as if you didn't have a enchant at all.

[aggixx Profile]

Staff is better since crit and haste are the only 2 stats that do anything, at least if you're willing to shell out the gold for the Sha-Touched gem. SP is important but avoiding stats that do nothing is important too.

Int gem and Jade Spirit is better than Agi Gem and Dancing Steel (hardly) so if you have a shadow of a thought of ever using it for resto or balance you should do that, otherwise the difference is small enough that it doesn't matter.

I know this because my pre pull HT will proc it all time >.<

The RPPM timer on Dancing Steel is 10 seconds so as long as you proc it at least 10 seconds before the pull it doesn't affect your chances of proccing it on your opener.

Treads of Deadly Secretions > Boots of the Still Breath for DoC and NV, but should be the other way around for HotW, right? Also, the other BiS itemization is unchanged?

Mastery is by far the best stat for all three specs and it only gets better the more gear you gear. Gear selection is the same for all three specs.

[Keeyra Profile]

Thanks for the quick feedback.
So Jin'ya, Orb of the Waterspeaker it shall be.

I have no intention of ever going Resto or Moonkin so considering this, I should go with 500 agi and Dancing Steel
on it, right (now that it is confirmed to proc on casts also)? That's what Tinderhoof said, but aggixx is telling a different story if I got that right.

As for the boots, I asked because http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t130906-feral_cat_mists_pandaria_5_0_4_a/ simmed out all HotW combinations to be haste->crit->mastery.

[Tinderhoof Profile]

EJ hasn't been updated in months. That was from week 1 when HotW was busted and so Wrath spamming was the Flavor of the Day. After the fix Mastery is our best stat for any talent. Check out more updated stat weights at http://fluiddruid.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1883#p11155

[Mavelwin Profile]

I'm hoping to get my hands on the Jin'ya staff soon and I've been wondering the exact same thing. Should we put an agi sha gem in there, or an int gem in there?

Tinderhoof seems to say go agi while Aggixx says int. Clarify for us please! I can see obviously if you are going to use it for rest/boomkin then it makes sense to put an int gem in there, but for feral would we get more benefit by going agi?

[raffy Profile]

HotW is just a straight SP modifier (+320% iirc)
NI converts 1 agi => 1 sp

1 agi => 1.05 (leather) * 1.06 (hotw) * 1.05 (stats) = 1.169 agi => 1.169 sp
1 int => 1.06 (hotw) * 1.05 (stats) = 1.113 int => 1.113 sp, 0.00044% crit

160 agi => 187 sp
160 int => 178 sp, 0.07% crit

2277 agi => 2661 sp
2277 int => 2534 sp, 1% crit

+127 sp (108 agility) vs +1% crit (600 crit rating)

int > agi

[aggixx Profile]

HotW is a spell damage modifier not a spell power modifier, but yes those are similar to the calculations I did.

Agility gives you more SP because of Leather Specialization but when you run a comparison of how valuable 1 SP is vs 1 crit, the amount of crit you get from the intellect outweighs the small amount of extra spellpower from the agility. The sims (you can find them in the talent / trinket / stat weight sticky) back this up as well.

[adianar Profile]

My apologies for the request, but I can't seem to get my hands on the macro used to switch all devices possible just before the HotW aoe damage/aoe heals rotation. I can switch weapon, trinkets mid battle correct?

Thanks in advance.

Adi

[Tinderhoof Profile]

Just weapons. Trinkets cant be swapped in combat.

[Elamari Profile Website]

Just a question with the weapon swapping macro, with the macro syntax, should you have the activation of the spell first or the equipping of the weapon 1st? This is what I have now. Does the order matter in terms of "max dps / uptime"?

#showtooltip
/use Heart of the Wild
/equip Gustwalker Staff

Also accepting advice / suggestions to make the macro better / more useful

Cheers.

[aggixx Profile]

I think it was probably you I was responding to on MMO-C forums but crosslinking here for other's reference:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/119 ... st20357388

[Elamari Profile Website]

Thanks Aggixx. No it wasn't me you were replying to but thanks for the answer.

Cheers

[Growlgrrl Profile]

I've been wondering, I have a 522 agi weapon, but only a 471 int weapon as we didnt have any excess drop for us last tier. Does anyone know how big of a gap is needed before the agi weapon will still be better?

[kaiadam Profile]

The int weapon will almost always be better, unless we're talking about a green weapon from the last expansion or something.

The bigger issue is: a.) is the int weapon worth the gcd to swap and b.) should you even bother casting HoTW (wrath) in that case?

I believe a.) is solved by swapping weapons during gcds and the answer to b.) for you specifically is no, don't bother to wrath, but do swap for hurricane and tranq.