Note: As the Tree of Life aura was subsequently increased to a 6% bonus, this post is no longer relevant.

As briefly mentioned and discussed in my previous post, Blue: Changes to Buffs and Debuffs, a significant change is being made to the way that Tree of Life aura will function in Wrath of the Lich King. It will no longer afford benefit based on the Druid’s total Spirit but instead will function in the same was as a Paladin’s Improved Devotion Aura, providing a flat 3% increased healing to the raid. Although it was stated that the values listed were considered maximally-talented, it remains unclear whether 3/3 Improved Tree of Life will be required to meet the 3% bonus or whether it will afford an additional .45% bonus. Either way, this change will affect all spells based on their +Healing coefficient (or their corresponding spell power coefficients).

The TBC Tree of Life aura was a flat +Healing bonus that scaled with Spirit. It’s value decreased as +Healing increased, assuming Spirit stayed constant. Assuming they increased at the same rate, the value stayed the same. The WotLK aura is a multiplicative bonus that will instead scale with +Healing.

To help better explain the significance of this change, let’s consider two spells called DirectHealage and Hawtness. At your current +healing, DirectHealage derives 25% of its total amount healed from +Healing while Hawtness derives 75%. If you were to boost your +Healing by 8%, DirectHealage would get a 25%*8% = 2% total boost. Hawtness, on the other hand, would get a 75%*8%=6% total boost. With the new aura, both spells would simply get 3%.

This means that spells with high coefficients (Lifebloom, Chain Heal) will be nerfed by this change while spells with lower coefficients (Nourish, Regrowth) will be buffed. We can use the following formula to determine how much Spirit would be required under the current Tree of Life aura  (25% of Spirit converted to +Healing) to match the new aura’s bonus:

Spirit = 4 *(((+Healing * +Healing coefficient) + base healed) * aura bonus) / +Healing coefficient

By applying this formula to the 3% and possibly 3.45% auras and using numbers previously determined in Direct Heals in Wrath, we can graph these values of Spirit at increasing values of +Healing.

Assuming you have somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 Spirit and 2000 +Healing at the conclusion of TBC, this change represents a nerf to triple-stacked Lifebloom and Chain Heal – two spells with the highest +Healing coefficients – and a buff to both Nourish and Regrowth. Although the base amount healed is also a determining factor, you can generally expect heals with higher coefficients to have been reduced in effectiveness by this change while those with lower coefficients to have been increased.

Related Posts

• Direct Healing in Wrath
• MP5 vs. Healing
• Nordrassil Raiment and Regrowth

Many Restoration Druids probably remember speccing into Omen of Clarity at one point or another while leveling (unless you happened to read about how worthless it was). It has traditionally been considered an ability that’s more useful to Ferals who rely on melee than to Moonkin or Resto Druids. However, with the recent changes in the beta for Wrath of the Lich King, this may all be changing:

As you can see, Omen of Clarity will now equally benefit Druids of all specs who opt to drop a point into it. It’s so good, in fact, that I suspect it will become a core ability to all three specs. Interestingly, they’re doubling the proc rate from 3% to 6% but simultaneously adding a 10 second internal cooldown. As long as your casting frequency is greater than 1/sec, this is at minimum a 0.75% increase in proc frequency.

Expected Proc Rate

We know that the formula for the proc rate of something with an internal cooldown can be expressed as:

PPM = 60 / ((casting frequency/proc rate) + internal cooldown)

Applying this to the new values for Omen of Clarity, our formula will look like this:

PPM = 60 / ((casting frequency/0.06) + 10)

Applying this formula across a wide range of reasonable cast speeds, we find the following PPM:

* A cast speed of 1.0 is only possible while chain-casting Lifebloom with 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother and 0 latency. It’s really just included to make the table look pretty.

MP5 Value

As we would expect, Omen of Clarity will proc fewer times per minute as we cast fewer spells that can cause it to proc. Logically, it makes sense to use these “free” spell casts on one of our most expensive spells. Although Healing Touch (Rank 15) costs 1400 Mana, a more convenient and useful choice will probably be Flourish:

At 1125 mana and a seven 7 duration, Flourish appears tailor-made to fit into our Lifebloom rotation. If we assume it’s used while in Tree of Life (and there will be virtually no reason not to use Tree of Life anymore), it costs 900 mana. We can use this number to determine the average MP5 value of Omen of Clarity using the following formula:

MP5 = (PPM * Mana Cost) / 12

If you were to cast a Flourish every time Omen of Clarity procs, OOC would be worth the following MP5:

If, however, instead of using a Flourish (which may not always make sense given the dynamics of an encounter) and instead substituted a Rank 15 Healing Touch, the MP5 values would look like this:

Obviously, what you use will depend on your circumstances (and sometimes you won’t be able to allow it to disrupt your Lifebloom rotation), but I wanted to show just how much potential Omen of Clarity has just in case some Restos weren’t sure how good it is.

Additional Notes

Druids aren’t the only class to have some form of clearcasting. Shamans, Mages, and Priests do, as well. However, the frequent use of instant-cast spells like Rejuvenation and Lifebloom make clearcasting even more desirable for Druids. Clearcasting procs are determined server side, so it can take more than half a second to find out that your next spell will be free once you’re spell has finished casting. If you were casting a spell with cast time, it’s usually not worth it to cancel and cast another spell that costs more mana instead.  If, however, you’ve cast an insta-cast spell that procs Omen of Clarity, you’ll probably notice the proc while waiting for the global cooldown to expire. Gift of the Earthmother, a 5-point talent that reduces the GCD associated with Lifebloom and Rejuvenation to 1.0 seconds, will make these procs more difficult to catch and adjust to, but it should still be possible, especially since there’s an audible sound when OOC procs.

Finally, it’s worth noting that since casing a spell under clearcasting doesn’t use mana, it also doesn’t contribute towards keeping you inside the 5SR. Druids already spend most of their time inside the 5SR, so it’s less significant for us, but consider a situation wherein a Lifebloom cast procs clearcasting, and you switch to casting a spell with a casting time (ex. Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth). Casting that spell won’t put you back inside the 5SR. If you then cast another non-instant spell, you wouldn’t return to the 5SR until after it completes, giving you a 50-75% chance of getting a tick of mana regeneration outside of the 5SR, depending on spell haste, latency, and spell selection. Obviously, encounters where this is plausible will probably be uncommon, but it could be useful in 5-man instances where you generally only have to maintain a triple-stack of Lifebloom on one person.

Omen of Clarity as a non-Restoration Druid

So that’s the good news regarding the changes to Omen of Clarity. The bad news? Unfortunately, it’s still not 100% accessible to Balance Druids; they’ll almost certainly have to spend a couple of “dump” points if they want to get down to the third tier where it resides: 2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild and 3/3 Nature’s Focus (Tier 1), 3/3 Natural Shapeshifter and either 2 points in healing threat reduction via Subtlety or 0.2 seconds off the cast time of Healing Touch via Naturalist.

Luckily, Feral Druids still benefit from 5/5 Furor (Tier 1) and 5/5 Naturalist as well as 3/3 Master Shapeshifter (Tier 2) , making Omen of Clarity an easily-acquired addition to their Restoration investment.

Related Posts

• Guest Post: Moonkin Mana Regeneration
• Arrrghhh!!! Trinkets!!!
• Balance Tree … Uprooted and Transplanted

As frightening as it may seem, I work for a school. I’m even getting ready to start an MAED. Currently, I hold a BSIT and do computer support for said school. It pays all right and I get to be a part of making things better for people. Oh sure, I have to put up with individuals proud of their utter tech-incompetence and hearing business-speak applied to education is disheartening to say the least, but when I really consider it I love that I do my part to make the world smarter. Heaven knows we need it.

I’m glad to see that our readers are still as intelligent as ever. Warscreamer of Moonglade (EU) sent in this damning examination of Ferocious Bite and I have to say… WTF, over? Tell us this isn’t right, that we missed something. Warscreamer would be thrilled to be wrong.  He’s given us permission to disclose the contents of the message he sent us.  Check it out and be sure to leave a comment.

Do you remember when I was soooooooo happy that Ferocious Bite would be scaling with current AP? Okay, so check this out:

Ferocious Bite Rank 8 35 Energy 5 yd range Instant Requires Cat Form Finishing move that causes damage per combo point and converts each extra point of energy into [9.4 + AP / 630] additional damage. Damage is increased by your attack power.   1 point: 410-550 damage   2 points: 700-840 damage   3 points: 990-1130 damage   4 points: 1280-1420 damage   5 points: 1570-1710 damage

Now do the math. Currently, I have more than 4000 AP. I can’t check it from work, but let’s assume that it’s 4000.

9.4 + 4000/630 = 9.4 + 6.3 = 15.7 AP per energy

In the BEST scenario, when you use Ferocious Bite at full energy (LOL), you will receive:

(100 – 35) * 15.7 = 1020 AP

Let’s compare this change to what’s live right now. Assuming you are level 70 and using Ferocious Bite (Rank 6), let’s say that you use it after one tick of energy (so you have something like 50 energy).

Current tooltip, Rank 6: Finishing move that causes damage per combo point and converts each extra point of energy into 4.1 additional damage. Damage is increased by your attack power.

While this tooltip doesn’t describe how the damage is affected by Attack Power, readers at Druid Wikispaces have determined the formula to be:

Total Damage = (AP * 0.15) + (Energy Spent * 4.1) + CP Bonus Damage

At a maximum of 5 combo points, the average bonus damage will be 951.5. If we assume that 15 energy is left after the 35 energy cost is expended and use the average bonus damage from a 5-point FB, our formula will look like this:

(0.15 * 4000) + (15 * 4.1) + 951.5 = 1613 damage

Now let’s look at Rank 6 of the WotLK version of Ferocious Bite:

WotLK tooltip, Rank 6: Finishing move that causes damage per combo point and converts each extra point of energy into [3.4 + AP / 630] additional damage.

Note that this tooltip explicitly states how AP is factored into the total damage output; it appears that Ferocious Bite is being changed so that AP modifies the rate at which energy converts to damage rather than the base damage. If we assume that the formula is straightforward as it sounds, it looks like this:

Total Damage = (AP/630 + 3.4) * Energy Spent + CP Bonus Damage

Applying this revised formula with the same assumptions as above, we get:

(4000/630 + 3.4) * 15 + 951.5 = 1098 damage

Even if we assume Ferocious Bite is activated at 100 Energy (65 Energy consumed), the total damage drops from 1819 to 1586.

Please… correct my math. Because now I’m crying.

While I don’t have any experience with the Alpha-version of the ability myself, if we were to assume that the previous factor of AP * 0.15 is still factored into the total damage, this would actually be a buff since it would cause the ability to scale with AP in two ways. The formula would then look like this:

Total Damage = (AP * 0.15) + (AP/630 + 3.4) * Energy Spent + CP Bonus Damage

The total damage for the revised version of Ferocious Bite (Rank 6) would then be 1698 which is not only slightly higher than what we see now but also means the ability will scale better than it once did.

Ferocious Bite is getting a nice boost to crit (talented and only against a bleeder), and coupled with what could be much higher AP totals at 80 we may be an increase in the use of this ability. Is this right? Let us know, and I’ll be back soonish with another installment of "Why does it smell like wet bear over here?" Okay, I actually intend to take a gander at Dire Cat Form, but with my usual level of superb insight and amazing deductive skill… or something. Oh hell, I think we all know that if it doesn’t look like a ball of string or a river full of salmon, I’m lost.

See you then!

Related Posts

• Living Seed, Replenish, and Gift of the Earthmother
• Spell Power, +Healing, and Coefficients
• Omen of Clarity

As a Druid, I’ve written a lot about Innervate in the past, including two iterations of How to Get the Most out of Innervate and even an article on sharing your Innervate with an Arcane Mage. In these articles, I’ve detailed the thought process behind performing a weapon swap, either to a high Spirit weapon (in the case where an Innervate doesn’t completely fill your mana bar) or to a high Intellect weapon (so that you get the most mana back). It’s important to note that this logic is the same for anyone who receives an Innervate. If you don’t perform this sort of a weapon swap, you’re doing yourself (and the Druid who gave you the Innervate) a disservice.

I feel this is a topic worth reiterating because of a recent post by another blogger where she advocates not swapping weapons because:

You will get no benefit from switching, so don’t waste the money, the mats, or the bag space on keeping another enchanted weapon with you just for innervates.

The author goes on to give an example of a newly-minted 70 Priest in greens and dungeon blues who has 407 Intellect and 493 Spirit. She assumes this Priest won’t activate her Bangle of Endless Blessings and finds that the Priest gets back 9.3k mana — 800 more than the 8.5k mana she has. Her thought is that, after a certain gear level, Innervate refills your mana pool completely, making a weapon swap irrelevant. Even in this low level test case, the Priest is likely to spend the 800 “excess” of mana during the 20 seconds that she’s under the effects of Innervate. When you take into account the number of spells she’s likely to cast, this character actually won’t see a full mana bar at the end of her Innervate.

This assumes the player doesn’t activate her [Bangle of Endless Blessings], despite having it equipped. Were she to do so, she would get back 12k mana instead of the 9.3k she’s getting. Blowing through 3k mana is more difficult than 800, but even if we assume that she uses 2k of it, there’s still a 1k mana surplus that’s just going to poof into the Nether. But what if she were to consider an Intellect-based weapon swap? This is probably more relevant at a higher gear level than the test case above. The character’s gear is mostly blues and greens, so she likely wouldn’t have access to an alternate, high-Intellect weapon (or she’d need to use it for her main weapon).

To make this example more practical, let’s assume that the character can at least run Heroic Magister’s Terrace (prior to that, I can’t imagine she’d be likely to find herself in a situation where she might receive an Innervate). Let’s further assume that the character has two [Rod of the Blazing Light], a non-unique staff that drops from Vexallus. If she gems and enchants the first as her main weapon and the second to make it an Intellect weapon, she stands to gain 59.4 Intellect from swapping (with Blessing of Kings). If she’s gemmed for pure +Healing, this would be at a loss of 135 +Healing. During an Innervate, this 59.4 additional Intellect would expand her mana pool by 891 mana. This is approximately a 10% increase over the mana pool in the test case, even if we factor in the improved weapon. The 135 +Healing lost equates to the loss of 127 HP on a Rank 7 Greater Heal which, assuming a weapon swap, is free to cast.

Were she to use an addon like Caster Weapon Swapper to set the Intellect weapon as her “High Mana” option, she’d probably only expect to be swapped to that weapon for 5 seconds or so. Thus the comparison is a simple 891 MP5 vs. 135 +Healing. The additional mana afforded becomes more pronounced the better selection of weapons you have access to, though at a 15k mana pool, you’re more likely to see a return more along the lines of 5-7%.

Finally, I’d like to share a quote from well known Priest blogger Matticus from his article, Caster Weapon Swapper: An Essential Addon for Spellsurge Users:

High Mana Set
Weapon you have equipped coming into an encounter of some sort. If you want to seriously push yourself and excel, this is a kind of weapon which has a ton of intellect on it. Higher intellect means larger initial mana pool.

Essentially, if it’s a good idea to start a fight with a high Intellect weapon — for the temporary boost to your mana pool — then it must be true that you would do the same if you’re getting a new mana bar (as you do with Innervate).

Related Posts

• 2.4 Mana Regen: The Mana Regen Calculator
• Blessing of Kings vs. Blessing of Wisdom
• MP5 vs. Intellect

Mana Regen Calculator by Andrige

I’m happy to announce that the Mana Regeneration Calculator has been updated specifically for Arcane Mages, including the effects of Mage Armor, Arcane Meditation, and Evocation. Additionally, I’ve added a selector for Mana Tide Totem since they essentially operate the same way that Evocation does (a percentage-based mana restore). Finally, please note that I’ve added a class selector near the top of the page. The relevant class options are displayed when you select from Druid, Priest, or Mage.

Also, thanks to Andrige for lending his artistic efforts toward a new logo for the Mana Regeneration Calculator! He illustrated the gorgeous mana potion bottle at right. Thank you!

Related Posts

• 2.4 Mana Regen: The Mana Regen Calculator
• Media Frenzied Regeneration
• 2.4 Mana Regen: Paladin Blessings