Using Starfall and Treants to Maximize Ulduar DPS
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We moonkins don’t have many spells in our arsenal to increase our DPS. While other classes may have tons of cooldowns to monitor, we really only have to watch our cooldowns for our Treants and Starfall (and Eclipse CD). Used properly, managing your cooldowns and knowing the best time to use them can be that last bit of damage needed to help you top the damage meters. For the record, I recently removed my Glyph of Insect Swarm, and picked up the Glyph of Starfall. Since I use a Lunar Rotation 90% of the time (I know this is all changing in 3.2), and based off of some WWS parses of my own that I looked at, it looked like a decent idea (Glyph of IS vs. Starfall post). Sure, I kind of consider glyphing Starfall to be cheating — you are essentially taking advantage of the fact that most Ulduar boss fights have adds that Starfall will hit, and if that is the case, than glyphing Starfall will yield you more benefit than Insect Swarm. I don’t have too much math to back it up (other than some Naxx parses), which is why I encourage everyone to use their own judgement rather than following my decisisions blindly. I still have the Glyph of Insect Swarm listed as a must-have on my Moonkin Glyphs page.
Disclaimers aside, below is an Ulduar fight-by-fight on when I consider the best time to pop cooldowns. If you pop yours at different times, please comment and let me know!
Flame Leviathan
I am the one launched up during this fight, and I pop Starfall when launched. I’m not sure how many of the turrets it hits, but it still can’t hurt to pop it if you are up there, to help DPS. I don’t bother popping Treants, however. I don’t think they manage to spawn up at the top, or they die quickly, or something, but I’ve never noticed them helping while killing the turrets.
Razorscale
Starfall is great during both phases of this fight. I usually pop it after 3 groups of adds have spawned, and pop it everytime its off CD. On Phase II, it helps you with your DPS since you can pop it while running to avoid taking damage, if you have to. As far as Treants are concerned, I pop them the first time we bring Razorscale down for the added damage, and whenever its off CD after that.
Ignis
Be a little careful with Starfall on this fight. The constructs drop aggro when they turn molten, and if you are hitting them with Starfall when they drop aggro you may find yourself being chased by an orange add that is also dealing AoE damage to everything around it. Pop Starfall liberally on this fight, but make sure you pop it either when the OT has JUST picked up a new add, or anytime, really, if your tanks have no problem losing aggro on the adds.
Pop treants whenever during this fight, I don’t have any reason to believe there is anytime more beneficial than another time, so I just pop them right when the encounter starts.
XT-002 Deconstructor
There are two options to pop Starfall during this fight, it essentially matters how well your adds are being taken care of during heart phase. I usually manage to raid with 3-4 mages, which I have assigned to destroy any adds before they get near the boss. If your situation is similar to mine, then you can just pop Starfall at the beginning of a Heart Phase, and watch it do some serious damage. If you usually have adds getting dangerously close to the boss (or are assigned to killing them), you will want to wait till you have Scrap/Bomb bots to kill before popping it.
I pop Treants at the first Heart Phase to get the heart down even faster.
Iron Council
I pop Starfall right as soon as I get into position, and usually manage to hit two of the 3 bosses with the spell.
I can’t remember when I usually pop Treants, so I assume I usually just pop them at the beginning of the fight, while running to get into position.
Kologarn
I try and save Starfall for when the Right Arm dies, and we have to AoE down the rubble. I understand that AoEing down the rubble is a DPS increase, but usually I just pop Starfall and continue to kill the boss (I’m a rebel!).
You can pop your Treants right when the fight begins, there is no “special time” to pop them on this fight.
Auriaya
We pop all cooldowns right at the start of this fight, so I usually will pop my Treants first (to make sure they get Heroism), and pop Starfall so it hits all 5 of the targets during this fight. I then make sure to pop Starfall whenever its up and while Auriaya is summoning her Guardian Swarm.
Hodir
Starfall –> Right in the beginning of the fight, and whenever possible after Flash Freeze, to hit all of the targets entombed in ice. Free DPS here.
Treants –> Beginning of the fight, since the first Flash Freeze doesn’t happen for awhile, I believe.
Thorim
Really depends if you are in the Hallway or in the Arena. If you are in the Arena, pop Starfall when you see a lot of adds and if you are in the Hallway, I usually save Starfall right after we kill the first big boss (Rune Collosus or something like that).
If in the Arena, I save Treants for whenever we are a little behind schedule, and if we are in the hallway I try to pop Treants on one of the two mini-bosses in there.
Freya
I always save Starfall for when the Detonating Lashers spawn. Really helps AoE those suckers down and add to your DPS, while still letting you move away from them when you need to. On P2, pop it whenever you are moving, since you can’t DPS much anyways.
As far as Treants are concerned, I usually don’t pop them on P1, because I tend to forget (lot of things for a raid leader to call out during this fight), but popping them when the big dude spawns is probably your best bet. On P2, you can pop them whenever, but it is probably best to do it right after the green things on the ground explode.
Mimiron
I pop Starfall at the beginning of the fight (P1), as well as Treants. In P2, I don’t really bother popping Treants (plus they are on CD anyways), and pop Starfall if I have, especially if I am running away from Laser Barrage. On P3, I also don’t usually pop my trees, and pop Starfall when we decide to AoE down the junkbots. On P4, I pop Treants at the start, and Starfall whenever its up.
General Vezax
General Vezax is a very unique encounter for boomkins, where I usually throw out my entire rotation and stick to a simple MF/SF rotation (with iFF at the beginning of the fight). I usually don’t bother popping Treants or Starfall (Starfall might accidentally kill one of the vapors), and just MF/SF, ONLY while in a Shadow Crash. I usually manage to stay above 10k DPS during this fight. Please watch your aggro during this encounter, its really easy to pull.
Yogg-Saron
Starfall –> I am usually in the add “kill group”, so don’t usually pop Starfall during P1. On P2, I try to pop Starfall when I am surrounded by a lot of Corruptors, but it doesn’t matter too much. On P3, pop Starfall whenever its up, as you should be able to hit adds and Yogg with it, at the same time.
Treants –> I don’t usually pop it on P1, on P2 I pop them when the brain room team has managed to stun Yogg (if they attack a Crusher that isn’t stunned they will get killed fast). If I have them, I will pop them on P3.
Conclusion
In closing, your Treants and Starfall are powerful tools that are great to use on every single encounter. They are added DPS in exchange for simply a GCD, and used properly, can help boost your DPS. Take my advice with a grain of sand, this is simply when I pop Treants/Starfall the way my guild does these encounters. Analyze how you do these same fights, and find for yourself when the best time to pop these CDs are. Please comment if you have tips or other times when you suggest popping Treants/Starfall!
Macbook
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Heya Macbook!
I didn't see it explicitly mentioned here, so let me just expound upon what you're talking about. I personally find Starfall to be one of the most useful spells we have because of the "mini-bloodlust" that it provides. I use it to essentially up my Nature's Grace uptime outside of a Lunar Eclipse. I personally use it during my Solar Eclipse precasting phase (where I am casting slow Starfires and have not crit yet). With the Glyph, it aligns with every other Eclipse cycle and things are good. I like to imagine that doing this allows me to spend less time in my precasting phase and a greater percentage of the fight under the effects of Eclipse.
As far as Treants are concerned, I always always always sync them up with Bloodlust. Given that the DPS increase (and thus benefit) of Bloodlust/Heroism is identical no matter when it is used, my guild tended to Bloodlust at the beginning or during a phase that required higher DPS (think XT-002 heart). But unless I'm planning on a 4 minute fight, I'm syncing to Bloodlust and then using them every subsequent available cooldown, mana permitting (it usually is).
I usually talk to my shaman and or raid leader when they will use heroism. Although I usually have a slight idea of when it will come but its always better to see my carnivorous treants as my friend Emblem calls them. He says once they ate another Moonkin's treants in a boss fight. I found it funny and I had more dps in the end xD. As for Starfall, I usually use it when when heroism is up as well and or I have a lunar eclipse phase.
We should get more balance spells, its so not fair for us T.T
On iron Council, try to put your treants in the blue "Power" ring that spawns and watch them do major nukeage
Thanks for commenting. Yeah, I don't think I mentioned it in this post, but elsewhere (maybe even in just comments), I recall discussing the same thing with Xiera. I also use Starfall during my Eclipse CD as a mini-hero/haste pot equivalent while NG was probably not going to have a high uptime.
However, if a fight has an add phase or something, I usually ignore how Starfall would fit in with Eclipse and pop it if there are a lot of adds up.
Regarding Hero/BL, I thought certain classes have finishing moves when the boss is below 30% (or something like that) and popping Hero is more beneficial near then? But yes, I agree, we usually pop hero through phases we need to burn thru, but if there is no special circumstances, I try and wait till 30-40%.
Good suggestion, but I think that only works if the tank is tanking the boss in melee range of the power ring. My IC kills tend to have bad luck with the power rings; only 1-2 ever end up near the boss we are actually trying to kill
Frost death knights do additional damage from frost abilities when the target is under 35%. Hunters can use Kill Shot when the target is under 20%. Fire mages do additional damage with all spells when the target is under 35%. Affliction warlocks do additional damage with shadow spells when the target is under 35%; demonology warlocks have a nifty bonus when under 35% (that Heroism might actually harm). Warriors can use Execute more often under 20% health (Arms warriors have a proc that allows them to use it above 20%).
Of all those effects, only fire mages and affliction locks truly benefit from Heroism used at 35% health.
Order of precedence for Heroism (in my opinion):
1) Burst phases. XT, Razorscale, Kologarn, etc.
2) "Need to get through it fast" phases. IC, Mimiron, etc.
3) Fight-specific buffs. Hodir (Storm Cloud), Thaddius, Loatheb, etc.
4) In conjunction with cooldowns
.. a) If a fight is going to last longer than 3 minutes from start to 35%, wait for 35%. Cooldowns can be used right away and then again during Heroism.
.. b) If a fight will reach 35% in less than 3 minutes but the fight will last longer than 3 minutes, use Heroism at the beginning.
.. c) If a fight will last less than 3 minutes in its entirety, wait for 35% and save cooldowns for 35%.
Now to address Starfall…
I agree with Mac here. If there are going to be adds (in particular, Kologarn, Auriaya, and Freya), I save Starfall for those phases a) for higher DPS numbers, and b) because it helps burn through the adds faster, usually meaning fewer Hurricanes (and in the case of Freya, you can't even Hurricane 'cause the adds spread out).
If I am going to be focusing solely on my rotation (Ignus, IC, etc.), Starfall is well-used as a mini-Heroism during the non-Eclipse Starfire spam part of your rotation. What's that mean? For a lunar rotation, that means at the beginning of your Eclipse cooldown after reapplying Moonfire. For a solar rotation, that means at the end of your Eclipse cooldown after reapplying Moonfire. For my rotation (don't have a link at the moment), that means during lunar cooldown after reapplying Moonfire. For the 3.2 rotation, that's going to mean immediately after the lunar Eclipse phase.