Druid DPS vs. Mana Consumption Thoughts

Discussion in 'Priests' started by talayen, Apr 9, 2021.

  1. talayen New Member

    So I've spent a good amount of time thinking about ways to deal with our mana consumption, many of which are outlined in the other thread. Let me preface by saying that I prioritize DPS, and my concerns are solely for raid situations. Myself and another druid guildmate have worked on our rotations and feel like we are in a good place, parsing well, but we're always in search of a better way to do things. On many fights we are both scraping for mana for the final 15-20% of the fight, which results in having to drop certain spells from the rotation and lose DPS.

    I think there are some ways to make myself more efficient for longer fights (in our case - Klandicar, Tantor, Crusaders, etc.) I'd love to brainstorm a bit if anyone has some thoughts - I'll outline my general method and things I'm thinking about tweaking. *NOTE* I'm not going to get into my burn rotation, but know that I am burning as early and as often as I can.

    -Constant rotation between Group Wolf and Solo Wolf
    -NFW, Sunshock, and Horde always stay on, recasting a tick before they wear off.
    -AA nuke cast between spell casts for added damage during global cooldown.
    -Once dots are on, rotate through casts of Typhonic Roar, Remote Sunshock, and Composite winds (with AA nukes in between) until NFW needs refresh, or other dots as the fight progresses.

    *Obviously this sequence gets interrupted by group heals, rebuffing, etc. but I always try to hop back in as quickly as possible, with the priority on picking up the DoT sequence.

    When looking through my parses, it is very clear that nuke damage is not very significant on a spell by spell basis (other than NFW), but depends on the accumulation of multiple sources of nuke damage to add up to something worthwhile. To me this means I should be prioritizing efficiency in this rotation, rather than just going for the highest damage nukes (which I currently have been doing), since the amount of DPS gained is not really that significant for the amount of mana used.

    Proposed Changes to Nuke Rotation (NOT for quick burn fights like Zland)

    -Eliminate AA nukes.
    • On average I'm currently getting about 18-25k total DPS from the three AA nukes combined. However, at 3650 mana per cast (not affected by mana preservation abilities like wolf) it is similar in cost as our other nukes but does not provide the added sympathetic procs - Surge of Ice, Arms of Holy Wrath, etc.)
    • On a recent Crusaders fight I had a combined 119 AA nuke casts. At 3650m a pop, that's a staggering 434k mana spent on AA nukes... which ended up being 4% of my damage for the fight (37.8mil out of 952mil)
    -Remove Composite Winds from the rotation
    • It is 3 to 4 times as much mana cost as any of Typhonic, Remote, and Winter's Wildshock.
    • With a 1 minute recast, it ends up wasting a spell slot for too much of the raid.
    • The heal component is nice, but really doesn't make a big difference when it is cast so much less than anything else (I managed 9 casts of Composite on that same Crusaders fight compared to 40 Remote casts and 34 Typhonic).
    -Replace Composite with Winter's Wildshock
    • Fast recast and low mana cost makes it perfect for farming GoM procs, and the two nuke components can individually proc sympathetic casts. Despite the low base damage, the combined damage is still in the ballpark of Typhonic or Remote.
    • I feel a bit stupid for not including this in my rotation sooner tbh.
    My feeling is that these tweaks will allow me to stay on full DPS mode longer into fights (and hopefully indefinitely on most) - more GoM procs, less wasted mana from AA nukes, for only slightly decreased short term DPS. The long term benefit of more total damage outweighs the slightly elevated burst DPS and loss of a few heal procs on the MT. But it'd be great to get some input and be sure that my logic is making sense to others.

    One other thing to note - during burns I do not use Nature's Fury (exception Zland). The added 20% mana cost seems to outweigh the 40% nuke increase, particularly since the majority of our damage comes from DoT ticks. Am I on the right track here?

    Cheers!
  2. Szilent Augur

    Nature's Fury isn't "loose" like Nature's Blessing. Nature's Blessing increases cost on all spells but only focuses heals. Nature's Fury only penalizes mana cost on the spells it's also boosting (the nukes). That does include Composite, worth being aware of, but max of 4 of them due to the effect's duration so not that bad.

    I'm definitely a fan of Winter's Wildshock over Tymphonic Roar, for efficiency & cast time & boostable-by-Season'sWrath/Sunray combo. Roar does use enc Haze better.
  3. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Yeah, the AA nukes have suffered since they made them consume mana. And if you look at the ranks, for the last several, each rank becomes less and less efficient. So, no focus mana savings, and the ratio keeps getting worse. I hope they address this at some point.
  4. talayen New Member

    I suppose my concern with Nature's Fury is with NFW. Since it has the DD component I was assuming it would be affected by Nature's Fury? If that isn't the case then it becomes less of an issue.
  5. Szilent Augur

    Sure doesn't. no penalty, also no focusing. The "DD-ish" opener is still part of the whole spell which has a duration, disqualifying it.
    talayen likes this.
  6. talayen New Member

    Interesting. Appreciate the insight, I'll plan to be more liberal with it then.
  7. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    AA Nukes are a situation where you only want to remove them if you are running out of mana as they are cast inbetween spell casts and they aren't causing any downtime. 10-15% mana isn't running out keep in mind. So I wouldn't cut those unless you are actually running out. After a death/rez definitely cut them.

    Composite Wind I've always felt compelled to keep in my spell set but admittedly I find myself not using it on cooldown. Generally the main times I find myself using it are when I trigger a 106-110 GoMana from my 108 Winter casts (on Phinigel we don't unlock CoV for another month so for now my Composite Wind is actually Dissident Winds). Once CoV unlocks though this benefit disappears.

    Double Winters nuke is what I tend to rely on for my rotation to be honest. I've not been a fan of roar since its implementation. It really bothers me that a class with so many fire debuff/amplification abilities gets a new DD line with the highest raw value and it is magic based. In group content these resist always unless you group with a Chanter/Mage/Shaman (and I never am). In raids I get annoyed by the slight delay in activity between Roar113/Roar108/Remote/Nature's cycle. If the recast on the spell was 1-2 seconds shorter it would be much better.

    Minor note about the Winter's line though. It used to have 3 chances to proc Sympathetics (the base spell, fire prong, ice prong). After the February 17th Patch that prevented Sympathetics from firing off other "triggered spells", Winter only will trigger Sympathetics from the base spell itself. This is evidenced by the fact that the Type 18/19 Casting Fire procs from TBL do not trigger off the Winter's fire prong portion of the spell any longer.

    I actually was in the process of rerunning some overnight parses on Winters 113/108 vs Winters 113/Summer 114 to see how they compare after this latest change. I ran a parse for the former a few nights ago, I am going to run one overnight for the later and see how it looks.

    Also Nature's Fury like AA Nukes, should only ever be cut if you are truly running out of mana. Typically I don't find myself running out of mana in ToV raids but dunno how much longer CoV ones drag on in comparison.
  8. Szilent Augur

    do share once you're done, I've been curious about this for two months :p
  9. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    I ran every parse in guild hall against a dummy with 1st Spire, Black Wolf (with 1st spire, Black Wolf and max AAs+DoN AA we reach 100% critical chance), Focus of Arcanum, Spell Twincast (just to get as much casts in as possible to weed out RNG), Dragonmagic Focus (Phinigel is still in ToV so Velium Ores are a bit on the hard to get side without Overseer), and meleeing the whole time. Both AA Focus lines are maxed for ToV. I had TBL Casting Fire 18/19, ToV Casting Ice 18 (haven't farmed ToV raids for Type 19 yet), ToV Gem of Striking, Empowered Gem of Freezing, Raid 2hander from ToV with ToV and TBL 2hander sympathetic proc augs. The parse was run just chain casting those 2 nukes.

    DPS Results from Winter 113+Winter 108:

    Total - 230.2k DPS

    Arms of Holy Wrath VII - 68.6k
    Dragonmagic Focus - 33.9k
    Winters Fire 113 - 30k
    Winters Ice 113 - 29.6k
    Winters Fire 108 - 24k
    Winters Ice 108 - 23.6k
    Surge of Ice I (ToV Casting + Assaulting type 18) - 6.4k
    Spike of Ice (ToV Gem of Striking+Empowered Gem) - 4.7k
    Surge of Ice (ToV Gem of Devastation) - 3k
    Spike of Corruption (TBL Elemental Curio Gem) - 2.4k
    Spike of Magic 8 (TBL Assaulting type 19) - 1.6k
    Spike of Magic 5 (TBL Assaulting type 18) - 1.3k
    Jann's Light - 600
    Banestrike - 400

    DPS Results from Summer 114+Winter 113:

    Total - 206.7k DPS

    Arms of Holy Wrath VII - 52.2k
    Summer 114 - 46.9k
    Winter Fire 113 - 29.7k
    Winter Ice 113 - 29.4k
    Dragonmagic Focus - 24.4k
    Surge of Ice I (ToV Casting + Assaulting type 18) - 6.3k
    Spike of Ice (ToV Gem of Striking+Empowered Gem) - 4.7k
    Surge of Ice (ToV Gem of Devastation) - 2.9k
    Spike of Corruption (TBL Elemental Curio Gem) - 2.4k
    Burst of Flames 8 (TBL Casting type 19) - 2.2k
    Burst of Flames 5 (TBL Casting type 18) - 1.8k
    Spike of Magic 8 (TBL Assaulting type 19) - 1.5k
    Spike of Magic 5 (TBL Assaulting type 18) - 1.2k
    Jann's Light - 600
    Banestrike - 400

    So I realized this morning after I got back to computer I didn't have Emperor Ganak's Familiar on for the Summers parse for the extra 2-3% focus. However interestingly when I looked up the spell data for this I realized that the Emperor Ganak's Familiar requires 150 Mana for it to function on spells. Most other damage amplifying effects require 100 Mana (Sympathetics) or 10 Mana (Caster proc tonics) for it to function. Our Winter's prongs only have a 100 mana value tied to them, so it won't impact their damage. It would've amplified Summers slightly though so keep in mind that value may trend upward a bit with that included. (I learned something new when I looked at this focus)

    Also to note I only had Type 3 Aug for Winter 113. Summer 114 I haven't purchased and that would've scaled up the value on its base nuke a bit.

    The augment sympathetic proc rate on everything was more or less identical between the Summer114+Winter113 vs Winter113+Winter108 parses. However there are some exceptions.

    Arms of Holy Wrath seemed to not receive the same nerf as all the other sympathetics in the February patch. It doesn't exclude triggered effects so it is still having 3x chance to trigger on each Winters cast whereas every other sympathetic only has a single chance to trigger. This resulted in a 16.1k DPS increase for the double winters configuration.

    Dragonmagic Focus (and I would imagine Restless ToV Proc potions) also don't seem to exclude triggered effects. So these are having 3 chances to trigger on Winters vs 1 chance to trigger on Summers. This resulted in a 9.5k DPS increase for the double winters configuration.

    Winters 108 itself was 47.6k DPS
    Summers 114 itself was 46.9k DPS (adding in TBL Casting Fire 18/19 it comes out to 50.9k DPS)

    TBL Casting Fires still stupidly have their fire resist check to trigger so they were only triggering off my Summers casts. When comparing the two options I guess bundling their value into the Summers value makes sense. Obviously they will trigger on our Remotes and Fire DoTs in addition to this in a real game scenario.

    As it stands today, Double winters beats out Winter+Summer in a pure chain casting parse. If they end up nerfing Sympathetic Arms of Holy Wrath and Dragonmagic/Restless Focus caster proc tonics to have the same "6: Limit: No Triggered Spells" line of text as the other sympathetic focuses, then Summer will edge out Winter 108 in value.

    I think the next parse I will run will be a 113/108 Roar parse to see how that compares to double winter, even with the slower cast time and slight delay between the two casts.
  10. talayen New Member


    I think I disagree with this. If I'm using 3650 mana on an AA nuke between every cast (no savings from any of our mana conservation tools), my pool is decreasing at a higher rate for a reward that isn't comparable to losing even one DoT from my rotation for the final 15-20% of an event. I feel like it's worth losing some DPS in the short term for the ability to sustain for a longer period of time.

    I'm basing this purely off of recent raid parses, where I see the AA nukes account for only 3-5% of my total damage, but at a cost that accumulates to 365K mana per 100 casts. I am consistently running low or out of mana in the last 10-15% of the longer CoV fights (the same could be said in ToV for many events). Despite being able to maintain activity due to being cast on global cooldown, they still account for way more mana than DPS. If I'm able to get an extra 3 to 5 rounds of NFW/Sunshock/Horde in at the expense of casting AA nukes, my total damage is going to be higher - especially if those casts sync it up with any sort of burn ability.

    Again, I'm not considering this for fights where mana is never an issue, just those where I consistently have mana troubles.
    I'm going to try it out on raids tonight and see how it goes, I'll update with my findings.
  11. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    I think we are on the same page. If you are cutting DoTs due to no mana then you are OOM. In those cases yes cut the AA nukes. But if you are just full burning and still ending at 10-15%, use AA nukes.

    Storm Strike was a huge portion of our damage in the before times prior to the 3-split of the AA nukes and mana added to them, and before the DoT revamp. It was by far our largest damage ability for a period of time. But those days have passed sadly.

    I do wish those mana values would be evaluated further, or if they were made to focus so that they were subject to preservation effects.
  12. talayen New Member

    Copy, yeah, I guess I slightly misunderstood. I will say that I think the potential savings from not using them at all may outweigh the damage gained in some cases. If I wait until I'm at 10-15% mana then it may be too late to keep my normal rotation going all the way to event completion, but obviously that's more of an event to event scenario.

    I agree on wishing that they would re-evaluate the focus for preservation - mana cost is too steep.
  13. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    Ran the 113/108 Roar parse last night. Unlike the Summers/Winters and Winter x2 parses, I had to use a delay of 5.75 seconds between casts instead of a 3.75 seconds between casts due to Roar's 9 second reuse timer.

    As a result the double roar parse showed much worse than the others.

    DPS Results from Roar 113 + Roar 108

    Total - 158.7k DPS

    Roar 113 - 50.5k
    Roar 108 - 42.9k
    Arms of Holy Wrath VII - 34.2k
    Dragonmagic Focus - 12.8k
    Surge of Ice I (ToV Casting + Assaulting type 18) - 5.8k
    Spike of Ice (ToV Gem of Striking+Empowered Gem) - 4.2k
    Surge of Ice (ToV Gem of Devastation) - 2.5k
    Spike of Corruption (TBL Elemental Curio Gem) - 2.1k
    Spike of Magic 8 (TBL Assaulting type 19) - 1.5k
    Spike of Magic 5 (TBL Assaulting type 18) - 1.1k
    Jann's Light - 600
    Banestrike - 400

    I am guessing a Roar 113 + Winter 113 would perform slightly better because Winter 113 combined for nearly 60k DPS when in the parses above. However I don't even think Roar 113 is worth it because Winter 108 was parsing at 47.6k (just 3k under Roar 113) plus Winter 108 is proccing Dragonmagic and Arms more often which likely would offset any difference.

    Here again, I don't have Type 3 for Roar equipped so that would scale the values up slightly. Also I have the Casting Fire augs from TBL not Casting Magic, which would favor Roars.

    Honestly I think Roars are just too slow casting and more importantly too slow reuse to be worthwhile. They need the same reuse as our Fire/Cold nukes to be useful in a raid scenario, or you need to be able to dedicate 3 slots to your spam nuke spells used in-between Remote/Composite/Natures/Sun/Horde reuses. Currently I feel like I can only dedicate 2 slots to that due to other spell slot needs. In a group scenario they really need a -MR check on their resist because they simply resist too much on group trash mobs.
    Szilent likes this.
  14. Rexa Ask someone else for buffs

    It's one of your biggest direct damage (2nd only if factoring in NFW's initial DD) and heal spell all bundled in one that just happens to cost a crapton of mana and it's best used at least with burns/ITCs/wolf together with Typhonic Roar. So it serves a purpose for burns, just not sustained damage.

    At an initial glance:

    Composite North Wind 6 decreases HP by 78008 (and unresistable)
    Typhonic Roar Rank 3 decreases HP by 28362 (and magic-based and can be resisted)

    If you test on a combat dummy (and let's assume it's tashed for sake of simplicity and lack of resists):

    When we factor in the Anabatic Roar Focus line of AAs in (assuming max rank) that will give it 21% more to base damage, so it then changes it to a base decrease in HP by 34318. Then, even when factoring in items (like raid helm) that add to magic damage), I can still barely crack over 300K with crits on Typhonic Roar. Whereas with Composite, I can hit well into 480K on crits.

    But here is where it gets a bit hairy once you introduce an enchanter into the mix.

    Composite winds is not affected by Enchanter's Beguiler's Synergy (neither helm focus for that matter). It never made logical sense to me since it's listed under the magic subcategory for the spell when you go to mem it. Yet, the spell itself is not classified as magic in its direct description.

    So what happens is this, when you have an enchanter in group, and assuming you happen to have beguiler's synergy on at the time you cast Typhonic Roar, you technically can do about just as much crit damage with Typhonic Roar now in relation to Composite North Wind (480k-ish crits). Of course you can't really control when beguiler's synergy is on you, but it's nice to be mindful of when it's up on you at least. I'm not factoring in things like hazy thoughts procs nor iog just for sake of following along with my post.

    In conclusion, Composite is generally best used for burns. When ITC is done and over with, you can then go back to whatever sustained damage routine you are using. You should be able to squeeze two casts out of it during an ITC and at least another two casts out of Typhonic as well during this time. ITC is 2min 34sec while Composite has a 60 second refresh. If you're running Distant Conflagration before hitting ITC, then your Remotes won't eat up the ticks of ITC anyway. That's a lot of big bang on just a single burn, and it definitely doesn't make Composite insignificant to me in this scenario.

    What I would prefer instead is for all magic foci and enchanter synergy to affect it. Wouldn't mind of course reducing the mana cost at least a little bit since it's not like you can spam it either way.
  15. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    A few things...

    Composite Wind is 100% resistable. The base spell Composite Wind is tagged Unresistable but all that spell does is autocast the North Wind (DD component) and South Wind (Heal component) spells. The reasons these don’t focus is because these North/South spells are technically level 250 spells in our spell books. Which puts them out of range of worn focuses and several other abilities that amplify damage for spells under level 120. The North DD component has a -75 MR check so against mobs without Tash or Malo it resists quite a lot.
    Rexa likes this.
  16. Rexa Ask someone else for buffs

    Thank you for correcting me on that part. It makes sense. I forgot about the level 250 spells part. I believe the heal still goes through even if the direct damage component doesn't though - right? The spell itself is unresistable, but the triggers (ie: the separate components) is where it can resist on the damage component. Or am I mistaken on that part, too?
  17. talayen New Member

    In general my post was referencing sustained fights rather than burns. Yes, the base damage on Composite Winds is nice, and it can crit higher than Typhonic, but the real issue (besides the mana cost) is that it has a minute refresh time.

    Spell slots are so valuable and it's tough to justify spending one on Composite (again - for a sustained DPS fight) when it is down for that much time. The elevated efficiency of something like Wildshock combined with Remote and Typhonic gives you way more opportunity for GoM procs, which might be our best way to conserve mana if used correctly.

    So far on raids this week I have noticed a huge difference in overall mana conservation with the changes outlined earlier in this thread. The biggest result is that my overall damage totals have increased as well, since I don't have to slow down or change my rotation at all due to mana concerns.
  18. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    [61213/5868] Composite Winds
    Classes: DRU/111
    Skill: Evocation
    Mana: 13125
    Target: Single
    Range: 200'
    Resist: Unresistable
    Reflectable: No
    Trigger Spell DS: No
    Can Break Root: Yes
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 4s, Recast: 60s, Timer: 19, Rest: 1.5s
    1: Cast: Highest Rank of Composite North Wind (v470)
    2: Cast: Highest Rank of Composite South Wind (v470)
    3: Decrease Current HP by 1

    [61219/5869] Composite North Wind 6
    Classes: DRU/250
    Skill: Evocation
    Mana: 100
    Target: Single
    Range: 300'
    Resist: Magic -75
    Reflectable: Yes
    Trigger Spell DS: Yes
    Can Break Root: Yes
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 0s, Recast: 6s
    1: Decrease Current HP by 78008
    2: Stacking: Twincast Blocker
    Text: You are blasted by a wind from the north.

    [61225/5870] Composite South Wind 6
    Classes: DRU/250
    Skill: Alteration
    Mana: 100
    Target: Targets Target
    Range: 300'
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 0s, Recast: 6s
    1: Increase Current HP by 35984
    2: Stacking: Twincast Blocker
    Text: You are healed by a wind from the south.

    Basically when you cast the Composite Wind spell, it autocasts the South and North wind prongs. These are cast simultaneously but they aren't tied to each other. So North can resist and South will still cast.

    As mentioned above the level 250 tied to these prongs puts them out of bounds for worn spell focus and a few other effects. Another thing to note on these, they have 100 mana tied to each prong. This puts it out of bounds for some damage amplification effects. For example the RoS/CoV familiars:

    [46946] Familiar: Ice Bound Ulthork
    Target: Self
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Stacking: Familiar Stat A 1
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 14s
    Duration: 6h+ (3600 ticks), Dispelable: No
    1: Increase Spell Damage by 3% to 4% (v124, Before DoT Crit, After Nuke Crit)
    2: Limit Type: Detrimental
    3: Limit Min Mana Cost: 150
    4: Increase Healing by 3% to 4% (v125, Before Crit)
    5: Limit Type: Beneficial
    6: Limit Min Mana Cost: 150
    9: Increase Max Mana by 1100
    10: Increase Max Endurance by 1100
    12: Increase Current Mana by 12 per tick (v417)
    13: Increase Damage Shield by 55
    14: Increase Current Endurance by 12 per tick
    15: Increase Max HP by 1100

    All of these factors reduce the effectiveness of the spell line. It has to rely on its very high base value to do damage since most other things outside of critical nuke damage modifiers won't work on it.

    Things that don't work on Composite Wind's North Nuke prong:

    Worn Spell Focus (level limitation)
    Chromatic Haze (level limitation)
    Fierce Eye (level limitation)
    Season's Wrath (resist) / Malosinera (level limitation)
    Icerend / Mana Replication Auras + Arcane Symphony (level limitation)
    Beguiler's Synergy (level limitation)
    Bard Aria (level limitation)
    RoS/CoV Familiar Focuses (mana check)
    Type 3 Luminious Restless Ice (level limitation)

    Things that will work on Composite Wind's North Nuke prong:

    Great Wolf
    Illusions of Grandeur
    Nature's Fury
    Twincasts
    Alchemy Caster Tonics (Restless Focus/Dragonmagic Tonic)
    Jann's Veil Illusion
    All sympathetics

    On an unrelated topic I tried to run a 3-Roar chain parse last night and ran out of mana! I guess I need to re-run it with Paragon or something on in guild hall to get more accurate results.
  19. Sancus Augur

    As a slight qualifier to these, portions of these effects are not foci and therefore not subject to the level limit. The North Nuke will benefit from Fierce Eye's critical chance and damage modifiers and, likely more interestingly, will have a 100% crit rate when cast while Chromatic Haze or Gift of Chromatic Haze are on (without consuming the counter).
    Kuvani and Szilent like this.
  20. Szilent Augur

    Is that how you have done it? Can you show your calculations? What were your results?