DreamgroveThe Emerald Dreamcatcher
Recently, The Emerald Dreamcatcher has seen some updates in Simulationcraft Modules. These updates made us see something we were missing prior with The Emerald Dreamcatcher which was an inability to have virtually 100% Empowerment uptime. This legendary requires precise casting and may not be be the optimal choice in all situations or for all players. The legendary itself relies on maintaining a 5 second buff and casting combos to maintain the buff while at the same time managing dots, empowerments, and the encounter itself. Feel free to play around with it, as it is very powerful and will likely be your best option on single target even if you mess it up. Reaching 32% Haste makes keeping the buff up far easier, however sacrificing too much item level will create more harm than good.
Nick has made a Weakaura that helps you know which casting combos you can cast. You can get it Here.
What talents to take
- You can choose between Force of Nature and Warrior of Elune as well as Stellar Flare and Twin Moons. The secondary options will allow a slightly easier / more forgiving rotation.
Legendary Pairings
Generally speaking, you will pair The Emerald Dreamcatcher with Sephuz’s Secret for normal kill times as the 2% multiplicative Haste is very powerful with the high Starlord uptime. Aside from Sephuz, Impeccable Fel Essence is decent on encounters where you can get value out of the extra Celestial Alignment (2:30 & 5:30 kill times).
How to open
The opener is very similar to the normal Balance Driuid opener. However, instead of building to 40, casting your Celestial Alignment, and then continuing with your normal rotation, you aim to reach 55-60 Astral Power instead. Building more than this does allow some forgiveness in the rotation but too much Astral Power and you will likely cap yourself.
Surgeweaving
The Emerald Dreamcatcher excels due to a style of casting commonly known as surgeweaving. Surgeweaving involves casting combos of spells, and then after the combo you cast a Starsurge in order to extend the spell to its maximum duration. Below are the combos of spells that will yield you the highest amount of Astral Power and allow you to extend the duration of The Emerald Dreamcatcher buff to its maximum length. There are a few priorities that you need to keep in mind while using The Emerald Dreamcatcher. Those are:
- Prioritize Empowered Lunar Strike over Empowered Solar Wrath in most situations
- If you have no Empowerments and more than 50 Astral Power, then you cast Starsurge even if the buff is not about to expire.
| Combinations | Haste |
|---|---|
| Solar Wrath + GCD + GCD | 15.5% Haste |
| Lunar Strike + Solar Wrath + Solar Wrath | 19.25% Haste |
| Lunar Strike + Solar Wrath + GCD | 23.75% Haste |
| Lunar Strike + GCD + GCD | 28.25% Haste |
| Lunar Strike + Lunar Strike + Solar Wrath | 32% Haste |
| Lunar Strike + Solar Wrath + Solar Wrath + GCD | 49.2% Haste |
| Lunar Strike + Lunar Strike + Solar Wrath + Solar Wrath | 57.5% Haste |
32% Haste at 0 latency (meaning you definitely want a slight buffer) allows you to cast Lunar Strike + Lunar Strike + Solar Wrath, which completely refunds a Starsurge affected by 2-stacks of the Emerald Dreamcatcher buff. Because of that, we recommend aiming for 32% Haste. Also, with that amount of base Haste paired with just Celestial Alignment, you can hit those final two spell combinations. Just note that you do need a stack of Starlord to hit the final combo with just Celestial Alignment active at our recommend Haste.
All players should pair The Emerald Dreamcatcher with the talent Starlord. Doing this allows players just on the cusp of certain breakpoints to reach them. Spend a few minutes on the dummies and see if 1-stack or even 2-stacks of Starlord helps you reach the breakpoints listed Here.
*A GCD is defined as an instant cast ability, so in this case the ones that are relevant are: Moonfire, Sunfire, Stellar Flare, Celestial Alignment, Unempowered Solar Wrath, Force of Nature, Lunar Strikes casted from Warrior of Elune, and Procs from Oneth’s Intuition.
Special shout-out to Jundarer and Gastank for all the work they put in!