Cookie Cutter Boomkin Spec/Rotation

[Conover59]

What the best spec for a boomkin at the moment?
-And what would the rotation be for that spec?

Thanks

[Macintyre]

There is noe cookie. It depends on your gear level. Whats your crit, whats your regen.

In general, keep moonfire running with glyph of moonfire and starfire.
Everything else depends on your gear.

[Ikkatsu]

I personally favour this spec.

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-ta...idon&n=Ikkatsu

If your hit rating is terrible and you don't have a Shadow Priest in your raid, then you can swap out Improved Insect Swarm for Improved Faerie Fire.

(You need roughly 350 Hit without a Shadow Priest and 250 Hit with a Shadow priest or Improved Faerie Fire)

My rotation is pretty much the following:

Moonfire
Insect Swarm
Wrath Spam
*Eclipse Proc*
Starfire Spam
*Eclipse Fades*
Wrath Spam
*Eclipse Proc*
Starfire Spam
*Eclipse Fades*

Every time Moonfire and Insect Swarm get to 1sec duration remaining, refresh them.

Always keep Force of Nature and Starfall on cooldown too.

I also suggest macroing any Trinkets you have with a "Use" effect on them to your Starfall.

With that rotation and my gear, i am generally around 3k to 3.5k DPS.

I have just under 2k Spell Power and 25% Crit in Moonkin Form.

[Eilt]

262 is the hit to aim for w/ iFF or Spriest

the rotation above is not bad, however most people cast IS first then MF. This gives your MF more time on the target to try and get lunar eclipse so you do not have to refresh MF during Eclipse.

Also to clarify:
Insect Swarm
Moonfire
Wrath spam until eclipse procs
SF spam (refreshing MF if it falls off and will not make you miss a last chance to get a SF out during eclipse)
Refresh moonfire as it falls until the internal CD on Eclipse is gone
IS (MF if needed)
Wrath spam till eclipse procs....etc.


Get the addOn Squawk and Awe to monitor eclipse procs, eclipse iCD, Moonfire, Faerie Fire, and Insect Swarm durations.

[Vampire Boy]

*Eclipse Proc*
Starfire Spam
*Eclipse Fades*
Wrath Spam
*Eclipse Proc*

This isn't optimal, it really should be:

*Eclipse Proc*
Starfire Spam
*Eclipse Fades*
*Eclipse goes on internal Cooldown*
Starfire Spam
*Eclipse's internal Cooldown ends*
Wrath Spam
*Eclipse Proc*

[epLe]

http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t41030-m...guide_dummies/

Will show you that the above is the "dummies-guide" to moonkin.

Although if you want to take it beyond the simplicity of wrath spam until eclipse, start out with trying spell twisting, and stacking haste instead of crit (or opposite).

Wrath spam in general has been the highest burst, so if you have a good crit rate on those and alot of haste it may outdps the dummy-rotation, just beware of global cooldown.

Highly informative discussions to be found about this, here :
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37039-moonkin_raiding/p11/

And another great thread about our talents :
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t26204-m...ew_discussion/

[Ikkatsu]

This isn't optimal, it really should be:

*Eclipse Proc*
Starfire Spam
*Eclipse Fades*
*Eclipse goes on internal Cooldown*
Starfire Spam
*Eclipse's internal Cooldown ends*
Wrath Spam
*Eclipse Proc*

It depends on the amount of crit you have.

If your crit isnt high enough, then you're gonna be burning mana and doing less DPS with Starfire than you will with just Wrath Spam.

[Ikkatsu]

http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t41030-m...guide_dummies/

Will show you that the above is the "dummies-guide" to moonkin.

Although if you want to take it beyond the simplicity of wrath spam until eclipse, start out with trying spell twisting, and stacking haste instead of crit (or opposite).

Wrath spam in general has been the highest burst, so if you have a good crit rate on those and alot of haste it may outdps the dummy-rotation, just beware of global cooldown.

Highly informative discussions to be found about this, here :
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37039-moonkin_raiding/p11/

And another great thread about our talents :
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t26204-m...ew_discussion/

That talent spec for dummies baffles me.

If you have the crit, you shouldn't be having mana issues so why focus on mana talents over DPS talents?

[Badeggplant]

58/0/13 or 55/0/16 (or something in between)

Talents you're an idiot if you didn't take: Starlight Wrath, Nature's Grace, Nature's Reach, Nature's Majesty, Nature's Splendor, IS, Imp IS, Celestial Focus, Vengeance, Moonfury, Wrath of Cenarius, Starfall, Force of Nature, Omen of Clarity, Earth & Moon, Master Shapeshifter

Optional talents: Moonglow, Gale Winds (required for Sartharion + drakes), Owlkin Frenzy, Typhoon, Brambles, Imp MF, Intensity, Dreamstate, Imp FF

Useless talents: Genesis, Naturalist, there are very few *completely* useless talents in our tree but these are by far the weakest. I'd almost put Imp MF in this category as it does not scale multiplicatively with the MF glyph and so only provides about a 0.4% dps increase for 2 points...I'd almost say just put the 2 points in Moonglow instead to move down the tree and then ignore Intensity/Dreamstate. For glyphs use Starfire and Moonfire, your third glyph can be Innervate if you have mana troubles starting off raiding in blues/level 70 epics, but once you get your 2pc t7 bonus it is worth it to drop the Innervate glyph for IS. All other glyphs are significantly inferior to these for raiding.

[Ikkatsu]

58/0/13 or 55/0/16 (or something in between)

Talents you're an idiot if you didn't take: Starlight Wrath, Nature's Grace, Nature's Reach, IS, Imp IS, Celestial Focus, Vengeance, Moonfury, Wrath of Cenarius, Starfall, Force of Nature, Omen of Clarity, Earth & Moon, Master Shapeshifter

Optional talents: Moonglow, Gale Winds (required for Sartharion + drakes), Owlkin Frenzy, Typhoon, Brambles, Imp MF, Intensity, Dreamstate, Imp FF

Useless talents: Genesis, Naturalist, there are very few *completely* useless talents in our tree but these are by far the weakest. I'd almost put Imp MF in this category as it does not scale multiplicatively with the MF glyph and so only provides about a 0.4% dps increase for 2 points...I'd almost say just put the 2 points in Moonglow instead to move down the tree and then ignore Intensity/Dreamstate.

Surely in 3.08 (or 3.1 cant remember) the Improved Moonfire talent will be better due to DOTS being able to crit on each tick?

[Badeggplant]

Surely in 3.08 (or 3.1 cant remember) the Improved Moonfire talent will be better due to DOTS being able to crit on each tick?

I haven't seen anything about MF ticks being able to crit. If you have evidence that they will be able to then by all means please share it, as that would be wonderful.

[Ikkatsu]

I don't think it was specifically for Moonfire, but all DOTS.

It was on a random blue post by Ghostcrawler some weeks back... whether it was just an idea or an actual change though, i have no clue.

I have been looking forward to it for some time though, so ill be a sad panda if it doesn't happen

[Birds]

As a shadow priest, I can assure you that mindflay ticks already crit.

Regarding warlocks, their dots "crit" using the talent Pandemic ( http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=58437 ), which states :
Each time you deal damage with Corruption or Unstable Affliction, you have a chance equal to your spell critical strike chance to deal 100% additional damage.

Its not a crit, per se, but it is deals damage equivalent to one.

Also, regarding a shadow priests dots, the devs lumped a crit modifier of our dots into shadowform,

Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15%, reducing Physical damage done to you by 15% and threat generated by 30%. However, you may not cast Holy spells while in this form. Your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch abilities deal increased percentage damage equal to your spell critical strike chance.

I don't play a moonkin, but if your dot damage is especially low, there has been precedence of modifying dots using crit. However, if they do that, your wrath / starfire will probably be nerfed a bit, to keep you crazy boomkins in line.

[pheus]

Every time Moonfire and Insect Swarm get to 1sec duration remaining, refresh them.

why would you want to clip the dot losing the last tick? in my experience its best to reapply the dot just as its about to expire so that you still get the last tick.

[Ikkatsu]

why would you want to clip the dot losing the last tick? in my experience its best to reapply the dot just as its about to expire so that you still get the last tick.

Because in most cases, you will be casting a wrath or a starfire when the dots reaches 1 sec duration.

Therefore, after finishing your current cast the dots will either be on something like 0.2 sec or may have possibly even worn off entirely.

[Ikkatsu]

I somehow have this DoT-crit thing in mind only as one possible option Blizzard mentioned to make affliction locks more viable than they were back those days. The idea originated from priests mindflay being able to crit now, but I don't recall it being ment for all DoTs. I don't even belive that this mechanic is still open to discussion too, as afflis are quite okay from what I have seen now.
But even if our DoTs would be able to crit, it wouldn't make taking IFF for the crit viable at all. IFF soley is for getting hitchance, the crit combined with the hit merely compensates for the time spent keeping it up. As soon as you are above 14% hit yourself, using it will be a personal DPS loss. Then it's all about the other raid casters.

The Dot-Crit i mentioned was to make Improved Moonfire more beneficial, not Improved Faerie Fire.

But it appears we wont be getting DoT Crits anyway so doesn't matter .

[Badeggplant]

Do not clip DOTs.

Do not refresh DOTs during Eclipse procs.

Refresh all DOTs anytime they are down other than during an Eclipse proc (if you are using IS glyph + 2t7).

Otherwise the rotation is Wrath until proc ---> Starfire until eclipse is on cooldown ---> repeat. Treants and starfall when their cooldowns are up or during the most appropriate time during the fight - treants just prior to heroism is best as they will get the buff if they are already out when it is cast. During heroism/BL and haste procs, do not cast Wrath, and ignore any Eclipse (Wrath) procs you get while spamming Starfire.

[Eilt]

If you can apply MF and not miss out on your last SF with eclipse it is worth it to recast it. saying "never refresh DoTs during eclipse" is pure crazy.

If you just got an eclipse proc, and MF falls off you are losing DPS by not refreshing it. Max DPS comes from MF ticking and SF critting.

So like I said earlier, if reapplying MF is going to make you miss out on your last crit SF do not cast it (i.e. eclips proc < 3 seconds or so). Othyerwise reapply and continue with SF.

[Badeggplant]

You are confusing higher damage per cast time with the actual damage lost by not refreshing MF during Eclipse procs. A full duration MF will be higher DPCT than a <2.0 sec SF cast, but even if you have no MF ticks during the entire duration of Eclipse that is only a loss of ~6000 damage compared to refreshing MF after Eclipse ends. One more starfire crit which has less than 2x the cast time of MF does more than 2x that 6000 damage, and that is a worst case scenario that compares SF spam during eclipse to refreshing MF right at the beginning; refreshing MF any later than that and the comparison will further favor SF spam.

It's better to have MF already ticking during eclipse, and it should be up anyway unless you are extremely unlucky with procs and don't bother to refresh it at other times, but using the proc uptime to refresh MF other than possibly the first 1.5 sec of the proc and you will lose more damage than you gain.

[anyaka21]

in terms of rotation, i think it really depends on which idol you're using. If you have the starfire idol from Razuvious25, then I'd spam wrath until eclipse and then spam starfire until internal CD is ready to drop, then go back to wrath for eclipse.

All the while refreshing dots as needed. MF is always refreshed as soon as its dropped because it ticks for about 1k, thus it needs to be. IS, for me, is not refreshed during eclipse, unless it's at the very very beginning.

I also wouldn't clip MF because of the way the glyphed form works. However, IS really doesn't matter. I may be wrong, but I think it does the same DOT damage throughout, thus clipping it to refresh shouldn't be a big issue.

At least it works for me. I crack 4k dps regularly, more haste and I should be able to hit the 4.5-5k some are able to get.