Balance Druids – The Moonkin Guide

[monkeypie]

oh thats easy.

t9 chest\helm, t8 hands\legs, beasts 10 hm shoulders, valk 25 hm amulet , tribute 25 cloak, crafted bracers, toc 25 hm belt\boots, anub 25 hm ring (possibly anub 25 ring also), anub 25 hm\normal trinket, anub 25 hm mace, jarax 25 hm off-hand. badge idol.

specifics and i dont see why 2pc+2pc

[qft]

because 99.9% of people wont get 4t9.258 and 2t8+2t9 is better in that case.

[monkeypie]

did say BiS items, not personaly accesable bis items.

[qft]

well you could figure that out yourself. if you'r THAT smart

[monkeypie]

now thats just jumping to conclusions on that part, what if im slow? so slow, i mean that slow it makes snails look fast? But yes i have my list set out already, i was just curious on what yours was, is there any wrong in asking? See why most people tend to stay away from these type of threads. But anyway for anyone else, what in your opinion is the BiS items regardless of accessability for a boomkin?! and reasons why (any tc/thoughts/theorys) would just like to compare.

[FourofaKind]

now thats just jumping to conclusions on that part, what if im slow? so slow, i mean that slow it makes snails look fast?

Then you would fall in with 90% of Balance druids on WoW...

But then again thats why things like Rawr exist!

BiS Lists are opinionated and obsolete, not wanting to use Rawr seems a bit like not taking Eclipse (Stupidly nerfing yourself) its easy to DL and its easy to use.

But then again, thats just my take on it...

Jumping topics a bit, what is yalls honest opinion on viability of a Moonkin in raid...

I've noticed that in the most endgame situations we fall short compared to our peers assuming absolute equality. Feral Druids out dps us (and everyone else apparently) in terms of direct DPS, Frostfire mages seem to out perform us in single target/ranged, Locks/Rogues with AOE, and Shadow Priests and DKs provide almost all of our utility (save the 5% crit aura).

In the most honest outlook, are we worth the raid composition slot?

(Granted, I LUUUUUUURVE my nerdkin to death, fun to play and does pretty damn good, but I wanted to bring the question to other moonkins to see if they noticed this sad fact as well, also don't read this as "qq buff balance" more of "qq feral and resto = forcedbuilds")

[Deleted]

Jumping topics a bit, what is yalls honest opinion on viability of a Moonkin in raid...

I dont think we are lacking in any capasity. We are quite low on shamans, and we rarely have spellcaster totems other than Flametounge - i bring crit and haste instead. We have two DK's, where one of them is unholy (the other two are blood), so i make sure that, no matter what, we have a +13% spell damage increase. In terms of buffs, i add a lot to the raid - in fact, just by being there, i ensure that the buffs never fall off. A shaman might have to switch totems, a DK might be attacking a different target, etc. A lot of people say that "The buffs we bring are brought by other classes already", but id rather like to see it the other way around: We cover a lot of raid buffs from other classes: +haste, +crit, + hit, +spell damage, armor debuff. We can't complain.

On a damage point of view, i worry a bit. I think our scaling will be alright, but because of our softe haste cap, most of our gear will now increase SP and crit - and crit becomes worth less as we get higher (including all buffs, we have some 40-45% chance to crit when fully buffed in raids).

However, i have quite a few upgrades to go for still, and my DPS is very respectable. I can't really use TOTC fights as a comparason for damage, because they require so much moving and switching, but i do have a few fights fresh in my mind from yesterdays raid: On IC25 hard, i had an averege DPS over the whole fight of 6,9k damage (i stood in one rune in phase 1, and i did peak at 10k DPS in phase 1 ). We have a guy resetting recount in phase 3, where we bloodlust and nuke the hell out of Steelbreaker, so this is probably the best place to evaluate damage - i was 5th on DPS on our kill, if i remember correctly, but the top 10 was very close. On this example, id say we are more than well balanced towards our peers.

Sidenote of bragging: I had a ton of luck on Hodir hard mode last night - i peaked at 21.500 DPS, though ending the fight around 18.700 DPS. Tank taunted near constantly, Omen was freaking out all the time (which leads back to our Cower Macro discussion, FoaK, i couldn't do that damage if i had to switch every 20 seconds).

I see some of the places where we have problems - on Anub'Arak 10 heroic last night, i noticed that i am only doing slightly more damage than the resto-with-boomkin-offspec who was in our group aswell (i am usually the only moonkin, he switches if we dont need his heals). This is probably because of all of the switching, and that we can't really have an optimal rotation - if you take out key parts of our rotation, the damage will fall down quite a lot, but because of the gear difference, he wasn't actually hurt as much as i was. Faction champions are difficult to consider, because with our T9 bonus, its a very powerfull spell - but it gets dispelled so fast. Ah well, it could be worse: We could be warlocks, after all.

TL;DR: What im trying to say is, at the moment, we are holding up very well. We can't really complain.

[Mastashake]

I don't know why you guys are having trouble keeping up with mages, feral druids, or DKs. I continuously finish top 3 in DPS and damage done in 10 and 25 man raids. The way to get to the top is to always be aware of the situation of the encounter and adjust accordingly. Since the patch, I changed a few points and my DPS went up a few hundred points. Got rid of the AoE talent points and pet them into periodic damage increase. Try it out and see what you think.
http://nazgrel-us.warcrafter.net/Mastashake

[Deleted]

I'm not having any difficulties at the moment either on my druid , balancing around 6.5k dps on most fights with no ele shammy / desto lock / FM in fact our raid mostly stack melee buffs .. Only classes to finish ahead of me is rogues and hunters , maybe the odd fight where a DK comes ahead (this isn't because the other classes need to l2p btw..altho sum of the ppl in my raids could use a few back2school DPS guides) .

The only worry I have is DPS is stablising, upgrades are not bringing up my DPS or the BiS gear isn't a huge upgrade either (as I might need to re-gem other pieces etc...) Saying this by the time this becomes an issue there's either A) a whole new tier of gear to worry about or B) Blizz will realise it's an issue and throw us a little buff (recent eclipse buff was nice imo).

[Deleted]

Got rid of the AoE talent points and pet them into periodic damage increase.

No selfrespecting raider would take AOE talents in the first place. What matters are bossfights, and you don't really AOE on those.

Genesis is such a small incrase - if you really want those points in something other than mana regen talents, then get brambles or something. My moonfire dot (if i remember correctly) crits for 3000 damage, so 3% more damage on that is 90 damage per tick - 30 DPS, if all of them crits, and since mine crits about 45-50% of the time, i would be looking at a 20 DPS increase from 3 points in genesis. I dont use insect swarm much more these days, unless i have to move.

As a sidenote: I usually out DPS, or is at least on par with, mages and warlocks. Feral druids (we've had some good ones) are ahead of me, and we have one very good DK who challenges my reign.

[FourofaKind]

I've noticed that in the most endgame situations we fall short compared to our peers assuming absolute equality.

I guess I should have clarified as only Qieth seemed to see where I was going with this...

Absolute Equality means that their gear level, class knowledge (rotation/spec/basics), encounter level are all equal. The encounter level being endgame, meaning odds are you will be moving quite frequently.

I too top 3 dps (most of the time top 2, damn dps warriors) but thats not because I'm a balance druid, its because im not a meatbrain and most of my other DPS are.

I've run things with our top prog guild for our server (buncha magic seekers, bastards) and most of their equivilantly geared alts (their mains rock TOC 25HM/OITD/Algalon gear) just seem to beat me by a good 6-700 dps without breaking a sweat.

Granted if your guild needed the Shamans as Q pointed out, I know we are versitile but in terms of hard numbers, we just seem to fall short. 6.5K DPS with almost BiS is not what other classes are pulling. Ferals sustain 7.7k + Easy (according to WWS/WMO) and thats 10 man stats, I think the most I've seen a feral pull was 9.4k on a non-gimmick(DPS) boss (I think it was Ignis). We can't hit those numbers, period. It seems to be a limitation on the class more then anything else. I do agree Poldara, that we should recieve a bit of a buff, but as of right now, Moonkin DPS just isn't there... just something I noticed while crunching numbers with Rawr... ;_;

[Deleted]

what makes me giggle is I was actually worrying about capp'ing at 6.5k DPS (like I can bump up etc.. during bloodlost / tinket procs etc..) but most fights I will end up near or around that figure. I noticed as the other people in my raid group upgraded gear their DPS increased and they became competitive but as I got upgraded I started to stale out. Can't see any resolution for it but I can see it becoming an issue if IC comes out and we're still farting around the same DPS as we are atm.

[qft]

boomkins scale really bad.

damn dps warriors

lol

[Eilt]

Arguing you end up in top 3 is meaningless, the long and short of it is simple. If you have good pure DPS classes you will not "win the meter" on many fights. For instance, our last Heroic Jarax kill had be at 6k+DPS, but the mages and locks were 6.6-6.9k. So, where you end up on a meter is not what proves anything.

What you do need to know, is that moonkins are very raid viable, we have solid DPS (even if it is a bit RNG) and we bring a good amount of buffs and raid versatility. If you are worried about not getting a raid spot, just because you are a moonkin, don't.

[Tumble]

So Squak and Awe hasnt been updated in over 3 months and ive been told by alot of people that it doesnt function properly, im new to boomkin so i dont wanna waste time trying to find out if it actually does work or not, my question is, does anyone know of a mod that simply watches my elclipse procs and will notify me when it does proc? thank you in advance for you time

[Deleted]

I've seen a feral pull was 9.4k on a non-gimmick(DPS) boss (I think it was Ignis).

Ignis is hardly a good fight to look at DPS, especially comparing to a melee class. Assuming you simply tank the adds, they would probably be near the boss - just like i pop a starfire for sport (it splashes off at Ignis), your feral druid has an easy way of racking up fake DPS with a few swipes. And even then, they dont have to stop DPSing just because they get thrown up into the air.

Still, you can't compare yourself to a melee class. At best, you can compare yourself to other ranged classes, because you'll all be running with the same buffs - melee might have buffs slightly more or less geared towards them (imagine if you didn't have an MM hunter, a DK or an enhancement shaman for +10% AP, or if your ranged people didn't have spellpower buff from shammies or warlocks - you get my drift).

I still think that XT hard mode is the best fight to evaluate damage in Ulduar - you get a buff on the heart phase, but so does everybody else, and after then its a good solid 5+ minutes to kill him, if not more. That will show you good, averege DPS, that you can compare to other casters.

And on that, i can't complain one bit

[monkeypie]

Then you would fall in with 90% of Balance druids on WoW...

But then again thats why things like Rawr exist!

BiS Lists are opinionated and obsolete, not wanting to use Rawr seems a bit like not taking Eclipse (Stupidly nerfing yourself) its easy to DL and its easy to use.

But then again, thats just my take on it...

Jumping topics a bit, what is yalls honest opinion on viability of a Moonkin in raid...

I've noticed that in the most endgame situations we fall short compared to our peers assuming absolute equality. Feral Druids out dps us (and everyone else apparently) in terms of direct DPS, Frostfire mages seem to out perform us in single target/ranged, Locks/Rogues with AOE, and Shadow Priests and DKs provide almost all of our utility (save the 5% crit aura).

In the most honest outlook, are we worth the raid composition slot?

(Granted, I LUUUUUUURVE my nerdkin to death, fun to play and does pretty damn good, but I wanted to bring the question to other moonkins to see if they noticed this sad fact as well, also don't read this as "qq buff balance" more of "qq feral and resto = forcedbuilds")

Yes i have rawr and yes i do use it, but thats not saying its going to give the exact BiS, everyone is different. But i also like to calculate for myself.
As for a viable spot in raids as boomkin then yes its viable, for 1 boomkin, purely for the aura.
As for end game dps. I honestly dont see why we cant be competetive, Im always consistantly in the top tier of our dps, and we have some incredible ferals doing 10k+ who are impossible to catch though.
But also noted as you said balance does need a bit of attention to it, maybe just changeing the way our spells scale with SP to be something similar with mages.

Sidenote of bragging: I had a ton of luck on Hodir hard mode last night - i peaked at 21.500 DPS, though ending the fight around 18.700 DPS. Tank taunted near constantly, Omen was freaking out all the time (which leads back to our Cower Macro discussion, FoaK, i couldn't do that damage if i had to switch every 20 seconds).

Cower macro? thats just daft. but maybe im just too lazy to read past pages to get to the discussion but it just seems like a plain waste of time to me.

I don't know why you guys are having trouble keeping up with mages, feral druids, or DKs. I continuously finish top 3 in DPS and damage done in 10 and 25 man raids. The way to get to the top is to always be aware of the situation of the encounter and adjust accordingly. Since the patch, I changed a few points and my DPS went up a few hundred points. Got rid of the AoE talent points and pet them into periodic damage increase. Try it out and see what you think.
http://nazgrel-us.warcrafter.net/Mastashake

that also depends on the class of your ferals/mages/DKS as in theory they should always top us.

Arguing you end up in top 3 is meaningless, the long and short of it is simple. If you have good pure DPS classes you will not "win the meter" on many fights. For instance, our last Heroic Jarax kill had be at 6k+DPS, but the mages and locks were 6.6-6.9k. So, where you end up on a meter is not what proves anything.

What you do need to know, is that moonkins are very raid viable, we have solid DPS (even if it is a bit RNG) and we bring a good amount of buffs and raid versatility. If you are worried about not getting a raid spot, just because you are a moonkin, don't.

there will always be one moomkin in a raid purely for the aura/FF

I still think that XT hard mode is the best fight to evaluate damage in Ulduar - you get a buff on the heart phase, but so does everybody else, and after then its a good solid 5+ minutes to kill him, if not more. That will show you good, averege DPS, that you can compare to other casters.

And on that, i can't complain one bit

How can XT be a good fight to compare? that fight is too click, if you miss proccing lunar during BL on the heart, then youv lost out on allot of dps, not to mention what are you thinking if you dont manage to proc lunar on that phase. Personally i would say something like VK Twins in toc are the best, simply as its basically a stand and nuke fight ( only variable is the empoering darkness/light if you lucky)

On a side note though, who has kind enough mages to give them FM? or are yours the same as ours who share it among them selfs? as that will help a fair ammount with your dps/mana regen.

[qft]

there will always be one moomkin in a raid purely for the aura/FF

you dont really know what you are saying right?

shadow priest + feral druid + unholy dk + ret paladin + ele shaman = everything boomkin does.
well except for CR, but... lol. CR is stupid.

[monkeypie]

you dont really know what you are saying right?

shadow priest + feral druid + unholy dk + ret paladin + ele shaman = everything boomkin does.
well except for CR, but... lol. CR is stupid.

think you need to re think what you said. SP = FF yes, Feral 5% melee and ranged crit not caster. Ele sham is haste yes, how many unholy dks do you know who raid top end? CR aint stupid.

and your needing to stack how man to do what 1 moomkin does? :X

[Khad]

SP= IFF, Feral = FF, Ret = haste, Unholy = E&M, Shammy= crit. But yeah. Grap a moonkin and your few steps to the safe side on building your raid

Khad

clarification for Monkeypie