I want to help a Moonkin

[BartolGdH]

Hello, my furry, barky, and feathery friends!

I, myself a warlock who has a moonkin twink at 80 but doesn't play it in raids at the moment, want to help a fellow moonkin in my raid with his dps.

They seem to be too low for his equipment (somewhere around 4000 in ToC25 - with Demo warlock[myself] and everything)

Since I am a foreigner to the druid forums, I don't want to read 35 pages of "How to play a moonkin", since the first post is kind of outdated (no offense!) and half the people on any forum write complete nonsense (again, no offense, since most people don't know better).


Basically, I want to know several things about the moonkin in general:

1. Mana management in raids: on single boss encounters (given a good raid support), should a Moonkin skill any of the manareg abilities? If so, which?
2. Omen of Clarity is mandatory, isn't it? I get that it will be with Tier 10 at least.
3. Scaling factors: How much crit, haste etc should a Moonkin have to do "competitive" dps? Should you focus more on crit or on tempo? Is there a "soft cap" for tempo (I think I read something like that)?
4. Again Scaling factors: how well does SP, Haste, Crit, Hit, Spirit, Int, etc. scale (don't be afraid to just link a quote from elitist.jerks....I hope I'm up to understanding that )?
5. Basic rotation assistance: I'm not sure about that and I don't want to tell him any bullsh**.


http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...e+Hand&n=Genea
Here's the armory link of the guy. I know the glyphs and talents are a little screwed; we're working on that.
I wanted to advise him to take something like this (we'll switch the Owlkin Frenzy point to Nature's Reach if he should have aggro problems; Typhoon skilled and unglyphed because of ICC coming: as last-chance ground controlling ability)

Also, what I'd like to know: come 3.3, is there anything a Moonkin should change in gameplay, rotation, glyphs, talents, anything? (I saw a video on Saurfang where you push back the adds - with non-glyphed Typhoon, amongst other spells)
We do want to be prepared for the upcoming challenges

I thank you in advance for any help you can provide.


Edit: added some more information to help you figure sth out

[Cerelli]

the moonkin guide stickied at the top of the page is still being updated. Most of the info you are looking for is in there.

As far as the moonkin you are trying to help:

get the squawkandawe addon to help track eclipse procs

set bonuses are good. 2 piece T8 + T9 is the way to go right now. the T8 bonus is getting nerfed in 3.3, but you will be hunting t10 gear by that point so it isn't all that big of a deal.

The hit cap is 236 so he can stand to drop 52 hit rating right off the top.

Spell power is our biggest DPS stat, so it should be your main focus. Get to around 400 haste rating and then start gemming/gearing for crit. after 400 crit we start clipping the GCD on our wrath casts. above 400 crit rating haste is still useful, however its value is diminished relative to crit rating. SP>haste(before cap)>crit>>int>SP

Gems/enchants:

only satisfy socket bonuses if it is greater than +6 spell power. if it isn't spell power, ignore it.

Red sockets: Straight spell power
Yellow: under 400 haste - SP/haste. Over 400 haste - SP/crit
Blue: SP/Spi and only enough to satisfy good socket bonuses and to activate your meta gem. Ideally you should only have 2.

Helmet: regem for Spell power
chest: regem for SP + SP/spi to activate your meta gem
Straight SP in the staff
Legs: should be SP/crit + SP/Spi to activate the meta gem
boots: straight SP on the and get an icewalker enchant on there instead of spirit

these changes should put you right at the hit cap if i did my math correctly. There isn't many blue gem sockets in your gear so the blue gem placement isn't ideal. I think this will give you the best setup though.

The spec/glyphs are OK other than the point in dreamstate... move that to intensity. If mana isn't an issue then that point in intensity can go somewhere in the balance tree. Yes, OOC is pretty mandatory.

the insect swarm and starfall glyphs are pretty equal so that isn't a big deal IMO. Personally, i think typhoon is a horrible spell. your tanks will think the same if you don't glyph for it. I haven't done any of the boss fights on the test realm, but i doubt that using it unglyphed will be more beneficial. It has no place is our regular rotation so it is very situational.

Keep in mind that we are very much controlled by RNG in our eclipse rotations. Sometimes we will spend all of our time eclipsed while others it will seem like ages before we get a proc. This can lead to pretty substantial swings in our DPS from fight to fight that we have no control over, really.

Hope this helps some.

[Khad]

Rotation is pretty simple,

There is some depate of when to NOT refresh dots. With T9 idol and/or 2T9 Moonfire (MF) should be on as much as bossible. Insect Swarm (IS) too. The biggest do/dont being should you refresh it under Solar Eclipse. I dont, some do. Difference seems to be marginal.

Some start with wrath (W), others with StarFire(SF). I seem to get better results with SF. I get atleast one extension to MF, usually 2. Iv seen plenty of times when my W spam with out a proc has exeeded my MF and IS, i dont recall ever out spamming my DoTs wit SF. Maybe im just lucky or my memory is biased. Again, the difference seems to be marginal.

Force of Nature (FoN) is a good spell. Learn to use it, and learn to predict the timing on fights. Having it used twice does better dmg than using it once under Bloodlust/heroism. There is a nifty macro for controlling FoN, dont have it on this comp, but will cladly spread it if you cant find it from the webs. Its basicly a spam button. Use, puts on agressive and makes attack your target.

StarFall (SFall) is nice too, but the real benefit comes only if you have 2 or more targets, breferably close together. If i dont see a really beneficial point for SFall in the the early stages of the fight i usually pop it in the beginning of the fight to help me with Natures Grase (NG), especially so if i deside to start with W spam.

Typhoon sucks. Period.

Hope this helps
Khad

[Deleted]

A level 80 twink? Doesn't that just mean that its a level 80 that you try to gear as well as possible? :P

A full answer to your questions - i didn't read the other responses

The Moonkin Guide is actually still up to date. It gives you the basic information that you need to know. To answer your questions:

1. Mana is not a huge issue, if you are decently geared. What you do is you take some mana talents, and when you get to a point where you are never running out of mana, you strip some of the mana talents off. The DPS talents you take from to get mana talents are such as imp. insect swarm and imp. moonfire - but if you are doing TOTC25, it shouldn't really be a huge issue. I myself have just one mandatory point in Moonglow and then a point in OoC, and on a standard nuke fight, i never go below 80 mana, and i never use Innervate. Its just a matter of finding a decent level of mana talents, and top it off with the occasional innervate, and other than that, you don't need it. You will even see that i have put points in Owlkin Frenzy, only because those points didn't do me any good in intensity :P

2. Omen of Clarity is not mandatory, but it does save you a lot of mana. Once tier 10 comes it will be a different matter, but right now you don't have to take it - i would suggest it though. Its a very powerfull talent for just one point, and can save a very large portion of your mana. Go get it

3. Tempo? Is that haste in german? Our caps are as follows, with this priority:

- Hit: 9% from gear, or about 237 hit rating. You will get another percent from having a draenei in the raid, and 7% from talents, and then you are capped. Hit rating is simply the best stat up to its cap.
- Haste. The sweet spot for haste is 400. At 400 haste, your wrath (with Nature's Grace and raid buffs) will be at 1 second. Up until this point, haste is a very powerfull stat, because it benefits both wrath and starfire. After 400, it drops down a bit, because it only affects starfire then.
- Spellpower is obviously a very important stat. You will gem for spellpower, most of the time. The only time you shouldn't gem for pure spellpower is when you need two blue gems for your meta, or if the (yellow) socket bonus is worth getting. If it gives you a +5 spellpower, putting in an epic sp/crit gem is actually slightly better than a pure SP gem, but it depends on taste, really. Spellpower is high up on the priority list, but since you can't really "stack" spellpower other than using gems and getting better gear, we don't really say anything except for "get as much as possible".
- Crit. Once you have 400 haste, you will want to look at your crit. Crit is awesome because it gives you mana back, it gives you nature's grace and it still scales with both starfire and wrath, but crit should only be taken if the rest of your caps are sorted.

You are actually not in a bad shape. You can let go of 33 haste rating, or you can just keep it as it is - but the 33 haste over 400 is only benefitting starfire.

4. The general stat benefit is:
Spellpower: 1.4
Haste rating: 0.9 [1.5 if not soft-capped] (Qieth: 400)
Crit rating: 1.1
Intellect: 0.6
Spirit: 0.5

5. Moonkin rotations are rather hard to understand, but pretty simple once you wrap your head around them:
Keep dots (and FF) up at all times - you can let them drop if you expect to move soon. Then you spam wrath until you get lunar eclipse. Then you spam starfire until lunar eclipse runs out and you get solar eclipse. Then you spam wrath until you get lu... you get the point. If the dots run out, it is really worth it to take a GCD to refresh them, even in eclipse.

Regarding rotations, your friend should get the addon WiseEclipse. It will be broken in 3.3, but it is godlike currently, because it allows us to go straight from lunar into solar 98% of the time.

Let me comment on his gear:

Head: The socket bonus here is 8 int. Not really a massive bonus, but you might want this for a blue gem regardless.
Staff: I would suggest switching the crit/spi gem for a crit/sp gem. You dont want to stack spirit, and the crit/sp one will work just as well so you can get your socket bonus. This will also cover you (with the head) for two blue gems.
Shoulder and boots: You generally don't want to gem for haste. You have 30 haste across these items, and since you are 33 haste over the soft cap, it would really make sense to change these. You can change the shoulder gem to SP/crit, and you could do that with your boots aswell, or just go straight out SP - its really pretty damn close no matter what you do to those boots. This will bring you down to 403 haste (perfect) and bump your crit/sp a bit. The boots also has a spirit enchant on them (ugh). You can get either hit/crit, or tuskars vitality on it - the run speed boost is quite beneficial actually. Dont enchant with spirit :P
Pants: You can go for the SP/spirit leg enchant here. I know i just said "dont enchant for spirit", but in this case it is more beneficial than +30 stamina.

The spec you linked him is really good. I would ditch the point in Owlkin Frenzy and just put it into Nature's Reach. The extra range is really nice, and since moonkins has NO threat reduction at all, i would really go for as much as i can through talents. Other than that, its pretty good, as long as he can keep his mana up (shouldn't be a problem with his gear).

Glyphs are fine

Regarding 3.3, our playstyle wont change drastically, except that WiseEclipse wont work anymore. But this is just a minor change. Also, as you know, keeping 2pt8 is currently paramount to our DPS. Once 3.3 hits, 4pt9 will be better. Regarding ICC fights, i think you should just chill and enjoy the moment. Fights may still change.

[Deleted]

There is some depate of when to NOT refresh dots. With T9 idol and/or 2T9 Moonfire (MF) should be on as much as bossible. Insect Swarm (IS) too. The biggest do/dont being should you refresh it under Solar Eclipse. I dont, some do. Difference seems to be marginal.

The difference is actually pretty damn huge, as i had to come to accept in another thread. I calculated my IS damage, and found that it was much better to keep dots up than to keep nuking during eclipse. My IS stood to do about 9200 damage in its full duration, which means that i do one GCD, and that will do more damage than wrath or starfire. My wrath crits (with 2pt8) are about 10-12k (depending) and they are 1 second casts. My starfire crits are 15-16k damage, but they are on a two second cast. It seems clear then, that if i can do 18k damage with IS and one GCD, then it is very beneficial to put up, hands down. Especially during solar eclipse, because it buffs your wrath aswell.

The only time you wouldn't refresh dots are in the end of lunar eclipse, if you are using WiseEclipse, but thats a given.

[BartolGdH]

Thank you very much for sharing your information! Now I only have to meet him online again

A level 80 twink? Doesn't that just mean that its a level 80 that you try to gear as well as possible? :P

I'm not playing my druid at the moment...
I'm not sure there are improvements for my laser chicken anyway besides raiding, and since I don't have time to raid with the poultry, there's not much to gear. Oh yeah...and I'm sick of Daily Heroic quests

3. Tempo? Is that haste in german?

Yes, it is. I am embarrassed. I use to say "haste" all the time, even in German...and now THIS!...I should have gotten to sleep last night! Then I would be writing the post at this very moment and it would be packed with the most beautiful phrases and it would be funny, inspiring, persuading, and ... well ... oh, never mind. My writing's shit anyway

[Deleted]

My IS stood to do about 18000-19000 damage in its full duration, which means that i do one GCD, and that will do more damage than wrath or starfire.

Errr, that's too high. Should be somewhat more than 9k for IS (one cast, 18-19k would be two casts to compare to an SF crit i guess).

[Deleted]

Thank you very much for sharing your information! Now I only have to meet him online again
I'm not playing my druid at the moment...
I'm not sure there are improvements for my laser chicken anyway besides raiding, and since I don't have time to raid with the poultry, there's not much to gear. Oh yeah...and I'm sick of Daily Heroic quests

Yes, it is. I am embarrassed. I use to say "haste" all the time, even in German...and now THIS!...I should have gotten to sleep last night! Then I would be writing the post at this very moment and it would be packed with the most beautiful phrases and it would be funny, inspiring, persuading, and ... well ... oh, never mind. My writing's shit anyway

Dont be embarassed - you're german, you can't help it :P (i just think its funny when i talk to some friends from france and germany, when they are talking about stats or items as they see them - it becomes very difficult :P)

Errr, that's too high. Should be somewhat more than 9k for IS (one cast, 18-19k would be two casts to compare to an SF crit i guess).

You are right - a complete brain fart on my part. I think the number 18k stuck in my head because i compared 2 sec starfires to 2x GCD with IS. The number i got to was 9203,285 damage over 14 seconds for one GCD.

The full post is here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-dr...43/#msg1764943