Too early to go Moonkin or am I doing it wrong?

[Saverem]

OK so I've been leveling up a Druid exclusively as Feral for the first 57 levels. When I hit 57 I decided to go Moonkin because that's what I want to be as MS at 80.

Well, as soon as I started fighting WPL/EPL mobs I noticed that 1: I went OOM way too fast, faster than my Innervate could handle 2: I had less survivability 3: I did less DPS.

The gear I'm using is crappy vanilla wow stuff, the kind that's ambiguous to spec. So I was wondering if maybe I should get into BC content and some SP gear before I even try Moonkin or is there a talent that I might have overlooked that keeps me from going OOM after my 4th mob kill?

This is what my current spec looks like: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...RJhDvSs,,11599

Thanks.

[Deleted]

Leveling as feral is better and faster. It has always been, it will always be.

[Kyiran]

I'd say wait until after you start getting SP leather in outlands. There's almost no gear to support moonkin spec pre-60.

[Kyiran]

Leveling as feral is better and faster. It has always been, it will always be.

Not significantly faster. But again, you need the gear to support it.

[Cerelli]

i'd drop some of those points deeper in the balance tree so that you can pick up imp GOTW, furor and OOC. Those talents will give you a lot more mana regen. Also, eclipse really isn't that great for leveling since you will be spending most of your time running around.

[Morning_star]

I leveled from level 20 as balance getting all of the eagle or of the owl items i found in ah. Never had big mana issues, btw,
since your problem is mana, get manaregen talents from resto tree: drop improved moonkin form, eclipse and balance of power for now, considering priority is going fast while leveling more than nuking hard.

[Aluana]

i levelled as balance from 10-80 with heirloom gear and whatever int stuff i could pick up xD

[Cpttrips]

My main is a boomkin has been for a long long time i preferred lvl'n him as boomkin over feral, everything was dead or cc'd till dead before it ever hit me, but yea most will say stay feral till 80 then change i just didnt personally care for the playstyle of feral.

[Cocoe]

I've leveled as both feral and moonkin, and theres no doubt that feral is faster... However, you should do whatever you enjoy the most. Both are viable and work fine... Practical about feral is that you can queue pretty fast as tank if you wish to level a bit with dungeon finder.

[Schmittay]

If you haven't had heirloom it'd be tough up to Outlands. Get all cloth and leather caster stuff and thing die very quickly.

Feral I found was way to boring, could just spam mangle till dead.

[Moophassa]

Alright a couple things if you're leveling as a moonkin.

1.) Yes, Vanilla gear is very poorly itemized for balance druids

2.) If you're going OOM much too often you should consider investing some points into the restoration tree as there are some critical mana regeneration talents there. Keep in mind that this will clip your potential dps if you intend to run dungeons to level, but should minimize down time while quest grinding.

3.) You're going to have to choose between having lots of mana or doing more dps but being burstier, because at that level range if you go for maximum mana regeneration then you will clip your dps significantly.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xGbuVcoIzhZZbxcub takes almost every significant mana regeneration talent a balance druid would use, however dps would go down the toilet.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0xRbuqckIdhuhooZ0x is a slightly more viable dungeon spec while retaining some decent mana regeneration for solo leveling. Of course at level 60 your talent options are limited but I tried to choose a good mix of mana regeneration and dps talents.

In the end though it comes down to knowing how to play the class without wasting mana on extraneous spells. Try not to use Typhoon or Hurricane often because even though they're nice shiny AoE spells, they kill your mana. If you're solo grinding remember you have hibernate for beasts and dragonkin in situations that pulling more than 1 mob is unavoidable.

P.S. Owlkin Frenzy is sexy for soloing.

[Azyoulike]

Definitely too early. I went boomkin after hitting outland and getting some nice blues from hellfire citadel, even then I had some mana issues but not terrible.

One thing you don't mention is whether you're spamming wrath or starfire. I suggest you spam starfire and only use wrath in solar eclipse. Don't even try for lunar - it's just not useful soloing.

Starfire is better damage per mana, unless you're sure that the mob will be dead to a single wrath or you're in solar eclipse. Don't use moonfire at all, or insect swarm for that matter. Ignore those buttons except in instances on bosses.

I agree with moophassa about specs, especially owkin frenzy - it's pure awesome-sauce levelling

[Aluana]

i never used eclipse while lvling at all... didnt even spec into it...

the DPM of starfire is much better than wrath, so i was just using starfire and roots pretty much the whole way, and IS when i could get it

[Moophassa]

i never used eclipse while lvling at all... didnt even spec into it...

Agreed, although it wasn't available when I was leveling. However it gives added versatility if you decide to run some instances once in a while and the occasional solar eclipse while solo grinding doesn't really hurt.

[Aluana]

even when it did become available i never specced into it until the last 3 levels...

[Moophassa]

even when it did become available i never specced into it until the last 3 levels...

Even so I don't see why not. It's the single best dps talent we have. Yes I know that it's almost never an issue in solo leveling but it's still useful.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Im leveling my second druid. gonna be 70 twink pvp. currently lvl 65 with Feral and Moonkin spec.

i run with 30% crit and 1.7k ap feral, around 7k hp in catform all the usual heirloom things and use this mainly killingquests and such.

Moonkin is what i use for dungeons since it has alot more aoe damage. been way up in 1500dps aoe and 1.7k dps singletarget, with bloodlust.
Moonkin i have 500+sp and 18% crit.

i would suggest waiting going moonkin untill you got some more gear from outland.
guessing in vanilla gear you got around 3k mana. in outlands gear you will quickly go up to 5-7k mana before lvl 64. priority intellect over other things. sp isnt worth crap if u dont have mana to cast.

Moonkin dps is WAY higher than Cat dps.
Moonkin = 1k trash single 1.5k multiple trash.
Cat = roughly 700dps, not enough time to let any of our rotations or bleeds to start tickin. boss dps can go as high as 1.4k but bosses die too fast.

[Zreo]

YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG

[Moophassa]

Moonkin dps is WAY higher than Cat dps.

Whatcha smokin'? I want some.

[Aluana]

Even so I don't see why not. It's the single best dps talent we have. Yes I know that it's almost never an issue in solo leveling but it's still useful.

i levelled my druid when levelling was best done by questing because it was a pain in the ass to run to instances all the time... yes eclipse can be great in some scenarios, but overall its just a waste of points until the last 3 lvls imo... those 3 points were better spent in mana regen talents for me because more mana regen = less downtime and meant a whole lot easier to solo elites (due to not running oom quicker when popping out of chicken to heal myself)