Maximizing Boomkin DPS Guide Patch 3.3.3! - Video & Written Guide

[Tarou]

Video and detailed walkthrough guide to maximizing Boomkin DPS. This Boomkin DPS Guide and video will cover all aspects of Boomkin DPS including, talents, glyphs, gear, stats, enchants, gems, professions, addons, and actual DPS application. Kaboomkins are awesome to play and definately my favorite character ever. I hope this Boomkin DPS guide makes you want to make one or play yours more! Please enjoy this Boomkin DPS Guide!

http://www.tarouwowguides.com/boomkin_dps_guide.html or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyQ75Oxx9hM

Thank you and enjoy^^
-Tarou

[Deleted]

I wrote the same comments on your video, as I will write here. This is just a rough rundown of my critical points:

Gem choices for yellow sockets are SP/hit, SP/crit or SP/haste. You will always want to use the gem that benefits whatever cap you are below. If you are below hit cap, you can benefit from a SP/hit gem. Below soft haste, you use SP/haste. Below soft crit, you use SP/crit. Its really simple as that. Above your caps, SP/haste wins out slightly.

Another comment I made was on dots. There is little benefit from keeping both dots up, not even in the beginning of a fight. Your argument was that "You might as well put dots up in the beginning of the fight as you get into position". But if you spend 5 seconds in the beginning of a fight to move into position, something is just wrong. Faerie fire, treants, starfall, one dot - thats four seconds already. I don't think I have ever had to move longer than that.

Your dots on their own are too weak to really be worth casting. An unextended moonfire for me does about 9729 damage, but if it gets extended by Starfire (and benefit Starfire at the same time) the value it brings warrents casting it, pushing the DPET up to 15.154 damage.

The same goes for Insect Swarm. On its own, it does some 8.674 damage, making it very undesirable to cast, UNLESS you do it before solar eclipse, where a 3% damage increase to solar wraths is *very* welcome. If I get in 10 solar wraths before the IS runs out, I gain another 343 damage per wrath, or 3430 extra damage because of that IS, bringing its value up to 12104, and worth casting.

Don't get me wrong. Overall, its a very good guide, but I believe there are some slipups here and there

[Khad]

I agree with Q.

Good guide, definetly. Apart from those few points Q allrdy mentioned its easy to read/look/listen guide Good job!

[Lyren]

Yes for DoTs in general, but what about those people who have Eye and Spyglass? That's 305, or more, SP they don't have right off the bat, and using both MF/IS helps build that up some before you cast Treants or Starfall, assuming it's even a fight where using starfall right off the bat is ideal, which several aren't (Marrow, LDW, Saur, Putri, LK, Valith, Lootship ignored). Even then, having both is also important when the crit from idol is necessary to put you over the soft crit cap and/or for proccing lunar faster. Yes, 98% is probably "high enough," but losing a SF crit to bad luck is unnecessary and easily preventable. <-- this case I'm referring to is when you proc lunar on the first wrath, and thus only had one tick of MF go off in the beginning.

Yes, I know you can build up Eye by using a lifebloom on yourself before the fight, but that's still 180 SP and 220 crit.

[Nirual]

I kinda doubt that that factors in that much to warrant both dots on pull.

[nexttosmelly]

starfall procs eye and spyglass popping that at the start quickly builds up the 280 spellpower or so

[dotnumb]

Yes for DoTs in general, but what about those people who have Eye and Spyglass? That's 305, or more, SP they don't have right off the bat, and using both MF/IS helps build that up some before you cast Treants or Starfall, assuming it's even a fight where using starfall right off the bat is ideal, which several aren't (Marrow, LDW, Saur, Putri, LK, Valith, Lootship ignored). Even then, having both is also important when the crit from idol is necessary to put you over the soft crit cap and/or for proccing lunar faster. Yes, 98% is probably "high enough," but losing a SF crit to bad luck is unnecessary and easily preventable. <-- this case I'm referring to is when you proc lunar on the first wrath, and thus only had one tick of MF go off in the beginning.

Yes, I know you can build up Eye by using a lifebloom on yourself before the fight, but that's still 180 SP and 220 crit.

Um... I use Starfall while running in on Marrow, LDW (adds spawn in the middle of it), Saur, Putrid, Valith and Lootship (great for taking down the rifleman)... The way i look at it is that raid buffed I'm above 45% crit. If I cast Moonfire while running in, instead of starting with a wrath, I am potentially losing DPS for not casting that additional nuke.

And doesn't starfall proc those trinkets anyways, therefore nullifying your entire argument?

To each his own, but personally I have found my personal numbers to be higher on both live encounters and target dummies if I keep to only putting up the dot for the nuke I am currently casting.

[iamthewalrus57]

keeping up your dots s important actually, if you spec into imp insect swarm, insect swarm will increase the damage of wrath and moonfire increases the critical strike chance of starfire. the critical strike benefit from moonfire is very nice as its another 3%. ive dpsed fights where i have forgotten to refresh dots as quickly as i should have and my dps has dropped, generally below the top 5 dps'rs. however when i maintain having the dots up 95% of the time i am usually always top 5. and if you dont believe that just go to a training dummy and try it yourself. keep your dots up for one and then dont put any up- you will notce a significant difference

overall good guide. although the meta that was suggested is good, if you find yourself lackng in spellpower you should get the increased spell power one that requires 3 red gems. generally your going to have at least 3 +23 sp gems so ts easy to attain. cant remember the name of the meta but im using so check my armory or your auction house im pretty sure ts a skyflare.

[Deleted]

Yes for DoTs in general, but what about those people who have Eye and Spyglass? That's 305, or more, SP they don't have right off the bat, and using both MF/IS helps build that up some before you cast Treants or Starfall, assuming it's even a fight where using starfall right off the bat is ideal, which several aren't (Marrow, LDW, Saur, Putri, LK, Valith, Lootship ignored). Even then, having both is also important when the crit from idol is necessary to put you over the soft crit cap and/or for proccing lunar faster. Yes, 98% is probably "high enough," but losing a SF crit to bad luck is unnecessary and easily preventable. <-- this case I'm referring to is when you proc lunar on the first wrath, and thus only had one tick of MF go off in the beginning.

Yes, I know you can build up Eye by using a lifebloom on yourself before the fight, but that's still 180 SP and 220 crit.

"It doesn't stack as fast if you don't use both dots" is a very weak argument. It is SUCH a small portion of any fight you do, that it won't matter one bit.

Spyglass stacks up on spell damage. Lets just say you do moonfire, wrath, wrath, wrath. You will have it stacked to 10 stacks after 8 seconds:

0 moonfire hit (instant)
1 GCD and cast
2 wrath
3 moonfire wrath
4 wrath
5 wrath
6 moonfire wrath
7 wrath
8 wrath

If you do insect swarm, then moonfire then wrath, you will stack your trinket up after 7 seconds, because you spend another GCD on casting another instant.

0 Insect Swarm cast
1 moonfire hit
2 GCD and cast, IS tick
3 wrath
4 wrath, IS, moonfire
5 wrath
6 wrath, IS
7 wrath, moonfire

*gasp, cries of outrage, a lot of suprised murmur* Do you see my point? Even if it took five more seconds to stack it up, five seconds of a 5+ minute fight means nothing. Whats the difference between a 10 second stackup and a 15 second stack up? Some 35 spell power overall. But then, once its up and running, its very easy to keep up.

Lets look at it a different way. Lets just say that you only do DPS from your spell power. In one instance, you have full spell power (lets say 4000), and in the other you only have 3800 spell power for the first 15 seconds. In the first case, over five minutes of fighting, you will do 2.400.000 damage, or 8.000 DPS. In the second case, you will do 2.394.000 damage or 7980 DPS. That's a 20 DPS difference. But my example is completely biased, because the difference in stacking up the trinket is only 1 second, making the DPS difference so insignificant that it doesn't really matter.

Um... I use Starfall while running in on Marrow, LDW (adds spawn in the middle of it), Saur, Putrid, Valith and Lootship (great for taking down the rifleman)... The way i look at it is that raid buffed I'm above 45% crit. If I cast Moonfire while running in, instead of starting with a wrath, I am potentially losing DPS for not casting that additional nuke.

And doesn't starfall proc those trinkets anyways, therefore nullifying your entire argument?

To each his own, but personally I have found my personal numbers to be higher on both live encounters and target dummies if I keep to only putting up the dot for the nuke I am currently casting.

You would probably benefit most from using moonfire as you run in, start spamming your wrath, and proc lunar eclipse. Most of the time, you can start doing lunar starfires soon enough to extend the moonfire, and its damage has not been wasted. But if you start with Insect Swarm to "buff wrath", you aren't really gaining any extra damage (rather, you lose some) because your IS wont buff more than a few wraths, and you will have to cast moonfire once lunar eclipse procs, losing precious seconds in the lunar.

But what does matter is you casting inferior spells, that does not bring their value because you will usually only do a few wraths, uneclipsed, and get very little benefit from IS. So while you stack up Spyglass a second faster, you do it by casting a weak spell, and you still lose damage.

keeping up your dots s important actually, if you spec into imp insect swarm, insect swarm will increase the damage of wrath and moonfire increases the critical strike chance of starfire. the critical strike benefit from moonfire is very nice as its another 3%. ive dpsed fights where i have forgotten to refresh dots as quickly as i should have and my dps has dropped, generally below the top 5 dps'rs. however when i maintain having the dots up 95% of the time i am usually always top 5. and if you dont believe that just go to a training dummy and try it yourself. keep your dots up for one and then dont put any up- you will notce a significant difference

overall good guide. although the meta that was suggested is good, if you find yourself lackng in spellpower you should get the increased spell power one that requires 3 red gems. generally your going to have at least 3 +23 sp gems so ts easy to attain. cant remember the name of the meta but im using so check my armory or your auction house im pretty sure ts a skyflare.

Nobody is arguing against using dots. Imp. Insect Swarm is a great talent and all, but current moonkin situation does not support having both dots up at the same time when you stand still and nuke.

And no, there is nothing that beats the Chaotic Skyfire meta. We are such a crit based class that Chaotic Skyfire trumphs anything. If someone is low on spell power, they just need more gear

[Mudkiper]

Sorry I find it hard to take a DPS guide seriously from someone doing less then 7k DPS.

[Cowt]

Qieth is making valid points as always.

As for the guide, you sound like a douch when you say 'boomkin' over and over. :-*

User recieved a timeout for this post

[Deleted]

Sorry I find it hard to take a DPS guide seriously from someone doing less then 7k DPS.

You should not base your oppinions on whatever snippets of videos you see from Tarou. You have no idea when the footage was from, what happened on the fight and so on. If you look at the second piece of video from BQL, you see that he just came back from running with shadowflame, which is naturally a drop in his DPS. BQL is at around 95% health, so he got Shadowflame early on, which naturally hurts a lot. Don't judge from small pieces of video. As you can see, most of us agree with most of what was said in the video, and anyone knowing who Tarou, knows that he is generally a reliable source.

[foofymoonkin]

while this gave me something to read while at work during a slow day, I still am with Q on the dots issue. Its probably easier to explain as using the dot corresponding to the proc rather than keeping both up at once.

Now, if you excuse me..time to lurk!

[Lyren]

0 moonfire hit (instant)
1 GCD and cast
2 wrath
3 moonfire wrath
4 wrath
5 wrath
6 moonfire wrath
7 wrath
8 wrath

If you do insect swarm, then moonfire then wrath, you will stack your trinket up after 7 seconds, because you spend another GCD on casting another instant.

0 Insect Swarm cast
1 moonfire hit
2 GCD and cast, IS tick
3 wrath
4 wrath, IS, moonfire
5 wrath
6 wrath, IS
7 wrath, moonfire

that's all well and good if you're spamming wrath 5 times. You will *generally* cast it 1-2 times til lunar. I'm assuming on first cast and the 2nd is followup during projectile travel time.

0 moonfire hit (instant)
1 GCD and cast
2 wrath
3 moonfire wrath
4 starfire cast
5 starfire
6 moonfire starfire cast
7 starfire
8 starfire cast
9 moonfire starfire
10 starfire cast
11 starfire

That's 11s to stack up

0 Insect Swarm cast
1 moonfire hit
2 GCD and cast, IS tick
3 wrath
4 wrath, IS, moonfire
5 starfire cast
6 starfire, IS
7 starfire cast, moonfire

It is still relatively little, I already know that, but it is several sub optimal casts and only 1 second less on nukes, which may or may not matter in the end. In addition, you will be at 5 idol stacks at those 7s, while still not at 11s without IS. For many it is not important because you're well over crit cap, but again, many != all.

[Deleted]

Well, the only time where you would get away with just two wraths is if your very first wrath procs lunar eclipse. When you queue up spells, you are bound to get an extra wrath in. So unless you want to make a statistical example on getting eclipse on your very first wrath, then this example doesn't really fit well. I find it a lot more likely to use three as an average staple for how long it takes to proc lunar eclipse. There is no way you can cast starfire right after the wrath that procced lunar eclipse, so you should always add another one. I have some 65% crit on my wraths, and with a 60% chance to proc eclipse, you are probably looking at 2-4 wraths to proc lunar, and then the extra one before you manage to switch your cast. This applies to both rotations.

Even if we assume that you only do 2 wraths (which you wont, on average), you lose out big time because you cast a 8,6k Insect Swarm, and then two wraths uneclipsed for 8.378 damage (my numbers). The extra damage from IIS is 502,68 damage, meaning the total benefit you got from Insect Swarm was around 9102.

And when looking at that, you are still only 4 seconds behind in stacking up the idol. Thats nothing. For the rest of the fight, your idol will be running, and the longer the fight, the less those four seconds matter.

I would like to stop this argument completely. There is no significant difference in our overall DPS whether it takes us 4 seconds more or less to stack up our trinket, and the idol stacks up fast enough anyways. It is just not significant.

To boil it down completely: You wouldn't cast both dots while your rotation is going, so there is little argument for doing it in the beginning of the fight. You are certainly not GAINING anything from it, and unless you can proc Lunar Eclipse on the very first wrath, the difference will be very small, if non existant. So why confuse people by telling them to use both dots in the beginning of the fight, and then only one dot at the time, when there is no real benefit for it?

[Vandango]

Just out of curiosity why did you not list engineering in your profession list considering it matches Tailoring in DPS Terms

Also watching your natures grace Buff before a lunar phase can also increase your dps (This is a chance) if u see this come up after a wrath has casted , cast starfire this way you can maximize your time on lunar eclipse. but i only started doing this at the higher gear levels

[Gogge]

To boil it down completely: You wouldn't cast both dots while your rotation is going, so there is little argument for doing it in the beginning of the fight. You are certainly not GAINING anything from it, and unless you can proc Lunar Eclipse on the very first wrath, the difference will be very small, if non existant. So why confuse people by telling them to use both dots in the beginning of the fight, and then only one dot at the time, when there is no real benefit for it?

It's worth noting that if there's no other source for the -3% hit debuff you should probably keep IS up on the harder encounters.

[applefrostin]

honestly im not even speced into IS let alone improved IS its to big a drain on dps for what little it gives and what little a window you have to take advantage of it. Once i stopped using it my dps improved dramaticly my screen name here is my druids so if you want to see my build ( i think im in feral gear though) it should be there

[foibooze]

honestly im not even speced into IS let alone improved IS its to big a drain on dps for what little it gives and what little a window you have to take advantage of it. Once i stopped using it my dps improved dramaticly my screen name here is my druids so if you want to see my build ( i think im in feral gear though) it should be there

I can't even be arsed looking up your build.. Please tell me what else you put the points in so we can bash you a bit.

[User got a vacation for this post]

[Deleted]

It's worth noting that if there's no other source for the -3% hit debuff you should probably keep IS up on the harder encounters.

If the tanks need it. So far, it hasn't been that huge a deal, and they will have it ~half the time regardless. Should they ever want the debuff full time, I dont mind sacrificing some DPS for it, but it hasn't been an issue so far.

honestly im not even speced into IS let alone improved IS its to big a drain on dps for what little it gives and what little a window you have to take advantage of it. Once i stopped using it my dps improved dramaticly my screen name here is my druids so if you want to see my build ( i think im in feral gear though) it should be there

Unfortunately, this is probably just the case of you being unfamiliar with your old rotation, with the new one being much simpler. However, if you were to use IS and MF correctly, you would see a bigger increase.

There is absolutely no argument for not using Imp. Insect Swarm. It is a good +3% damage, if not more, and there is nothing else worth taking instead of it. At the same time, insect swarm IS worth casting under the circumstances that I explained earlier (before solar eclipse) due to the buff you give wrath, Likewise, without imp. insect swarm, you are effectively pushing your soft crit cap by another 3%.

But i must stress this point: Including IS will give you higher DPS, if you use the correct rotation, and there is not a single argument for not using IIS.