Boomkin raiding advice

[crabmousse]

Hi guys, I've recently re-rolled Boomkin from Feral in order to raid, here's my armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../bampot/simple

looking for some advice as to maximising my raid DPS because my single target seems poor in comparison with my Feral DPS, and a couple of thousand DPS behind the other casters in the guild run I was in last week.

I've read the guides here and on EJ, here's what I'm doing: I am keeping dots up 100% and clipping at <2 seconds, starsurge, starfall (unless close to lunar eclipse or multi-mob phase) and force of nature (unless close to BL) on cooldown, with Wrath/Starfire as filler. I'm timing my Eclipses so I'm in Solar Eclipse for Skillfire spam during nine out of ten movement phases. I'm hitcapped at just over 17%, reforging all I can back to haste and using gem choices from EJ. AoE fights such as Magmaw I'm planting mushrooms as the adds spawn and spanking them right away before hitting the boss again.

I don't know if I am misreading the guides or whatever but over about 3million damage on the dummy I'm doing 11.5k DPS. My best raid DPS so far has been Artimedes with 17k dps, thanks mainly to skillfire spam on air phase. There are people on here with i346 gear talking about 20k in heroics, so I don't get what I'm doing wrong. is there something glaringly obvious here?

[Lenonis]

There are people on here with i346 gear talking about 20k in heroics, so I don't get what I'm doing wrong.

I don't know enough about Boomkin raiding but you sound like you're doing the right things...I mainly posted to say never EVER believe the crap that people are posting about DPS numbers. They are inflated and usually burst damage not sustained DPS. Take those numbers people claim with a grain of salt. Look up logs on world of logs or another similar place to see what actual DPS numbers raiding druids are putting out.

[crabmousse]

I don't know enough about Boomkin raiding but you sound like you're doing the right things...I mainly posted to say never EVER believe the crap that people are posting about DPS numbers. They are inflated and usually burst damage not sustained DPS. Take those numbers people claim with a grain of salt. Look up logs on world of logs or another similar place to see what actual DPS numbers raiding druids are putting out.

you're probably right about all the 20k dps claims, but the problem is I have been looking at logs and sites like stateofdps.com; I can basically annihilate my own single target DPS by putting on my feral gear and going crazy, but everyone else I look Boomkins are trumping Ferals.

I didn't mean for my first post to begin such a big whine; I am inexperienced on the fights despite being an experienced raider, and I still need to be more comfortable with phase changes etc to really plan my spells far ahead. I had actually meant to come looking for advice and tips on encounters i.e where to plant mushrooms on maloriak, magmaw etc, and if there's a golden rule when to multi-dot to pad out the DPS

[Anathor]

Who cares about single target dps? It basically doesn't happen in raids these days (except if you count BH as a raid). What's important is what you put up in actual raids, I'd say. Also people doing 20k in heroics in i346 gear are full of s***. Don't worry about. Also take sites like stateofdps with a grain of salt. They are useful to see generally speaking which classes are doing better than others, but the only real use I have for this info is to bring that back to my raid mates and see how I perform relatively to them. The numbers can be ignored, the people there have ilvl vastly superior to yours (or mine) and everything going for them.

[Calculated]

Your gear is clearly off-spec Balance gear (mix of PvE and PvP pieces mostly iLVL 346/359 - even a 333 in there). I'd guess your Feral set is/was better and you are more comfortable in the spec. In addition, single-target is not a Balance Druid's strong suit (and yet they nerf Starsurge . . . /sigh). Anyway, Balance Druids scale incredibly well with haste so start focusing in on that more. In my guide, I have a fairly good list of pre-raid gear to shoot for which may help bolster you a bit until you can start picking up 359 raid Balance PvE itemized pieces. There's also some other good info on rotation, multi-dot strategy, Eclipse strategy, etc.

[crabmousse]

Your gear is clearly off-spec Balance gear (mix of PvE and PvP pieces mostly iLVL 346/359 - even a 333 in there). I'd guess your Feral set is/was better and you are more comfortable in the spec. In addition, single-target is not a Balance Druid's strong suit (and yet they nerf Starsurge . . . /sigh). Anyway, Balance Druids scale incredibly well with haste so start focusing in on that more. In my guide, I have a fairly good list of pre-raid gear to shoot for which may help bolster you a bit until you can start picking up 359 raid Balance PvE itemized pieces. There's also some other good info on rotation, multi-dot strategy, Eclipse strategy, etc.

Guide is sick, amazing work! Thank you!

[Kathandira]

i can easily see people claiming 20k DPS. on Trash pulls. Single Target we lack a little bit. but still can be in the top 5. and yes, follow Calculated's advice. I'm personally very picky about self proclaimed Moonkin Guru's. But Calculated does do his research and pools together info from more than just the EJ forums.

[Deleted]

i can easily see people claiming 20k DPS. on Trash pulls. Single Target we lack a little bit. but still can be in the top 5. and yes, follow Calculated's advice. I'm personally very picky about self proclaimed Moonkin Guru's. But Calculated does do his research and pools together info from more than just the EJ forums.

Saying that we lack a bit, and then saying that we are usually in the top 5 is a bit contradictive. Top 5 on a general basis is quite good for any sort of DPS, and we don't really "lack a bit".

[Calculated]

It's not contradictory to say we are less than stellar single-target and then say we can still be in top 5. The reason we parse well overall on T11 encounters has more to do with our multi-target capabilities and the makeup of the content than anything else. If T11 was full of single-target fights, we wouldn't look nearly as strong. This weakness at single-target will only get worse if the 4.1 Starsurge nerf goes through. Who knows what T12 content will bring but if it puts more emphasis on single-target, don't expect us to parse as well as we do currently.

[Strix]

I too am worried about what will happen if the starsurge nerf goes live, with no other buffs to compensate. Though I don't really see us getting nothing in return as the nerf is very clearly pvp related. I suppose we will see in the next few weeks.

[Anathor]

I too am worried about what will happen if the starsurge nerf goes live, with no other buffs to compensate. Though I don't really see us getting nothing in return as the nerf is very clearly pvp related. I suppose we will see in the next few weeks.

I'm not saying that we deserve a nerf, I like where our spec is right now, but lookign at e.g. BOT, this is a place where a boomkin can top the dps meters on 3 out of 4 bosses and will do well on Halfus, at least for the important part of the fight when several drakes are up (we typically fall behind on the overall meter because of the dps-buffed single-target burn at the end).

There are really very few single target fights in this tier (single target = not a council-type and no adds). I don't really mind if there are a few fights where we are "not that good" if in exchange we get a ton of fights where we really shine.

[Deleted]

I am also struggling to get the best out of my dps and it is frustrating. In TBC and Wotlk I was used to coming at the top or near in all raids with damage and dps, now I'm working harder with a more complex rotation but end up towards the lower end of the scale compared to the other players in heroics.

I've been trying to follow EJ boomkin thread but I'll check out Calculated's and try the suggestions in there.