Boomkin leveling ... broken?

[Deleted]

I had no problems leveling as Boom, maybe it's because it's been my main for 2 years I know how to play it very well but I always pulled packs of mobs and destroyed them no problem at all.

[Samania]

Just to agree with some other people, boomkin leveling really isn't overly difficult once you figure out how to do it. My druid is less than a year old, and I leveled primarily as resto through dungeons, but for 85-90, I quested at balance. Once you have the moonbeast glyph, it's pretty much just keeping rejuv on yourself, dotting everything, and knowing how to kite without pulling anything else in the process. It takes some getting used to, I guess. While accidentally pulling mobs of 5+ got a bit scary, I was almost always able to survive, unless the mobs had a lot of knockback, or special skills that made them do more damage or receive less, stuff like that. I think I died a total of 5 times while leveling (not including when I was trying to kill one rare that gave me a very, very hard time...)

As for DPS in dungeons, I only did the regulars as boomkin (doing heroics as resto), and I wasn't behind on DPS at all, even with very good groups....

[Deleted]

Im trying to level my main, a lvl 88 Nelf Druid atm, to lvl 90.
Since I work with a rotating system where I change specs every expansion, Im now 'forced'
to use balance as my main dps spec ... and its horrible.

- My cast times are to long ( wrath/starfire)
- A LOT of mobs have interrupts
- Its a drag to keep 'fires on at all time.
- Im healing myself every few seconds ( if I pull more then 1 mob, I'm spending more time healing then doing damage...)
...

It just feels like my single target dps is so so bad at the moment, every mob is like a mini boss.

Well, i have don 85-90 always in moonkin with the glyph of moonbeast. Usually i pull like 4-5 mobs at time, put in the middle of the mobs and you ursol vortex, dot everything up, starfall, rejuvenation on you and start kiting with typhoon. I rarely get hitted by a single mob. if you can t burst em down you can easly run spamming moonfire while rejuv is healing you and when typhoon cd is reset go again typhoon ursol vortex and finish them.


the problem i can see in your tactic is that you are using too much casting, like if our only source or reliable damage is from starfire and wrath..try instead of dotting everything up and casting only starsurge when ss procs... died only twice due to a high respawn rate zone (like i kill 1 of the 5 mobs and instant respawn behind me) but there are like 2 zones like this in all pandaria lol

Oh i ve also forget this 1, if you want to pull more than 5 mobs or maybe some hard hitting mob that is hard to kill, abuse of mushrooms slow zone, combine it with typhoon and ursol vortex and you ll have a perma slowed mob


---------- Post added 2012-10-07 at 10:11 AM ----------

... Thats still A LOT of work to kill 1-2 mobs compared to the roflstomping arcane/frost mages and elemental shamans

A lot of work for me means ''wow i have something to do rather than spam 111111111 for 5 levels''. I prefer 100 times do something that requires a bit of training or brain use rather than doing it spamming only 1 button for 30 hours of leveling

[Elrandir]

I switched to feral right away, it's just tons faster, it's slow and painful as moonkin, I don't like running away from quest mobs lol. I don't know what people are saying about ret pallies & frost dk's cause that seems to go even faster than feral.

[Thelxi]

It is not about survivability, a good moonkin will almost never die questing in mop, but about speed, efficiency and fluidity.

[Dead_MAX]

... Thats still A LOT of work to kill 1-2 mobs compared to the roflstomping arcane/frost mages and elemental shamans

Welcome to the balance druid world. This is absolutely normal and i would never call it "broken".

[davesurfer]

I found leveling boom pretty easy. I love to pull multiple mobs. Use shrooms, tab dot, use typhoon, use vortex, bark skin etc.

DPS in dungeons seems low, but no issue leveling at all. Even killed 2 rares solo hike leveling

[Pascal]

dot the world and then cast until it's dead unless you have 4 or more targets, with 4 or more use hurricane after you get dots up. keep rejuv up on yourself at all times, NS healing touch and barkskin yourself if you're getting trucked, ive played boomkin for a long time but it all felt pretty normal/easy leveling to me, dotting everything and being able to take down way larger groups than i can as most other dps specs. also with incarnation and celestial alignment you can basically kill a group of 10+ every 3 minutes in under 15 seconds. and with typhoon/ursol's vortex you shouldn't be getting hit too much no matter what size group you pull.

i honestly thought this thread was going to talk about how it's too easy before i clicked on it... lol

There is no possible way you are talking about 85+

I've leveled as balance every expansion. I first went balance at the end of Vanilla, so I've been playing it a long time. I've leveled a million druids to the 40-70 range literally just for fun, and I have a second druid at 85 right now. This is the first expansion where I actually felt like aoeing was not viable for leveling and moved toward single targetting. Even at 90, doing dailies, I feel it's usually more of a hassle to try and aoe anything rather than just single targetting each mob at a time. Our dots are nerfed and we're scaling poorly with lower item level gear, which makes soloing up until you get better gear an uphill struggle.

If I get adventurous and try to aoe even three or four 360k health mobs, I find myself kiting them for 2-3 minutes, or standing still and healing myself every third cast. Then I look over at a nearby DK who has 8 mobs on him, standing still, not dying, just killing them like it's not even a thing. Mobs with 150-200k, i.e. lower level ones, sure, I can aoe those, I can even just kite dot them while gathering more mobs and kill 20 something of them with eclipse'd fire spams while running around, but I'm level 90 in mostly heroic gear and those are level 87ish mobs.

I straight up don't even recommend aoeing mobs. At best, single target one to 50%, then gather another one, finish off the first, and chain like that. Typhoon is better than mass entanglement, and I was trying to use ursol's vortex for aoe kiting for awhile but I gave up and now I use mighty bash and just stun one of the extra almost full health mobs while single targetting the ones that are almost dead.

[Heywoods]

I had no problems leveling as Boom, maybe it's because it's been my main for 2 years I know how to play it very well but I always pulled packs of mobs and destroyed them no problem at all.

this. I leveled to 90 in 18 hours on my boomkin pulling heaps of mobs at a time. It's just a kiting game while using your aoe's, fires, slows, and keeping a rejuv hot on you. I was in quest greens by 88 and I never slowed down. You shouldn't be taking much dmg because you should always be kiting and always tagging more mobs around you. It isn't a single target, stand and pew pew spec if you are doing it right.

[nachoo]

feralol. enough said.

[teddabear]

The Boomkins I come across seem to be doing ok, They don't kill stuff as fast as Feral but way faster than Guardian. Feral is also in a lot of trouble these days if you accidentally pull a ton of mobs, you can't just go Bear anymore. If your second spec is Guardian then your gear has enough synergy that you can switch for certain situations but you can't do it on the fly. You have to change specs and possibly equipment sets. I'm not sure its actually any faster but it can be fun change of pace. Tank specs do seem to be almost unkillable while leveling but unless you can pull a lot of mobs at a time it is painfully slow. From what I've seen the real killing machines are the plate wearing DPS. They can pull tons of mobs with no survivability issues and also kill them fast.

[vindicatorx]

Yeah Boomkin is awful I switched to feral not having the best gear and it's much faster

[Iyotanka]

I'm actually surprised to read of your troubles. I've had no issues at all unless I've bitten off more than I can or should be able to chew, ie. multiple groups. I've found that even elites that should be mini-bosses are trivial with my healing. It may take some time but it's not hard. While I'm still learning some of the new mechanics and how to keep up the shorter duration dots I'm still enjoying my boomkin as much as ever.

[ganush]

Yeah, no real issues here. Being able to rejuv in boomkin form made it easy, just keep one on yourself and chain pull, when Starfall is up, pull a couple of extra things before you pop it. Only thing to watch out for is that lots of areas are at war, so popping starfall can be dangerous. If you end up pulling to much, run away, it's our trump card. It really wasn't bad for me at all.