Warning! This post is outdated! Please see my updated post on Moonkin PvE DPS in WotLK here!
So I alluded to it in my last post, but it bears elaboration. Moonkins, we came here to do one thing in PvE, right? D. P. S.
Now, I'm usually a pretty humble guy. I don't like to brag. But I'm not going to lie. My name is Delos, I'm a moonkin, and I consistently top damage charts. You're a moonkin too, and I want to help you do the same.
Are you getting beat on the charts to comparably geared rogues/mages/warlocks? Why? Because you're a hybrid class and "just can't perform" at the same level as the parent class? Well, that's simply unacceptable. We're gonna fix you up. Let's get big.
Rotation Rotation Rotation
First and foremost, it's all about rotation. Secondly, it's all about threat. With these rotations you'll be putting out lots of it, because you'll be doing lots of damage. Go download Omen (page 22) right now, and watch it like it's the final number being called on a lottery where you've already matched the preceding numbers. You do zero dps while dead, so don't draw aggro.
That being said, here's how aggro works. The tank does damage to the target and causes threat. You do damage to the target and cause threat. The tank also has special abilities that cause more threat than they should (damage wise). This helps him build threat faster than you, who are just doing plain old damage. Now the critical part about threat is the "buffer zone". You CAN actually deal more threat to the target and not draw aggro. I know, it doesn't make sense but that's the way the mechanics are. Specifically, as a ranged class, you can cause up to 129.9% of the tank's threat to the target and not draw aggro. As soon as you hit that 130% mark though, that mob (or boss) is all your. As a melee class, the number is 110%, which is partially the reason enhancement shamans and dps warriors have a threat problem. If you do draw aggro, the tank can taunt it which will bring him to your threat, which will mean you are both at 100%. If you do not stop dps at this time, you will regain 130% threat and draw aggro with the tank unable to take it back until his/her taunt cooldown is up.
Trash Rotation
You want high dps to burn down the trash. Use extra mana to do so, because you'll be out of combat and drinking soon enough. Your highest dps rotation is
Insect Swarm
Moonfire
Wrath x 6
Repeat
This rotation will use extra mana but will get the mobs down FAST. Be sure to watch Omen for an early wrath crit, as often this will put you way up the charts and the next wrath will put you over the 130% mark. Add in the fact that you'll get a nature's grace proc from the crit, and its very hard to hold back that second wrath.
Boss Rotation
With boss fights, mana efficiency becomes an issue. Sure, you can do Wrath spam the whole time, but you'll be out of mana and the boss will be at 50% health, and that's no good either. So for longer fights you want to use Starfire to conserve mana.
Another point to make is that of spell hit. I usually don't wear spell hit for trash pulls but will swap some out for bosses. Level 73 bosses have an innate 83% chance to be hit with spells. With the Balance tree talent "Balance of Power" you can increase this by 4%. The highest spell hit chance you can get on a mob/boss is 99%, so there is 99% - 83% - 4% = 12% chance to miss (full resist) on a level 73 boss. That 12% you will need to make up in +spell hit rating. You need 12.6 spell hit rating to equate 1% spell hit. So 12% = 151.2 spell hit rating to be at the spell hit cap, which you should try to reach in order to maximize mana efficiency.
Boss rotations are:
Insect Swarm
Moonfire
Starfire x 3
Repeat
or, for even longer fights
Insect Swarm
Starfire x 4
Repeat
Depending on the boss fight you can use Moonfire but you do not have to use it. Of course, every boss fight is different. For instance, if you really need to speed through a phase of a fight, don't be afraid to wrath spam like it was trash. Just watch aggro and watch your mana, chug pots as soon as they are up.
"Wow, I've never seen a moonkin lead in damage"
"Did you know you're beating our fire mage in damage?"
"You do awesome dps, added to friends list for future heroics"
These are just some of the tells I've gotten about doing consistent heavy damage as the moonkin. People usually don't expect the moonkin to be topping charts. Why not? Moonkins can do dps just like any other "premier" dps class, so get out there and show your server what a moonkin is capable of!
35 comments:
I got a question regarding critical and hit rating on Moonkin Gear.
There isnt much gear around and i had to equip myself with an Arena set, and it doesnt really got a lot of those stats. Other than running heroics until i puke, is there other option for Moonkins to get a good hit and crit score?
Nice post. The boss rotation is a good suggestion in particular...I wish I wasn't at work so I could go give it a try! :-D
@wispirella: Yeah a lot of my gear is arena based as well, so you lose a lot of hit in favor of resilience. My best advice to you is to fill your spell hit in your jewelry slots i.e. neck, rings, and trinkets. I know for certain Scryer revered has a nice spell hit trinket and there are plenty of rings out there. If all else fails you could wear cloth with +hit in it (for PvE purposes only!), but don't get caught out of moonkin with that ugly stuff on!
@waradwen: Thanks! I wish I would have had someone to tell me about spell rotations way back when I first started my moonkin. Most of the time I would just wrath spam and go OOM all the time... guess it was expected of moonkins back then... ah the old oomkin days.
Talking about Hit and Crit is probably enough for a completely new post.
With the Balance of Power talent maxed, a moonkin's magic number is 152. If you're serious about PVE strategy and effectiveness, I'd advise this: cloth.
Bargain Basement Plus Hit:
Get the Spellstrike set made. I farmed the mats and bought the nether fees for the hood and pants -a hefty sum of 1K each. Still, they prove their worth. Gem yellows with Great Dawnstone, reds with Veiled Noble Topaz, and blues with Glowing Nighteyes if you find you value the stamina bonus. I do. Enchant with Glyph of Power and Runic Spellthread.
I'm assuming you all are good druids and have attained exalted status with Cenarion Expedition. While you're there picking up Earthwarden, don't forget to pick up Ashyen's Gift, a high stam, high +hit spelldmg ring.
The Spirit Shards you've been collecting from the Auchindoun dungeons should be traded in for the all-purpose caster Exorcist ring.
Attumen will drop Handwraps of Flowing Thought, an item with incredible +hit already, and a yellow and blue socket. Enchant them with Spellstrike, and gem them with a Glowing Nightseye and Great Dawnstone.
Moroes will drop Brooch of Unquenchable Fury, a necklace with plus hit.
I'm at work right now, but those are what I'd recommend to reach as near as possible to the +hit cap... provided you specced correctly with Balance of Power, of course. You'll probably lose a significant amount of +dmg, but that's ok, really. This is for dungeon raiding.
I have a Rare quality set that I use for grinding with high intellect and high stamina, a Heroic set that has a +hit of ~100, which is fine for 71-72 mobs.
But don't fret! Your arena gear means you'll be able to easily do the job I've been failing at, tanking Kiggler the Crazed.
@delos
Very nice post. I just have couple of comments regarding your Trash rotation. I personally don't use IS much in my trash rotation because most mobs arn't up long to make it worth it. Second, if you are wrath spamming then you don't have to worry about Natures Grace. Yes, your next wrath will cast more quickly but you will not be able to cast the wrath after that any faster due to the Global cooldown.
@Wispirella
As a PvE moonkin Crit is not a stat you should ever go out of your way for. Spell damage is a much better stat. To put it in numerical terms on average, one point of crit is worth about .65 points of spell damage.
As to spell hit, it really depends on you spell damage. I have done the math and from what I can tell Spell hit doesn't equal spell damage until you have about 700 spell damage, and it doesn't necessarily pay to hit cap until you have 900 spell damage. So my suggestion is unless you are above 700 I wouldn't go buck wild for spell hit. In addition to delos's suggestion there are a couple of badge rewards with good amounts of spell hit on them.
Back to the topic of Spell Rotation...
Delos, do you use the Idol of the Unseen Moon during bossfights, which would necessitate working in a lucky moonfire proc, or Idol of the Raven Goddess to benefit from the extra crit strike rating?
I suppose this would ultimately depend on the raid composition, but assuming you've spent the badges for Idol of Unseen Moon, what's been your experience?
Also: 2.3.2 NERF! I'll be testing out the proc rate on IoUM now that Blizzard added a 30 sec cooldown.
Very nice post. Personally, I use your suggested boss rotation on trash as well, not throwing out a Wrath until I know the thing would be dead before Starfire finishes casting. I don't top DPS charts, but I do pretty well.
My issue with Wrath spamming isn't the mana, it's the Nature's Grace procs. I usually end up wasting more time by hitting Wrath again once the cast is done, before the GCD has finished, and then getting confused as to why it didn't work. If I ever need to push my DPS I guess I'll just have to learn to ignore that impulse to hit it early.
@Cdin - Agreed about the Nature's Grace proc with wrath spam. However, the point still holds about aggro. If your tank recently engaged the mob and you crit on an early wrath, you'll be sending another one flying in there 0.5 seconds afterwards, and I've had times where THAT one crit too. That's 4K+ damage in 1.5 seconds. Granted the 3rd one will have to wait for the GCD but it's those first two that "did the damage" (if you don't mind the pun).
@Urthona - For trash I use Idol of the Unseen Moon (as well as PvP) but for bosses I use Ivory Idol of the Moongodess (+55 starfire damage). I haven't done the epic flight form chain yet for lack of gold, so I don't have Idol of the Raven Godess unfortunately. And yes the nerf makes me a sad sad moonkin :(
@Nasirah - I'm a bit of a button smasher myself, so most of the time I don't even notice the Nature's Grace procs. I could definitely see how that could become irritating if I wasn't one. Perhaps you could supress error sounds/text, I think there's an option in the default interface.
Delos-
Man you outdid yourself. I, personally, have gone ahead and benched my 70s for alittle bit to give my druid some much deserved Love. He's at 41 so I went ahead and I went balance...Moonkin FTW!
This post was SOOO good that I had to link it to my own blog.
Personal question, while the stufr that's being left by readers is helpful for higher end content...how would you recommend gearing my moonkin from 41 to 70?
Luciel -
Try this.
"Of the Eagle" green leather, Illusionary Rod or Hypnotic Blade/+int offhand, ...work toward some of the gear in ZF, and find someone who can make Ironfeather Set.
Very helpful info, the hit cap the rotation. awesome stuff
i used the wrath rotation for alar last night and was fighting for #1 on dps with a hunter. im not too bad about going oom but i have my moments luckily i get a mana battery almost all the time.
i currently have 1005 dmg 132 hit 22.6% crit in form.
@urthona:
i have been tanking kiggler for a few months now and my only problem is the arcing smash. if i get caught in it i gotta chase him down cuz hell go to resto druid. i typically will mf is and wrath spam. i have +nature dmg gear so the wraths are crazy. send youre treants out at him off the bat too.
Im Raagon on eredar, feel free to check me out, I could use some pointers if you have any.
Nice post. Just have 1 question. In terms of mp5, what would you say is the desired amount for a good moonkin?
just changed my rotation again to test something.
currently rocking:
Moonfire X 1
Insect Swarm
Wrath X 3 or 4 (depending on mana regen and if you dont lose count)
Starfire X 1
rinse and repeat
Just changed my Xiri's Gift with Lightning Capacitor and T5 gloves instead of my S2 gloves. Soon to come should be T5 legs.
The timing on this works perfect, MF and IS are just wearing off by the end of the rotation. Starting at about 70% mana pop pots as soon as the CD is up, and get a mana battery. This has up'ed my DPS and damage output incredibly.
anyone craft the moonkin set, was it worth it or is spellstrike better
hiya there im a oomkin lover, its a great class, i currently have 1199 spell dmg 21.99% crit and 79 hit (and balance of power) and i am consistenalty out dps'ing every in raids heroic. typical heroic dmg meter = me 40+% every else about 15% dmg
raids not quite so much differance but i almost always top o dmg meters. i always use IS/MF/wrathx4 repeat = nonstop dmg ticks and works well on long bosses because MF is mana effective if used properly. enjoy oh and btw i dont rele raid anyhitng like TK MH or BT so far trying SSC and downing most of ZA and i dont wear cloth tbh. oh and never forget a melee/feral staff.. if ur out of mana and pots on cd whip out ur staff and melee, you'll do minor dmg but u'll regian mana imba fast i get about 500mana aswing
@delos
To clarify the Nature's Grace Proc:
Tank engages mob
Moonkin starts casting
Insect Swarm - instant
1.5 second Global Cooldown
Moonfire - instant
1.5 second Global Cooldown
Wrath - 1.5 seconds of casting
Wrath Crits, 1.5 seconds of Global Cooldown still must occur.
Now... take the other side of this with Starfires.
Open up with IS, Wrath, Moonfire, Starfire (repeate Starfire until Insect Swarm is down or mob is down to 25% health)
Insect Swarm (Cannot Crit)
Wrath (can Crit)
Moonfire (can Crit, but does not eat Nature's Grace Procs as Wrath does)
Starfire (With Wrath and Moonfire able to both Crit, personally, I have a 35% Raid Buffed Spell Crit without losing much spell damage or anything else... With Wrath, that is a 39% chance and Moofnire is 45% chance to crit - this creates a highly viable chance to Crit and gain a Nature's Grace Proc which is .5 seconds in Spell Haste)
Wrath gains 67.1% Spell Damage Bonus (if you have the additional 10% from Wrath of Cenarius) and Starfire gains 120% Spell Damage Bonus (once again, if you have the additional 20% from Wrath of Cenarius).
In a 3 second cast of Starfire, you gain 120% Spell Damage Bonus
But in two 1.5 second casts of Wrath, you gain 67.1% x 2 = 134.2% Spell Damage Bonus.
The kicker here, is the Nature's grace Proc. One Crit will reduce the casting time of a spell by .5 seconds.
.5 seconds of Wrath is 1/3 (.5 x3 = 1.5 second Wrath cast time) of 67.1% = 22.3666666666666...%
So theoretically, critting a spell, casting one Wrath, then another, would be double (if you crit that much, and it'd be around ~44.8% spell damage bonus. BUT... you still lose .5 sec of Casting time, equivalent to the 22.36666... that we doubled, so a Wrath still only gains 22.366666666...%
.5 seconds of Starfire is 1/6 (.5 x 6 = 3 second Starfire cast time) of 120%) of 120% = 20%.
However, Every Harmful Spell a Druid casts triggers a Global Cooldown of 1.5 seconds. 5/5 Starlight Wrath reduces the casting time of Wrath and Starfire by .5 seconds. 2.0 - .5 - 1.5 seconds.
Yes, if you Crit, your next Wrath Cast will get out in the next 1 second of cast time. After that, if the mob is not dead, you have .5 seconds of Global Cooldown to wait for.
Therefore, if you can only get off a couple of Wraths per trash mobs, then Wrath would definitely be the way to go.
In my opinion, Wrath and Starfire's difference in DPS on 6 sec trash (and... 6 sec trash may as well be AoE packs... making Hurricane far more useful for the pack) is far too small to notice or guage accurately due to spell crit chance. If you only crit the second to last spell, then Wrath is the way to go. If you crit before that second to last spell, Starfire is better.
So while Wrath is what I actually use on Trash when I have a flaky Warlock, Starfire is higher actual DPS for any mob where you can get proper raid buffs as well as CoE.
Not to mention, good warlocks use Curse of Shadows (elements, now) even on Trash mobs. It reduces their DPS (for trash, but they simply cast the Curse 1.5 seconds or more before they would normally start DPS, thus actual damage output is still higher) but increases Raid-wise DPS far more than the loss to the single Warlock (especially now that CoS and CoE have been combined.
Think of it this way... 3 Wrath Crits in a fight = .5 x 3 Nature's Grace Proc time ~22.37 per .5 sec where you can make use of the .5 sec. With Wrath, you can only make use of one of thse Nature's Grace Procs... and that ONE is always going to be the second to last Spell you cast, otherwise, you do not gain the benefit.
If you crit 3 Starfires, you gain (.5 sec of a Starfire's bonus Spell Damage, 120%, is 20%) 20% x 3 = 60% Spell Damage bonus increase wherease, the best youc an get with Wrath if you crit your second to last Spell is ~22.37%.
So Wrath does not gain the CoE benefits to Arcane Damage, making even a 5 second Mob lifespan have a higher DPS with Starfire (because with a 6 second mob lifespan, you better not be putting DoTs that will not tick all the way through on the mob)
To illustrate why a Moonfire DoT would not be useful on a mob that dies before the DoT expires...
Cast Moonfire - Instant ~500 damage
1.5 second Global Cooldown
(and I'll use Wrath here since it's got a cast time exact to the GCD triggered after the instant cast Moonfire)
Wrath - 1.5 sec cast ~1k damage
Wrath - 1.5 sec cast -1k damage
DoT on Moonfire ticks for ~300 damage
Mob dies.
So the Moonfire did ~500 + ~300 damage wheras replacing that Moonfire with a Wrath would give you 1k damage.
Now, let's say that all of these spells crit.
Moonfire - Instant ~1k damage
1.5 sec GCD
Wrath - 1.0 sec cast ~2k damage
.5 sec left of GCD
Wrath - 1.0 sec cast ~2k damage
Moonfire DoT ticks for ~300 (While the initial cast of Moonfire may cause 100% more damage to the mob, the DoT portion of the spell still only ticks for non crit damage).
Take this Cast Rotation:
Starfire - 3 seconds of Cast time
Starfire Crits
Starfire - 2.5 seconds of Cast time
Moonfire
.5 seconds
mob is dead
another 1 second
GCD is gone, but you just got off 7 Seconds of DPS in the place of 1
Compared to
Wrath - 1.5
Wrath crits
Wrath - 1.0
Wrath Crits
Wait .5 Seconds
Wrath - 1.0
Wrath Crits
Wait .5 Seconds
so on... no matter how many times you crit on a trash mob beyond once, the DPS loss compared to Starfire is still apparent.
...anyhow
Insect Swarm will not increase your DPS. It is a tank mitigation tool that, in the place of any other spell cast, is a loss in DPS.
If your tank needs it for trash, there is something wrong with them (except, I might change that statement now that I'm in Sunwell scaring the shit out of some of tanks haha). Insect Swarm may do just as much DPS as Moonfire without talents, but Moonfire, Wrath, and Starfire gain so much from talents that make their DPS far superior. (not to mention, Insect Swarm is also nature, so no CoS benefit.
On Trash, I do MF, SFx4.
On Bosses, I do (improved) Faerie Fire then proceed to my casting rotation, MF, SFx4.
For a Balance Druid with at least 30% (including Talents and Aura) Spell Crit, Starfire is higher DPS with Nature's Grace Procs unless a trash mob is going to die in 2.5 seconds.
Keep this rotation up through to Hyjal and you'll be hitting at the very least, 1400 DPS withh proper raid buffs on bosses.
I know this is all quite a mouthful, and I'd love to go on about how Starfire is far better for DPS, but I hope this is a little help.
p.s. I used to be a Wrath fan, too, when my spell crit was below 20% unbuffed and untalented. AND... I used to chuckle to myself when the Enhancement Shaman cursed to himself as I ate his Stormstrike debuff on the mob.
This is another reason Wrath spam is bad.
By stealing a Stormstrike debuff (20% extra damage on the next nature damage spell cast on mob) I am depriving an Enhancement Shaman of his extra damage and leaving him with a Curse of Elements that does not effect his nature spells and I am not utilizing a Curse of Elements.
I'm interested in varying specs, if you could post your spec or a link to your armory i would appreciate it.
My Spec
I see you currently don't have imp FF... otherwise I'd say your build is perfect for the PvE environment in regards to yourself and your own damage/mana conservation/etc.
I think that if you were to tell your raid that you had improved FF, you'd see a lot of happy rogues/hunters/warriors/enh shamans/ferals/etc jumping for joy.
The sheer DPS increase it allows them via swapping out hit gear for other stats makes it highly valuable for any of them who know how to itemize correctly and can improved each of their DPS by at least 100 DPS spread out across and average of 7 physical DPSers in your raid.
If you're interested in providing another reeeeally useful buff for your raid I'd suggest making some changes in your specc to take up improved FF.
I currently raid with
Specc
With my current gear, Dreamstate is scaling with gear a little better than Moonglow normally does.
So if you're starting out,or in any t5 or less content/gear I'd suggest you move 2 ranks from Dreamstate to Moonglow. Also... if you mostly have pvp gear with no spirit... then you might want to take those two points from intensity instead.
If you can get pve gear with spirit on it for a more spirit oriented build, then that's much better for raids and I strongly encourage you try to do so. It makes your innervates more useful and in raids with imp DS priests, you gain 10% of whatever spirit you have to your spell damage.
I have a moonkin and the biggest problem i have is threat, i hardly pull aggro but my omen is contantly yelling at me that im 90% of the tank, I have 4/5 subtlety and subtlety to cloak even with BoS i still manage to get high up on threat without being that high up on dps. What am i doing wrong?
here is my spec
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Demon+Soul&n=Polon%C3%AEus
@seraph787 While you make a good point about boosting melee and hunter dps, I find in many of the raids I participate in those classes don't have a significant set to replace with. This being that their top dps gear is in fact the top hit gear. Taking this into account I put more points into mana conservation and I don't need to innervate myself at all and allows me to continue without losing 1.5 seconds of dps.
Even though i love moonkins and dont mind this Post, Moonkins topping the DPS meters in Raids is simply not acheivable with equal gear to rogues, mages etc.
In heroics we can be Number 1, but not in raiding. I raid moonkin in BT, and Hyjal and there is no way i can keep up with the "Pure" damage dealers and i have tried several different Rotations, trinkets, idol's.
The highest dps rotation is not:
Insect Swarm
Moonfire
Wrath x 6
Repeat
This rotation does do alot of damage but is only good for mobs with low health as starfire takes too long to cast on them.
Wrath suffer's from Global cooldowns so even if you get Nature's grace more than once in a row, you dont get the effect from it on the second wrath crit as you have to wait for the global cooldown.
This is the highest dps rotation is:
Insect Swarm
Moonfire
Starfire x 3
or even cut out Insect swarm.
Starfire ends up being the highest dps Spell due to high crit values and high non-crit values, plus no Global cooldown.
- Medietaurs -
- Caelestraz (Oceanic) -
Great points.
I've seen a raid or two while raiding with my server wide Raiding Alliance where they take almost anybody and with such a huge group to pull from, loot is distributed among thousands from a single set of DKP and hundreds of raids on a weekly basis.
The newcomers often do not have a distinction between +hit and trash gear. However, as they raid more, they learn the potentials of other classes in relation to their own and Faerie Fire is said to be the BIGGEST buff a Moonkin can give, far surpassing a mere 5% (or 6% with idol) Spell Crit to four others.
In most of these cases, I often have found that in Sunwell, I am relegated to the paladin healer group with maybe one mage for fights some intense fights. Odd, I know, but if you ever get to Sunwell, you will understand the viability of Moonkins buffing the holy paladins, in some cases, as well.
Anyhow... don't know how I went off on that tangent, but I believe I was talking about +hit gear and Imp FF. Imp FF is 3% Hit Rating which translates to somewhere around 47 or 48 Hit Rating, I believe.
So with new players, they may not have both a Trash gear and +hit gear set. But usually when they don't have both, they are NOT hit capped and should be keeping those gear-pieces that they replace with +hit gear to save for their trash gear sets. Like, for instance, in Moonkin-ese: Manual of the Nethermancer is an excellent blue from Mechanar (I think; been a while since I've been there) with about 20 spell damage and 20 spell crit rating. In Karazhan, there is an offhand that drops off of Netherspite that gives about 20 spell damage and 20 spell hit rating, as opposed to crit.
On bosses, that offhand can be used to max your boss hit chance and is superior to 20 spell crit rating if you are not hit capped.
Thus you keep the blue for trash and keep the epic for bosses.
Now... translating from Moonkin-ese to FF and physical DPS who use Hit Rating from imp FF: those physical DPS ought to have the sense to do the same in regards to trash mobs as well as bosses and Imp FF.
Imp FF is a must-take for any 3+ days raiding group; but if you're not serious about raiding, and your physical DPS do not have the sense to keep blues that are better than epics in cases regarding +Hit Rating and other DPS stats, then go ahead without and maximize your own potential damage done through mana efficiency.
But I'll tell you right now that I don't have every mana efficiency talent and find I still don't need my innervate while providing Imp FF for all those physical DPS'ers as well as my crit aura, my 2/3 imp thorns for tanks, emergency tranquilities and rebirths, and innervates on priests and other druids who need it more.
I love the druid class being able to reach such high DPS, but I love that it does that while providing buffs to the entire raid, far more.
I was wondering if you could make a macro to cast the whole spell rotation for the trash, (insect swarm, moonfire, wrathx6. Wondering how it would look too, thanks, rotations really help my mana.
Well I personally don't use cast sequence macros, nor do I recommend Wrath in your cast sequence even for trash unless it's dying in less than 10 seconds, if you have over 20% spell crit in moonkin form. And no Insect Swarm for trash, especially if it doesn't last 10 seconds, and even if it doesn't last more than 12. It's trash. Tanks that need IS are doing something wrong.
I would suggest MF, SFx3/4.
But here goes:
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=13 Insect Swarm, Moonfire, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath
You can change the "reset=13" to reflect any reset time depending on the reset time you desire. Since both Insect Swarm and Moonfire have a duration of 12 seconds, I designated 13 seconds until full reset.
To do the MF, SFx3-4 one I suggest, I would make a macro like this:
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=12 Moonfire, Starfire, Starfire, Starfire, Starfire, Starfire
If you have an enhancement shaman, stealing their Stormstrike hurts raid DPS, especially if there's a Curse of Elements/Shadows on the mob that you could be utilizing instead. And without an enhancement shaman, your Starfires would still do more DPS.
My advice if you want to top damage meters is... work on your DPS instead of overall damage meters. You will find that to help far more.
Things to remember about DPS meters: They start counting time and damage the moment you start your first cast. They continue to count time while any DoT is up on a mob. They stop counting time when you are no longer casting. They stop counting time when the mob is dead.
Moonfire has an additional 6% chance compared to Wrath and Starfire to crit via it's own talent compared to the Starfire/Wrath crit talent, thus proccing Nature's Grace more and allowing Starfire to have more DPS as scaled.
Learning these DPS techniques may seem like you are just looking for a higher number, but it will end up helping you increase all numbers as well as increase your success on bosses, especially if they have enrage timers or the like.
Some people wonder why others care so much about trash damage meters, but while I don't really care to top them, I see them more as a practicing stage to practice my DPS rotations for bosses.
Well here are my findings from my raids up to ZA, with a combination of badge gear and Kara through ZA gear, i came out with spell hit up to 145 and spell damage around the area of 947, and still maintaining a good 21.89 percent (moonkin form) of crit chance. All un-buffed so raid buff im looking at over 1k spell damage and roughly around 22% or more percent on crit chance. Having played a boomkin for a while, i can say that its definately hard to out dps, mages or ele shamans but boomkin generally arnt suppose to own the dps charts in raids so it puts u around mid and up to high range of dps. Keep in mind that the stats that i said earlier was the rough cut without the enchants and the right type of gems that i could have socketed, with the right enchants and gems, theres no doubt that i would reach the spell hit cap of 150+ and have over 1k spell damage. This is my spell cycle :
Trash-
Swarm
Moonfire
Wrath x 2 (more if needed)
Boss-
FairyFire (Everyone loves a helpful boomkin :D)
Swarm
Moonfire
Wrath x 3
Starfire (can opt. out of starfire)
Repeat
If you guys wanna check out my moonkin gear his name is Requim, on the server of Thrall. Hope that helped :P
Heh. Kinda saddened me to see this post go up recently since one of my friends is not the guild official moonkin while I play my priest. I'm really happy for her, though, she makes me proud.
@Requim
On the subject of ZA, trash I really can't say for sure what I would do for trash because it all depends on gear.
However, if you are only getting off two Wraths, I would suggest removing Insect Swarm and Moonfire on Trash.
Insect Swarm and Moonfire have a 12 second duration, which means that you cast: (assuming you have no spell haste)
Insect Swarm
--wait 1.5 sec for Global Cooldown
Moonfire (for maximum DPS, let's assume it crits ;D )
***Total time elapse since first spell = 1.5 sec
--wait 1.5 sec for Global Cooldown
Wrath (w/ nature's grace proc) 1.0 sec cast time
***Total time elapse since first spell = 4.0 sec
--wait .5 seconds for the remaining of the 1.5 sec Global Cool Down which started when you started Wrath's cast time
***Total time elapse since first spell = 4.5 sec
Wrath 1.5 sec cast time
***Total time elapse since first spell = 6.0 sec
And because you said the mob usually died after two of these wraths with this cast rotation, the DoTs on the mob (Insect Swarm and Moonfire) are not doing their full damage and you are wasting mana while not contributing half of the damage given from the two DoTs.
In any case, Wrath is also not usually the preferred choice due to Nature's Grace procs.
In the upcoming patch in preparation for Wrath of the Lich King, this won't matter, but currently, Nature's Grace does not help Wrath in terms of DPS because you cast it and when you cast it, it initiates a 1.5 sec Global Cooldown. If you cast a Wrath with a Nature's Grace Proc, you will spend 1.0 sec of the cast time using up 1.0 sec of the GCD you will inevitably trigger, and you will still be waiting .5 sec until you start another spell cast.
Starfire, on the other hand gains from Curse of Elements (if you have a Warlock putting it up) but even without CoE, you gain Nature's Grace Proc increases.
And, because you are raid buffed, I'd expect you to at least have 30% Spell Crit total with Starfires including raid buffs, talents, and gear alike. That alone will increase your DPS and mana efficiency.
Back on the subject of Moonfire and Insect Swarm, if you are putting up Insect Swarm for the tanks for each of these 6 second fights, I'm not sure why you are doing this.
If you are putting up Moonfire because it has 6% more spell crit than Wrath and Starfire (with talents), I dont' know why you are using it in the first place if you use Wrath.
If you want to go ahead and start using Starfire as a main DPS spell (which I would advise for these 6 second fights) I would not advise the Starfire unless you DID use Moonfire to start out in hopes of higher crit chance and Nature's Grace Procs for the Starfires you will cast.
@Polonius
Now the next part is for the Moonkin who said they were having threat issues.
I can't really help you without seeing both your gear and your tank's gear, and in some cases, seeing the skill of your tank in action.
There are far too many variables to compute in this, including the fact that your tank may just suck.
Some things to check would be: Do you wait for (1k + Starfire CRIT damage) DMG threat from your tank?
Are you out of close range so that you benefit from the additional threat requirement for a mob to peel off of you from the tank?
Are both your and the tank's Omens up to date?
Is your tank tanking more than one Mob and therefore putting out less single target threat to the mob you are killing?
Is your tank being rage starved?
Are your fellow casters drawing aggro and bringing the mob closer to you, reducing the threat buffer that comes from being ranged (it's about 10% or something when the mob is a certain range (3yd?) from you. ((One of my buddies I ran KZ with on a weekly basis during the first months of BC was a frost mage who loved to draw aggro with us both riding the tank, I see him pull aggro, but we are both riding the tank in threat and are well above the threat required for us to pull aggro if the mob were not as far as he was from us - he would ice block, and I would barkskin and proceed to offtank, not DPS'ing while I dragged the mob back to the tank. hehehe. I kinda miss those days.))
Are you taking external damage that is being healed by Earth Shield, Lifebloom, or Prayer of Mending? These are healer spells that award threat to the person whom they heal, and not the caster. (this is another thing that is changing in the upcoming patch in preparation for Wrath of the Lich King: threat from the aforementioned healing spells will be awarded to the healer who cast them, instead)
Outside of that, the first and last thing I'd check is gear differences. If you outgear the tank then, of course, you will outthreat them in most cases. If your tank is like one of the first tanks I ever had in KZ when BC came out, he may simply stack nothing more than damage mitigation and therefore have very little threat output no matter what his gear level.
Another thing to check with on your tank is if he's overgeared for the instance. In that case, he may not be able to take enough damage to generate rage needed to generate threat.
@all
A lot of these things will actually be changing next week, or whenever they release patch 3.0 in preparation for Wrath of the Lich King so, in a way, we're all on the same level. hehe
Good luck to you all!
is not = is now**
I apologize for any other typos I made in the previous post. =D
Starfire is your No. 1 DPS dealer in raids. A warlock with CoE is key as this makes SF crit for 8000! Bo.0M! With a Shammy I can get wrath to crit for 3000. For group pulls like Hyjal, Hurricane is on the GCD and you can cast it repeatably on the mob with a pally tank. Can crit for 1088!
My spell hit went down with the latest patch. Not sure what happened there. Was 140 and now 129.
Haven't speced IFF this time around. Might do that as I level.
Guild downed first four bosses in BT last night in less than 3.5min each. That's a first.
Drumair on Lothar
lmao My favorite change with 3.0 is the mana back on crit. With Hurricane able to crit on each tick, it now refunds more mana than I spend casting it!
I sense a big nerf to it, like say only one mana refund per Hurricane cast or something like that.
It was hilarious doing fivemans and running OOM (this almost never happened even without ANY mana efficiency talents) all I would do is hurricane on 4+ mobs and end up with 2k more mana than I had before I cast the 2k COSTING spell. So aside from the 2k cost, the one spell gave me 4000 mana! My crit is generally high at about 35%, but still.
We did heroic Botanica, pulled the entire room with the mutated creatures just before the last boss, I reached 9k DPS and it was beautiful.
But if you think Moonkin is powerful now, just take a look at ret pallys right now. The one I've been running with, hit 2k DPS average and never did less than 1700 DPS on any fight, both aoe AND single target. I worked up a sweat keeping up with his DPS and only beat him in damage when he died haha
Right now I'm only specc'd for single target, but with how powerful Hurricane is, I'm going to try some AoE talents i.e. Imp Hurricane and Starfall and even Typhoon.
About what dru said about starfire being your highest DPS, he's spot on. And now even without a Warlock, we give ourselves our own imp CoE buff for even Wrath. Due to the amount of haste we gain in our trees + Nature's Grace procs, you should almost never use Wrath to DPS. From talents, you already get about 5% haste or something like that, which is wasted when you get a Nature's grace proc bringing it down to below 1 second, which, does not let you cast before 1 sec from the initial Wrath cast.
In addition, single target DPS is lovely now in regards to raid buffs.
Imp FF, Imp IS, and the Starfire-Moonfire refresh glyph make putting up all of these a significant DPS boost.
I'm loving the new Moonkin, I pretty much hit 8k crits in 5mans ALL the time, and this is without an ele shammy, mind you. No consumable buffs, nothing other than my own boosts. 1600 avg DPS is amazing compared to the 1200 avg DPS I was hitting before patch.
My main is a fire mage, full epic with a combination of T4s and BoJ gear as well as few other nice raid pieces, hit capped etc. and last night I finally got my balance druid to 70.
Levelling Moonkin was quite enjoyable... and then the patch came out and suddenly everything goes BOOM (I think that's the technical term!). Currently I'm looking to gear up my druid and I'm very pleased about the whole "Spellpower" thing as the range of available gear has expanded to include all the resto stuff.
With regard to raid DPS on a Moonkin (and "lasting power" with regard to mana) I guess I haven't had the chance to test it yet, due to gear restrictions (levelling to 70 in less than 6 days play time doesn't leave much time for honour farming or grinding primals for leatherworking stuff), but what I can say is that this damn Moonkin is going to be challenging any mage for top of the damage meter, with comparable gear. What's not taken into account also is the damage enhancement a Moonkin provides to other caster DPS, if you have points in.... *insert name of talent here* which causes +13% damage to the target from damaging magic attacks (not sure if all schools are included, I'm at work so I can't check), as well as +5% spell crit and some spell haste from improved Moonkin. So while it's nice to top the damage meters, don't forget about that one if you've got a mage or lock bragging about their DPS.
I think that none of this take into account of the new glyphs. My dps and changed significantly having both DoT glyphs. Having no kara gear, no pvp gear, no LW gear and only a few heroic epic pieces, i did 937dps during ZA. In any 5 man i do above 850dps. I never use Wrath... ever. And don't have OOM probelms. (Can't wait to see how I do with Kara/ZA gear.)
This article was written a long time back. I'm working on a new updated article for 3.0 and beyond (wrath).
@Anonymous
You're right. Check the dates on all the posts. :)
Although... In terms of 3.0, my favorite glyph combination is currently Starfire and Moonfire Glyphs.
The Starfire Glyph refreshes Moonfire when you cast Starfire so after first cast, initial damage of Moonfire does not matter.
The Moonfire Glyph reduces the initial damage of Moonfire and increases the DoT damage.
Because the Starfire Glyph allows you to never need to recast Moonfire, the Moonfire Glyph is pretty awesome with it. =D
Oh and /cry No more unlimited mana Hurricanes. :/
But yay on the two 5/5 reductions to 3/3 talents we got. XD
Personally I prefer to AoE ALL trash pulls that are 3 or more mobs at once. Ive got about 2k spell power, 25% chance to crit, and I've put points into improving AoE damage. I can EASILY pull off 2.5k dps in an instance. If the pulls are to small to justify the AoE mana cost then I simply just wrath spam, its trash, it will die, and you will move on after you get mana.
Bosses however are totally different, I have points into the Eclipse ability so that when my wrath crits, I have a 60% chance to increase my starfire crit chance for 12 seconds ( I forget how long ). So when in longer fights, I simply keep IS rolling for the tanks, then wrath spell until my Eclipse procs then Starfire spam seeing big 12k crits pop up. I also have points in the Starfall ability, so occasionally after I throw up IS I'll throw that in for some extra dps and help with any adds on that fight.
If anyone wants to see what good boomkin gear is or a good PvE spec (In my opinion) Check out Leiter on Alexstrazsa.
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