Moonkin Theorycraft
Disrupter — Wed, 08/13/2008 - 11:43
Hello my fellow Downfallers!
Recently I've been asked quite a few moonkin questions by various druids in guild, and out of guild. Mostly concerning PvE, some concerning PvP.
This leads me to this post, I decided I'd try and post a little bit of the information I've gathered from various places and experiences into one place on the thread, for easy access for everyone to read that is interested, and for me to look back on in the future to make sure I'm keeping on track.
Moonkin, as you all know, is a caster based Hybrid that brings various buffs, and debuffs, to the raid. The more geared the raid becomes, the more valuable the Moonkins buffs become for the raid.
Insect Swarm, 2% miss chance for the boss, Improved Fairie Fire, 3% hit for the physical DPS, and Moonkin Aura, +5% Spell Crit for the group.
These are all Vaulable things a Moonkin can bring to the raid.
Now for some juicy theorycraft!
First up! Specs!
This spec is the best personal dps you can have, best mana regen, but very weak on threat reduction. This spec you'll only want to go if you'll not be threat capped. (A really good tank, or your sporting really bad gear.) I considered this spec but occassionally something happens with the tank and his threat generation peaks to an all time low and that spec would mean the death of me, by the time I noticed, I'd have "aggro".
This is my current raiding spec. I find my mana is good enoug hthat I can drop the mana talents, and pick up the threat talents. I'm no where near threat capped most of the time, but sometimes, I'm riding the tank WITH the subtlety talent, without it, I'd be riding 130%, and thats scary considering I'm in T5, and the tank is in T6/6.5. It's what I'd recommend if you have decent gear and are willing to chain pot.
This final spec, is the most "selfish" of the specs. This is the spec I'd recommend for weekend fun, soloing, that sort of thing. As when your soloing, you don't need to keep up Imp FF or worry about being threat capped. If your actually going to raid something other then Karazahn as Moonkin, this probably won't be the spec for you, unless there is another Moonkin in raid and you won't be threat capped.
I would recommend for any raiding Moonkin to spec the second spec for raiding, otherwise, the third one if you do not intend to raid.
Second up! Professions!
By far the #1 Profession, in my opinion and personal experience, is Alchemy! You'll go through so many Elixirs and Super Mana Potions each raid night, you'll want to beable to craft your own when necessary. (Paired well with Herbalism.) But the biggest thing about said profession, is [item]Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone[/item]. If your running out of mana before the end of the fight this trinket becomes best in slot. As your gear progesses, this trinket will become less useful on farm content, as your regen will increase, but I even use this when I HAVE an spriest, just incase he dies. Never hurts, awesome trinket.
Tied for #2 Profession, would be Leatherworking and Enchanting. Each has it's own benefits, leatherworking will likely bring the biggest buff to the raid as a whole though.
Third up! Consumables!
The bane of raiding, many masses of gold are spilled into these each raid night, in order to help the raid's progression. You'll use many of the following:
[Flask of Blinding Light] or [item]Adept's Elixir[/item][Elixir of Draenic Wisdom]
[Brilliant Wizard Oil] or [Superior Wizard Oil]
[Blackened Basilisk] (Or an Equivalent food)
The consumables on the left, are higher DPS consumables, the consumables on the right, are higher DPM consumables. Each consumable has it's area where it will excel. I generally myself use Elixirs and Brilliant Wizard Oil's, and stash my flasks for things like Brutallus and wipe nights.
So I've covered most of the non-human variables, that will help you succeed. (AKA: Consumables, SPecs, Professions.) Now, for the human part: Spell Rotations.
Spell rotations can become quite complicated at times, to completely optimize, but generally they're very simple.
If you lack t5 or t6 4 piece, and haste, then Wrath is going to be your primary nuke. If you have said tier bonuses, or have terrible mana problems, then Starfire will be your primary nuke.
High End Tier 5/6 Rotation OR Meh mana:
IMP FF, Treants, Insect Swarm, Moonfire, Starfire X3. If your not sporting the T5 bonus, then you'll want to throw a single Wrath after the last Starfire if any of the previous spells crit, as to not over lap your dots.
IMP FF, Treants, Insect Swarm, Moonfire, WrathX6-7. This rotation is generally for badge geared players with out any set bonus, but good solid Regen. Special thing to note, is if your Moonfire Crits, you'll want to follow it up with a starfire, to make the most of Natures Grace.
The better your gear, the more haste you get, and the longer the fight gets, Starfire begins to scale better and better in high end raiding. I'd suggest beginning with the Starfire Rotation. (IS, MF, SFx3)
Now, for Treants, the "mark" of a balance druid...
They can be very highly underestimated, I had underestimated them as well. They can be upwards of 100 dps on the proper fight, 55 on an average 3 minute tank and spank. They do not gain any buffs like heroism, and other various buffs that may increase other pets dps, but they do gain damage from the various debuffs on the boss. My best Brutallus k ill my Treants did 24k damage, which may seem small, but over 6 minutes, thats almost 67 dps.
You will notice dps decreases on aoe damage fight, but with practice and experience you can work around these. Example, I summoned my treants in front of a boss on accident, not knowing he did a cleave. (I forgot ZZ) The treants were instantly killed, and lost over 50 dps because of a human error with one cool down. You'll have to be careful and figure out the best time to use them on each fight, as many times as possible. You'll also not want to summon them on top of a magic immune mob, as they will not appear, and you will waste 50+ dps.
The last thing I'd like to mention for now: Get a s2 Feral Mace, and enchant it with Savagery if your really interested in optimizing for moonkin. If you really HAVE to brez that priest that fucked up and died, and HAVE to give him the innervate you were going to use on yourself, because he or she failed miserably at avoiding an AOE, then you will atleast have the best bang for your buck melee for mana weapon. It's not the highest AP weapon out there, but it's, as far as I can tell, 50% faster then the rest of them. You can regen your entire mana pool with a little luck, in 15 seconds. (Kind of like a very long evocate for a mage.) But you want to avoid this scenario as much as possible. BE CAREFUL if your above 110%,
you won't beable to melee for regen, because you'll pull aggro and die.
Thats it for now, hope this is useful to you inspiring moonkins :P.
Very interesting and
Katibug — Wed, 08/13/2008 - 12:02Very interesting and informative.