Unless something changed, the last Nightbane I did I kept Fear Ward if I resisted the fear (happened twice). No combat logs, because I didn't think I'd need to. =)

Most likely because it's the only time Druids will realistically get to play with top-of-the-line Mookin gear (T6 & the mage/lock extras makes a fine set). It's fun to try specs you don't usually play when someone gives you the gear to do so effectively.

I strongly doubt many of those Druids are Moonkin on the live servers.

For a 33/28 Healing Touch spec (Moonglow, Nature's Grace, Dreamstate, and Lunar Guidance from Balance. Imp MotW, Naturalist, Intensity, Tranquil Spirit, Nature's Swiftness, Gift of Nature, and Empowered Touch from Restoration)

1. How are druids spending the other 23 points in the Balance tree and the 2 extra points in Restoration?

2. Is it worth it to add Moonkin, and if so which talent point do I lose?

3. For druids who have tried this spec, how does it actually play?

4. What would be a good base gear goal (stam, mana regen, and +heal) for Karazhan/Gruul's Lair/Magtheridon.

I've just recently gone back to a healing role as one of our more casual druids has gotten his tanking set up to par and our resto shaman declared he was either respeccing enhancement or leaving the game (grumble grumble). As our guild is small enough that a loss of one healer = no more Kara, I picked up the slack.

1. It depends on what you're hoping to do. If you're primarily raiding, I'd go for this build.
Extra damage on thorns adds up (particularly if you have the 3pc t1 set sitting in the bank. Also very nice for the duration bonus).
If you want a bit more solo/pvp capability, something like this would probably do better. 70% anti-pushback on wrath does wonders--the starfire stun is just icing. NG for the ohshitrunaway moments.

The basic trade offs in the balance tree are early in the tree.
Nature's Grasp is nice if you remember to use it. Beyond the first point the returns aren't worthwhile really. In heroics+ you won't survive long enough for control of nature to matter, but farming and in pvp it can be very handy to get out of melee. Improved Moonfire is actually a pretty bad talent for the dpm on moonfire. I don't use it unless I have mage water and am farming air elementals. Nice to finish off an opponent in pvp though.
Celestial focus is awesome for farming/pvp. The stuns and more importantly anti-pushback are spectacular. Not so important if you're just adding dps on trash during a raid though.
Brambles is ok for a bit of extra damage on root rotting, and tanks like the extra threat. solid, but not critical.
+4 hit from BoP is great for reducing recasts of IS on bosses, particularly in heal gear that won't have much if any spell hit. Moonfury is nice too, but if you're on heal duty most of the time, I'd rate it lower than most other talents.


2. I think the gain in utility from the extra point in Moonkin is worth it. The extra 5 crit makes mages and shaman happy, and for farming/ pvp the extra durability is quite a boon. Depending on your heal style, the point comes from GoN or Emp. HT. I dropped it from HT, many will drop it from GoN.

3. I'm quite happy with how it plays. I heal very well, and can put out reasonable damage as well. I've out-damaged the tank on some (non-heroic) bosses in fact. Being able to tailor your gear between all-out heal and damage without destroying the other completely is nice too. For the occasions when there's another healer in the group I can go all damage gear and hold my own too.

4. My guild has only just passed curator, and my heal gear hasn't been the biggest priority (being a bear tank until mid- last week), so my numbers a re low in this regard, but I'm sitting at 8khp, 160/~300 mp5 (in/out of 5sr) and roughly 1200 +heal. I still need to get a number of enchants though.

For the record, this 34/0/27 is my spec. It makes a few compromises: I found that while I was able to do disgustingly good HT... that I wasn't on most fights. The tanks love the moonglade bonus, so I figured I'd help that out. With the 2.1 lifebloom changes it looks even more powerful. HT is not seriously reduced in its output, just a bit more expensive to cast. Not something I've had issues with yet, anyhow.

Feral Skill helps with attacking from any side. I am not sure on the exact number but I think Boevis argued that 1 Feral Skill gives you

- 0.1% less chance to miss
- 0.1% less chance to be parried
- 0.1% less chance to be dodged
- 0.1% more hit
- 0.1% more crit vs level 73 mobs
(- 0.1% less chance to be blocked)

(as compared to the old assumption that Skill rating increases these stats by 0.04% per point and not 0.1%).

For PvP that means you still get an effective 0.2% hit out of it when attacking from behind (0.1% less miss and 0.1% hit - I am pretty sure Players can't dodge attacks from behinds, only mobs can) and 0.4% hit if you attack from the front.

If you DPS a level 73 mob from behind you get an effective 0.4% hit out of it.

I believe Emmerald's point system assumes you're behind the target (thus no parry reduction) for weapon skill, as well as same level opponent (We never did confirm increased crit vs higher level opponents). I'm still gathering data on the exact value of weapon skill, rogues claim you get .1% hit per point and have fairly extensive data as backup, but the other factors are rather in question.

PvP presents a whole different set of factors, and obviously the value of stamina, armor, and resilience is increased on the gear. I personally am very fond of my T4 pants with a Nerthercleft patch for everything but raid DPS right now. That being said, Wastewalker is an amazing set for raiding and pvp, it's generally high sta, and thanks to that set bonus it's enough hit (little over) to prevent misses in PvP, with lots of sockets to customize your preference.

Please please log out in your DPS gear =). I focused so heavily on tanking recently I really let my DPS gear slide. I still can generate the numbers on those bleeding mobs and hold my own very well, but I am sitting around 3.2k fullllly buffed raid AP. 5-6k AP is just insane.

I see Band of Ursol on a lot of dps gear choices. Does the extra 22 sta really make it better then http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30365 or http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31380 for raiding? Both are pure dps upgrades but I'm just curious if you guys think aoe is so prevalent that you need the extra 220 hp that the ring gives in cat form.

Maybe after 2.1 hits and you don't have to worry about 360 degree cleave or sweeping strikes I might consider it, but 22 sta versus 6 str or 2str 3agi seems like a no brainer for me. I know one of the rings has hit on it, but dps gear with hit is easy to find.

2 days old, but didn't see this posted anywhere. Take it for what you will; but notice that cat form range bug remains unfixed AND still not pots/procs. Its great to be stuck doing damage with a single 1.0 speed weapon vs. other melee dps classes with either Duel Wield or 3.6+ speed single weapons.

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....84338532&sid=1

I would always use the Shapeshifters Signet for raiding over Ursols, at least on bosses.

As for 1.0 speed weapon - what exactly is the problem with it? Druids in raiding guilds have posted in this very thread saying that they can push out very comparable DPS, and bring a load of utility in offtanking/healing/ressing/innervating during the fight too.

Considering the rest of the things they're sorting out in 2.1 (raiding, consumables, etc etc) I would prefer for them to sort that out and make sure it's balanced before putting procs in/etc. IMO procs could easily be hard to balance and/or overpowered if they were implemented directly. I was in the beta when they were in, and windfury was ridiculous. Druid's are not currently balanced for procs. Imagine if we could have mongoose while tanking - about 9-10% dodge from a proc?