Moonkin DPS Calculator? - Page 2

Lord BEEF · 03/29/07, 4:46 PM

I actually think the balance tree is pretty well condensed as it is. The only real "pain point" is that you have to spend 3 points in either natures grasp, control of nature, and/or brambles to open up the tree, and as a raider you might not much care for any of those.

As for mana issues, I remember seeing some chart showing that wrath was around 6 damage per mana, with starfire being a bit closer to 7 (i.e wrath at 6.2dpm, starfire at 6.8). Doesn't seem like that drastic of a difference to me.

You'd need a shadow priest to keep up either in a long rotation I'd imagine

Heric · 03/29/07, 4:47 PM

it doesn't seem logical to list an advantage of a moonkin that they can "heal in a pinch" and then list a disadvantage that they have mana issues. how can you heal in a pinch with no mana? balance/resto mix has more raid viability than a full balance.

Aszhalinde · 03/29/07, 4:49 PM

Originally Posted by Apate

Along with mana and aggro issues, the balance tree could use some real organization and condensation. "Full" moonkin have very few points to put into a secondary tree, synergy issues aside.

I'm not sure I agree. I would say the resto tree is far more bloated than balance, balance feels about right on with the amount of points it has. If you wanted to get everything useful (my opinion) you'd put 47 in balance down to FoN, which would then give you some interesting choices to make. 13 resto down to Intensity is the most obvious route to take, or you could choose between Imp FF and Intensity, or if you wanted to synergize with feral (god forbid) you'd have enough for feral charge with some leftover in Furor. If you don't go "full" balance, the trees are perfectly aligned to make you choose between FoN and NS, and Moonkin and Swiftmend.

I would actually *add* points to balance; without whipping out the wishlist, the change I would most like to see in the balance tree would be a two point aggro reduction talent right there on tier 3 between Insect Swarm and Brambles. It feels so awkward having to put two points in either Imp NG, CoN, or Brambles in order to advance down the tree.

Or just roll it in with subtlety, although the priest talent trees suggest to me that one cure-all aggro reduction talent is a no-no for Blizzard.

it doesn't seem logical to list an advantage of a moonkin that they can "heal in a pinch" and then list a disadvantage that they have mana issues. how can you heal in a pinch with no mana? balance/resto mix has more raid viability than a full balance.

You can heal in a pinch......while mana lasts =) thus the cries for additional mana love for balance.

Apate · 03/29/07, 5:08 PM

Originally Posted by Aszhalinde

I'm not sure I agree. I would say the resto tree is far more bloated than balance, balance feels about right on with the amount of points it has.

Just a note: I think Restoration is worse, but I didn't want to turn this into a discussion about that. When I look at the bare minimum of what I'd want in balance to get FoN, it ends up being 45 points, preferably 50. I think resto gets 49 (I didn't count right now), so I'd say both are bloated about equally. Maybe feral is the same way and it's part of a plan to keep druids from getting to hybridized, I have less knowledge about that tree.

Playered · 03/29/07, 5:19 PM

The Balance tree itself is great, only 2 worthless talents (brambles/treants), some nice ones which seem really useful, aswell as the generic ones which every class needs.

The mechanics behind the class are the issues preventing it from becoming good when dealing with the flaws (threat & mana).
Threat is easily fixed by amending a useless talent to incorporate it being the easiest, Mana is more of an ikky issue which needs more intensive attention to adress properly.

Both can currently be somewhat evaded now to provide an ability to perform 'well' in raids, with setting a group towards it (SP + Tranquil Air totem). Meleeing to get mana back is never ever going to work even with cleave changes.

The potential is there waiting...

Suesse · 03/29/07, 5:26 PM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

A little side note, I grouped with a moonkin who thought a good way to CC mobs in steamvaults was to nuke the shit out of it and let it beat on him.

Sounds like a guy in our guild (which it very well could have been). I think the issue you're seeing is weeks/months/years of people telling Moonkin they couldn't compete with dps classes. Some though, have found a way.
+ You get increased points for landing your first starfire at the exact moment the tank pulls the group. From a skilled moonkin, you should expect the first starfire to land 0.1 seconds after your pull.
+ Every mob must be moonfired. You get bonus points for moonfiring a mob that another dps class is supposed to keep CCed. See this increases your damage relative to them because they have to constantly reCC the mob.
+ Bonus points per trash pull are awarded inversely proportional to your remaining mana. Emptying your mana bar on a two trash mob pull can be challenging, but that's why you plan WoW and not MarioKart.

If there isn't a good moonkin calculator, maybe take a existing caster calculator and modify it. I believe there are several in the 600 page mage theorycrafting thread.

Solstice · 03/29/07, 5:46 PM

This is the only one I know of, and it places moonkins firmly at the bottom in terms of both DPM and DPS. One could argue that using IS and iFF increases raid utility, but further reducing dps and dpm is the tradeoff.

zepi · 03/29/07, 6:28 PM

Originally Posted by Solstice

This is the only one I know of, and it places moonkins firmly at the bottom in terms of both DPM and DPS. One could argue that using IS and iFF increases raid utility, but further reducing dps and dpm is the tradeoff.

FF is 145mana every 40secs. Hardly worth noting compared to your nukes when calculating mana-efficiency. As is IS, which is by far your most damage-efficient spell balance druid has. So if you are manalimited, make sure to have IS up, and be ready to sacrifice 2x Starfire during 5min fight to keep FF up...

Assuming 600 raid-buffed int and a mere 220spirit, you have 60mp5 from dreamstate and 24mp5 from intensity.

Using the rotation of IS, MF, 3x SF + Wrath with the given stats puts your mana usage at 1868 for each rotation of about 13seconds.

Deathwing · 03/29/07, 8:36 PM

Originally Posted by Suesse

Sounds like a guy in our guild (which it very well could have been). I think the issue you're seeing is weeks/months/years of people telling Moonkin they couldn't compete with dps classes. Some though, have found a way.
+ You get increased points for landing your first starfire at the exact moment the tank pulls the group. From a skilled moonkin, you should expect the first starfire to land 0.1 seconds after your pull.
+ Every mob must be moonfired. You get bonus points for moonfiring a mob that another dps class is supposed to keep CCed. See this increases your damage relative to them because they have to constantly reCC the mob.
+ Bonus points per trash pull are awarded inversely proportional to your remaining mana. Emptying your mana bar on a two trash mob pull can be challenging, but that's why you plan WoW and not MarioKart.

If there isn't a good moonkin calculator, maybe take a existing caster calculator and modify it. I believe there are several in the 600 page mage theorycrafting thread.

I don't think it was, some guild I've never heard of. You got moonkins that will act that way too?

RK · 03/29/07, 9:07 PM

Balance tree is awesome. Druid talent trees are probably the best in the game with lots of synergy and lots of 2-for-1 talents (e.g. 15% mana regen AND a feral benefit, crits reducing casting time for healing spells and damage spells, etc). You could easily take 44+ points in balance and besides the first couple of tiers, every point is hard to leave behind.

The problem isn't the balance tree. It's that:

1) caster druids have the weakest mana regen options of all DPS casters, with only the 15% while casting available to them (which is only any good if the druid diverts stats to getting spirit instead of damage stats, which has its own problems).

2) Druid nukes are really unimpressive to start with. It takes all those awesome talents just to get them to par.

You could argue that the balance talents need to be bumped up more, but arguably it's the basic mechanics of moonkin DPS that need the fix if moonkin are to be viable. The alternative is to give them even more utility (only useable in moonkin form) to make up for their problems (as an aside, it's fairly apparent that in giving shadow weaving, misery, VE and VT all to shadow priests, Blizzard really cut down on the amount of exclusive utility it can give to other hybrid classes for their DPS trees, but it's probably too late now).

Aadar · 03/30/07, 6:14 AM

Whether or not a Balance druid is a good choice for bringing on a raid instead of a different DPS caster is a good question.

How much do the casters value an extra 5% crit? How much do the melee classes value an extra 3% hit? How much does the MT value 2% boss miss?

I think if you added the extra DPS from the casters and melee to the moonkins DPS, and the 2% miss to their healing then they start to look very attractive.

And lumping them with ferals. How much does the raid value an extra in combat rez? How much does the raid value an extra innervate? How much does the raid value someone able to switch to healing where a particular encounter needs extra healing rather than DPS?

And if they will be your only druid in attendance. How much is Gift of the Wild valued? How much is the ability to hibernate beasts and dragonkins valued?

Personally, I think their 'utility' is somewhat undervalued, but then one has to consider what the raid would be losing by taking a Moonkin as DPS rather than a mage, rogue, warlock, shadow priest or hunter...

Maledict · 03/30/07, 7:48 AM

Without the benefit of a warlock curse you'd get hit pretty hard by partial resists, unless you were stacked on penetration.

The only boss we think has *any* nature resistance, barring Hydross's immunity, in the current raiding game is The Big Bad Wolf. And that's a *big* maybe. Other than that, a warlocks curse will have no effect on the number of partial resist you are getting on your spells at all, it just adds 10% more damage.

My main issue with balance druids is that I see absolutely no advantage they have over an elemental / resot specced shaman. Not only does the shaman bring far better buffs to his group, but they can heal instantly without having to drop out of a "form", and they have much better mana regeneration capabilities.

Aadar · 03/30/07, 8:06 AM

Originally Posted by Maledict

My main issue with balance druids is that I see absolutely no advantage they have over an elemental / resot specced shaman. Not only does the shaman bring far better buffs to his group, but they can heal instantly without having to drop out of a "form", and they have much better mana regeneration capabilities.

But would you bring two elemental shamans rather than one elemental shaman and one moonkin? Or would you bring one elemental shaman plus one "insert fav dps class here" instead as you dont value the moonkin dps+buffs/debuffs/utility at all.

Tufriast · 03/30/07, 3:31 PM

Ok, I've got heavy interest in this since I am actually one of the very few raiding Moonkins in existence. I keep hearing pretty bad and arrogant stereotypes about how Balance Druids specced to dish out damage get ostracized and mostly shot down fast.

Check out my armory.
http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...Azgalor&n=Leil

I'm pretty serious when I say I can top the meters regularly. Kazzak, Prince, and other places I've had no issues making damage come out in vast quantities.

1) Mana is not an issue at all if you use proper consumables, and most raiding guilds require consumable use.

2) Aggro is not an issue if you are any kind of good player and have KTM Threat Meter. One stack of invuln pots, and you are fine. Again, aggro pulling is easily remedied via consumables, and smart casting.

Now, why do Moonkin pull so much aggro? In my opinion it is Nature's Grace. If you combo Nature's Grace with Quagmirran's Eye, and pop Heroism/Blood Lust and there you have it - a 2500+ point DoT spell kinda-sorta. Even without those other factors the damage output is devastating. An insane low cast time mixed with high crit chance means aggro generation happens at a fast rate. If you can counterbalance it, you have probably one of the highest end damage casters in the game.

That's the dirty secret.

Here are some screenshots.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...407_234356.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...607_192642.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...607_192710.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...607_192728.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...607_192733.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...607_192738.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...607_194936.jpg

Again, I don't run OOM. And yeah I deal significant damage.

If any end-game guild would put their money where their mouth is, gear up a Moonkin, and let bygons be bygons they'd realize things have changed. I'm sure there are "pure" dps classes out there though that are upset.

And yeah, that raid is stacked to have me and the other Moonkin Longevity do lots of damage. In one pic I am put with an Elemental shaman.

Optimum caster DPS even over long fights:
Mage
Mage
Mage
Moonkin
Elemental Combat Shaman

These five will top the charts, hands down. I've seen it, done it, and love it. Gruul, world bosses, Kara, and I'm betting SSC/TK:TE as well. Just got my SSC key two days ago.

Again, I'll leave it to everyone to figure it out.

P.S. Oh yes, and popping out to throw a heal and do a Battle Rez is standard operating procedure. My common macro is "Oh-sh!t-Tranquility" or "Oh-sh!t-Brez" etc. A good Moonkin is usable on a raid. And by the way, most of the mobs you can't CC with sheep, fear, seduce, stun, _insert CC method_ --- you can Cyclone. Check out Durnholde Heroic for some hints on that.

alienangel · 03/30/07, 5:20 PM

Originally Posted by RK

1) caster druids have the weakest mana regen options of all DPS casters,

Sadly I think hunters win that dubious honour in continuous burn fights.