Thelyna

I'm not even a druid, so take what I say with a grain of salt ... but Treants aren't all they're cracked up to be. In melee they're weak and die to one hit from any non-aoe-pack mob, they have no utility (if they had a ranged snare, or hell even a melee snare ...), and they don't make any notable dents in a mob's hp.

(even though I've run three instances today with a 50+ talent moonkin, I can't find his treants anywhere on my SW stats, put it that way)

 

Thanon

Well i used treeants both for pve and pvp.. I gotta admit I didn't find any benefits in pve. But they are useful in pvp both against spell casters ( Spell interruption ) and melee chars ( Extra dps ).

I'll drop treeants to gain more treat reduction + mana regen after 2.1 but its just for raids.
As you can see on that talent build of mine I dropped celestial focus also ( Very useful for pvp or solo questing/grinding/farming )..

That build is only for efficient pve'ing . ( imo )

 

Lambach

Fully raid buffs my trees do ~200 normal hits and ~450 average crits. Thats three of them attacking like that for 1/6th of every fight. Im not sure on their attack speed, but it seems to be between 1 and 1.5 secs. Thats a LOT of added dps. They only suck if theres an aoe portion of the fight, and even then they are getting a huge stamina boost in 2.1

 

nikitabanana

Going back to the question about utility vs. damage output - there are a few things to look at vs. the really popular hybrid class (shadow priests).

What do moonkins bring to raids over say, a shadow priest in that moonkin spot? 5% crit. Neat. To sustatin your dps, we'd need to give you a shadow priest who benefits very little from that crit. Throw in 2 mages and a destruction warlock (are there any destruction warlocks atm with how good aff is in raids?).

So a moonkin would increase the burst dps of a mage and also a warlock (aff by an okay amount) - and you'd be able to battle res and innervate someone. Compare that to a shadow priest who is able to provide over 250mana/5 to a party while healing them if necessary (and threat allows). Burst dps is generally not a factor in raiding - one can take things like destruction pots if necessary. Sustained dps - however is a huge factor.

The question comes down to - what does a moonkin bring to a raid that a mage or shadow priest or warlock can't? 5% crit, battle res, innervate. Okay - a shadow priest will provide more overall mana - but to a party. Check. At long fights, you may even have to self innervate anyways. Gruul is relatively short in comparison to a lot of other ones. Battle res? Well, that's cirumstantial but useful - but costs a lot of mana and unlike Feral Druids, you're mana based.

5% crit? The question is - does 5% crit ever outweigh a VE/VT combo, an imp buff/other healthstone type, or more water (I mean aoe)? A few fights - probably. Shorter fights where threat isn't an issue and healing isn't an issue. A moonkin also can't do anything like shield, dispel magic (I don't think they can depoision in moonkin form) like a shadow priest can - I'm not sure if they can decurse in it like a mage can, and they have no pet utility in the longterm.

These are the issues that face raid leaders as far as moonkins go. DPS isn't really hard to find. You can always sub in yet another shadow priest, mage, or warlock if you want top dps (atm in BC, BT showed rogues being able to be a bit more competitive last night as far as I could tell). But - convince me why a raid should take a moonkin. With Illumination nerfed, that's even less of a reason because the 5% crit for a stacked paladin group with a shadow priest doesn't mean as much anymore. 5% crit for the mages is nice - but they'll get more sustained dps from having a shadow priest in the group. Pair them up? Well, that's fewer casters that can get the mana/5 from the priest. Replace a mage with a moonkin? Less water (aoe) in the raid and generally lower dps in its place. Feral can pop out and use the battle res and innervate and not hurt its method of dpsing or offtanking - it's a direct dps drain on moonkins, however.

Add into that, that you share the tokens with warriors and priests - and well, tanks generally get geared up first. Shadow priests are lucky ot have gear thats offset so they dont need to touch warrior tokens to get gear. I'm rambling - but I'm looking for reasons beyond pure dps as to why a raid leader should acknowledge the existence of the spec =D.

 

Lambach

3% hit for all physical dps. Pretty much lets the tank need no plus hit gear. Lets duelwielders and hunters need to spend a lot less of their item points on hit.

2% miss chance. This is 2% less total dmg the tank is taking. This also stacks with the hunter sting, giving tanks a lot more mitigation.

 

nikitabanana

Guilds take melee dps? It's also not 2% less dmg for the tank - it's 2% less physical damage. Insect swarm can be obtained in a HT spam build of balance/resto.

 

Lambach

Lol, well, yeah good point. However, Ive seen you taking schmity to raids recently, dont hate. I really think the changes to glancing blows in 2.1 are gonna skyrocket melee dps(to a possibly broken level), and for burn encounters they will be needed again.

They physical Dmg portion of IS makes it more situational, your right, but in fights that are purely physical dps its a 2% dmg nerf on the mob, in mixed fights its less, your rigiht. For my views on the HT spam build see our very very long thread on your forums. But maybe you are taking a tree druid to the raid(lol, tree druid), or its just much harder for a healer to reset insect swarm every 12 secs, while a dpser could do it no problem.

I wont argue with you about the viablity of shadow priests, they are imba. However, I think the power of a moonkin vs. a sp depends a lot on raid composition. 3 fire mages and an elemental shaman group gets a HUGE bonus from a moonkin. Pack that with a strong enhance shamn fury warrior, rogue group and the moonkin becomes much more viable.

I know you guys usually run big on SP and locks, making the shadow priest much more viable, and the moonkin not really a choice at all.

 

Mulva

When the previous Moonkin thread came around I started work on a spreadsheet. Then I took a bit of a vacation, and am back to working on it. I saw some mention of cast cycles that moonkins use: IS:SFx3:Wrath, swap IS for MF. If you have others you want me to add in before I upload let me know.

I made a couple assumptions (mp5 for shadow priest at 175, averaging cast times due to natures grace, etc). Borrowed some of the layout from Vontre's mage dps spreadsheet (sorry to infringe but it's not easy to make excel even marginally visually appealing). And honestly there's probably a few errors running around. I doubt this'll be something I actively maintain, it was just something to occupy some time - but it should give a bit of a view of what a moonkin can do and it's limitations.

http://www.hidden-arthas.net/Misc/MoonkinDPS.xls

edit: forgot to mention I haven't adjusted anything for hit values against a boss level mob, working on that now

 

Lambach

Duration doesnt seem to work. Is it assumed that imp spirit buff is on? Wrath crit DPM is broken. Is there any way to add an elemental shaman and enhance shaman options? Other then those things im really phsyced about the spread sheet, please keep it up and get it figured out.

 

Mulva

Fixed the wrath crit DPM (haven't uploaded new one yet though). Yea some raid buffs on player are assumed - kings, AI, imp MOTW, imp DS.

Duration I did a bit weird to be honest and I'm not real glad with how I did it but it was easier. I just did average cast times (1.5 for instants, weighted cast time due to crits + NG for others). Added up cast times and lag, figured how much mana would be regen'd in that time due to spirit/mp5 (factoring in intensity, dreamstate, etc). Subtracted mana regen'd from mana used, and averaged it out of the max mana to find out duration.

Example with made up numbers
100 Latency
MF:SFx4: 500 + 4*400 = 2100 mana used
Regen from spirit = 100
Regen from mp5 = 1000
Net Loss in 12+1.5+.5 = 14 seconds = 1000 (cast times + lag)
Max Mana: 9000
Time to OOM = 9000/1000*14 = 126 seconds

If anyone has a better model, throw it my way and I'll be glad to (attempt) to implement it. I'll also work on getting innervate, wrath of air, totem of wrath, mana tide, and of course the spell hit stuff put in.

edit: Uploaded with wrath of air, totem of wrath, mana tide, and innervate options, and fixed DPM for wrath spam on crits. Next up spell hit (can you tell i'm putting this off???)

 

FunBall

It would be an interesting gear set to build. Consider some of Bekah's numbers. She calculated that you need 57120 mana for Wrath spam and 49455 for Starfire spam.

So let's keep it simple and use Starfire spam. Moonkins need 50,000 mana to last a full 7 minutes in a fight. We'll also assume raid buffs.

50,000
-10,000 Raid buffed starting mana pool
- 7,200 3x Super Mana Potion
- 4,500 1x Innervate (assume approximately 400 raid buffed spirit)
_________
28,300 Mana we need to regenerate over the course of the fight
This is equal to 337 mana/5

49 mana/5 = Improved Blessing of Wisdom
52 mana/5 = Dreamstate (and 527 int required for 10,000 mana)
38 mana/5 = Intensity (assuming 400 spirit)
49 mana/5 = Judgement of Wisdom (Starfire spam) (98 mana/5 for Wrath spam, although from Bekah's numbers, this adds a net 34 mana/5 to the numbers below that you need to come up with)
_____________________________________________
This leaves 149 mana/5 to come up with between secondary buffs, potions, and gear.
25 mana/5 Flask of Restoration
8 mana/5 Sporefish
14 mana/5 Mana Oil
37.5 mana/5 Improved Mana Stream

Leaving us with 65 mana/5 that we need on gear in order to maintain chain spam of Starfire for the full duration of the fight. (Or as much as 149 mana/5 on gear if we want to substitute damage flasks/food/oils.)

Even 65 mana/5 is a little tough to pick up on gear alone, although pumping in mana/5 gems on tier 4/5 balance gear should get you pretty close. Substituting in mana oils, resto flasks, and mana/5 food for damage equivalents will hurt the damage output if you're shooting for this level of sustainability.

The other option is always a Shadow Priest in your group. Shadow Priests are another issue altogether.

 

TheOnly

No, its about 4% less melee damage to a tank. Most tanks are at ~50% avoidance if you include miss and the hunter sting and their gear.

Thus, they are going from being hit 50% of the time to being hit 48% of the time, or 48/50 = 96% as often, (4% less).

Yes, lots of druids other than a moonkin can get it and use it.

 

◊ Anias

The real issue is that there is no good reason to spec full balance and raid as dps since a balance/resto healer is simply a better way to cherry pick the "group" benefits of the balance spec, without having to go through the hoops to get acceptable damage out of it. Improved faerie fire and moonkin aren't really interesting group benefits in the current game. You get more damage (if that's what you care about) with better utility from other casters. Assuming you have the other casters, which is a non-trivial assumption, go nuts.

The best cycles seem to be priority cycles that keep insect swarm and moonfire refreshed assuming debuff space is available (if it's not you drop moonfire) and then spend the rest of your available mana with (likely) downranked starfire/wraths while using +dmg consumables.

All of this said - if you have a competent moonkin, there's not a huge "you are an idiot for raiding with them" stigma, it's just less optimal in a theoretical "raid view" than having that level of competency in a different class. The best raid in wow atm is the one with the least mellee and the most warlocks/spriests with the minimum number of mages/healers to coverr your aoe and healing concerns. Then again, the best raid in wow -changes- as the game progresses, so it's certainly not unreasonable to maintain a balanced guild if you aren't out to super-optimize moment to moment. Who knows, moonkin may get an incredibly broken ability next patch and mages may find themselves where rogues are. It's fluid.

Any time you start talking about having to use flask of mighty resto though, you're taking a short jump into the land of "why is hunter dps bad" =P (It's not, it's just hardly worth optimizing due to group constraints)

 

Brute

I think in terms of min/maxing raids and such there really *isnt* a compelling reason to have a balance druid taking up a raid slot, and for those guilds who are 'progression 1st, have fun second' focused so to speak, a balance druid will probably never enter the equation. I dont really have a problem with that. All I've ever wanted to be was *viable*, and really a balance druid in a dps slot is 100% viable these days. Its certainly not a spec that is going to be attractive to recruiting guilds (in its current incarnation) in that a guild is not going to be actively looking for/recruiting one, but In my guild of friends who have played together for almost 2 years now, and have cleared Karazhan and are working on gruul/mag, I'm at least able to honestly say im actively and meaningfully contributing.

Viability vs desirability, two different things. While the 2nd is the ideal, we're at least viable now which is a pretty far cry from the way things were pre 2.0.

 

Boevis

I'm quite confused why people assume having a Shadow Priest and Elem Shaman means you can't also have a Moonkin. Druid/Priest/Shaman/Mage/Lock is a pretty strong group makeup, I would say it's certainly stronger than Priest/Shaman/Mage/Lock/Mage or Lock. What does a 3rd mage or lock bring to the group beyond their DPS? Absolutely nothing.

5% crit is actually very nice for a Shadowpriest's group since it increases VE nicely. Though, I'll admit it's not ideal for their DPS (at 1000 +dmg, it's only about 1% more dps)

To sum it up for our overlord from D&T: Wow, thanks for taking the time out of your no doubtedly busy schedule as god of all DPS to visit us peasants and let us know that we are in fact still peasants. In a raid like yours, where min-maxing raid DPS is essential to remain near the top there is no real reason. Moonkin DPS is still low as I've said in every moonkin thread, as nice as Bekah's numbers look, they are more than a little bit off (incorrect coef on wrath for one) So at the top end of things, we fall short.

For people who aren't nearly as concerned that every piece of t4/5/6/9 ends up in the hands of the person that can in theory use it the best, Moonkin are a nice addition to a caster group.

 

◊ Bekah

Not anymore =/ No crits on VE... I think that went in in the last patch (I know it went in right after I took my break)

Ooooooh. Gimmie correct coeff's on wrath and I'll change that =) Obvious limitations of spam modeling aside, I'd hate to have incorrect information splattered all over yall's nice thread =)

 

tr33hugger

Sorry, but i can't see why Moonfire is worse less than IS "by itself", as you claimed above. Sure it's dpm may be less than IS (read on, actually is isn't), haven't calculated so far. Having 890 spelldamage i get the following numbers: (Disclaimer: i only got 3/5 moonfury... 34/0/27 spec)
- Moonfire Initial Damage ~ 530 + 4 ticks á 308 damage. Thats 1762 for 450 mana scoring 3,91 dpm. A crit would increase this to 2292 dmg for a handy 5,1 mps.
- IS ticks for 245 netting 980 damage for 5,6 mps.

As you see, the dps you get from moonfire is roughly twice as much as IS provides, depending on crits. With a solid balance build you will most likely have 5/5 moonfury and this will even out the dpm difference between moonfire and IS. Having CoS on the target of your choice will increase moonfire dps and dpm by another 10% (or 13% with talents).
Now you do the math...

Correct me if i'm wrong.

 

Boevis

If IS tics for 245, that's 1470 damage not 980 (6 tics, not 4)

And I deeply apologize, I had a typo that was returning a 0 value for +dmg added to the DoT portion of Moonfire. It's not nearly as bad as I had thought, but it's still our worst DPM spell - 2050 average damage for 450 mana is 4.5 dpm at 890 dmg/40% moonfire crit compared to IS of 1453 damage for 175 mana, 8.3 dpm. That's with full balance.

The Formula I'm using right now (it's clunky, but it helps me identify where I screw up):
D= Damage, C= Crit for that spell, H= Hit
Moonfire = ((331+D*331/931*1.5/3.5)*(1+C)+(600+D*600/931*12/15))*1.1*1.1*(.83+H)
That's ((base initial damage + dmg from gear/buffs * coef) * crits + (DoT + dmg from gear/buffs * coef)) * imp moonfire * moonfury * hit chance.

Wrath = (405+D*2/3.5*1.1)*(1+C)*1.1*(.83+H)
Starfire = (588+D*1.1)*(1+C)*1.1*(.83+H)
IS = (792+D*12/15*.95)*(.83+H)

Bekah, in my brief time with balance spec, Wrath of Cenarius wasn't additive. It's a small change, but it's there none the less. And I found the other area where our numbers differ, Wrath is 255 base mana cost, 232 with Moonglow.

I don't mean to be offensive, I'm just sick of people interrupting theorycraft with "I don't think you're good, so you'll have to prove it!" posts. Seriously, that's what we're trying to do ;p

 

◊ Bekah

Hrm, how would it work if it wasn't additive? .57*1.10= .627 or 62.7% coeff? I guess that could make sense, kinda sucks- but that's Blizz in a nutshell sometimes.

Not even remotely offensive to me if I was the one that was directed to. Just trying to help, although my knowledge of the class is pretty dismal =(

 

tr33hugger

Damn i'm sorry. Forgot that IS ticks 6 times in those 12 seconds. Of course this determines IS as far superior in terms of damage per mana. Still Moonfire is the better DPS solution (by far if it crits and CoS is active). But when having mana problems, IS indeed will be your way to go.
Sorry for that, was under the assumption IS ticking evry 3 seconds -.-

 

nikitabanana

If you don't care about progression - then why worry about group compositions either? I simply pointed out and supported my reasoning for why most raid leaders won't take a moonkin.

I'm sorry that poor mechanics make your favorite spec subpar. I'm sorry blizzard didn't add any special raid utility to you that is unique and perceived as required.

 

Kazanir

There is a huge difference between "not caring about progression" and not min-maxing to the point that <Death and Taxes> does. Also, MANY successful guilds take melee DPS. I hope you were being sarcastic with that post up there. Lines like "make your favorite spec subpar" and "didn't add any special raid utility" just make people mad, they don't really contribute anything to anyone's understanding of the facts like Boevis' and Bekah's math does.

I know I'd appreciate it if you'd lay off the elitism a wee bit. (And no, I'm not moonkin spec, nor have I ever been for more than a couple hours. =p)

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

nikitabanana

It was an extremely sarcastic comment.

I don't care about making people mad. I presented facts that backup what I said and asked to be disproven if I'm wrong.

Instead of disproving me, I'm being told to stop the elitism. Feral druids rock overall and have amazing utility - moonkin, well - I'd love for them to be fixed because I am a proponent of hybrids - but the fact is they aren't. Blame blizzard for horrible spell cycle mechanics.

 

Boevis

Disprove what? You didn't present any facts, just opinion based on an AoE caster oriented raid group. You've contributed nothing to this thread by posting why Moonkin is inferior (in your eyes) to a shadow priest, beyond pissing me off. Not that anyone in their right mind would ever add a 2nd Shadow Priest to a group over another Mage or Warlock (yeah, that's MY opinion).

You want to compare Moonkin based on DPS? Ok, take a Warlock, Mage, Elem Shaman, and Shadow Priest spreadsheet, Add 5% Crit to whatever gear level you find appropriate. Taking the numbers from the gear of people in my guild, a slightly greater than 5% DPS increase for both the shaman and mage, just over 1% for the priest, and 3% to the warlock. At equal gear level, Moonkin isn't 14% below other DPS classes. Yeah, our DPS and DPM sucks, whatever, Moonkin is now more viable than feral tanks now. I guess that is some sort of class balance ...

You want to compare Moonkin based on utility? That gets into what's needed for the fight, which is pretty much unable to be theory crafted on a grand scale. You can talk about healthstones, AoE, CC, Health and Mana until you're blue in the face, and I assume this is what you're talking about; having to chose which class gets dropped to let in the class you need for the fight (warlocks on Magtheridon for instance) It's going to change depending on the fight though, on a fight like Mag, I'd take a moonkin over a 2nd Shadow Priest, and probably over a mage as well. Moonkin itself isn't that big a deal anyway, dropping it to decurse, abolish poison, or heal certainly isn't the end of the world, it's just part of being a hybrid. But that's for the threads about specific bosses.

Of course, there's always the main argument for Moonkin (and druids in general) that pisses me off, we're the ideal class to bring along when there's slack to pick up. Every time I cast rebirth, I want to say to people "Thanks for being a noob and justifying my raid utility by dying"

 

nikitabanana

Except that, in addition to giving mana to the group, healing them - with 908+dmg as in your screenshot a shadow priest can achieve 1018dps without imp shadowbolt procs currently (compared to your 608). Btw, I <3 feral druids, and resto of course.