Hmm... that's... wierd.

Suggestion for testing: low-rank moonfire. You get the slightly better crit rate with a narrow damage range and no cast time. And ideally you need to compare the boundary (min-max) cases, not the average.

You want imp FF, I mean it's very good return for the point cost when you add up all the DPS it gives to all the melee and the extra TPS for the tanks.

I think i need more sleep, just realized you get subtlety and imp FF.. with a build like http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0tbrzicsLuAZZxxcx

Thanks tho =.=

Personally 5/5 in Sub is a waste of points for a Moonkin, to me anyway. I have 2/5 for 8% and the 2% cloak enchant for a total of 10% and on boss fights I'm never above the tank...even with a chain of crits. Also losing that 4% hit is HUGE. I don't see how any Moonkin who plans on raiding not have it. You only need to get to 12% +hit from gear with it or 16% without it. I know that I personally don't have tons of gear with +hit layin around that gets me to the 16% without the talent yet, but if you do then good for you.

Thinking about it I'd probably spec like that:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=MtbrzicsguAZZxxcb

While threat reduction for a DPS class is awesome, if mages do find with 10% threat reduction (with raid buffs on top of course), so should a moonkin. If you really find yourself threat capped drop the regen while casting, it's not all that much especially if you're threat capped you shouldn't be having mana issues (as you have to stop due to threat) and can free up those points for threat reduction. If you're not threat capped get the mana regen as I did in the linked build ;p

Make sure to always have salv on when DPSing, obviously, or no tank (except maybe a perfect player) can hold aggro off of you if you're good even if you get 5/5 sublenty.

This talk of threat has gotten me thinking.

As it is a balance talent and this is more or less the de facto balance thread, I was wondering if anyone knew when the damage modifier from brambles is applied. Specifically if you have the 3 pc Cenarion set bonus (+5 damage and 150% duration on thorns), does it apply the brambles modifier before or after adding the damage?

I'm not really sure of the swing speed for bosses, but if you were up against a fast-hitting mob, an extra ~24-30 threat per hit (3/3 brambles + set bonus, depending on the order it is calculated) could really add up.

With a theoretical mob landing 3.3 hits per second, that's another 100 TPS for the tank. If half of your raid is threat limited, assuming melee range with salv, another (very very roughly) 1k DPS that could be generated just from swapping in an outdated 3-set before the fight, and spending three points, two of which I can never decide about anyhow.

Am I way off in one of my assumptions, or is this just someone nobody has bothered to think about before?

(e) Hrmm, ok. So from a brief look through WWS, it seems the boss delay is quite a bit larger than that of the ones I was used to in other games. Moroes, a 'fast hitting' boss, is landing 30-40 hits during a 3 min fight. So rather than 3.3 hits/sec we're probably seeing a hit per 3 seconds (given the amount of running around he does with vanishes and all). So the rather nice 100 tps gets reduced to a very trivial 10tps.

Probably only worthwhile then if you have a tank with awful avoidance. Oh well. At least I don't have to worry about bugging friends to go beat up stuff in MC to finish up that bonus. heh.

Well, i am a somewhat average geared Moonkin Druidess (~1000 Spelldamage plain, while raiding 25 instances usually about ~1200 fully buffed), and regularly hit the Threat Cap with 3/5 Subtlety and no enchant (i did test various amounts of Subtlety in Heroics until i decided to go 3 points for being the best cost/effect result) if i get the chance to start chainfiring and happen to get crit-series. Of course that might be a sign of a less than average tank, but still, i can reproduce this effect. After 2.2 i will get myself a Subtlety enchant (right now theres almost no enchanter left with the AQ recipe), and reevaluate the investment in talent points.

Brambles may not be worth the investment for thorns, but don't forget the added damage to Entangling Roots. If you are ever soloing something, an improved roots can be an effective third DoT (MF, IS) having ticks of 200-300 with some decent gear. Although roots may not work well in raids, thorns may still be viable if blizz made +spelldmg also increase thorns damage (or did they do this already?). But in normal 5mans with faster bosses, brambles may be more effective.

What I'd REALLY love to see for a spell at the bottom of the balance tree would be something like...

Sun and Moon
N* Mana
Channeled Spell
Shafts of sunfire assail your target, dealing X* damage to the target every second for 10 seconds. This is reflected as shafts of moonglow to the target's target, healing for Z*% of the damage done.

N*,X*,Y*: Don't ask me what these numbers should be, because I haven't a clue.

I'm thinking a 4 min cooldown, with arcane damage, would make it a fairly big deal in PvE, without being a bastard in PvP (if it were on 8 min, it'd have to be really powerful, and if it were fire school of magic, we would just laugh in the face of spell interruption). But being on 4 min instead of 2, they could conceivably ramp it up enough that you'd gain DPS using it instead of your normal routine - so there's no reason not to whip it out.

This would be a useful talent spell for the raiding scene, I think. And it'd look cool, with the twin shafts of sunlight/moonlight pounding down, damaging the boss and healing the tank.

I think >>>this thread<<< is the NEW unofficial place for kicking around Moonkin/Balance suggestions, Nobby!

Any chance you can add the Idol of the Raven Goddess, (9 spell critical strike rating to entire party)

It would be cool to have it both as estimated party contribution, (5x your personal) and just how it effects your personal dps, but the party wise thing would have to be optional if you do it at all.