Lambach repy:
Your obviously one of the highest progressed moonkins here but I can't help but think your oversimplifying how you got there when you reply here.

I'm currently in guild learning vashj and pretty happy with my gear up to the point we've reached. I'm really looking forward to getting T5 Hat from her to get my T5 4 piece at last.

I'd just like to point out that like every class moonkins have phases were your priorities for gear and talents change. I have respecced several times since going moonkin because my requirements changed.

For example early on you might as well have trees in fact they can account for a crazy amount of your Damage when you enter Karazhan for example your trees will do a good 6K of damage and cost you virtually nothing in lost casts because you'll most likely only be running IFF IS SF rotation to conserve mana. And they cost you nothing in talents because in my experience I could never touch our tanks threat generation anyway back then so had 0 in Subtlety.

Move on to when we had all our T4 sorted and were killing Void, Lurker, Mags, HKm and Gruul each week and it was a different story. I had to put 4/5 in subtlety because I could grab threat off the tank at will practically with Salv up. I went for 4/5 because at that level there are still more fights you can use trees to full effect than fights you can't.

Now fast forward to today and again I've dropped some subtlety for more in combat regen because our tanks gear has come on leaps and bounds and I'm stuck at that point were I have 3/4 of a set of T5 Banked waiting for the 4th piece that makes it worthwhile and to pull agro now I'd have to do something retarded like BOSC on pull or something. Trees are still great IMHO I can easy get 60k + out of them ina raid night were I do 3.5mil dmg. They certainly don't cost me DPS.

But I'm not saying your wrong because I'm a raid leader and I've read ahead on the encounters we'll reach soon and I believe ZA is also a mirror for BT. Trees will cease to be useful soon when we break MT Hyjal and I will most likely drop the talent then. If you can't reasonably expect them to live for 30secs they become useless and I realise that time is coming.



Short version. The right answer to a question here depends heavily on the level of progression of the person asking it. "Progression" doesn't just mean raid content teir either it also refrerres to the progression of their toon. If your ahead of the gear curve you are gonna need all the -threat you can get. If your behind you need +MP5 and Trees for free damage.


The raid benefits of boomkin issue
Quick answer to this an unhelpful one. IFF is great for raids and so is a boom group with our aura. It can add significant DPS.

The optimum would be Ele sha, Destro lock x3 + Boomkin. We've run this in my guild and its awesome. But I had to drink pots like they were goin out of fashion.

However in the last month we have changed to Ele sha, Boomkin, SP, Mage x2. Simply because our destro locks are at the top of their gear curve right now relative to the guild and even with soulshatter etc our tanks can not hold on to the mobs when a Destro lock is putting out 1300dps in T5. So we're currently boosting our mages and me who have threat cap to spare right now.

Raids are a big complicated interaction of theorycrafting and real people. What works on paper wont work for everyone and besides. WHat guild actually has the perfect theorycrafted mix of classes in their raid on every encounter.

Spreadsheets like the one that began this thread are great as tools to help you make the best of what you have and make the best descisions we can.

PS add the idol swapping post 2.3.2 to the FAQ I have a feeling that question isn't going away

Teth probably hit the nail on the head. I am oversimplifying a bit. But really, I was under the (obviously) wrong assumption that I was speaking to people on a similar level, gear wise. At least on kael, actually. Being still in blues and starting karazhan I never factored into the equation.

Then I go on to pretty much everything teth says in regards to stat changes and talent changes throughout progression.

Vauk: Heres your "gear level statement"

I'm probably one of the most geared and experienced moonkin here. (although definatly not the most, I know several have cleared all content).
I've played with the balance tree on and off since bwl, but was mostly healing of course throughout pretbc up through naxx.
I specced full balance day one of tbc. I've played it up through all content, and have 5 bosses left in BT. We've had to spend a lot of time going back and keying people, thus our t6 progression has been pretty slow, but for reference we killed Kael in september. I know my stuff, I promise.

You are completely wrong about IFF. Completely. Unless you have a paladin tank i guess, and 99% magical dps. If you have a warrior or bear tank the threat from IFF is crucial. 3% hit is HUGE for a tank, especially at your gear level. You are bringing up the point similar to WF vs. GOA for enhance shaman. They drop WF cause its better for raid dps. IFF is better for raid dps. We are hybrids, brought for that, not full dps classes. Its just a stubborn selfish way for you to think about it, and you're just wrong. For max raid dps, IFF is crucial.


Also there is only one other place to put the points, which is sublty. Everything else is pvp talent. Now if your a lazy ass and dont respec for pvp, thats not my concern. But for max raid dps you want IFF, bottom line.

Here is the crucial question and before you answer I hope you could provide/point me in the direction of some math on the subject. For single target Tank and Spank fights (the fights where tank threat is most important) I am BY FAR the biggest threat producer (shadow priests don't count). I am also probably the best single target dpser in the raid.

Here is the question:
Does the tank gain more threat through the hit gain on IFF than I lose threat from 2 extra points in Subtlety?

The reason I ask is because our tanks are great. They are aggro hogs and I am probably the only one that threat caps on a regular basis. Keep in mind i'm not talking about the dps increase to rogues and dps warriors. All I care about right now is the threat gen of the tanks. If IFF turns out to be better than Subtlety in this area then I can't realistically justify to myself not taking it.

As for your "We are hybrids, brought for that, not full dps classes" that is pretty backwards thinking. I enjoy the hybrid aspects of our class and am happy to provide battle reses, innervates and my buff. However if I wanted to gimp myself for the benefit of the raid I would have rolled a Enh Shaman. Not that I am saying losing 2 point in subtlety is gimping myself, rather that if I can do the dps of a full dps class why am I relegated to 2nd class "hybrid, buffer for the good of the raid" status?

Keep in mind the hit from IFF ONLY helps the offhand attacks of dual wielders. 99.99% of all physical dpsers run with enough +hit to get thier main hand (or ranged for hunters) attacks to the cap. Like I said the hit will help 3 people in our raid bar the tanking prot warrior. 2 rogues and 1 dps warrior.

Is there some math on the dps increase to a rogue or a dps warrior given by the hit of IFF?

You see. What you do is....
Your rogues and hunters dont gem for max hit. Cause you give them 3%. Then they can gem for other things. For a rogue, just for example, but regemming, he gains 48 agility. Same with a hunter. So whatever dps that gives them, thats how much dps you add to them with IFF.

Next time your tank misses a sheild slam on the get go of an agro reset encouter, ala leo theras, and someone gets pwned cause of it. Tell me that your threat isnt greater then others threat. IFF is more important then just your threat on a tank and spank fight. IFF will ALWAYS make your raid dps go up more then you lose in personal dps, ALWAYS.

You cant say that enh shaman should be more of a raid buff then you, you are a hybrid, you come to buff people. Your dps can be awesome, but you are for buffing.

If your locks and shadow priests arent threatcapped in t5 stuff, they kinda blow. If you have destro locks that arent out dpsing you, they blow. Post up some WWS, lets see your amazing dps that outstrips your whole raid.

Don't know where you got the idea that I was in tier 5. It is also nice they you are making this personal. I've been trying to find math and all you can do is call my clan names and make rule-like statements (ALWAYS is a bad word to use). I will continue to discuss Moonkins in this thread in a mature and thoughtful manner, if you can't do that as well maybe you should go back to the WoW forums.

Here are this weeks parses:

We'll skip Rage cause I was fucking around.
Anetheron death (~3.9M dmg) - Loading... - 3rd dps
Kaz'rogal death (~3.8M dmg) - Wow Web Stats - 3rd dps
Azgalor death (~4.1M dmg) - Wow Web Stats - 1st dps

High Warlord Naj'entus death (~4.3M dmg) - Loading... - Shitty dps
Supremus death (~3.6M dmg) - Wow Web Stats - 1st Damage (shitty kill, fight lasted along time with a ton of dps dead)
Shade of Akama death (~1M dmg) - Wow Web Stats - 1st Dsp (glitched Shade)

Before you say it, yes our mages and warlocks damage probably isn't as good as it should be. We may be undergeared for our progression. We had very very very very few hero tokens drop in tier 5.

Having the rogues regem is a very stupid idea. What if I miss a raid? What if they want to do 10 mans without me? What if I die early on an attempt. IFF will only ever buff offhand damage. Thats not to say that the offhand bonus from 2 rogues and a dps warrior with IFF isn't more damage than Subtlety, that was never my argument. My question, which you so gleefully ignored to call my clan and I 'nubs' was about the threat bonus of IFF for a prot warrior versus the negative threat of Subtlety.

I specifically said shadowpriests don't count in my last post, i realize their threat will be astronomical. Using IFF to try and contain a SP is stupid. About our Warlocks I don't know what to say. It seems very fight specific for them, sometimes they can threatcap, sometimes not. I am the only one (BARRING SPs) that can threat cap basically at will.

I'm sorry man, but yes, you're dps players kinda suck. I appreciate uploading those to perfectly make my point. No one there is doing good dps.

IFF would help your rogues a lot, cuase they obviously didnt gem for max hit, and miss a lot....and are in general just pretty awful. I'm not making "attacks" against your "clan". I'm saying, your in a wierd situation. And your comparing apples and oranges. You are topping dps becuase those around you are bad, not becuase you are good(although I'm not saying you arent good, just ill informed).

For just you personally, there will be more threat from subltety, but why wouldnt you want to help out the shadow priests? What do you have against them, why wouldnt you want them to do more dps? That ups raid dps.

You're 6th on your kaz kill, not 3rd btw.

I'll list some WWS to compare man. And really, they are completely shitty showings for me, but im linking them so you can see raid dps, and where you should be on meters.

Loading... Azgalor.
I did about the same dps as you, yet I'm 8th to your first.

And of the fights you linked, AZ is really the only good dps benchmark. Kaz has mana issues. Najentus we should be healing on, and supr is a run around and dot fight. I cant believe you even bothered to link akama.

Basically man, you are playing in a different world. You may well be a decent player, but those around you are pretty awful. So us having this conversation is like comparing apples to oranges. Most teams should have players that are pushing dps, and who might be threatcapped. You can do whatever you want man, but don't preach falacies to the general public. Most teams here want to up raid dps, not their own epeens. And people are asking questions about uping raid dps, and how to play a moonkin. You get imp FF, you help out the raid, thats the bottom line. I cant stress this enough.

On a related, but sideways note, how does the threat compare for a Feral tank between me putting up IFF, and them spamming FFF every cooldown? All of the bear tanks I've run with have asked me to please stop casting IFF, should I ignore them?

As a feral druid, I would say yes.

The ammount of threat you get from FFF is fairly trivial, and unless you are really rage starved it's a pain in the ass having to use a GCD on FFF. And that's not even taking into account the 3% hit.

I'd say it's only good for picking up stuff, when you're running to it, there's really no other moment where you should be using FF while tanking, unless it's to refresh. I guess they just get annoyed at the message tho ^^.

One thing that's been forgotten, I'm not too sure about is, IFF helps hunter pets which usually have terrible hit rate(there's a talent but not sure all hunters get it). That's not a lot of dps, but I guess it's a decent amount still, depending on your raid makeup. It's mostly about tanks threat tho, which should raise the whole raid's dps a bit.

Hmm....well you're definatly right about the WWS, our rogue takes it, and i guess hes out of range of a couple people. Regardless, it shows what i wanted it to on caster dps.

You seem to overexxagerate my experience in these zones, as was asked for on the last page, i wrote down my experience above. I'll try to answer your nice lettered comments.

A. 4.
B. Yes, ours also.
C. Yeah, its fucked, my mistake.
D. Those show pretty much the same thing.
E. I'm not sure how dps at all matters. You did less dmg, how quickly you burn through your mana with a bad rotation is irrelevent.
F. See above, no shadow priest or tank dps in log.
G + H. You really know nothing about rogues. Which is ok, cause your guilds rogues also don't, so its expected.
I. You're grossly exageratting shadow priest TPS, especially with the dmg yours are doing, Im not sure how they are threatcapped.

Efejel: Holy crap, they stickied your thread.

Adoriele: A feral druid will gain boatloads more benefit from 3% more hit than spamming FFF ever will. I think FFF is around ~130 threat?

Lambach: A lot of your information and perspective comes from a theorycraft happy raid, where every single person in the raid min-maxes stuff and performs at near full capacity. However, I'd wager that even half of the people on this board aren't in an environment where the people surrounding them do the same. You're trying to lay down rules that only apply to the people in your situation, but in reality isn't suited for most people and might even hurt the over all raid performance.

What if you have two balance druids? Of course only one needs it, and that's a pretty obvious assumption to make. But you're making a whole lot of assumptions that may be obvious to you and not to the rest of us, and the tone of your posts isn't very conducive to any discussion. I fully understand the annoyance of people spreading misinformation, but try to tone it down a little.

Lambach,

I wanted to know what a moonkin with exceptional gear does in his rotation just because i was curious. I wasnt attempting to model my rotation based on yours, so get off your high horse and stop thinking everyone is beneath you. Not everyone has the same expeirence. Secondly I was also curious if a moonkin has exceptional gear if starfire is better dps. In a round about ahole way you answered my question thanks.

Thanks,

Laqwanda

P.S. Ill sign my posts if I want to so get bent.

Actually, you'll be the one getting bent since its expressly against the forum rules. I'd suggest you edit your posts to reflect compliance or maybe the banhammer will fall.

Thanks for the answers, guys. I figured that was the case, but wasn't sure just how much threat it was worth.

Those 2 extra parses show my guild to be the equivalent of your guild in dps. I don't know where you get the nerve to bash my guild when yours isn't all that impressive at all. Your guild might be slightly better dps than my guild but the difference is so negligible that the fact you try to bash me about it speaks volumes.

Personal dps is all that matters, overall damage has too many variables to take into account (battle res, healing, stand and dps versus run and dps, etc, etc, etc). There are a variety of reasons why a person will have lower damage than another yet higher dps. Your breakdown of me doing great dps yet lower overall damage as "going out of mana quickly" is a typically stupid response. Please continue to take complex topics and reducing them to 5 word half sentences. The fact that you would write something like that without taking the 10 seconds to look at the parse and realize I was 4th on damage and died 88% of the way through the fight (Anetheron) or I was 6th on damage yet died 59% of the way through the fight shows you complete lack of thought.

Yes I can see that I know nothing about rogues from these posts. Maybe the fact I said "I forget how it is done" tipped you off. I also love that you bash my rogues skill based on fights where they are doing jack shit. We have them killing Doomguards. I won't get into a big discussion about rogues because truthfully I don't know enough and I really don't care.



In conclusion, please continue to harp about being "a really advanced moonkin" when you are roughly the same progression as I am. Please continue to break down complex issues to tiny tidbits that your peasized brain can almost muster the skills to communicate effectively. Please continue to bash my guilds dps while the differences between our guilds is tiny. Please continue to both bash my knowledge of Rogues and the Rogues in my guild without knowing how we use them or any background on their experience. And most imporantly please continue to be a braggart and hypocrit.



PS. Below are more parses for you to belittle and disparage. Take a look at my dps and damage and continue to "preach" to me about my lack of skill and/or knowledge.

Wow Web Stats
Wow Web Stats
Wow Web Stats
Wow Web Stats

To everyone else,

I'd like to apologize for the /drama. Getting back to where we started.

You do not NEED to take IFF. It IS possible to play/use your moonkin as a main dps. That does not mean that IFF is bad. In fact it is an incredible raid debuff that any raid would be lucky to have.

Just don't let anyone tell you that if you don't take IFF you are wrong/nub. Choose to play your moonkin in the manner that you enjoy the most.

The way I look at my character is "I am a dps damage dealer with a couple added bonuses (battle res, innervate)." The fact that I can have moonkin buff or IFF doesn't play into why I play moonkin or why I get a raid spot. If your guild is a top 0.00000001% guild that Min/Max as much as possible then yes IFF is the proper way to go. Realistically however none of us are in those guild and if we were we wouldn't get to play a moonkin anyhow. Min/Maxing and moonkins in the same sentence is laughable. That is not to say I don't hone my strategy, tactics, gear, consumables, etc, etc as much as possible.

In conclusion,
In your travels around WoW both ingame and on forums, whether it be this one or the official forums, always be extremely careful of "rules" and statements written in stone.

In this Supremus parse, you cast Starfire (a 2.5 or 3.0 second spell, depending on Nature's Grace) 94 times. The Warlock below you cast Shadow Bolt (a 2.5 second spell) 69 times. I think the main thing that this parse shows is that the Warlock is really bad, or that you're really good. Either way, the reason you're beating people is because you're significantly outplaying them, either due to incompetence on their part or extreme skill on yours.

I didn't look through the other parses, but if that's an indicator of how you play in relation to your other DPSers, that's a big factor of why you're placing so high on your meters.

Not sure if this question really fits into the level of progression for a lot of people reading, but maybe:

Has anyone with actual experience using both 4/5 T5 and T6 seen a loss of dps in upgrading? My assumption based on some theorycrafting is that when you go to T6, as long as you keep +dmg more or less the same and emphasize crit a little more heavily, the returns on the gear will outweigh the dmg lost from the T5 bonus (with the additional bonus of dropping moonfire from the casting rotation). I can parse out some theoretical numbers, but I'd like to hear from someone who actually has tested this scenario.

I'm in a fairly unique situation in that I'm stepping into a balance spot for a guild that has been farming Illidan since early August. I don't have any real limitations on gear apart from the rarest drops, and it would actually be easier (I believe) to acquire T6 than T5.

If you can grab 4pc t6, and one of the better offpieces. (Hatefury, or illidari helm) You will only see a small dps downgrade.

The problem with the t5 bonus is it scales so well. So, lets assume your in all t6 gear(rings trinks, etc), but 4pc t5.
You are probably sitting at around 1800 or so fully buffed, with totem, spell dmg. Possibly more. The t5 by itself adds almost a 10% dmg increase for you.

Now the 5% crit adds.....about 5% dmg. Which is decent enough. However thats 5% loss of dmg by switchign set bonues.

So that'd mean the 4pces of tier gear that you upgrade from 5 > 6 would have to be an upgrade in stats large enough to increase your dps by 5%. The t6 pieces are nice, but not that nice. I'd say, more then likely its probably a 2% or so dmg decrease for you to not have the t5.

Which really inst that bad, considering you have a much higher chance to get the t6 then go farm the t5.

I'm very hopefull that sunwell gear will show a large enough dps increase in thats that we'll be able to finally drop our t5.

Thanks Lambach, that's basically what I had thought as well. I guess what I'm really getting at is this point:

With Nature's Guidance and some additional crit gear/gemming (since t6 effectively lowers your +hit gemming requirement to hit the cap by giving a base 32 more hit on the set, varied by what the offpiece ends up being) my expectation is not only that the 5% set bonus will add more than strictly 5% dps gain, but also that the different gemming and bonus 17 crit rating (again modified by what the offpiece ends up being) from T6 will make up for the loss.

To maximize dps I'd still really suggest spell dmg gems and enchants over crit. Especially if you're upping you're crit % with the bonus. If you just run you're gear (or proposed gear) through the spreadsheet you can test me on it. But after about 30% buffed crit you want as much dmg as possible.

Bear in mind when you're taking T6, you're (probably) taking it out of the hands of someone else who could use it. For those not already on T6 content, and/or those actively farming T5 while progressing through T6, I would strongly recommend as a Moonkin that you try to broker for priority on 4pc T5, agreeing to wait on T6 until it's rotting or nearly so. The spreadsheet & most experienced Moonkin seem to be saying that T6 just isn't that worthwhile on bosses, and is (maybe?) slightly better for trash? As always, YMMV.