Eldessya

Part of it is that we have an especially unforgiving rotation. I don't mean hard, I mean that we tend to ge thit much more brutally by movement and other dps stops than most specs, sicne a proper eclipse rotation takes 15- 20 uninterrupted seconds, and we have no real control of *WHEN* we get them. Add in moonfire refreshes via starfire, IIS, and IFF, and we have a very very "fussy' dps rotation that doesn't like being interrupted. Most naxx fights have required movements, stuns,etc that are timed in ways which throw our persnickety dps rotation out of whack. I expect that that's a lot of the issue, as is our poor bloodlust performance.

 

• Arawethion

This is a good point--a good example is Thaddius. The 30 second Polarity Shift rotations are precisely wrong for getting to have clean Eclipses.

It's always terrible to be sitting there on any fight with a regular interruption (Malygos, Sapphiron, Maexxna, etc.) going "man, I hope I don't get a proc right now." We haven't talked about it much here, but it happens all the time.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

Ashaera

Anub - 0 movement (Unless you raid with alot of special children).
Faerlina - 0 forced movement, finish cast - apply dot as you exit the non dangerous rain of fire.
Maexxna - 100% predictable web sprays. (Bad luck web wrap but equal for everyone)

Patchwerk - 0 movement.
Grobbulus - Practically 0 movement that cant be done while casting dots / starfall / treants / ff (Bad luck debuff, 1 pr fight max on average).
Gluth - 0 movement.
Thaddius - Phase 1 0 movement / Phase 2 100% predictably movement (Either way theres a 5sec window where you arent doing double damage, a clever player applies dots & loads the SF that lands just after -- Screws Eclipse timing abit, but nothing major).

Razuvious - 0 movement.
Gothik - Have a hard time looking at this as a boss, either way its hopeless for anyone to run a rotation here.
4h - 100% predictable movement (Or the clever player doesnt proc an eclipse the second before he starts running atleast).

Noth - 0 movement, silly add phase though.
Heigan - Phase 1 0 movement, phase 2 strong dots & easy to land wraths between running.
Loatheb - Some movement (like 5-10sec every 2mins - On a fight where the eclipse proc doesnt matter much).

Kel'thuzad - 1 second sidesteps now & then.
Sapphiron - Full dps stops, eclipse CD is clear before dps starts again (If anything this is good for owls).

Malygos - Vortex can be annoying, first vortex is just about when its time for a second eclipse.
Sartharion - Timing is pretty good, first ecplise before dragon adds - CD clears just after you started nuking the first add.

----------------
The moonkin cycle awards the player capeable of thinking 5-10seconds ahead, in my book thats good design. Saying that alot of current fights are disruptive to the moonkin cycle is in my opinion plain wrong.
We scale hopelessly poor with heroism (im abit worried that we generally scale poorly, but lets worry about that when we get to Icecrown), this surely affect 1-2min fights -- A moonkin revolves less around CD's & looks even better in long fights, allthough we are fine on burst fights aswell.

Compared to owls I would rate the other hybrids like this:
Better
Fury warriors & Dk's

Equal
Shamans

Worse
Retri paladins, Shadowpriests, Arms warriors.

Im suprised that blizzard managed to balance dps somewhat decently - Theres 0 classes hopelessly behind & considering how much easier it is to build caster buffs+debuffs with an owl, we really have no reason to complain.

 

Schteploof

Seems like it takes the best dps of each class only on each boss, I doubt there can be a feral tank speced or cat in tank stuff in the highest dps.
Unless there's very few reports of dps druids , we're just not on the top-dps classes , but we're still nice hybrids

Maybe ( surely ) ferals , even cat speced and good geared , drag boomkin a little lower , but not much i'd say since we're not better on bosses where only boomkins appear.

 

Miim

Creating a simple petattack macro also works and you can use it on your normal actionbar.
I think it is as simple as /petattack

 

Nrahk

I'm curious by what you mean here. Say I have 6 or 7 seconds before I need to transition, and both DOTs are up. What would you be casting here to not proc eclipse?

Assume you're either in the back tanking one of the singles or in the front and need to move with the group to mitigate meteor damage (i.e. I can't just switch sides anytime I please).

I suppose this goes to any fight listed as predictable movement. Even though the timing of when to move is known, you don't really know when eclipse will proc. If it's earlier or later than expected, what can you do about it?

 

Ashaera

Well strategy dependant -- If you are tanking then dps is your last concern. If im not tanking then im on caster side with 100% freedom on when I want to move (which means that I move at 3 debuffs after finishing using eclipse proc).

But ill admit that tactics may differ & make my statement untrue.

 

Iceman69

And when the horseman dies while you have 2 debuffs and eclipse just proc'd? You just start running off when you feel like it?

 

• Arawethion

This isn't really the point. It's cool that the cycle rewards thinking ahead a little (although most of the time, this basically amounts to trying to refresh DoTs while moving).

But it's annoying that the cycle is wrecked by any interruption, whether we can foresee it or not. You can't control when Eclipse happens at all, so there's no opportunity for skill in trying to align the high-DPS phase of the cycle with boss DPS uptime. It doesn't matter if you know an interruption is coming in 10s, because you can't willingly delay Eclipse until it's over.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

D1srupta

Well since this is the moonkin talents/specs discussion thread, how about some discussion on specs and talents! On the PTR, the new Nature's Grace and the new Eclipse... how will those change rotations for moonkins?

I know that a very well geared moonkin will basically IFF IS MF Wrath when eclipse off cd starfire otherwise... but the new 20% haste change... it almost seems like a nerf. How will these two talent changes effect how our rotations will do assuming they go live?

 

dukes

There's a post for 3.1, and it already has some discussion of Moonkin stuff (although it's mixed with feral and resto stuff).
Druid Changes Patch 3.1

It's also entirely possible that these are gonna change.

 

Orodreth1

So now that we all know the new T8 set bonus looks like IS is gonna be of huge importance to keep up. A free starfire during an eclipse proc would be huge. And sence you'd pretty much want to keep IS up all the time I don't see any possible reason why someone wouldn't pick up iIS. Any thoughts?

 

Sorail

I don't see how T8 bonus and iIS come together. You pick iIS for its MF/SF benefit, 3% bonus damage to wrath alone wouldn't make it worth 3 points. Except when it turns out (rather unlikely but who knows...) that wrath eclipse will be the way to go in the future. Which would make 4pT8 even crappier than what it seems now.

 

Tyraz

Do you guys think boomkins will have some mana issues with the new mane regen thing and 90 secs starfall?

On live, I know on long fights (especially 3d Sarth) I always end up with no mana with 3d dead and about 20% to go on Sarth. That affects my dps A LOT. Most fights are fine, however.

That being said, I've done quite a bit of PTR testing with my guild and mana seems to be an issue for me atm on all 10 mans (but Leviathan, obviously) and most 25 mans as well. I have to play it cool because I need to keep my innervate for a priest most of the time. So what I'm saying is, I can't go all out else I'll be quickly oom with a boss not even close to death.

The solutions I've found so far, without playing with my spec, is to ignore Starfall and somewhat chill on MF, which of course drastically decrease my dps.

Anyone else having the same kind of man issues? It seems Omen of Clarity and 1 point in Moonglow (0 point in Dreamstate and 0 point in Intensity) aren't cutting it no more since I can't go all out.

I am seriously asking myself if I shouldn't redesign my spec to "free" 4-5 points for mana regen talents.


Ok, on a completely different subject now, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Solar Eclipse. On paper, Lunar might still be slightly better dps, but the dynamic of Ulduar makes me wonder which is gonna be more convenient.

As I said, I've done lots of PTR testing with my guild, and I can tell you you will move alot in Ulduar compared to Naxx. No more stationnary fights, as far as I can tell. Even trash makes you move around all the time.

Ignis forces you to cancel spell casting often because of Flame Jets. Hearthbreaking to cancel a starfire within eclipse while with Solar, most of the time you don't even have to cancel wrath since you can finish casting before the interrupt.

XT-002 won't matter much, you aoe adds most of the fight anyway. Lunar is perfectly fine for this guy even tho I find wrath is more convenient to kill a loose add that's about to hit the boss (and heal him).

Hodir - this fight is all about moving around, you basically move 85-90% of the fight, a lunar eclipse would be a total waste here, imo.

That, of course is based only on feeling and I only tested 4 bosses in Ulduar so far, but I find Solar VERY useful in most situations at this phase of testing.

What do you guys think?

 

Humbaba

If I find myself oom in ulduar I'll probably start using mana pots instead of speed pots and start adding in some of the regen talents I've been intentionally skipping for the last four months. That does seem like the logical approach, don't you think?

 

Tyraz

Yes, absolutely. However, I can tell you right away mana pots won't cut it. I've been doing exactly that and I agree I will most likely have to redistribute my talent points to include some mana regen talents. The question is, where are we going to take those points? In order to free up talent points we need to remove some from other useful talents. But before playing with talent points, I was simply wondering if others notice the same thing?

 

Snackz

I've done extensive PTR testing while doing a Solar Eclipse rotation, and have found that if you just move 2 points into Intensity and having Omen that mana is very rarely an issue if you innervate yourself.

 

ATheGreat

out of curiosity, should you really have many mana regen problems as we start ulduar in full t7.5, as our regen hasn't really been affected much by the changes going in, and hopefully we'll only have lost the 5% crit from the scorch nerf.

from my testing on ptr, the only time i went oom was when there was no replenishment in our little scrub 10 man :P

i can see it being more of a problem when you lose the 4p bonus and the 101 crit rating that t8 is lacking, though.

 

Korhaug

You also lost BoW/mana totem because they don't stack anymore, the fights are longer, and your innervate is a lot less powerful.

This is not really something we need to speculate about, though. You go in, see if you need more mana, and move a couple points into mana regen talents accordingly. There's no point debating how much mana regen each person will need.

The only thing worth discussing is where to pull those points from, and it'll come down to Nature's Reach if you don't care about range, Gale Winds if you don't care about AOE, and IIS if you're willing to spare the single target DPS.

Edit: Dukes is right, forgot Imp MF --> Moonglow.

 

dukes

First point of call for Mana Regen is moving Imp Moonfire to Moonglow. Second set to move from is either Gale Winds or IIS to Intensity (with the changes to pushback on CF I don't think it should be a contender for losing points). With a lot of gear including spirit, Intensity is going to be by far the better choice over Dreamstate compared to the current situations where they're close if you don't have spirit buff and have non-spirit gear.

Remember that although we lose some regen due to lost crit, we also gain 2% stats from Imp MotW which gives a direct increase in mana pool/replenishment/Moonkin Form regen.

Also with the changes to Thorns that have been noticed on the PTR (persistent scaling from SP on cast from the caster instead of variable scaling based upon instantaneous SP on the person it procs on) Brambles may be worth significantly more than currently. Treants gaining AoE avoidance also helps Brambles more than previously.

 

Anastassius

Another good question if there are mana issues is to weather to pick 3 points in Intensity or Dreamstate?

So far intensity was better ,but with the mana regen changes i think dreamstate might be better. Also another good thing is the daze they put in typhoon,but then again with the cc applied on most trash it wouldn't help a lot in PVE and that point along with the 2 in gale winds,might be better off to mana regen talents, should there be an issue about it.

 

klüger

And seeing how blizz both stated that spirit change would not really hurt nukers (intens is 50% in 3.1) and that we are gonna have a lot more spirit total, i'd put my money on intensity being the choice for manaregen (between those two)

Your last segment of text hurts my brain.

 

dukes

Intensity provides the same amount of in combat regen in 3.1 as it currently does.

 

Anastassius

So far, depending on the fight, i put the last 3 points in owlkin frenzy or typhoon-galewinds.

Read about the daze, it might be good for trash, if most aren't immune to it,using it will need some running between cc'ed ones and tanked ones and typhoon should aim towards raid/tanked adds.

If we need more mana on boss fights(after we innervate us), then intensity will get those 3 points.

Will need to see how and if owlkin frenzy procs in Ulduar and then make the final decision. 3 points in Intensity or 3 points in Owlkin Frenzy or 3 points in Gale winds-Typhoon.

I hope i made my thought clearer now

 

OuMaiGode

I have a question about Owlkin Frenzy and how it procs. Does Owlkin Frenzy procs only from direct damage? or other damages like AoE (Sapphiron) is able to proc it too? I am not sure if I would spec it or not for 25men. Does it worth?