I'd like to add the thought that it's also important to consider that if your raid group is still learning the boss fights (i.e. aren't on farm status yet) you will probably have multiple people getting killed by various things during the fight. Even if you count on the feral to put up FF, and the shadow priest to put up Misery, there's a fairly decent chance that you'll have to start putting up iFF to cover for them if they die - so no matter what, you need to understand how to work the FF cast into your rotation.

Are you sure that IFF and MISERY from the shadow priest stack on the boss?

They don't. That's not what he's saying. He's stating that if your shadow priest dies you should apply IFF to cover the now missing 3% hit.

Intensity vs. Dream State?

I did the math and I'm pretty sure that right now for me Dreamstate > Intensity.. Also I talked to other moonkins and most of them are running with intensity just because someone posted intensity > dreamstate. Armory is down so I can't show you my stats but I think my int was around 750~ and ooc mana regen around 220~

so...

intensity allows 30% of 220 to continue regaining while casting. = 66mp/5~
dreamstate allows 10% of int to be converted to mp5 so 75 mp5.

I do know that with more naxx gear I'll have some more spirit but is there anything wrong with my calculations?

Remember to subtract off MP5 from your OOC regen to determine spirit-based regen-only. Or just find the formula on the TTT; I don't remember the level 80 coefficient offhand, but it will look like X*Spi*sqrt(int).

But it is possible for Dreamstate, especially the first (4%) point to be better, once you get into nice gear with high Int and have mostly replaced your Spi with damage stats. This often moot though, as usually by then you've dropped all mana talents.

At the most basic level:
Take your Int, divide it by 2.5, if that number is greather than the amount of SPI you currently have, take dreamstate. Otherwise Intensity is better.

Granted that does not take into account spell damage or buffs or anything, just a basic level. So yes, until you get some gear that has spirit on it dreamstate is probably better (assuming you need mana regen beyon that of OoC). However since you take 30% of your spirit compared to only 12% of your int, it does not take much for intensity to take over from dreamstate.

I never get this argument when it comes to gearing around misery/IFF. (Which I hear often: Once heard a guild leader of a progression oriented guild say that if you're not hit capped without the debuff you shouldn't be in the guild)

Yes, casters need to be hit capped ---- but if there is regular access to a shadowpriest/Moonkin - they will be be doing more dps, by capping based on that debuff. Its essentially wasted itemization points if you are capped without the debuff. By taking it into account the casters will be doing more dps from their higher Spellpower/crit/haste/etc.
If said shadowpriest/Moonkin dies alot / attacks different targets / has poor attendance -- then the casters should make their gearing decisions differently, but for many serious raiding guilds this is not the case.

You could always keep have a couple hit items to swap in if in a rare instance all the sp/mks are gone.

And even this isn't true for Moonkin. Mages should have gear handy for when they don't have the debuff around, but a Moonkin should be speccing it himself in that case regardless.

I used to be of your line of thinking: 1 dreamstate, 2 intensity... buut Raid Buffs...

Arcane Intellect + Spirit + Kings.... make intensity a clear winner for me these days. Also doesn't the intensity tooltip say it gives 10% of mana regen while casting? It's not specifying spirit only.. and btw... Yes, Intellect Does factor into mana regen (though not as much as spirit). You can find the equations somewhere else. So basically raid buffs are the difference.. and gear of course.

Not sure the distinction you're making. The 10% can't apply to the summary regen number in your character sheet, since that has two components: MP5 ("while casting") and "spirit" (the total when not casting). If the 10% applies to the total number and adds as a bonus, you'd get MP5 twice which would make it actually work the opposite of its tooltip.

Intensity only affects spirit- (and int-) based regen. It does not affect any form of MP5, including Dreamstate, BoW, and Mana Spring, nor does it affect Replenishment.

Two things: This is more a question for the dummies thread, and this has been answered by blues and the verdict is that you get the crit bonus as long as there is a faery fire on the mob (no matter who casts it or how talented it is).

edit:
Yes I am sure.
Yes I saw over your test (it is not solid).

Its nice that you don't take things at face value, but this has been debated and posted (and tested) so much that you can actually just believe what I say (which blues have tested internally).

klüger -

Did you even look at the test results? They would disagree with what blues have posted.

The bottom part of my post got cut off where I discussed whether it might be worthwhile to keep Imp FF as long as another person was putting up a Faerie Fire, or whether it was a complete waste since I can't rely on them to put it up. (We always have a shadow priest or actually two in raids so don't need it for hit.) If I forego this, I have 2 points and I'm not sure which is more helpful in raids. I am trying to decide between putting one point in Owlkin, Brambles, or getting the third point in Eclipse. I probably don't get as great of use of my trees as I could, but I am working on improving it. As a sidenote, ignore my current spec if you look me up on armory. I am planning to change things around as soon as I have enough test data to show that Imp FF isn't working properly.

I'll go post this in the thread you suggested. I don't know how to just move it entirely.

Unfortunately all that this test proves is that crit chance is, in fact, random. If you did this exact same test again, you will probably see different results yet again.

The ONLY true way to test is to have your target be in resilience gear to negate your innate amount of crit (but be close enough to 3% so that iFF will make them critable).

So you spend 1000 wrath casts at this target in resil gear and should not see a single crit.
Have a feral apply FFF (while you are specd into iFF) and see how many casts it takes to get a crit (if done right you SHOULD see a crit at some point).

A test of the above nature is the only way to really see, the debate is whether or not 1000 casts is a large enough sample size to not have a crit happen or if you need more.

The other option is to trust GC who has access to the code and probably better testing methods than we do. Due to earlier testing by other moonkins and GC confirming the test is true, most are fine believing it. However, if you feel the need to see it for yourself, follow the above directions and use a resilience target to test. Testing on target dummies is not control enough as we all know crit chance is random, you may get 28% once and test it exactly the same and get 30%, the difference over 1500 casts is just not statistically significant.

Now that all that is said, if your feral is NOT keeping up FFF then that is an issue. The talent is not worth it for the 3% crit for you to actually cast it, so talk to your feral and make sure he is keeping it up at all times. If no moonkin is applying it they should never get the "More powerful spell is active" and thus it is no issue for them to apply it.

Is there a reason ( beyond wanting to pass the buck on FF/IFF, obviously) that a feral druid should be casting the debuff and not us? I am going to guess that it is based on ferlas having free GCDs due to having to wait on energy regen? Would that be accurate, or is there another reason why it is preferable for ferals to put up the debuff? Also, does that apply to feral tanks who are generally using all their GCDs?

For bear:
Free rage, in any rage limited situation its useful -- & either way its hardly a loss to use it. Missing 1 lacerate / swipe is no big deal.

For cat:
Waiting for energy idd.

Moonkin:
Costs half a SF, has to be refreshed at sucky times now & then.


If you have a feral its an easy decision.

Hello everybody !
I'm a french moonkin player, and I would like to learn more about this powerfull character.

here is my armory link :
The World of Warcraft Armory

My real question is about DPS ! I have not a very good stuff but I think it is not bad at all.
But when I'm playing in heroic raid i can't reach more than 2600 DPS (on a boss like patchwerk)

my DPS cycle is :
Moonfire - Faerie fire - Insect warm - Wrath until eclipse proc... then Starfire under eclipse until eclipse cooldown fade.............. and again (refreshing DOT if necessary)

Can someone help me about that ?
I don't know what to do...

Thanks for your reply.

Kind regards.

Thank you for the spec. I was actually skimming this thread specifically looking for 3D specs.

We are currently trying 10 man 3D (2D was just easy) and we are struggling a bit. While I've found a number of helpful hints, I'm also trying to find some things I can do personally to give us a better shot. Any other spec suggestions for this one encounter would be appreciated.

Also, since our Feral tank will be on Sarth and I will be running with a SP, I would assume I'd put the last three points in Intensity since the fight will likely be longer than I'd like. Any reason to put them somewhere else?

Finally, if I wasn't running with a SP and wanted to steal points from Gale Winds for mana regen (since those previous points are now in IFF) would I be making the right decision as to where to pull from, or is that far more valuable than I realize?

gale winds is amazingly valuable imo, if you're going to be part of the aoe foundation of that fight. If, for some reason, your raid makeup allows you to not have to aoe at all, sure, drop gale winds, but i really have never been in that position as a boomkin.

If you wanted/needed more regen, i think i would rather drop treants and starfall for a couple extra points before i dropped gale winds (this recommendation is only for 10 man 3 drake, hah)

As most raiding hunters are now survival (with perhaps one per raid marks for Trueshot), the pet dps loss from taking a Wasp for the armor debuff is is small. Except for Sar3, we don't use a feral druid, so we bring a Wasp to most raids.

Maybe my guild does things differently then yours, but I don't know of a single fight in WotLK that requires an extrodinary amount AoE damage.

I'm not saying there aren't fights were AoE isn't useful. Obviously Gluth, Maexxna, and others have opportunities to use it, but it's not a make or break type of situation where more AoE would have prevented a wipe.

The only possible exception I can think of is if Sarth3D if you don't have a DK tanking adds or much AoE in raid. However, My guild has found that the DK tank can take them down the adds on his own.