You've answered your own question really! Assuming Hit and Haste 'caps' have been met - which isn't a problem with Naxx gear or higher regardless of Gems it's time to stack Spell Power. Crit > Int > Spirit comes 'accidentally' from gear stats, not from gems or enchants.

The stat weights on Page1 are a good way of looking at the stats available:

Spell Power 1.4
Crit 1.1
Intellect 0.5
Spirit 0.4

It should come as no surprise looking at those, that Runed Cardinal is the best gem choice for every slot - with the exception of Meta qualification which requires the use of two blues (12sp / 10 spir).

The best choice for 2pc T9 is certainly the head and chest, as you're trading the T8 spirit for more offensive stats, without dropping the hit you should already be geared around.

I might have missed a comment somewhere, but doesn't Squawk and Awe monitor both cooldowns just fine?

Another exeption would be a yellow slot with a bonus of +5 (or more) spellpower for a [Potent Ametrine], at least for your stat weights.

Squawk and Awe, at least for me, overwrites the cooldown for Lunar when Solar procs, as in they're monitored on the same bar.

Keep in mind that at least as of the .17 release of Rawr, there isn't a default gemming set that includes veiled or potent gems. You'll have them as custom templates for it to properly gem for that.

Could it be that the 3.2.2 change to Typhoon is broken? Mobs that were dazed for 3 seconds after hit by my Typhoon yesterday suddenly are not being dazed at all.


Edit: just figured out that it works - but the mobs I was previously farming apparently became immune to daze effect.

Swap to mid tier chest imo, it's the strongest piece in the set. Unless you have a t8 piece to swap in after getting t9 helm, just go for chest.

My setup is t8 legs, shoulder, t9 head, chest.

That's what i'd like to do too, but since the only T8 pieces i have are the chest, legs and helm, that doesn't seem to be and option? If only I would have the T8 shoulders my problem would be solved. :/ Hmm..

If you can't get the shoulders, are the gloves something you could reasonably obtain? Legs/Shoulders is definitely the best combo for maintaining the T8 2pc. But Legs/Gloves is a reasonable second best.

The T9 Helm/Chest is just too strong. Losing either one of them hurts.

Side note, but I think T8 Shoulders/Gloves might be "best" in that the best 2T8/2T9+1 offset piece is probably [Leggings of the Awakening].

I went with the Handwraps of the Lifeless Touch as off-piece. If you are able to obtain many items with hit, have a deeper look at the new Stormrage Crown from Onyxia, which seems to be extraordinary good and would justify a chest/hands-t9-kombo.

In case of doubt, buy the T9 shoulders after the chest, because they have crit rating, and that leaves you more room to shuffle with hit and haste in other slots.

On 2pc T9, is the i232 worth going to asap? I'm currently sitting on 94 Triumph and do not see any successful 25 man runs in the near future. Should I upgrade from my T8.5 to the 232 T9 helm chest or keep being patient and wait for the possible winning of a trophy drop?

A practical advantage of using Leggings of the Awakening as your offset piece is that the demand for it is rather limited, compared to some alternatives.

I would wait. You can always get lucky and win a trophy from the tribute chest after clearing 10 man heroic.

So, I'm able to pick up 4pc t9 ilvl 245, but is it worth it to break 2pc t8.5 bonus?

Actually, only one of the two slots you replace needs to be 258 - the other can still be 245 to be more powerful than two T8,5 items in those slots.

Also, T9p4 makes the Moonkin less prone to DPS loss through movement than T8p2. So even with 245 it's still a viable option in many fights, even when your puppet-DPS will testify for T8p2.

I still have 2T8 as better even with full T9.258 against a single target.

Two important points, also:
1) Twins has a lot of movement and Anub has a lot of AoE, and both of these weaken 2T8 significantly--you'll be better off with the stat upgrades. But, by the time you're looting 258 tokens in the first place, you're done with ToC progression and gearing for Icecrown, so we probably shouldn't consider specific ToC fights for this purpose.
2) Even if T9.258 is slightly better than T8, it's hard to justify looting them over other raid members, given their now-apparent scarcity.

With 5 Hurricane aoe targets, is it worth keeping Moonfire up on one or more targets and Typhooning between for better NG uptime or should I just spam Hurricane?

Highest damage per execute time (DPET) for five targets is Starfall > Typhoon > Hurricane.

Hurricane's DPET is nearly twice as high as a five-tick MF (Gale Winds, No IMF, No MF DoT crits). You won't get much benefit from the Moonfire Idol (neither Typhoon nor Hurricane benefit from Vengeance). If you don't have Gale Winds, and you do have IMF and critting MF DoTs, the gap is smaller. I still don't think its worth a MF cast (or 5 MF casts against different targets), unless the targets are going to live 20 seconds or more, and you might lose some of the Hurricane effect (you have to move, targets move out of the AoE, pushback danger, ...).

At even a low crit rate of 35%, Typhoon (5-target) is 88% likely to give you NG. That means Typhoon is very useful as you can cast Typhoon+Hurricane in less time than it takes to cast Hurricane alone. Moonfire increases your NG probability by a small amount, but not by enough to justify the cast.

If there are five targets clustered around a tank, Starfall will probably give you 12 NG opportunities per second, which means you are over 99% likely to have NG by the time you cast Hurricane.

You sure it doesn't justify the cast? One GCD to cast Moonfire, ~50% to proc NG on your next Hurricane? I'll check soon, but that seems very favorable. I think for max AoE you want to force NG with as much you can (Starfall, NG-Hurricane x2, Typhoon, NG Hurricane, Moonfire, Hurricane).

I assumed that Hurricane crits would proc NG for you. With fifteen Hurricane hits during the last two seconds of the previous Hurricane, your second Hurricane would almost certainly have NG. However, I'm looking at a log and seeing Hurricane crits without NG procs (Starfall and Typhoon crits are showing NG).

If you end Hurricane without NG, using MF (tab-target between casts) to get NG may be your highest personal choice for DPS. If you aren't the only caster AoE, and you don't have Ebon Plague, Wrath might give better raid DPS (E&M debuf).

I suppose in some situations the attack-speed debuff from Hurricane might be more important than some personal DPS.