You need hit rating

and download squawk&awe

That depends on the encounter, a lot of encounters have no unavoidable direct damage. I still see the benefit for Brambles out performing OF, edging out a little in the overall scheme. Looking thru WWS I can't find a single fight outside of Mimiron where OF provides more than .35%dps.

Owlkin is random benefit depending on the fight and depending on the procs you get. Brambles is a 'passive' benefit (always the same on every fight pretty much).

Which Idol should I use for Solar rotation, Crying Wind or Steadfast Renewal?

Arewethion, thank you for the Tuskarr's Vitality tip.

At first I thought, "Are you nuts? Losing 12 Hit and Crit?"

But after reading a few posts in this thread and thinking this through, I am also certain it is indeed the best option if you are at the progress stage where you are raiding Ulduar regularly.

If I remember correctly, Ignis the Furnace Master is the only boss where I just stand and nuke. Every other encounter requires a great deal of movement because of chasing adds and multiple fight mechanics that need to be used or avoided.

I would normally agree with you because the more Wraths you cast compared to Starfires has the chance to equal more constant NG uptime. However, I had low spell haste (275) and recently was able to change some Naxx gear for Ulduar gear and now have another 3% (380) haste at the cost of 2% crit. At 275 my Wraths were 1.3s without NG up and 1.1s with it up. This being said adding another 3% will undoubtedly lower my Wrath casts to 1.2s at least without NG (I cannot check because my time is out and so is my money for 5 days -.-). I believe his reasoning behind continuing to spam Starfire is he has higher haste and Wrath would be at it's 1 second GCD cap and therefore his amount of haste would be wasted on Wrath vs. Starfire.

Through reading other boomkin forums on this site I ascertained that the haste cap for a solar rotation would be somewhere around 400 and formed my theory of his continued Starfire spam on that point.

Also from reading the site it seems everyone uses the DoT's religiously and while I do agree that they are good I found that my in game dps was higher without using them and when I told other boomkins to test it they found the same thing. Does anyone have an explanation for this other than we possibly have crappy rotations? I currently don't spec into IIS because I found that my dps was lower and since I was forgoing them I could use the points more wisely. I figured that once in Ulduar and upon gathering t8 4 piece bonus that IIS would be worth having because I would always have IS up for the 4 piece to proc.

Has or does anyone but me Idol Twist between the Wrath and SF idols? there's no GCD on weapon swaps mid fight so I can't think of a reason not to.
I do get some awful Eclipse proc's and can often wind up hurling several wraths before I get a Eclipse so I wonder why not? or there's those times I missing clipping that last Starfire and it procs off a solar eclipse. Any reason I shouldn't swap back and forth?

I never really got the advice about spell power food:
Spell power food = 46 SP = 59.8 points
Hit food = 40 hit rating = 80 points
According to the information in the guide it should be better to get hit rating food.

I always use hit food for bosses and nothing for trash. This gives me all the hit I need and I don't carry a lot of wasted Hit Rating for all the trash. I socket everything with Runed Scarlets and Runed Dragon's Eyes. So giving up 2½ of those to recover the hit rating is hugely inefficient.

I realise that you may end up with gear where you get too much Hit Rating, but if so then let it be, but pursuing it religiously as these guides tend to advice, is poor advice.

PS: Don't say "trash doesn't matter" because that is where you spend 80% of a raid so it does matter in my opinion.

I don't use food at all in T7 content so it's more effective to be hit capped thru gear than relying on food. Either way you cut it, you get about the same bonuses using food and gear with less hit or gear that hit caps you and spl pwr food.

As far as I know switching idols won't let you cast any spells for at least your GCD.

Glyph of Moonfire is the highest dps glyph we have.
Glyph of Insect Swarm is a close second.
Both Glyph's of Starfall and Starfire are pretty much equals relative to the encounter.


Since you're 70 leveling as Balance to 80 I assume, I would suggest Glyph of Focus, Innervate, and Starfall.