Alright. I have gone from....

14/32/5 to 0/30/21
Back to 14/32/5...
To 5/0/46....
And now back to my happy 14/32/5 again.

Hey, why not spend 35-40 gold and try out Moonkin?

Well, I won't unless I can get some serious moonkin lovin in response. As a 14/32/5 feral I can talk all day about how I do things. Between feral charges to OoC to HotW and LotP effects. Someone spill their love for moonkin.

It does seem somewhat appealing to have a 5500ac mage, but really...the dps doesn't even come close. Or does it? And can you shift and heal on an OoC proc or when groups see a moonkin do they even think "healer"?

I think Moonkin took third place in preferred talent polls, but I imagine the responses I get will be full of good stuff. Maybe I just need to roll ANOTHER druid and save my money!?

Thanks in advance. I'll start gathering some gold for the test spec while I wait. :bonk:

Welcome friend,

If you look around there are many threads here on the many benefits of Moonkin, too many to give a single good response to such an open-ended post.

Don't sell yourself short with only 5500AC, I am lvl 58 and currently pushing over 8000AC while raid buffed (over 7500AC with just MotW).

I would say for starters, forget the comparisons to mages. Moonkin is not a mage, is not meant to be played like one, and will lead to serious disappointment if you try. Moonkin is not a glass cannon, but an armor plated one, and that means different strategies and playstyles.

Mages are squishy and have to kill things quick at range or run away screaming. Moonkin are tough. Example, at level 52 I started soloing Devilsaurs, I would open with a root, MF, SF, Wrath, by that time it would break the root and come to melee. Physical type damage is a joke to moonkin (I love dueling rogues and warriors now). I would FF, and keep the MF ticking away on him while whacking him with my stick. when I need to heal NG and back off for a quick rejuv, regrowth, and if still holding SF, then repeat. If mana does become an issue just drop bear and enrage-frenzied regen, then bash heal later (high AC moonkin gear is also nice bear gear).

Moonkin needs to be a melee battle mage mixing weapon damage (only form that really benefits from scalable weapons and procs) and spell damage. After the initial volley none of my spells are interruptible as I only use instants (FF, MF, NG) or the occassional 1 sec wrath on a nature's grace proc. If you are not in melee getting hit, what difference does your AC make? None.

Try wading up behind the tank in an instance after a big pull with your plate equivalent armor, hitting barkskin and casting hurricane about yourself, do thousands of damage in seconds and get some aggro, but you don't care, let the fools dash themselves upon your thorns. Its a rush.

I could go on forever, but it might be more helpful if you ask more specific questions for me to address one or two at a time.

Think about this for dps...
In the initial volley (5 seconds or so) I usually hit for about 2000 damage (MF, SF, wrath), then when solo and the mob closes on me I start focusing on weapon damage (which for me is about a hundred every 2.4 seconds, and about that same amount of time I get the Dot portion of the MF (+124 for me right now); imagine the value of an enchant that added over 100 damage to every swing (even if you miss or it is blocked or parried), then add in the upfront portion of the MF everytime I renew (350-550), and keep in mind that a couple times per fight that will be mana free due to OoC procs (must melee to get them), and if I get a crit with a MF, I'll follow it up with a 1 sec wrath for 300-600 more damage. Then figure in the incidental damage from thorns or roots that they might have suffered, it really adds up, but don't think you're going to vaporize opponents in a few hits or spells, you are a druid afterall, and endurance is your strongest asset. [oh and don't forget to add in some damage procs if you're into the enchant thing (can't get those in feral), or consummable use (like bombs or engineering trinkets if you swing that way)]

Wow how do I follow that for moonkin love!!

*bows to gwmort's moonkin power*

I really can't, but to say that I am 44 right now and loving moonkin. I primarily solo and can go through about 5 mobs of my level before switching to cat or bear to regen mana. Also I have the firstaid profession so no shifting out to heal unless it is an emergency a lot of times I will cast NG and once rooted I will back up and bandage instead using mana to heal and shift back.

On Moonkin healing...

Yes, you can shift to heal on an OoC proc, I often do if it procs near the end of the fight.

Most of the best Moonkin gear is +dmg to spells, except there is no such thing. It is all +dmg or healing, so you get the same big bonuses on your heals that you do on the nukes (other than apparently the spell power enchant). You will also have Moonglow maxed for 9% cheaper spells, including your heals. Also following a crit, you will get a nature's grace proc to shoeten the cast time of your next spell by .5 seconds, which you can use on any spell with cast time, including heals (compare to the resto talent that only speeds up HT, but not regrowth or others).

Just with the Balane tree, you can be a very effective small group healer or support. Many a time in instances with my guild I'll see the MH is running low on mana or the group is taking AoE and they can't keep up, so I'll shift down and support (particularly like whipping out a tranquility then to stabilize things).

However you are not limited to just the balance tree, approaching end game myself now (in a non-raiding guild), I just respecced to 33/0/18 to pick up 15% mana regen during casting, and improved rejuv, along with faster HTs and less chanceof interuption. When I join a UBRS PuG they just assume I'm resto, and I don't disabuse them. I have not lost a tank yet.

On Moonkin mana consumption...

The biggest gripe most people that tried moonkin had when they tried it was always being Oom (Oomkin). I find this is rarely a problem, and I drink less than most other casters in my groups, albeit more than the typical druid.

While solo I never drink.

The biggest waste of mana is trying to play like a mage. mages kill things with their spells, and they do it quickly, they have to. One of the great things about a mage is the ability to quickly dump their mana pool into damage. Moonkin does not have the ability to quickly and efficiently dump mana, so people try it with the inefficient MF spam.

The most mana efficient moonkin fight starts off with a volley of a few of your big spells, but then becomes a slugfest with the mob futilely whacking your armor while you whack it as augmented by constant DoT damage and augmented by the occasional wrath or root-heal as necessary. When you find the right groove you will be regening mana outside the 5 sec rule while grinding and keeping constant MF up with OoC procs. It is possible to end the fight with more ana than you started.

The MF spam is another story. When spamming MF you waste the DoT portion since they don't stack and you just keep over-writing it. This means that ultimately you will do far less damage per mana point spent than the method above, with the bonus that you will do it much faster. That is not to say however that the spam doesn't have its place.

With my current mana pool I can drop my highest MF about 15 straight casts before my pool is exhausted without pots. At an average up front damage portion of about 450 (factoring crits) thats 6750 damage I can inflict in about 15 seconds with the global cooldown thing, not conting another 850 or so for the DoT portion, so total about 7600 damage. That sort of a hammer has its place, like in WSG where I just need to kill that runner (did I mention I can do that damage at range while running), or in AB where removing one or two attackers can make all the difference in defending the node. However, as a general attack style, you will be left after each fight completely drained of mana and horribly vulnerable.

To conserve mana:
1. Use OoC procs whenever possible (MELEE!!!)
2. Try to avoid overwriting your own DoTs, - an exception may be when you see your health is dropping faster than your mana and you need to kill something quick.
3. Get high spirit - mages don't value spirit since they basically chain cast and never get to regen. You are not a mage, regen is your friend.
4. Invest in some mana oil, and level your fishing and cooking to keep you in constant supply of nightfin soup and sagefish delight for instances - you'd be amazed how much this stuff helps.
5. Don't avoid your feral forms - while solo grinding switch it up and shred some in cat or slug away in bear, after a mob or two you will have plenty enough regened to go back to moonkin (see #3).
6. Keep some big mana pots handy for emergencies - this is no biggie for me as an alchemist, and I wouldn't use them generally, but when the pinch comes be prepared.

On the uniqueness of Moonkin...

Okay, so you can have incredible survivability like dire bear, great dps like cat, and cheaper efficient heals like resto, but what makes a balance specced druid special?

In moonkin form, you are immune to polymorph effects like in feral forms, noticed this a lot in ZF where the tank kept getting hexxed. I'm not sure if mages still try to sheep me. Along with this immunity you don't get the weakness of feral forms to beast cc (immune to hibernate, beast fear, etc...).

Its the only form where you can use consummables. It used to be the only form to use items at all, but with the most recent patch ferals got use of equipped items. However, you know you want to pop that potion in bear form to save you from having to go squishy to heal while your cooldowns are resetting.

Its the only form that allows use of your racial ability. Horde moonkins get Warstomp for the bear equivalent stomp-shift heal (albeit on a longer cooldown), Allys get shadowmeld. I love seeing our flag just got picked up, cheetahing out to midfield shifting to moonkin and stealthing while I wait for it to run to me so I can root/hibernate and begin the MF spam. I can only imagine their faces when they see the moonkin appear before them.

Its really the only way to get the best use out of our only AoE damage spell, hurricane. If another druid tries to cast it at range, you'll aggro a couple mobs who will leave the AoE to come hit you, probably resulting in dropping the channeling early to go bear. For moonkin, my mitigation is nearly 60% now, I'm not sure if the 20% from barkskin can push us over the 75% cap, but I'm pretty impervious to physical damage while its on, and they won't disrupt the channeling. So I can walk up to a group, maybe cast a MF or two, then barkskin and hurricane in melee range to make sure they stay in the Area hitting me the whole time.

Not sure if this counts in this category, but my favorite thing about moonkin is when somebody hits me with a big knockback effect (one of the devilsaurs does it). The physical damage accompanying it is trivial, and I can still cast instant spells in the air, like raining MF down on them from the sky. It makes owlman feel like he can fly. I even got to where on the devilsaur I can shift out rejuv and switch back by the time I hit the ground.

On moonkin group play...

Unfortunately, no PuG will be looking for a moonkin. If they want dps or AoE they will want a mage or warlock, if they want an offtank they will be looking for a fury warrior or paladin. This is sad since there is much a moonkin can bring to a group.

First there is the aura.

Now I am sure some of you are like, 3% doesn't sound like a whole lot, but don't underestimate it. Look at how few epic caster items even give 2%, and you can give more than that to every caster in your group.

My guild casters have learned to love it. The paladin is crit healing left and right, and that gives him free mana, and the other casters have seen noticeably more crits in their own play. When you look at some of the bonuses other classes get when they spell crit (clear casting, more armor on healing target, etc...) the effect to the group as a whole is huge compared to just you getting more dps.

Second, there is the playstyle.

A good mage will control his dps to avoid drawing aggro and making things harder for the tank. An off tank can usually hold a mob okay, but has limited dps to really take it out of the picture. I can use massive dps from a few casts to pull a mob off the tank and bring it to me, where I can proceed to kill it in my highest dps form, the 8000AC caster. This makes life easier on the healer, and lets the tank focus spending his rage on fewer targets (of course it also limits the tanks rage generation because hes not getting hit as much, but I think that it is better he not take such a beating)

There are of course the other benefits any druid might bring to the group like iMotW or iThorns, so I won't go into those.

As many ferals can attest the benefit of having an off tanking dps class that can also back up heal or battle rez is awesome. The difference between moonkin and feral is my off-tank form and my dps form are the same thing.

Ive plaied full resto druid and enjoied it because you can really get into instances with ease.

Ive plaied feral druid with resto up to NS and really enjoied because for PVE it rocked and for PVP it rocked.

I am playing moonkin now with the rest of the points in resto and i can say easy that i am not impressed.

In PVE i thought it would help me kill devilsaurs easier cause of crits and stuff but i find myself nearly at the same effort. Actually cat dps over time is way higher then moonkin cause you dont waste mana to do it therefore less drinking.

In PVP i thought i would be a beast, a plated cannon, but i am SO NOT IMPRESSED with moonkin in PVP is not even fun. Against casters is much harder then my feral/resto build, no NS makes those mages a lot harder. Against meleers the extra AC isnt paying off.

I dont know, maybe i am not getting the hang of it or i dont have the proper gear, but, to me, Moonkin is below average.

Tarrasque

Cat dps is higher, but the tradeoff is the squishiness. You will likely kill stuff faster in cat, if you survive, and switching through to resto w/ NS is a good way to survive.

Casters are definitely the greatest weakness of Moonkin since the AC does nothing to mitigate against magic/elemental attacks. I still find in PvP I'll go cat to shred a cloth caster. Just because you go one spec doesn't mean you lose the benefits of the other forms. Against elementals (dukes in Silithus now) I'll sometimes stay in NE caster so I can cast heals too since the AC is negated. Stay veratile, you're a druid.

I have no trouble at all killing warriors and it is fun to me, rogues can be a nuissance when they dump the stuns on you, but generally no problem either. Hunters I can sleep their pet and take them with roots and ranged attacks in the deadzone, usually with never having to trip their traps. In BGs I have tons of fun controlling midfield in WSG and defending nodes in AB, with my increased range and ability to burn my mana pool killing nearly anyone in 10-15 seconds I find it to be a hoot.

I hope this thread is not misunderstood. I am not trying to claim that the best kind of druid to be is a moonkin and everyone should do it. I enjoy being a moonkin, and I think more people would if they really understood it and took the time to get good at it.

I am sorry you are not enjoying it, if you have a specific question about your gear or playstyle I may be able to help, but perhaps some people are better suited to some builds than others.

As for Devilsaurs, I have been soloing them as moonkin since level 52, and I really enjoy hunting them (I'm not even a skinner, I just think the fights are fun). I have never been feral at high levels so I can't say whether its easier or not. I can only imagine you have to go bear to withstand their damage, but then I think the dps of moonkin would be significantly higher than bear for the same AC.

btw, you say the AC isn't helping with the melee opponents in PvP, what is your AC? You may find significantly better results with 8000AC than with 5500AC, so gear really may be an issue for you.

Youve become to accustomed to relying on Natures Swiftness to save you in fights. Practice alot without it and learn to use all your abilities to heal yourself. Feral Charge, Bash, Warstomp, Natures Grasp, Roots, etc. If you are having issues with getting silenced, just use your hearthstone and when they go to silence you wont lose your healing abilities. The animation for hearthstone and druids healing spells are exactly the same.

Well, i am definetely missing AC then. I have fair gear, all blues and one epic. All over lvl 50. And my AC is 6k(EDIT: Bear and Moonkin form) in feral gear. I cant even think of a way to get to 8k AC.

Soloing devilsaurs as moonkin at lvl 52? Wow i must be playing awfully then as, at lvl 60 with a 4.5k mana bar in moonkin i can finish them with very little mana left and sometimes i get to 700 mana when they have still more hp then starfire would kill and i have to go bear....

Lorath, i agree that maybe i am NS addicted, i might be able to improve there.

Tarrasque

I meant soloing them as moonkin spec I didn't mean I stayed moonkin the whole time. I would root, MF, SF, wrath spam until roots broke, FF, and melee mixed with MF and wraths on Nature's Grace procs. I'd typically use a potion while in moonkin form, if that wasn't enough to get the job done I'd NG, back off, rejuv, regrowth, and then decide on my mana left whether to go bear or back to moonkin, if bear I'd drop down, hit enrage, then frenzied regen, fight for a while, if that wasn't enough, I'd bash-heal and usually have enough mana regened to justify going back to moonkin to finish him off.

I never meant to imply it was easy, I meant it was fun, I love getting to use all the tricks (balance, healing, feral).

Well, i am definetely missing AC then. I have fair gear, all blues and one epic. All over lvl 50. And my AC is 6k(EDIT: Bear and Moonkin form) in feral gear. I cant even think of a way to get to 8k AC.


I amazed you were a feral druid with bear armor that low. Did you specialize solely in cat or something? Look in the equipment section here at the grove ad you'll find several threads on getting your AC above 10,000 in bear and up into 12-14000 is not unheard of.

It is difficult to break 6k ac with just armor, you really have to farm for gear to start getting over 8k AC. When I am fully suited up in my bear gear, I can break the 10k AC mark and that is including important gear items such as:

Smoking Heart of the Mountain (Trinket)
Warden Staff (Staff)
Two +armor rings that I cant remember their names.
(I got one from the Gnome Boss in BRD, has like +50 armor and causes 3 arcane damage when someone hits you. I think its called Nagelring or something like that. The other is from the long quest chain in EPL where the last quest is the Battle for Darrowshire that gives you a ring that has +150 armor.)
ZG Gear (Animist armor, high stamina with HUGE armor for leather. I think the pants have 260 some armor)

I didnt take the trinket that gives armor from the Onyxia key chain. I decided that Blackhands Breadth (+2% crit) was probably one of the best trinkets in game for cat or bear when your trying to maximize dps.